Anarchists Never Surrender : Essays, Polemics, and Correspondence on Anarchism, 1908–1938

Notes
Translated and introduced by Richard Greeman (Oakland: PM Press, 2014). Translated and introduced by Richard Greeman (Oakland: PM Press, 2014). Later named Leningrad and now again St. Petersburg. Translated by Ian Birchall in Serge, The Revolution in Danger: Writings from Russia, 1919–1921 (Chicago: Haymarket, 1997). All the Right Enemies is the title of Dorothy Gallagher’s biography of another political maverick, Serge’s comrade Carlo Tresca, assassinated in New York by Fascists, Communists, Mafiosi, or all three in 1943. It would have suited Serge’s biography just as well. See Richard Greeman, “Victor Serge and Leon Trotsky,” in Greeman, Beware of Capitalist Sharks! Radical Rants and Internationalist Essays (Illustrated) (Moscow: Praxis Center, 2008). See Richard Greeman... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 46 : The Life of Victor Serge
The Life of Victor Serge 1890 Victor Lvovich Kibalchich (Victor Serge) born on December 30 in Brussels to a family of sympathizers with Narodnik terrorism who had fled from Russia after the assassination of Alexander II. 1908 Photographer’s apprentice and member of the socialist Jeunes-Gardes. Spends a short period in an anarchist ‘utopian’ community in the Ardennes. Leaves for Paris. 1910–1911 Becomes editor of the French anarchist-individualist magazine, l’anarchie. Writes and agitates. 1912 Serge is implicated in the trial of the anarchist outlaws known as the Bonnot Gang. Despite arrest, he refuses to turn informer and is sentenced to five years in prison. Three of his co-defendants were guillotined. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 45 : Serge in English
Serge in English FICTION Men in Prison (Les hommes dans la prison, 1930). Translated and introduced by Richard Greeman. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1969; London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1970; Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1972; London and New York: Writers and Readers, 1977; Oakland: PM Press, 2014. A searing personal experience transformed into a literary creation of general import. Birth of Our Power (Naissance de notre force, 1931). Translated by Richard Greeman. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1967; London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1968; Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1970; London and New York: Writers and Readers, 1977; Oakland: PM Press, 2015. From Barcelona to Petersburg, the conflagration of World War I ignites the spark of revolution, and poses a new problem for the revolutionaries’ power. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 44 : Anarchist Thought
Anarchist Thought The Origins: The Industrial Revolution of the Nineteenth Century The most profound revolution of modern times, carried out in Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century, is almost unnoticed by historians. The French Revolution cleared its path, and the political upheavals that for the most part occurred during the period between 1800 and 1850 contributed to hastening it. The significance of the historic development of that period can be clearly seen: a new mode of production was established equipped with a new technique. In truth, the Industrial Revolution under the First Empire began with the first steam machinery. The locomotive dates from 1830. Looms, which appeared at the beginning of the century, had already led to the formation of an industrial proletariat in centers like Lyon. In a few decades the bourgeoisie, armed with machinery, transformed—often literally—the surface of t... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 43 : Kronstadt 1921 Trotsky’s Defense, Response to Trotsky
Kronstadt 1921 Trotsky’s Defense, Response to Trotsky In a note published in America at the end of July, Leon Trotsky has finally spelled out his responsibilities in the Kronstadt episode. The political responsibility, as he has always affirmed, belongs to the Central Committee of the Russian CP, which took the decision to “reduce the rebellion by force of arms if the fortress couldn’t be brought to surrender first by peaceful negotiations, and later by an ultimatum.” Trotsky adds: “I never spoke of that question [Kronstadt 1921], not that I have anything to hide but, on the contrary, precisely because I have nothing to say…. Personally I didn’t participate at all in the crushing of the rebellion, nor in the repression that followed.” Trotsky recalls the differences that separated him from that time on with Zinoviev, the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. “I remained,” he wri... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Meditation on a Maverick by Richard Greeman
Meditation on a Maverick by Richard Greeman “ANARCHISTS NEVER SURRENDER!” WHAT AN APT TITLE MITCH ABIDOR HAS chosen for his beautifully translated anthology of the anarchist writings of Victor Lvovitch Kibalchich, aka Victor Serge (1890–1947), who up to the age of twenty-eight wrote and agitated under the pseudonym Le Rétif (“Maverick”). The phrase “Anarchists Never Surrender!” comes from a 1909 Maverick article, written at the age of eighteen, and the anarchists in question, like Kibalchich himself, were Russian exiles, resolute bandits who fought to the death against a whole squad of London policemen. Maverick’s dramatic declaration foreshadowed his own and his comrades’ doom in... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Anarchists—Bandits
Anarchists—Bandits (Editor’s note; On January 23, 1909, two anarchist illegalists carried out a robbery at a factory on Chestnut Road in Tottenham, in the course of which two people were killed, including a policeman. In the course of their flight, both anarchists shot themselves rather than surrender, one of them fatally. This event—popularly known as the Tottenham Outrage—prefigured the 1911 Siege of Sidney Street and the crime spree of the French Bonnot Gang, where all of the participants were anarchists, and all of them bandits.) LAST WEEK THE DAILIES RELATED IN DETAIL A TRAGIC INCIDENT OF THE SOCIAL struggle. In the suburbs of London (in Tottenham) two of our Russian comrades attacked the accountant of a factory... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Letter from Russia
Letter from Russia PETROGRAD, SEPTEMBER 1, 1921 Petrograd on a beautiful August day. On Michael’s Square, under the windows of a palace and a theater that is packed every night, three strange carriages are stopped. They’re low carts, covered with tarps and pulled by small horses whose ribs sorrowfully stick out under their taut, dusty skin, worn out with sweat. The weary drivers, old bearded muzhiks, ask the way. All around there’s the coming and going of trams, the dual river of (in fact) well-dressed passersby of the great city. Under the tarps, upon which a river of sun falls, there are tiny tousled blond heads and the grimy old faces of the sick consumed by hunger. “Where are you from, little father?” &ldqu... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Communards
The Communards MARCH … AND NOW RETURNS THE ANNIVERSARY OF MAD HOPES, OF THE furious impulses and butcheries of the Commune, our last attempt at revolution. Forty-one years after the frightening experience the same illusions give rise in the same people to the same dangerous hopes. For if, as the proverb says, we live on hope, it also happens that we die of it; that for his dreams man gambles with his life—and loses. One of the hopes most deeply rooted in the popular soil is that in the magic virtues of insurrection. This is only natural. It is derived from the feeling of confidence inspired by force. What is force not capable of? The people, who suffer its rigors, upon whom the privileged and adventuress minorities daily exerci... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Impressions of the Holidays
Impressions of the Holidays FOR FOUR FULL NIGHTS MY NEIGHBORHOOD, ALAS, WAS AFFLICTED WITH POPULAR festivals. For the custom is, on fixed and traditional dates, to organize public rejoicing. A custom that all parties, without distinction as to class or aspiration, respectfully accept, so true is it that human cretinism is located beyond any quarrels among churches. Through solemn drinking bouts, every year believers commemorate the birth, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension to heaven of the Galilean rebel who their predecessors murdered. Through fabulous feats of imbibing and the countless exploits of the procreating beast, the atheist believers in the idol of the Fatherland commemorate the capture of a Bastille that has since been more... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)