AN ODYSSEY ACROSS TWO WORLDS

George the Bulgarian and Soviet-American Relations During the First Half of the 20th Century
By

Jordan Baev and Kostadin Grozev

Sofia 2014

The English version of the book is dedicated to the hundred and twentieth anniversary of George Andreytchine
It can be read or download for free with non-commercial purposes

Revised English version from the original Bulgarian edition: . - (: , 2008) ISBN 978-953-528-800-5 Dr. Jordan Baev, Professor of Contemporary World History Author Dr. Kostadin Grozev, Associated Professor of Contemporary World History - Author Greta Keremidchieva, Assistant Professor of English Language Translation

CONTENTS
Forward . First Round: A Syndicalist & Journalist in the USA
Chapter One: Beginning of the First Odyssey in the New World
Childhood and Youth in Macedonia; With the Miners in Minnesota; The Messabi Range Strike

Chapter Two: Radical America

A Surprising Campaign in Support of Andreytchine; Bohemia State; In the Head Office of IWW

Chapter Three: Espionage or a Class War

The Big Chicago Process Against IWW; The Federal Prison in Leavenworth

Chapter Four: America Separated

Free Again; American Bolshevism; The Red Scare; A Return to

Greenwich Village

. Second Round: Soviet Activist and Stalinist Prisoner

Chapter Five: The New Odyssey in the Dream World of the Proletariat
The Red Trade Unions Congress; First Missions in Western Europe; American Colonism in Soviet Russia

Chapter Six: Trotskyism or Stalinism

On Trotskys Side; A Diplomatic Mission in London; Amtorg and a New Mission in Vienna; The Internal Party Opposition; American Journalists in Moscow; On the Steppes in Kazakhstan

Chapter Seven: A Temporary Pardon

Deputy Director of Intourist; The US Ambassadors Friend; Herbert Wells Visit

Chapter Eight: GULAG

Beginning of the Mass Terror; In the Far North; Christian Rakovskys Confessions

Chapter Nine: In the Years of the World War II

SovInformBureau; In Kuibyshev; General Donovans Visit; Looking Forward to Bulgaria; The Last Meeting in Spaso House

III. The Third Round: A Bulgarian Diplomat

Chapter Ten: In Defense of the Bulgarian National Cause
Talks in Copenhagen and Paris; At the Peace Conference; The UN Balkan Commission;

Chapter Eleven: Stalinist Bulgaria and the Bipolar Confrontation Model

Dividing Europe and the Containment of Communism; The US Legation in Sofia; A New Wave of Political Repressions; The Trial of the Evangelical Priests

Chapter Twelve: The Last Odyssey

Missing Without a Trace; The Accessible Truth

Annex: Illustrations

FORWARD

Exactly six years ago, we published in Bulgarian the book about an amazing fate of George the Bulgarian, a unique personality, which life passed across two epochs and two continents from a small Balkan country to the centers of XX Century world domination bright symbols of two new worlds that formed the two nucleus of the Cold War bipolar reactor. Both of us were curious and eager for about twenty years to learn more about such an irregular historical fate, but finally decided to continue our research in 2005. However, while establishing our working hypotheses on different contradictory episodes of Georges life, every next revealing into the newly available archival records changed our own notions and views. Even when the book was released in January 2008, we found later on many new interesting documentary evidences from US (FBI and Immigration Office records), Russian (Komi GULAG records) or Bulgarian (Foreign and Interior Ministries records) archives. The proposed English version of the book was reedited and adapted, and currently contain some more historical details compared with the original Bulgarian version. George Andreytchine, frequently referred as George was a prominent Bulgarian journalist, diplomat and public figure whose name and life-achievements remained almost unknown to the general Bulgarian public more than five decades after his death. During the years of Communist rule in Bulgaria only a very short essay was published about his mysterious life and even there he remained quite an obscure figure as every confusing detail was simply concealed or avoided in that publication. Some fragmentary testimonies about his remarkable personality were published here and there abroad but each one of them addressing just a short period of Andreytchines presence in the political and social landscape of the United States, Soviet Union, inter-war Western Europe and post-WW2 Bulgaria.

That obscurity was due to the lacking access to the most important and relevant confidential files, kept in the records of the Bulgarian and Soviet secret services. Nevertheless, some newly declassified archival materials and electronic databases of historical newspapers and other records allows us today to make a more objective and true reconstruction of his life story. It gives us also an unique opportunity to reconstruct and think about few very dramatic and crucial episodes of the history of the United States, Soviet Russia and Bulgaria in the first half of the 20th century and to trace there some of the ideological and psychological roots and premises of the global bi-polar confrontation in the second half of the century known as the Cold War Era. Our historical reconstruction in this biography was based on almost thirty different political, diplomatic, intelligence and personal documentary records, kept in various U.S., Russian, British, and Bulgarian archives. Quite revealing were also the relevant articles published in many American journals and newspapers, as well as the information found in almost 200 monographs and memoirs of such outstanding political and intellectual figures as W. Averell Harriman, George Kennan, Charles Bohlen, Herbert G. Wells, Charlie Chaplin, Malcolm Muggeridge, Cyrus L. Sulzberger, William H. Chamberlin, Louis Fischer, Bill Lawrence, Max Eastman, William Haywood, Ralph Chaplin, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mabel Dodge, etc. The first part First Round: A Syndicalist & Journalist in the USA traced the young years of our main characters life that transferred him from the Bulgaria to the United States. Very soon after the national-liberation uprising of fall 1903 against the Ottoman rule over his native Macedonia, George Andreytchine was promoted as a very bright young man to receiving a financial support by the Bulgarian state for continuing his education. During his high-school years in a small town, located just 60 km south-west from Sofia, he was influenced by the works of Leo Tolstoy and Peter Kropotkin. After the Balkan wars of 1912-1913 he immigrated to the USA where he became one of regional syndicalist leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) in Minnesota and a close friend of its Secretary, Big Bill Haywood. In 1916 his own journalist career started in Chicago, where he edited together with his brother-editor the poet Ralph Chaplin two of the I.W.W. newspapers. George became a close friend to Max Eastman and John Reed - the editors of the radical and modernist intellectual journal Masses. He established good relations with some prominent representatives of the Greenwich

Village Bohemia (in New York) and of the Chicago Literature School circles people like Carl Sandberg, Sherwood Anderson, Upton Sinclair, Theodore Dreiser, Eugene ONeil, Boardman Robinson, Art Young, alongside some other feminist and civil liberties activists like Doris Stevens, Emma Goldman, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Mary Heaton Vorse, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Jane Addams, Margaret Sanger, etc. Soon after the USA entered the war George was arrested in compliance with the new Espionage Act and sentenced for anti-war propaganda in the famous Chicago trial of the I.W.W. leadership in 1918. After serving a year at the U.S. federal penitentiary at Leavenworth he was released on bail in June 1919. Living for a while in Greenwich Village, he met there Charlie Chaplin and other Hollywood actors and filmmakers. In 19201921 George Andreytchine became one of the editors of several I.W.W. papers such as Solidarity, One Big Union Monthly and Industrial Pioneer. He edited also the Bulgarian language bi-monthly edition Workers Thought, and contributed to a French trade union paper Vie Ouvriere in Paris. The second part Second Round: A Soviet Functionary & Stalinist Prisoner examine the turnabouts of Georges life under Communism in Boshevik Russia. In the summer of 1921 Andreytchine jumped for Soviet Russia where he was elected as American representative at the Central Council and the Executive Bureau of the Red International of the Labor Unions - a Leftist organization established by the Bolsheviks in Moscow. There George became a very close associate of Leon Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky, and some other Bolshevik leaders, who after the death of Vladimir Lenin opposed Stalins dominance within the party and society at large. He worked for a year at the Soviet diplomatic mission in London, and traveled to Berlin, Vienna, Paris and probably to other places as well. According to existing testimony, he was the one who gave to Max Eastman a copy of the top secret Lenin Testament letters, which were published for the first time entirely in 1926 by the New York Times. As an active Trotskyite George Andreytchine was arrested In January 1928 and spent about three years in exile at the Kazakhstan steppes. Returning back to Moscow in 1930, he was appointed as a deputy director of Intourist where he was responsible for the visits to the USSR of Charles Lindbergh, Malcolm Muggeridge, Herbert Wells, and many other U.S. and British intellectuals, actors, and businessmen. He was indirectly involved in the confidential negotiation process, which finally led to establishment of official SovietAmerican diplomatic relations in November 1933. Being a close friend to the first

U.S. Ambassador to Moscow William C. Bullitt, George took care after March 1934 of the contacts with the first U.S. embassy in the Soviet Union staff, thus establishing good contacts with George Kennan, Charles Bohlen, Loy Henderson, Charles Thayer and some other American diplomats. In a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt, Ambassador Bullit wrote: George Andreytchine has been appointed by the Foreign Office to look out for all the wants of this Embassy. He is one of the loveliest human beings I have ever known Some day he should be the Soviet Ambassador in Washington. He has been a close friend of mine for years and his feeling for the United States is deep and genuine However, a year later, Andreytchine was arrested again by the NKVD and sent for five years to a Siberian labor camp in Vorkuta. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, Andreytchine returned in July to Moscow. One of his friends from the previous years - Solomon Lozovski, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and head of Sovinformbureau invited him to serve during the war years at the Anglo-American Department of the Sovinformbureau. George renewed his contacts with the U.S. Embassy, establishing close links with some of the new U.S. diplomats there e.g. with Charles Dickerson, Frederic Reinhardt, Eddie Page. His friend was also a New York Times columnist Cyrus L. Sulzberger, whom he would again meet later after the war in Paris. He re-established his relations with Averell Harriman after the first meeting they had at the Trotskys office in December 1926. In few cables from Ambassador Harriman to the Secretary of State James Byrnes in November 1945, the U.S. Ambassador informed about explanations given by Andreytchine to him during a meeting in Spaso House on the harder shift of Soviet foreign policy at the London conference being an indirect effect of the U.S. nuclear diplomacy. Andreytchine also proposed the start of radio-broadcast in Russian, a proposal that was cordially met at the U.S. State Department, and which led some months later to the launch of the Voice of America broadcasts to Eastern Europe soon after. Later on Harriman met Andreytchine several times at the Paris Peace Conference. In his memoirs published in the 1970s, Averell Harriman recollected about those meetings: We talked freely in Paris and he gave me some very good steers. My great regret was that he never wrote the story of his extraordinary life. It would be a document of major importance. The third part Third Round: A Bulgarian Diplomat examines the final years and the tragic end of our character. After returning to Sofia in November 1945,

Andreytchine was appointed as a Special Aide to Vasil Kolarov, the Speaker of the Bulgarian Parliament. He accompanied Kolarov on his visits to Copenhagen and Paris, serving as a senior expert to the Bulgarian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference (1946) and later on worked for Bulgarian Foreign Ministry. He was the Bulgarian liaison-representative to the UNSCOB in Athens, Belgrade, Sofia and Geneva in 1947 thus establishing friendly contacts with Mark Ethridge, head of the U.S. delegation and a personal friend of the US President Harry Truman. In August 1947 he was the one who informed in great details Georgi Dimitrov, the Bulgarian Prime Minister, on new U.S. policy toward Soviet Union and on the personality of the architect of the postwar U.S. Kremlinology, George Kennan (after the appearance of the latters famous article Sources of the Soviet Conduct). Andreytchine also welcomed and accompanied in Sofia the so- called Smith-Mundt U.S. Congressional Joint Committee, constituted by dozen Senators and Congressmen, who traveled to several Eastern European capitals with a special task to explain the essence of the Marshall Plan for the economic recovery of postwar Europe. George had a lot of friendly talks with various U.S. and U.K. politicians and journalists that visited Bulgaria in those years e.g. John Mack, Morgan Philips Price, Bill Lawrence, Robert Conquest, etc. He maintained frequent contacts as well with the first postwar U.S. Minister to Bulgaria Donald Heath and with few of the members of his staff, like Stanley Cleveland. In April 1949 George Andreytchine disappeared, and even the Bulgarian State Security officials did not receive any further information about his fate. Now at the end we know better what really happened: Andreytchine was arrested in Sofia and then secretly transported by MGB agents to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow in May 1949. A year later he was shot as an American spy after a special resolution signed by Josef Stalin on a sheet of paper in March 1950 thus becoming one of the first new victims of the late Stalinist repressions after the restoration of the death penalty in the USSR. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all our colleagues and friends, who supported us and contributed for delivery of valuable archival evidences, namely to Dr. Mark Kramer and Dr. Nadia Boyadzhieva (who selected for us documents from John Reed and Lev Trotsky collections in Harvard, and US delegation to Comintern), Kalin Kanchev (who sent us some new US State department documents), Dr. Peter Ruthland and William Massa (who helped us to obtain newly available correspondence at William Bullitt collection in Yale), Dr.

Marietta Stankova (for sending us a few SOE reports from British National Archives), Dr. Christian Ostermann (who gave us an opportunity for additional research of Averell Harrimans, Charles Bohlens, and some other personal records at the Library of Congress), to Mikhail Rogachev (for delivery of information from Komi State Archives about GULAG in Vorkuta), to Bulgarian archivists Ivan Komitski, Ventsislav Gigov, Polia Rachalova, Mariana Lecheva, Olga Yaneva, among the others. We are especially grateful to George Andreytchines family for sharing with us their family archival collection and personal testimonies. The English version of the book was being made in close collaboration with Greta Keremidchieva and Marietta Stankova, who respectively do translated and edited the original manuscript. We are truly obliged also to many colleagues from Sofia University and other Bulgarian academic institutions (among them prof. Andrey Pantev and prof. Filip Panayotov), who evaluated in their preliminary or public reviews the first edition of the book.

Profssor Dr. Jordan Baev Associate Professor Dr. Kostadin Grozev

Sofia, 20 January 2014

. First Round: A Syndicalist & Journalist in the USA

Chapter 1 Beginning of the First Odyssey in the New World

Childhood and Youth in Macedonia George Iliev Andreytchine 1 was born on 19 January 1894 in the village of Belitsa, in todays Blagoevgrad district in Bulgaria. After the liberation of Bulgaria in 1878, the Treaty of Berlin left this Macedonian district in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). Andreytchines childhood coincided with the upsurge of the national liberation movement of the Bulgarians in Macedonia and Thrace, who three months prior to his birth had established in Thessaloniki the underground Internal Macedonian-Edirne Revolutionary Organization (VMORO). The boy was five years old when the Organization sent armed units to the enslaved region. In January 1903 he was nine when the rebel leaders decided to prepare a nation-wide armed uprising in Macedonia and Thrace. The family of George Andreytchine had two more children his sisters Maria (Stancheva by marriage) and Yana (Mavrodieva by marriage). Various personnel files list Georges social background as either of a poor or middleclass peasant family. On 13 February 1935, while in prison, he wrote in a NKVD questionnaire that he originated from a middle-class peasant family. Information exists that his father Iliya had good reputation among his fellow-villagers and was even elected in to the local municipal council. His mothers family was relatively well-off since his grandfather Mihail Gyokov was a money-lender. According to unconfirmed information coming from local historians, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries George Andreytchines ancestors were cattle-breeders and traders.
Here we use the official transcription of the name, used while he was staying in the United States. In some later Western publications his family name was transcribed also as either Andreychin or Andreichin. His fathers name was written also as Elieve. If we had followed the rules of transliteration we should have transcribed his first name either as Georgy or Georgi.
1

In August 1903, the Ilinden Preobrazhenie Uprising broke out, organized by the Internal Macedonian-Edirne Revolutionary Organization. In the course of the two-month hostilities, 205 towns and villages were burned down and about 5000 Bulgarians were killed. Over 30 000 people were forced to emigrate to Bulgaria. The birthplace of Andreytchine Belitsa - was also set on fire, whereupon 475 houses were destroyed including the local church which dated from 1835. Most of the villagers - about 2000 in number - fled to Bulgaria to avoid the violence of the Sultans troops. Yet, Andreytchines family returned to their home place the following spring. In 1906 George arrived in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. He was put under the custody of the Palace and was educated in hostels and schools until he completed high-school with the financial support of the King. 2 . Andreychines personal notes and evidence from his friends prove the financial support he received and the role of the Bulgarian King Ferdinand I in the life of the teenaged boy. Charlie Chaplin and Cyrus Sulzberger share their impression later. Chaplin said that he had been a great favourite with the King of Bulgaria, who had paid for his education at Sofia University, while Sulzberger wrote that he was adopted by King Ferdinand, which most probably was an allegorical interpretation of actual facts as articulated by Andreytchine himself. 3 In fact, he was recommended to the Palace for a state scholarship by his own teacher, who described George as a very intelligent boy without enough resources to continue his education. Ferdinand I of Bulgaria approved the proposal, so the name of George Andreytchine was included in the list of a few talented children from Macedonia to receive a state subsidy to study in schools in liberated Bulgaria. The story recounted in Charles Bohlens memoirs published in 1973 was very similar: The son of a Macedonian peasant, he had been recommended by his local priest to the King of Bulgaria as a bright youth who would be worth educating at the expense of the Crown. The idea was that he would become a pillar of the royal establishment. 4 George continued his education in the Constantine Fotinov high school in the town of Samokov (60 km to the south east of Sofia), located near the frontier with Turkey at that time. This allowed him to return easily home in Belitsa during
2

This was exactly the information in a State Security report of September 29th 1953, kept at Andreychines personal file - Archive of the Ministry of the Interior (), Sofia, 10, , .. 7, 49, . 1 3 Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography, (London: Penguin books, 1979), p. 246; C. L. Sulzberger, A Long Row of Candles. Memoirs and Diaries, 1934-1954, (New York: Macmillan, 1969), p. 176. 4 Charles Bohlen, Witness to History, (New York: Norton, 1973), . 22

the summer vacations. The town was known for its traditions in the field of education. One of the first American schools in Bulgaria, established in the 1860s and 1870s by American Methodist missioners, was located there. Soon after his arrival, Andreytchine made friends in the boarding house. During his last years at school he fell under the influence of the Socialist ideas and the ideas of Lev Tolstoy and Peter Kropotkin (according to information from 9 March 1949 and 2 April 1952). 5 Bulgaria was one of the first countries where the ethical and pacifist views of the Russian writer Count Tolstoy were widely disseminated. Later, Andreytchine himself admitted being under the strong influence of these ideas. He added that while still a high-school student he had cooperated with the Bulgarian Tolstoyist magazine, where Count Tolstoy also published. According to the memoirs of his contemporaries, shortly before his death at the end of November 1910, Lev Tolstoy had intended to set off for Bulgaria and his followers. Andreytchine did not manage to complete formally his high school education because in the autumn of 1912 he volunteered to take part in the First Balkan War joining the Macedonian-Edirne emigration volunteers corps. During the Second Balkan War, in the summer of 1913, George Andreytchine was wounded in a battle near the city of Kukush (Kilkis) in Aegean Macedonia. For several days he was treated at a military field hospital on the Island of Thassos. In July 1916, he told the American authorities that during the Balkan War hostilities he had been wounded in the leg and treated in a hospital in Stara Zagora before leaving for his home village. In August 1918, Andreytchine testified in the Chicago court that he had spent eleven months on the frontline during the two Balkan Wars. 6 Our efforts to find out the exact military unit in which the volunteer George Iliev Andreytchine from the village of Belitsa, Razlog Region, was recruited have remained unsuccessful. Having clarified the authenticity of the stories about his adoption by King Ferdinand, this was the second of a number of puzzles and mysteries related to his particularly dramatic life, which have not found documentary confirmation in Bulgarian or foreign archives yet. The investigation we requested from the State Military History Archives in the town of Veliko Tarnovo revealed no facts about a volunteer in the Macedonian Edirne Organization with these specific names and date of birth. Information was
5

, 5, 3, a.e. 1365, . 4, 10-12.

found about two volunteers named George Iliev from Macedonia. 7 Even though at first glance the lack of specific archival data might seem strange, we should not neglect the fact that even in peacetime sometimes it is possible to encounter confusion or loss of documents of former conscripts. Moreover, in this particular case we are talking about a young man, who came from a territory governed by the Turks and who was quite younger than the conscription age of. Upon his return from the front in mid-July 1913, George participated together with his friend Vladimir Poptomov in protest rallies against the policy of King Ferdinand I, which had led the country to a military defeat and a national catastrophe. Because of his anti-government speeches, he was persecuted by the police and forced to leave Bulgaria. According to his own words, George went to Switzerland and arrived in France, where he was enrolled to study human and social sciences at the University of Nancy, 250 miles far from Paris. Three months later, he decided to visit his cousin in America. In Southampton, South England, he bought a third class ticket for the Royal Mail Steamer Olympic of White Star Line LTD. The steamer had been launched three years ago in Northern Ireland, and his capacity was about 3000 passengers, half of them on 3rd class decks. On 13 December 1913, George arrived in New York and headed for Chicago and then Minnesota. With the Miners in Minnesota According to scanty available evidence, in the beginning George Andreytchine stayed with his cousin in the town of Hibbing, Minnesota. He started work as a miner in Marble mines for 2 dollars a day. Then he worked for a while in the Great Northern Railway Company, and at the beginning of 1915 started work in the iron ore mines of Oliver Mining Company, a branch of US Steel Corporation. The pioneers settled down in Minnesota at a later stage. In the 1820s immigrants from Sweden, Germany, Norway, Italy and other European countries moved to the West. The Gold Rush from the end of the 60s considerably increased the population of the state, while the development of the richest American iron ore mines in Vermillion in 1892, Mesabi in 1894 and Guyana a
Harrison George, IWW Trial. Story of the Greatest Trial in Labors History by One of the Defendants, (New York: Arno Press, 1969), p. 140. 7 State Military History Archive (), Veliko Tarnovo, 430, 1, a.e. 1, . 29, 154; 431, 1, a.e. 1, . 18-19, 72-73, 109-110.
6

decade later brought many new immigrants from Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century. During World War I about 70 percent of the states residents were immigrants first generation Americans. In 1893, the German mine worker Frank Hibbing established the first settlement in the vicinity of the mine, which was later named after him. When Andreythine arrived there in 1913, the town had about 12 000 residents. Most of them were new immigrants from Finland, Poland (part of the Russian Empire at the time), Croatia, Slovenia (part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria and the Macedonian territories under Ottoman rule. A small railway was opened the same year to connect the mines with the town. The largest buildings in the town were the head office and the club of Oliver Mining Company, the Lutheran church and the big bar, which two years later, due to the alcohol ban, became a theatre with the pretentious name Majestic. The following decades did not mark many events of national significance in Hibbing, except for the fact that it became the birthplace of one of the youths idols of the 1960s Robert Zimmerman (known as Bob Dylan). In the very beginning, Andreytchine was involved in track work. His innate intelligence and knowledge soon drew the attention of the administration in the mine and he was appointed assistant surveyor of human force with a monthly salary of 70 dollars - a relatively good income in those years. He paid 20 dollars for the rent of a small place to live and saved most of the remaining amount of money, so at the beginning of 1916 he was able to send 200 dollars to his mother in Bulgaria. In order to improve his English, he attended evening classes for a month. Most of the time, however, he stayed up late self-studying. He read various philosophical writings from ancient philosophy to modern social theories, he said. He established good relations not only with his fellow countrymen from Bulgaria, but also with representatives from other nations in Hibbing. His friend Vladimir Poptomov had a brother, Teophile, who came from his village. Teophile recalled: George was only 19 years old, but he had the outlook of a mature man. He spoke several languages, so two years after his arrival, he already managed to get along and settle things with all the workers Italian, Swedish, German, Finnish and Turkish. He was appointed a landsurveyor and thus had the chance to make a good career; however, he ignored that opportunity. 8
8

, , (: , 1986), c.173.

