Soviet Union -- Biography; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
Two years later he published a large historical volume called “Russian
Policy in the East.” He also wrote what was considered a brilliant
dissertation on criminology and degeneracy.
Rakovsky went to Russia in 1900, but was immediately arrested and
expelled by the Tsar’s police. He returned to Germany and there he
wrote his best known book, “Present Day France,” which was published
under the pen-name of Insarov.
A short time after completing this book he entered the judicial faculty
of the University of Paris, but was so interested in the Russian
revolution that he gave up his post after a year and went again to
Russia, only to be expelled promptly.
He organized the Socialist Party in Roumania in 1904 and in 1907 was
arrested following some peasant uprising. He was deprived of all
political rights, exiled and forbidden ever to return to Roumania. But
he had such a large and staunch following and so many serious riots
took place that the Government was too embarrassed to carry out its
decision. In a riot in Bucharest more than fifty persons were killed.
In 1912 he was re-enfranchised, which was considered a great victory
for the Roumanian labor leader.
Rakovsky is an habitual publicist; in the course of his career he has
founded ten newspapers.
During the war he was so active in his anti-war propaganda that he was
imprisoned in Roumania, but the first days of the 1917 revolution gave
him back his freedom when the Russian garrison in Jassy decided of its
own initiative to release all political prisoners.
He was not popular with the Provisional Government and, fearing his
influence, Burstev requested his arrest in a note to Tereschenko and in
a telegram to Kerensky. Learning of this order, he went to Sweden and
was in Stockholm at the time of the Bolshevik _coup d’état_.
In 1919 he was elected head of the Ukraine by the action of the Third
Congress of Ukrainian Soviets. I say “head” because he is at present
Premier, President and Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as a member
of the Executive Committee of the Third International in Moscow.
While I was in Moscow Rakovsky and his wife spent several weeks in
the house in which I lived. Madame Rakovsky is the sort of woman who
adds interesting and insuppressible variety to the leveling influence
of the revolution. She is a princess, speaks French in preference to
Russian after the manner of the old Russian aristocracy, and still
uses a lorgnette. She is an enthusiastic Communist. Everything about
her is charming, distinguished and--eminently exclusive! She always
accompanies her husband wherever he goes, is present at all interviews,
and one can tell by the way he listens to her opinions that he places
particular value on her advice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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