Christian 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.
72 Facts About Christian Rakovsky
2.
Christian Rakovsky 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.
3.
Christian Rakovsky was ultimately recalled from France in autumn 1927, after signing his name to a controversial Trotskyist platform which endorsed world revolution.
4.
Christian Rakovsky was rehabilitated in 1988, during the Soviet Glasnost period.
5.
Christian Rakovsky's father was a merchant who belonged to the Democratic Party.
6.
Christian Rakovsky 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.
7.
Christian Rakovsky was expelled from the gymnasium in Gabrovo for his political activities.
8.
Since, after having ultimately been banned from attending any public school in the country, he could not complete his education in Bulgaria, in September 1890, Christian Rakovsky went to Geneva to begin his studies and become a physician.
9.
Christian Rakovsky briefly worked with Rosa Luxemburg, Pavel Axelrod, and Vera Zasulich.
10.
Christian Rakovsky soon became involved in distributing socialist propaganda inside Bulgaria, at a time when Stefan Stambolov organized a crackdown on political opposition.
11.
Later in 1893, Christian Rakovsky enrolled in a medical school in Berlin, contributing articles for Vorwarts and becoming close to Wilhelm Liebknecht.
12.
Christian Rakovsky subsequently rejoined his wife in Saint Petersburg, where he hoped to settle down and engage in revolutionary activities.
13.
In 1903, following the death of his father, Christian Rakovsky again lived in Paris, where he followed developments of the Russo-Japanese War and spoke out against Russia, attracting, according to Christian Rakovsky himself, the criticism of both Plekhanov and Jules Guesde.
14.
Christian Rakovsky voiced his opposition to the concession made by Karl Kautsky to Jean Jaures, one which had allowed socialists to join "bourgeois" governments in times of crisis.
15.
Christian Rakovsky ultimately settled in Romania having inherited his father's estate near Mangalia.
16.
Christian Rakovsky was usually present in Bucharest on a weekly basis, and started an intense activity as a journalist, doctor and lawyer.
17.
Christian Rakovsky traveled to Bulgaria, where he eventually sided with the Tesnyatsi in their conflict with other socialist groups.
18.
Christian Rakovsky became noted locally especially after 1905, when he organized rallies in support of the Battleship Potemkin revolt, carried out a relief operation for the Potemkin crew as their ship sought refuge in Constanta, and attempted to persuade them to set sail for Batumi and aid striking workers there.
19.
Christian Rakovsky was drawn into a polemic with the Romanian authorities, facing public accusations that, as a Bulgarian, he lacked patriotism.
20.
Supportive of the thesis according to which the peasantry had revolutionary importance inside Romanian society and Eastern Europe at large, Christian Rakovsky publicized his perspective in the socialist press.
21.
Christian Rakovsky was 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.
22.
Christian Rakovsky became close to the influential dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale, who was living in Berlin at the time.
23.
Christian Rakovsky received news of this action while already abroad, in Stuttgart.
24.
Christian Rakovsky 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; 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.
25.
In exile, Christian Rakovsky authored the pamphlet Les persecutions politiques en Roumanie and two books.
26.
Christian Rakovsky secretly returned to Romania in 1911, giving himself up in Bucharest.
27.
Christian Rakovsky subsequently left for Sofia, where he established the Bulgarian socialist journal Napred.
28.
Christian Rakovsky unsuccessfully ran for Parliament during the elections of that year, being fully reinstated as a citizen in April 1912.
29.
Romanian journalist Stelian Tanase contends that the expulsion had instilled resentment in Rakovsky; earlier, the leading National Liberal politician Ion G Duca himself had argued that Rakovsky was developing a "hatred for Romania".
30.
Alongside Mihai Gheorghiu Bujor and Frimu, Christian Rakovsky was one of the founders of the Romanian Social Democratic Party, serving as its president.
31.
Christian Rakovsky was afterwards involved in calling for peace during the Balkan Wars; 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.
32.
In 1913, Christian Rakovsky was married a second time, to Alexandrina Alexandrescu, a socialist militant and intellectual, who taught mathematics in Ploiesti.
33.
Christian Rakovsky had previously been married to Filip Codreanu, a Narodnik activist born in Bessarabia, with whom she had a daughter, Elena, and a son, Radu.
34.
Subsequently, together with the Italian Socialist delegates, Christian Rakovsky was instrumental in convening the anti-war international socialist Zimmerwald Conference in September 1915.
