I have lost the sectarian intransigence of the past. by Victor Serge 1917 (original) (raw)

Victor Serge 1917

“I have lost the sectarian intransigence of the past.”

Letter to Emile Armand

Source: Jean Maitron, “De Kibaltchiche � Victor Serge,” in Le Mouvement Social, no. 47, April-June 1964;
Translated: by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2008

March 19, 1917

My Dear Armand:

I ask that you publish these lines, which are addressed both to you and the comrades who remembered me and assisted me in the present circumstances. I am infinitely touched by their gesture. I thank them.

You prefer not to publish the letter from Toulouse, where I explained the reasons that prevent me, though fully one of you, to collaborate in your work. As you wish. In any case, I don’t want to cause a polemic on this troublesome theme. I prefer to completely abstain. Before certain moral situations there is only one thing to do: leave. I’m leaving.

But I want to say to our comrades that it’s neither due to discouragement or following a divergence in ideas. In this time of contrary winds that confuse weathervanes, it’s not without use to specify things in this way. I have lost the sectarian intransigence of the past. I now attribute less importance to words than to ideas, to ideas than sentiments – and much less importance to casuistry than to good will. I feel myself capable of working with all those who, animated by the same desire for a better life, clearer and more intelligent, advance towards their future, even by different roads than mine and even if they give our common goal in reality different names that I don’t know.

And so I am still one of you, confirmed by harsh personal experience, by my desire for combat and the opinion that our effort, however feeble it might be, is necessary. If I currently abstain from your work it’s only for the reasons I already laid out and that I ask you to make known to the friends of “Au-dela la mel�e.”

Yours, V. S. le Retif