Christian Rakovsky - Wikipedia PDF

5/16/2018 Christian Rakovsky - Wikipedia
Christian Rakovsky
Christian Rakovsky (August 13 [O.S. August 1] 1873 – September 11, 1941)
was a Bulgarian socialist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and Soviet
Christian Rakovsky
Кръстьо Раковски, Христиан
diplomat; he was also noted as a journalist, physician, and essayist.
Георгиевич Раковский,
Rakovsky's political career took him throughout the Balkans and into France
and Imperial Russia; for part of his life, he was also a Romanian citizen.
Християн Георгійович
Раковський, Cristian Racovski
A lifelong collaborator of Leon Trotsky, he was a prominent activist of the
Second International, involved in politics with the Bulgarian Social
Democratic Union, Romanian Social Democratic Party, and the Russian Social
Democratic Labour Party. Rakovsky was expelled at different times from
various countries as a result of his activities, and, during World War I, became
a founding member of the Revolutionary Balkan Social Democratic Labor
Federation while helping to organize the Zimmerwald Conference.
Imprisoned by Romanian authorities, he made his way to Russia, where he
joined the Bolshevik Party after the October Revolution, and, as head of the
Rumcherod, unsuccessfully attempted to generate a communist revolution in
the Kingdom of Romania. Subsequently, he was a founding member of the
Comintern, served as head of government in the Ukrainian SSR, and took part
in negotiations at the Genoa Conference.
He came to oppose Joseph Stalin and rallied with the Left Opposition, being
marginalized inside the government and sent as Soviet ambassador to London
and Paris, where he was involved in renegotiating financial settlements. He 1st Chairm. of the Council of
was ultimately recalled from France in autumn 1927, after signing his name to People's Commissars of the
a controversial Trotskyist platform which endorsed world revolution. Credited Ukrainian SSR
with having developed the Trotskyist critique of Stalinism as "bureaucratic In office
centrism", Rakovsky was subject to internal exile. Submitting to Stalin's January 16, 1919 – July 15, 1923
leadership in 1934 and being briefly reinstated, he was nonetheless implicated
Preceded by Georgiy Pyatakov
in the Trial of the Twenty One (part of the Moscow Trials), imprisoned, and
Succeeded by Vlas Chubar
executed by the NKVD during World War II. He was rehabilitated in 1988,
during the Soviet Glasnost period. Soviet Ambassador to France
In office
October 1925 – October 1927
Preceded by Leonid Krasin
Contents Succeeded by Valerian
Names Dovgalevsky
Biography Personal details
Revolutionary beginnings
Born August 13, 1873
Military service and first stay in Russia
România Muncitoare Gradets, Ottoman
1907 expulsion Empire (now
PSDR and Zimmerwald Movement Bulgaria)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Rakovsky 1/19
October Revolution Died September 11, 1941

Second Ukrainian government (aged 68)
Reinstating of Soviet dominance and international conferences Oryol, Russian
Trotskyist opposition and ambassadorship
SFSR, Soviet Union
Persecution and internal exile
Submission to Stalin and the Show Trial Nationality Bulgarian,
Romanian, Russian,
Legacy and rehabilitation
Soviet, Ukrainian
Footnotes
Political party Communist Party of
References
the Soviet Union
External links
Communist Party
(Bolsheviks) of
Ukraine
Names Spouse(s) E. P. Ryabova
Rakovsky's original Bulgarian name was Krastyo Georgiev Stanchev (desc.)
(Кръстьо Георгиев Станчев), which he himself changed to Krastyo Rakovski Alexandrina
(Кръстьо Раковски). The usual form his first name took in Romanian was Alexandrescu
Cristian (occasionally rendered as Christian), while his last name was spelled (Ileana Pralea)
Racovski, Racovschi, or Rakovski. His given name was occasionally rendered Profession physician, journalist
as Ristache, an antiquated hypocoristic—he was known as such to his
Signature
acquaintance, the writer Ion Luca Caragiale.[1]
In Russian, his full name, including patronymic, was Khristian Georgievich

Rakovsky (Христиан Георгиевич Раковский). Christian (as well as Cristian and Kristian) is an approximate rendition of
Krastyo (the Bulgarian for "cross"), as used by Rakovsky himself.[2] In Ukrainian, Rakovsky's name is rendered as
Християн Георгійович Раковський, and usually transliterated as Khrystyyan Georgiiovych Rakovsky.
During his lifetime, he was also known under the pseudonyms H. Insarov and Grigoriev, which he used in signing several
articles for the Russian-language press.[3]
Biography
Revolutionary beginnings
Christian Rakovsky was born to a wealthy Bulgarian family in Gradets—near Kotel—at the time still part of Ottoman-ruled
Rumelia.[4] He was, on his mother's side, the nephew of Georgi Sava Rakovski, a revolutionary hero of the Bulgarian
National Revival;[5] that side of his family also included Georgi Mamarchev, who had fought against the Ottomans in the
Imperial Russian Army.[6] Rakovsky's father was a merchant who belonged to the Democratic Party.[6]
He later stated that, as early as his childhood years, he had felt a special admiration towards Russia, and that he had been
impressed by witnessing, at age 5, the Russo-Turkish War and Russian presence (he claimed to have met General Eduard
Totleben during the conflict).[6] Although his parents moved to the Kingdom of Romania in 1880, settling in Gherengic
(Northern Dobruja), he completed his education in newly emancipated Bulgaria.[7] Rakovsky was expelled from the
gymnasium in Gabrovo for his political activities (in 1887 and then again, after organizing a riot, in 1890).[5] It was around
that time that he became a Marxist, and began collaborating with the socialist journalist Evtim Dabev, whom he aided in
printing works by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (at the time, Rakovsky and Sava Balabanov also published their own
newspaper, the clandestine Zerkalo).[8]
Since, after having ultimately been banned from attending any public school in the country, he could not complete his
education in Bulgaria,[9] in September 1890 Rakovsky went to Geneva to begin his studies and become a physician.[8]
While in Switzerland, he joined the Socialist Student Circle at the University of Geneva, which was largely composed of
non-Swiss youth.[8]
A polyglot,[10] Rakovsky became close to Georgy Plekhanov, the founder of Russian Marxism, and his circle, eventually
writing a number of articles and a book in Russian.[8] He also briefly worked with Rosa Luxemburg, Pavel Axelrod and
Vera Zasulich.[8] Unable to attend the First International Congress of Socialist Students in Brussels (1892), he became
involved in organizing the Second Congress, held in Geneva during the fall of 1893.[2]
He was a founding editor of the Geneva-based Bulgarian-language magazine Sotsial-Demokrat and later a major
contributor to the Bulgarian Marxist publications Den', Rabotnik, and Drugar.[8] At the time, Rakovsky and Balabanov,
with Plekhanov's encouragement, stressed the importance for moderation in socialist policies—Sotsial-Demokrat rallied
with the Bulgarian Social Democratic Union and rejected the more radical Social-Democratic Party of Bulgaria.[2] He soon
became involved in distributing socialist propaganda inside Bulgaria, at a time when Stefan Stambolov organized a
crackdown on political opposition.[2]
Later in 1893, Rakovsky enrolled in a medical school in Berlin, contributing articles for Vorwärts and becoming close to
Wilhelm Liebknecht (the two corresponded regularly for the rest of Liebknecht's life).[8] As a Bulgarian delegate to the
Second International Congress in Zürich, he also met with Engels and Jules Guesde.[2]
Six months later, he was arrested and expelled from the German Empire for maintaining close contacts with the Russian
revolutionaries there.[5] He finished his education in 1894–1896 in Zürich, Nancy and Montpellier, where he wrote for La
Jeunesse Socialiste and La Petite République, maintaining a friendship with Guesde and becoming an opponent of Jean
Jaurès' reformist views.[11] According to his own testimony, he became active in supporting the Anti-Ottoman upsurge in
Crete and Macedonia, as well as Dashnak revolutionary activities.[6] In 1896, he was the Bulgarian representative to the
Second International's London Congress (part of his speech was published in Karl Kautsky's Die Neue Zeit).[8]
Military service and first stay in Russia

