About the book: 2014 / Based on extensive archival materials from a number of countries, the life path of one of the brightest leaders of the international socialist movement of the Bulgarian Krystya (Christian) Rakovsky, a prominent centrist figure of the Second International, who became a Bolshevik after 1917. The authors traced the role of Rakovsky as the state leader of Ukraine - the chairman of its government, his courageous struggle for the true equality of the republic within the USSR, against the Stalinist course of unification, and revealed Rakovsky’s attempts to Europeanize the USSR when he was the plenipotentiary representative in Great Britain and France. The study expressively tells the story of Rakovsky’s opposition to the establishment of Stalin’s autocracy, his stay in exile, his return to Moscow to a secondary post and his reprisal. Attention is also paid to the hero’s personal life, his family and extra-family connections, his relatives and friends. The book is written in lively language, is read with enthusiasm and is of interest not only to specialists, but also to the widest audience.