"Victor Serge is one of the unsung heroes of a corrupt century."-Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost

Serge's expose of the methods of surveillance and harassment of political activists by the czarist police reads like a spy thriller. But as Dalia Hashad points out in her introduction, this book will have a resonance with political activists today who face a new wave of repression under the Patriot Act and racial profiling in the name of the "war on terror."

Victor Serge was born to Russian emigre parents in 1890. He wrote numerous novels, poems and political essays and was forced into exile for opposing Stalin's rule.

Dalia Hashad is an ACLU organizer in New York for the Campaign Against Racial Profiling.