Although actively involved in many European countries' socialist movements, prior to 1917 Rakovsky's focus remained on
the Balkans and especially on his native country and Romania; his activities in support of the international socialist
movement led to his expulsion, at different times, from Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, France and Russia.
In 1897 he published Russiya na Istok (Russia in the East), a book sharply critical of the Russian Empire's foreign policy,
which, according to Rakovsky, followed one of Georgy Plekhanov's guidelines ("Tsarist Russia must be isolated in its
foreign relations").[6] On several occasions, he publicly criticized Russia's policies towards Romania and in Bessarabia[12]
(describing Russia's rule over the latter as "absolutist conquest", "mischievous action", and "abduction").[13] According to
Rakovsky, "Russophile papers" in Bulgaria had begun to target him as a consequence.[6]
After completing his education as a physician at the University of Montpellier[14] (with the thesis L'Éthiologie du crime et
de la dégénérescence – "The Cause of Crime and Degeneration", submitted in 1897),[15] Rakovsky, who had married the
Russian student E. P. Ryabova,[2] was summoned to Romania in order to be drafted in the Romanian Army, and served as
a medic in the 9th Cavalry Regiment stationed in Constanţa, Dobruja (1899–1900).[15] He rose to the rank of
lieutenant.[16]
Rakovsky subsequently rejoined his wife in Saint Petersburg, where he hoped to settle down and engage in revolutionary
activities (he was probably expelled after an initial attempt to enter the country, but was allowed to return).[16] An
adversary of Peter Berngardovich Struve after the latter moved towards market liberalism,[6] he became acquainted with,
among others, Nikolay Mikhaylovsky and Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky, while authoring articles for Nashe Slovo and
helping distribute Iskra.[5] His close relationship with Plekhanov led Rakovsky to a position between the Menshevik and
Bolshevik factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, one he kept from 1903 to 1917; the Bolshevik leader
Vladimir Lenin was initially hostile to Rakovsky,[14] and at one point wrote to Karl Radek that "we [the Bolsheviks] do not
have the same road as his kind of people".[17]
Initially, Rakovsky was expelled from Russia and had to move back to Paris.[8] Returning to the Russian capital in 1900, he
remained there until 1902, when his wife's death and the crackdown on socialist groups ordered by Emperor Nicholas II
forced him to return to France.[8] Working for a while as a physician in the village of Beaulieu, Haute-Loire,[6] he asked
French officials to review his case for naturalization, but was refused.[15]
In 1903, following the death of his father, Rakovsky again lived in Paris, where he followed developments of the Russo-
Japanese War and spoke out against Russia, attracting, according to Rakovsky himself, the criticism of both Plekhanov
and Jules Guesde.[6] He voiced his opposition to the concession made by Karl Kautsky to Jean Jaurès, one which had
allowed socialists to join "bourgeois" governments in times of crisis.[18]
România Muncitoare
He ultimately settled in Romania (1904) having
inherited his father's estate near Mangalia.[19] In 1913,
his property, valued at some 40,000 United States
dollars at the time,[16] was home to Leon Trotsky—when
the latter visited the Balkans as a press envoy in the
Balkan Wars.[14] He was usually present in Bucharest on
a weekly basis, and started an intense activity as a
journalist, doctor and lawyer.[15] The Balkans Front page of Jos Despotizmul!.. ("Down with
correspondent for L'Humanité,[2] he was also personally Despotism!!!"), a special issue of România Muncitoare,
responsible for reviving România Muncitoare, the entirely dedicated to criticism of the Imperial Russian
defunct journal of the Romanian socialist group, authorities (February 1905)
provoking successful strike actions which brought him to
the attention of officials.[20]
Christian Rakovsky also traveled to Bulgaria, where he eventually sided with the Tesnyatsi in their conflict with other
socialist groups.[21] In 1904, he was present at the Second International's Congress in Amsterdam, where he gave a speech
celebrating the assassination of Russian police chief Vyacheslav von Plehve by Socialist-Revolutionary Party members.[6]
Rakovsky became noted locally especially after 1905, when he organized rallies in support of the Battleship Potemkin
revolt (the events worsened relations between Russia and the Romanian Kingdom),[22] carried out a relief operation for
the Potemkin crew as their ship sought refuge in Constanţa,[10] and attempted to determine them to set sail for Batumi
and aid striking workers there.[8] According to his own account, a parallel scandal occurred when an armed Bolshevik ship
was captured in Romanian territorial waters; Rakovsky, who indicated that the weapons on board were to be used in
Batumi, faced allegations in the Romanian press that he was preparing a Dobrujan insurrection.[6]
His head was injured during street clashes with police forces over the Potemkin issue;[23] while recovering, Rakovsky
befriended the Romanian poets Ştefan Octavian Iosif and Dimitrie Anghel, who were publishing works under a common
signature—one of the two authored a sympathetic portrait of the socialist leader, based on his recollections from the early
1900s.[24] Throughout these years, Rakovsky, was, according to Iosif and Anghel, "continuously bustling; disappearing and
appearing in workers' centers, be it in Brăila, be it in Galaţi, be it in Iaşi, be it anywhere, always preaching with the same
undaunted fervor and fanatical conviction his social credo".[25]
Rakovsky was drawn into a polemic with the Romanian authorities, facing public accusations that, as a Bulgarian, he
lacked patriotism;[15] in return, he commented that, if patriotism meant "race prejudice, international and civil war,
political tyranny and plutocratic domination", he refused to be identified with it.[26] Upon the outbreak of Romanian
Peasants' Revolt of 1907, Rakovsky was especially vocal: he launched accusations at the National Liberal government,
arguing that, having profited from the early antisemitic message of the revolt, it had violently repressed it from the
moment peasants began to attack landowners.[8] Supportive of the thesis according to which the peasantry had
revolutionary importance inside Romanian society and Eastern Europe at large,[2] Rakovsky publicized his perspective in
the socialist press (writing articles on the subject for România Muncitoare, L'Humanité, Avanti!, Vorwärts and others).[2]
Rakovsky was also one of the journalists suspected of having greatly exaggerated the overall death toll in their accounts:
his estimates speak of over 10,000 peasants killed, whereas the government data counted only 421.[27]
He became close to the influential dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale, who was living in Berlin at the time.[1] Caragiale authored
his own virulent critique of the Romanian state and its handling of the revolt, an essay titled 1907, din primăvară până în
toamnă ("1907, From Spring to Autumn"), which, in its final version, adopted some of Rakovsky's suggestions.[28]
1907 expulsion
After repeatedly condemning repression of the revolt, Rakovsky was, together with other socialists, officially accused of
having agitated rebellious sentiment, and consequently expelled from Romanian soil (late 1907).[29] He received news of
this action while already abroad, in Stuttgart (at the Seventh Congress of the Second International).[30] He decided not to
recognize it, and contended that his father had settled in Northern Dobruja before the Treaty of Berlin that had awarded
the region to Romania;[16] the plea was rejected by the Court of Appeal, based on evidence that Rakovsky's father was not
in Dobruja before 1880, and that Rakovsky himself used a Bulgarian passport when moving across borders.[16] During the
1920s, Rakovsky was still viewing the incident as a "blatantly illegal act".[6]
The action itself caused protests from leftist politicians and sympathizers,[31] including, among others, the influential
Marxist thinker Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea (whose appeal in favor of Rakovsky was described by Iosif and Anghel as
evidence of "an almost parental love").[32] The local socialists organized several rallies in his support, and the return of his
citizenship was also backed by Take Ionescu's opposition group, the Conservative-Democratic Party.[33] In exile, Rakovsky
authored the pamphlet Les persécutions politiques en Roumanie ("Political Persecutions in Romania") and two books (La
Roumanie des boyars – "Boyar Romania", and the since-lost From the Kingdom of Arbitrariness and Cowardice).[5]
Eventually, he traveled back into Romania in October 1909, only to be arrested upon his transit through Brăila County.[34]
According to his recollections, he was for long left stranded on the border with Austria-Hungary, as officials in the latter
country refused to let him pass; the situation had to be settled by negotiations between the two countries.[6] Also according
to Rakovsky, the arrest was hidden by the Ion I. C. Brătianu cabinet until it leaked to the press—this, coupled with rumors
that he was about to be killed, and Brătianu's statement that he would "rather destroy [Rakovsky] than let [him] back into
Rumania",[35] caused a series of important street clashes between his supporters and government forces.[6] On December
9, 1909, a Romanian Railways employee named Stoenescu attempted to assassinate Brătianu.[36] The event, which was
attributed by Rakovsky to support for his return[6] and by other sources to government manipulation,[37] caused a
clampdown on România Muncitoare (among those socialists arrested and interrogated were Gheorghe Cristescu, I. C.
Frimu, and Dumitru Marinescu).[37]
Rakovsky secretly returned to Romania in 1911, giving himself up in Bucharest.[6] According to Rakovsky, he was again
expelled, holding a Romanian passport, to Istanbul, where he was swiftly arrested by the Young Turks government but
released soon after.[6] He subsequently left for Sofia, where he established the Bulgarian socialist journal Napred.[6]
Ultimately, the new Petre P. Carp Conservative cabinet agreed to allow his return to Romania, following pressures from
the French Premier Georges Clemenceau (who answered an appeal by Jean Jaurès).[2] According to Rakovsky, this was
also determined by the Conservative change in policies towards the peasantry.[6] He unsuccessfully ran for Parliament
during the elections of that year (and several others in succession),[16] being fully reinstated as a citizen in April 1912.[6]
Romanian journalist Stelian Tănase contends that the expulsion had instilled resentment in Rakovsky;[38] earlier, the
leading National Liberal politician Ion G. Duca himself had argued that Rakovsky was developing a "hatred for
Romania".[39]
PSDR and Zimmerwald Movement

