Notebooks: 1936-1947 (New York Review Books Classics)

by Victor Serge

My theses: that this war is profoundly different from that of 1914– 1918, of which it is the continuation, and that it entails elements of international civil war. (Strong protests by M. P.)—That the economic structure of the world has changed, traditional capitalism making way for a planned and controlled economy, thus collectivist in tendency, which could be that of monopolies and totalitarian parties—or of democracies of a new type, if the latter succeed in being born. (Strong protest by M. P.)—That the defeats of European socialism cannot be imputed solely to the failures of leaders, though this counts, but are rather explained by the decadence of the working class and of socialism as a result of modern technology (chronic unemployment, declassing of the unemployed, immense increases in the productive capacity of machinery with less need for workers; increased influence of technicians). (M. P. rejects these views as a whole without attempting to refute them, and to speak of a weakening of the working classes as a class seems to them all to be a sacrilege. What can I do about this if it’s the truth? A good Old Bolshevik, one of those who expelled and arrested us before himself being executed, would answer me: There is no truth that can prevail over the interests of the party.) —That we are well and truly being carried along by the current of an immense revolution, but that there will not be a repetition of the Russian Revolution unless as secondary episodes. That social...