Talk:Victor Serge

The only thing I could find was the following:

""I am afraid we will soon see burst on the scene in various countries communist-totalitarian condottieri like Mao Tse-tung or Tito, cynical and convinced, who will be 'revolutionaries' or counter-revolutionaries – or both at the same time – according to the orders they receive, and capable of a complete about face from one day to the next."

[http://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/1944/notebooks.htm] --GwydionM (talk) 17:26, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

::Sad that his abuses at the hands of soviet authorities caused him to adopt such a two dimensional, anti-communist Cold War outlook. Mao and Tito were leaders of authentic, deep seated social revolutions in their countries of world historic importance in their own right, events that were not at all a function of them being manipulated by a foreign puppet master like Josef Stalin, with their later dramatic breaks with the USSR being clear evidence of that. Not that it matters, but that mentality rooted in defeat and demoralization was not one Trotsky subscribed to, in fact he polemicized against it during the last year of his life.

2604:2D80:ED08:A00:89F3:D900:59AF:3749 (talk) 20:29, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Why is this so short ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.112.148.196 (talk) 19:53, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

:it seems the page was culled down from the previous entry for not containing enough "secondary, independent" sources. however the previous entry was to a large degree a summary of his own memoirs. i fail to see how this primary source lacks value that another's summary of his life (which would, necessarily, draw from his memoirs!) would allegedly provide. as it stands the current page provides hardly any information whatsoever. it should be revised back to the previous version that contained detailed information about his life and political development. 24.148.91.14 (talk) 17:11, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

:: Yes this is really poor and lacking in information compared with what it had before. If his autobiography is ruled out as a source (I dont think it should be, since he lived a semi-clandestine life under a government that routinely destroyed and falsified information it didn't like), what is there out there to refer to? SOme possibilities:

• He corresponded with Orwell
• He was involved in the Bonnot Gang trial, so: Richard Parry: The Bonnot gang. Rebel Press, 1987, ISBN 978-0-946061-04-4,
• The foreword of the NYRB edition of memoirs is by someone else, that could be used.
• Critique Journal issue 28-29 looks very promising: https://web.archive.org/web/20050212230912/http://www.critiquejournal.net/c28.htm#INTRODUCTION but it needs someone with access to the source. (Is it in wikilibrary?
• Susan Sontag, The Unextiguished: The Case for Victor Serge in her last collection, apparently.(At the Same Time: essays and speeches)
• https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/zer0-books/our-books/vagabond-witness -- biography from 2013-ish

Chaikney (talk) 11:24, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

:@Chaikney Critique (Glascow) is indeed promising. I can get copies. -- asilvering (talk) 16:50, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Just noticed that Czar reverted my change of the dates in the infobox to DMY formatting, which brought it in line with the DMY formats used throughout the body of the article. I was under the mistaken impression that MOS:DATETIES referred to countries in general, but now I see it specifies {{tq|English-speaking countries}}. As Serge doesn't have a clear connection to any English-speaking country, per MOS:DATERET, that means it shouldn't be changed unless talk page consensus is reached. I personally think we should be using DMY throughout, as this is the standard format used in all the countries Serge lived in and this is the format used by Weissman, the author of Serge's biography and the main source used in this article. Pinging Goszei as the major contributor to this article. --Grnrchst (talk) 16:43, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

:I agree with Grnrchst's evaluation that we should use DMY throughout. The subject has no strong ties to the U.S. (the usual case for using MDY), and MOS:DATERET acknowledges that consensus on the article's talk page can overrule the date format the article has evolved using. — Goszei (talk) 17:08, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

::Per the DATERET guideline above, if there is no strong national tie to an English-speaking country (and there is not), it should use the date format it has used for all of its existence, which is mdy. The point is to preserve/leave it alone unless there is a strong reason for doing so (a strong national tie). No one is saying Serge has a strong national tie to the US. czar 21:53, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I think the fact that Serge only ever lived in DMY-format countries (irrespective of the language they spoke), that Weissman's biography on Serge cited in this article uses DMY throughout, and the vast majority of sources in the Further reading section use DMY formatting, are all strong enough reasons to change it. I don't see an argument for retaining MDY other than keeping to a status quo that existed before the article was completely rewritten from the ground-up. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:07, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

::::That is my only point, that the norm is to leave the status quo. If the primary authors want to change the date format by consensus as part of the rewrite, go for it. czar 17:03, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::As I am the primary author of the new version, I have gone ahead and changed to DMY. — Goszei (talk) 21:14, 24 May 2025 (UTC)