Alongside Mihai Gheorghiu Bujor and Frimu, Rakovsky was
one of the founders of the Romanian Social Democratic Party
(PSDR), serving as its president.[40] In May 1912, he helped
organize a mourning session for the centennial of Russian
rule in Bessarabia, and authored numerous new articles on
the matter.[16] He was afterwards involved in calling for peace
during the Balkan Wars;[7] notably, Rakovsky expressed
criticism of Romania's invasion of Bulgaria during the Second
Balkan War, and called on Romanian authorities not to annex
Southern Dobruja.[5] Alongside Frimu, Bujor, Ecaterina
Arbore and others, he lectured at the PSDR's propaganda
school during the short period the latter was in existence (in
1910 and again in 1912–1913).[41]
From left: Rakovsky, Leon Trotsky, and Constantin
Dobrogeanu-Gherea, during a meeting in Bucharest In 1913, Rakovsky was married a second time, to Alexandrina
(1913 drawing) Alexandrescu (also known as Ileana Pralea), a socialist
militant and intellectual, who taught mathematics in
Ploieşti.[42] Alexandrescu was herself a friend of Dobrogeanu-
Gherea and an acquaintance of Caragiale.[43] She had previously been married to Filip Codreanu, a Narodnik activist born
in Bessarabia, with whom she had a daughter, Elena, and a son, Radu.[42]
Rallying with the left wing of international social democracy during the early stages of World War I, Rakovsky later
indicated that he had been purposely informed of the controversial pro-war stance taken by the Social Democratic Party of
Germany by the pro-Entente Romanian Foreign Minister Emanuel Porumbaru.[44] With staff of the Menshevik paper
Nashe Slovo (edited by Leon Trotsky), he was among the most prominent socialist pacifists of the period.[45] Reflecting his
ideological priorities, România Muncitoare's title was changed into Jos Răsboiul! ("Down with war!")—it was later to be
known as Lupta Zilnică (the "Daily combat").[44]
Heavily critical of the French Socialist Party's decision to join the René Viviani cabinet (deeming it "an abdication"),[18] he
stressed the responsibility of all European countries in provoking the war,[18] and adhered to Trotsky's vision of a "Peace
without indemnities or annexations" as an alternative to "imperialist war".[44] According to Rakovsky, tensions between
the French SFIO and the German Social Democrats were reflecting not just context, but major ideological differences.[46]
Present in Italy in March 1915, he attended the Milan Congress of the Italian Socialist Party, during which he attempted to
persuade it to condemn irredentist goals.[47] In July, after convening the Bucharest Conference, he and Vasil Kolarov
established the Revolutionary Balkan Social Democratic Labor Federation (comprising the left-leaning socialist parties of
Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece), and Rakovsky was elected first secretary of its Central Bureau.[48]
Subsequently, together with the Italian Socialist delegates (Oddino Morgari, Giacinto Menotti Serrati, and Angelica
Balabanoff among them), Rakovsky was instrumental in convening the anti-war international socialist Zimmerwald
Conference in September 1915.[49] During the congress, he came into open conflict with Lenin, after the latter voiced the
Zimmerwald Left's opposition to the resolution (at one point, Rakovsky reportedly lost his temper and grabbed Lenin,
causing him to temporarily leave the hall in protest).[38] Later, he continued to mediate between Lenin and the Second
International, a situation from which emerged a circular letter that complemented the Zimmerwald Manifesto while being
more radical in tone.[44] In October 1915, he reportedly did not protest Bulgaria's entry into the war[16]—this information
was contradicted by Trotsky, who also indicated that the Tesniatsy had been the target of a government crackdown at that
exact moment.[50]
Rakovsky ran for Parliament for a final time during 1916, and again lost when
contesting a seat in Covurlui County.[51] Again arrested in 1916, after being
accused of planning rebellion during a violent incident in Galaţi, he was,
according to his own account, freed by a general strike which constituted "an
outburst of indignation among the workers".[6] Evaluating the situation in
Romania, he identified the two main pro-Entente political forces of the
moment, the groups led by Take Ionescu and Nicolae Filipescu, with,
respectively, "corruption" and "reaction".[18]
Suspicions also rose that he had been contacted by German intelligence, that
his 1915 trip to Italy had served German interests,[38] and that he was being
subsidized with German money.[52] Rakovsky also drew attention to himself
after welcoming to Bucharest the pro-German maverick socialist Alexander
Parvus.[38] His independence was consequently challenged by the
interventionist paper Adevărul, a former socialist venue, who called Rakovsky
"an adventurer without scruples", and viewed him as employed by Parvus and
other German socialists.[53] Rakovsky himself alleged that, "under the mask of
Advertising, Parliamentary elections,
independence", Adevărul and its editor Constantin Mille were in the pay of
1916
Take Ionescu.[18] After Romania's entry into the conflict on the side of the
Entente in August 1916, having failed to attend the Kienthal Conference due to
the closure of borders,[54] he was placed under surveillance and ultimately imprisoned in September, based on the belief
that he was acting as a German spy.[55] As Bucharest fell to the Central Powers during the 1916 campaign, he was taken by
Romanian authorities to their refuge in Iaşi.[47] Held until after the February Revolution, he was freed by the Russian
Army on May 1, 1917, and immediately left for Odessa.[56]
October Revolution
Rakovsky moved to Petrograd (the new name of Saint Petersburg) in the spring of 1917.[44] His anti-war activism almost
got him arrested; Rakovsky managed to flee in August, and was present in Stockholm for the Third Zimmerwald
Conference; he remained there and, with Karl Radek, issued propaganda material in support of the Russian
revolutionaries.[54] Present in the internationalist faction of the Mensheviks, he joined the Bolsheviks in December 1917 or
early 1918, after the October Revolution[54] (although he was occasionally listed among the Old Bolsheviks).[57] Rakovsky
later stated that he had friendly relations with the Bolsheviks from early autumn 1917, when, during the attempted putsch
of Lavr Kornilov, he was hidden by these in Sestroretsk.[6]
His rise in influence and his approval of world revolution led him to seek Lenin's support for a Bolshevik government over
Romania, at a time when a similar attempt was being made by the Odessa-based Romanian Social Democratic Action
Committee, under the guidance of Mihai Gheorghiu Bujor;[47] Stelian Tănase claims that during the period, a group of one
hundred Russian Bolsheviks had infiltrated Iaşi with the goal of assassinating King Ferdinand I and organizing a coup.[38]
Eventually, Lenin decided in favor of a unified project, and called on Bujor and Rakovsky to form a single leadership
(which also included the Romanian expatriates Alecu Constantinescu and Ion Dic Dicescu).[58]
As the coup was under preparation in December 1917, Rakovsky was present on the border and waiting a signal to enter
the country.[47] When Bolsheviks were arrested and the move was overturned, he was probably responsible for ordering
the arrest of Romania's representative to Petrograd, Constantin I. Diamandy, and his entire staff (all of whom were used
as hostages, pending the release of prisoners taken in Iaşi).[38] Trotsky, who was by then Russia's People's Commissar for
Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister), called on the Romanian government of Ion I. C. Brătianu to hand in persons captured,
indicating that he would otherwise encourage the communist activities of Romanian refugees on Russian soil, and
receiving a reply according to which no such arrests had occurred.[38]
At the same time, Rakovsky regained Odessa, where he became a leader of the Bolshevik administrative body
(Rumcherod), and, according to the claims of Stelian Tănase, ordered violent reprisals to be aimed at Romanian nationals
present in the city, and issued agitprop literature in Romanian.[59]
As Russia negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, he ordered Rumcherod troops to march towards
Romania, which was by then giving in to the German advances and preparing to sign its own peace.[38] Initially stalled by a
much-criticized temporary armistice with Romanian Army leader Alexandru Averescu, Rakovsky ordered a fresh offensive
in Moldavia, but had to retreat when the Central Powers, confronted with Trotsky's refusal to accept their version of a
Russo-German peace, began their own military operation and occupied Odessa (setting free Romanians who had been
imprisoned there).[38] On March 9, 1918, Rakovsky signed a treaty with Romania regarding the evacuation of troops from
Bessarabia, which Stelian Tănase claims allowed for the Moldavian Democratic Republic to join Romania. In May,
Romania conceded to the demands of the Central Powers (see Treaty of Bucharest, 1918).[38]
In April–May 1918, he negotiated with the Ukrainian People's Republic Tsentral'na Rada, then with the Hetmanate of
Pavlo Skoropadsky, as well as with German forces (see Ukraine after the Russian Revolution).[60] Soon after, Rakovsky
left for Austria (where the First Republic had been proclaimed), being received by Foreign Minister Victor Adler (a
member of Karl Renner's Social Democratic Party of Austria cabinet).[6] Rakovsky's real goal was to reach Germany and
negotiate the situation in Ukraine, but he was expelled upon arrival to that country.[6]
Escorted, together with Adolph Joffe and Nikolai Bukharin, to the German-aligned Belarusian National Republic, he
caught news of the collapse of the German Empire and was selected as a delegate to the German workers' councils.[6] He
and all other envoys were arrested by German soldiers in Kaunas, and sent to Minsk, then to Homyel, before making their
way to Moscow.[6]
Second Ukrainian government