On the eve of Bulgarias involvement in World War I on the side of Germany and Austro-Hungary, Andreytchine was officially called back to the Kingdom of Bulgaria. On 17 August 1915, the Bulgarian newspaper Svoboda (Freedom), printed in Chicago, published an announcement of the Kings legation in Washington regarding a circular letter, sent by the regional governor of Strumica to 167 emigrants from the region of Razlog. The young men were supposed to appear before a draft board at 14th regimental military command in Bulgaria. The list comprised the names of 16 men from Belitsa, including George Andreytchine. 9 At this time he was already a member of the organization Industrial Workers of the World I.W.W., and was keeping lively correspondence with the organizations secretary William Haywood. Big Bill, as Haywood was called, was an emblematic figure in the American syndicate movement. A leader of the Western Federation of the Miners, in 1905 he initiated the formation of the new labour-union organization in Chicago, whose members are still known in the American history under the name Wobbly. The organizations ideology contains original American traits promoting the concept of industrial democracy. This is probably the reason why years later many of the activists in the organization could not accept the centrist imperative of Bolshevism and determinedly rejected the totalitarian model of government rule. Still, during the first two decades of the twentieth century Wobbly were very close to the left wing of the Socialist party in America and the international social democratic movement. In 1910 Bill Haywood was sent to represent the IWW at the congress of the Second International in Copenhagen his first trip overseas. There he met prominent figures of the Socialist movement Jean Jaures, Vladimir Lenin, Emile Vandervelde, Ramsay MacDonald, Rosa Luxemburg. His improvised interpreter at the congress was Alexandra Kolontay, who visited him in the USA a few years later. Regardless of the difficult working environment, George used the time for self-education. In those years he was strongly influenced by the ideas of anarchosyndicalism. This becomes evident in the earliest written source known to us a letter to Alexander Berkman (editor of the anarchist journal The Blast, published in San Francisco), which appeared in the journal in January1916:

I thank you with my whole heart for The Blast. I confess that I have never read such deep philosophy just so plainly and simple. The need of such a paper is great. The workers are beginning to realize the role they are called to play in the history of mankind. The blessed day will come. Grace to the fore-fellers like you and my most beloved comrade Goldman. Fraternal greetings, Hibbing, Minnesota, George E. Andreytchine 10 Emma Goldman, whose name was mentioned in the letter, was a Russian Jew from the Baltic area. At the age of seventeen she immigrated to the United States. The death sentences of seven anarchists of German origin and the hanging of four of them after the riots on Haymarket Square in Chicago on 4 May 1886 provoked the young immigrant to join the anarchist movement. Soon she became one of the acknowledged leaders and philosophers of the American anarchism together with her friend Alexander Berkman, also a Russian Jew. Emma was arrested after the assassination of the US President William McKinley by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Soon after her dismissal, in 1906 she began publishing the anarchist journal Mother Earth. The journal often offered translated writings by thinkers like Peter Kropotkin, Lev Tolstoy and Friedrich Nietzsche, who had influence over Goldmans views. After the beginning of World War I, at the end of 1914, and during the entire 1915, Emma Goldman repeatedly toured the United States in order to deliver pacifist and feminist lectures. It was probably in the course of one of her visits to Minnesota when she met the 21-year-old Bulgarian immigrant from Belitsa, who was also engrossed in Tolstoys ideas. In April 1916, George Andreytchine met the young proponent of civil rights Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. In his capacity of the leader of the syndicate organization in Hibbing, the young Bulgarian escorted Flynn, who gave a number of lectures to the workers for the Oliver Mining Company in Minnesota immigrants from Finland, Sweden, Italy and the Balkan nations. 11 In 1906, when she was only 16, Elizabeth gave her first public speech related to feminism. A few months later she was arrested and fined for delivering a speech without permission and blocking the traffic on Broadway. A year later, she got actively involved as an organizer in
, , (: , 1993), p. 98, 101. 10 Alexander Berkman, Barry Pateman, The Blast: The Complete Collection, (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2005), p. 64. 11 Dorothy Gallagher, All the Right Enemies. The Life and Murder of Carlo Tresca, (Rutgers University Press, 1988), p. 56.
9

IWW and an energetic defender of the workers rights. The journalists soon called her Joan of Arc of the American working class. In New York, she became close to many young liberal and radical intellectuals, who were impressed by her bravery, energy and emotional emanation. With her small, nicely looking and very lively appearance, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn looked more like an actress from the avant-garde theater Provincetown Players than a workers agitator. In his notes from this period, the writer Theodore Dreiser wrote about Elizabeth: Mentally, she is one of the most remarkable girls that the city has ever seen 12 . In New York, she was absorbed by the Italian anarchist and publicist Carlo Tresca, about ten years older than her, with whom she participated in a number of meetings to show solidarity with the IWW strikes. In 1915, when Elizabeth visited in prison the unjustly convicted IWW leader and bard Joe Hill, he wrote and dedicated the song The Rebel Girl to her. It was with this poetic name that she became famous all over America. Later, she became the co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, and in the 1920s actively defended the Italian workers Niccolo Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who were sentenced to death. The Messabi Range Strike On 4 June 1916, in one of the iron ore mines (Aurora) in Messabi Range, Minnesota, a riot erupted against the heavy labor conditions, the violence of the mine administration, and the frauds in payment. The particular reason for the protest was the payment of 60 wheelbarrow loads of iron ore instead of the accomplished by each miner daily rate of 80 loads. A week later, the riots spread around the entire Messabi Iron Ore Range with demands for an 8-hour working day and an increase of daily wages from 2.60 to 3 dollars. Together with Carlo Tresca and Sam Scarlet, Andreytchine headed the spontaneous big miners strike 13 . Emma Goldman argued in her memoirs that 31 000 miners took part in

Ross Wetzsteon, Republic of dreams: Greenwich Village, the American Bohemia, 1910-1960, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), p. 173174. 13 About Andreytchines role in the miners strike see: Riot, Revolution, Repression in the Iron Range Strike of 1916, Minnesota History, No. 41, Summer 1968, p. 84, 8788; The 1916 Minnesota Miners Strike Against U.S. Steel, Minnesota History, No. 51, Summer 1988, p. 69; Mining in Minnesota, Minnesota Historical Society, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1974, p. 1718.

12

the strike 14 . In her appeal in support of the strikers, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn mentioned 15 000 participants 15 , and Mary Heaton Vorse 16 000 16 . William D. Haywood himself specified in a declaration in July 1916 that twenty thousands have left the mines and pits in Hibbing, Chisholm, Virginia, Buhl, Everett, Gilbert, Biwabik, Aurora and other small camps in Minnesota 17 . In any case, this strike turned into the central syndicate event of 1916. On 23 June 1916, the regional Duluth News Tribune published the following report from Hibbing: As a demonstration of strength and to swell their ranks further, together with sympathy from citizens nearly 1,500 striking miners paraded the streets in the business section of the city this morning. The demonstration was conducted in a quiet and peaceable manner, the miners walking four abreast on one side of the streets, no noise issuing from their ranks except the steady tread of their heavy shoes on the pavement George E. Andreytchine, secretary of the Messaba branch, I.W.W., begged the miners not to create any disturbance when on strikeWe dont want to fight the flag, we dont want to fight anybody, he said, what we want is more pork chops. We will march and have a big, beautiful parade. Be peaceful, brothers, do not make much noise. Let the mining companies be the ones to cause violence. We will put them to shame. 18

The mining company, supported by the local and state authorities, did all possible to suppress the strike immediately, resorting even to the use of force. Despite the appeals, the situation worsened and soon there were clashes between strikers and gunmen, whom the company hired after the police and the National Guard proved incapable of avoiding the acts of lawlessness. As a result of those armed clashes, one miner and one strike-breaker were killed. Many of the strike leaders were detained. Three men from Montenegro were unjustly accused of a murder. On 29 June 1916, after the first repressive acts by the authorities, George Andreytchine was arrested. After being thrashed, he was sent to the state prison Grand Rapids, Itasca County, isolated from his friends in Hibbing. In an urgent telegram to J. A. Burnquist, Governor of the State of Minnesota, Sam Scarlet,

14 15

Emma Goldman, Living My Life, (New York: Da Capo Press, 1970), . 573. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, The Minnesota Trials, Masses, New York, January 1917. 16 Mary Heaton Vorse, A Footnote to Folly: Reminiscences, New York: Arno Pres, 1980, p. 132. 17 Leslie Marcy, The Iron Heel in the Mesaba Range, International Socialist Review, Chicago, No. 2, August 1916, p. 75 18 The Duluth News, 23 June 1916.

Carlo Tresca, James Gilday, Frank Russell and five other leaders of the miners strike protested: George Andreytchine was imprisoned 24 hours in Itasca County without a charge being placed against him. Inquiry was futile. Are we in Russia? 19

Carlo Tresca tried to secure Georges release on bail. On July 3rd accompanied by a local lawyer named White and his Italian supporter, who owned a grocery store and placed on their disposal his small truck, Tresca went from Hibbing to office of district attorney of Grand Rapids. The attorney started to listen to Tresca explanation that only Andreytchines presence could calm the angry mood of the Slavic strikers. The conversation ended abruptly when the local sheriff in shirtsleeves with a belt of cartridges around his belly, with one gun on his hip, ferocious looking stepped into the office. Addressing him as you goddamn agitator the sheriff demanded that Tresca hand over his gun; he became even more angry and abusive when a search of his person revealed none. His scheme having failed and Tresca turned to leave 20 . On 5 July, George was taken to the Justice of the Peace Court of the State of Minnesota at Itasca County, and accused of inciting riots. The Sheriff of Itasca Charles Gunderson and the Chief of Oliver Mining Police Fred Barfus testified before the court that Carlo Tresca, Sam Scarlet, and George Andreytchine were directing other men to go out and kill people. George categorically denied the accusation and tried to claim that the real culprits for the violence were the gunmen, hired by the mining company to killing our brothers. However, the Court of Justice ignored his evidence and announced that he could stay in jail until the trial, which was scheduled for September. At the end of the investigation George Andreytchine requested permission to read a statement he had written the previous night in prison. The judge ordered that he say what he wanted to say without reading the text. The words of the 22-year-old Bulgarian have been diligently recorded in the trial protocol:

19 20

Leslie Marcy, The Iron Heel in the Mesaba Range, p. 77 Nunzio Pernicone, Carlo Tresca:: Portrait of A Rebel, (Oakland: AK Press, 2010), p. 177

The greatest of all tragedies is the tragedy of human emancipation. My life experience and education required knowledge of the social problems and it have thought me that easiest way toward the realizing of this goal is the education and enlightenment of the working class and if, in teaching and educating the working class we are called undesirable agitators, then what is the lesson given to us by the builders of American history Jefferson and Washington, when they rebelled against the tyranny of the British Government. The brutal instincts left to the working class by heredity after a long process of exploitation and moral degradation can be conquered only by the means of education. On 7 July 1916, Andreytchine was subjected to another lengthy interrogation by the immigration inspector in Minnesota Brown McDonald. Three days later Andreytchine was moved to the state prison in Louis County, Duluth, where the interrogation was resumed on 11 July in the presence of lawyers. The protocol, sent later to Washington, was unusually long it contained 17 pages altogether. Inspector McDonald himself pointed out in the cover letter that this was very unusual case and his purpose was to study and present in a better way the views of the arrested Bulgarian on anarchism. 21 In response to the questions, posed to him, Andreytchine tried to clarify his convictions: I am a non-resisted and disciple of Tolstoy as taught in this country by William Lloyd Garrison. That is, non-resistance to evil by force The I.W.W. is a social doctrine and philosophy which final goal is to establish a new system of life industrial freedom. An unexpected question followed whether the prisoner believed in free love? The answer was: If the individual has freed himself or herself of all superstitions and wants to live in conformity with nature, he, or, she, will probably practice free love. The dialogue that followed showed either the ignorance or the unquestionable prejudice of the immigration inspector: - What will you do with the children? - They must be supported by their fathers and mothers. - Do you thing that a man should have as many wives as he wants? - No. Free love does not approve of that misconception of free love.

21

National Archives & Record Administration (NARA), Record Group 85 (Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service), Series A: Subject Correspondence Files, Case Nr. 54 182/2 Andreytchine Case.

In response to some of the lawyers additional questions, George explained that he had studied most thoroughly Tolstoy, Carpenter, Thoreau, and Hindus philosophers and he believed in Thoreaus theories. The famous American poet and philosopher from the middle of the nineteenth century, Henry David Thoreau, was one of the most prominent defenders of civil liberties in the United States, and the author of the well-known essay Civil Disobedience (1849). His principles of non-resistant pacifism impressed quite a few public figures of the twentieth century such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. When Andreytchine claimed being influenced by Thoreaus ideas, he probably had in mind two of his most popular aphorisms: If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law... It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. In the 1840s and 1850s, the journalist Lloyd Garrison, inspired by the concept of universal emancipation, proclaimed in his newspaper The Liberator the doctrines of abolitionism and Christian perfectionism, along with the ideas of pacifism and womens civil rights. In the course of the Civil War (18611865), Garrison was a strong supporter of President Abraham Lincoln. A leading figure in late 19th- and early 20th-century Britain, Edward Carpenter was instrumental in the foundation of the Fabian Society and the Labour Party. A poet and writer, he was a close friend of Walt Whitman and Rabindranath Tagore. Inspector McDonalds strong prejudice was visible in the concluding part of the protocol he sent to Washington. He described his impressions of Andreytchines personality in the following way: He is a dangerous man because he is smart, has acquired knowledge of English within less than three years that is remarkable, and a vocabulary that many native borns do not possess. He is sincere in his belief, thinks he is in jail as a martyr for the cause and expects anarchy to elevate all mankind to such a state of perfection that no governments, no laws, etc. will be necessary With this mans belief in anarchy and his penchant for association with the I.W.W. (amongst whom he was one of the leaders and organizers on the Iron Range) all of which he brought with him from Europe, I believe that the warrant allegation that he was a person likely to become a public charge is sustained for the reason that he is in the jail now. In execution of the suggestion of the immigration inspector in Duluth, it was ordered that Andreytchine be deported from the country. In the July issue of The Blast, Alexander Berkman published a letter from one of our most energetic and

devoted comrades George E. Andreytchine, who was arrested for leading a procession of miners to their place of meeting. In his very emotional message, dated July 8 1916, and sent from the state jail in Duluth, Andreytchine informed his friends: The Federal authorities want to deport me to Europe on account of my being an Anarchist and my activities among the striking miners on the Mesaba Iron Range. This is a frame-up of the Steel Trust, and as I was an undesirable to it, it is trying to get rid of me. I am not alarmed a damn bit by the barking of this dog, but want you to make good propaganda of my case. If possible make protests in meetings of workers, radical groups, or the way you find best. You will hear soon from Europe from me. 22 . A day after Andreytchines letter was published Emma Goldman sent a cable from San Francisco to the Department of Labor in Washington, insisting that the deportation be stopped until the final investigation and re-consideration of Andreytchines case. In her protest message Goldman wrote: The arrest of our friend Andreytchine, and the attempt to deport him, is evidently part of the scheme of the Iron Companies to break the strike on the Range by elimination the most intelligent advisers of the strikers and generally terrorizing the men into a return to work. We urge you to investigate this case thoroughly and to exert every effort to prevent the deportation of Mr. Andreytchine. This letter was addressed further to the Secretary of Labor with the resolution: Referred to Acting Secretary, with suggestion that Miss Goldmans representations of fact are worthy of full credence. In the course of the strike in Mesaba Range, George Andreytchine once again met Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. When in Hibbing, the young civil rights defender wrote to her friend, the writer Mary Heaton Vorse: One young boy, George Andreytchine, a civil engineer, a Macedonian, is being taken to New York City today to be deported. He called himself a Tolstoyan Anarchist and was never molested until he joined the strikers, made a wonderful leader, and proceedings were started against him as an undesirable alien. He has been here namely, but not quite, three years. The New York crowd ought to take it up at that end if possible. If he is sent back he must go to war or be shot, and the precedent is extremely dangerous. 23

22

The Blast, San Francisco, Vol. 1, No. 16, 16 July 1916, p. 7.

At this time, Mary Heaton Vorse was living together with Bob Minor - a cartoonist at the radical journal The Masses. In July 1916, she was with other New York intellectuals in their summer shelter in Provincetown, Cape Cod. After she received Flynns letter, Mary did not hesitate to leave her friends and reflect as a correspondent in The Masses and The Globe the strike in Mesaba, Minnesota. Journalists John Reed and Max Eastman, who stayed in Cape Cod, as well as the young actors from the avant-garde group of George Crams Providence Players Theater did not remain idle either and used their influence in the liberal circles to prevent the young Bulgarians deportation.

23

Mary Heaton Vorse, A Footnote to Folly, . 135.

Chapter 2 Radical America

A Surprising Campaign in Support of Andreytchine In mid-July 1916, George was moved from Duluth to Chicago, and then on 24 July to New York in order to be deported out of the United States. The correspondence between the immigration authorities in Chicago, Montreal, New York and Washington on Andreytchines case quoted his statement before Inspector McDonald where he said that he preferred being deported to South America than landing in warring Europe and being sent to the trenches in the course of this fratricidal war between the Balkan nations. Later, he explained personally to one of Washingtons senators that the idea of setting out for South America was a metaphor and had nothing to do with his own wish to stay in the USA, even under the threat from legal prosecution. Meanwhile, the immigration authorities and the Department of Labor in Washington were alarmed by the first protests against the deportation of the Bulgarian by a number of syndicate, culture and public figures with influence in the liberal American circles. Among the first was C. E. S. Wood from Portland, Oregon. A civil libertarian, journalist, poet, and a close friend to Mark Twain, Wood was also one of the Gold Democrats, a member of the National Committee of the National Democratic Party in the late 1890-s. In a letter to Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis Post, dated 19 July 1916, he wrote on the case of Andreytchine: This persistent use of the laws of capital to get rid of those to capital undesirable is in my opinion an abuse of the law and for the Government to lend itself as cats-paw to the deportations will provoke great resentment in labor circles. I am sure that the President wished the law only enforced in good faith in its true intent, not prostituted. I am told Andreytchine is a skilled civil engineer, a cultured man, whose sole undesirability is his intelligent championing of the miners cause. If you deem advisable will you forward this wire to Tumulty [Joseph Tumulty private secretary and adviser to President Woodrow Wilson]. In a similar letter from 19 July to the Secretary of Labor William Wilson, another radical thinker and ardent tolstoyist and educator Leonard Abbott, a founder of the Modern School in New York, wrote: I am sure that you will agree

that striking is not a crime in America. I hope that you will use your influence on behalf of young Andreytchine. On 20 July, the Secretary of Labor was asked for intervention by Julius Kahn, a US Congressman from California, who was introduced to Andreytchines case by the leaders of a San Francisco union. Right after her return from Minnesota, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn launched an appeal in support of the arrested leaders of the miners strike among the authoritative womens liberal-radical circles, grouped around Mabel Dodges Salon and Heterodoxity Club 24 . On 24 July 1916, when in Duluth, Gurley Flynn appealed to the United States immigration commissioner in Ellis Island, Frederic Howe: Dear Mr. Howe, I write to call your attention to the case of Andreytchine, who is being taken to New York City for confinement on Ellis Island subject to a decision from Commissioner Wilson on his deportation. I dont know whether you can do anything more than take a friendly interest in this young man, who is a remarkably bright Macedonian Andreytchine left his position and joined the strike. He developed into a remarkable, efficient leader and agitator, and then only were deportation proceedings commenced. He is a subject of Bulgaria, and if deported must either go to war or be shot. Frederic Howe arrived with his wife from Cleveland to New York at the beginning of the century. From 1907 to 1914 he was the director of the Peoples Institute on Cooper Union Square and gained wide popularity among the American liberal circles. Howes apartment on 12th Street acted as a magnet for a number of avant-garde thinking young college graduates from Harvard, Princeton and Columbia University. Among them were the intellectuals from the new radical journal The Masses. In his book of reminiscences The Confessions of a Reformer, Frederic Howe describes the situation in those years: The spirit of this young America was generous, hospitable, brilliant; it was care-free and full of variety. The young people in whom it leaped to expression hated injustice. They had no questions about the soundness of American democracy. They had supreme confidence in the mind. They believed, not less than I had always believed, that the truth would make us free. 25 .

