Serge V. Year one of the Russian Revolution

Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972 — 447 p. — ISBN: 0 7139 0135 7. Translated by P. Sedgwick."It is often said" wrote Victor Serge, "that the germ of all Stalinism was in Bolshevism at its beginning". Bolshevism also contained many other germs and this book, an eye-witness account, shows the many germs, the many new possibilities, that were present as a result of the workers' revolution of 1917. While Serge reveals the forces that were to produce the Stalinist dictatorship, he also shows how this was far from inevitable. For in the first year of the Russian revolution, the tremendous energy, enthusiasm and creativity of the working class was the motive force behind the first attempt to organize a socialist society. Brimming with the honesty and passionate conviction for which he has become famous, Victor Serge’s account of the first year of the Russian Revolution - through all of its achievements and challenges - captures both the heroism of the mass upsurge that gave birth to soviet democracy, and the crippling circumstances that began to chip away at its historic gains. Year One of the Russian Revolution is Serge’s attempt to defend the early days of the revolution against those, like Stalin, who would claim its legacy as justification for the repression of dissent within Russia.Editor's Introduction.From Serfdom to Proletarian Revolution.
The Insurrection of 25 October 1917.
The Urban Middle Classes against the Proletariat.
The First Flames of the Civil War: The Constituent Assembly.
Brest-Litovsk.
The Truce and the Great Retrenchment.
The Famine and the Czechoslovak Intervention.
The July-August Crisis.
The Terror and the Will to Victory.
The German Revolution.
War Communism.Editorial Postscript: The Allied Part in the Czechoslovak Intervention.Maps.