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Conquered City
Serge, Victor; Greeman, Richard [trans.]
Publisher: New York Review of BooksYear First Published: 1932 Year Published: 2011 Pages: 198pp ISBN: 978-1-59017-366-4 Dewey: 843'.912 Resource Type: Book Conquered City, Victor Serge's most unrelenting narrative, is structured like a detective story, one in which the new political regime tracks down and eliminates its enemies -- the spies, speculators, and traitors hidden among the mass of common people. Abstract: - 1919-1920: St. Petersburg, city of the czars, has fallen to the Revolution. Camped out in the splendid palaces of the former regime, the city's new masters seek to cement their control, even as the counterrevolutionary White Army regroups. Conquered City, Victor Serge's most unrelenting narrative, is structured like a detective story, one in which the new political regime tracks down and eliminates its enemies -- the spies, speculators, and traitors hidden among the mass of common people. Conquered City is about terror: the Red Terror and the White Terror. But mainly about the Red, the Communists who have dared to pick up the weapons of power--police, guns, jails, spies, treachery--in the doomed gamble that by wielding them righteously, they can put an end to the need for terror, perhaps forver. Conquered City is their tragedy and testament. Subject Headings |