Christine Stansell, American Moderns: bohemian New York and the creation of a new century, (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000), p. 179, 184. 25 Frederic Howe, The Confessions of a Reformer, (New York: Scribners Sons, 1925), p. 251

24

When in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson established the Department of Labor, he personally invited his supporter Fred Howe to take the position of Commissioner of the United States in New York. Other liberal intellectuals such as Assistant Secretary Louis Post, former publisher of the Chicago weekly edition Public, also received high posts at the Department. Soon after his appointment in Ellis Island, Howe took up the difficult task of reforming and humanizing the immigration service. His efforts, however, were opposed by the bureaucratic administrative machine. In the following years, in the course of several propaganda waves of hostile attacks and legal violence over syndicate members, socialists, radicals and immigrant communities (19171920), he was consecutively accused of pro-anarchist, pro-German and proBolshevik attitudes, so he was compelled to send his resignation in a personal letter to his former idol Woodrow Wilson. During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, he was invited by President Wilson to join the expert group in the official American delegation, but he was disappointed and cheated again this time by the hypocrisy and selfishness of European diplomacy. In the 1920s, Frederic Howe got involved in the presidential campaign of his friend from the Progressive Party, Senator Robert La Follette. At this time, the former immigration commissioner had already become a supporter of the original concept of cooperative communities. He described this populist idea in his memoirs like this: Co-operation gripped me as Socialism had not. It was voluntary, open to individual initiative; it trained leaders and minimized the state. Apparently it achieved all the ends that Socialism promised and left the individual free from bureaucratic control. 26 . At the beginning of the 1930s, Howe became the Secretary of the National Progressive League, which organized the election campaign of Franklin Roosevelt for President of the United States 27 . On the eve of World War II, the famous American liberal terminated his career as a special adviser to the Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace in President Roosevelts cabinet. On 25 July, George Andreytchine was taken to the Federal Immigration Service on Ellis Island, the small island in New York harbor, close to the Statue of
26 27

Ibid, p. 332. Arthur Schlesinger-Jr., The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), p. 143.

Liberty. His personal file in the Immigration Service on Ellis Island had the number 98681-46, as it became clear at a meeting of the US Congress Immigration Committee four years later 28 . His record at the Department of Labor, though, bears another number - 54182-2. A day after his arrival, Frederic Howe decided to release him from his temporary arrest under the pretext that he had to collect the money, necessary for departure. This is how the immigration commissioner explained his decision in a letter to Assistant Secretary Louis Post: [George Andreytchine] is without transportation and has only $ 5, but he stated that he expected the IWW to supply him with additional funds Obviously, he is not in position to depart for any foreign country at the present time, and, without some lawful order directing me to hold him, I have permitted him to go to New York. He agreed to notify this office when he will depart. Although he was threatened to be expelled from the country, soon after his arrival in New York Andreytchine participated in protest meetings for the liberation of the other leaders of Minnesota miners strike. On 29 July 1916, he gave a speech in defense of his friend Carlo Tresca at a protest meeting on Union Square. Among the other speakers were the Irish workers tribune James Larkin, the Italian poet Arturo Giovannitti, and the anarchists George Duvall, Pietra Allegra, George Valenti, and William Shatoff. Following the speeches, over two hundred participants in the meeting headed through Broadway and Lafayette Street for the editorial office of the Italian newspaper Il Progresso 29 . Due to the intercession of famous liberals such as the lawyer Amos Pinchot 30 , Mrs. Cram and others, the campaign in support of Andreytchine grew incredibly in the following few weeks. Amos Pinchot came from an influential family; his brother Gifford was twice elected as the Governor of Pennsylvania. In the course of World War I, Amos, who was called the Rebel Prince, joined the intellectual circles in Greenwich Village and supported financially their radical ideas. He was one of the prominent figures of the Progressive Party in America, which united the liberal activists from the Democratic Party 31 . Mrs. Cram was the writer and feminist Susan Glaspell, the wife of the poet and playwright George
Conditions at Ellis Island: Hearings before the Committee in Immigration and Naturalization, (Washington: US Congress, 1920), p. 6162. 29 New York Times, July 30, 1916, p.1, 13. 30 Emma Goldman, Living My Life, . 916. 31 Nancy Pittman Pinchot, Amos Pinchot: Rebel Prince, Pennsylvania History, No. 66, Spring 1999, p. 166198.
28

Cram, the founder of the modern theater Provincetown Players. Her sister married the future Governor of Pennsylvania Gifford Pinchot. In 1930, Susan Glaspell was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for her play Alisons House. In a letter to Susan Glaspell dated 31 July 1916, Immigration Commissioner Howe wrote: Mrs. J. S. Cram Care of the Colony Club Dear Mrs. Cram: This is in answer to your telephone message in regard to George Andreytchine recently brought from Duluth, Minn., for deportation. I find the Department of Labor in Washington has consented to his request to go voluntarily to South America, but when delivered here he was without funds and was not held on Ellis Island. It was understood that he was to secure funds from parties interested in him, and that he would advice this office of the intended date of his departure, so the same might be verified. It is our understanding that, if he does not do this, he will be subject to arrest. Sincerely Frederic C. Howe Commissioner At the same time, the immigration commissioner wrote to Louis F. Post, Assistant Secretary of Labor in regard to the Andreytchine case: The young man is a clean, wholesome, nice, young fellow, and Mrs. J. S. Cram has telephoned me several times about. Here is a letter from Dante Barton, Vice Chairman of the Commission on Industrial Relations 32 , to Helen Marot, dated 4 August 1916. Helen was a social writer and feminist and one of the leaders in the Womens Trade Unions League, whose member was also the future First Lady of America, Eleanor Roosevelt. At this time, Helen Marot actively cooperated with the radical journal The Masses. Bartons letter to her said:

The Commission on Industrial Relations had been established by the US Congress with a bill, signed by President William Taft in 1912 for investigation of labor conflicts. In 1913 President Woodrow Wilson appointed Henri Walsh as a USCIR Chairman. After delivering the USCIR Final Report in 1915, Walsh established a private Commission on Industrial Relations, where Dante Barton, Helen Marot, and some other liberals, such as US Immigration Commissioner Frederic Howe, the lawyer Amos Pinchot, the Bishop of Detroit Charles Williams were very active Joseph McCartin, Labor Great War. The Struggle for Industrial Democracy and the Origins of Modern American Labor Relations. 1912-1921, (University of North Carolina Press, 1997), p. 30. According to some publications, Henri Walsh had been personally interested of the Andreytchine Case.

32

Mr. Andreytchine came in this morning. Lincoln Steffens and George West came in shortly after, and we talked the whole thing over. I called up Louis Post, Assistant Secretary of Labor, who is now in charge with Secretary Wilson out of town... [Acting Secretary] Densmores opinion that he must be deported is a rotten legalistic rateyed reincarnation of attorneyism, but whether Secretary Wilson will agree to that is a question. Possibly, altogether we can scare him into agreeing. I think we can feel pretty sure that Fred Howe will continue his parole and thus give him and us longer time in which to decide what to do and find out what Secretary Wilsons order will most likely be, if put up to him, and make such a stir throughout the country by our committees fight and all the help we can get from the N.E.A. and other newspapers and the whole radical bunch.

During the so-called red scare at the end of 1919, a special parliamentary committee was established in the US Congress to investigate the activities of Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis Post regarding the deportation of foreigners. At the committee meeting on 30 April 1920, Congressman Albert Johnson from the State of Washington presented a number of unknown facts and documents on the Andreytchine case from July 1916. In his detailed statement, he pointed out: The next report will take up the alien I.W.W., cases, among them the case of George Andreytchine, an alien anarchist, claiming to be a Tolstoyan, using the Tolstoyan brand of anarchy under which to write and speak, a young man 24 or 25 years old, who speaks three or four languages; a very pleasant and plausible fellow. He became an I.W.W. agitator in Michigan, in the copper districts of Michigan, with Gurley Flynn, making speeches and urging the use of force and resistance; which under certain conditions, might have been the right of an American citizen, but I contend is not the right of an alien. He was arrested under some law of the State, and when it was discovered that he was an alien he was turned over, as other cases were turned over, to the Department of Labor, or the Bureau of Immigration This fellow got a great many people to intercede for him That appeal was so successfully made that it caught a number of Senators and three or four Representatives in Congress. And he got all kinds of people to intercede for him, among them the editor of the Masses and the Rev. Percy Stickney Grant Most strenuous efforts were being made to keep Andreytchine from being deported. A scheme was gotten up by which he was to pay his own way to Brazil, if permitted the depart. His friends put that scheme forward for him, and these well-meaning people who put up this very argument sent telegrams by the dozen, but working below und under the wellmeaning were people who were conspiring to keep him in the country. I have the letters of a lot of them here. One from Frederic Howe, commissioner of immigration at Ellis Island, and others. One letter explains the plan of these conspirators to keep Secretary Wilson engaged

in making speeches, and war work, and other things, so that Mr. Post would take care of these cases In the course of time they secure delays for a few weeks, and then Mr. Andreytchine was released, and was not deported Andreytchine, let me tell you, was an I.W.W. pet, and a prince among the I.W.W.s, and these letters were in response to a special appeal, and the appeal was worked up and directed to the Senators, and not to the Members of the House of Representatives, and I am inclined to think some one went around and got signatures of Senators because there is one letter here signed by 15 or 16 en bloc. The thing was all worked up with great care, as I have told you. If I should name all of those that were in the plan to keep this Andreytchine in the United States you would get the names of nearly all of the leaders of those who call themselves liberals. 33 . With his work in legislation, Congressman Albert Johnson remained famous as a supporter of the white race superiority concept and the initiator of restrictive measures to suspend immigration in the United States. As early as 1913, he became known for his initiative for non-admission of immigrants from South Western Asia (anti-Hindu law), and at the beginning of the 1920s he was able to implement restrictive measures for admission of immigrants of Asian origin (mostly from Japan and China), which remained in force for the following four decades. Although Johnson did not mention the names of the liberal leaders, it was clear for the parliamentary committee that he meant the representatives of the progressive liberal movement George Norris, Robert La Follette and William Borah. It is very likely that between 10 and 20 August 1916 the young Bulgarian was in Washington, where he had arranged meetings with some congressmen and senators, most of whom were representatives of the liberal progressive trend on the Capitol Hill. Three years later, George wrote in a letter that he also visited Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis Post, accompanied by George West, Dante Barton, and Lincoln Steffens. Just within a week, between 11 and 17 August, the Secretary of Labor received over ten letters from influential senators and congressmen (some were signed by five or six people) in support of Andreytchine. On 12 August, one of the leaders of the National Progressive Republican League George W. Norris, a Senator from Nebraska wrote to the Secretary of Labor in favor of Andreytchine:

66 House Res. 522 Investigation of Administration of Louis F. Post, Assistant Secretary of Labor, in the matter of Deportation of Aliens. Hearings before the Committee on Rules, House of Representatives, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920), p. 3639. Representative Albert Johnsons statement was commented by the press The New York Times, May 1, 1920.

33

From what I have heard, he is a remarkable man for his age, speaks seven different languages and is a very high class man. His only offence it seems is that he has sympathizer with the Iron miners on a strike in Minnesota I hope that you will prevent, if you can, in this case what I believe to be an unwarranted and unjustifiable deportation of an honest-meaning man. The Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Banking and Currency Robert L. Owen, Senator from Oklahoma described the treatment of the young Bulgarian as harsh and assured Secretary Wilson: I trust you will give this matter your personal consideration and feel confident that upon investigating the facts you will order deportation in this case to be renounced. Very similar is the content of the letters, written by senators Morris Sheppard and Charles Gulberson from Texas, George E. Chamberlain and Harry Lane from Oregon, Edwin Johnson from South Dakota, Congressmen Meyer London from New York, Clifton Nesmith McArthur from Oregon, and some others. Some influential publicists like The Independent Editor Hamilton Holt also addressed the Department of Labor. Life Magazine publisher appealed to Secretary Wilson: Speaking both as a newspaper man and as one who expects good things from your administration of the Department of Labor, I am putting in a word for George Andreytchine, the young Bulgarian, whom the Steel Trust is trying to have your Department deport If it is your decision to ship Andreytchine to Bulgaria or South America because he has made himself obnoxious to the Steel interests of Minnesota, then I shall be one writer and citizen who will be bitterly disappointed. I hope that your Department will take a liberal and vigorous stand on the question. On 19 August 1916, Acting Secretary of Labor J. B. Densmore formally interrogated Andreytchine with the only purpose to avoid the legal obstacle (the accusation of instigation to violence and militant anarchism) to his stay in the USA, which was supported by so many influential liberals. Finally, George signed a declaration with the statement: My conceptions of anarchism are literally opposed to the definition of such as found in the statutes of the United States. On the next day, Densmore issued an order for his release without making any reference to the option of traveling to South America. In a special letter to the Acting Secretary of Labor, the publisher of The Masses Max Eastman expressed his sincere gratitude for this decision: You have saved for the United States a citizen as valuable as George Andreytchine.

On 22 August, George Andreytchine himself sent a letter of appreciation to Frederic Howe, written on a form of The Masses journal, which said: Dear Mr. Howe, I have no words to thank you for your appreciation and support. As you probably have heard, the warrant for my deportation was canceled that Saturday by Acting Secretary Densmore and I was turned loose to enjoy the prosperity and freedom of your dear country. From now on I will do all I can to foster the coming of the golden age for which millions have fought and died. I remain yours and ever, for the emancipation of mankind! George Andreytchine Upon receiving this letter of appreciation from Andreytchine, Frederic Howe replied: I was immensely gratified to receive your letter advising me that Acting Secretary Densmore had cancelled your order for deportation 34 . In September 1916, the IWW Secretary William Haywood also published a special summary of the case of Andreytchine, mentioning that the young Bulgarian was a follower of Tolstoy, Thoreau, and William Lloyd Garrison 35 . George became quite popular among the radical and liberal circles, which helped him to form a lot of friendships and acquaintances with a large number of the founders of modern America during the first two decades of the new twentieth century. Bohemia State Since his arrival in New York in 1916, and later in Chicago, Andreytchine befriended many prominent American intellectuals from The Masses circles and the Chicago Literature School journalists Max Eastman and John Reed, writers Sherwood Anderson, Carl Sandburg, Theodore Dreiser, Eugene ONeill, literature critics Floyd Dell, Waldo Frank, cartoonists Art Young, Boardman Robinson, Robert Minor and others. Very close friendly relations were established among those radical intellectuals. They were ardent supporters and propagandists of the
34

All correspondence on Andreytchines case had been presented by Congressmen Johnson at a special press conference during the propaganda campaign of Lusk Committee against the red scare in November 1919 - New York Times, November 27, 1919, p. 1, 4; December 1, 1919, p.1,7; Los Angeles Times, November 27, 1919, p.11.

modern cultural schools in Europe from the beginning of the 20th century postImpressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism, avant-garde theater and poetry 36 . It is difficult to describe briefly the living and working environment of the representatives of the New York cultural Bohemia, as well as the emblematic characters of most of them. The most prominent members, however, deserve our special attention. Moreover, Andreytchine sustained friendly relations with some of them during the following years, and they undoubtedly left a mark on his character and views. One of the most typical intellectual hubs in Greenwich Village in the first decades of the 20th century was Mabel Dodges Salon. Educated in the Victorian traditions in a prosperous American family, Mabel left for Italy at a very young age. In Florence, she met Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and many other representatives of the modern European culture. Back home after eight years in Europe, in January 1913, the young writer and literature critic was encouraged by the famous journalist Lincoln Steffens to turn her home on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street in central Greenwich Village into a meeting place for talented and well-known young liberals, socialists and anarchists, writers, actors and artists, philosophers, journalists and syndicate leaders. In a similar way, a decade later, her closest friend Gertrude Stein maintained a cultural salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus in Paris, a favourite place for a myriad of American writers from the so-called Lost generation. This period was described by Ernest Hemingway as a moveable feast. In Mabel Dodges spacious apartment at 23 Fifth Avenue, in the years between 19131917, one could often observe lively discussions between the rising journalists and classmates from Harvard Walter Lippman and John Reed, the sociologist Max Weber and Freuds translator Dr. Brill (who later founded the American Psychoanalytic Association), the young actress and poet Edna Vincent Millay and the feminist Margaret Sanger, who was repeatedly arrested for her appeals to cancel the abortion ban... Sometimes the publisher of the anarchist magazine Mother Earth, Emma Goldman, or the massive syndicate leader Bill Haywood made an unexpected appearance. Big Bill was called by the hostess "the Cyclop of the revolution.
William Haywood, George Andreytchine, International Socialist Review, Chicago, No. 17, September 1916. 36 Franklin Rosemont, Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture, (Chicago: Charles Kerr Publishers, 2002).
35

One evening in the winter of 1914, Mabel Dodge organized a discussion, devoted to the topic of the unemployed. On the next day, New York newspapers described in large headlines the attendance of a dozen IWW leaders together with nearly 200 luminaries from the artistic and intellectual Bohemia of Greenwich Village. Walter Lippman explained to his urging colleagues from the tabloids that this was not a festive reception, but rather a discussion of the serious social problems of the day. Other times the Salon on Fifth Avenue was visited by the editorial board of The Masses headed by Max Eastman, John Reed and Floyd Dell 37 . As Steve Colin pointed out, the strange cooperation between syndicate activists representatives of the working class, and the Bohemian intellectuals representing the middle class, was one of the most important and challenging legacies in the history of IWW 38 . The founder of The Masses, Max Eastman, was the son of a Presbyterian clergyman. Soon after his graduation from Columbia University, he and his sister Crystal joined the community of young avant-garde intellectuals from Greenwich Village. In 1910, he helped to found the Mens League for Womens Suffrage in support of the suffragists movement in America. In 1912, together with Floyd Dell, Max Eastman created the radical magazine The Masses. A year later, John Reed joined the editorial board. At that time, he was called extreme leftist and socialist agitator by his conservative opponents. Differently from many other radical intellectuals, Eastman never became a member of a political party and continued to defend his own ideas, regardless of the sharp criticism of friends and foes. Years later, he referred to his political credo: To me socialism was never a philosophy of life, much less a religion, but an experiment that ought to be tried 39 . John Reed was born in a relatively wealthy family in Portland. His grandfather, Henry Dodge Green, was one of the influential capitalists in the State of Oregon. Later, Reed recalled the fantastic receptions in the family mansion, where under the light of gas lanterns, in a splendid park and a family house resembling a Baroque French castle, the local elite danced until late at night. His father was an executor, however, by the suggestion of his friend Lincoln Steffens,

Ross Wetzsteon, Republic of dreams; Andrea Barnet, Crazy New York, (New York: Chapel Hill, 2004), 98101. 38 Steve Colin, The IWW and Bohemians: The Case of Paterson Pageant, Journal of Labor and Society, No. 5, September 2005, p. 565572. 39 Max Eastmann, Love and Revolution. My Journey Through an Epoch, (New York: Random House, 1964), p. 31.

37

he was appointed as an inspector in a team, investigating corruption in the state administration. This brought him national fame. Shortly after he graduated from Harvard, in 1910 Jack Reed dived into the atmosphere of the New York avant-garde Bohemia in Greenwich Village, to whom he devoted one of his first poems The Day in Bohemia. His fathers friend Lincoln Steffens introduced him to the socialist movement circles. He met Bill Haywood and became an active supporter of the syndicate struggles of IWW. In 1914, after Reed met Pancho Villa, his articles about the Mexican War brought him national reputation. In the middle of 1915, sent by the Metropolitan as a war correspondent, accompanied by the artist Boardman Robinson, he went through all combat fields of the Eastern front, including Serbia, Bulgaria and Russia. As some American authors pointed out decades later, the war in Eastern Europe was a turning point in the formation of a strong antimilitarist and pacifist attitude in both American radicals. Upon his return from Europe, during a visit to his hometown, Jack met the journalist Louise Bryant, who was attracted by his rebellious articles in The Masses. Suddenly, there was a burning love affair between the two. Louise left her first husband, who was wealthy, but rather bourgeois and boring for her romantic expectations, while Jack terminated his wild, but short intimate relations with Mabel Dodge. About the time when Andreytchine met them in the summer of 1916, they were living together in Reeds apartment on Washington Square in Greenwich Village. A handwritten note from George Andreytchine to John Reed said: Dear Jack, [I] am leaving for Bayonne. [I] would be delighted to see you before leave. Fraternally, George Andreytchine 40 What exactly was Andreytchines occupation in the little town of Bayonne in the State of New Jersey soon after his arrival in New York in July 1916 is something we could understand from the story of the writer Mary Heaton Vorse. In her book of memoirs from 1935, she wrote:

Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University, bMS Am 1091, The papers of John Reed, Series , No. 193.

