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The Case of Comrade Tulayev
One cold Moscow night, Comrade Tulayev, a high government official, is shot dead in the street, and the search for his killer begins. In this panoramic vision of the Soviet Great Terror, the investigation leads all over the world, netting a whole series of suspects whose only connection is their innocence—at least of the crime of which they stand accused. But The Case of Comrade Tulayev, unquestionably the finest work of fiction ever written about the Stalinist purges, is not just a story of a totalitarian state. Marked by the deep humanity and generous spirit of its author, the legendary anarchist and exile Victor Serge, it is also a classic twentieth-century tale of risk, adventure, and unexpected nobility to sit beside Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and André Malraux's Man's Fate.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1948
About the author
Victor Serge
117 books202 followersVictor Lvovich Kibalchich (В.Л. Кибальчич) was born in exile in 1890 and died in exile in 1947. He is better known as Victor Serge, a Russian revolutionary and Francophone writer. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks five months after arriving in Petrograd in January 1919, and later worked for the newly founded Comintern as a journalist, editor and translator. He was openly critical of the Soviet regime, but remained loyal to the ideals of socialism until his death.
After time spent in France, Belgium, Russia and Spain, Serge was forced to live out the rest of his life in Mexico, with no country he could call home. Serge's health had been badly damaged by his periods of imprisonment in France and Russia, but he continued to write until he died of heart attack, in Mexico city on 17 November 1947. Having no nationality, no Mexican cemetery could legally take his body, so he was buried as a 'Spanish Republican.'
After time spent in France, Belgium, Russia and Spain, Serge was forced to live out the rest of his life in Mexico, with no country he could call home. Serge's health had been badly damaged by his periods of imprisonment in France and Russia, but he continued to write until he died of heart attack, in Mexico city on 17 November 1947. Having no nationality, no Mexican cemetery could legally take his body, so he was buried as a 'Spanish Republican.'
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 170 reviews
April 8, 2020
One of the best, if not the best, novels on the Great Terror in the Soviet Russia. Terrifying and shocking in its clarity regarding the ways the purges were conducted.
I am ever so grateful to Anna from a YT channel 'Czytam i pisze'. This novel deserves to be read to learn how totalitarian state operates.
I am ever so grateful to Anna from a YT channel 'Czytam i pisze'. This novel deserves to be read to learn how totalitarian state operates.
April 29, 2017
Born in Brussels to politically exiled Russian parents, Victor Kibalchich (Serge) followed in their footsteps in more ways than one, anarchist, prisoner, Trotsky aid, and exile, his condemnation of Stalin's totalitarian Soviet State would lead to his expulsion from the Communist party, and thus begin his writing of historical fiction. I get the impression that whist being held over long periods in solitary confinement he spent the time writing, mentally in his head that is. And although his fictional work as in 'The Case of Comrade Tulayev' is fictional, he writes with truth and fury to expose the cold, brutal character of Stalin's control and policed authority.
Published from obscurity after Serge's death in 1947, this compelling and quite shocking novel has risen from under lock and key to become possibly the greatest fictional writing on the Stalinist rule, but there is just as much based on his own life in all his written work, that undoubtedly leads to the feeling that Serge wrote with a hidden agenda, more for himself than anyone else. Some writers can say that some experiences in life are worked into their novels in one way or another, but with Serge it's the only thing. He doesn't write this with any real storyline or plot, focusing more on actions and the predicament of others, weather that be the Presumption of innocence, or the inordinate sense of guilt. No other twentieth century novelist has anything like the firsthand knowledge of his
subject matter, from intimate contact with leaders, and an abundance of time spent with founding political intellectuals, to his days during the Bolshevik Revolution and years of being incarcerated.
The Case of Comrade Tulayev has one epic focal point, that being murder. The murder of the party faithful, as well as most of the dissidents from the 1930's, Serge himself only just escaping his own death, plays a huge role in those he writes about, and it's easy to underestimate the literary accomplishment of a writer who's work was mainly left filed away, never to be seen by another living sole. Dostoevsky's 'The House of the Dead' and Joseph Conrad's 'Under Western eyes' could both be used as a guide to contemporary influences, but Serge didn't really need the prowess of others, making his voice stand alone. As the great terror of the 1930's comes toward the end of it's
cycle, Serge would highlight a truth of just why this time in history cannot be forgotten, or ever happen again.
Relating to a set of stories, through the fate of a handful of characters, we start with two lowly bachelors, Kostia and Romachkin, who share a single squalid room in Moscow with just a partition down the middle for privacy, disaffected with the State, Kostia would come into possession of a gun, the gun he would fire at Central Committee member Comrade Tulayev as he stepped out of his chauffeur driven car, so right from the off we know who the killer is, any thoughts of a who-done-it are eradicated completely. Then the slow, gruelling process of rounding up suspects begins. To say this process is harsh would be a massive understatement, it's damn right terrifying!
There is fear not only on those who are rounded up, but also on those in high places within security, no one is safe. Loyalist careerists, Kondrariev, Makeyev, Erchov and Historian Kiril Rublev are arrested, interrogated, pushed hard for confessions and ultimately sentenced to die.
Only one is spared, but sent to work hard labor in the Siberian wastelands. The sly and unorthodox ways of making the arrests are where most of this novels story lies, accused of plotting assassinations, and being counter-revolutionaries, of course all are innocent, at least of the crime they are being charged with. No one interrogator plays a major character and various members of the Central committee come and go, for the reader, it's mostly mentally draining to get through this, anyone thinking of thrills or any sort of excitement will be bitterly disappointed.
Sympathy can be felt for just about anyone, those who stand accused, along with the hierarchy, even the overseer of operations Comrade Fleischman overcome with guilt from his post, considers blowing his brains out whist having a drink in his office after the Tulayev files are put away, thousands of pages, in several volumes, case closed.
The actual Comrade Tulayev, apart from the opening scenes never really gets mentioned. It's less of murder charge against one man, and more with the fact of betraying the whole state that drives the investigations. Tulayev's assassin Kostia ends up working in agriculture, has a humble life, falls in love, and puts the past behind him. Thus The Case of Comrade Tulayev ends with contrasting destinies for those involved. The truth of the novelist goes further than just politics, and plays on human feelings more than it would first appear, the novel closes on a healing point, extinguishing the fire than rages within.
There were no surprises, everything read just as I expected it to, which certainly helped, being already familiar with his work made a big difference.
In fact there was one surprise, that being the front cover, which I only could presume was poor old Comrade Tulayev, but it turned out to be a faded photo of Victor Serge himself, taken in 1944, Parangaricutiro, Mexico, where he lived out his remaining days after fleeing Paris on the brink of WW2, he looks a shadow of his former glories, but still maintains a stance that tells me he pissed off a lot of people during his life. He would end up being buried a multiple exile, not even having a nation to call his own. Oh well, guess that comes with the territory, but something tells me he couldn't care less. 5/5
Published from obscurity after Serge's death in 1947, this compelling and quite shocking novel has risen from under lock and key to become possibly the greatest fictional writing on the Stalinist rule, but there is just as much based on his own life in all his written work, that undoubtedly leads to the feeling that Serge wrote with a hidden agenda, more for himself than anyone else. Some writers can say that some experiences in life are worked into their novels in one way or another, but with Serge it's the only thing. He doesn't write this with any real storyline or plot, focusing more on actions and the predicament of others, weather that be the Presumption of innocence, or the inordinate sense of guilt. No other twentieth century novelist has anything like the firsthand knowledge of his
subject matter, from intimate contact with leaders, and an abundance of time spent with founding political intellectuals, to his days during the Bolshevik Revolution and years of being incarcerated.
The Case of Comrade Tulayev has one epic focal point, that being murder. The murder of the party faithful, as well as most of the dissidents from the 1930's, Serge himself only just escaping his own death, plays a huge role in those he writes about, and it's easy to underestimate the literary accomplishment of a writer who's work was mainly left filed away, never to be seen by another living sole. Dostoevsky's 'The House of the Dead' and Joseph Conrad's 'Under Western eyes' could both be used as a guide to contemporary influences, but Serge didn't really need the prowess of others, making his voice stand alone. As the great terror of the 1930's comes toward the end of it's
cycle, Serge would highlight a truth of just why this time in history cannot be forgotten, or ever happen again.
Relating to a set of stories, through the fate of a handful of characters, we start with two lowly bachelors, Kostia and Romachkin, who share a single squalid room in Moscow with just a partition down the middle for privacy, disaffected with the State, Kostia would come into possession of a gun, the gun he would fire at Central Committee member Comrade Tulayev as he stepped out of his chauffeur driven car, so right from the off we know who the killer is, any thoughts of a who-done-it are eradicated completely. Then the slow, gruelling process of rounding up suspects begins. To say this process is harsh would be a massive understatement, it's damn right terrifying!
There is fear not only on those who are rounded up, but also on those in high places within security, no one is safe. Loyalist careerists, Kondrariev, Makeyev, Erchov and Historian Kiril Rublev are arrested, interrogated, pushed hard for confessions and ultimately sentenced to die.
Only one is spared, but sent to work hard labor in the Siberian wastelands. The sly and unorthodox ways of making the arrests are where most of this novels story lies, accused of plotting assassinations, and being counter-revolutionaries, of course all are innocent, at least of the crime they are being charged with. No one interrogator plays a major character and various members of the Central committee come and go, for the reader, it's mostly mentally draining to get through this, anyone thinking of thrills or any sort of excitement will be bitterly disappointed.
Sympathy can be felt for just about anyone, those who stand accused, along with the hierarchy, even the overseer of operations Comrade Fleischman overcome with guilt from his post, considers blowing his brains out whist having a drink in his office after the Tulayev files are put away, thousands of pages, in several volumes, case closed.
The actual Comrade Tulayev, apart from the opening scenes never really gets mentioned. It's less of murder charge against one man, and more with the fact of betraying the whole state that drives the investigations. Tulayev's assassin Kostia ends up working in agriculture, has a humble life, falls in love, and puts the past behind him. Thus The Case of Comrade Tulayev ends with contrasting destinies for those involved. The truth of the novelist goes further than just politics, and plays on human feelings more than it would first appear, the novel closes on a healing point, extinguishing the fire than rages within.
There were no surprises, everything read just as I expected it to, which certainly helped, being already familiar with his work made a big difference.
In fact there was one surprise, that being the front cover, which I only could presume was poor old Comrade Tulayev, but it turned out to be a faded photo of Victor Serge himself, taken in 1944, Parangaricutiro, Mexico, where he lived out his remaining days after fleeing Paris on the brink of WW2, he looks a shadow of his former glories, but still maintains a stance that tells me he pissed off a lot of people during his life. He would end up being buried a multiple exile, not even having a nation to call his own. Oh well, guess that comes with the territory, but something tells me he couldn't care less. 5/5
July 15, 2019
Για κάποιο ανεξήγητο λόγο μου είχαν δημιουργηθεί τεράστιες προσδοκίες γι αυτό το βιβλίο που βέβαια ήταν αδύνατο να δικαιωθούν όλες.
Ίσως και να το αδίκησα, διαβάζοντάς το πολύ κοντά με το "Αρχιπέλαγος Γκούλαγκ", καθώς ήμουν ήδη εξοικειωμένος με τις πρακτικές και τις μεθόδους του Σταλινικού καθεστώτος οπότε το σοκ δεν μπορούσε να είναι το ίδιο, διαβάζοντας τα ίδια πράγματα 2η φορά μέσα σε μικρό χρονικό διάστημα.
Παρ όλα αυτά, παρά τις εξωπραγματικές προσδοκίες που είχα για το βιβλίο, δεν θα έλεγα ότι διαψεύστηκαν κιόλας. Εδώ δεν πρόκειται απλά για μια καταγγελία των λαθών του κομμουνισμού, όπως τόσο μεροληπτικά έκανε το "Αρχιπέλαγος Γκούλαγκ" - αν και δεν είναι σωστό να συγκρίνουμε ένα ντοκουμέντο με ένα ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα - αλλά για μια κραυγή αγωνίας για τη χαμένη ευκαιρία των επαναστατημένων ανθρώπων, για μια ελεγεία στα χαμένα όνειρα.
Η "Υπόθεση Τουλάγεφ" πρέπει να διαβαστεί από τον καθένα, ως μια τρυφερή ματιά σε αυτό που απέμεινε από τα ίχνη των γιγάντων που κάποτε πάτησαν τη γη.
Υ.Γ. Και για όσους το έχουν διαβάσει: Ορισμένα τμήματα του κεφαλαίου 6 - Ταξίδι μέσα στην ήττα (που αναφέρεται στον Ισπανικό εμφύλιο) δεν είναι ότι καλύτερο έχετε διαβάσει ποτέ στη ζωή σας?
Ίσως και να το αδίκησα, διαβάζοντάς το πολύ κοντά με το "Αρχιπέλαγος Γκούλαγκ", καθώς ήμουν ήδη εξοικειωμένος με τις πρακτικές και τις μεθόδους του Σταλινικού καθεστώτος οπότε το σοκ δεν μπορούσε να είναι το ίδιο, διαβάζοντας τα ίδια πράγματα 2η φορά μέσα σε μικρό χρονικό διάστημα.
Παρ όλα αυτά, παρά τις εξωπραγματικές προσδοκίες που είχα για το βιβλίο, δεν θα έλεγα ότι διαψεύστηκαν κιόλας. Εδώ δεν πρόκειται απλά για μια καταγγελία των λαθών του κομμουνισμού, όπως τόσο μεροληπτικά έκανε το "Αρχιπέλαγος Γκούλαγκ" - αν και δεν είναι σωστό να συγκρίνουμε ένα ντοκουμέντο με ένα ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα - αλλά για μια κραυγή αγωνίας για τη χαμένη ευκαιρία των επαναστατημένων ανθρώπων, για μια ελεγεία στα χαμένα όνειρα.
Η "Υπόθεση Τουλάγεφ" πρέπει να διαβαστεί από τον καθένα, ως μια τρυφερή ματιά σε αυτό που απέμεινε από τα ίχνη των γιγάντων που κάποτε πάτησαν τη γη.
Υ.Γ. Και για όσους το έχουν διαβάσει: Ορισμένα τμήματα του κεφαλαίου 6 - Ταξίδι μέσα στην ήττα (που αναφέρεται στον Ισπανικό εμφύλιο) δεν είναι ότι καλύτερο έχετε διαβάσει ποτέ στη ζωή σας?