After the subsequent Soviet offensive in Ukraine, Lenin appointed Rakovsky as the Chairman of the Provisional
Revolutionary Government of the Workers and Peasants of Ukraine, replacing Georgy Pyatakov on January 16, 1919 due
to the latter's argument with Fyodor Sergeyev for excessive interference in Ukrainian affairs. On March 29, 1919 the
government was reorganized as the Soviet of the People's Commissars.[61] According to the British author Arthur
Ransome, present in Moscow during early that year, "It had been found that the views of the Pyatakov government were
further left than those of its supporters, and so Pyatakov had given way to Rakovsky who was better able to conduct a
more moderate policy".[62] While in office, Rakovsky totally ignored Ukrainian issues, considering Ukraine and its
language merely "an invention" of intellectuals.[63]
At the time, Rakovsky assessed the situation created by the Treaty of Versailles, and advised his superiors to build warm
relations with both Mustafa Kemal's Turkey and the Weimar Republic, as a camp of countries dissatisfied with policies of
the Allied Powers.[64] Reviewing his previous stance on Bessarabia, Rakovsky eventually subscribed to the Bolshevik
condemnation of Greater Romania.[65] During the Paris Peace Conference, the Romanian delegation attributed the
shortage in supply in Bessarabia and Transylvania a Bolshevik conspiracy centered on Rakovsky;[66] various French
reports of the time gave contradictory assessments (while some credited Rakovsky with direct influence on Soviet foreign
policy, others dismissed the notion that Russia had any such projects).[66]
Rakovsky simultaneously served as Soviet Ukraine's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and a member of the South West
Front's Revolutionary Military Council, contributing to the defeat of the White Army and Ukrainian nationalists during
the Russian Civil War, while theorizing that "Ukraine was a laboratory of internationalism" and "a decisive factor in world
revolution".[67] Rakovsky's presence was also decisive in rallying the dissident Borotbists to the Bolshevik faction's central
bodies—he was subsequently confronted with a degree of Borotbist opposition inside his government.[63] According to
American politologist Jerry F. Hough, his appointment and policies were evidence of Russification, a program requested
by Lenin himself; Rakovsky's view contrasted with that supported by Stalin, who, at the time, was calling for increased
Ukrainianization.[68] On 13 February 1919 at the session of Kiev city council Rakovsky as a head of Ukrainian government
stated following: "Decreeing the Ukrainian language as a state language is reactionary and unnecessary".[69]
In March 1919, Christian Rakovsky was one of the founding members of the
Comintern, where he represented the Balkan Communist Federation.[62]
During those months, when control over the entire Ukraine was made possible
by the offensive against Directorate forces, he expressed his support for the
Yekaterinoslav wing of the Ukrainian Communist Party—following its wishes,
he subordinated the Ukrainian Communists to the Russian Communist Party
and argued that a separate Central Committee was "luxury" for such a small
grouping.[67]
Christian Rakovsky in Ukraine 1920
In summer, as Rakovsky's government briefly lost control of Ukraine, his
policies became hotly contested by partisans of Ukrainian autonomy inside the
Party, who held a conference in Homyel (one which Rakovsky did not attend).[63] At the Fourth Congress of the Ukrainian
Party (March 1920), the leadership of Rakovsky, Stanislav Kosior, and Dmitry Manuilsky was not reelected.[63] Attacks on
them caused problems with the Russian Party; as Lenin himself sided with Rakovsky, a delegation comprising Trotsky,
Lev Kamenev and Adolph Joffe left for Kiev to discuss the matter with local leaders.[63] In order to curb the crisis, the
Ukrainian Party was subjected to a major purge, during which pro-autonomy opposition was removed from its ranks and
the former leaders were reinstated.[63]
At the time, Rakovsky and Georgy Chicherin received harsh criticism from the Hungarian communist leaders Béla Kun,
for allegedly refusing aid to the Hungarian Soviet Republic and thus contributing to its fall.[70] This appears not to have
been true, as Rakovsky reportedly urged Lenin to finance the Kun even as the latter faced the intervention of troops from
both Romania and Czechoslovakia.[70] Lenin wrote back to Kun informing him that the Central Committee was satisfied
with the way in which Rakovsky and Chicherin had carried out their mission.[70]
Reinstating of Soviet dominance and