40

When I came back from the Mesaba Range I found Andreytchine in New York. He said to me: You must go over to Bayonne. There is a terrible situation over there They have mobilized all the white collar employers of the Standard Oil and fired their guns. Eight workers were killed. 41 . Boardman (Mike) Robinson, qualified today as one of the ten most famous American cartoonists of the 20th century, was the grandson of an Irish rebel. In 1898, after a short study period in the College of Art in Boston, he won a scholarship and continued his studies in the realm of modern art Paris. There he met his future wife, Sally, who was studying sculpture in Auguste Rodins class. Upon his return to the USA, Robinson contributed to several popular editions Vogue, Colliers, Harpers Weekly and New York Tribune. In 1913, he was strongly influenced by the cultural event of the year in New York the international modern art exhibition in Armory Hall. His illustrations of the war in Eastern Europe in 1915 made him extremely popular, and the succession of cartoons for The Masses in 19161917, and later for The Liberator in 19181924, brought him the fame of one of the founders of the modern American cartoon. His inspiration and innovation were inherent qualities of world masters such as Francisco Goya and Honore Daumier. His portrait of Abraham Lincoln, published in The Liberator in February 1919, was characterized to be one of the most impressive art representations of the American president. Robert Minor also came from a well-known American family from San Antonio, Texas. Some of his ancestors were relatives and followers of the fathers of the United States - George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. General Sam Houston, the first president of Texas, was a descendant of his mothers family. Similarly to Mike Robinson and Art Young, Bob Minor was attracted by the art editor of The Masses, John Sloan, to contribute to the journal. In the cultural atmosphere of Greenwich Village a symbol of the cultural Renaissance of America from the early decades of the 20th century, two other social phenomena were of importance Provincetown Theater and Herodoxity Club. All historical studies on the development of the American theater acknowledge the stimulating role of the modern and experimental company of Provincetown Players. The theater was established at the beginning of World War I by the graduate from Harvard and Heidelberg, former professor at Stanford, George (Jig)
41

Mary Heaton Vorse, A Footnote to Folly, . 149.

Cram. Together with his wife Susan Glaspell and his friend Floyd Dell, in the summer of 1915, George Cram directed the first avant-garde plays with the newly created company of young actors and playwrights in the summer shelter of many intellectual Bohemians from Greenwich Village Cape Cod bay in Massachusetts. In May 1916, the friends got together in Cape Cod again. In the bungalow adjacent to the Crams, John Reed lived with his new love Louise Bryant. One day, a young expansive Irish man joined the group. Eugene ONeill made his first steps in American theater through Provincetown Players. Here, on the Atlantic coast, during one long absence of Jack Reed (who went to cover the Democratic Party congress and to interview Henry Ford in Detroit), a romantic affair started between ONeill and Bryant. This strong, however brief relationship was terminated after Reeds serious illness and was completely forgotten next summer, when Jack and Louise left for Europe and were absorbed in the dramatic events in Russia 42 . In August 1916, Provincetown Players finally moved to MacDougal Street in New York, in the heart of Greenwich Village. The same autumn, Eugene ONeills plays Bound East for Cardiff and Thirst were performed for the first time. They set the beginning of the artistic career of one of the most prominent American playwrights, who received Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936. During the following seasons, the theater presented the new avant-garde plays The Prodigal Son by Harry Kemp, Contemporaries by Daniel Steele, Tickless Time by Susan Glaspell, The Emperor Jones by Eugene ONeill, The Princess and the Page by Edna Vincent Millay and others. 43 George Andreytchine was definitely among the visitors in the modern theater at the end of 1916 and the beginning of 1917, and again in the years 19191920. Later documents reveal indirect and allegoric confirmation of this claim of ours. The Heterodoxy Club was set up in 1912 as an informal organization of numerous eminent figures of the American womens movement, most of whom former members of the National American Womens Suffragist Association. The Club was founded by the descendant of a famous New York family, Mary Jenny Howe, the wife of the liberal Frederic Howe. The Club was located in the heart of Greenwich Village, at 129 MacDougal Street on the corner of Washington Square (in 1916, Provincetown Players settled at 139 MacDougal). Over 100 representatives of American feminism became members of the womens club.
42

William M. Greene, LOUISE BRYANT. An Informal Biography of an Activist.

Among them were public figures, journalists, writers, and actresses such as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Crystal Eastman, Susan Glaspell (Mrs. Cram), Fannie Hurst, Paola Jacobi, Doris Stevens 44 , Helen Keller, Fola La Follette, Inez Milholland, Mary Heaton Vorse, Inez Haynes, and others. 45 Some of the Club members, together with other famous suffragists in Washington, Chicago, San Francisco and other U.S. cities, such as Jane Addams 46 , Mary McDowell, Fanny Garrison Villard, Belle La Follette, Edith and Grace Abbott founded the Womans Peace Party in 1915. Undoubtedly, George Andreytchines three-month stay in New York during the most active and dissipated period of the cultural Bohemians from Greenwich Village left unforgettable traces in his memory and considerably influenced his own moral evolution. In the course of the following difficult years, he could not stop recalling this time. As a matter of fact, his new artistic acquaintances were impressed by the liveliness and optimism of the young Bulgarian. Half a century later, Max Eastman remembered: George was a kind of human torch; he was lit up and burning from head to foot with zeal for poetry and the proletarian revolution. Handsome, eloquent, voluble, and reckless. 47 . In the Head Office of IWW Having stayed for a while in New York, George moved at the end of 1916 to Chicago. He attended the 10th I.W.W. Convention in Chicago, where a special resolution against the European War was drafted. In Andreytchines bulky preface to Bill Haywoods memoirs published fifteen years later, George asserted that he himself wrote the draft of that Anti-War Declaration which was later proclaimed by Haywood with minor amendments. 48 The fact that young Andreytchine was assigned to elaborate a document for the syndicate congress of such importance indisputably proved the closeness and respect of the IWW leader. On the other
Susan Glaspell, The Road to the Temple: A Biography of George Cram Cook, (Jefferson. NC: McFarland Inc. Publishers, 2005). 44 Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom, (New York: Bony and Liveright, 1920), . 386-387. 45 Judith Schwarz, Radical Feminists of Heterodoxy: Greenwich Village, 1912-1940, (New York: New Victoria Publishers, 1986); Republic of Dreams,p. 174176. 46 According to some publications, Jane Addams was amongst the most active liberals that supported Andreytcines case in July 1916 Philip Foner, History of the Labor Movement of the United States, Vol. IV, Industrial Workers of the World, (New York: International Publishers, 1965), p. 561. 47 Max Eastman, Love and Revolution, p. 430. 48 , , , (-: , 1932), c. 31
43

hand, the style of the document was an evidence of the syndicate members strange perception of the issue of the ultimate goals and means of their struggle. The concept of industrial democracy lay in the foundation of the views of the majority of American syndicate activists, and the international proletarian solidarity was a typical feature of IWW. The arguments and wording of the declaration were used a year later as evidence for the prosecutions case at the Chicago trial: We condemn all wars, and for the prevention of such, we proclaim the anti-militaristic propaganda in time of peace, thus promoting class solidarity among the workers of the entire world, and, in time of war, the general strike, in all industries... We extend assurances of both moral and material support to all workers who suffer at the hands of the capitalist class for their adherence to these principles, and call on all workers to unite themselves with us, that the reign of the exploiters may cease, and this earth be made fair through the establishment of Industrial democracy. 49 . Another recollection of George about the I.W.W. Convention dealt with the delegates reaction to the news of Jack Londons death on 22 November 1916. After hearing the announcement, the syndicalists rose to their feet, the Congress was terminated for a while and some of Jack Londons friends delivered improvised speeches in memory of the writer 50 . At this time, large Chicago and New York became the places with the highest concentration of Bulgarian immigrants. Edith Abbott, who, together with her sister Grace founded schools for the workers European immigrants in Hull House, recalled years later that the Bulgarian colony was comprised mainly of young men, who had left their families at home. Although they lived in poverty, they were known for their friendliness and sympathy 51 . In the period preceding World War I, Chicago accommodated between 800 and 1 000 immigrants from Bulgaria and those parts from Macedonia, which were still under Turkish rule (the regions of Kostur and Bitola). Taking into account the nearby towns Gary, Madison and Granite City in Illinois and Indiana, which became part of the growing megalopolis of Chicago, the number of Bulgarians exceeded 10 000 people. Within the city they were concentrated around Adams Street, close to the Greek colony, and built their own shops, bakeries, and restaurants. The first Bulgarian bookshop in America was opened at 842 Adams Street by Nikola
49 50

Industrial Workers of the World. Proceedings. Tenth Convention 1916, (Chicago, 1917), p. 138. , , c. 29.

Dramsazov. New Bulgaria Restaurant was located at number 820, and another Bulgarian bookshop Life owned by A. Iovchev, was at a very close distance at number 818. Between 1902 and 1914, a period as short as a decade, attempts were made to publish over a dozen Bulgarian newspapers in Chicago. 52 According to a later FBI report, George Andreytchine initially settled down in Chicago in a room on the second floor at 842 Adams Street, above the Bulgarian caf and Dramsazovs bookshop 53 . There is not much evidence of the relations between George Andreytchine and other Bulgarians during his stay in Chicago. A photograph from that time shows George in a village cottage. On the back of the photo he has written: In the farm of one citizen from Kostur [in Greek Macedonia Kastoria] a young man working with me 54 . Another authentic documentary evidence of his relations with the relatives in Bulgaria is his photograph, on the back of which he has written: To my dear mother. 20 July 1917. Chicago, America. Two decades later, Andreytchine mentioned in his letter to the American Ambassador in Moscow, Bullitt, that Dr. Stoycoff was among his best friends in Chicago. Family reminiscences also remind of this name. Dr. Christo Stoycoff was a graduate from the Bennett Medical College at Loyola University in Chicago. He was born in Lovech and demonstrated broad cultural interests, even making attempts to write literature. An accidental finding a description of an antique medical book, offered for sale in eBay in 2005, provided a new meager evidence of the Bulgarian physician his own autograph on the initial page of the edition D-r C. M. Stoycoff, Gary, Indiana, 1914. The note proved that the home of young Andreytchines fellow countryman and friend was the town of Gary, Indiana, near Michigan Lake, about 30-40 kilometers away from Chicago downtown. US immigration archives contain the exact address of Christ M. Stoycoff, M. D.: 1634, Broadway, Gary Indiana. In December 1918, Dr. Christo Stoycoff was a delegate to the First Congress of the Bulgarian Peoples Union in Chicago. He signed the appeal of the Bulgarian immigration in the United States to the Paris Peace Conference, a copy

Social Service Review, Chicago, September 1950. , 21 , , 15 2006; , : , . 1, 1860-1944, (: , 2003), c. 367-370. 53 NARA, Record Group 65 (Records of the FBI), M 1085: Investigative Reports of the Bureau of Investigation 1908-1922, Bureau Section Files,Case Nr. 188 032, Roll 917, p. 2. 54 National Museum of History (), Sofia, Collection 24, No. 12487.
52

51

of which was sent personally to President Woodrow Wilson 55 . In 1928, he initiated the foundation of a Macedonian-Bulgarian educational society in Gary, aiming at the implementation of cultural and educational activities and sustaining its own school and cultural club 56 . Still quite young, at the beginning of 1917, George Andreytchine became the editor of the labor union newspaper Solidarity and the Bulgarian language edition of Workers Thought a publication of the Bulgarian section of Industrial Workers of the World. This brought him additional popularity in the circles of leftistradical and liberal American intelligentsia. According to later information from FBI, in August 1917, the young Bulgarian started to publish another syndicate newspaper in Bulgarian Worker. However, only a month later its editor was arrested and the newspaper was suspended 57 . In Chicago, Andreytchine became close friends with the editor of Solidarity, the poet Ralph Chaplin and his wife, Edith. The offices of the two editors were adjacent on the third floor of the new IWW headquarters at 1001 Madison Street in Chicago. Thirty years later, Ralph described his brother-editor George as a fiery very young Bulgarian intellectual a handsome young fellow, just twenty two years old; brilliant, full of life, and a splendid speaker, the idol of all rebel girls 58 . With the last part of this description, Chaplin probably indirectly referred to the affectionate friendship between Andreytchine and the rebel girl of America, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn a friendship, which started during the Messabi Range strike in June the previous year. The editors of Solidarity and the other foreign language syndicate editions often dropped by the Radical Bookshop of the left-liberal publishing house of Charles Kerr. Among the closest friends of Bill Haywood and his friends were Mary Marcy, editor-in-chief of International Socialist Review, and the manager of the Radical Bookshop, Geraldine Yudel. An interesting close relationship existed between them and Margaret Anderson, the sophisticated literary critic and publisher of the legendary magazine Little Review, which left a considerable track in the cultural history of the United States in the 1920s. Permanent contributors to the magazine were the prominent
55

, 1919 ., , , 1991, 3, c. 123136. 56 , , c. 159. 57 NARA, RG 65, M 1085: Investigative Reports of the Bureau of Investigation 1908-1922, Bureau Section Files, Case Nr. 340 162, Roll 927, p. 1209.

representatives of the Chicago literary school Carl Sandburg, Sherwood Anderson, and William Carlos Williams. When in 1917 Ezra Pound became the foreign editor of Little Review, the journal was the first to start presenting to the American audience the new works of the modern British writers such as William Butler Yeats, Thomas Sterns Elliot and James Joyce. Margaret Anderson shared: I like these IWW people a lot. They are not only offering an efficient program of labor; they are getting close to a normal philosophy of life. 59 In Chicago, George Andreytchine established close relations with some representatives of the Russian political immigration in the United States. He was closest to the editor of the Russian syndicate newspapers Workers Thought ( ) and One Big Union ( ) Vladimir Lossieff. He was often a visitor to Caf Royal on 12th Street in the northern part of the city, a favorite place for discussions of the Russian radical intelligentsia. While in New York the previous summer, he befriended the famous Russian anarchist Vladimir (Bill) Shatoff, who became the head of the Russian section of IWW soon after his arrival to the USA in 1907. Shatoff graduated from a trade school in Kiev, but in Chicago he received engineer education. Among Andreytchines acquaintances was the Bolshevik functionary, a close relation to Lenin, Mikhail Grusenberg (Borodin). During the first Russian revolution in 1905, he was arrested in Riga and went into exile. However, he escaped and after a short stay in Switzerland and Great Britain, in 1907 he set off for America. In 1908, he married a Russian immigrant in Illinois and soon after that their two sons were born Feodor and Norman. In Chicago, Mikhail Borodin took part in the activities of the Socialist Labor Party in America, and at the same time he created an evening workers school for the Russian immigrants. Apparently, he liked this work because years later he enjoyed being called the Teacher from Chicago. In January 1917, New York was visited for a short period of time by Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Trotsky), one of the most well-known Russian revolutionaries. In those months some other Bolshevik leaders like Nikolai Bukharin, Alexandra Kollontay and others were also resident in the United States. Kollontay went on an extensive tour around the United States to deliver educational and revolutionary speeches, crossing the country from New York to
58

Ralph Chaplin, Wobbly, the Rough-And-Tumble Story of an American Radical, (University of Chicago Press, 1948), . 211212.

San Francisco. Within a year only, she gave 223 speeches in numerous cities and towns in North America. In his autobiography, Trotsky wrote about his work in the editors office of New World ( ) journal in New York together with Bukharin, Volodarski, Chudnovski and other Russian political immigrants. No documentary proof exists showing George Andreytchine in contact with them at that time. Several years later, however, life provided him with plenty of opportunities to meet and work with each one of them in various places throughout Europe and Soviet Russia. Some indirect evidence shows that most probably Andreytchine met the proponent of free love and the future Soviet ambassador to Norway and Sweden Alexandra Kollontay in the USA. He was informed in detail about the revolution in February 1917 and the Kerensky government by his Russian fellows Vladimir Lossieff and Bill Shatoff. In March 1917, Ralph Chaplin and George Andreytchine published on the front pages of Solidarity and Workers Thought preliminary information on Trotskys departure from New York and return to St Petersburg. The organizer of Trotskys trip back to Russia was the anarchist Bill Shatoff a friend of Chaplin and Andreytchine. Together with his follower Samuel Goldstein (V. Volodarski), in May 1917 he was able to reach Petrograd via Vladivistok, where he immediately got involved in the political struggle. He participated in the Bolshevik revolution as a member of the Petrograd military revolutionary committee on behalf of the Union for anarcho-syndicate propaganda. In the course of those dramatic and chaotic October days, he repeatedly met his old acquaintances from New York John Reed, Louise Bryant and Albert Rhys Williams. Later, Reed mentioned this in his famous book Ten Days that Shook the World. Soon after the Bolshevik revolution the military peoples commissioner Lev Trotsky appointed Bill at a command position in the newly formed Red Army. During General Yudenichs army offensive to Petrograd in October 1919, he became the commandant of the towns defense (therefore, some American newspapers from this period referred to him as a police commissioner of Petrograd). In 1920, he was sent to the Far East and took part in the government of the newly formed Far East Republic. In July 1920, Shatoff headed the Far East Republic government delegation during the truce negotiations with the Japanese expedition corps command. In the course of these specific months George met an attractive young Russian lady, Genevieve Semashko. The prevailing assumption was that he met
59

Christine Stansell, American Moderns, p. 205.

her at the office of Dr. Stoycoff. Another hypothesis was that it was Vladimir Lossieff who introduced Genevieve to George. There is no other available data about this young lady, who had the same family name as Nikolai Semashko, the first minister of health in the cabinet of Lenin in Soviet Russia. However, a photograph from the summer of 1917 showed both of them standing close to each other in a small group of people with a man in the center having an armband with an inscription in Russian Rossiiskaya Krasnaya Gvardia (Russian Red Guard).

Chapter 3 Espionage or a Class War

The Big Chicago Process Against IWW Soon after the U.S. entered the First World War, in June 1917 the Congress passed the Espionage Act (supplemented in 1918 by the Sedition Act), which forbade all obstruction to the war effort. The U.S. Post Office immediately denied mailing privileges to socialist publications and soon the government moved against the socialists. According to the new emergency legislation, over 900 left intellectuals, trade-union leaders and political activists were indicted on anti-war propaganda and related activities in the next two years with the heaviest penalty pending being 20 years of imprisonment. All appeals for strikes were qualified as sabotage in favor of adversary states. On 5 September 1917, the police searched all IWW regional offices looking for evidence of German gold, which, according to official propaganda, bribed the syndicates to organize strikes and anti-war meetings. In addition to the papers, a Mauser revolver and several bottles of the famous German beer Budweiser were found in the office safe of Solidarity newspaper. The editor of the syndicate edition, Ralph Chaplin, dared to throw in to special agent Klein, who was in charge of the search: Why dont you keep these bottles as proof of German influence. Three weeks later, on 28 September 1917, 166 activists of the organization were arrested and accused in compliance with the Espionage Act. Among them were the Chairman of the syndicate head office Bill Haywood, Ralph Chaplin, Forest Edwards, Harrison George, Vincent Saint John, Vladimir Lossieff and George Andreytchine. They were all taken to the state prison, located on the corner between Durnborn Street and Austin Boulevard, Cook County, downtown Chicago. Thirty years later, Ralph Chaplin described in his memoirs his first impressions after making the trip to jail in the car of a young volunteer from the womens patriotic society of the local high life: It was my lot to be brand with George Andreytchine. Certain Gold Coast debutantes had offered to chauffer us to jail, as their contribution to wining the war. Their pictures were in all the papers, swanky girls, driving swanky cars, with manacled I.W.W.s under gun guard in the back seats. What a picture that made for the morning papers!... But Andreytchine was

infuriated by the suave coolness of the young ladies in the front seat. He was humming La Carmagnole between his teeth. I had never seen George look at girls that way before. Our charming driver and her attractive assistant started to chat airily about the kind of uncouth cargo they were carrying. They made the mistake of talking French. Andreytchine sat up straight with an icy smile frozen on his lips. In the perfectly modulated Parisian syllables that Margaret Anderson so admired he proceeded to tell them what he thought of their education, their luxurious Packard, their morals, their class, and their manners. He was perfectly cool about it, archly genteel but steamingly emphatic. The necks and ears of the Gold Coast girls became redder and redder. 60 . Further on, Ralf Chaplin described the first impressions after their arrival inside the Cook County Jail: Andreytchine and I were directed into one of the dingy cells. I took possession of the top bunk. The key grated in the lock. George continued to stand at the bars trying to peer through the bull-pen windows. Faint strains of jazz music came from a cheap dance hall across the Clark Street alley. Ah, a musical accompaniment with all this, and quite fittingly, lascivious American jazz, he commented with a smile. I was too sleepy to argue with George this time. 61 An intensive propaganda campaign began against more than a hundred indicted syndicalists. Most of them were accused of anti-patriotism, sedition and conspiracy to obstruct enlistment all characterized as subversive acts in favor of an enemy country (the Germany of Keiser Wilhelm). Quite characteristic of the existing atmosphere was the report from Duluth, Minnesota, written by Chicago Daily Tribune editor Dwight Woodbridge: All patriotic citizens will congratulate the United States on the fact that George Andreytchine, indicted in Chicago as a result of the IWW Investigations is to have his hearings before some other body than United State Secretary of Labor Wilson Andreytchine was very prominent as an agitator in anarchistic strikes on the Messabi Iron Range a year ago As might have been expected, Andreytchine, since his endorsement by the Secretary of Labor, has been more vicious and more active in his pernicious propaganda than ever before. He is a man of intelligence, force, and magnetism, and is one of the most dangerous propagandists for anarchy and syndicalism that this country has permitted 62 .