Shelved as 'spurned'
November 28, 2011I'm abandoning this one by the roadside like an old shoe or a sack of dead lithium batteries. It probably wasn't fair to Comrade Serge to embark upon his novel immediately after a Chekhov compilation. (It's not likely he would blossom in the shade of the master.) But I had hope. A fictional indictment of (the realities of) Stalinism? What's not to love, right? The Case of Comrade Tulayev may call itself a novel, but it's essentially a collection of related short stories. A Stalinist-era political functionary is killed one night in the streets of Moscow; this murder, carried out by a single man without much premeditation, is subsequently used as a pretext for purging the Communist Party of undesirables. (If you understand anything about Stalin's sociopathic paranoia, then you know that 'undesirables' is a heterogeneous category comprised largely of innocent scapegoats and other unfortunates whose only crime was the inability to read Stalin's mind and to predict his highly changeable political agenda.) The first chapter details the actual murder of Comrade Tulayev, and the following chapters (so far as I read) chronicle the downfall of particular Party members. Some parts of the book are riveting (if predictable, since the reader is apt to know much more about the excesses of Stalinism than Serge's contemporary readers). But last night Victor Serge irritated me. And I wanted him out of my sight. It was the chapter on the Spanish Civil War that did it. A Soviet advisor arrives in Spain to oversee the Communist engagement in the anti-fascist war there. Fine, okay. But Serge, as always, writes in a very ungenerous way. He assumes his readers know more than a little about the Spanish Civil War, and throws around specifics as if he's talking to himself in his own head. Throw us a bone, Serge. Some of us are ignoramuses who maybe wanna be edified, you know? Even the chapters in the Soviet Union, I think, would be somewhat of a challenge for a reader who didn't know anything about the Stalinist era. Sometimes when I read a book that doesn't want to meet its readers halfway, I muscle through anyway, but last night I wasn't in the mood. I was bored, irritable, and a little sick, and I didn't really like Victor Serge taking it for granted that readers' bodies of knowledge and social orientation are the same as his own. His tactic, of course, is mostly immersive. He throws us in the cold water without a life vest, and we're supposed to sink or swim, I guess, based on our abilities and efforts. Well, I choose neither to sink or to swim. I'm climbing back in the metaphorical boat.
October 6, 2011
Chantal Delsol made a comment in one of her recent books to the effect that Communism never received the disapprobation that it merited due to the extant perception that its crimes were perpetrated for—and its foundational theories developed from—good intentions, a generosity never extended to its Fascist coevals. When you factor in the powerful rational strains within its evolving form—the philosophical rigor, scientific drapery, dialectic propulsion and inexorable historical necessity—you have an ideology with no room for doubt or dissent; which, due to its overwhelmingly complete and total purview, must by its very constitution always be right, by its own nature ever in possession of truth; what individual, absorbed by the petty inadequacies of a misguided and ego-riven personal ethos or morality based, in large measure, upon the errors that permeated within the Christian, Feudal, and Capitalist oppressions from which Communism arose to be the deliverer, could dare stand in the way of such a determined collective manumission? As Whittaker Chambers understood of Ayn Rand's fictive philosophy in his withering review of Atlas Shrugged, the Bolshevik continuation of the prophecies of Marx-via-Lenin were eschatological in form; and so they functioned as the nonnegotiable bringer of a final revelation. Therefore, resistance to the Message cannot be tolerated because disagreement can never be merely honest, prudent, or just humanly fallible. Dissent from revelation so final can only be willfully wicked. This meant that regarding the victims of Stalin's Great Purge—and especially to the Old Bolsheviks who starred in the Show Trials that ran from 1936 to 1938—it was important for the state prosecutors, armed with the iron logic of the Bolshevik Orthodoxy, to present the legal fiction of the accused admitting their culpability, detailing the acts—however absurd and improbable—that led to their downfall. There had to be an explanation for the abysmal and shocking failures of Collectivization, the Five-Year Plans, of Socialism in One Country, of unacceptable crop yields and resource extraction and production levels; and since, by the unyielding rules of Historical Materialism, the Party and, therefore, Stalin, who was the Party personified, could not in any way assume the responsibility, it must perforce be borne by others, by those who maliciously and selfishly and consciously—however unconsciously they themselves might believe their guilt wreaked its corruptive evil—sought to undermine the very system that was geared to lead to the stateless utopia; it was they who brought about the all-encompassing party-and-police despotism that sent them, along with tens of millions of fellow citizens, to barren exile, frozen prison camps and/or unmarked graves.
This was understood by writers such as Orwell and Grossman and Koestler—but perhaps most acutely and intuitively of all by Victor Serge who, as a member of the United Opposition, felt the wrath of the Stalinist majority in 1928 and subsequently became well-acquainted with exile in Central Asia and the interior of the political prisons. He had a front-row seat to witness the transformation of the Bolshevik party as the founding members were weeded out and purged, and the fanatically rigorous younger generation assumed their places in the hierarchy of power. He observed the spread of reaction over the years, as the desire for a rigid ordering of things, an end to the unsettling uncertainty of a revolution in flux, an answering of questions of a sufficient finality to erase them from the mind—and this reaction accepted the liquidation of a sizable portion of the populace as the price of enforcing this peace-of-mind. Serge certainly did not absolve Stalin of his primacy in the creation of the despotic communist police state; but neither would he do so for the populace of the Soviet Union. To him, people were individuals, responsible for the decisions they made and the actions they undertook; the self-justificatory claims to being a pawn caught in the inescapable determined destiny of Historical Necessity simply did not cut the mustard with this author.
It is thus a fascinating ironical inversion that Serge performs at the outset of TCOCT; the titular Comrade Tulayev, a powerful but little known member of the Bolshevik Central Committee, is shot dead on a cold Moscow night during the waning period of the Great Purges. His murder was the spontaneous act of a disaffected proletarian worker with no agenda outside of his own personal immolations and spiritual disfigurements; however, the reality of Tulayev's death is an impossibility in the Soviet State: and so the dead bureaucratic bigwig will serve as the conspiratorial foundation for a final wide-reaching prosecution that, in its execution of important Bolshevik personages, will provide the closure that such murderous effrontery to the Party demands. The principal victims of this judicial fiction—Erchov the High Commissar of the Interior; Makeyev the Regional Party Secretary for Kurgansk; and Rublev, an involuntarily retired and precariously existing Old Bolshevik and former Central Committee member—are innocent of this particular crime; but each is implicated in the creation and subsequent turning of the very state system that is determined to have them put to death to answer for the shadowy demise of Comrade Tulayev and the spreading ripples his shooting created. None can claim a lack of guilt in such a state-of-affairs; even those who initially function as zealous prosecutors live in never-abiding fear that the relentless and merciless eye of the State will fall upon them; the tension of living under such a tautened ideological machine is never allowed a moment to be relaxed or eased. And though each individual caught in the net of this required conspiracy is certain of his own personal innocence as regards the murder of Comrade Tulayev, the State understands the weak points within these citizens, the precise screws with which to apply the pressure that will convince each individual to accept their state-sanctioned fate and enact their required part in the legal mummery to be paraded before the world; and yet, we discover that some of the cast, having long observed the workings of Stalinist Bolshevism, are themselves aware of the weak points in the state; and what happens when such are exploited form the turn the story takes as it works its way towards closure. Throughout it all runs the awareness, by all save the most rigidly constrained in ideological bindings, that the revolution has been betrayed, that what was a pure and fulgent eruption in its initial stages has become a corrupt and criminal enterprise, a failure that—with its head-collision with Fascism and Capitalism looming in the immediate future—will undertake a brutal test that its rotten edifice, in all likelihood, will find impossible to withstand. The poignant despair in this knowledge yet serves at the same time as a source of strength for the revolutionaries in enduring the decimation of their ranks by the Chief-directed reaction; the ghosts of confessions elicited during the Purge will endow a select few amongst the Tulayev conspiracy's intended sacrificial victims to seize the reins of their life back from the purposeful course desired by the State.
I have now read two of the novels written by Serge—both of them published posthumously—and I've loved 'em both; for even more than his penetrating understanding of human psychology and our motivational levers does he possess a rich comprehension of the human spirit, its capacity for nobility, for heroic actions, the strength of the human will even during its most crucial periods of being tested, and an innate grasp of our linkage with nature, the earthly ties, the cosmic bonds that unite our conscious existence with the natural theater in which the latter operates. The period he spent in exile in the vast emptiness of Central Asia and Siberia clearly marked him; at nothing does he excel so much as his ability to conjure the overwhelming, near mystical grandeur and fecundity to be found in these continental stretches—dwarfing the European nation states—with their feeble human presence but abundant natural potency. When Serge was describing the reindeer-sled journey of a fallen Old Bolshevik and his solitary guard companion down through a wintertime Yenisei wilderness awash in the play of ghostly light between snow-draped flatland and star-sprayed oceanic darkling sky, I found myself wholly and utterly absorbed in the descriptive experience.
He expresses all of this in a language of immense power and beautiful imagery, graced with a compassion borne from a hard life lived in near-permanent exile that endowed him with the ability to be just even when measuring injustice, to grasp the fact that every life is lived from its own unique viewpoint, and that if we are to ever understand the reasoning behind the actions of a particular individual we must enter as closely as we can into how their vision processes the affairs of the world operating in the spatial breadth and temporal depth of unfolding history. His portrayal of Stalin—known only as the Chief throughout the tale—is an especially finely etched and nuanced depiction. The reader can feel the burden imposed upon this figure, filled as he is with his own limiting insecurities and jealousies that blacken his mind, of being the incarnation of a Party supposedly driven to realization by inexorable history. It is not offered as an excuse, but as a vital component of his behavior; the sudden switch from smiling bonhomie to frozen menace as he conducts an interview with a longtime companion back from a delicate, perhaps intentionally incriminating trip to civil-war riven Spain, is a superbly realized portrait of this benighted captain of the communist vessel trying to navigate through waters he is simply not qualified for without doing irreparable violence to the ship in his furious tacking. Combined with his sparkling wit and flair for mining the comedy, however black, from the veins of tragedy that marble the rock of human existence, Serge crafts the kind of fictional art that was immanent within the Socialist revolutionary experience, had not Bolshevik Zhdanovism forced the output of Soviet authors into the narrow and vitiating channels of propagandistic conformity with the state's tunnel vision. Those ensconced within the party hierarchy produced pablum; Serge, forever in search of a place to settle down in and be able to call home, the flames of social justice ever sparking up and ablaze within to empower his creative energies, produced these wonderful fictive masterpieces that have, and will, long outlast the pallid output of his far more comfortable and less honest contemporaries.
This was understood by writers such as Orwell and Grossman and Koestler—but perhaps most acutely and intuitively of all by Victor Serge who, as a member of the United Opposition, felt the wrath of the Stalinist majority in 1928 and subsequently became well-acquainted with exile in Central Asia and the interior of the political prisons. He had a front-row seat to witness the transformation of the Bolshevik party as the founding members were weeded out and purged, and the fanatically rigorous younger generation assumed their places in the hierarchy of power. He observed the spread of reaction over the years, as the desire for a rigid ordering of things, an end to the unsettling uncertainty of a revolution in flux, an answering of questions of a sufficient finality to erase them from the mind—and this reaction accepted the liquidation of a sizable portion of the populace as the price of enforcing this peace-of-mind. Serge certainly did not absolve Stalin of his primacy in the creation of the despotic communist police state; but neither would he do so for the populace of the Soviet Union. To him, people were individuals, responsible for the decisions they made and the actions they undertook; the self-justificatory claims to being a pawn caught in the inescapable determined destiny of Historical Necessity simply did not cut the mustard with this author.
It is thus a fascinating ironical inversion that Serge performs at the outset of TCOCT; the titular Comrade Tulayev, a powerful but little known member of the Bolshevik Central Committee, is shot dead on a cold Moscow night during the waning period of the Great Purges. His murder was the spontaneous act of a disaffected proletarian worker with no agenda outside of his own personal immolations and spiritual disfigurements; however, the reality of Tulayev's death is an impossibility in the Soviet State: and so the dead bureaucratic bigwig will serve as the conspiratorial foundation for a final wide-reaching prosecution that, in its execution of important Bolshevik personages, will provide the closure that such murderous effrontery to the Party demands. The principal victims of this judicial fiction—Erchov the High Commissar of the Interior; Makeyev the Regional Party Secretary for Kurgansk; and Rublev, an involuntarily retired and precariously existing Old Bolshevik and former Central Committee member—are innocent of this particular crime; but each is implicated in the creation and subsequent turning of the very state system that is determined to have them put to death to answer for the shadowy demise of Comrade Tulayev and the spreading ripples his shooting created. None can claim a lack of guilt in such a state-of-affairs; even those who initially function as zealous prosecutors live in never-abiding fear that the relentless and merciless eye of the State will fall upon them; the tension of living under such a tautened ideological machine is never allowed a moment to be relaxed or eased. And though each individual caught in the net of this required conspiracy is certain of his own personal innocence as regards the murder of Comrade Tulayev, the State understands the weak points within these citizens, the precise screws with which to apply the pressure that will convince each individual to accept their state-sanctioned fate and enact their required part in the legal mummery to be paraded before the world; and yet, we discover that some of the cast, having long observed the workings of Stalinist Bolshevism, are themselves aware of the weak points in the state; and what happens when such are exploited form the turn the story takes as it works its way towards closure. Throughout it all runs the awareness, by all save the most rigidly constrained in ideological bindings, that the revolution has been betrayed, that what was a pure and fulgent eruption in its initial stages has become a corrupt and criminal enterprise, a failure that—with its head-collision with Fascism and Capitalism looming in the immediate future—will undertake a brutal test that its rotten edifice, in all likelihood, will find impossible to withstand. The poignant despair in this knowledge yet serves at the same time as a source of strength for the revolutionaries in enduring the decimation of their ranks by the Chief-directed reaction; the ghosts of confessions elicited during the Purge will endow a select few amongst the Tulayev conspiracy's intended sacrificial victims to seize the reins of their life back from the purposeful course desired by the State.
I have now read two of the novels written by Serge—both of them published posthumously—and I've loved 'em both; for even more than his penetrating understanding of human psychology and our motivational levers does he possess a rich comprehension of the human spirit, its capacity for nobility, for heroic actions, the strength of the human will even during its most crucial periods of being tested, and an innate grasp of our linkage with nature, the earthly ties, the cosmic bonds that unite our conscious existence with the natural theater in which the latter operates. The period he spent in exile in the vast emptiness of Central Asia and Siberia clearly marked him; at nothing does he excel so much as his ability to conjure the overwhelming, near mystical grandeur and fecundity to be found in these continental stretches—dwarfing the European nation states—with their feeble human presence but abundant natural potency. When Serge was describing the reindeer-sled journey of a fallen Old Bolshevik and his solitary guard companion down through a wintertime Yenisei wilderness awash in the play of ghostly light between snow-draped flatland and star-sprayed oceanic darkling sky, I found myself wholly and utterly absorbed in the descriptive experience.