international conferences
After dealing with the common offensive of the
Directorate and Polish forces—the Kiev Offensive (see
Polish-Soviet War in 1920)—, Rakovsky's government
took measures regarding collectivization; according to
his biographer Gus Fagan, he became himself a
proponent of greater Ukrainian autonomy, and
advocated both Ukrainization through the complete
integration of Borotbists into Party structures and a
slower pace in communization.[63] He notably came into
conflict with the Russian Party after his second executive
had its independent Commissariat of Foreign Trade
replaced with an office under the control of central 1920 theater of war: farthest advances of Polish and
Ukrainian People's Republic Directorate forces during the
authorities.[63] He continued to pressure for a measure of
Kiev Offensive
independence in Ukrainian economy, and, during the
early 1920s, the republic sealed its own trade agreements
with other European countries.[63]
Rakovsky remained a Romanian citizen for the entire period. In 1921, he was officially summoned to be tried by a court-
martial for "crime against the security of the Romanian state".[71] He was sentenced to death in absentia (1924), a move
which may have been prompted by the similar verdict given by a Soviet Court to Ion Inculeţ (who had led the Moldavian
Democratic Republic's Legislative Assembly that voted union with Romania).[72] As the Socialist Party of Romania
delegation (Gheorghe Cristescu, Eugen Rozvan, David Fabian, Constantin Popovici, Ioan Flueraş, and Alexandru
Dobrogeanu-Gherea) voted to adhere to the Comintern, Rakovsky and Grigory Zinoviev pressured the group to expel those
of its members who supported Greater Romania (including Flueraş and Popovici, as well as Iosif Jumanca and Leon
Ghelerter).[73]
In February 1922, he was sent to Berlin in order to negotiate with German officials, and, in March, was part of the official
delegation to the Genoa Conference—under the leadership of Georgy Chicherin.[60] Rakovsky himself was virulently
opposed to any stalemate with the Allies, and urged his delegation not to abandon policies over promises of deescalation
and trade.[64] A leader of the delegation's commissions on economic aid, loans and government debt,[64] he was also
charged with renewing contacts with Germany—together with Adolph Joffe, he discussed the matter with the pro-Soviet
Ago von Maltzan, and, as Russia failed to reach an agreement with the Allies, managed to obtain from Germany promises
of cooperation (see Treaty of Rapallo, 1922).[64] Two years later, when captured by the Bolsheviks, Eser conspirator Boris
Savinkov allegedly confessed that he intended to have both Rakovsky and Chicherin killed in Berlin, as they returned from
Genoa.[74] In November 1922, Rakovsky attended the Conference of Lausanne, where he was confronted with the
assassination of his fellow diplomat Vaslav Vorovsky by the émigré Maurice Conradi.[64]
As the Soviet Union was being created, Rakovsky became opposed to the new central leadership over the issue of self-
determination for the Soviet republics and autonomous republics. This followed the dispute between, on one side, Joseph
Stalin, Zinoviev, Totsky and Kamenev, and, on the other, the leadership of the Georgian SSR (see Georgian Affair).[64] At
the time, he evidenced a "permanent struggle which the so-called independent and autonomous republics had to carry out
to safeguard not only their prerogatives but their very own existence".[67] Arguing in favor of extending the revolution
from Ukraine to the Balkans, and indicating his belief that the peasantry was being alienated by internationalist messages,
Rakovsky cited concerns that centralism was placing Soviet influence in peril, and called for "carrying out a correct
theoretical and practical solution to the national question within the boundaries of the Soviet Union".[67] In November
1922, he successfully proposed the formation of a Soviet of Nationalities to

double the Soviet of the Union inside the supreme legislative body;[63] his
arguments in favor of reducing the number of representatives of Russian SFSR
and barring the total number of envoys from any republic at one fifth of the
total were dismissed after being criticized by Stalin.[63]
Trotskyist opposition and ambassadorship

After Lenin's illness and incapacitation, Rakovsky joined Leon Trotsky's Left
Opposition and came into conflict with Stalin.[64] Although declining, his
influence in Ukraine was, according to political scientist John P. Willerton, one
of Trotsky's main bases of support, alongside sections of the Red Army, a group
of Komsomol leaders, and various officials involved in economic planning.[75]
In early July 1923, after being isolated inside the Ukrainian leadership, he was
removed from his Ukrainian post, replaced with Vlas Chubar, and sent to
London to negotiate a formal recognition of the Soviet regime by the British
Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister and French governments.[64] Chubar, an ethnic Ukrainian, came to represent
UK and Christian Rakovsky, Head of Stalin's view on nationality issues in the region, officially defined as
the Soviet diplomatic delegation.
"nativization".[68] In London, Rakovsky and his wife were joined by Elena
Codreanu, whom they had adopted.[42]
In 1924, as the Labour Party minority cabinet came to power, Ramsay MacDonald and Rakovsky negotiated de jure
recognition and agreed on possible future Anglo-Soviet treaty and a British loan for the Soviet Union.[60] Negotiations
were tested by the so-called Bankers' Memorandum, published by The Times, which demanded that the Soviet Union
abandon nationalizations and return to private property.[64] Eventually, two treaties were signed, allowing for commerce
to be normalized between the two countries, and reflecting Rakovsky's views that private complaints of creditors against
the Soviet state were to be settled outside the conference.[64] The scandal which erupted when the Zinoviev Letter was
publicized, rekindling suspicions against the Soviet government and provoking the fall of MacDonald's cabinet, brought an
end to all further talks; during and after the incident, Rakovsky repeatedly cited evidence that the Letter was a forgery.[64]
In parallel, he had begun negotiations with France's Raymond Poincaré, who aimed for a "solidarity of foreign creditors"
in respect to the Soviet state,[76] and who agreed to recognize the latter on October 28, 1924.[60] One of his last tasks
involved placing Soviet orders for machinery, textiles, and other commodities with British manufacturers: worth 75
million US$ on paper, these failed to attract attention after he announced that the Soviet government did not intend to pay
in cash.[77] According to the American magazine Time, Rakovsky also played a hand in motivating Stalin's decision to
marginalize Comintern leader Zinoviev, by complaining that the latter's foreign policy was needlessly radical.[78]
Rakovsky served as the Soviet ambassador to France between October 1925 and October 1927, replacing Leonid Krasin.
He did not take hold of his office until 50 days after his official appointment, refusing to be received at the Élysée Palace
by French President Gaston Doumergue for as long as the state authorities would not allow The Internationale (a
revolutionary song which was at the time the Soviet national anthem) to be played on the occasion.[79] Doumergeue
resisted, and, in the end, Rakovsky was received to the sound of an improvised arrangement of bugles, the more discreet
part of which may have been based on The Internationale.[79] Time described it as a "deafening blast".[79]
His first task involved renewed negotiations with the cabinet of Aristide Briand (February 1926), during which he was
confronted with the vocal campaign of creditors.[64] Early results achieved in discussions with Anatole de Monzie were
dismissed by the opposition rallied around Poincaré, and, after being revived by the short-lived cabinet of Édouard
Herriot, talks ended without any result.[80] Poincaré returned to power, and France remained committed to the Locarno
Treaties (which had isolated the Soviet state on the international stage).[64]
Over the following year, Christian Rakovsky continued to attempt a détente
with France, advertising Soviet concessions and speaking directly to the
public.[64]
During the same period, as tensions grew between Mexico and the Soviet
government over the latter's support for a Mexican railway workers' strike,
American agents reported that Rakovsky was instructed to threaten with
publicizing correspondence between former President Álvaro Obregón and
Soviet authorities (which had occurred before diplomatic links were
established).[81] Since this could endanger Mexico's relations with the United
States, President Plutarco Elías Calles chose to deescalate the conflict.[81]
On the front: Christian Rakovsky on

the left, and Yevgeni
Preobrazhensky in the middle and
Grigori Sokolnikov on the right
during Soviet UK negotiations in
London. Mar 1924
Together with his second wife, Rakovsky gave full approval to