60 61

Ralph Chaplin, Wobbly, p. 227. Ibid, p. 229.

The indicted leaders did not at all look frightened in the days preceding the opening of the trial. Their behavior demonstrated that they rejected the accusations made against them. Finding themselves behind the bars, the arrested IWW leaders started to organize regular educational meetings and entertainments. Such a performance with songs and recitals was organized on 28 October 1917. A comic handwritten version of the announcement for a Hold the Fort Grand Entertainment to be given by the Wobbly Class War Prisoners at the Cook County jail was published in the Chicago Daily News by the poet Carl Sandburg, a future popular biographer of Abraham Lincoln. The imprisoned leaders started publishing a four-page handwritten house organ called Can Opener. Its editors were Ralph Chaplin and Vladimir Lossieff. On 2 October 1917, Carl Sandburg published a large article about the IWW defendants for the Chicago Daily News. The publication was illustrated with a twocolumn picture of Edith Chaplin and George Andreytchines girlfriend Genevieve Semashko. The Chicago Daily Tribune reporters referred to Miss Semashko as Andreytchines young bride and managed to take other incidental pictures of her being in the company of Edith the spouse of Ralph Chaplin. In November 1917, a new sensational story in a newspaper publication linked the images of George Andreytchine and that of the young Genevieve, who had tried to break through. 63 . Simultaneously with the punitive prosecution of the Chicago Court, the immigration authorities once again made allegations of anarchism against Andreytchine, aiming at his deportation from the country. This act was initiated by the Bulgarians old well-wisher, the Duluth immigration inspector Brown MacDonald. As early as 18 July 1917, MacDonald reminded his superiors in Montreal and Washington about the case of Andreytchine, presenting new information on his propaganda activities among the striking workers in Minnesota in the winter of 1917. In his allegations of subversive I.W.W. agitation, the immigration inspector in Duluth made use of the public attacks against the syndicate organization of the Commission of Public Safety, created in April 1917 by the governor of Minnesota. 64 In the context of the US entry in the War, the

Dwight Woodbridge, Secretary Wilsons Protg, Chicago Daily Tribune, October 6, 1917, p. 6. Girl in Red and Red Sweetheart, Chicago Daily Tribune, November 11, 1917, p. 10 64 The Commissions Spokesman John McGee has been compared by some historians for his propaganda rhetoric and violent statements with the notorious ideological crusade of Senator Joseph McCarthy more than a generation later Carl Chrislock, Watchdog of Loyalty: The Minnesota
63

62

Commission started repression against activists of I.W.W. and the left-liberal Non Partisan League. In fact, at the end of September 1917, the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety made a suggestion in the Congress for the impeachment of Senator La Follette. He was blamed for disloyal utterances and having tended to weaken the support of the Administration in the conduct of the war. 65 In the end, inspector MacDonalds act was successful on 2 January 1918 Acting Secretary of Labor J. B. Densmore signed the proposed Warrant Arrest of the alien GEORGE ANDREYTCHINE for violation of the immigration act of February 5, 1917 as being an anarchist 66 . Thus, the federal authorities formally ordered Georges arrest, after he had been in jail for more than three months! The preliminary trial of the punitive case against the arrested syndicate functionaries started on 15 December 1917. Surprisingly for Carlo Tresca, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Joe Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti, who had especially arrived from New York, the accusations against them were taken down. Finally, a total number of 101 accused syndicate members were taken to court for the case The United States against William Haywood and others 67 . Following a mass campaign to collect finances in support of the detained, at the end of February and the beginning of March 1918, Haywood, Chaplin and most of the other arrested people were released on bail until the beginning of the trial. Andreytchine was also released on bail of 1 500 US dollars. His correspondence with John Reed from May-June 1918 shows that after being released from arrest he lived at 1352 Madison Street in Chicago. According to some notes from March 1918, written by Emma Goldman, who was in the state prison in Jefferson at the same time with similar accusations, the Bulgarian was released from preliminary arrest because of failing health (George Andreychine and J.A. McDonald were released from custody on account of sickness. Andreychine has contracted tuberculosis in Cook County jail, the food and general conditions of which are an abomination.) 68 . On 1 April 1918, the legal proceedings against 101 arrested syndicate leaders started in the pompous four-storey building of the county court in Chicago,
Commission of Public Safety During World War I, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1991). 65 New York Times, September 30, 1917 Minnesota Public Safety Commission seeks expulsion of La Follette. 66 NARA, RG 85, Series A: Subject Correspondence Files, Case Nr. 54 182/2b Andreytchine Case. 67 According to the news reporters on 15 December 1917 the Court hall had been ringed by about hundred policemen and secret agents 103 I.W.W. Leaders Face Judge Landis. Great Array of Alleged Conspirators Plead Not Guilty in Federal Court in Chicago, New York Times, December 16, 1917. 68 Mother Earth Bulletin, New York, No. 7, April 1918.

tiled with marble and bronze. That was the longest lasting at the time trial in American history 69 . The judicial procedures against the labor leaders attracted the strong interest and caused wide protests among the liberal public in the United States. The trial was reported in many details in the daily press. In its report from 2 April on the first day of the trial the Chicago Daily Tribune noted: Faces of the IWW were shaved and shined and scrubbed and their hair was trimmed and licked down as not in many years. They wore their gladdest raiment, as if going to a wedding or Summer school When Arturo Giovanitti, Italian poet, caught sight of George Andreytchine, Bulgarian journalist, they embraced and kissed After the postponement of the opening until today the cases of George Andreytchine and J. A. McDonald were taken up. These two, their counsel said, are suffering from tuberculosis 70 . Giovannitti himself related the first day in the court in the following manner: Here was Bill Haywood, there was George Andreytchine; over there Charles Ashleigh, Vincent Saint John, Jack Law, Ralph Chaplin, Francis Miller, and then-Wobblies to the right of them, Wobblies to the left of them, Wobblies as far as the eye could see. Why, it did not look like a trial at all, it looked like a convention 71 . On 4 April, a Chicago Daily Tribune correspondent wrote another report from the court: The Girl in Red, Miss Genevieve Semashko, who figured some time back in an alleged attempt at jail delivery, appeared yesterday. Her presence revealed that she is now Mrs. George Andreytchine, wife of the former editor of the Bulgarian IWW paper, a defendant. A little later Andreytchine, sitting beside Ben Fletcher, put his arm lovingly about the neck of the Negro. That shows that we know no creed or color or race, was the comment of Jack Low, one of the men on trial 72 . Another commentator sent to cover the Chicago trial was John Reed, accompanied by the cartoonist Art Young. In his article The Social Revolution in Court, published in Max and Crystal Eastmans new journal The Liberator, the prominent journalist wrote:
69

Columbia, Washington State Historical Society Magazine, Tacoma, 2001, No. 2, p. 12-15; Cornwell University Library, IWW Collection Documents, Container IV, Miscellaneous, 1909-1971. 70 Chicago Daily Tribune, April 2, 1918, p. 7. 71 Liberator , New York, Vol. 1, No. 5, July, 1918, p. 8.

In many ways a most unusual trialAs for the prisoners, I doubt if ever in history there has been a sight just like them There goes Big Bill Haywood, with his black Stetson above a face like a scarred mountain; Ralph Chaplin, looking like Jack London in his youth; Red Doran, of kindly pugnacious countenance, a mop of bright red hair falling over the green eye-shade he always wears; Harrison George, whose forehead is lined with hard thinking; Sam Scarlett, who might have been a yeoman at Crecy; George Andreytchine, his eyes full of Slav storm; Charley Ashleigh, fastidious, sophisticated with the expression of a well-bred Puch; Grover Perry, young, stoney-faced after the manner of the West And I looked through the great windows and saw, in the windows of the office-buildings that ringed us round, the lawyers, the agents, the brokers at their desks, weaving the fabric of this civilization of ours, which drives men to revolt and dream, and then crushes them. 73 Reeds article was illustrated with many drawings by Art Young prosecutors, judges and the main defendants. Andreytchines picture was among the published drawings. In the course of the five-month trial, Andreytchine sent several letters to John Reed. In a long letter to Reed, dated 28 May 1918, Andreytchine informed that the IWW prisoners had sent a telegram to President Woodrow Wilson on their case. Andreytchine wrote: Here are many young men, Russian, Finns, Ukrainian, Polish, Letts, Lithuanians, who are eager to go and fight Kaiser Bill and all the enemies of the proletariat. 74 . Further on, he named as an example of the emerging militant syndicalism a manifesto, published in the French Le Journal des Peuples. At the end of the letter Andreytchine made a curious comment: Seems to me that the trouble with the Anglo-Saxon people is that you are too much concerned with yourself instead of being responsible internationalists. You might object this, but you know its true. Like [Tom] Mooneys case, for instance. Lenine, two weeks after he arrived in

Chicago Daily Tribune, April 4, 1918, p. 9. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University, bMS Am 1091, The papers of John Reed, Series V, No. 1199 The social revolution in court, The Liberator, New York, vol. 1, No. 7, September 1918. John Reeds excellent description was used frequently by many IWW historians. 74 In his preface to Bill Haywoods memoirs published in Russian fifteen years later Andreytchine would once again a very specific feature of the trial: An interesting and characteristic specific of the Chicago trial was the fact, that 17 nationalities were present among the defendants about fifty per cent of the population of America, one Negro, Ben Fletcher, Scots, Irish, Englishmen, Swedish, German, Finns, Hungarians, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, Rumanians, Russians, French, etc. , . ., . 2324.
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Petrograd, organized a remarkable protesting against Frisco frame-up while in America Labor hardly knew about it 75 . In another letter to John Reed a month later, Andreytchine wrote: Dear Jack, [I] am sorry that I have sent all my French papers to a friend in Minnesota and cannot quote you Jean Longues speech in Palais Bourbon. However, I shall try to give you a few notes of the papers I received yesterday. He informed that in France there had been arrests of many prominent syndicalists such as Raymond Pericat, the secretary of the Syndicalist Defense Committee (Comite du Defense Syndicaliste), Fernand Despres, editor of the magazine La Plebe, [Clovis] Andrieux, Bidault, [Charles] Flageollet, Broutchoux of the Federation du Batimant, etc. Andreytchine informed as well about the published agenda of the forthcoming congress of the French Trade Unions (Confederation Generale du Travail), scheduled for mid-July 1918. The letter ended with the words: Great agitation against the war going on. Something may happen. Love to you and Louise, George 76 On 6 July 1918, the leader of the syndicate organization, William Haywood, stood before the Chicago court. He testified again at several consecutive sessions of the court between 9 and 14 August. Other IWW functionaries also testified and replied to the prosecutors questions Vladimir Lossieff, Grover Perry, Forest Edwards, Harrison George 77 ... Solidarity editor Ralph Chaplin spoke on 16 and 19 July. As one of the main defendants, Andreytchine was questioned for four hours on 24 July 1918 by Frank Nebeker, the Assistant Attorney General. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn testified as a witness to the defense on his case. A detailed report by
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University, bMS Am 1091, The papers of John Reed, Series , No. 191. 76 Ibid, No. 192. 77 Harrison George later described in a book the testimony of George Andreytchine: It developed that Andreytchines hostility to militarism was not directed by any thought of opposing the United States in the prosecution of this war, but an inherent dislike for war in general and the poison of Prussian militarism in particular. Andreytchines experience as a soldier in Bulgaria were brought out to show
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the Chicago Christian Science Monitor correspondent described the testimony of the young Bulgarian: George Andreytchine, the first of the I. W. W. Foreign language editors to testify in the trial of 101 I.W.W. here, was placed on the stand by the defense on Wednesday In December 1913 he came to America with dislike of all governments he had seen in Europe Andreytchines testimony also threw some light on the Bulgarians in North America. It gave an interesting sidelight on the European War, in that he stated the Bulgarian Government had sent out a call for Bulgarian Reservists in this country to return home shortly before the opening of the European war. They tried to get me back two months before war broke out, he said. Andreytchine was drafted into the Bulgarian Army, fought against Turkey and was wounded He has studied in France before coming in America in 1913. The French, the Germans and the Bulgarian governments have shot workers. I felt when I left Europe that all European governments were bad Led on by his counsel, Andreytchine gave his opinion of King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, whom he termed a hireling of the Kaiser who is sacrificing Bulgarias best interests. When questioned by Frank Nebeker about his sentiments toward the American flag, Andreytchine expressed his respect in an understanding of the men who died for it at Bunker Hill and why they died. According to the Christian Science Monitor quotation, he also said that When this flag was created it stood for liberty; it did not stand for profiteering I will believe in the flag today when the profiteers are driven from their place 78 . In the midst of the strong psychological campaign of the Red Scare in the United States surrounding Americas biggest criminal case in the words of the chief prosecutor Frank Nebeker, on 30 August 1918 Federal Judge K. M. Landis read the sentences against the Syndicalist leaders. Found guilt of antiwar propaganda, Bill Haywood, Ralph Chaplin and George Andreytchine received the heaviest penalties twenty years in jail and a 30 000 dollars fine 79 . A report in the
that those who taste the horrors of war have reason to abhore it. Harrison George, Op. cit., p. 140 143. 78 Alien Editor is Witness for I. W. W., Christian Science Monitor, July 25, 1918, p. 1, 11. The original record of Andreytchines interrogatiry can be found at: Wayne State University, Walter Reuther Library, Detroit, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, IWW Papers, Series V, Box 113, Folder 4. 79 War-Time Prosecutions and Mob Violence: Involving the Rights of Free Speech, Free Press and Peaceful Assemblage, National Civil Liberties Bureau, N. Y., 1919 (facsimile reprint Amsterdam, 2004), p. 34.

Chicago Daily Tribune commented on the reactions to the terms of the sentences after its reading: Haywood made no show of emotion, though for him it probably means prison until death. He is past 50 years of age and has done prison bits before. To George Andreytchine, the young Russian [as in the original] poet, who, too, went down for the long stretch, it meant separation from his pretty bride. He has been expelled from his native land for plotting before coming to this country. Then there was Ralph Chaplin, another poet, smiling and with face as white as chalk, and Carl Ahlteen of Minneapolis, editor of The Alarm, pale and nervously twisting his cravat 80 . Similar description was given in a Washington Times publication: As "Big Bill" arose from his seat, a group of women, who had been weeping, started an ovation, which was quickly silenced by the court. George ANDREYTCHINE, the young Russian poet, was next called by the court, and as he stepped forward, he smiled and threw a kiss to his pretty bride, who waved her handkerchief. 81 . Some of the other radical political leaders received similar heavy sentences. The first Socialist member of the House of Representatives Victor Berger was also jailed for 20 years by Judge K. Landis, and while there he ran and was reelected as a congressman in 1919, and stayed at the Capitol Hill until his death in 1929. In June 1918, Eugene Debs was sentenced to 10 years for an antiwar speech. Before being released, he ran for President as the Socialist party candidate in 1920 and got almost one million votes. The publication of The Masses journal was stopped by the authorities and its editors Max Eastman and John Reed were also threatened with being put on trial. A number of influential and famous political figures in the United States publicly opposed the charges on the indictment and the sentences passed during the Chicago trial. Among them were Senators William Borah and Robert La Follette, former Secretary of Commerce and Labor in President William Tafts administration Charles Nagel, Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis, the legal advisor in the administration of President Taft and President Wilson and future supreme judge in Franklin Roosevelts government, Felix Frankfurter, and
Big Fines and Prison Sentences for the IWW, Chicago Daily Tribune, August 31, 1918, p. 1, 5. Leader of IWW. given 20 years, Washington Times, August 31, 1918. The same information was reproduced later even by a weekly in Southern Australia Heavy Penalties. I.W.W. Leaders Convicted, The Advertiser, Adelaide, 16 October 1918.
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others. 82 Idahos Lion William Borah was a prominent representative of traditional republican liberalism. During his over thirty-year career in the US Senate he became famous for his independent political position. Judge Brandeis was the author of a number of popular works and was one of the active figures in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. His contributions to the development of the American judicial system were highly evaluated years later. A university in the State of Massachusetts, and the School of Law in Louisville University have been named after him. Robert La Follette, senator from the State of Wisconsin and former Governor of the State was particularly popular. Thirty years after his death, in the mid-1950s, he was proclaimed by the senior legislation institution one of the five most influential members of the US Senate in the first half of the century. His determined opposition to the United States involvement in the First World War in April 1917, as well as his disagreement with the Espionage Act (June 1917) and the Military expenditures Act (August 1917) generated in those days of patriotic upsurge a strong propaganda campaign against him, qualifying him as a national traitor. Many liberals declared their support to his pacifist position. During the spring and the second half of 1917, Amos Pinchot, for example, wrote some strongly pathetic letters to Senator La Follette: War has deteriorated into a new and immeasurable disaster to humanity a sweeping, wide-spread epidemic, for which there is no precedent in history. The Chicago millionaire, philanthropist and socialist William Bross Lloyd, in a message published in Life magazine in December 1917, declared the progressive senator one of the few Americans in this country who is really faithful to the interests of the American People 83 . A few years after the First World War, Robert La Follette attempted to found an alternative liberal Progressive Party. As a member of this party, he won 17% of the national vote 84 at the presidential elections in the summer of 1924. With the bipartisan American political model, this result had only been exceeded by the independent presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.

Mary Heaton Vorse, A Footnote to Folly, . 159. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Manuscript Division, MSS 29 165, La Follette Family Papers, Series B, Box 81 Amos Pinchot to Robert La Follette; Box 83, William Bross Lloyd to Robert La Follette. 84 The Comintern leadership sent an extremely sectarian directive to American Communist party on 17 June 1924 with a categorical request to declare themselves against the La Follette presidential nomination Harvey Klehr, John Haynes, and Kyrill Anderson /Eds./, The Soviet World of American Communism, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 17.
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Among the famous political figures in strong opposition to the United States participation in the war and the verdicts from the Chicago trial was the Congressman from Minnesota Charles August Lindberg, father of the well-known American aviator, who made the first crossing over the Atlantic in an aircraft ten years later. Evidence from journalist Bill Lawrence suggests that Congressman Lindberg knew well and maintained relations with the young syndicate member from Minnesota, Andreytchine 85 . Upon the end of the First World War, the former congressman from the Republican Party stood on more liberal positions, and shortly before his sudden death in 1924 he ran for Governor of his State on behalf of the new Farmer-Labor Party. The Federal Prison in Leavenworth Alongside the other 23 imprisoned IWW leaders, Haywood, Chaplin and Andreytchine were transferred to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. Years later, Charles Ashleigh recalled that one of the few men at the station to see them off was the eccentric millionaire, philanthropist and socialist from Chicago, William Bross Lloyd 86 . Ralph Chaplin described in his memoirs how they were: stripped of our civilian clothing and fitted with numbered prison garments, each of us receiving a gray dress uniform with cap and brass buttons, a work suit of faded dungarees and jacket, a hickory shirt, cotton-flannel underwear, two pairs of socks, and a couple of handkerchiefs. As a special favor we were permitted to wear our own shoes. The numbers were stenciled on patches sewed just above each knee on the trousers and on the back of coats and jackets. Mine was 13104. They had started with 13101 in order to make our group easy to identify among the mass of inmates. Andreytchine was 13101. Haywood happened to be 13106. 87 . Andreytchine spent almost a year in the Leavenworth prison 88 . Initially, some of his comrades were taken to sector while he, together with William Haywood, Charles Ashleigh, Vladimir Lossieff and some others to sector D. A later publication tells us that George Andreytchine was accommodated in a cell

Bill Lawrence, Six presidents, too many wars, (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972), p. 162. Patrick Renshaw, The IWW and the Red Scare. 1917-1924, Journal of Contemporary History, 1968, No. 4, p. 68. 87 Ralph Chaplin, Wobbly, p. 250. 88 National Archives, Kansas, MO, Record Group 129, Inmate Case Files, U.S. Penitentiary, Leavenworth, Kansas, 1895-1931, File 13101 George Andreychine.
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with the number 8391. The arrested syndicate members had the opportunity to see each other at the daily church services, as well as during the weekend common walks outside, when baseball and handball games were organized. Bill Haywood wrote in his autobiography notes that in the long winter days they took the opportunity to conduct educational courses in the mess hall with less educated prisoners from lectures on the structure and steering of automobiles to foreign language courses and discussions on The History of Civilization. Thanks to the efforts of the national committee in their support (with the active participation of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Amos Pinchot, Crystal Eastman and other friends) new magazines and books arrived in Leavenworth once a week. Thus, they received even John Reeds newly published bestseller about the Bolshevik Revolution, Ten Days that Shook the World. While in prison, they regularly received letters from their relatives and some famous liberal intellectuals. As Ralph Chaplin pointed out, among those were letters from the author Upton Sinclair and from the sophisticated Bohemian poet George Sterling, who became Jack Londons prototype in the novel The Valley of the Moon (1913 .). In prison, the IWW activists met the ideologists of the Mexican Revolution and the founders of the Mexican Liberal Party, Ricardo Flores Magon and General Librado Rivera. They were given a long-term prison sentence for the dissemination of a rebellious appeal to the anarchists of the world in 1918. The political prisoners had lively discussions on various topics the destiny of the Mexican and the Russian revolutions, poetry and philosophy, even the local North American folklore and the medieval European ballads. As a result of deteriorating health, Ricardo Flores died in Leavenworth in 1922. Behind the prison walls, the workers-bards wrote their new poems, some of which they could send to the radical magazines to be published. Eight of Ralph Chaplins poems (To Woodrow Wilson, IWW Prison Song, For Freedom, France 1919 and others) were published later in a separate book. In his poem When I Go Out, published later in The Liberator, Charles Ashleigh addressed the free world with a feeling of longing and pain: When I go out, O roads of all the world! O Beauty, Gods and cities, do not fail! Await, strong friends, my coming, let my heart Once more drink glory on a careless trail! 89 .
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Liberator, No. 4, April 1920.