He expresses all of this in a language of immense power and beautiful imagery, graced with a compassion borne from a hard life lived in near-permanent exile that endowed him with the ability to be just even when measuring injustice, to grasp the fact that every life is lived from its own unique viewpoint, and that if we are to ever understand the reasoning behind the actions of a particular individual we must enter as closely as we can into how their vision processes the affairs of the world operating in the spatial breadth and temporal depth of unfolding history. His portrayal of Stalin—known only as the Chief throughout the tale—is an especially finely etched and nuanced depiction. The reader can feel the burden imposed upon this figure, filled as he is with his own limiting insecurities and jealousies that blacken his mind, of being the incarnation of a Party supposedly driven to realization by inexorable history. It is not offered as an excuse, but as a vital component of his behavior; the sudden switch from smiling bonhomie to frozen menace as he conducts an interview with a longtime companion back from a delicate, perhaps intentionally incriminating trip to civil-war riven Spain, is a superbly realized portrait of this benighted captain of the communist vessel trying to navigate through waters he is simply not qualified for without doing irreparable violence to the ship in his furious tacking. Combined with his sparkling wit and flair for mining the comedy, however black, from the veins of tragedy that marble the rock of human existence, Serge crafts the kind of fictional art that was immanent within the Socialist revolutionary experience, had not Bolshevik Zhdanovism forced the output of Soviet authors into the narrow and vitiating channels of propagandistic conformity with the state's tunnel vision. Those ensconced within the party hierarchy produced pablum; Serge, forever in search of a place to settle down in and be able to call home, the flames of social justice ever sparking up and ablaze within to empower his creative energies, produced these wonderful fictive masterpieces that have, and will, long outlast the pallid output of his far more comfortable and less honest contemporaries.
July 31, 2011
Here's a real corker for you. The setting is late 1930s Moscow. Joseph Stalin and his henchmen are in the process of committing one of the twentieth century's greatest crimes in the rounding up, framing, trial and execution of their fellow Bolsheviks. This period has become known as The Great Terror. Wikipedia describes it as a period ". . . of campaigns of political repression and persecution . . . that involved a large-scale purge of the Communist Party and government officials, repression of peasants ("dekulakization"), Red Army leadership, and the persecution of unaffiliated persons. It was characterized by widespread police surveillance, suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and executions." The toll is estimated to range from 20 to 50 million people. Just think of that for a moment: the difference, 30 million deaths, as a statistical uncertainty.
Victor Serge was the son of Russian political exiles who fled the Czar's tyranny. He did not set foot in Russia in support the Bolshevik Revolution until 1919 at age 28. Unlike many of his fellow revolutionaries, Serge had grown up in the democratic West where speech went for the most part unpunished, though even there he was jailed for his political activities. In 1928 he was arrested for criticizing Stalin's rule. André Gide was part of the international literary front that demanded his release. Fortunately Serge had actually been born in Brussels, which made him a foreign national. Yet as a Communist Party functionary for some nine years he came to know the workings of the Soviet government and its players well. The Case of Comrade Tulayev is his novelistic expose about how The Great Terror affected the lives of Soviet citizens of all kinds. The ease with which Stalin's "rivals" were framed and executed is almost beyond belief. Fortunately we have Robert Conquest's superb The Great Terror to corroborate Serge's vision in excruciating detail.
The story starts with a young Moscow resident who finds himself in possession of a Colt pistol. When he happens across Colonel Tulayev, who is involved with the current purge, his unhesitating and automatic impulse is to shoot the man dead. Police whistles sound. He flees, is never caught. Stalin and his goons then take advantage of the "public outrage" created by the murder to do away in utterly random fashion with a number of old Bolsheviks. The ease with which they choose others for destruction—and then are subsequently destroyed themselves—takes the breath away. Included in the frame up is Artyem Makeyev who perhaps suffers the least in anticipation of his arrest. He is a peasant lad for whom the Revolution was great fun. Afterward he rises to a position of regional power through relentless ambition and command of the socialist clichés. Kiril Kirillovitch Rublev, by contrast, is a thinker and scholar, a gentle, honest man whom the reader comes to admire. It is through Rublev and others that we begin to understand the terrible campaign of fear and terror they endured while awaiting inevitable arrest. The dread and anticipation of the knock on the door in the middle of the night is something Serge conveys almost too well. He has the gift of making all of the main characters—even the real rats like Intelligence Chief Erchov; Central Committee member Popov; and frameup artist Zvyeryeva—sympathetic.
What I found startling was Serge's consistently wonderful writing, originally in French (translated by Willard Trask, who is perhaps best known for the Herculean task of translating all 12 volumes of Casanova's diaries). And to think he wrote the book while on the run between Paris, Agen, Marseille, the Dominican Republic and Mexico during the years 1940-42. The book credited with first bringing the crimes of Stalin's reign to public notice is Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, published in 1941. Victor Serge, it is important to note, was writing his indictment before that, but he languished in exile, died in 1947 and an English translation of the book did not appear until 1950. Susan Sontag writes the informative preface in which she discusses both Serge's fascinating biography, as well as why Koestler and not Serge got all the credit for bringing the show trials to light. This is a fascinating novel that deserves far greater recognition than it has so far received. Many thanks to New York Review Books for republishing this masterpiece.
Victor Serge was the son of Russian political exiles who fled the Czar's tyranny. He did not set foot in Russia in support the Bolshevik Revolution until 1919 at age 28. Unlike many of his fellow revolutionaries, Serge had grown up in the democratic West where speech went for the most part unpunished, though even there he was jailed for his political activities. In 1928 he was arrested for criticizing Stalin's rule. André Gide was part of the international literary front that demanded his release. Fortunately Serge had actually been born in Brussels, which made him a foreign national. Yet as a Communist Party functionary for some nine years he came to know the workings of the Soviet government and its players well. The Case of Comrade Tulayev is his novelistic expose about how The Great Terror affected the lives of Soviet citizens of all kinds. The ease with which Stalin's "rivals" were framed and executed is almost beyond belief. Fortunately we have Robert Conquest's superb The Great Terror to corroborate Serge's vision in excruciating detail.
The story starts with a young Moscow resident who finds himself in possession of a Colt pistol. When he happens across Colonel Tulayev, who is involved with the current purge, his unhesitating and automatic impulse is to shoot the man dead. Police whistles sound. He flees, is never caught. Stalin and his goons then take advantage of the "public outrage" created by the murder to do away in utterly random fashion with a number of old Bolsheviks. The ease with which they choose others for destruction—and then are subsequently destroyed themselves—takes the breath away. Included in the frame up is Artyem Makeyev who perhaps suffers the least in anticipation of his arrest. He is a peasant lad for whom the Revolution was great fun. Afterward he rises to a position of regional power through relentless ambition and command of the socialist clichés. Kiril Kirillovitch Rublev, by contrast, is a thinker and scholar, a gentle, honest man whom the reader comes to admire. It is through Rublev and others that we begin to understand the terrible campaign of fear and terror they endured while awaiting inevitable arrest. The dread and anticipation of the knock on the door in the middle of the night is something Serge conveys almost too well. He has the gift of making all of the main characters—even the real rats like Intelligence Chief Erchov; Central Committee member Popov; and frameup artist Zvyeryeva—sympathetic.
What I found startling was Serge's consistently wonderful writing, originally in French (translated by Willard Trask, who is perhaps best known for the Herculean task of translating all 12 volumes of Casanova's diaries). And to think he wrote the book while on the run between Paris, Agen, Marseille, the Dominican Republic and Mexico during the years 1940-42. The book credited with first bringing the crimes of Stalin's reign to public notice is Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, published in 1941. Victor Serge, it is important to note, was writing his indictment before that, but he languished in exile, died in 1947 and an English translation of the book did not appear until 1950. Susan Sontag writes the informative preface in which she discusses both Serge's fascinating biography, as well as why Koestler and not Serge got all the credit for bringing the show trials to light. This is a fascinating novel that deserves far greater recognition than it has so far received. Many thanks to New York Review Books for republishing this masterpiece.
June 2, 2019
Κατ’ αρχάς, θα ξεκινήσω με τον εκδοτικό οίκο. Η αλήθεια είναι πως ανήκουν σε εκείνους που ύστερα από μια πρώτη επαφή σνόμπαρα για διάφορες τσίπικες επιλογές στο χαρτί και στην επιμέλεια, για κακό χτένισμα και λόγω θεματολογίας, ή παρουσίασης του site τους. Εν προκειμένω, οι κομπασμοί σχετικά με την Αρχαία Ελληνική Φιλοσοφία και δη τον Επίκουρο, με το στομφώδη τρόπο παρουσίασης εξακολουθούν να με ενοχλούν. Και στο συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο υπάρχουν το κακής ποιότητας χαρτί που βλέπεις τα γράμματα της πίσω σελίδας και τα γραμματικά λάθη. Ευτυχώς δεν είναι πολλά, επίσης ο εκδοτικός μου έδειξε πως υπάρχουν σκεπτόμενοι άνθρωποι πίσω του: οι άνθρωποι έφεραν σ’ εμάς σε σύγχρονη έκδοση Βίκτορ Σερζ, τι άλλο να πούμε;
<< η αγωνία και ο πόνος ανακατεύονταν παντού με την ανεξήγητη και ακαταπόνητη θριαμβολογία των εφημερίδων, ‘’Καλησπέρα, σύντροφε Ρομάσκιν. Ξέρετε αρνήθηκαν την έκδοση διαβατηρίου στη Μάρφα και τον άντρα της, επειδή τους έχουν στερήσει τα εκλογικά τους δικαιώματα, μιας και είναι τεχνίτες που άνοιξαν δική τους δουλειά. Ξέρετε, θα γίνει νέα εκκαθάριση των υπαλλήλων, ετοιμαστείτε, στην επιτροπή του σπιτιού άκουσα να λένε ότι ο πατέρας σας ήταν αξιωματικός’’… Ο γείτονας έμπαινε και μονολογούσε για τα προσωπικά του βάσανα, επειδή η γυναίκα του είχε παντρευτεί στον πρώτο της γάμο έναν έμπορο, κινδύνευε να μην της ανανεώσουν, το διαβατήριο για τη Μόσχα >>
<< - Ξέρω ‘γω… Φυσικά δεν το χρειάζομαι. Τι να το κάνω; … Κανείς δε θέλει το κακό μου… Αλλά είναι πολύ ωραίο πράγμα ένα όπλο. Σου φέρνει στο νου…
- Δολοφόνους;
- Όχι, δίκαιους >>
<< Αν οι χειρότεροι δεν είχαν μερικές φορές πάρα πολλά κοινά με τους καλύτερους θα ήταν πραγματικά οι χειρότεροι >>
Στη χειμαρρώδη μουντάδα, στο συνεχή πνιγμό βρίσκει το χρόνο, ο συγγραφέας να σταθεί στο ζωώδες σμίξιμο δυο σαρκικών εραστών, ή σε μια κυρία στα 60 που σκαρφίζεται μικρές αναζητήσεις για να γλυκαίνει ένα κύριο, γεροπροϊστάμενο της. Το σημαντικό σε αυτό είναι η ομορφιά που απορρέει απ’ την τρυφεράδα, αν γνωρίζεις υπό ποιες συνθήκες προσωπικής πνιγμονής, γράφτηκε αυτό το βιβλίο. Και σε ��να μπράντεφερ με τον εαυτό μου, το επόμενο λεπτό ξαναγίνεται αμίληκτος - << ψείρες! Ψείρες >>! Ή όπως θα ‘λεγε ο Μαρξ << έσπειρα δράκους και θέρισα ψείρες >>. Κι ύστερα από λίγο, πάλι, τρεις μεσήλικες τσακισμένοι απ’ τη διαρκή απειλή, μεταμορφώνονται σε παιδιά και παίζουν με το χιόνι. Και κάπου αργότερα, κάποιος ανεβαίνει στην ταράτσα του σπιτιού του να σκεφτεί, να ηρεμήσει, στην αγκαλιά της απλωτής νύχτας κι ένα ζευγάρι, εκεί ακριβώς, κάνει πατινάζ.
<< Στο ίδιο αυτό δωμάτιο είχαν ακούσει, ολόκληρη τη μέρα, ως αργά το βράδυ, τις παρανοϊκές, διαβολικές, αδυσώπητες, αδιανόητες φωνές που ξερνούσε το ραδιόφωνο. Αυτές οι φωνές γέμιζαν ώρες, νύχτες, μήνες, χρόνια, γέμιζαν την ψυχή παραλήρημα και απορούσε κανείς που τις είχε ακούσει κι όμως ζούσε ακόμα… η φωνή του άντρα πρώην μέλους της ΚΕ του Τουρκμενιστάν ‘’οργάνωσα τη δολοφονία του τάδε… Πήρα μέρος στην απόπειρα εναντίον του τάδε… η οποία απέτυχε… Υπονόμευσα τα σχέδια της άρδευσης… Υποκίνησα την εξέγερση των Μπασμάκων… Παρέδωσα στην Ιντέλιτζενς Σέρβις… Έλαβα από την Γκεστάπο’’…
- Είναι η αντεπανάσταση, Ντόρα
Η φωνή του ανωτάτου εισαγγελέα αναμασούσε ατελείωτα, δύσθυμα, συνωμοσίες, απόπειρες, εγκλήματα, καταστροφές, ατιμίες, προδοσίες, γινόταν λες ένα κατάκοπο αλύχτισμα που περιέλουζε με ύβρεις κάποιους ανθρώπους – οι οποίοι άκουγαν αποκαμωμένοι, με το κεφάλι σκυφτό, απελπισμένοι με το πλήθος να τους κοιτάζει, ανάμεσα σε δυο φύλακες, από αυτούς τους ανθρώπους, κάμποσοι ήταν αγνοί, πάναγνοι, οι άριστοι, οι ευφυέστεροι της επανάστασης – και γι’ αυτόν ακριβώς το λόγο, υφίσταντο το μαρτύριο, δέχονταν να το υποστούν. Όταν τους άκουγες στο ραδιόφωνο, σκεφτόσουν καμιά φορά ‘’Πόσο πρέπει να υποφέρει… Κι όμως, όχι, αυτή είναι η φυσιολογική φωνή του, τι τρέχει; Πάει, τρελάθηκε; Γιατί λέει τέτοια ψέματα’’;
- Δεν κάθονταν καλύτερα να τους κομματιάσουν ζωντανούς Δεν καταλαβαίνουν ότι δηλητηριάζουν την ψυχή του προλεταριάτου;
- Δεν το καταλαβαίνουν. Εξακολουθούν να πιστεύουν ότι υπηρετούν το σοσιαλισμό. Κάποιοι ελπίζουν ακόμη ότι θα επιζήσουν. Τους έχουν βασανίσει… Όχι, δεν είναι δειλοί, όχι δεν τους βασάνισαν, δεν το πιστεύω. Είναι πιστοί, καταλαβαίνεις, είναι ακόμα πιστοί στο Κόμμα και δεν υπάρχει πια Κόμμα, έχουν μείνει μόνο ιεροεξεταστές, δήμιοι, καθάρματα… Όχι δεν ξέρω πια τι λέω, δεν είναι τόσο απλά τα πράγματα >>
<< Στην Ιστορία, δε γίνεται τίποτα που να μην είναι με κάποιο τρόπο ορθολογικό. Οι καλύτεροι πρέπει καμιά φορά να τσακίζονται γιατί βλάπτουν, ακριβώς επειδή είναι οι καλύτεροι >>
Αυτή η φράση δεν έχει κάτι το ιδιαίτερο, είναι μόνο η εκ των προτέρων, απάντηση του συγγραφέα, όταν 31 σελίδες μετά σου λέει πως κάποιοι θεωρούσαν το Μπουχάριν, δεξιό. Κι είναι βέβαια ένα μήνυμα για το σφάλμα στον πυρήνα κάθε πολιτικού συστήματος. Η αναθεώρηση από γενιά σε γενιά, σε αντίθεση με την αρχαία Αθήνα, γίνεται προσωποκεντρική και έτσι, τελικά τα αμιγώς σημαντικά μειονεκτήματα δε θίγονται, τουλάχιστον όχι άμεσα. Αναθεωρούνται άνθρωποι, ταυτότητες ατομικές, γίνονται συνώνυμα σε κανόνες για να μοιάζουν εξαιρέσεις και να κρυφτούν οι γάζες της μούμιας, να φαίνεται μόνο η μορφή, το περίγραμμα που νουθετεί πως κάτι είναι ακόμα ζωντανό. Ο αποπροσανατολισμός επιτυγχάνεται. Κι έτσι η χτεσινή απόφαση, που εφαρμοζόταν ως κάτι νέο και συστηματικό, γίνεται η σημερινή επέκταση ελευθεριών. Οι ελευθερίες βέβαια κατά τον τρόπο που εννοούσε ο Πελώριο Σαντ!
