The Nazis invaded the Soviet Union during Serge's travels to Mexico, and Gorkin commissioned him to write a book on the subject ("Hitler Contra Stalin") which was published in Mexico City. However, agents of the Russian Embassy, furious at Serge's critical analysis, soon bought out the publishing house and made sure that all doors to journalism were closed to Serge, who as a result often had little money for food. He was supported in part by his partner Laurette Séjourné, who arrived from France with his daughter Jeannine, and he developed friendships with some other European exiles including the German Council Communist Otto Ruhle, members of the exiled POUM, the German novelist and hero of the International Brigade, Gustav Regler, the Austrian painter and theorist Wolfgang Paalen, the French Socialist Marceau Pivert, and the Franco-Polish novelist Jean Malaquais. His relations with Trotsky's widow Natalia Sedova were strained at first. He continued to receive support from some American intellectuals, such as Dwight Macdonald and John Dewey, and his writings were published in "Partisan Review" and the "New International" in the US; he was also the Mexican correspondent for the "New Leader". Wolfgang Paalen and his wife Alice hid Serge occasionally in their house in San Angel and Serge advised Paalen in his planned criticism of the Marxist Dialectics for his review "DYN".