Max Eastman's volume Since Lenin Died, which centered on
heavy criticism of Soviet realities, and which they reviewed
before it was published.[82] He became acquainted with the Rakovsky with Leonid Krasin and Charles Rappoport,
former French Communist Party member and anti-Stalinist Paris, 1924
journalist Boris Souvarine, as well as with the Romanian

writer Panait Istrati, who had observed Rakovsky's career
ever since his presence in Romania.[83] He also maintained friendly contacts with Marcel Pauker, a prominent but
independent-minded member of the Romanian Communist Party, whose activities were denounced by the Comintern in
1930.[84]
Rakovsky was eventually declared a persona non grata in France and recalled after signing the Declaration of the
Opposition, a Trotskyist platform deemed unfriendly by the French government (it stressed support for revolutions and
mutinies in all capitalist countries).[85] According to Time, France's decision was tacitly welcomed by Foreign Affairs
Commissar Georgy Chicherin, due to Rakovsky's political opinions.[86] Rakovsky left without presenting his letter of recall
to President Doumergue, although he was scheduled for a meeting at the Élysée.[86] He was initially scheduled to serve as
Ambassador to Japan.[86] On his trip back to the Soviet state, he was joined by Istrati, who, partly owing to his witnessing
of the Rakovsky's downfall, soon became a noted opponent of Stalinism.[83]
Persecution and internal exile

In December, Rakovsky and Lev Kamenev held brief speeches in front of the Soviet Communist Party's Fifteenth
Congress.[87] The former was interrupted fifty-seven times by his opponents—Nikolai Bukharin, Martemyan Ryutin, and
Lazar Kaganovich.[87] Although, unlike Rakovsky, he used the occasion to appeal for reconciliation, Kamenev was himself
interrupted twenty-four times by the same group.[87]
After that moment, although branded "enemy of the people", Rakovsky was
still occasionally allowed to speak in public (notably, together with Kamenev
and Karl Radek, to the Moscow Komsomol), and continued to criticize Stalin's
leadership as "bureaucratic socialism" (see Bureaucratic collectivism) and
"social fascism".[88] With Nikolai Krestinsky (who split with the group soon
afterwards) and Kamenev, he attempted to organize a substantial opposition,
visiting Ukraine for this purpose, hosting public meetings and printing
manifestos addressed to the workers in Kiev, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odessa,
Five year anniversary of Krasnay Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia (he was assisted by, among others,
Nov Jun 1926; sitting left to right: Yuri Kotsubinsky).[89] He was persistently heckled during public appearances,
Georgy Chulkov, Vikenty Veresaev,
and his supporters were beaten up by the Militsiya.[90]
Christian Rakovsky, Boris Pilnyak,
Aleksandr Voronsky, Petr Oreshin, In November 1927, after receiving news that Adolph Joffe had committed
Karl Radek and Pavel Sakulin;
suicide, he assigned Ukrainian campaigning to Voja Vujović, and returned to
standing left to right: Ivan
Moscow.[90] Following the defeat of the Left Opposition in November–
Evdokimov, Vasily Lvov-
Rogachevsky, Vyacheslav Polonsky, December 1927, Rakovsky was ousted from the Comintern, the Central
Fedor Gladkov, Mikhail Gerasimov, Committee, and eventually from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[91]
Abram Ėfros and Isaac Babel; He was exiled, first to Astrakhan, Saratov, and then to Barnaul.[92] Shortly
before the decision, he commented to his visitor, French writer Pierre Naville:
"The French expelled me from Paris for having signed a declaration of the
opposition. Stalin expelled me from the [Foreign Affairs Commissariat] for having signed the same declaration. But in
both cases they let me keep the jacket".[93]
While in Astrakhan, Rakovsky was employed by the Regional Planning Committee (Gubplan).[89] He was also active as a
writer, starting work on a volume detailing the sources of Utopian socialism and the thought of Saint-Simon.[94] Rakovsky
remained involved in Trotskyist politics, was contacted by Panait Istrati and the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis,[83] and
corresponded with Trotsky (who had himself been exiled to Almaty).[93] Most of his writings were confiscated by the State
Political Directorate, but the letter on Soviet "bureaucratism" he addressed to Nikolai Valentinov survived, and became
notorious as a critique of Stalinism (under the title "Professional Dangers" of Power).[95] Mistrusting Stalin's new leftist
policies, he foresaw the renewed moves against the Left Opposition (inaugurated by Trotsky's 1929 expulsion).[93]
As his health deteriorated, he was allowed to move to Saratov upon requests addressed by Krestinsky to Kaganovich, the
Secretary of the Central Committee.[89] He was visited by Louis Fischer, who recorded Rakovsky's determination not to
submit to Stalin (contrasting his option with those of Radek, Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, Alexander Beloborodov and Ivar
Smilga).[89] Instead, Rakovsky incited further resistance to Stalinism, and issued a declaration of the united opposition;
following this, he was sent to Barnaul, which he called a "hole in the barren cold ground".[93] In another critical letter to
the Party leadership (April 1930), he called for, among other things, the restoration of civil liberties, a reduction in the
party apparatus, the return of Trotsky, and an end to forced collectivization.[89]
Little is known of Rakovsky's life between that moment and July 1932, the moment when he was allowed a medical
leave.[89] Towards the end of the same year, Trotsky was informed that he had attempted to flee the Soviet Union, and, in
March 1933, it was announced that he had been deported to Yakutia.[89] Answering Trotsky's request, the French
mathematician and Trotskyist Jean Van Heijenoort, together with his fellow activist Pierre Frank, unsuccessfully called on
the influential Soviet author Maxim Gorky to intervene in favor of Christian Rakovsky, and boarded the ship he was
traveling on near Istanbul.[96] According to Heijenoort, they only managed to meet Gorky's son, Maxim Peshkov, who
reportedly told them that his father was indisposed, but promised to pass on their request.[96] Researcher Tova Yedlin
proposed that the problem was caused by Gorky's distress over having recently separated from his mistress Moura
Budberg, as well as to the writer's close surveillance by OGPU agents.[96]
Submission to Stalin and the Show Trial

Rakovsky was one of the last leading Trotskyists to break with Trotsky and surrender to Stalin. Alarmed by Adolf Hitler's
rise to power in Germany and under intense pressure from Stalin, he announced his submission to the Party through a
telegram he sent Izvestia (February 23, 1934).[89] While Rakovsky was allowed to return to Moscow,[89] Trotsky declared
the dissociation statement to be "purely formal".[97]
Rakovsky formally "admitted his mistakes" in April 1934 (his letter to the Pravda, titled There Should Be No Mercy,
depicted Trotsky and his supporters as "agents of the German Gestapo").[98] He was appointed to high office in the
Commissariat for Health and allowed to return to Moscow,[89] also serving as Soviet ambassador to Japan in 1935.[99]
Cited in allegations involving the killing of Sergey Kirov, Rakovsky was arrested in autumn 1937, during the Great
Purge;[89] according to Trotsky, he was forced to wait without food or rest for 18 hours, during which time his house was
being searched.[97]
Shortly thereafter, in March 1938, he was put on trial along with Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai
Krestinsky and other Old Bolsheviks, on charges of conspiring with Trotsky to overthrow Stalin, the third Moscow Show
Trial—known as the Trial of the Twenty One.[100] In his forced confession to Andrey Vyshinsky, he admitted to all the
charges—including having been a spy (for Japan)[99] and a landowner.[89] He made attempts to point out that his revenue
had been used to support socialism, and that he had a grasp of "revolutionary practices", but was attacked by Vyshinsky,
who persistently referred to Rakovsky as "a counterrevolutionary".[89] In his final statement, Rakovsky argued: "from my
young days I honestly, truthfully and devotedly performed my duty as a soldier of the cause of the emancipation of labor.
After this bright period a dark period set in, the period of my criminal deeds".[93]
Unlike most of his co-defendants, who were immediately executed, he was sentenced to twenty years of hard labor.[101] In
1941 he was in Oryol Prison. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), Rakovsky was shot on
Stalin's orders outside Oryol[89]—along with Olga Kameneva, Maria Spiridonova and over 150 other political prisoners in
the Medvedev Forest massacre. This execution was one of the many massacres of prisoners committed by the NKVD in
1941.
Legacy and rehabilitation