Παρακάτω, θα πει ο συγγραφέας, πως η ίδια μοίρα ακολουθεί και τους χείριστους. Άρα ποιοι μένουν; Ποιοι μένουν διαρκώς και πάντοτε και παντού; Ο καλύτερος, από την αρχή, θα πει όχι στο αδιέξοδο, ο χειρότερος είναι αυτός που όλα τα κάνει λάθος και γι’ αυτό νοείται ως κατάθεση σε κλειστό λογαριασμό, ο μελλοντικός αποδιοπομπαίος τράγος, ογκώδης αρκετά, ώστε να παρασύρει κι όποιον στέκεται κοντά του, να φωτίσει ένα ψεγάδι, ή ένα διαμάντι με μικρό σφάλμα. Κι ο χείριστος όλων – αλλά για ποιον χείριστος – θα τα κάνει όλα λάθος και όλα με τα λάθος κίνητρα, ώσπου κάποια στιγμή θα πει φτάνει και θα μείνει εκεί. Και θα πέσει με τρόπο που θα μείνουν στο χείλος του γκρεμού τα λάθη, θα πάρει μαζί του πέφτοντας χωρίς καμιά κραυγή, κάθετί σωστό.
<< Θεέ μου, θεέ μου, επαναλάμβανε μηχανικά η Άλια, προαισθανόμενη ότι μια δύναμη μέσα της θα σήκωνε το μαχαίρι, θα έπαιρνε φόρα, θα χτυπούσε αυτό το ξαπλωμένο ανδρικό σώμα, αυτό το ανδρικό σώμα που το είχε αγαπήσει ως τα βάθη του μίσους. Που να χτυπήσει; Να βρει την καρδιά, ήταν καλά προστατευμένη από την πανοπλία των οστών και της σάρκας κι ήταν δύσκολο να πετύχει σε βάθος, να τρυπήσει την έκθετη κοιλιά, όπου εύκολα τα χτυπήματα είναι θανατηφόρα, να ξεσκίσει το πέος του, που κείτονταν μες στην ήβη, σάρκα μαλακή, απαίσια και συγκινητική; Αυτή η ιδέα ��� μα δεν ήταν απλώς ιδέα, ήταν ήδη το προσχέδιο μιας πράξης – ταξίδεψε ζοφερή στα νευρικά της κέντρα… Αυτό το ερεβώδες ρεύμα συνάντησε ένα άλλο ρεύμα ανησυχίας. Γύρισε το κεφάλι και είδε ότι την κοίταζε >>
Η σκηνή που ακολουθεί είναι απ’ τις συγκλονιστικότερες που έχω παρακολουθήσει. Έχει μια μεταφυσική δύναμη που σε τσακίζει, σε κάνει να πονάς.
<< Σας ρωτώ που είναι ο Φομά >>
Πολλά ονόματα κάτι σημαίνουν, αυτή όμως ειδικά η φράση σε κάνει να αναρωτιέσαι μήπως είναι φόρος τιμής σε ένα παραγνωρισμένο διαμάντι. Και κάτι περισσότερο απ’ αυτό, ένας διάλογος μαζί του. Ειδικά όταν κάπου παρακάτω, δε στέκεται στην απελευθέρωση των δουλοπάροικων, αλλά στο συμβολισμό του φαινομένου: τους απελευθερώσαμε για να υποδηλώσουμε με σιγουριά την ψυχή τους. Καταλαβαίνεις; Δε θέλουμε να πουλήσουμε την ψυχή μας στο διάολο, θέλουμε να αγοράσουμε τη δική του!
Πρόκειται για ένα κατ’ εξοχήν ρεαλιστικό αντιμυθιστόρημα, με διαλόγους που πάντα μοιάζουν με κλεψύδρες. Η άμμος πέφτει κι ώσπου να αδειάσει το πάνω μέρος διαρκούν, κάνοντας σε να κοιτά�� με νευρικότητα, αμηχανία, προσμονή, πότε θα πέσει κι ο τελευταίος κόκκος, σε ποιο σημείο τελειώνει ο χρόνος τους. Και στο γύρισμα της κλεψύδρας ποια σκέψη, ποιος διάλογος θα διαδεχτεί και θα δεχτεί τα προηγούμενα. Να διακρίνεις μια αλλαγή που ποτέ δεν έρχεται, γιατί είναι οι ίδιοι κόκκοι, σε συνδυασμούς και συμπλέγματα, αδύνατο να κατανοήσεις ως κάτι διαφορετικό κι όμως μοιάζουν κοντινοί, μοιάζουν ‘’λογικοί’’ και γι’ αυτό είναι τόσο παράλογοι. Και οι κόκκοι είναι πάντοτε οι ίδιοι. Ένα μυθιστόρημα που συνθέτει, ή καλύτερα, απ’ το οποίο αναδύεται μέσα από αλληλοσυμπλεκόμενα και συγκρουόμενα διηγήματα, που όμως το καθένα σέβεται απόλυτα τα όρια του άλλου, τη στιγμή που τα ποδοπατά. Κι όλα ξεκινούν με ένα εκκωφαντικό γεγονός, μια ‘’τυχαία’’ πράξη.
Ένας νέος κόσμος που θυμίζει περισσότερο την αποφυγή ανάληψης ευθύνης των ημερών μας. Κάποιοι ενίστανται, αν όμως πρέπει να πουν, εγώ έχω άλλη άποψη, διαφωνώ, δεν το κάνουν, δεν εκκαθαρίζουν, για να μην εκκαθαριστούν. Εγώ είμαστε εμείς, αλλά το εγώ ακυρώνεται. Αν είμαι εγώ, δεν είμαι μέρος του εμείς. Αν εγώ πιστεύω αυτό, κάηκα. Τα όρια είναι ασαφή, τα όρια υπάρχουν για να πιάνονται τα μικρά ψάρια στις σήτες περνώντας κάτω απ’ τα στρώματα των μεγάλων που στρώνουν του βυθού τα φίλτρα. Αν πεθάνει ο Αϊνστάιν και όσοι καταλαβαίνουν την επιστήμη του, τότε δεν υπήρξε. Αυτή είναι η γραμμή. Κι αν αποκολληθείς, αν ψελλίσεις κάτι, τότε εσύ υπονοείς ότι εμείς κοιτάμε εμάς, ότι εμείς μπορεί να κάναμε λάθος και εμείς δεν κάνουμε λάθη, άρα είσαι εχθρός. Γιατί εσύ θέλεις να είσαι εσύ κι αν υπάρχεις εσύ, δε μπορούμε να υπάρχουμε εμείς. Άρα, εσύ δεν υπάρχεις, δε σου συγχωρούμε την ύπαρξη σου. Εμείς δεν κάνουμε λάθη γιατί η άποψη μας είναι η καλύτερη δυνατή πορεία αυτού του κόσμου, γιατί στον πυρήνα μας έχουν γίνει ταπετσαρία οι παραλογισμοί του Χέγκελ, για το ποιόν αυτού του κόσμου, του καλύτερου υπαρκτού, του μόνου πραγματικού. Ένα μαύρο αμάξι, σιωπή, θάνατος, λήθη… δεν υπήρξες!
Συνειδητοποιείς τελικά πως ο Στάλιν κι ας λειτουργούσε διαφορετικά, δεν ήταν άλλος απ’ το Χίτλερ. Το στρατόπεδο συγκέντρωσης του ήταν μια ολόκληρη χώρα, ύστερα από μια φαινομενική νίκη και σιγά σιγά επεκτεινόταν… Ήταν όμως τόσο ισχυρό το μπαμ του αδερφού του, που έτσι έμεινε στο δευτερότοκο μόνη θέση για να ξεχωρίσει και να μπορέσει να δείξει τον τρίτο δρόμο, ο ρόλος του ήρωα. Τι κρίμα που δεν πρόφτασε να επεκταθεί περισσότερο στις Ισπανίες αυτού του κόσμου. Κι εκεί το ντοκουμέντο Τουλάγιεφ, συναντά το ντοκουμέντο Ισπανική Διαθήκη. Συνομιλούν σε ένα διάλογο, αυτή οι δυο νεκροί κι όμως ολοζώντανοι.
<< Άκουγε ήδη την ίδια του τη φωνή με έντονη δυσαρέσκεια., διότι έλεγε ανώφελα λόγια, που τα ήξερε απ’ έξω από παλιά και τα είχαν διαβάσει χίλιες φορές στα κύρια άρθρα στον τύπο, από αυτά τα λόγια για τα οποία ο Τρότσκι είπε μια μέρα ότι τα προφέρει κανείς και νομίζει ότι μασάει βαμβάκι. Γιατί ήρθα; Αυτοί γιατί ήρθαν; Διότι έχουμε εκπαιδευτεί να υπακούμε. Ό,τι τους λέω, ακόμη κι αν είναι αληθινό σαν τη λευκότητα του χιονιού, γίνεται φασματικό και ψεύτικο λόγω της υπακοής. Τους μιλάω, με ακούνε, μερικοί προσπαθούν ίσως και να με καταλάβουν και δεν υπάρχουμε: υπακούμε. Μια εσωτερική φωνή απάντησε: υπακούω, σημαίνει ωστόσο υπάρχω ακόμη, και συνέχισε τη συζήτηση: υπάρχω όμως, όπως οι αριθμοί και οι μηχανές >>
Ο λόγος του άλλοτε αποτελούμενος από μικρές φράσεις – τρικυμισμένο καράβι με τελείες βροντές κι άλλοτε μακροπερίοδος σα να παρακολουθούμε την ελπίδα φυλακισμένη, να χτυπιέται μανιασμένα στο ερμητικά κλειστό, κουτί της Πανδώρας. Αναμφίβολα, ένα απ’ τα δυσκολότερα βιβλία που έχω διαβάσει.
Ό,τι αγαπάω, μου τελειώνει. Μήνες λιβάνιζα το τελευταίο μυθιστόρημα του Τερζάκη, όπως λιβανίζω τώρα το Βιργίλιο του Μπροχ, όπως θα λιβανίσω και το Σερζ
<< η αγωνία και ο πόνος ανακατεύονταν παντού με την ανεξήγητη και ακαταπόνητη θριαμβολογία των εφημερίδων, ‘’Καλησπέρα, σύντροφε Ρομάσκιν. Ξέρετε αρνήθηκαν την έκδοση διαβατηρίου στη Μάρφα και τον άντρα της, επειδή τους έχουν στερήσει τα εκλογικά τους δικαιώματα, μιας και είναι τεχνίτες που άνοιξαν δική τους δουλειά. Ξέρετε, θα γίνει νέα εκκαθάριση των υπαλλήλων, ετοιμαστείτε, στην επιτροπή του σπιτιού άκουσα να λένε ότι ο πατέρας σας ήταν αξιωματικός’’… Ο γείτονας έμπαινε και μονολογούσε για τα προσωπικά του βάσανα, επειδή η γυναίκα του είχε παντρευτεί στον πρώτο της γάμο έναν έμπορο, κινδύνευε να μην της ανανεώσουν, το διαβατήριο για τη Μόσχα >>
<< - Ξέρω ‘γω… Φυσικά δεν το χρειάζομαι. Τι να το κάνω; … Κανείς δε θέλει το κακό μου… Αλλά είναι πολύ ωραίο πράγμα ένα όπλο. Σου φέρνει στο νου…
- Δολοφόνους;
- Όχι, δίκαιους >>
<< Αν οι χειρότεροι δεν είχαν μερικές φορές πάρα πολλά κοινά με τους καλύτερους θα ήταν πραγματικά οι χειρότεροι >>
Στη χειμαρρώδη μουντάδα, στο συνεχή πνιγμό βρίσκει το χρόνο, ο συγγραφέας να σταθεί στο ζωώδες σμίξιμο δυο σαρκικών εραστών, ή σε μια κυρία στα 60 που σκαρφίζεται μικρές αναζητήσεις για να γλυκαίνει ένα κύριο, γεροπροϊστάμενο της. Το σημαντικό σε αυτό είναι η ομορφιά που απορρέει απ’ την τρυφεράδα, αν γνωρίζεις υπό ποιες συνθήκες προσωπικής πνιγμονής, γράφτηκε αυτό το βιβλίο. Και σε ��να μπράντεφερ με τον εαυτό μου, το επόμενο λεπτό ξαναγίνεται αμίληκτος - << ψείρες! Ψείρες >>! Ή όπως θα ‘λεγε ο Μαρξ << έσπειρα δράκους και θέρισα ψείρες >>. Κι ύστερα από λίγο, πάλι, τρεις μεσήλικες τσακισμένοι απ’ τη διαρκή απειλή, μεταμορφώνονται σε παιδιά και παίζουν με το χιόνι. Και κάπου αργότερα, κάποιος ανεβαίνει στην ταράτσα του σπιτιού του να σκεφτεί, να ηρεμήσει, στην αγκαλιά της απλωτής νύχτας κι ένα ζευγάρι, εκεί ακριβώς, κάνει πατινάζ.
