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Victor Serge 1939

Victor Serge and the IVth International


Source: Victor Serge & Leon Trotsky, La Lutte Contre le Stalinisme. Maspero, Paris, 1977
Translated for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor in 2005
Authors: The Editors of the Bulletin of the Russian Opposition, in “Quatrième Internationale,” April 1939


Certain of our comrades ask us what Victor Serge's relations are with the IVth International. We are forced to answer that they are adversarial. Since arriving overseas, Victor Serge has not ceased to agitate; his attitude can only be defined as one of "agitation". On not one single question has he exposed a clear, well-defined position, either as a proposal or a refutation. On the contrary, he has at all times supported those who have left the IVth International in whatever direction, right or left.

He abruptly announced his membership in POUM in a letter, while having made no attempt to respond to our criticism of POUM as a centrist organization that was playing a sad role. Victor Serge flirted with the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists despite the treasonous role they played in the Spanish Revolution. Behind the scenes he supported the pitiful hero of "left” trade unionism Sneevliet, while all the while having decided not to openly defend the policies of Dutch opportunism. At the same time, Victor Serge on several occasions repeated that his divergences with us were only of a “secondary” character. To the question openly posed as to why in this case he collaborated, not with the IVth international, but with its worst enemies, Victor Serge was not able to give an answer. All of this has removed all logic from his personal “politics” and has transformed it into a series of personal schemes, if not intrigues.

If Victor Serge now still speaks of his sympathy for the IVth International it’s in exactly in the same way as Vereeken, Molinier, Sneevliet, Maslow, etc, who have in view not the real International, but an International in accordance with their imagination, in their image and resembling them, and which is necessary to them in order to hide their opportunistic or adventurist policies. Our International truly acts, and has nothing in common with this imaginary International. And neither the Russian Section nor the IVth International as a whole take the least responsibility for the politics of Victor Serge.

 


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Last updated on 22.04.2005