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Victor Serge

What everyone should know about repression

(1926)

First published in 1926 as Les Coulisses d’une Sûreté générale. Ce qua tout révolutionnaire doit savoir de la répression, Librairie du Travail, Paris (see note).
Part I first published in Bulletin Communiste, November 1921 as Les Méthodes et les Procédés de la Police Russe.
Translated from the French by Judith White.
Translation & notes: Copyright © New Park Publications Ltd 1979.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.

Author’s preface


1. The Russian Okhrana

I. A special kind of policeman

II. External Surveillance - being followed

III. The secrets of provocation

IV. Directive on the recruitment and operation of agents provocateurs

V. A monograph of provocation in Moscow (1912)

VI. Files on agents provocateurs

VII. A ghost from the past

VIII. Malinovsky

IX. The mentality of the provocateur

X. Provocation – a two-edged weapon

XI. Russian informers abroad

XII. Mail-opening and the international police

XIII. Decoding

XIV. Summarising reports

XV. Forensic study

XVI. A scientific study of the revolutionary movement

XVII. Protection of the Tsar’s person

XVIII. The cost of an execution

XIX. Conclusion: Why the Revolution was still invincible


2. The problem of illegality

I. Don’t be fooled

II. Don’t be taken unawares

III. The limits of legal action

IV. Private police forces

V. Conclusions


3. Simple advice to revolutionaries

I. Being followed

II. Correspondence and notes

III. General conduct

IV. Among comrades

V. In the event of arrest

VI. Before judges and police

VII. Ingenuity

VIII. A supreme warning


4. The problem of revolutionary repression

I. Machine gun, typewriter, or ...

II. The experience of two revolutions

III. Terror has gone on for centuries

IV. From Gallifet to Mussolini

V. Bourgeois law and proletarian law

VI. Two systems

VII. Economic constraints

VIII. Decimation

IX. Repression and provocation

X. When is repression effective?

XI. Consciousness of the danger and of the goal

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Note

1. in Bulletin Communist, nos. 50, 51 and 52 of November 10, 17 and 24, 1921 on pages 829–836, 858–859 and 877–890, with the title Les Méthodes et les Procédés de la Police Russe (The Methods and Procedures of the Russian Police):
   I. Special training of the policeman. II. External Surveillance. Tailing. III. An Instruction on the recruitment and service of agents provocateurs. IV. A Monograph on provocation in Moscow (1912). V. Files on agents provocateurs. VI. Psychology of the provocateur. VII. Provocation, a two-edged weapon. VIII. Russian spies abroad. Mail opening. IX. How codes are deciphered. X. Synthesis of information. The diagram method. XI. Scientific study of the revolutionary movement. XII. Protection of the Tsar’s person. XIII. The cost of an execution. XIV. Conclusion: Why the revolution remains invincible. These 14 sections correspond to the first part of the present volume. They were dated Petrograd, October–November 1920.
    
2. published by the Librairie du Travail in its collection Faits et Documents, IV, Paris 1926, entitled Les Coulisses d’une Sûreté générale. Ce que tout révolutionnaire devrait savour sur la répression (Corridors of the security police. What every revolutionary should know about repression). In 1934, extracts were published in the form of a pamphlet entitled: Les problémes de l’illégalité. Simples conseils au militant (Problems of illegality. Simple advice to the revolutionary) in the Faits et Documents collection, XII.
    
3. The French police apparently published a pirate edition in the 1960s (?) ... for the use of their “employees”.
    
4. published by François Maspero, Paris 1970, 1972 and 1977 under the title: Ce que tout révolutionnaire doit savoir de la répression.

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Last updated on 7 February 2017