Victor SERGE

First edition of the French translation by Victor Serge, one of 26 numbered copies on deluxe paper, the only large-paper issue.
Half red morocco binding, spine with five raised bands, grey paper endpapers and boards, original wrappers and spine preserved, top edge gilt, signed binding by Goy & Vilaine.
Born in Belgium to anti-tsarist émigré parents, Victor Serge became politically engaged from the age of fifteen, militating within the ranks of the Young Socialist Guard. An antimilitarist and libertarian, he took part in numerous anarchist demonstrations and was sentenced for having sheltered members of the Bonnot Gang. In 1919, he placed himself at the service of the revolution and became a member of the Russian Communist Party, before strongly condemning the Stalinist degeneration of the Soviet state. Expelled from the Party and stripped of his Soviet nationality, he was ultimately banished from the U.S.S.R. in 1936, a few months before the first Moscow Trial. Close to Leon Trotsky, he translated several of his works before distancing himself from him, judging his ideology to be overly sectarian.
A rare and very fine copy of this essay written by Trotsky during his exile in Norway, which would not be published in the U.S.S.R. until 1991.

La Révolution défigurée [The Stalin School of Falsification], Editions Rieder, Paris 1929, 13,5x20,5cm, original wrappers.

First edition, one of 15 lettered copies on pure wire, the only large papers. Our copy is lettered "N". The text, written in Russian by Trotsky during his exile, was first published in French in the translation by Victor Serge. It was not until 1931 that it appeared in Russian and it did not receive an English translation until 1937 under the title "Stalin School of Falsification".

Very rare autograph tribute dated and signed by Leon Trotsky: “6/IX 1929 My best regards L. Trotsky. »

The works signed by Leon Trotsky, particularly those preceding the mid-1930s, are extremely rare. This was probably offered to Ivor Montagu (1904-1984), an allotropic character, both a filmmaker – he collaborated in particular with Alfred Hitchcock –, a political activist within the Communist Party and the Labor Party of Great Britain and a talented table tennis player, creator of the International Table Tennis Federation. Montagu began a correspondence with Trotsky in early July 1929, while the latter was exiled on the island of Prinkipo, near Constantinople. He provided him with numerous books and articles and especially tried to help him come to England, without success. In a letter dated September 22, 1929, a few days after our copy was sent, Trotsky was concerned and asked Montagu: “Have you received my book in French “The Disfigured Revolution” and my brochure in German ? My autobiography is due out at the end of the month. I have asked the American publisher to send you a copy as soon as the edition is ready. » Second long letter the next day: “By the way, I hope that you have received my work in French” It would seem that the two men corresponded in French, as evidenced by another passage from the letter of September 22: “I have writes a long letter in Russian. I'm not sure if you received it, and if you did, whether you managed to unravel the Russian text. I currently have a French colleague, and I can therefore write to you in French. » Montagu was one of the rare visitors – along with Simenon – to come to see Trotsky at Prinkipo.

Leon Trotsky's letters to Ivor Montagu are now housed in the Houghton Library at Harvard.

Rare copy of this pamphlet against the emerging Stalinist historiography enriched with a precious autograph dedication signed by the perpetual exiled to one of his communist comrades.

First edition, one of the review copies service.
foxing on the boards, back warped, some internal foxinges.
Rare autograph dedication signed by Victor Serge to the National Union of Teachers.