Sector in the Leavenworth prison accommodated several hundred black prisoners, mostly former soldiers, who had committed an offence during their service. Evidence suggests that George Andreytchine actively contributed to their self-education. One of the black prisoners, Joseph Jones, shared later that Andreytchine gave him articles from Nation, New Republic, The Liberator and other radical editions. Upon his release from prison in March 1919, Jones received a letter of recommendation from the Bulgarian to his wife in Chicago. According to the words of the black prisoner, thanks to this letter he spent a few days in Andreytchines flat in Chicago after his liberation 90 . While in prison, however, Georges health deteriorated and with the help of his followers, who collected 10 200 US dollars, he was released on bail. Some memoir publications claim that Andreytchine was released in the middle or at the end of July 1919. A documentary edition gives more precise information. It points out that he was in Leavenworth from 7 September 1918 to 8 June 1919. 91 The Secretary of the syndicate organization Bill Haywood was also released on bail of 15 000 dollars, and soon he was followed by Ralph Chaplin, Charles Ashleigh and other IWW activists. In the course of the parliamentary investigation of Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis Post in the US Congress in April 1920, letters were quoted, written in prison by George Andreytchine to Post at the beginning of the previous year. The US Congress documentation suggests that the Bulgarian requested the Assistant Secretary to help him change his long-term prison sentence for deportation to Europe. His request was forwarded to the Department of Justice 92 . Correspondence between Louis Post and George Andreytchine, kept in the immigration services archives, confirms this information. On 16 February 1919, Andreytchine wrote to the Assistant Secretary of Labor from Fort Leavenworth: My dear Mr. Post, I have longed for a chance to write you a few lines and let you know that I have not forgotten your generous help when I needed it most Well, you surely know the barbarous sentence imposed upon us all,
Theodore Kornweibel, Seeing Red: Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy, 1919-1925, (Indiana University Press, 1999), . 159160. 91 Stephen Kohn, American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Act, (Westport: Greenwood, 1994), p. 85. 92 66 House Res. 522 Investigation of Administration of Louis F. Post, Assistant Secretary of Labor, p. 38.
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especially me. I received 20 years in this prison. It is six months since I was thrown in it and no hope for relief yet from nowhere Our hopes are now pinned on Mr. [Woodrow] Wilson who has been enjoying the confidence and support of all our comrades across the ocean. The Bulgarian issued a request to the Assistant Secretary of Labor for an alternative possibility to be expelled out of the United States on account of bad health conditions. He also expressed his expectations that US Attorney General Thomas Gregory would support such an idea. Having received a reply with a promise that Post would commit himself to forwarding the request, on 27 February George wrote another letter to him. After an additional consultation with the respective authorities, on 14 March Louis Post replied: Mr. George Andreytchine Post Office Box 7, Leavenworth, Kansas My dear Mr. Andreytchine, Replying to your letter of the 27th ultimo, I have to advise that the contests of yours of February 16th were brought to the attention to the Attorney General, who has expressed the view that you should be required to serve your sentence. Very truly yours, Assistant Secretary 93 This story exists in a note in the diary of the first Bulgarian plenipotentiary minister in Washington, Stefan Panaretov 94 , dated 19 April 1919: Mr. Reed, private secretary of Assistant Secretary Post of the Labor Department, has tried to get Andreytchine out of jail on the plea to deport him when occasion offers, but the Department of Justice is opposed to it and insists on his staying in prison 95 . Apparently, in the new political situation after the end of the world war, Andreytchine saw his chance in the opportunity to return to his country, or to immigrate to Soviet Russia. In the meantime, after the beginning of an active campaign at the end of March 1919 with the purpose to collect money to bail Haywood and other IWW activists, this turned out to be a real life-saving outcome for each of them.

NARA, RG 85, Series A: Subject Correspondence Files, Case Nr. 54 182/2b Andreytchine Case. Stefan Panaretov was Bulgarian Minister in Washington from 1914 to 1918. He refused to return back to Bulgaria after USA entering into the war. In 1921 Panaretov was appointed again as Bulgarian diplomatic representative to the USA. by the government of Alexander Stamboliiski. 95 Petko Petkov, The United States and Bulgaria in World War I, (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1991), p. 202.
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In her memoirs, Emma Goldman claims that her friends provided the money for the release of the Bulgarian. At the same time, Max Eastman was definite that the benefactor of Andreytchine was Elizabeth Sage Hare. A US State Department document from 1941 and Charles Bohlens memoirs mention also the name of William Bullitt. The private correspondence between Bullitt and Andreytchine unambiguously shows George Andreytchines gratitude to Elizabeth Sage Hare. Twenty years later, in a letter to Bullitt the Bulgarian referred to her: She was one of the most valuable friends I have had. Elizabeth Sage Goodman was the granddaughter of a co-founder of Cornell University. In 1915, she exhibited her paintings in a modern art exhibition in New York. In 1917, Elizabeth divorced her first husband in order to marry the avantgarde artist Meredith Hare. In this way she became close to the cultural Bohemia in Greenwich Village. During these years, she was known for her participation in a number of charity events. Later, in the 1930s, by the invitation of Boardman Robinson, Elizabeth Sage Hare joined the Steering Committee of the Art Academy in Broadmoore and the Center of Fine Art in Colorado Springs. Shortly before he left prison, Andreytchine faced another hardship in addition to the bail of 10 200 dollars. The immigration authorities had not forgotten their demand to arrest him on 2 January 1918. Therefore, they claimed additional 1 000 dollars as a guarantee. Thanks to the mediation of attorneys Otto Christensen in Chicago and Harry Weinberger in New York, the money was paid on 5 June 1919 by his Bulgarian friend Dr. Stoycoff. Three days after the transaction of the newly required amount, George was released from the federal prison. The amount of money to pay for the bail of Haywood and some other prisoners in Leavenworth was provided mainly by the millionaire socialist William Bross Lloyd, publisher Charles Kerr and Big Bills close friend, the editor of International Socialist Review, Mary Marcy. Lloyds grandfather, the founder of Chicago Tribune and Deputy Governor of Illinois, left a considerable inheritance to his family. William, however, followed his father who supported financially the activities of American anarchists and socialists. Attorneys George Venderveer and Oto Christensen from the Chicago process against the IWW were among the guarantees for Haywoods bail. One of the signatories of Vladimir Lossieffs bail

was Tom Doyl, who became IWW Secretary General for a short period in the mid1920s 96 .

IWW Papers, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Walter Reuther Library, Series VI, Box 135 Lossieff Bond fund paper.

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Chapter 4 America Separated

Free Again Shortly after their release from the federal prison in Leavenworth, Bill Haywood, Ralph Chaplin, Charles Ashleigh, George Andreytchine and Vladimir Lossieff returned to Chicago. Big Bill described in his memoirs the changed atmosphere in the IWW head office at 1001 Madison Street. The mass arrests, confiscation of property and other violations against the syndicate organization caused not only material, but also psychological damages to its members, which had a serious impact on its future work and development. In the months following their release, Bill Haywood, George Andreytchine and other former IWW activists took part in many meetings, where they elaborated on their cause. Andreytchine also got involved in the political debates between different trends and fractions in the left-wing politics, publishing at the same time polemic materials in various newspapers. In November 1919, a regional weekly edition of IWW in Seattle published his article Industrial Unionism versus Bolshevism 97 . Another polemic article of his in the same journal (On which side of the barricade are you) caused critical editorial comments on the pages of The Communist newspaper (edited by the orthodox Bolsheviks Louis Fraina and Isaac Ferguson) because the Bulgarian opposed the Bolsheviks to the revolutionary syndicalists 98 . The article became the topic of discussion even at a meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the orthodox Communist Party on 17 December 1919 . 99 According to his later statements from 1931, at the end of 1919 he talked in Max Eastmans presence with the publisher of the liberal magazine Nation, Oswald Garrison Willard, and with the editor of the British edition of Nation, H. W. Messinhem. Willard pointed out that it was not realistic for the IWW defendants to
George Andreytchine, Industrial Unionism versus Bolshevism, Industrial Worker, 1 November 1919 Cited by Paul Brissenden, The IWW. A Study of American Syndicalism, (New York: Russell, 1957), p. 426. 98 In his controversial article Andreytchine criticized both the US Communist Party leaders, who were called IWW adversaries, but also the yellow unionists, who rejected the example of the Russian and Hungarian revolutions. One of the arguments for Andreytchines theses was: A perusal of the pages of One Big Union monthly will convince the curious reader that we are not very good friends of the Bolsheviki. The Communist, New York, December 6, 1919.
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expect to be pardoned by the court and advised George to leave secretly for Soviet Russia 100 . Shortly after being bailed from prison, Andreytchine joined the editors of the new monthly edition of the syndicate organization The One Big Union Monthly, whose editor-in-chief was John Sandgren. He was obviously charged with the international sector of the magazine, since his publications covered mainly the status and work of foreign trade unions. In most cases, Andreytchine published materials about France and Russia. With his first journalistic appearance in the edition from August 1919, the Bulgarian wrote a lengthy article about the syndicate movement in France, elaborating on the role of the Confdration Gnrale du Travail (C.G.T.). The article finished with the words: Whatever happens in the next few weeks or possibly months, one thing we are sure of that the C.G.T. will play the most important role in the great revolution, that the transition will not be so difficult as in Russia and Germany because of the fact that there is already a definite organism, or as the editor of O.B.U. says, a new house ready to move into. And the birth pangs of the new industrial society will not be so bloody and full of countless sacrifice as in the Commune, Russia and Germany. Qui vivra verra! 101 . In February 1920, The One Big Union Monthly published four articles by George Andreytchine, three of them resembled editorial comments, and the fourth one was titled The International Arena of the Class Struggle. The author himself explained the reason for this activity. Because of his illness, the editor-in-chief John Sandgren was substituted by his humble friend Geo Andreytchine! In the international section of this edition, the Bulgarian reviewed the syndicate movements in three European countries Italy, Bulgaria and Germany. In the paragraph about Bulgaria, Andreythchine denounced the involvement of occupation troops under the command of Gen. Frenchet DEsperey in the course of suppression of the general transport strike in the country. In his emotional comments, the Bulgarian was brave enough to oppose the assessments of an anonymous prominent member of the Executive Committee of the German

NARA, RG 65, M 1085: Investigative Reports of the Bureau of Investigation 1908-1922, Bureau Section Files, Case Nr. 313 846, Roll 931. 100 , , c. 34. 101 George Andreytchine, The Syndicalist Movement In France, The One Big Union Monthly, Chicago, Vol. 1, No. 6, August 1919, p. 2830.

99

Communist Party and some leading figures of the Comintern, such as Carl Radek: This is also in reply to Carl Radeks hasty insinuations against us that appeared in the Chicago American only a few days ago, accusing us of being saboteurs and all around fools, while praising our Communist party which has 75 000 members. We shall only add that the whole party can and will be shipped in a few boat loads to some foreign shores. 102 Andreytchines lasting interest towards the situation in the syndicate movement in France, clearly demonstrated in his letters to John Reed from June 1918, inevitably led to the establishment of direct contacts with the leaders of the left wing in the General Confederation of Labor. A note, written by him and published in IWW organ Solidarity in April 1920 proves that he not only exchanged correspondence with the editors of the new journal of C.G.T. La Vie Ouvriere Pierre Monatte and Alfred Rosmer, but at the same time participated as a representative of IWW in the international editorial board of this Parisian periodical 103 . The July edition of The One Big Union Monthly published another extensive article by Andreytchine on the revolutionary workers struggles in France. The publication paid special attention to the views and the activities of some of the left leaders in the French syndicalism, such as Pierre Monatte, Gaston Monmousseau, Henri Sirolle, Leon Midol, Fernand Loriot and Edmond Leveque. 104 . Meanwhile, Bill Haywood, George Andreytchine and other defendants from the anti-IWW process submitted appeals to the State, and later to the Federal Court, for reconsideration of their sentences. In July 1920, the case was heard by Seventh County Court. On 9 December 1920, the court confirmed the initial sentence 105 . In his posthumously published memoirs, Bill Haywood pointed out that in 1920 and at the beginning of 1921 he spoke at a number of meetings in support of the accused. The last meeting was held in Rand School in New York. Bill reminds that two of the other defendants, George Andreytchine and Charles

One Big Union Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, February 1920, p. 5, 78, 1718. Solidarity, Chicago, April 16, 1920, p. 3. 104 George Andreytchine, Revolutionary Strikes in France, One Big Union Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 7, July 1920, p. 1721. 105 Brissenden, Paul. Justice and the IWW, General Defense Committee, Chicago, 1922, p. 8.
103

102

Ashleigh, also delivered speeches during the meeting 106 . FBI documentation also confirms that Haywood, George Andreytchine, Charles Ashleigh, and Robert Minor, were speakers in a mass meeting in New York on March 28, 1921. Rand Social Science School was created in 1906 and it soon turned into a cultural and educational center of the socialist left wing in New York. In 1919, it moved to a new building on 15th Street in Manhattan, close to Union Square. Prominent political leaders and social scientists were invited to give lectures Eugene Debs, Charles Beard, and Bertrand Russell. In the 1960s, the Rand School, along with its archives and its library, became part of the New York University. When the new organ of IWW, Industrial Pioneer, was launched at the beginning of 1921, George Andreytchine published his articles in it right away. These materials are evidence that Andreytchine actively cooperated with the editors office of the new syndicate edition. In one of his editorial comments, he even promised: We shall soon have a pleasant surprise for the readers of The Industrial Pioneer. We intend to make one of the outstanding areas of our magazine the proposed Department of International News, in which we will publish vital information about foreign countries. Our plan is to get the international news first hand, from fellow workers who are able writers and real doers in the union movement of their respective countries. Imagine that every month a column of red-hot stuff from the hands of Jack Tanner or Tom Barker from England; Godonneche or Rosmer from France; Tom Glynn and some other Wobbly from Australia; Angelo Faggi or Guilio Mari from Italy (both of them members of the I.W.W. and at present active militants in the Italian Syndicalist Union); deported I.W.W. members from Spain, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Bulgaria. We shall have news from Turkey, from the International labor Union, whose birth we declared in this magazine. There are Wobblies in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and there is a strong I.W.W. administration in Chile with over 25 000 members; Fellow Worker Chamorro will write us the news from there. And then Russia. Oh yes! We must not forget the biggest Workers Commonwealth in the World. We promise our readers that we shall give them fresh news every month of the great doings over there. There are many observers whose views we share and who can give us the straight goods. 107 His departure from the United States several months later, however, frustrated the realization of this idea. Andreytchines last review article in Industrial
Bill Haywoods Book. The Autobiography of William D. Haywood, (New York: International Publishers, 1929), . 361.
106

Pioneer, dedicated to the fiftieth anniversary of the Paris Commune, was published in March 1921 108 , a month before he disappeared from the official public circles on the US territory. In February 1920, the publishing of the Bulgarian newspaper Rabotnicheska misl [Workers Thought] was resumed only for a few months. Ordered by the chief of the regional department of the Bureau of Investigation (known as FBI since 1935), Edward Brennan, special agent Louis Loebl wrote about IWW publications in different languages in a report dated 21 April 1920. The report pointed out that Geo Andreytchine and Boris Popof had been the editors of the newspaper Workers Thoughts (with circulation of 2 500 copies) since March the same year. The administrator was said to be Christo Kotev, and members of the editorial board Kliment Anastasov, Nikola Bakanov, T. Dobruzanski, Georgi Markov, and Ivan Draganoff 109 . In May 1923, for the third time, a newspaper with an identical name was published in Chicago. At the beginning of 1924, the Bulgarian syndicate newspaper was renamed to Industrial Worker with an editor Nikola Radivoev. This newspaper, however, reflected the views of the Bulgarian industrial workers, members of the American organization of anarcho-syndicalists, and was of antiBolshevik nature. The disputes that arose in the organization leadership resulted in its splitting and the final suspension of the newspaper in the fall of the same year 110 . American Bolshevism In the preceding decades, the names of some released on bail IWW leaders were often associated with the creation of the communist organizations in the United States in September 1919, and with the underground work of the American communists in the months to follow. The scientific and publicist literature offered a number of incorrect, even fictional statements, originating mainly from the publicist materials at that time. Serious surveys were hampered mainly by the circumstance that the archives of the American communist movement were not accessible for
George Andreytchine, International News, Industrial Pioneer, Chicago, Vol. I, No. 1, February 1921, p. 4446. 108 George Andreytchine, The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Paris Commune, Industrial Pioneer, Vol. I, No. 2, March 1921, p. 812. 109 NARA, RG 65, M 1085: Investigative Reports of the Bureau of Investigation 1908-1922, Bureau Section Files, Case Nr. 340 162, Roll 927, p. 1209,
107

the researchers since they were kept in the Comintern archives in Moscow. At the end of last century, by the initiative of the Congress Library in Washington, these archive documents were digitalized and presented to the public. Today, we could reveal with a higher degree of accuracy the authentic history of the American Bolshevism, although it is still difficult to decipher some of the materials. The process of institutionalization of the communist organizations in America was directly encouraged by the leadership of the Communist International, founded in March 1919. The lively political discussions and factional struggles within the Socialist Workers Party caused its split in August-September 1919. Over 40 000 individuals from the left wing in the American socialist movement terminated their participation in the Socialist Workers Party, whose members amounted to about 100 000. At the beginning of September, those who left set up the American Communist Party at their congress in Chicago. In the meantime, part of the founders of the Communist Party started an argument with the newly elected leadership and the majority of the delegates regarding the organizational principles and the policy of the new left organization. About 90 delegates from the minority left the discussion and founded their own American Communist Workers Party. A large number of the founders of this second Communist organization were closely connected in the previous years with the IWW struggles, and it is not by accident that the orthodox Bolsheviks accused them of anarchosyndicalism 111 . The separatist congress took place in parallel in the regional IWW club on Troop Street in Chicago. Among the most famous founders of the American Communist Workers Party were John Reed and Ben Gitlow from New York, Max Bedacht from California, Jack Carney from Minnesota, Alfred Wagenknecht and Charles Rutenberg from Ohio, Ludwig Caterfield from Indiana, William Bross Lloyd from Chicago. In the following years, some of them participated with party pseudonyms in the Comintern discussions in Moscow. Max Eastman, accompanied by artist Art Young, had the opportunity to participate as a political commentator in the three parallel congresses. The journalist reflected his immediate impressions in an editorial article in his magazine The Liberator, striking for its observation, images, irony and power of prediction. At the beginning of his commentary, he pointed out the different attitude of the official
110

, , c. 230231.

authorities towards the three parallel events. The police protected the leadership of the congress of the Socialist Workers Party, ignored the discussion of the left wing (American Communist Workers Party), but constantly monitored the congress of the Communist Party. Out of the three events, Max Eastman spoke with sympathy about the congress of the left wing, where his friends John Reed and Robert Minor participated, and the poet Carl Sandburg was included in the Congress Commission for protection of political prisoners. Their discussion was held in a certain atmosphere of reality, a sense of work to be done, a

freedom from theological dogma on the one hand and machine politics on the other, which is new in American socialism, and hopeful. At the same time,
they were accused of centrism and kautzkianism by the followers of the idea for a pure communist party. As for the Communist Party leaders, some of them (the publisher of New World - - Nicolay Hurwitz, Lunin, Stoklitzki) were representatives of Russian and Slavic federations, while the rest Louis Fraina, Isaac Ferguson and others were followers of the Orthodox Bolshevism. It is characteristic that the presidium of their congress was decorated with three portraits Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Lev Trotzky. Eastman pointed out that they fanatically insisted on the application of schematic dogmas without taking into consideration the specific American reality. The publisher of The Liberator summarized his immediate impressions in the following way: My impression was to sum it up that the heads of the Slavic Socialist Machine are in mood for the organization of a Russian Bolshevik church, with more interest in expelling heretics than winning. 112 During the first congress of the Communist Workers Party, a number of statements implied appeals for solidarity with the syndicate struggle of IWW. Margaret Preview, the chairwoman of a plenary session and close friend to the imprisoned socialist leader Eugene Debs, claimed that she pictured the new organization as a political supplement to the syndicate organizations of the industrial workers in the spirit of IWWs views of industrial democracy. Presumably, similar beliefs and public attitudes were the reason to claim that Bill

Russian State Archive of Contemporary Political History (), Moscow, 515, 1, 3, 6. 112 Max Eastman, The Chicago Convention, Liberator, 1919, No. 10, p. 519.

