Victor Serge, born 1890 to the revolution. He moved from anarchism to bolshevism to dissident, escaping Stalin’s purges only because he was too well known in the West. Exiled 1936, penniless 1940 in Marseille and hunted by the Gestapo, he escapes in the last minute to Mexico. This book was written 1929-30 in Leningrad. Expecting arrest any minute, he wrote it in ‚detached fragments‘, each being send abroad immediately, the collection to be published, if necessary, incomplete. The fictional narrative is based on Victor Serge’s own experiences.

1917-19: Barcelona among anarchists, a French concentration camp, Petrograd in the grip of the revolution.
Barcelona: the anarchist’s hope and the writers skepticism: ‚We know the old story. With the monarchists overthrown, three to six months later, the republics establish order by machine-gunning the workers. An old tradition.‘ (The prediction soon fulfilled in Berlin)
The French concentration camp: Goldstein, the watchmaker, plays the flute and the taciturn soldier, gassed in the Artois, feels himself overcome by the unknown sadness of the world.
Arrival in Petrograd, his premonition: ‚Were we not to be overrun, after the conquest, by the sly, the adaptable, the false companions?‘
How not to loose hope in the midst of despair? (VI-17) ( )