<< Στο ίδιο αυτό δωμάτιο είχαν ακούσει, ολόκληρη τη μέρα, ως αργά το βράδυ, τις παρανοϊκές, διαβολικές, αδυσώπητες, αδιανόητες φωνές που ξερνούσε το ραδιόφωνο. Αυτές οι φωνές γέμιζαν ώρες, νύχτες, μήνες, χρόνια, γέμιζαν την ψυχή παραλήρημα και απορούσε κανείς που τις είχε ακούσει κι όμως ζούσε ακόμα… η φωνή του άντρα πρώην μέλους της ΚΕ του Τουρκμενιστάν ‘’οργάνωσα τη δολοφονία του τάδε… Πήρα μέρος στην απόπειρα εναντίον του τάδε… η οποία απέτυχε… Υπονόμευσα τα σχέδια της άρδευσης… Υποκίνησα την εξέγερση των Μπασμάκων… Παρέδωσα στην Ιντέλιτζενς Σέρβις… Έλαβα από την Γκεστάπο’’…
- Είναι η αντεπανάσταση, Ντόρα
Η φωνή του ανωτάτου εισαγγελέα αναμασούσε ατελείωτα, δύσθυμα, συνωμοσίες, απόπειρες, εγκλήματα, καταστροφές, ατιμίες, προδοσίες, γινόταν λες ένα κατάκοπο αλύχτισμα που περιέλουζε με ύβρεις κάποιους ανθρώπους – οι οποίοι άκουγαν αποκαμωμένοι, με το κεφάλι σκυφτό, απελπισμένοι με το πλήθος να τους κοιτάζει, ανάμεσα σε δυο φύλακες, από αυτούς τους ανθρώπους, κάμποσοι ήταν αγνοί, πάναγνοι, οι άριστοι, οι ευφυέστεροι της επανάστασης – και γι’ αυτόν ακριβώς το λόγο, υφίσταντο το μαρτύριο, δέχονταν να το υποστούν. Όταν τους άκουγες στο ραδιόφωνο, σκεφτόσουν καμιά φορά ‘’Πόσο πρέπει να υποφέρει… Κι όμως, όχι, αυτή είναι η φυσιολογική φωνή του, τι τρέχει; Πάει, τρελάθηκε; Γιατί λέει τέτοια ψέματα’’;
- Δεν κάθονταν καλύτερα να τους κομματιάσουν ζωντανούς Δεν καταλαβαίνουν ότι δηλητηριάζουν την ψυχή του προλεταριάτου;
- Δεν το καταλαβαίνουν. Εξακολουθούν να πιστεύουν ότι υπηρετούν το σοσιαλισμό. Κάποιοι ελπίζουν ακόμη ότι θα επιζήσουν. Τους έχουν βασανίσει… Όχι, δεν είναι δειλοί, όχι δεν τους βασάνισαν, δεν το πιστεύω. Είναι πιστοί, καταλαβαίνεις, είναι ακόμα πιστοί στο Κόμμα και δεν υπάρχει πια Κόμμα, έχουν μείνει μόνο ιεροεξεταστές, δήμιοι, καθάρματα… Όχι δεν ξέρω πια τι λέω, δεν είναι τόσο απλά τα πράγματα >>
<< Στην Ιστορία, δε γίνεται τίποτα που να μην είναι με κάποιο τρόπο ορθολογικό. Οι καλύτεροι πρέπει καμιά φορά να τσακίζονται γιατί βλάπτουν, ακριβώς επειδή είναι οι καλύτεροι >>
Αυτή η φράση δεν έχει κάτι το ιδιαίτερο, είναι μόνο η εκ των προτέρων, απάντηση του συγγραφέα, όταν 31 σελίδες μετά σου λέει πως κάποιοι θεωρούσαν το Μπουχάριν, δεξιό. Κι είναι βέβαια ένα μήνυμα για το σφάλμα στον πυρήνα κάθε πολιτικού συστήματος. Η αναθεώρηση από γενιά σε γενιά, σε αντίθεση με την αρχαία Αθήνα, γίνεται προσωποκεντρική και έτσι, τελικά τα αμιγώς σημαντικά μειονεκτήματα δε θίγονται, τουλάχιστον όχι άμεσα. Αναθεωρούνται άνθρωποι, ταυτότητες ατομικές, γίνονται συνώνυμα σε κανόνες για να μοιάζουν εξαιρέσεις και να κρυφτούν οι γάζες της μούμιας, να φαίνεται μόνο η μορφή, το περίγραμμα που νουθετεί πως κάτι είναι ακόμα ζωντανό. Ο αποπροσανατολισμός επιτυγχάνεται. Κι έτσι η χτεσινή απόφαση, που εφαρμοζόταν ως κάτι νέο και συστηματικό, γίνεται η σημερινή επέκταση ελευθεριών. Οι ελευθερίες βέβαια κατά τον τρόπο που εννοούσε ο Πελώριο Σαντ!
Παρακάτω, θα πει ο συγγραφέας, πως η ίδια μοίρα ακολουθεί και τους χείριστους. Άρα ποιοι μένουν; Ποιοι μένουν διαρκώς και πάντοτε και παντού; Ο καλύτερος, από την αρχή, θα πει όχι στο αδιέξοδο, ο χειρότερος είναι αυτός που όλα τα κάνει λάθος και γι’ αυτό νοείται ως κατάθεση σε κλειστό λογαριασμό, ο μελλοντικός αποδιοπομπαίος τράγος, ογκώδης αρκετά, ώστε να παρασύρει κι όποιον στέκεται κοντά του, να φωτίσει ένα ψεγάδι, ή ένα διαμάντι με μικρό σφάλμα. Κι ο χείριστος όλων – αλλά για ποιον χείριστος – θα τα κάνει όλα λάθος και όλα με τα λάθος κίνητρα, ώσπου κάποια στιγμή θα πει φτάνει και θα μείνει εκεί. Και θα πέσει με τρόπο που θα μείνουν στο χείλος του γκρεμού τα λάθη, θα πάρει μαζί του πέφτοντας χωρίς καμιά κραυγή, κάθετί σωστό.
<< Θεέ μου, θεέ μου, επαναλάμβανε μηχανικά η Άλια, προαισθανόμενη ότι μια δύναμη μέσα της θα σήκωνε το μαχαίρι, θα έπαιρνε φόρα, θα χτυπούσε αυτό το ξαπλωμένο ανδρικό σώμα, αυτό το ανδρικό σώμα που το είχε αγαπήσει ως τα βάθη του μίσους. Που να χτυπήσει; Να βρει την καρδιά, ήταν καλά προστατευμένη από την πανοπλία των οστών και της σάρκας κι ήταν δύσκολο να πετύχει σε βάθος, να τρυπήσει την έκθετη κοιλιά, όπου εύκολα τα χτυπήματα είναι θανατηφόρα, να ξεσκίσει το πέος του, που κείτονταν μες στην ήβη, σάρκα μαλακή, απαίσια και συγκινητική; Αυτή η ιδέα ��� μα δεν ήταν απλώς ιδέα, ήταν ήδη το προσχέδιο μιας πράξης – ταξίδεψε ζοφερή στα νευρικά της κέντρα… Αυτό το ερεβώδες ρεύμα συνάντησε ένα άλλο ρεύμα ανησυχίας. Γύρισε το κεφάλι και είδε ότι την κοίταζε >>
Η σκηνή που ακολουθεί είναι απ’ τις συγκλονιστικότερες που έχω παρακολουθήσει. Έχει μια μεταφυσική δύναμη που σε τσακίζει, σε κάνει να πονάς.
<< Σας ρωτώ που είναι ο Φομά >>
Πολλά ονόματα κάτι σημαίνουν, αυτή όμως ειδικά η φράση σε κάνει να αναρωτιέσαι μήπως είναι φόρος τιμής σε ένα παραγνωρισμένο διαμάντι. Και κάτι περισσότερο απ’ αυτό, ένας διάλογος μαζί του. Ειδικά όταν κάπου παρακάτω, δε στέκεται στην απελευθέρωση των δουλοπάροικων, αλλά στο συμβολισμό του φαινομένου: τους απελευθερώσαμε για να υποδηλώσουμε με σιγουριά την ψυχή τους. Καταλαβαίνεις; Δε θέλουμε να πουλήσουμε την ψυχή μας στο διάολο, θέλουμε να αγοράσουμε τη δική του!
Πρόκειται για ένα κατ’ εξοχήν ρεαλιστικό αντιμυθιστόρημα, με διαλόγους που πάντα μοιάζουν με κλεψύδρες. Η άμμος πέφτει κι ώσπου να αδειάσει το πάνω μέρος διαρκούν, κάνοντας σε να κοιτά�� με νευρικότητα, αμηχανία, προσμονή, πότε θα πέσει κι ο τελευταίος κόκκος, σε ποιο σημείο τελειώνει ο χρόνος τους. Και στο γύρισμα της κλεψύδρας ποια σκέψη, ποιος διάλογος θα διαδεχτεί και θα δεχτεί τα προηγούμενα. Να διακρίνεις μια αλλαγή που ποτέ δεν έρχεται, γιατί είναι οι ίδιοι κόκκοι, σε συνδυασμούς και συμπλέγματα, αδύνατο να κατανοήσεις ως κάτι διαφορετικό κι όμως μοιάζουν κοντινοί, μοιάζουν ‘’λογικοί’’ και γι’ αυτό είναι τόσο παράλογοι. Και οι κόκκοι είναι πάντοτε οι ίδιοι. Ένα μυθιστόρημα που συνθέτει, ή καλύτερα, απ’ το οποίο αναδύεται μέσα από αλληλοσυμπλεκόμενα και συγκρουόμενα διηγήματα, που όμως το καθένα σέβεται απόλυτα τα όρια του άλλου, τη στιγμή που τα ποδοπατά. Κι όλα ξεκινούν με ένα εκκωφαντικό γεγονός, μια ‘’τυχαία’’ πράξη.
Ένας νέος κόσμος που θυμίζει περισσότερο την αποφυγή ανάληψης ευθύνης των ημερών μας. Κάποιοι ενίστανται, αν όμως πρέπει να πουν, εγώ έχω άλλη άποψη, διαφωνώ, δεν το κάνουν, δεν εκκαθαρίζουν, για να μην εκκαθαριστούν. Εγώ είμαστε εμείς, αλλά το εγώ ακυρώνεται. Αν είμαι εγώ, δεν είμαι μέρος του εμείς. Αν εγώ πιστεύω αυτό, κάηκα. Τα όρια είναι ασαφή, τα όρια υπάρχουν για να πιάνονται τα μικρά ψάρια στις σήτες περνώντας κάτω απ’ τα στρώματα των μεγάλων που στρώνουν του βυθού τα φίλτρα. Αν πεθάνει ο Αϊνστάιν και όσοι καταλαβαίνουν την επιστήμη του, τότε δεν υπήρξε. Αυτή είναι η γραμμή. Κι αν αποκολληθείς, αν ψελλίσεις κάτι, τότε εσύ υπονοείς ότι εμείς κοιτάμε εμάς, ότι εμείς μπορεί να κάναμε λάθος και εμείς δεν κάνουμε λάθη, άρα είσαι εχθρός. Γιατί εσύ θέλεις να είσαι εσύ κι αν υπάρχεις εσύ, δε μπορούμε να υπάρχουμε εμείς. Άρα, εσύ δεν υπάρχεις, δε σου συγχωρούμε την ύπαρξη σου. Εμείς δεν κάνουμε λάθη γιατί η άποψη μας είναι η καλύτερη δυνατή πορεία αυτού του κόσμου, γιατί στον πυρήνα μας έχουν γίνει ταπετσαρία οι παραλογισμοί του Χέγκελ, για το ποιόν αυτού του κόσμου, του καλύτερου υπαρκτού, του μόνου πραγματικού. Ένα μαύρο αμάξι, σιωπή, θάνατος, λήθη… δεν υπήρξες!
Συνειδητοποιείς τελικά πως ο Στάλιν κι ας λειτουργούσε διαφορετικά, δεν ήταν άλλος απ’ το Χίτλερ. Το στρατόπεδο συγκέντρωσης του ήταν μια ολόκληρη χώρα, ύστερα από μια φαινομενική νίκη και σιγά σιγά επεκτεινόταν… Ήταν όμως τόσο ισχυρό το μπαμ του αδερφού του, που έτσι έμεινε στο δευτερότοκο μόνη θέση για να ξεχωρίσει και να μπορέσει να δείξει τον τρίτο δρόμο, ο ρόλος του ήρωα. Τι κρίμα που δεν πρόφτασε να επεκταθεί περισσότερο στις Ισπανίες αυτού του κόσμου. Κι εκεί το ντοκουμέντο Τουλάγιεφ, συναντά το ντοκουμέντο Ισπανική Διαθήκη. Συνομιλούν σε ένα διάλογο, αυτή οι δυο νεκροί κι όμως ολοζώντανοι.
<< Άκουγε ήδη την ίδια του τη φωνή με έντονη δυσαρέσκεια., διότι έλεγε ανώφελα λόγια, που τα ήξερε απ’ έξω από παλιά και τα είχαν διαβάσει χίλιες φορές στα κύρια άρθρα στον τύπο, από αυτά τα λόγια για τα οποία ο Τρότσκι είπε μια μέρα ότι τα προφέρει κανείς και νομίζει ότι μασάει βαμβάκι. Γιατί ήρθα; Αυτοί γιατί ήρθαν; Διότι έχουμε εκπαιδευτεί να υπακούμε. Ό,τι τους λέω, ακόμη κι αν είναι αληθινό σαν τη λευκότητα του χιονιού, γίνεται φασματικό και ψεύτικο λόγω της υπακοής. Τους μιλάω, με ακούνε, μερικοί προσπαθούν ίσως και να με καταλάβουν και δεν υπάρχουμε: υπακούμε. Μια εσωτερική φωνή απάντησε: υπακούω, σημαίνει ωστόσο υπάρχω ακόμη, και συνέχισε τη συζήτηση: υπάρχω όμως, όπως οι αριθμοί και οι μηχανές >>
Ο λόγος του άλλοτε αποτελούμενος από μικρές φράσεις – τρικυμισμένο καράβι με τελείες βροντές κι άλλοτε μακροπερίοδος σα να παρακολουθούμε την ελπίδα φυλακισμένη, να χτυπιέται μανιασμένα στο ερμητικά κλειστό, κουτί της Πανδώρας. Αναμφίβολα, ένα απ’ τα δυσκολότερα βιβλία που έχω διαβάσει.
Ό,τι αγαπάω, μου τελειώνει. Μήνες λιβάνιζα το τελευταίο μυθιστόρημα του Τερζάκη, όπως λιβανίζω τώρα το Βιργίλιο του Μπροχ, όπως θα λιβανίσω και το Σερζ
June 30, 2024
“… the Party cannot admit that it is impotent before a revolver shot fired from no one knows where--perhaps from the depths of the people’s soul …”
My, but this was a marvelous, obscure, dense, suspenseful, enlightening novel.
Victor Serge led a remarkable life. He was born in Belgium in 1890 after his revolutionary parents had fled czarist Russia. Serge returned in 1919, on the side of the Bolsheviks. A journalist, historian, intellectual, novelist, poet, anarchist, activist, and revolutionary, he spent years in prison, was thrown out of multiple countries, and died in exile in Mexico.
