The Case of Comrade Tulayev (New York Review Books Classics)

by Victor Serge

“They live by the most enormous and most revolting lie history has known since the cheat of Christianity — a lie which contains a great deal of truth … They call their completed revolution to witness, and it’s true that it is completed; they fly the red flag, and so they appeal to the strongest and rightest instinct of the masses; they catch men by their faith, and then cheat them out of their faith, turn it into an instrument of power. Their most terrible strength lies in the fact that they themselves believe they are continuing the Revolution, while they are serving a new counterrevolution, a counterrevolution such as has never existed before, and set up in the very rooms where Lenin worked … Think of it: a man with yellow eyes stole the Central Committee keys, walked in and sat down at old Ilich’s desk, picked up the telephone, and said: ‘Proletarians, it’s Me.’