Rakovsky's second wife, Alexandrina Alexandrescu, was herself arrested, and is known to have been held in Butyrka
prison, where she suffered a series of heart attacks.[89] His adoptive daughter, Elena Codreanu-Racovski, was expelled
from her job as secretary of the Mossoviet Theater, and deported to Siberia.[102] She returned to Moscow in the 1950s,
after Stalin's death, and settled in Communist Romania after 1975, rejoining her brother, the biologist and academic Radu
Codreanu.[103] She later authored a memoir which included recollections of her father (it was published in Romanian as
De-a lungul şi de-a latul secolului, "The Length and Breadth of the Century").[83][104] It was compiled from personal notes
and dialogs with physician and former communist militant G. Brătescu, who noted that, probably owing to suspicions she
had in respect to the Romanian communist regime, Elena Codreanu refused to talk about Rakovsky's trial and her own
persecution.[104] Rakovsky's nephew Boris Stefanov, whom he encouraged to join the Romanian socialist movement before
World War I, later became a general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party, before being himself purged in
1940.[105]
By 1932, Rakovsky's name was frequently invoked in the heated debate involving Panait Istrati and his political
adversaries. Istrati, having returned to Romania in disillusion over Soviet realities, was initially attacked in the local right-
wing newspapers Curentul and Universul; writing for the former, Pamfil Şeicaru defined Istrati as "the servant of
Racovski".[106] Having published To the Other Flame, in which he exposed Stalinism, he consequently became the target
of intense criticism and allegations from various pro-Soviet writers, led by the Frenchman Henri Barbusse.[83] During this
period, the Romanian communist writer Alexandru Sahia speculated, among other things, that Istrati had been in the pay
of Rakovsky and Trotsky for a sizable part of his life.[83]
Based on his independent opinions and, in part, on his friendship with Rakovsky, Marcel Pauker was disavowed by the
Romanian and Soviet communist parties, and was himself a victim of the Great Purge in 1938.[84] At various intervals
between 1930 and 1952, his wife, the Romanian communist leader Ana Pauker, faced pressures to denounce her
husband.[84] She allegedly refused to criticize him for anything other than his association with Rakovsky, and to admit that
Marcel Pauker had been guilty of all the charges brought against him.[84]
The Hungarian-born author Arthur Koestler, himself a former communist, based Rubashov, the main character in his
1940 novel Darkness at Noon, on victims of the Moscow Trials; according to George Orwell, Rakovsky's fate was a possible
direct influence: "Rubashov might be called Trotsky, Bukharin, Rakovsky or some other relatively civilised figure among
the Old Bolsheviks. If one writes about the Moscow trials one must answer the question, «Why did the accused confess?»
and which answer one makes is a political decision. Koestler answers, in effect, «Because these people had been rotted by
the Revolution which they served», and in doing so he comes near to claiming that revolutions are of their nature bad".[57]
In 1988, during Glasnost, the Soviet government cleared Rakovsky and his co-defendants of all charges.[107] His
rehabilitation came in February, coinciding with that of Bukharin, as well as with those of Ukrainian official and former
People's Commissar for Agriculture Mikhail Alexandrovich Chernov, former People's Commissar for Foreign Trade
Arkady Rosengolts, and other five officials.[108] Bukharin, Rakovsky, Rozengolts, and Chernov were posthumously
reinstated to the Communist Party on June 21, 1988.[109] His works were given imprimatur, while a favorable biography
was published by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (late 1988).[110]
Footnotes
1. Cioculescu, p.28, 46, 246–248
2. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans
3. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky et Basile Kolarov
4. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky ("An Autobiography") stated that his birthplace was Kotel
5. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Upson Clark
6. Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"
7. Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Upson Clark
8. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"
9. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"
10. Anghel & Iosif, p.257; Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans
11. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Les socialistes et la guerre
12. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Frunză, p.92; Upson Clark
13. Rakovsky, in Frunză, p.92
14. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"
15. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Upson Clark
16. Upson Clark
17. Lenin, in Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"
18. Rakovsky, Les socialistes et la guerre
19. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"; Upson Clark
20. 110 ani de social-democraţie, p.13; Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Upson
Clark
21. Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky et Basile Kolarov

22. Anghel & Iosif, p.257; Tismăneanu, p.42
23. Anghel & Iosif, p.257
24. Anghel & Iosif, passim
26. Rakovsky, in Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; in Upson Clark
27. (in Romanian) Ion Bulei, "421, nu 11.000" (http://www.zf.ro/ziarul-de-duminica/421-nu-11-000-3047758/), in Ziarul
Financiar, February 2, 2007
28. Cioculescu, p.28, 46
29. 110 ani de social-democraţie, p.14; Anghel & Iosif, p.256; Cioculescu, p.146-247; Fagan, Socialist leader in the
Balkans; Ornea, p.514; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"; Upson Clark
30. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Ornea, p.514
31. Anghel & Iosif, p.256; Cioculescu, p.247
33. Ornea, p.514
34. Editor's note in Anghel & Iosif, p.256; Cioculescu, p.247; Ornea, p.514; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"
35. Brătianu, in Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"
36. Ornea, p.521-522; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"
37. Ornea, p.521-522
38. Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"
39. Duca, rendered in Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"
40. 110 ani de social-democraţie, p.3
41. 110 ani de social-democraţie, p.14
42. Brătescu, p.425
43. Valeria Stan, Florian Tănăsescu, Marian Ştefan, "1871–1971. Am iubit şi am admirat pe cel care se chema I. C.
Frimu" ("We Have Loved and Admired the One Named I. C. Frimu"), in Magazin Istoric, October 1971, p.6
44. Fagan, Regroupment of the socialist movement
45. Fagan, Regroupment of the socialist movement; Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky et Basile Kolarov
46. Rakovsky, Les socialistes et la guerre; Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky et Basile Kolarov
47. Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"
48. Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Regroupment of the socialist movement; Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky et Basile
Kolarov; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"
49. Fagan, Regroupment of the socialist movement; Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"; Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky et Basile
Kolarov
50. Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky et Basile Kolarov
51. Fagan, Regroupment of the socialist movement; Upson Clark
52. Torrey, p.23, 25
53. Torrey, p.25
54. Fagan, Regroupment of the socialist movement; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"
55. 110 ani de social-democraţie, p.15; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"
56. 110 ani de social-democraţie, p.15; Fagan, Regroupment of the socialist movement; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography";
Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"; Upson Clark
57. George Orwell, "Arthur Koestler. Essay". Retrieved July 19, 2007.
58. Fagan, Regroupment of the socialist movement; Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"
59. Tănase, "Cristian Racovski"; Upson Clark
60. Fagan, Soviet Diplomat (1923–7); Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"