The Case of Comrade Tulayev tells of the “Great Terror” of the late 1930’s in Moscow, when Stalin, in order to stabilize his power, oversaw the systematic framing, persecution, and murder of any dissidents, including old party Bolsheviks influenced by Leon Trotsky.
Serge knew Trotsky. He knew Lenin. He knew what it was like to be hunted and to spend time in prison. He tells here a fictional story, but from this acute awareness. He used fiction in order to create composites, to pack each of his characters with truths from many lives and experiences. You can feel this when you read, in the thick, deep, intensity of the stories.
Susan Sontag wrote an incredible introduction that could stand alone as a fascinating biographical piece about Serge and his philosophies. About this book, she says, “whole lives are portrayed, each of which could make a novel.” This is so true. Among them there is Kostia, a struggling construction yard worker; his neighbor Romachkin, obsessed with justice; Erchov, in charge of the Tulayev murder case; Rublev, an old Bolshevik still working as a historian; Makeyev, a tough-guy peasant who becomes a local administrator; Kondratiev, who reports on the revolution in Spain … oh, and Tulayev, immaterial other than being the murder victim.
Behind them all lurks the haunting figure of the one pulling the strings:
A challenging read, but well worth the effort.
My, but this was a marvelous, obscure, dense, suspenseful, enlightening novel.
Victor Serge led a remarkable life. He was born in Belgium in 1890 after his revolutionary parents had fled czarist Russia. Serge returned in 1919, on the side of the Bolsheviks. A journalist, historian, intellectual, novelist, poet, anarchist, activist, and revolutionary, he spent years in prison, was thrown out of multiple countries, and died in exile in Mexico.
The Case of Comrade Tulayev tells of the “Great Terror” of the late 1930’s in Moscow, when Stalin, in order to stabilize his power, oversaw the systematic framing, persecution, and murder of any dissidents, including old party Bolsheviks influenced by Leon Trotsky.
Serge knew Trotsky. He knew Lenin. He knew what it was like to be hunted and to spend time in prison. He tells here a fictional story, but from this acute awareness. He used fiction in order to create composites, to pack each of his characters with truths from many lives and experiences. You can feel this when you read, in the thick, deep, intensity of the stories.
Susan Sontag wrote an incredible introduction that could stand alone as a fascinating biographical piece about Serge and his philosophies. About this book, she says, “whole lives are portrayed, each of which could make a novel.” This is so true. Among them there is Kostia, a struggling construction yard worker; his neighbor Romachkin, obsessed with justice; Erchov, in charge of the Tulayev murder case; Rublev, an old Bolshevik still working as a historian; Makeyev, a tough-guy peasant who becomes a local administrator; Kondratiev, who reports on the revolution in Spain … oh, and Tulayev, immaterial other than being the murder victim.
Behind them all lurks the haunting figure of the one pulling the strings:
A challenging read, but well worth the effort.
January 22, 2020
Βιβλίο για τον τρόμο του Σταλινισμού. Ακούγεται σαν ανέκδοτο. Δολοφονείται τυχαία ένα μέλος της Κ.Ε. του κόμματος και οι ανακρίσεις επί ένα χρόνο ... ανακαλύπτουν τρία στελέχη ως δολοφόνους του. Ολη η ιστορία περιγράφει τον τρόμο της εποχής, γύρω στα 1938, περίοδος γεμάτη τρόμο, δίκες, δολοφονίες και ... αυτοκτονίες
July 24, 2018
Ένα τρομερό έργο από έναν μεγάλο συγγραφέα και ιστορική προσωπικότητα.
July 16, 2019
"Só os loucos pensam que fazem o que querem."
Victor Serge (1890-1947) foi escritor e político. Nascido na Bélgica, inicialmente anarquista, quando aos vinte e nove anos chega à Rússia envolve-se com os bolcheviques e, juntamente com Trotsky, critica o regime estalinista. Preso e, posteriormente, expulso do país continua a ser perseguido por agentes soviéticos acabando por morrer no México, supostamente assassinado.
O Caso do Camarada Tulaev... vou ter de deixar com o marcador no meio...
Mesmo desconfiando tratar-se de um livro muito "político", coisa que me cansa facilmente, arrisquei lê-lo. Depois de O Ruído do Tempo, de Julian Barnes, queria ler mais sobre o regime em que Chostakovich viveu.
Embora tenha algumas partes muito bonitas, tantas personagens e siglas e páginas e páginas em que só se fala de governo, partido, proletários, camaradas, marxistas, leninistas, socialistas, anarquistas, republicanos, sindicalistas, e ... É demais para mim.
Para quem aprecia o género, este será um bom livro para aprofundar conhecimentos sobre a ditadura estalinista. Eu vou tentar com O Homem Que Gostava De Cães, de Leonardo Padura; vamos ver se consigo...
Victor Serge (1890-1947) foi escritor e político. Nascido na Bélgica, inicialmente anarquista, quando aos vinte e nove anos chega à Rússia envolve-se com os bolcheviques e, juntamente com Trotsky, critica o regime estalinista. Preso e, posteriormente, expulso do país continua a ser perseguido por agentes soviéticos acabando por morrer no México, supostamente assassinado.
O Caso do Camarada Tulaev... vou ter de deixar com o marcador no meio...
Mesmo desconfiando tratar-se de um livro muito "político", coisa que me cansa facilmente, arrisquei lê-lo. Depois de O Ruído do Tempo, de Julian Barnes, queria ler mais sobre o regime em que Chostakovich viveu.
Embora tenha algumas partes muito bonitas, tantas personagens e siglas e páginas e páginas em que só se fala de governo, partido, proletários, camaradas, marxistas, leninistas, socialistas, anarquistas, republicanos, sindicalistas, e ... É demais para mim.
Para quem aprecia o género, este será um bom livro para aprofundar conhecimentos sobre a ditadura estalinista. Eu vou tentar com O Homem Que Gostava De Cães, de Leonardo Padura; vamos ver se consigo...
February 26, 2018
Μετά τις Ακυβέρνητες Πολιτείες του Τσίρκα , έψαχνα ένα δυνατό ανάγνωσμα ,τέτοιο που να με συνεπάρει.Ε λοιπόν το βρήκα και κυριολεκτικά με συγκλόνισε! Κυνηγός της αλήθειας ο Victor Serge.
Παραθέτω δυο μόνο προτασούλες από το βιβλίο γιατί το επιθυμώ και γιατί θέλω να τις διαβάζω και να τις ξαναδιαβάζω:
"Άπαξ και καταλάβει κανείς τη θεωρία της διαρκούς επανάστασης,πως να ζήσει,για ποιο λόγο να ζήσει,αν όχι για έναν υψηλό στόχο? "
"...η χειρότερη περιπέτεια,η ανέλπιδη περιπέτεια,είναι το να επιζητείς την ακινησία σε μια εποχή όπου οι ήπειροι διαλύονται και πάνε ακυβέρνητες."
Παραθέτω δυο μόνο προτασούλες από το βιβλίο γιατί το επιθυμώ και γιατί θέλω να τις διαβάζω και να τις ξαναδιαβάζω:
"Άπαξ και καταλάβει κανείς τη θεωρία της διαρκούς επανάστασης,πως να ζήσει,για ποιο λόγο να ζήσει,αν όχι για έναν υψηλό στόχο? "
"...η χειρότερη περιπέτεια,η ανέλπιδη περιπέτεια,είναι το να επιζητείς την ακινησία σε μια εποχή όπου οι ήπειροι διαλύονται και πάνε ακυβέρνητες."
August 11, 2021
Η τυχαία δολοφονία ενός μέλους της Κεντρικής Επιτροπής οδηγεί στην κατασκευή μερικών ακόμα προαποφασισμένων ενόχων. Ένα μυθιστόρημα για τη σταλινική τρομοκρατία, την προδοσία του οράματος της οκτωβριανής επανάστασης και το ζοφερό μέλλον που προδιέγραφε η επερχόμενη παγκόσμια πολεμική σύγκρουση.
December 28, 2017
Fictional or not, this is probably the best account of the terror I've ever read. Serge's rendering of Stalin ('the Chief') is nothing less than astonishing. For all the monumental sweep of his subject matter, his style is often that of a miniaturist. We intimately experience the tortured idealism of the old Bolsheviks; whose loyalty to the revolution, despite everything, led them to contemplate falsely confessing to treason as the most honorable course of action. Against the infamous condescension of posterity, Serge lays bare the tragic dimension of history as it's being lived.
*
Speaking of posterity, Susan Sontag's introduction makes for a very interesting species of twenty-first century ideology. To give credit where it's due, she's obviously a wonderful writer. Moreover, a writer with impeccable taste in other writers. Any book she ever went to bat for is definitely still worth reading, and on the most important point here she is correct. Comrade Tulayev is certainly a masterpiece of literature.
However, I fear she does a good deal to co-opt Serge, press him into ideological service he might well have abhorred: "For Serge - to this extent he agrees with Trotsky - the revolution was betrayed. He is not saying it was a tragic illusion, a catastrophe for the Russian people from the beginning. (But might Serge have said this had he lived another decade or more? Probably)"
That parenthetical 'probably' is rather odd. Serge died in '47. It's all idle speculation, but I can't for the life of me accept that Serge would have taken the side of the US in the Cold War. Unlike Sontag (apparently) he would have been aware of the brutality with which the advanced capitalist countries crush socialism any time it gains a toehold in their periphery. The US and Britain funding the whites to increase human suffering and prolong a disastrous civil war was very much of the same cloth as Vietnam and countless other cases.
Another odd passage:
First of all, this evades the central irony: that the Soviet Union did in fact defeat the Nazi regime. This is the main reason so many were reluctant to criticize it. Those who confidently claim that Hitler and Stalin were morally indistinguishable (or even, as some have it, that Stalin was worse), ought to be aware of wading into some awfully queasy territory. Is it then a matter of indifference who won the second world war?
Nonethless, Sontag is right to be scandalized that so many intellectuals in the thirties found ways to deny or minimize Stalin's terror as it was happening. Today such apologetics are rightly regarded as morally indefensible and absurd. She then adds that intellectuals these days tell themselves other lies, deny other obvious truths, but curiously does not tell us what these truths might be. Well, I would have liked to know.
I can't help but think she's guilty of a kind of slippage common to bourgeois intellectuals after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Stalinist terror becomes a synecdoche not just for the Soviet Union for its entire 70 year history, but for any attempt to build socialism, transcend or overthrow capitalism. There is no alternative.
When thinking of obvious truths that are frequently denied by intellectuals, one that comes to mind is that the fall of the Soviet Union actually was not a victory of freedom over tyranny; in fact it was an unmitigated catastrophe for the vast majority of its inhabitants. Tens of millions of people plunged into poverty overnight. Demographers estimate millions of excess deaths in the nineties alone. As an unabashed elitist, Sontag may simply not have cared much about anyone but other intellectuals like herself. Still, I do have to wonder what she would think were she alive to see the truly pathetic state of the world today. Would it be enough to make her take back or question her previous triumphalism about 'freedom'?
*
Speaking of posterity, Susan Sontag's introduction makes for a very interesting species of twenty-first century ideology. To give credit where it's due, she's obviously a wonderful writer. Moreover, a writer with impeccable taste in other writers. Any book she ever went to bat for is definitely still worth reading, and on the most important point here she is correct. Comrade Tulayev is certainly a masterpiece of literature.
However, I fear she does a good deal to co-opt Serge, press him into ideological service he might well have abhorred: "For Serge - to this extent he agrees with Trotsky - the revolution was betrayed. He is not saying it was a tragic illusion, a catastrophe for the Russian people from the beginning. (But might Serge have said this had he lived another decade or more? Probably)"
That parenthetical 'probably' is rather odd. Serge died in '47. It's all idle speculation, but I can't for the life of me accept that Serge would have taken the side of the US in the Cold War. Unlike Sontag (apparently) he would have been aware of the brutality with which the advanced capitalist countries crush socialism any time it gains a toehold in their periphery. The US and Britain funding the whites to increase human suffering and prolong a disastrous civil war was very much of the same cloth as Vietnam and countless other cases.
Another odd passage:
Those decades of turning a blind eye to what went on it the Communist regimes, specifically the conviction that to criticize the Soviet Union was to give aid and comfort to Fascists and warmongers, seem almost incomprehensible now. In the early twenty-first century, we have moved on to other illusions - other lies that intelligent people with good intentions and humane politics tell themselves and their supporters in order not to give aid and comfort to their enemies.
First of all, this evades the central irony: that the Soviet Union did in fact defeat the Nazi regime. This is the main reason so many were reluctant to criticize it. Those who confidently claim that Hitler and Stalin were morally indistinguishable (or even, as some have it, that Stalin was worse), ought to be aware of wading into some awfully queasy territory. Is it then a matter of indifference who won the second world war?
Nonethless, Sontag is right to be scandalized that so many intellectuals in the thirties found ways to deny or minimize Stalin's terror as it was happening. Today such apologetics are rightly regarded as morally indefensible and absurd. She then adds that intellectuals these days tell themselves other lies, deny other obvious truths, but curiously does not tell us what these truths might be. Well, I would have liked to know.
I can't help but think she's guilty of a kind of slippage common to bourgeois intellectuals after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Stalinist terror becomes a synecdoche not just for the Soviet Union for its entire 70 year history, but for any attempt to build socialism, transcend or overthrow capitalism. There is no alternative.
When thinking of obvious truths that are frequently denied by intellectuals, one that comes to mind is that the fall of the Soviet Union actually was not a victory of freedom over tyranny; in fact it was an unmitigated catastrophe for the vast majority of its inhabitants. Tens of millions of people plunged into poverty overnight. Demographers estimate millions of excess deaths in the nineties alone. As an unabashed elitist, Sontag may simply not have cared much about anyone but other intellectuals like herself. Still, I do have to wonder what she would think were she alive to see the truly pathetic state of the world today. Would it be enough to make her take back or question her previous triumphalism about 'freedom'?
Read
June 17, 2024Another book with bookends. What goes around, comes around. Communism -- great in theory, but theories and reality make strange bedfellows. There's a line in here I have to find. Something about revolution eating its children. Think of the French, then the Russian, then the Seven Seas.
Now back to Susan Sontag's Introduction, which should have been an afterword, given that it gives things away.
Now back to Susan Sontag's Introduction, which should have been an afterword, given that it gives things away.
January 9, 2009
One of the best novels coming from Serge. Its pretty epic in its scope and enmeshes the lives of a lot of individuals persecuted by Stalinism and the Great Terror of the 1930's. For me, Serge has this kind of 'materialist mysticism', which makes the book a very deep novel. Great read.
