Christian Georgiyevich Rakovsky ( – September 11, 1941), Bulgarian name Krastyo Georgiev Rakovski, born Krastyo Georgiev Stanchov, was a Bulgarian-born socialist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and Soviet diplomat and statesman; he was also noted as a journalist, physician, and essayist. 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.
A lifelong collaborator of Leon Trotsky, he was a prominent activist of the Second International, involved in politics with the Bulgarian Workers' Social Democratic Party, 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 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 was ultimately recalled from France in autumn 1927, after signing his name to a controversial Trotskyist platform which endorsed world revolution. Credited with having developed the Trotskyist critique of Stalinism as "bureaucratic centrism", Rakovsky was subject to internal exile. Submitting to Stalin's leadership in 1934 and being briefly reinstated, he was nonetheless implicated in the Trial of the Twenty One (part of the Moscow Trials), imprisoned, and executed by the NKVD during World War II. He was rehabilitated in 1988, during the Soviet Glasnost period.
Names Rakovsky's original Bulgarian name was Krastyo Georgiev Stanchev (Кръстьо Георгиев Станчев), which he himself changed to Krastyo Rakovski (Кръстьо Раковски), being a grandnephew of the Bulgarian national hero Georgi Rakovski. The usual form his first name took in Romanian was Cristian (occasionally rendered as Christian), while his last name was spelled Racovski, Racovschi, or Rakovski. His given name was occasionally rendered as Ristache, an antiquated hypocoristic—he was known as such to his acquaintance, writer Ion Luca Caragiale.Cioculescu, pp. 28, 46, 246–248
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.Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans In Ukrainian, Rakovsky's name is rendered as Християн Георгійович Раковський, and usually transliterated as Khrystyian Heorhiiovych Rakovskyi.
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.Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky et Basile Kolarov.
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.Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky ("An Autobiography") stated that his birthplace was Kotel. He was, on his mother's side, the grandnephew of Georgi Sava Rakovski, a revolutionary hero of the Bulgarian National Revival;Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Upson Clark that side of his family also included Georgi Mamarchev, who had fought against the Ottomans in the Imperial Russian Army.Rakovsky, "An Autobiography" Rakovsky's father was a merchant who belonged to the Democratic Party.
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).
Although his parents moved to the Kingdom of Romania in 1880, settling in Gherengic (Northern Dobruja), he completed his education in newly emancipated Bulgaria.Rakovsky, An Autobiography; Upson Clark. Rakovsky was expelled from the gymnasium in Gabrovo for his political activities (in 1887 and then again, after organizing a riot, in 1890). 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 published their own newspaper, the clandestine Zerkalo).Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography".
Since, after having ultimately been banned from attending any public school in the country, he could not complete his education in Bulgaria,Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Tănase, "Cristian Racovski". in September 1890, Rakovsky went to Geneva to begin his studies and become a physician. While in Switzerland, he joined the Socialist Student Circle at the University of Geneva, which was largely composed of non-Swiss youth.
A polyglot,Anghel & Iosif, pg. 257; Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans. 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. He briefly worked with Rosa Luxemburg, Pavel Axelrod, and Vera Zasulich. 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.
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. 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 Bulgarian Social Democratic Party. He soon became involved in distributing socialist propaganda inside Bulgaria, at a time when Stefan Stambolov organized a crackdown on political opposition.
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). As a Bulgarian delegate to the Second International Congress in Zürich, he also met with Engels and Jules Guesde.
Six months later, he was arrested and expelled from the German Empire for maintaining close contacts with the Russian revolutionaries there. 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.Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Rakovsky, "An Autobiography"; Les socialistes et la guerre.
According to his own testimony, he became active in supporting the Anti-Ottoman upsurge in Crete and Macedonia, as well as Dashnak revolutionary activities. 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).
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"). On several occasions, he publicly criticized Russia's policies towards Romania and in BessarabiaFagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Frunză, pg. 92; Upson Clark. (describing Russia's rule over the latter as "absolutist conquest", "mischievous action", and "abduction").Rakovsky, in Frunză, pg. 92 According to Rakovsky, "Russophile papers" in Bulgaria had begun to target him as a consequence.
After completing his education as a physician at the University of MontpellierFagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Tănase, "Cristian Racovski". (with the thesis L'Éthiologie du crime et de la dégénérescence – "The Cause of Crime and Degeneration", submitted in 1897),Fagan, Socialist leader in the Balkans; Upson Clark Rakovsky, who had married the Russian student E. P. Ryabova, 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). He rose to the rank of lieutenant.Upson Clark
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). An adversary of Peter Berngardovich Struve after the latter moved towards market liberalism, he became acquainted with, among others, Nikolay Mikhaylovsky and Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky, while authoring articles for Nashe Slovo and helping distribute Iskra. 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, and at one point wrote to Karl Radek that "we [the Bolsheviks] do not have the same road as his kind of people".Lenin, in Tănase, "Cristian Racovski".
Initially, Rakovsky was expelled from Russia and had to move back to Paris. 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. Working for a while as a physician in the village of Beaulieu, Haute-Loire, he asked French officials to review his case for naturalization, but was refused.
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. 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.Rakovsky, Les socialistes et la guerre.
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