page_title: Christian Rakovsky
section_title: Reinstating of Soviet dominance and international conferences
hierarchical_section_title: Christian Rakovsky / Biography / Reinstating of Soviet dominance and international conferences
caption_attribution_description: English: Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister UK and Christian Rakovsky, Head of the Soviet diplomatic delegation. Place: London, 10 Downing Street. Date: formal recognition of USSR by United Kingdom Feb 1924. Context: the formal recognition and establishment of the diplomatic relations was extremely important for the Soviet government. Christian Rakovsky left the senior post of Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Prime Minister) of the Ukrainian SSR to lead the mission to establish the diplomatic relations with UK. Arthur Koestler, based Rubashov, the main character in his 1940 novel Darkness at Noon, on Christian Rakovsky. Rakovsky was shot on Stalin's orders in the Medvedev Forest massacre . Українська: Рамсей Макдональд, прем'єр-міністр Великобританії та Хрістіян Раковський, голова радянської делегації. Місто фото: 10 Downing Street. Дата: формальне визнання Британії СРСР лютий 1924 р. Контекст: формальне визнання та встановлення дипломатичних відносин було надзвичайно важливим для Радянського Союзу. Християн Раковський залишив високу посаду Голови Ради Народних Комісарів (прем'єр-міністра) УРСР та очолив делегацію дипломатичних перемовин з Великобританією. Артур Кестлер, написав Рубашова, головного героя у його романі " Ніч ополудні " 1940 року базуючись на Християні Раковськом. Раковський був розстріляний за вказівкою Сталіна в під час Медведівського розстрілу (також відомий як Орловський розстріл).
context_page_description: Christian Georgievich Rakovsky was a Bulgarian socialist revolutionary, a Bolshevik politician and Soviet diplomat; 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, as head of the Rumcherod, unsuccessfully attempted to generate a communist revolution in the Kingdom of Romania.
context_section_description: 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. 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 authorities. He 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.
  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". He was sentenced to death in absentia (1924). Journalist Victor Frunză claims this move had been prompted by a supposed 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). 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).
  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. 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. A leader of the delegation's commissions on economic aid, loans and government debt, 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). 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. 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.
  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). 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". 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". 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; 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.
caption: Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister UK and Christian Rakovsky, Head of the Soviet diplomatic delegation.
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