August 22, 2020
Victor Serge and his son Vlady Kibalchich arrived in Mexico in September 1941. The Mexican government (truthful to its tradition of hospitality towards refugees) had offered them political asylum visas. They had left Marseille six months earlier on a ship where among the passengers were André Breton and Claude Levi-Strauss. It was here in Mexico City that Serge finished L’affaire Toulaév, which he had begun writing in Paris in 1940. For him, the novel was his best and most important work. The six years he lived here (which would be the last of his life) turned out to be quite productive for his writing.
Victor Serge, Benjamin Péret, Remedios Varo, and André Breton in 1941
When in the middle of the novel a certain Fleischman is named the principal investigator of the assassination of comrade Toulaév (Tulayev in English) a government official, the investigation already covered one hundred and fifty files (with thousands of pages) and included a number of suspects from within the government. The incident had shaken the political system and the bureaucratic institutions in the pyramidal organization of the party right on their foundations. The totalitarian regime, shocked by its inability to resolve the case, seemed to crumble as the days went by.
The story opens with two characters, that will only come back in the last chapter, giving the novel a formal sense of closeness. Kostia is cited in the very first line. His place is crucial in the genesis of the plot. After Toulaév is murdered, the following chapters center in the portraits of the officers that were believed to have been involved in the crime. As they are all arrested and questioned, a web-like inquiry and supposed conspiracy theory with ramifications in France and Spain is revealed. An atmosphere of lies, fear and distrust prevails throughout.
The book offers a glimpse at the imperfect Soviet system, giving detailed descriptions of the unjust procedures and mistakes of an oppressive apparatus that could easily turn against its own people. Serge is a precursor of a literary genre that would later find in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn its most vehement supporter. But the novel is not just a description of a faulty structure, it is also a fascinating tour of espionage, intrigue and adventure that is a page turning experience similar to the best Le Carré or Greene.
Serge, a revolutionary Marxist throughout his life, died in Mexico City, as he entered a taxi in November 1947. There were those who thought he had been poisoned by the intelligence service of the secret police under Stalin’s orders. It is important to point out that Leon Trotsky who had arrived in Mexico in 1939 after being deported from Norway, had been killed in his home in the southern district of Coyoacan in August of 1940. The whole assassination plot is narrated in the superb historic novel El hombre que amaba a los perros by the Cuban writer Leonardo Padura.
At the end of the novel, the following places and dates are cited:
Paris (Pré-Saint-Gervais), Agen, Marseille, Ciudad Trujillo (République dominicaine), Mexico, 1940-1942.
There is a library in the historic downtown section of Mexico City that has a fabulous collection of murals painted by Vlady, Victor Serge’s son. The building, originally an 18th Century religious oratory, was made a library in 1970. The monumental works cover 2000 square meters and took eight years to complete. Following his father’s footsteps, the main theme of the murals is insurgency, under the title Revolutions and Elements. The muralist tradition was an important part of the Mexican art scene in the mid 20th century with figures like Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
Vladimir Victorovich Kibalchich Rusakov died in Mexico in 2005.
Victor Serge, Benjamin Péret, Remedios Varo, and André Breton in 1941When in the middle of the novel a certain Fleischman is named the principal investigator of the assassination of comrade Toulaév (Tulayev in English) a government official, the investigation already covered one hundred and fifty files (with thousands of pages) and included a number of suspects from within the government. The incident had shaken the political system and the bureaucratic institutions in the pyramidal organization of the party right on their foundations. The totalitarian regime, shocked by its inability to resolve the case, seemed to crumble as the days went by.
Si j'ai commis un crime presque sans y penser, ce dont je ne peux pas me rendre clairement compte car nous vivons à une époque où le meurtre de l'homme par l'homme est chose coutumière et sans doute est-ce la nécessité de la dialectique historique et sans doute le pouvoir des travailleurs qui verse tant de sang le verse-t-il pour le bien des hommes...
If I have committed a crime almost without knowing it which I am not sure of because we live in a period where the murder of man by man is an ordinary thing and no doubt it is a necessity of the dialectics of history and no doubt the rule of the workers which sheds so much blood, sheds it for the good of mankind...
The story opens with two characters, that will only come back in the last chapter, giving the novel a formal sense of closeness. Kostia is cited in the very first line. His place is crucial in the genesis of the plot. After Toulaév is murdered, the following chapters center in the portraits of the officers that were believed to have been involved in the crime. As they are all arrested and questioned, a web-like inquiry and supposed conspiracy theory with ramifications in France and Spain is revealed. An atmosphere of lies, fear and distrust prevails throughout.
The book offers a glimpse at the imperfect Soviet system, giving detailed descriptions of the unjust procedures and mistakes of an oppressive apparatus that could easily turn against its own people. Serge is a precursor of a literary genre that would later find in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn its most vehement supporter. But the novel is not just a description of a faulty structure, it is also a fascinating tour of espionage, intrigue and adventure that is a page turning experience similar to the best Le Carré or Greene.
Serge, a revolutionary Marxist throughout his life, died in Mexico City, as he entered a taxi in November 1947. There were those who thought he had been poisoned by the intelligence service of the secret police under Stalin’s orders. It is important to point out that Leon Trotsky who had arrived in Mexico in 1939 after being deported from Norway, had been killed in his home in the southern district of Coyoacan in August of 1940. The whole assassination plot is narrated in the superb historic novel El hombre que amaba a los perros by the Cuban writer Leonardo Padura.
At the end of the novel, the following places and dates are cited:
Paris (Pré-Saint-Gervais), Agen, Marseille, Ciudad Trujillo (République dominicaine), Mexico, 1940-1942.
There is a library in the historic downtown section of Mexico City that has a fabulous collection of murals painted by Vlady, Victor Serge’s son. The building, originally an 18th Century religious oratory, was made a library in 1970. The monumental works cover 2000 square meters and took eight years to complete. Following his father’s footsteps, the main theme of the murals is insurgency, under the title Revolutions and Elements. The muralist tradition was an important part of the Mexican art scene in the mid 20th century with figures like Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
Vladimir Victorovich Kibalchich Rusakov died in Mexico in 2005.
Read
September 3, 2023This exceeded my expectations in every way. Since it has been several years since I've read Serge's Memoirs of a Revolutionary, I was under the false impression that a great revolutionary could not possibly make for a great artist, and I'm happy to admit that I couldn't be more wrong. Until I read one better, I can understand why this book is held up as the definitive portrait in fiction of the often-insane atmosphere and life of the 30's Purge-era Soviet Union on the eve of WWII. Indeed it would be difficult to find someone who would be more well-placed to write about it as truthfully and fearlessly and as in close proximity of the events as they happened. "Panoramic" may be cliché to describe novels now, but in each of this book's tightly constructed 10 chapters (Chapter 7 can be read as an excellent short story itself about the return of an exiled Old Bolshevik from Siberia) we are treated to an interesting cross section of Soviet society in the 30s, from senior Party functionaries and prosecutors to the lowly worker and exiled Trotskyist and indeed even Stalin himself. If there's anything that may interest the general reader, it's the surprisingly nuanced portrait of "the Chief" as he's described in this novel. Serge, who opposed him ideologically in the USSR, gives him plenty of lines in the book that ring with authenticity and is never tempted to portray him as the Devil himself. For the briefest of moments one is almost tempted to feel pity for that most isolated of individuals, as he is just a man, a man with absolutely no room left in himself to be one. Serge was too much of an individualist to be a partisan of the likes of Bukharin and Trotsky either. Maybe it's because he himself knew all these figures too well personally to put them on a pedestal after one has seen all their human flaws up close.
Somehow in this book that is in turns hugely readable, shocking, darkly humorous, and depressing, there are still passages that managed to astonish me with their beauty. And since this is a book written in the early 40s from a keen and cosmopolitan European, there is just enough interesting literary experimentation in here to set this book apart stylistically and structurally from the dull "Soviet Realist" novels written in the same period. It also could not be further from a pulpy whodunnit or Agatha Christie novel. As Stalin said to the character Kondratiev in one of the best conversations in the book: "Always the novelist!" is Serge.
Somehow in this book that is in turns hugely readable, shocking, darkly humorous, and depressing, there are still passages that managed to astonish me with their beauty. And since this is a book written in the early 40s from a keen and cosmopolitan European, there is just enough interesting literary experimentation in here to set this book apart stylistically and structurally from the dull "Soviet Realist" novels written in the same period. It also could not be further from a pulpy whodunnit or Agatha Christie novel. As Stalin said to the character Kondratiev in one of the best conversations in the book: "Always the novelist!" is Serge.
April 1, 2020
I will leave it to those with literary tastes and insight to comment on this as a work of fiction. It was a fascinating book, however -- and a work of real merit. I have one complaint, but won't mention it, since it has something of a spoiler effect. On now to the Unforgiving Years...
On the second read, I still found this chilling, but often too long-winded...
On the second read, I still found this chilling, but often too long-winded...
December 23, 2012
If you've read both works, you can't talk about The Case of Comrade Tulayev without Koestler's Darkness at Noon. Both books, written by disaffected former Communists, and published within two years of each other, deal with the process of the revolution eating its children. Both books attempt to come to grips with the motivations of old guards revolutionaries who seemingly openly acquiesced with their own murder. Of course Darkness at Noon is much more widely known and widely read. There are pretty rational reasons for this that I won't get in to, but none of those reasons have to do with literary merit. In The Case of Comrade Tulayev, Serge accomplished everything that Koestler did, and perhaps more. Upon discovering Serge's novel, it's hard for the reader to resist the urge to dismiss Koestler's. Susan Sontag, in a way, falls prey to this urge in the introduction to this introduction.
However, I'm not sure how necessary it is to emphasize the merits of one book over the other. In fact, while the books seemingly have identical premises and ambitions, further exploration reveals stark differences. I'd argue that the two books relationship is symbiotic, they serve as a exemplary companions to each other. In a way, Serge finishes the thought that Koestler started in Darkness at Noon. If I remember the details correctly, Darkness at Noon takes place at the beginning of the purges, and concerns the history and psychology of one character, Rubashov, a Bukharin stand-in. Comrade Tulayev has a much wider lens.
Serge focuses on around half a dozen characters, each with different backgrounds and different reactions. There's the state security functionary, the provincial peasant turned revolutionary leader, the old party ideologue, and the almost-forgotten political prisoner. They all have their differences, and Serge exploits these differences to meditate on the perversion of the ideal, and the loyalty men feel to old ideas even as a warped form of the same threaten oblivion. Furthermore, The Case of Comrade Tulayev takes place well into the purge of the party. These characters, in a way, are familiar with Darkness at Noon, Rubashov's death is firmly in the past at the opening of Serge's work. Most of these men know with a sense of creeping fatalism what is coming to get them.
Moreover, the novel doesn't focus on the victims of Stalinist paranoia alone. Serge bookends the novel with two chapters examining the the characters behind the titular case, the assassin of Comrade Tulayev and his neighbor, who bought the gun in order to kill Stalin, but found himself unable to act when presented with the golden opportunity. Serge writes with understanding about the cogs of oppression, the functionaries who are attempting to stage an exhibition of guilt that they know is false, but must treat as if it were of the utmost truth. Even the Stalin stand-in is depicted with some empathy. For my money, the scene where the old veteran has to dance the wire of explaining to his old comrade "the boss", the insanity of what is going on, without going too far and sealing his doom is one of the most thrilling pieces of political fiction I've ever read. The penultimate chapter even deals with the legacy of Stalinism on the future generation of young Russians.
Darkness at Noon is the tale of how one man reconciles himself with betrayal and sacrifices himself for a perverted vestige of a dream. The Case of Comrade Tulayev does something similar, but it is also concerned about a broader scope. The two years follwing the publication of Koestler's novel were when Serge did most of his work on Comrade Tulayev. Those two years were not good one's for the Soviet Union. For much of those years the effects of Stalin's paranoia must seem exponentially more cataclysmic than they even do today. Serge may have thought that he was writing Leninism obituary. The Case of Comrade Tulayev reads as a prelude to obliteration. Although Russian Marxism would survive for another half century, The Case of Comrade Tulayev remains an engaging, thoughtful, and often breathtakingly (Serge's prose!)* beautiful account of a people dealing with a reign of scientific insanity.
*Not that I have anything to compare it to, but this edition reads as an extraordinary translation.
However, I'm not sure how necessary it is to emphasize the merits of one book over the other. In fact, while the books seemingly have identical premises and ambitions, further exploration reveals stark differences. I'd argue that the two books relationship is symbiotic, they serve as a exemplary companions to each other. In a way, Serge finishes the thought that Koestler started in Darkness at Noon. If I remember the details correctly, Darkness at Noon takes place at the beginning of the purges, and concerns the history and psychology of one character, Rubashov, a Bukharin stand-in. Comrade Tulayev has a much wider lens.
Serge focuses on around half a dozen characters, each with different backgrounds and different reactions. There's the state security functionary, the provincial peasant turned revolutionary leader, the old party ideologue, and the almost-forgotten political prisoner. They all have their differences, and Serge exploits these differences to meditate on the perversion of the ideal, and the loyalty men feel to old ideas even as a warped form of the same threaten oblivion. Furthermore, The Case of Comrade Tulayev takes place well into the purge of the party. These characters, in a way, are familiar with Darkness at Noon, Rubashov's death is firmly in the past at the opening of Serge's work. Most of these men know with a sense of creeping fatalism what is coming to get them.
Moreover, the novel doesn't focus on the victims of Stalinist paranoia alone. Serge bookends the novel with two chapters examining the the characters behind the titular case, the assassin of Comrade Tulayev and his neighbor, who bought the gun in order to kill Stalin, but found himself unable to act when presented with the golden opportunity. Serge writes with understanding about the cogs of oppression, the functionaries who are attempting to stage an exhibition of guilt that they know is false, but must treat as if it were of the utmost truth. Even the Stalin stand-in is depicted with some empathy. For my money, the scene where the old veteran has to dance the wire of explaining to his old comrade "the boss", the insanity of what is going on, without going too far and sealing his doom is one of the most thrilling pieces of political fiction I've ever read. The penultimate chapter even deals with the legacy of Stalinism on the future generation of young Russians.
Darkness at Noon is the tale of how one man reconciles himself with betrayal and sacrifices himself for a perverted vestige of a dream. The Case of Comrade Tulayev does something similar, but it is also concerned about a broader scope. The two years follwing the publication of Koestler's novel were when Serge did most of his work on Comrade Tulayev. Those two years were not good one's for the Soviet Union. For much of those years the effects of Stalin's paranoia must seem exponentially more cataclysmic than they even do today. Serge may have thought that he was writing Leninism obituary. The Case of Comrade Tulayev reads as a prelude to obliteration. Although Russian Marxism would survive for another half century, The Case of Comrade Tulayev remains an engaging, thoughtful, and often breathtakingly (Serge's prose!)* beautiful account of a people dealing with a reign of scientific insanity.
*Not that I have anything to compare it to, but this edition reads as an extraordinary translation.
November 1, 2013
This is supposed to be a classic about life under Stalin. I very much enjoyed those sections of the novel that describes places and scenes. The author's words draw a picture that you clearly see, be it the feel of the air on a frosty night or a street in Moscow. Likewise, I found the Communists’ maneuvering and killing during the Spanish Civil War interesting.
