Behind Rakovsky's Capitulation

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TASS [the news agency of the Soviet Union] communicates for the second time this month about the capitulation of Rakovsky to Stalin.

We are informed from an absolutely authoritative source that matters happened in the following way. In the early part of 1929, the old president of the Council of Peoples' Commissars in the Ukraine and the Soviet ambassador to Paris was deported to Barnaul, central Asia, where he remained for more than five years. The GPU encircled him with an ever-tightening grip. During the last two years, his wife, who shared his exile, was deprived of the possibility of corresponding with her son, a young doctor practicing in Paris.

At the end of 1929, the old revolutionist made a bold attempt to escape and, despite unprecedented surveillance, he succeeded in making his way to the frontier, where he was wounded by Soviet guards.

It was at that time that the entire world press wrote of the sickness or even the death of Rakovsky. In reality, the wounded man was shipped to the Kremlin hospital. Here, despite careful treatment, a formidable moral pressure was brought to bear on him.

But Rakovsky did not yield.

His wound having hardly healed, he was sent back to Barnaul and placed under a redoubled guard. Every perspective was completely lost Shaken by the failure of his supreme attempt, sick, his morale broken, this sixty-one-year-old man signed the statement of capitulation. While Rakovsky remained in Barnaul, his friends in the circles called "Trotskyist" did not wish to divulge these facts in order not to cause any harm to the deportee

Now that the capitulation is consummated, these same circles consider it necessary to make known the true significance of Rakovsky's capitulation.

Tomorrow the Soviet authorities will possibly impose pressure upon Rakovsky to issue a denied of these facts. This will not be the first example of such acts by Stalin. But such procedure deceives no one.