Victor Serge, an authentic witness of the political and cultural struggles of the 20th century, wrote these poems of Resistance in Orenburg in Central Asia, where he was sent into exile by Stalin in 1933. He eulogizes close friends and comrades and movingly records and shares the lives of the people he lived among on the steppe, far from the centers of power, intrigue and history.
Richard Greeman writes in his introduction that Serge "spoke the truth aloud and perpetuated the spiritual tradition of the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia at the very moment when the voices of his colleagues were forced into silence (so that) this collection of poems, written in deportation on the Ural, represents a unique strand of continuity between a lost generation and what one hopes will be a new beginning, 'with no blank pages, ' in Soviet literature."
"Victor Serge's Memoirs contain the fiber and metaphor of poetry: his novels are replete with the same pulse and rhythm. Even his titles--Birth of Our Power--have a ringing quality. Now, with Resistance, we are given the poems that described and survived the midnight of our century, written with a balanced passion and sobriety--optimism of the will--from the other shore."--Christopher Hitchens, author of Hitch-22
"The poems in this slender volume vividly record his years spent fighting in the Russian Revolution before Serge was exiled in 1933 to central Asia. . . . Serge's biting irony, unlike that found in his Russian contemporaries, conceals an unfailing hope and sensitivity--he does not simply mourn the death of a friend, but records the look and feel of the unbreathing body with a lover's gentleness."--Publishers Weekly
Victor Serge (1890-1947), born in Brussels, Belgium, was a Russian revolutionist, writer, translator and journalist. He published his first article in 1908 for Lé Revolté and L'Anarchie, where he later became editor. During his early life, he spent most of his time joining various parties such as the anarchists, communists and Bolsheviks. However, in 1928, he was expelled from the Communist Party and most of his writings began from this point forward. He wrote fiction and non-fiction novels and poems. His most famous and revolutionary book is the non-fiction Memoirs of a Revolutionary