111

Haywood and other prisoners, released on bail from Leavenworth, participated actively in the creation of the American Communist Workers Party. Actually, it was Ben Gitlows idea to invite William Haywood to speak in front of the delegates of the congress of the Communist Workers Party during the session on 5 September 1919. The syndicate leader, however, sent a special reply to excuse himself that his commitments in the political prisoners amnesty campaign prevented his personal attendance at the congress. There is no documentary evidence that George Andreytchine participated in the congress or in any of the discussions, held by activists of the American Communist Workers Party in those months. However, along with Bill Haywood, Charlie Ashleigh, Harrison George, Ralph Chaplin and some other inmates from Leavenworth, he observed with interest the development of the communist movement in America 113 . A decade later Andreytchine stated that in the spring of 1920 he and Bill Haywood, filled with the enthusiasm of youth, became familiar with the special message from the Executive Committee of the Comintern to the IWW from January the same year 114 . The letter was signed by the chairman of the international organization Grigoriy Zinoviev 115 . In February 1920, George Andreytchine published again in The One Big Union Monthly the appeal of the Russian trade unions for international syndicate unity, published initially in the French La Vie Ouvriere. The appeal was signed by Mikhail Tomsky, Solomon Lozovski-Dridzo and other members of the Bureau of the Central Council of allRussian trade unions. In an editorial note to the document, Andreytchine expressed his confidence that consensus will be achieved in the name of the international organization labor
116

solidarity

to

create

new

international

syndicate

. A year later, after a letter had been received in the IWW main

office from Mikhail Tomsky from Moscow with information on the preparation of a congress to found the new international trade union organization, in February 1921 Andreytchine published the editorial article Towards an International of Action in

Theodore Draper, The Roots of American Communism, (New Brunswick N. J.: Transaction Publishers, 2003), p. 96. 114 , , c. 27. 115 , 515, 1, 18. 116 George Andreytchine, Call For Proletarian International, One Big Union Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, February 1920, p. 5

113

Industrial Pioneer. The article appealed for the implementation of the idea to create a Red Syndicate International 117 . The Red Scare Undoubtedly, the main reason for the released on bail IWW members not to publicly demonstrate at this moment their political work, directly related to the communist movement or to their solidarity with the Bolshevik regime in Russia, was the mass campaign against the Red threat in the fall of 1919. In November 1919, the Attorney General of the United States, Mitchel Palmer insisted on the expulsion of nearly 2 000 political immigrants, mostly Russian, German and Italian anarchists and socialists, accused of subversive work. At a later time, additional reasons became the two bomb explosions, organized by anarchists against J. P. Morgan bank and other capitalist offices on Wall Street in New York in September 1920 with over 30 innocent casualties. In December 1919, about 300 immigrants, among whom the well-known Russian-American anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were expelled from the country. On this occasion, Art Young published in The Liberator a cartoon, presenting the deportation of the Statue of Liberty from the country for being a stranger of nonAmerican origin and radical views 118 . In January 1920, liberal America was shocked by the wave of new mass arrests of more than 10 000 people in over seventy towns in the United States, including a large number of activists and followers of IWW. A special public committee in Washington tried to investigate the brutal methods of the federal agents in the course of the mass arrests. The documentation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), unclassified at the end of the 1970s, proved that hundreds of the arrested people had nothing to do with the communist or subversive political activities. For example, 141 members of the Tolstoist Club were detained at an evening party in Manchester, Ohio, while other 39 were arrested in Lynn, Massachusetts during the setting up of a cooperative branch organization of the bakers in the state. A Russian immigrant from Gary, Indiana was arrested because he owned a terrible book, which later turned out to be

Andreytchine, George. Towards an International of Action, Industrial Pioneer, Vol. I, No. 1, February 1921, p. 3032. 118 Liberator, No. 4, April 1920.

117

Huckleberry Finn in Russian 119 . The mass arrests and pursuit of radical elements in the spring and summer of 1920 marked the culmination of political repression against the activists in the IWW, which had started at the Chicago Trial three years earlier 120 . The efforts of Attorney General Palmer to pass in the US Congress the dismissal of Assistant Secretary Louis Post remained futile. Actually, Post was the one to resign a year later. George Andreytchines name appeared in a number of reports of the Bureau of Investigation at the US Department of Justice. On 15 January 1920, the assistant to the Secretary of Justice J. Edgar Hoover ordered the regional services of the Bureau of Investigation to study all information available about contacts between Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis Post and IWW. A New York agent of the Bureau reported about a meeting between IWW activist George Andreytchine, publicist Lincoln Steffens and Assistant Secretary Post the previous year 121 . No details of the meeting were reported, but probably it was focused on the efforts to cancel the demand for expulsion of several thousand immigrants. In a report to J. Edgar Hoover from 21 January 1920, special FBI agent in Chicago Thomas Howe confirmed this meeting with Post, referring to a captured letter from Andreytchine to William Haywood. 122 The wave of arrests of radicals from the beginning of January 1920 did not skip the Bulgarian syndicate activist and publicist. The Weekly Situation Survey issue for the second week of January 1920, prepared by Section 1.4 of the Military Intelligence Division, General Staff, US Army, published an excerpt from a confidential announcement from Bill Haywood to the regional leaders of IWW. The document said: All editors of I.W.W. papers, with the exception of Roth Fischer 123 , are in prison bail usually $ 10 000. Printing plant and industrial union office at general headquarters lock badly crippled, though no property has been destroyed. It will be some days before things at general headquarters will be running order. Threats being made to procure bond for imprisoned men and women. Andreytchine is still in jail. 124 .

Mary Heaton Vorse, A Footnote to Folly, p. 303. Patrick Renshaw, The IWW and the Red Scare. 1917-1924, p. 6970. 121 David Williams, The Bureau of Investigation and Its Critics, 1919-1921: The Origins of Federal Political Surveillance, Journal of American History, Washington, 1981, No. 3, p. 569-570. 122 Prologue: The Journal of the National Archives, Washington, 1979, Vo. 11, p. 48. 123 Obviously Charles Rothfischer. . 124 NARA, RG 65, M 1085: Investigative Reports of the Bureau of Investigation 1908-1922, Old German Files, Case Nr. 377 098, Roll 827, p. 784.
120

119

Upon his next release from prison, George Andreytchine continued his active publicist work in IWW editions. For a short period of time (February-May 1920) he was both the publisher and the editor of the two central syndicate magazines One Big Union Monthly and Solidarity, as well as of the Bulgarian periodical Workers Thought. Although his name was not officially mentioned in the editorial address of the magazines, his work did not remain unnoticed by the federal agents. A report by special agent Thomas Howe from Chicago, dated 27 March 1920, pointed out that: In these new issues the name of the Editor does not appear. However it is being edited by George Andreytchine. Agent is familiar with Andreytchine and his style of writing and in a recent call at I.W.W. headquarters found Andreytchine at the Editors desk. The current issue of the paper is about the most radical issue since the suppression of the old paper. Page 1 carries an article SOVIET RUSSIA WILL REBUILT RUSSIA. It is given to praise of LENINE and the SOVIET GOVERNMENT. ANDREYTCHINE is a rabid revolutionarist and anything that savors of REVOLUTION is food for his twisted intellect. The Editorial page carries the first reference to DIRECT ACTION seen in their papers in some time The organization of late has adopted a policy of eliminating from its press and propaganda all reference to SABOTAGE and DIRECT ACTION. ANDREYTCHINE and his ilk are dissatisfied with the new policy and with his editing the paper we can look forward to a new campaign of the ADVOCACY of SABOTAGE and DIRECT ACTION. In his article he does not mention SABOTAGE, but SABOTAGE is DIRECT ACTION.125 Other reports of the US secret services at that time also contain comments on Andreytchines public articles. Thus, on 20 March 1920, the military intelligence director Brigadier General M. Churchill sent J. Edgar Hoover the last issue of Weekly Situational Review, which allocated a special place for two polemic articles by George Andreytchine and John Sandgren in One Big Union Monthly 126 . In two consecutive reports in April 1920, special agent Kenneth Drew quoted data from the confidential financial accounts on the IWW expenditures during the previous months. They also reveal indirect records about Andreytchines activities during this period. For example, on 20 February George Andreytchine received 5 dollars for transportation and expenses at Canton, Ohio; on 6 March he was given 28 dollars to publish New Solidarity and other 8 dollars for Workers Thought; on 11

125 126

Ibid, Bureau Section Files, Case Nr. 154 434, Roll 922, p. 185187. Ibid, Old German Files, Case Nr. 377 098, Roll 827, p. 535536.

and 27 March he received once again 28 dollars for New Solidarity... 127 Even those few mentioned documents of the released FBI archives prove that during the months of the red psychosis the activities of the radicals were closely observed daily. The particular interest of the special services was not a secret for the IWW members. Using information from Examiner and Daily Herald about the infiltration of secret agents from the Department of Justice into the radical and syndicate organizations in New York and Chicago, in his sarcastic pamphlet Plutocracy Gone Mad 128 , Andreytchine reminded that similar operations of infiltration of agent provocateurs by Stolypin, Pobedonostsev and von Plehve had not brought any result in Tsarist Russia. According to his words, similar night raids, arrests and infiltration of agents into the workers movement in America could only accelerate the process to dissolution of the last vestige of ignorance and fear of respect for capitalism in America and to a change of the political system with our own industrial democracy, the better. A Return to Greenwich Village In the course of those months, George Andreytchine became again a frequent visitor of the liberal-radical Bohemian evenings, organized by his friends from The Liberator in Greenwich Village. He drove with them to their summer place in Croton-on-Hudson, where John Reed and Louise Bryant, Max and Crystal Eastman, Boardman and Sally Robinson, Mabel Dodge, Floyd Dell, Bob Minor, Art Young and other intellectuals had built their own bungalows and working studios. Other frequent visitors from the same period were members of the editorial board of The Liberator or writers for the radical magazine, such as Cornelia Barns, Helen Keller, Arturo Giovannitti, Hugo Gelert, Edna Vincent Millay, Claude McKay The Afro-American poet Claude McKay, who was later known as the inspirer of the Harlem Renaissance and strongly influenced the works of Langston Hughes and Leopold Sengor, wrote in his memoirs that his first visit to Max Eastmans bungalow in Croton-on Hudson was at the end of 1919. Only two years later, he became one of the leading editors of The Liberator. The author
Ibid, Old German Files, Case Nr. 184 239, Roll 587, p. 44, 49; Bureau Section Files, Case Nr. 67, Roll 916, p. 83, 85, 86. 128 George Andreytchine, Plutocracy Gone Mad, One Big Union Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, February 1920, p. 78.
127

Mary Heaton Vorse pointed out in her book of memoirs from 1935 her impression of the presence of the Bulgarian in their circles: He had an education which far outstripped that of most university men of this country When I would see Andreytchine I couldnt realize the sentence that hang over him. I was so used to seeing him came in with an article from some foreign paper hed been translating, absorbed on an idea, full of enthusiasm. 129 Clear evidence that George Andreytchine repeatedly visited Boardman Robinsons house was his portrait painted in oils. Three decades later, the painters wife, Sally, sent a photocopy of this portrait to Andreytchine in Sofia. It is very likely that in Robinsons home Andreytchine could meet and talk to his benefactor the avant-garde painter Elizabeth Sage Hare, who visited often with her husband. The atmosphere and the focus of the lively discussions in Greenwich Village and Croton-on-Hudson in those days were described two decades later in Mabel Dodges memoirs in the following manner: All we knew was that the old roads had come to an end and we needed to create new ones 130 . In spite of the increased official control and the periodic threats to suspend The Liberator, coming from the federal authorities, the magazine exceeded a circulation of 60 000 during its first year of publishing. It became internationally popular in the last months of the war and its articles, reviews and burning cartoons were regularly printed in periodicals in Great Britain, Italy, France and other European countries. The Liberator published works by John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, William Carlos Williams, Sherwood Anderson, . . Cummings, Edmund Wilson, and the graphics of Pablo Picasso, Georg Grosz, Kete Kolwitz, Diego Rivera, and Wanda Gag. From its early years, The Liberator showed the future evolution of the New York cultural Bohemia in the direction of political radicalism, a typical trend of the international intellectual circles at the end of the world war 131 . Differently from Europe, where radicalism was determined mostly by devastation and economic decay, and by the collapse of national ideals, the disappointment about the European allies had very strong impact in America. The cynical disregard for Woodrow Wilsons new idealistic peace principles and the imposition of the Versailles peace system unconditionally repelled a large number
Mary Heaton Vorse, A Footnote to Folly, p. 158. Mabel Dodge, Movers and Shakers, (New York: Harcourt, 1936). 131 Antoinette Galotala, From bohemianism to radicalism: the art of the Liberator, American Studies International, Vol. 40, 2002.
130 129

of liberals in America. The example of Bolshevism in Russia had a twofold impact with the radicalization of intellectuals and the abrupt conservative rebuff on behalf of the governing elite in order to protect the status quo. All this generated the first considerable political opposition and confrontation in the American society since the years of the Civil War. Mike Robinson recalled that the most famous film actor of these years, Charlie Chaplin, joined their friendly circle in Greenwich Village. In the summer and autumn of 1920, having just finished work on his new film masterpiece The Kid, Charlie often visited his New York friends and liked to play pantomime charades with them. His shy demonstration of amateurishness made him especially charming, recalled Robinson, he treated us as if we were the experts and he was a novice 132 . It was in this period (October-November 1920) when George Andreytchine and Charlie Chaplin met at a dinner in Greenwich Village, the neighborhood of the New York intellectual Bohemia. Present at the dinner were also Waldo Frank and Max Eastman. With regard to the atmosphere of the meeting in the house of the famous New York lawyer Dudley Field Malone in Greenwich Village, Chaplin said: He [George] was playing charades, and as I watched him Dudley Field Malone whispered: He hasnt a chance of winning his appeal. George, with a tablecloth wrapped around him, was imitating Sarah Bernhardt. We laughed, but underneath many were thinking as I was thinking, that he must go back to the penitentiary for eighteen more years. It was a strange hectic evening and as I was leaving George called after me: Whats the hurry, Charlie? Why going home so early? I drew him aside. It was difficult to know what to say. Is there anything I can do? I whispered. He waved his hand as if to sweep the thought aside, then gripped my hand and said emotionally: Dont worry about me, Charlie. Ill be all right. 133 . The host of the meeting, described by Charlie Chaplin, Dudley Field Malone was the son of an influential figure in the Democratic Party from Philadelphia and the son-in-law of Senator James OGorman. He was a member of the close family and friendly circle at Woodrow Wilsons home. He was also a close friend to another prominent progressive figure, William Jennings Bryan. When in 1913 President Wilson offered Brian the post of Secretary of State of the United States,
132 133

Albert Christ-Janer, Boardman Robinson, (University of Chicago Press, 1946), p. 32. Charlie Chaplin, Op. Cit., p. 305.

Malone was assigned as one of his assistants. Together with his superior and friend, in 1917 he resigned and left the Department of State due to a disagreement with the motives for the US entry in the First World War. In the course of the next few years, Dudley Field Malone moved to New York and actively supported a number of social ideas, such as the womens suffragist movement and the anti-racist Afro-American movement Black Star Line. At the same time, he became friends with the radical circles around The Masses and The Liberator. In 1920 he ran for Governor of New York on the newly created Farmer-Labor Party ticket with leftist-centric orientation. His second marriage was to the writer suffragist Doris Stevens, who had just been released from prison after she had participated in demonstration protests in front of the White House in support to the struggle of suffragists. In the 1920s Malone was a lawyer in many celebrated trials and he is remembered for an aphorism during a court plea: I have never learned anything from a man who is in agreement with me. Due to some physical similarity with Winston Churchill, in 1943 Dudley Field Malone surprisingly appeared in the role of the British Prime Minister in the Hollywood film production Mission to Moscow. The dinner, described by Charlie Chaplin, was also attended by the Dutch importer Eugen Jan Boissevain, a widower of the suffragist Inez Milholland, who died in 1916. Three years later, in Croton-on-Hudson, he married one of the most lyrical American poets, Edna Vincent Millay, who in 1923 became the first American woman to receive Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Documents from a later period prove that Andreytchine kept close friendly relations with both of them since 19191920. During those months, while in Max Eastmans company, George met the young film actress Florence Deshon, who tragically finished her life at the beginning of 1922. The promising star was wooed by the movie business aces David Griffith and Louis Mayer. Some publications claim that besides Max, Charlie Chaplin and Eugene ONeill were also interested in her. (Actually, a decade later ONeill was reluctant to accept the fact that Chaplin tempted and married his young daughter Oona). The intimate letters between Florence and Max Eastman describe other intellectual meetings in Greenwich Village attended by Andreytchine, Theodore Dreiser, Dudley Field Malone, Floyd Dell, Art Young and other friends close to The Liberators editor 134 .
134

Indiana University, Lilly Library, Bloomington, IN, Manuscripts Department, The Deshon mss.

A contemporary publication suggests new information on the destiny of Andreytchines former love from Chicago. A photograph from 1925, stored in the archives of the popular Lambs Theatre Club in New York, shows Genevieve Semashko in the company of several young vaudeville actresses from Broadway, who have encircled one of the most famous theater and film stars of that time Thomas Meighan. 135 It is likely that Genevieves appearance in the artistic New York circles was connected with the contacts of her beloved. After his mysterious disappearance from the United States they parted forever. On 18 April 1921, the Supreme Court definitely rejected the defendants petition for reconsideration of their sentences and ordered that the released IWW activists voluntarily return to the federal prison in Leavenworth by 25 April. The Committee for syndicate protection protested against the decision in a special appeal to the new US President Warren Harding. In an open letter, the Federal Council of churches declared that the heavy indictments, made by Attorney General Harry Dogarthy against IWW, lacked factual grounds whatsoever 136 . Of the main defendants in the process, the ones who voluntarily returned to the prison in Leavenworth were Ralph Chaplin, Charles Ashleigh, Harrison George, John Martin, Jack Lou and Vincent Saint Jones. Nine of the bailed Wobblies left the country illegally and taking different routes headed for Moscow to participate in the First Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions (Profintern), a new international organization, a satellite to the Communist International. The American press immediately announced that three of the leaders Big Bill Haywood, Charles Rothfisher and Vladimir Lossieff had illegally left for Europe and received high positions in the Soviet Russian government. In regard to George Andreytchine, information was very brief: George Andreytchine, sentenced to 20 years of prison, who has previously emigrated from a Balkan state because of his antimilitarist attitude, is also absent, but it is expected that he is still in the country 137 . At the Thirteenth Congress of IWW held on 9 May 1921, the secretary of the Committee for syndicate protection John Martin informed the delegates: Out of the 46 fellow workers who had been released on bonds, all reported at the penitentiary with the exception of the following nine: Wm
135 136

Lewis Hardee, The Lambs Theatre Club, (New York: McFarland, 2006), p. 155. Brissenden, Paul. Justice and the IWW, p. 2931. 137 Christian Science Monitor, April 30, 1921, p. 2; New York Times, April 30, 1921, p. 3.

