The Case of Comrade Tulayev [Paperback]

Victor Serge (Author), Roger Trask (Author, Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1993

A murder on a cold Moscow night. Random killing or conspiracy? From the wastes of Siberia to war-torn Spain, individuals are drawn together by their mutual links with the dead Tulayev. Now available in English for the first time in over 20 years, this classic novel - the best ever written on the show trials and purges in Stalin's Russia - is an unsurpassed exposition of individual behaviour under tyranny. Serge uses fictional form in order to penetrate the inner motivations of those caught up in the purges both executioners and victims skillfully blending individual tragedy with historical disaster. Has there been a plot to kill a person, or to erase the legacy of an entire revolution? Serge himself insisted, 'this novel belongs entirely to the domain of fiction,' yet it remains an important source in understanding a turning point in twentieth-century history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A conspiracy unfolds against the backdrop of the show trials and purges of Stalin's Russia in this novel, available in English for the first time in 20 years.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Praise for the author. "Serge, perhaps, is the pure revolutionary at last, the incorruptible come again."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Journeyman Pr (July 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1851720529
• ISBN-13: 978-1851720521
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,215,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable book, well deserved of wider readership, July 29, 2004

By 

F. P. da Costa (Lisboa, Portugal) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Case of Comrade Tulayev (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

This book is a forgotten masterpiece! Its author, Victor Serge, was born in Belgium in 1890, of exiled russian parents, become an anarchist, went to revolutionary Russia in 1919 where he fought for the Bolsheviks, then became a left oppositionist to Stalin, being expelled from the Party, emprisioned and deported to Central Asia, then expelled from the Soviet Union in 1936 as a result of an international campaign. He died in Mexico in 1947. Of his many works, this novel is widely regarded as his fictional masterpiece, considered by many as the finest piece of literature ever written about the stalinist purges. This is indeed a wonderfully conceived work, with a structure that in a certain sense seems to mirror conditions under Stalin's reign: Tulayev, a member of the Central Committee of the USSR Communist Party is murdered by mere chance, in the first chapter, by an anonymous disgruntled moscovite youth. Then, in suceeding chapters, members of government, party funcionaries, and known oppositionists (all of them entirely innoced of this particular crime,) are charged of being part of a wide conspiracy, arrested and interrogated. As the action unfolds, the diverse independent characters become ever more connected, at least in the perpective of the officials in charge of the investigation, not a few of which end up also arrested as conspirators... After a number of life sentences for the supposed plot are passed on and duly executed, the true culprit discover by change, in the last chapter, the tragic dimensions his act has produced. The way the main investigator of the case deals with the anonymous letter he receives from the murderer is a telling parable of a totalitariam state contempt for the truth. All this evolved story is written with such a superb wit, and even brilliancy at times, that the reading of this book is made into an indelible experience.

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 20th century classic, June 17, 2005

By 

John Borland - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Case of Comrade Tulayev (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

It is almost criminal that a book this beautiful and this important is unread, and almost forgotten. Some of Serge's fiction barely qualifies as such, written more as an essay than as a novel. Not so this. It does have an unusual structure, with each chapter focusing on a seperate character caught up in an absurd -- but utterly terrifying -- purge under Stalin. Yet each character is exquisitely drawn, with even the most despicable people rendered human and sympathetic in some way. The scenes, from a snowy Moscow night to a vast Siberian plain to a Spanish civil war hideaway, are stunningly evoked.

This should be read with the best fiction of the last century, not consigned to the back shelves with cold war historical documents and Soviet oddities. Serge speaks to terror and freedom of thought, existential choices and the ability to reconcile oneself to imperfect realities. Utterly inspiring.

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kirov and after., December 3, 2002

By 

Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Case of Comrade Tulayev (Paperback)

This political novel tells the story of the murder (organized by Stalin, according to R. Medvedev) of comrade Kirov, the very popular head of the Leningrad party district.
The consequences of the murder were terrible: deportations, show trials, executions, a total 'cleansing' of the communist party and a liquidation of the party delegates in the Parliament.

This book gives an excellent portrait of the atmosphere in the USSR under Stalin just before World War II: suspicion, despondency, embitterment, poverty, prostitution, insecurity, theft.
As Marx said: I sowed dragons and I harvested fleas.
At the time of the publication of his book, Victor Serge was heavily criticized by the hardliners in the Western CP's, because he was a Trotskyist and his picture should be biased.
But in fact, the situation was even more catastrophic (see 'Harvest of Sorrow' by Roger Conquest).
A still very readable book. Not only for historians.