61. Fagan, Rakovsky and the Ukraine (1919–23); Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"
62. Arthur Ransome, Russia in 1919 (http://home.freeuk.com/russica2/books/1919/1919.html). Retrieved July 19, 2007.
63. Fagan, Rakovsky and the Ukraine (1919–23)
64. Fagan, Soviet Diplomat (1923–7)
65. Frunză, p.93; Livezeanu, p.250; Tismăneanu, p.44-45; Upson Clark
66. Livezeanu, p.250
67. Rakovsky, in Fagan, Rakovsky and the Ukraine (1919–23)
68. Jerry F. Hough, Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985–1991, Brookings Institution Press, Washington,
D.C., 1997, p.223-224. ISBN 978-0-8157-3749-0
69. Mirchuk, P. Outline of the history of OUN (https://web.archive.org/web/20141217113633/http://donklass.com/arhiv/hist
disk/exlibris/insurgent/narys_oun/soviet.html). Vol.1. Munich-London-New-York: "Ukrayinske vydavnytstvo", 1968.
70. Richard Kent Debo, Survival and Consolidation: the Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918–1921, McGill-Queen's
University Press, Montreal, 1992, p.117. ISBN 978-0-7735-0828-6
71. Frunză, p.93
72. Frunză, p.95
73. Tismăneanu, p.45-47
74. "Battle for Life", in Time, September 8, 1924
75. John P. Willerton, Patronage and Politics in the USSR, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992, p.28.
ISBN 978-0-521-39288-4
76. Poincaré, in Fagan, Soviet Diplomat (1923–7)
77. "Notes", in Time, July 27, 1925
78. "The Little Corporal", in Time, May 18, 1925
79. "Bugle Blast", in Time, December 21, 1925
80. "Faux Pas", in Time, March 22, 1926; Fagan, Soviet Diplomat (1923–7)
81. Daniela Spenser, Impossible Triangle: Mexico, Soviet Russia, and the United States in the 1920s, Duke University
Press, Durham, 1999, p.105-106. ISBN 978-0-8223-2289-4
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p.64-66. ISBN 978-0-520-22395-0
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Cambridge, 1992, p.189-190. ISBN 978-0-521-36987-9
88. Fagan, Opposition and Exile; Victor Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom, Transaction Publishers, Somerset, New Jersey,
1988, p.51-52. ISBN 978-0-88738-754-8; Tismăneanu, p.61-62
89. Fagan, Opposition and Exile
90. Fagan, Opposition and Exile; Tănase, "The Renegade Istrati"
91. Fagan, Opposition and Exile; Medvedev, p.60; Tănase, "The Renegade Istrati"
92. Fagan, Opposition and Exile; Tănase, "The Renegade Istrati"; Tismăneanu, p.61-62
93. Rakovsky, in Fagan, Opposition and Exile
94. Rakovsky, in Fagan, Opposition and Exile; Tănase, "The Renegade Istrati"
95. Rakovsky, in Fagan, Opposition and Exile; Tismăneanu, p.61-62
96. Tova Yedlin, Maxim Gorky: A Political Biography, Praeger/Greenwood, Westport, 1992, p.201-202. ISBN 978-0-275-
96605-8
97. Trotsky, in Fagan, Opposition and Exile
98. Medvedev, p.169
99. Feofanov & Barry, p.22
100. Fagan, Opposition and Exile; Medvedev, p.169, 175–176, 186; Tismăneanu, p.50, 74
101. Fagan, Opposition and Exile; Medvedev, p.178
102. Brătescu, p.425-426
103. Brătescu, p.426
104. Brătescu, p.426-427
105. Ilarion Ţiu, "Aliatul lui Stalin" ("Stalin's Ally"), in Jurnalul Naţional, June 7, 2005
106. Şeicaru, in Tănase, "The Renegade Istrati"
107. Feofanov & Barry, p.34; Shapiro
108. Philip Taubman, "50 Years After His Execution, Soviet Panel Clears Bukharin", in The New York Times, February 6,
1988
109. Philip Taubman, "Bukharin Status in Party Restored", in The New York Times, July 10, 1988
110. Shapiro
References
Christian Rakovsky Internet Archive (http://www.marxists.org/archive/rakovsky/) at Marxists.org:
Gus Fagan, Biographical Introduction to Christian Rakovsky, Selected Writings on Opposition in the USSR 1923–
30 (editor: Gus Fagan), Allison & Busby, London & New York, 1980 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/rakovsky/bio
g/index.htm); retrieved July 19, 2007
Christian Rakovsky, "An Autobiography", Granat, 1926 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/rakovsky/1926/autobiog/a
utobiog.htm), translated by Gus Fagan; retrieved July 19, 2007
(in Romanian) 110 ani de social-democraţie în România ("110 Years of Social Democracy in Romania") (https://web.a
rchive.org/web/20100601084430/http://www.fisd.ro/PDF/110ani.pdf), Social Democratic Party, Ovidiu Şincai Social
Democratic Institute, Bucharest, July 9, 2003; retrieved July 19, 2007
G. Brătescu, Ce-a fost să fie. Notaţii autobiografice ("That Which Was Meant to Be. Autobiographical Notes"),
Humanitas, Bucharest, 2003. ISBN 978-973-50-0425-5
Şerban Cioculescu, Caragialiana, Editura Eminescu, Bucharest, 1974. OCLC 6890267 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/
6890267)
Yuri Feofanov, Donald Barry, Arbitrary Justice: Courts and Politics in Post-Stalin Russia (http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/ncee
er/1995-808-02-9-Feofanov.pdf), National Council for Soviet and East European Research and Lehigh University,
Washington, D. C., 1995; retrieved July 19, 2007
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ISBN 978-973-28-0177-2
Şt. O. Iosif, D. Anghel, "Racovski", in Cireşul lui Lucullus. Teatru, proză, traduceri ("Lucullus' Cherry Tree. Drama,
Prose, Translations"), Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1976. OCLC 2598894 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2598894)
Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building and Ethnic Struggle, 1918–1930,
Cornell University Press, New York City, 1995. ISBN 978-0-8014-8688-3
Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge, Spokesman Books, Nottingham, 1976. ISBN 978-0-85124-150-0
Z. Ornea, Viaţa lui C. Stere ("The Life of C. Stere"), Vol. I, Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 1989. ISBN 978-973-23-
0099-2
(in French) Christian Rakovsky, Les socialistes et la guerre ("The Socialists and the War"), 1915 (http://www.marxists.
org/francais/rakovsky/works/soc_guerre/reponse.htm), at Marxists.org (French edition); retrieved July 19, 2007
Judith Shapiro, "The Prophet Returned? A Survey of Recent Works by and about Trotsky in the Soviet Union" (https://
web.archive.org/web/20010528004031/http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/backiss/Vol2/No2/Shapiro.html), in
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Stelian Tănase,
(in Romanian) "Cristian Racovski" (Part I) (https://web.archive.org/web/20070926230225/http://www.magazinistori

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retrieved July 19, 2007
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(in French) Leon Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky et Basile Kolarov ("Christian Rakovsky and Vasil Kolarov"), 1915 (http://
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Career" (http://depts.washington.edu/cartah/text_archive/clark/bc_21.shtml), at the University of Washington;
retrieved July 19, 2007
External links
(in Russian) Trotsky's unfinished biography of Rakovsky (http://lib.ru/TROCKIJ/Trotsky.PortretyRev.txt)
(in Italian) Panait Istrati's testimonies on Rakovsky (http://www.ecn.org/balkan/0009marxismorakovsky.html)
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5/16/2018 Christian Rakovsky - Wikipedia

October Revolution Died September 11, 1941

In Russian, his full name, including patronymic, was Khristian Georgievich

Military service and first stay in Russia

PSDR and Zimmerwald Movement

Second Ukrainian government

Reinstating of Soviet dominance and

1922, he successfully proposed the formation of a Soviet of Nationalities to

Trotskyist opposition and ambassadorship

On the front: Christian Rakovsky on

Together with his second wife, Rakovsky gave full approval to

journalist Boris Souvarine, as well as with the Romanian

Persecution and internal exile

Submission to Stalin and the Show Trial

Legacy and rehabilitation

21. Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky et Basile Kolarov

60. Fagan, Soviet Diplomat (1923–7); Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"

(in Romanian) "Cristian Racovski" (Part I) (https://web.archive.org/web/20070926230225/http://www.magazinistori

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christian_Rakovsky&oldid=841034553"

This page was last edited on 13 May 2018, at 17:20.

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