What Every Radical Should Know About State Repression

Victor Serge’s exposé of the surveillance methods used by the Czarist police reads like a spy thriller. An irrepressible rebel, Serge wrote this manual for political activists, describing the structures of State repression and how to dodge them. He also explained how such repression is ultimately ineffective. Not the biggest book in the world, Serge nevertheless proffers sage advice on everything from the limits of legal revolutionary action to being followed, placing it all in historical context. First published in 1925, this guide still has lots to offer. As civil liberties attorney Dalia Hashad illustrates in her introduction, Serge’s broad discussion on the oft-recycled tools of harassment and provocation is as relevant today as it was in pre-revolutionary Russia. Today’s repressive apparatus—racial profiling, the USA Patriot Act, and similar legislation introduced in the name of the “war on terror”—point toward the unchecked power of the US government and its allies, a power symptomatic of totalitarian regimes.