35.
Christian Rakovsky ran for Parliament for a final time during 1916, and again lost when contesting a seat in Covurlui County.
36.
Christian Rakovsky drew attention to himself after welcoming to Bucharest the pro-German maverick socialist Alexander Parvus.
37.
Christian Rakovsky's independence was consequently challenged by the interventionist paper Adevarul, a former socialist venue, who called Rakovsky "an adventurer without scruples", and viewed him as employed by Parvus and other German socialists.
38.
Christian Rakovsky himself alleged that, "under the mask of independence", Adevarul and its editor Constantin Mille were in the pay of Take Ionescu.
39.
Christian Rakovsky moved to Petrograd in the spring of 1917.
40.
Christian 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.
41.
Christian Rakovsky's 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; Stelian Tanase claims that during the period, a group of one hundred Russian Bolsheviks had infiltrated Iasi with the goal of assassinating King Ferdinand I and organizing a coup.
42.
On 9 March 1918, Christian Rakovsky signed a treaty with Romania regarding the evacuation of troops from Bessarabia, which Stelian Tanase claims allowed for the Moldavian Democratic Republic to join Romania.
43.
Christian Rakovsky subscribed to the Bolshevik condemnation of Greater Romania, stance that journalist Victor Frunza considered a revision of his previous views on Bessarabia.
44.
Christian 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".
45.
In March 1919, Christian Rakovsky was a founding member of the Comintern, where he represented the Balkan Communist Federation.
46.
Christian Rakovsky 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 authorities.
47.
Christian Rakovsky continued to pressure for a measure of independence in Ukrainian economy, and, during the early 1920s, the republic sealed its own trade agreements with other European countries.
48.
Christian 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.
49.
In November 1922, Christian Rakovsky attended the Conference of Lausanne, where he was confronted with the assassination of his fellow diplomat Vaslav Vorovsky by the emigre Maurice Conradi.
50.
In 1924, as the Labour Party minority cabinet came to power, Ramsay MacDonald and Christian Rakovsky negotiated de jure recognition and agreed on a possible future Anglo-Soviet treaty and a British loan for the Soviet Union.
51.
Christian Rakovsky served as the Soviet ambassador to France between October 1925 and October 1927, replacing Leonid Krasin.
52.
Christian Rakovsky did not take hold of his office until 50 days after his official appointment, refusing to be received at the Elysee Palace by French President Gaston Doumergue for as long as the state authorities would not allow The Internationale to be played on the occasion.
53.
Together with his second wife, Christian 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.
54.
Christian Rakovsky became acquainted with the former French Communist Party member and anti-Stalinist journalist Boris Souvarine, as well as with the Romanian writer Panait Istrati, who had observed Rakovsky's career ever since his presence in Romania.
55.
Christian Rakovsky 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.
56.
Christian 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.
57.
Christian Rakovsky left without presenting his letter of recall to President Doumergue, although he was scheduled for a meeting at the Elysee.
58.
Christian Rakovsky was initially scheduled to serve as Ambassador to Japan.
59.
Although, unlike Christian Rakovsky, Kamenev used the occasion to appeal for reconciliation, he was himself interrupted twenty-four times by the same group.
60.
Christian Rakovsky was persistently heckled during public appearances, and his supporters were beaten up by the Militsiya.
61.
Christian Rakovsky was exiled, first to Astrakhan, Saratov, and then to Barnaul.
62.
Christian Rakovsky was active as a writer, starting work on a volume detailing the sources of Utopian socialism and the thought of Saint-Simon.
63.
Christian Rakovsky remained involved in Trotskyist politics, was contacted by Panait Istrati and the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis, and corresponded with Trotsky.
64.
Christian Rakovsky was visited by Louis Fischer, who recorded Rakovsky's determination not to submit to Stalin.
65.
Christian Rakovsky was one of the last leading Trotskyists to break with Trotsky and surrender to Stalin.
66.
Christian Rakovsky formally "admitted his mistakes" in April 1934.
67.
Christian Rakovsky was appointed to high office in the Commissariat for Health and allowed to return to Moscow, serving as Soviet ambassador to Japan in 1935.
68.
Christian Rakovsky 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".
69.
Christian Rakovsky 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.
70.
Christian Rakovsky later authored a memoir which included recollections of her father.
71.
Christian Rakovsky 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.
72.
Christian Rakovsky's works were given imprimatur, while a favorable biography was published by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.