What I didn't like were the character portrayals. For me it felt that each character, and there are quite a number, are put into the story to deliver a message. That message is clear - life in Stalinist Russia was absurd. Knocks that life dealt you were totally beyond your control. Tulayev is killed at the beginning of the book and the murder has to be found......but not really! Everybody BUT the real killer was was accused and wiped out. The death of Tulayev was simply a great excuse for wiping out inconvenient opponents, people with opposing opinions or any imagined enemy. Yes, this does reflect life during the reign, but the numerous examples hammered in the point excessively.
Good writing, but you can sum up in one sentence the message that is being delivered. The characters are all flat and two dimensional.
The narration of the audiobook by Gregory Linington was fine. It is not his fault that the story was lacking.
What I didn't like were the character portrayals. For me it felt that each character, and there are quite a number, are put into the story to deliver a message. That message is clear - life in Stalinist Russia was absurd. Knocks that life dealt you were totally beyond your control. Tulayev is killed at the beginning of the book and the murder has to be found......but not really! Everybody BUT the real killer was was accused and wiped out. The death of Tulayev was simply a great excuse for wiping out inconvenient opponents, people with opposing opinions or any imagined enemy. Yes, this does reflect life during the reign, but the numerous examples hammered in the point excessively.
Good writing, but you can sum up in one sentence the message that is being delivered. The characters are all flat and two dimensional.
The narration of the audiobook by Gregory Linington was fine. It is not his fault that the story was lacking.
May 13, 2011
If there ever was a book to reinforce my father's grim warnings about "damn pinkos", here it is. Seeing as I've never lived in Stalin-era Soviet Union, I hesitate to mention how realistic this story is, but Jesus...Reads more like a short story collection, with each chapter serving as a mini-conflict for a specific character, all loosely connected around the random killing of the title comrade. If you need immediate gratification, just read chapter 4 ("To Build is to Perish") -- so scary to see what happens when a dimwit is given an insane amount of quick power.
May 10, 2020
Ursula Le Guin wrote an essay called, What Makes a Story, which compares stories to running, walking, dancing, a house, steak and tamales. I love her metaphors as a way to talk about stories.
In the essay, Le Guin states: "A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end." This comes from Aristotle, and it splendidly describes a great many stories from the European narrative tradition, but it doesn't describe all stories. It's a recipe for steak, it's not a recipe for tamales.
The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge is not steak. When I read steak stories, I’m clear with my expectations of the story, which may lead to lazy reading. By this I mean, if I don’t understand what’s happening, the story’s structure helps carry me through. I know what to expect. If I stick with the story, I know that the protagonist will face a series of challenges until he reaches a major confrontation. I know this sounds silly, but you can follow along, even if you don’t understand everything that is happening.
The Case of Comrade Tulayev is a series of short stories that tell a larger truth. To tell the story, we travel through a political machine that is far reaching, random and terrifying. Because I’ve grown up eating steak, I struggled to follow where the book was taking me. I would have benefited from more prep work on my part. Simple things - character names, locations, general plot points. But I have to admit, my internet searches were not very helpful. Instead, I started and restarted the chapter, To Build is To Perish, 4 times before I fell into the rhythm of the chapter. This is a murder mystery relying on dramatic irony. The reader knows the murderer, but no one else does and even more disconcerting even if they know, they can not care. To care is to put yourself at risk. Definitely on the possible - re-read list.
"We are going forward, aren't we?"
In the essay, Le Guin states: "A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end." This comes from Aristotle, and it splendidly describes a great many stories from the European narrative tradition, but it doesn't describe all stories. It's a recipe for steak, it's not a recipe for tamales.
The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge is not steak. When I read steak stories, I’m clear with my expectations of the story, which may lead to lazy reading. By this I mean, if I don’t understand what’s happening, the story’s structure helps carry me through. I know what to expect. If I stick with the story, I know that the protagonist will face a series of challenges until he reaches a major confrontation. I know this sounds silly, but you can follow along, even if you don’t understand everything that is happening.
The Case of Comrade Tulayev is a series of short stories that tell a larger truth. To tell the story, we travel through a political machine that is far reaching, random and terrifying. Because I’ve grown up eating steak, I struggled to follow where the book was taking me. I would have benefited from more prep work on my part. Simple things - character names, locations, general plot points. But I have to admit, my internet searches were not very helpful. Instead, I started and restarted the chapter, To Build is To Perish, 4 times before I fell into the rhythm of the chapter. This is a murder mystery relying on dramatic irony. The reader knows the murderer, but no one else does and even more disconcerting even if they know, they can not care. To care is to put yourself at risk. Definitely on the possible - re-read list.
"We are going forward, aren't we?"
January 20, 2022
I’ve read quite a bit about Stalin’s purges, but this was the first novel I’ve encountered which deals with the subject. It is written with tremendous verve and it all feels astonishingly authentic, especially the scenes in Spain during the civil war, and the description of Siberian exile. There is one extraordinary scene where the old Bolshevik who is the hero of the narrative is locked into a cattle wagon with a gang of starved teenage boys who, like him, are victims of the satanic system. The older man defuses the incipient violence of the situation by carefully sharing out his food to his companions, and the description of the ensuing conversations is powerful in its intensity, right up to the end when the starved and shivering boys – who could easily have slit the throat of the older man on first meeting – end up falling asleep huddled for warmth around the one they now call “uncle”. It is a moving scene – not least because of the tragic way all of these victims still revere the architect of their misfortune, and the whole rotten system that causes their suffering.
This Stockholm Syndrome aspect of the novel is the one that gave me a lot of food for thought. I don’t want to make direct comparisons with the world we are now living in, early in 2022 – there would be something obscene about that when the crimes of Stalinism were so much worse than anything we are now enduring. And yet, when I think of the lies we have been fed by our leaders in the West over the last few years, and how the response of so many people when their freedoms are removed is to beg for more restrictions on their liberty, it is not so difficult to understand why millions cried with grief when Stalin died.
This is an important and necessary book but also – inevitably – a sombre and depressing one. Also, everyone in it is still a committed leftist. Susan Sontag, in the introduction, suggests that this is why the author never got the recognition he deserved: people on the right disliked him as an unrepentant leftist, and people on the left saw him as a traitor: “to criticise the Soviet regime seemed to be to give comfort to Fascists and warmongers.” I myself had some ambiguity about the fates of some of the victims: the character Makeyev, for example, is the worst possible example of Bolshevik violence and malice. Does he get what he deserves? Part of me feels he does, and part of me feels little sympathy for those who went to their deaths still theorising that their sacrifice was justified for the sake of the system. But Makeyev is an extreme case.
There is little or no physical torture in the book. This is unhistorical when we now know that the most brutal and extreme forms of physical torture were routine. As both torturers and victims knew full well that the victims were innocent and therefore any confessions worthless, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the entire charade was simply carried out because of a perverted desire to cause suffering for the sake of it – the same impulse to evil shared by some of the worst Roman emperors (if Suetonius is to be believed). But, even though the absence of torture is unhistorical, I’m glad there is none here: it would pile Pelion on Ossa. Serge lays bare the sick psychodrama of Stalinism very effectively without it.
This Stockholm Syndrome aspect of the novel is the one that gave me a lot of food for thought. I don’t want to make direct comparisons with the world we are now living in, early in 2022 – there would be something obscene about that when the crimes of Stalinism were so much worse than anything we are now enduring. And yet, when I think of the lies we have been fed by our leaders in the West over the last few years, and how the response of so many people when their freedoms are removed is to beg for more restrictions on their liberty, it is not so difficult to understand why millions cried with grief when Stalin died.
This is an important and necessary book but also – inevitably – a sombre and depressing one. Also, everyone in it is still a committed leftist. Susan Sontag, in the introduction, suggests that this is why the author never got the recognition he deserved: people on the right disliked him as an unrepentant leftist, and people on the left saw him as a traitor: “to criticise the Soviet regime seemed to be to give comfort to Fascists and warmongers.” I myself had some ambiguity about the fates of some of the victims: the character Makeyev, for example, is the worst possible example of Bolshevik violence and malice. Does he get what he deserves? Part of me feels he does, and part of me feels little sympathy for those who went to their deaths still theorising that their sacrifice was justified for the sake of the system. But Makeyev is an extreme case.
There is little or no physical torture in the book. This is unhistorical when we now know that the most brutal and extreme forms of physical torture were routine. As both torturers and victims knew full well that the victims were innocent and therefore any confessions worthless, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the entire charade was simply carried out because of a perverted desire to cause suffering for the sake of it – the same impulse to evil shared by some of the worst Roman emperors (if Suetonius is to be believed). But, even though the absence of torture is unhistorical, I’m glad there is none here: it would pile Pelion on Ossa. Serge lays bare the sick psychodrama of Stalinism very effectively without it.
June 20, 2023
It wasn’t even his gun; somehow it had escaped confiscation. His friend across the filthy partition had been thinking suicidal thoughts, so our hero had taken the shiny American Colt revolver off him and found it in his pocket. As he walked down the dark laneway, an anonymous CP bigshot was dropped off in front of him: fine warm clothes, a car and driver, smoking an expensive cigarette; obviously on his way to meet a girlfriend. Without thinking, he pulled out the gun and shot him dead.
Thus begins the strange case of Comrade Tulayev, an investigation into the conspiracy to assassinate a loyal member of the Central Committee. Many were interrogated. Three were tried and executed and this is the story of that investigation. If you want to know what it was like to live in Russia at the time of the terror, the purges, from Kolkhoz to the Kremlin, then this is the book to read.
But this is Russia and if there weren’t a deeper level, a third level, an investigation into the Russian soul, then it wouldn’t be Russian, would it? For all that I have read looking for insight into Russia, I was still surprised by this Russian I hadn’t read. How deep and how vast is that country, that soul.
Brilliant introduction by Susan Sontag.
Thus begins the strange case of Comrade Tulayev, an investigation into the conspiracy to assassinate a loyal member of the Central Committee. Many were interrogated. Three were tried and executed and this is the story of that investigation. If you want to know what it was like to live in Russia at the time of the terror, the purges, from Kolkhoz to the Kremlin, then this is the book to read.
But this is Russia and if there weren’t a deeper level, a third level, an investigation into the Russian soul, then it wouldn’t be Russian, would it? For all that I have read looking for insight into Russia, I was still surprised by this Russian I hadn’t read. How deep and how vast is that country, that soul.
Brilliant introduction by Susan Sontag.
July 26, 2013
This is a fantastic book - hard to put down
It is set in the 1930s during Stalin's purges. It is a very atmospheric book, building up tension as lives are ingested, ground up and spat out of the mincer that was Stalin's Russia.
Similar in some ways to Koestlers Darkness at Noon, but less well known. I am glad I stumbled upon it.
It is set in the 1930s during Stalin's purges. It is a very atmospheric book, building up tension as lives are ingested, ground up and spat out of the mincer that was Stalin's Russia.
Similar in some ways to Koestlers Darkness at Noon, but less well known. I am glad I stumbled upon it.
December 14, 2017
„Jeder kommt an die Reihe, jeder auf seine Art.“ (S. 236)
Das Monster Sozialismus frisst sich selber auf: Täter, wenngleich meist gutgläubige Stützen des Regimes, werden Opfer von Stalins Säuberungen. Anfangs episodenhaft geschrieben, ergibt sich ein beeindruckend-beklemmendes Bild eines totalitären Staates.
Das Monster Sozialismus frisst sich selber auf: Täter, wenngleich meist gutgläubige Stützen des Regimes, werden Opfer von Stalins Säuberungen. Anfangs episodenhaft geschrieben, ergibt sich ein beeindruckend-beklemmendes Bild eines totalitären Staates.
June 26, 2020
At first I panned this book because I thought it was just a series of short stories connected by a single event, the murder of comrade Tulayev. But I was wrong. While each chapter is the story of an individual affected by the murder, the real story here is about what happens to people when the political party demands total loyalty. "Everyone belongs to the Party," that is what one central character says, and it says everything. Not friends, not family, not other loved ones are permitted to come between you and the Party. That's the real story here - the ubiquity of the Party and what it demands of you. This is a book to read twice.
April 23, 2012
After the unmitigated rave by Susan Sontag that opens this book I expected to like it more than I did. I won't say 'much more than', because for most part I enjoyed it, but barely a few days after finishing I seemed to have retained little of it, and for a book that purports to examine such weighty subjects this is troubling. The problem wasn't that it was difficult; for the first half at least the pages flew by, helped along by a sense of great things afoot just beyond the surface. If this translation is anything to go by, Serge obviously wrote quickly, and this sense of urgency and of riding a wave of inspiration propels us through a narrative that is anything but dour despite the events it describes. Lacking the unrelenting weight of his contemporary Andrei Platonov, Serge's world is all twinkling and briefly-glimpsed scenes of people or places caught mid-destruction/transformation: a political prisoner races across the tundra under guard; a Russian agent lands in the chaotic midst of the Spanish Civil War; the 'Chief' (Stalin) himself watches powerlessly as his regime consumes itself. As I say, for a while this is all pretty exciting, until somewhere around the mid-point it dawns on you that for all its shimmering and sense of the Earth inexorably turning Serge's novel is essentially static. Some of it's great: the psychology of the key characters early on and the descriptions of places (small town, countryside, Moscow on a snowy night), and for as long as the deluge of words keeps coming it's pretty compelling. But I dunno, isn't there a sense in which Serge is just too much an outsider to it all? A reporter on assignment? Don't get me wrong, his CV is impressive: I love that he's so 'international' and he certainly seems to have had the courage of his convictions. But in writing of Russians compelled and constrained by the revolution and their love of their country, isn't he just slightly over-reaching? One reviewer questions the constant assertions of Serge's characters that they would die for the revolution, and I feel that too. At first I wondered was it just my sated capitalist apathy, but now I think I see the cause: it's that Serge, for all his courage, was never really the type to die for a party or country; he was too skeptical, too ever-changing, too outside of any one nation. All of which are great - excellent - qualities, but in tying himself to Russia he almost seems to be constraining himself - wishing that he could escape those admirable qualities. And at the same time, while his characters behave like cogs in a machine, some unspoken part of him seems to say, 'But why don't they just pack up and leave?' - which, after all, is what Serge did. Perhaps it's this that gives Tulayev a sense of frustrating incompleteness. Whatever political revelations it contains are (necessarily) dated; yes, at the time Serge may have been heroically denouncing facts that remained secret to the majority, but those are open secrets now and his heroism has no bearing on an assessment of his work as literature. To be fair, explicitly political fiction is rarely my bag, but still I can't help but feel Serge's true talents are obscured here by his political intentions. It's when he's lyrical and full of wonder at stars and people and forests that I start to love him, but there's just too little of all that here.
February 14, 2019
Que desilusão... :'(
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