Leon Trotsky: Letter to the Editors of the International Bulletin [Writing of Leon Trotsky, Vol. 4, 1932, New York 1973, p. 73, title: “A Correction on Rakovsky”] To the Editors of the International Bulletin Dear Comrades: An inaccuracy has crept into your notice on C. G. Rakovsky in number 14 of the Bulletin, which I should like to correct with these lines. You write that Rakovsky’s health was broken by thirty years of service to the revolutionary cause. You thereby reduce the length of his service by a whole third: Christian Georgevich has been in the revolutionary ranks for forty-five years! I first met Rakovsky in 1902, that is, thirty years ago. Before that meeting I had been in the revolutionary ranks about five years, Rakovsky for about fifteen. The first appearance of Rakovsky as a revolutionary belongs to his school days. As a fifteen-year-old high-school student, he made a socialist speech against the priests in the church in his hometown of Kotel, in the heart of Bulgaria. He was expelled from high school for this, and, if I am not mistaken, arrested for the first time. From then on Rakovsky's revolutionary work was uninterrupted, in Bulgaria, Romania, France, Russia, again in Bulgaria and Romania, and finally in the Soviet Union — such is the truly international arena of his vigorous revolutionary activity. Communist greetings, L. Trotsky |
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