D. Haywood, Vladimir Lossieff, J. H. Beyer, Herbert McCutcheon, Grover H. Perry, Charles Rothfisher, Leo. Laukki, Fred Jaakola, and George Andreytchine. Haywood, according to the reports received, has left the country and is now in Russia. His reasons for leaving the United States are unknown to me as I had not the least knowledge of his departure, nor even of his intention of taking such a step, until the day I was informed by a Federated Press reporter that he was in Russia. The whereabouts of the others above mentioned are not known. 138 Soon after it became clear that nine of the sentenced men were missing, the regional subunits and the agent network of the Bureau of Investigation in the US Department of Justice were alarmed. In a memorandum to J. Edgar Hoover dated 9 May 1921, the chief of the regional unit in Chicago Edward J. Brennan stated that two experienced agents had received orders to do everything in their power to secure any information regarding Haywood. On 14 May, Identification Order Nr. 82 was issued and disseminated to all special agents of the Bureau, containing data and photos of the nine defendants. Second in the list after Bill Haywood was Andreytchine with detailed physical data. The information said: GEORGE ANDREYTCHINE: Editor of the Bulgarian I.W.W. paper. While in Chicago he resided at 848 W. Adams Str., in a room above a Bulgarian coffee house. He made frequent trips to the coast, and while in the West his address was in care of W. E. Spear, Box 1873, Seattle, Wash. Andreytchine has been absent from Chicago since the early part of March, 1921, and was on a lecture tour in the West, and recently on the Mesaba range in Minnesota. Information secured is that Andreytchine came in Chicago on April 23, 1921, reported to John Martin, SecretaryTreasurer of the General Defense, at I.W.W. headquarters, and promised to surrender himself to the U.S. Marshal here on the afternoon of April 25th. He went to the Sand Dunes, at Oak Hill, on Sunday, April 24th, in company with Edwin J. Kuh, a broker residing at 2741 Pine Grove St., this city, and returned with him Sunday night. He spent the night at Kuhs home and left there the following morning at 10:30 oclock, stating to Mrs. Kuh that he was going to the I.W.W. headquarters and surrender with the other boys. Nothing has been heard of him since then and this office has been unable to trace any further. Andreytchines $ 10 000 bond was signed by Harry Weinberger, attorney, 261, Brodway, New York City. 139 The report of the secret police agents clarified that the Bulgarian preferred to spend his last free weekend in America accompanied by the Chicago broker Edwin Kuh. The logic question arises what was the connection between the two

Roy Brown, High Spots" of the 13th IWW Convention, Industrial Pioneer, June 1921, p. 5051. NARA, RG 65, M 1085: Investigative Reports of the Bureau of Investigation 1908-1922, Bureau Section Files, Case Nr. 188 032-609, Roll 917, p. 23.
139

138

friends with different biographies and lives. Scant information about Kuh makes us think that their relation was mostly intellectual, based on a common acquaintance with famous American authors. In 1934, for instance, Edwin Kuh wrote in The Time magazine with respect about the works and the personality of the writer Upton Sinclair, with whom they had exchanged correspondence since his first famous novel The Jungle (1904). Another individual, mentioned in the report about Andreytchine, was the anarchist lawyer Harry Weinburger, who had grown up in the eastern part of New York, a friend of Emma Goldman and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, lawyer of Eugene ONeill and other figures from Providence Players Theater. He actively cooperated with the leader of the American Union for civil liberties Roger Baldwin and made an effort to release a number of political prisoners from Leavenworth, such as the Mexican Ricardo Flores Magon. In May 1919, Harry Weinburger exchanged letters with the immigration authorities in Washington on the occasion of the bail requested for Andreytchines release from the federal prison. It is also interesting to mention that even West European secret services displayed increased attention toward the personality and fate of the BulgarianAmerican radical. On April 1st 1921 the newly established Netherlands Central Intelligence Service (CI) in Hague distributed a list of foreign revolutionaries who could enter the country illegally. Among them was the name of Andreytchine correspondent of Vie Ouvriere in America 140 . The secret departure from the country of some of the most active syndicate leaders was ambiguously assessed in later publications. Most of the historical studies and some evidence by contemporaries of those events always quote the name of the Bulgarian along with the name of the long-term IWW secretary. A typical appreciation in Dan Wakefields book from 1966 says: Haywood and George Andreytchine went to Russia, and the loss was the deepest the IWW had to bear. The Wobblies had lost their leaders before, but this was a different kind of loss... It was quite another thing to lose Haywood and Andreytchine to a foreign land. 141

Vervolglijst zwarte lijst vreemdelingen. 1 April 1921. Geheim - Rapporten Centrale Inlichtingendienst 19191940, bewerkt door B.G.J. de Graaff www. historici.nl . 141 Dan Wakefield, Between the lines: a reporters personal journey through public events, (New York: New American Library, 1966), p. 37.

140

. Second Round: Soviet Activist and Stalinist Prisoner

Chapter 5 The New Odissey in the Dream World of the Proletariat

The Red Trade Unions Congress According to William Haywoods biographers, on the early morning of 31 March 1921, using a forged passport, Big Bill boarded the Oscar steamer in Hoboken, New Jersey and set out for Sweden 1 . This was the same trans-Atlantic liner, used by industrialist Henry Ford in 1915 for a demonstrative peace mission to Europe, in which the young journalist and future ambassador to Moscow and Paris William Bullitt got actively involved. A few days after his arrival, Bill Haywood met Vladimir Lenin in Kremlin, escorted by Mihail Borodin. According to his words, in the course of discussions they mentioned the role of industrial workers in the government of the new state one of the program goals in the IWW doctrine for industrial democracy. Most of the IWW members had already arrived in Soviet Russia by the beginning of May 1921, when the first congress of the new international trade unions organization was supposed to take place. The Comintern archives keep the replies of the American delegation members from 9 May 1921 to Lev Trotskys inquiries about the syndical struggle in the United States (Max Bedacht, Earl Browder, Ella Reeve Bloor, Jack Crosby, Dennis Bat and others). The correspondence files of the US delegation from these days contain also a letter from William Haywood to the Chairman of the Comintern Grigory Zinoviev. The first to meet the American representatives in Moscow and Petrograd were their former Russian friends Bill Shatoff, Mihail Borodin and Boris Reinstein. After Mihail
Conlin, Joseph. Big Bill Haywood: The Westener as Labor Radical, In: Melvin Dubofsky /ed./, Labor Leaders in America, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1987), p. 111, 132.
1

Borodin returned to Russia in July 1918, the following spring Lenin sent him back to the USA via Norway with a double mission to prepare the grounds for the establishment of official diplomatic and commercial relations with the Bolshevik government, and to activate the contacts between the newly created Third (Communist) International and the left factions in the social-democratic movement in Scandinavia and North America. At the same time, an unofficial representative agency (bureau) of Soviet Russia in the United States was opened in New York, headed by Ludwig Martens and Alexander Niberg (known as Santeri Nuorteva). With the help of Borodin, Lenin sent his famous Letter to the American workers. According to a later statement of The Liberators editor Max Eastman, due to the impossibility of getting faster to New York, Borodin submitted Lenins letter to the poet Carl Sandberg in Stockholm. The file of the future Pulitzer winner Sandberg indirectly proves this fact. An FBI agent reported that while in Sweden on his way to the USA the poet contacted some radical elements 2 . Santeri Nuorteva delivered the document to The Liberator to be published. Mihail Borodin eventually reached the United States, where the propaganda campaign against the Red Scare was in full swing. Therefore, the representative of both institutions the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Narcomindel) and the Communist International (Comintern) left for Mexico as an unofficial representative of the Bolshevik government. Upon his return to Russia, he continued working in the international communist head office in Moscow. Boris Reinstein, who immigrated to the United States in 1892, informed Lenin about the sitiation and activities of the American Socialist Party on regular basis. Like Bill Shatoff, he returned to Russia in the summer of 1917. During the next year, Reinstein and Carl Radek took the lead of the Foreign Bureau for revolutionary propaganda in the Bolshevik Foreign Ministry, whose collaborators were the Americans John Reed, Louise Bryant, Albert Rhys Williams, Robert Minor and the French Jacque Sadoul. In the 1920s and 1930s, Boris Reinstein worked in the Comintern and Profintern and was one of the few old revolutionaries to die a natural death without disappearing during the Stalinist purges. John (Jack) Reed was certainly the most famous among Reinsteins collaborators. In 1919, his book about the Bolshevik Revolution became a bestseller in
2

FBI FOIA Files. 100-352918-XI.

America. Prior to his return to America, in March 1919 John Reed met in Moscow his old friend Lincoln Steffens, who escorted the special envoy of President Woodrow Wilson and member of the American delegation at the Paris Peace Conference William Bullitt. The future first ambassador of the United States to the Soviet Union was tasked by the Secretary of State Robert Lansing with an unofficial exploratory mission to assess the possibility for establishing normal relations with Lenins government 3 . During his next visit to Soviet Russia in 1920, John Reed attended a congress of the peoples from the East in Tiflis (Tbilisi). He was infected with typhus and died in the hands of his wife, Louise Bryant, three weeks after his return to Moscow. Reed was the first foreigner, whose urn was ceremoniously buried in the Kremlin wall with the special permission of the Bolshevik government. Sixty years later, Warren Beattys film about Jack Reed and Louise Reds won three Oscars of the American Film Academy (of all twelve nominations in different categories!) 4 . Beatty played the role of the journalist, and Diane Keaton was his wife. The other roles were also played by famous Hollywood actors Jack Nicholson (Eugene ONeill), Edward Herrman (Max Eastman), Maureen Stapleton (Emma Goldman), Gene Hackman, and others. In February 1921, Louise Bryant returned to the United States. In January 1923 she visited Moscow again; however the meeting with Lenin she had requested did not take place because of his severe illness. The same year, while in Paris, Louise became close to William Bullitt and married him in December. Their daughter Ann was born soon after, but their marriage did not last long. Louise came down with a painful skin disease and became an alcohol addict, as a result of which serious mental problems occured. The diagnosis made by the family friend and world famous scientist Zigmund Freud, with whom Bullitt was working at that time over a psychological portrait of President Woodrow Wilson, was categorical schizophrenic neurasthenia. The divorce was inevitable. The court awarded custody of the child to the father. Louise Bryant died after a severe illness, all alone in Paris in 1936, when Bullitt was still an ambassador in Moscow.
The Bullitt Mission to Russia, The Project Gutenberg eBook, eBook #10713, August 2004. In 2004 Total Film labeled the cinematograpic techniques used by Beatty in Reds as some of the most amyzing decisions in the film history. In 2006 Warren Beatty himself evidenced in an interview for NYT Magazine that when he presented the movie at the White House in 1982 on request by the US President, the only comment of Ronald Reagan was: I was kind of hoping for a happy ending.
4 3

In the spring of 1919, following his stay in Moscow, Robert (Bob) Minor - a friend of John Reed and Max Eastman from The Masses and The Liberator - left for France and Germany. Bob was arrested in the Headquarters of Third American Army in Koblenz for dissemination of adversarial propaganda among the American and British soldiers. After the intercession of some influential friends, he returned to America. In the spring of 1921 he left for Moscow once again under the name James Ballister as the representative of the united American Communist Party. His wife Mary Heaton Vorse (Mary Ballister) arrived in the Soviet capital with him. Albert Rhys Williams arrived in Russia in June 1917 as The New York Evening News correspondent. Along with John Reed and Louise Bryant, he stood on the side of the Bolshevik Revolution. In September 1919, upon his return from Europe he was a visitor to Reeds home in Croton-on-Hudson, where he wrote his book of reports During the Russian Revolution. In an expanded and revised version of the book, published by his wife after his death, Rhys Williams evidenced that he was watching the development of the Chicago Trial against the IWW members from Moscow, and indicated particularly the names of Haywood and Andreytchine. The American journalist explained: I mention Andreichin because Reed and I knew well him To the IWW boys from America, Andreichin, Lifshitz, and later Haywood, the Revolution was a historical confirmation of the famous phrase, the new government growing up within the shell of the old 5 . In 1922, Williams went back to Russia and described his impressions of the meetings and the trips around the country in a number of articles for New Republic, Nation, Atlantic Monthly and Yale Review. Captain Jacque Sadoul initially arrived in Russia in his capacity of a French Assistant Defense Attache. After he took the side of the Bolshevik government, he was sentenced to death by court martial in Paris. Several years later, Sadoul voluntarily returned to his country, where he was imprisoned, but soon was granted amnesty and later started his publicistic and legal practice in Paris. Soon after the arrival of the American delegates for the Red International Labor Unions (RILU or Profintern) Congress in Moscow, lively discussions and disagreements
5

Williams, Albert Rhys. Journey Into Revolution: Petrograd, 1917-1918, (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969), p. 4849.

arose regarding their participation in international communist organizations. At the beginning of June, an unidentified IWW member even sent a report to the security services (VChK 6 ) against the conduct of another US delegate Adolf Carm, who published provocative materials and probably collaborated with the prosecution against IWW during the Chicago Trial 7 . Actually, the memoirs of Bill Haywood and Ralph Chaplin mentioned the strange behavior of an individual named Carm during the Chicago Trial. He claimed to be a member of the Socialist Workers Party and correspondent of a left radical newspaper. At the same time, he willingly collaborated by submitting materials to the prosecution. The fact that the US representatives turned to the Bolshevik political police for arbitration during their disputes was quite symptomatic. It is difficult to say when exactly George Andreytchine arrived in Soviet Russia since his name was not mentioned in the course of discussions of the International Council of Trade Unions at the end of May and the beginning of June. In mid-July 1921, Washington Posts correspondent in Germany wrote: [George Andreytchine]... who passed through Berlin on his way to Russia [and] gave some interesting details of the manner in which the IWW leaders slipped away from the United States instead of returning to Leavenworth. He said he and another Moscow delegate walked past fifteen policemen in New York. He hid here several days. He said a pipe line exists for departure from American ports, and it is easy to get away. 8 According to some archival data, the Bulgarian arrived in Soviet Russia on 12 July 1921. 9 This means that he was not able to participate in the work of the Third Congress of the Communist International, as some authors claim. It was only possible to attend the last - Twenty Third Working Session of the Congress, which took place in the afternoon of July12th, and was chaired by another Bulgarian Vassil Kolarov. The same
6

-VChK (19181922), -GPU (19221923), -OGPU (19231934), -NKVD (19341941), -NKGB (19411946), -MGB (19461951), -MVD (19511954), -KGB (19541991) Soviet security services and political police. 7 , , 515, 2, 39, . 56. 8 Washington Post, July 26, 1921, p. 4. 9 , . /./, , [Stalin and Bulgarian Communism], (: , 2002), . 215.

night, the Comintern congress was closed with a concluding speech delivered by its Chairman, Grigory Zinoviev, and with the election of a new Ececutive Committee 10 . The constituent Profintern congress took place from 2 to 21 July 1921. It was attended by 380 delegates from 42 countries, representing nearly 17 million leftist syndicalists, who had terminated their participation in the reformist Amsterdam International of the Labor Unions. According to Emma Goldmans memoirs, on the very first day after his arrival, Andreytchine gave a passionate speech in support of the creation of the Red International of the Labor Unions (Profintern). He was among the most active US delegates at the First Congress. This was the beginning of his close relations with Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Trotsky) and Solomon Abramovich Dridzo (Lozovsky), who were going to play a vital role in his life. It was probably at that time when his personal record appeared in the Comintern and with the years it swole to 56 pages of data about his next activity 11 . On 18 July 1921, a meeting of the US delegation at the Profintern congress took place. Together with ten other American delegates, George Andreytchine signed the proposed resolution on setting up the relationship between different national organizations and the relations with the RILU. The resolution recommended: In case if disagreement between the American Bureau of Red Labor Union International and the CP of America the Party decision prevails untill final decision from Moscow. 12 Andreytchine got actively involved in the discussion under item two on the agenda regarding the relations between the Profintern and Comintern. Initially, along with other IWW representatives and some delegates from the Latin countries, he defended the position that the autonomy of trade union organizations shall be preserved and was against their direct subordination to the policy of the political parties. In the end, however, after the majority voted for the close cooperation between the Profintern and Comintern, some of the leaders of the internal opposition came with an appeal to support the general attitude for unity of action. Among those who signed the appeal were Andres Nin
. , (, 1922), . 469480. 11 , 495, 195, 380. 12 , 515, 2, 39, . 84-86. Amongst other signs were those of William D. Haywood, Jack Crosby, James Ballister (Robert Minor), Mary Ballister (Mary Heaton Vorse), Joseph Dixon (Earl
10

from Spain, Henri Sirolle from France, Tom Mann from Great Britain, Engelbertus Bouwman from the Netherlands, and IWW representative George Andreytchine 13 . During the discussion that followed on the goals and tactics of left labor unions, Andreytchine opposed his colleague George Williams, who claimed to be against all contacts between IWW and the yellow reformist syndicate organization in the United States the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The leadership organs - Central Council and Executive Bureau were elected on the last day of the congress. The Central Council comprised four representatives of Soviet Russia, two representatives of seven large countries each and one individual from each of the other countries. George Andreytchine and Earl Browder were elected in the Central Council on behalf of IWW, the Bulgarian being a representative of the United States in Moscow, while Browder (Dixon) represented the leadership of the international organization in the USA. Members of the Executive Bureau were Solomon Lozovsky and Viktor Nogin from Russia, Hilari Arlandis from Spain, Mayer from Germany, Tom Mann from Great Britain and George Andreytchine from America. In a report to the US Department of State a year later, the American diplomatic representative in Latvia F. W. Coleman informed about the close relationships between the Comintern and Profintern. Referring to authentic Russian sources, he made an announcement in Washington about a decision, dated 1 August 1921, of the Small Bureau of the Executive Committee of the Comintern: With a view to establishing closer contact between the Communist International and the International of Red Trade Unions, a Commission consisting of Comrades Hekkert, Lozovsky, Souvarin, Radek and Andreichin is appointed and instructed to submit within three days a detailed project concerning the subject. Comrade Lozovsky is instructed to form this Commision. 14

Browder), Charles Wallace (Charles Rotfisher), Oscar Boldwin (Oscar Tyverovsky), P. Andrews (probably nickname of Nicolay Hurwitz), L. Laukky, and Ryth Simon (Ella reeve Bloore). 13 Murphy, J. T. The Reds in Congress: Preliminary Report of the 1st World Congress of the Red International of Trade and Industrial Unions, (London, 1921); Bulletin Communiste, Paris, No. 35, 25 aot 1921, p. 1. 14 Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States. 1923, Vol. II, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1938), p. 772.

In the course of the Congress, Andreytchine had some exciting meetings with his compatriots, who represented the Bulgarian trade union organizations under the influence of the communist movement. First, this was Georgi Dimitrov well known in the international labor union movement, a Member of Parliament and leader of the General Workers Trade Union in Bulgaria. At the first session of the newly elected Central Council on 22 July 1921, Dimitrov expressed his position on the suggestion of IWW membership in the Profintern. Due to the hesitant statement of the IWW representative Williams, he suggested that the accession of the American trade union organization be postponed until clarification of the attitudes between the majority and the minority in its leadership was achieved 15 . On 5 August 1921, the American delegation sent a report to the United States on the decisions made at the trade union congress: At a meeting of the caucus (the minutes of which are enclosed) Andreychine and Dixon were given the party caucus endorsement as candidates for the position of American members of the Executive Council of the RILU, Andreychine to be member to reside in Moscow and Dixon to reside in America. With the Communist support these two were elected by the American trade Union delegation and seated on the Executive Council. Further on, the report informed about the discussions of Andreytchine and Ballister (Robert Minor) with Lozovsky about the proposals submitted by the American delegation at RILU 16 . The personal archives of the French syndical leader Pierre Monatte contain information, sent to Paris by Souvarin and other French representatives in Moscow. One of the letters described the discussion on the situation in the French trade union movement, which took place on 13 August 1921 with the participation of Grigory Zinoviev, Carl Radek, Solomon Lozovsky, George Andreytchine, Andres Nin, Tom Mann, Alfred Rosmer, Viktor Gaudeaux, Henri Sirolle and some other French delegates at the Profintern congress. Different points of view were stated during the session, which lasted until 9 p.m. Andreytchine reminded of a previous decision of the Central Council of the
15

, . , . 12, (: ), 1987, . 270.

Profintern to preserve the seats of the French representatives in the leadership of the international trade union office 17 . In another letter to Monatte dated 9 August, Souvarin mentioned about the deteriorated personal relations and disagreements between the official I.W.W. delegate George Williams and the two most active representatives of the organization in Moscow Haywood and Andreytchine. Williams, who had been a Secretary of the Committee for Labor Defense since May 1921, presented at the beginning of December to the I.W.W. General Executive Board an extremely negative report on the First Congress of the Profintern 18 . One of the critical notes was a personal attack against Andreytchines election in the leadership of RILU: The present composition of the Executive Bureau and the methods used to place Andreytchine there are conclusive proofs as to what element will always make up this body. And together with this is the fact that the Red International will be personified in these seven men. They will be the Red International It is plain to see that this particular group will sit securely alone and run the Red International to suit themselves. And it can be depended on that this Bureau will have machinery of the next congress well oiled for future political travels. Presumably, at the end of August 1921 Andreytchine left for Berlin, where he stayed till the end of September. Browder returned to the United States, therefore the US representative in the Comintern Executive Committee, Robert Minor, took part in the discussion on the IWW membership in the international trade union organization in September October 1921. Some of his letters to Vladimir Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolay Buharin, Carl Radek and Solomon Lozovsky have been preserved. They treat issues related to the American trade union movement 19 . In one of his letters to the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, Minor requested permission for his wife Mary Ballister (Mary Heaton Vorse), a famous American publicist, to write reports from Soviet Russia for Hursts newspapers in America. At that time, all
, 515, 2, 39, . 8788. Syndicalisme rvolutionnaire et communisme, les archives de Pierre Monatte, 19141924. Prsentation de Colette Chambelland et Jean Maitron, (Paris: F.Maspero, 1968), . 308315, 320. 18 Williams, George The First Congress of the Red Trade Union International at Moscow, 1921. A report of the proceedings, [Chicago, December 1921], p. 40. 19 , 515, 2, 39, . 112123.
17 16

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correspondence from Moscow to Hursts press was subject to a censorship by the Bolshevik Foreign Ministry 20 . George Andreytchine returned from Germany most probably in mid-October 1921. At the beginning of November, the international communist press printed an appeal of the Profintern for a united workers front. The document had the signatures of the Executive Bureau members Solomon Lozovsky (General Secretary), Tom Mann (England), Mayer (Germany), Arlandis (Spain), Andreytchine (America) and Nogin (Russia) 21 . In December the same year, Andreytchine received a letter from the editor of the IWW newspaper in Italian Il Proletario Antonio Presi with a request to send an article about the situation in Soviet Russia. The letter informed, as well, on the position of the IWW General Executive Council regarding the membership in the international trade union organization. In the end, the author sent his regards to Big Bill e tutta la gang moscovita 22 . At this time, the editor of the Italian edition Il Proletario was the poet Arturo Giovannitti, a friend of Andreytchines. It is possible that the name of the sender of the letter Antonio Presi was Giovannittis pseudonym. On 3 December 1921, the representatives of the American Communist Party to the Comintern Robert Minor (Ballister) and Ludwig Katterfeld (Car) met Lenin, and a few days later Bob departed for America. In the following years, he continued his work with the leading American communists. In the spring of 1922, he replaced Max Eastman as the editor of The Liberator, and in 1926 he became the editor of the new Marxist edition New Masses. His second wife, Lydia Gibson, the daughter of a prominent New York architect, also contributed to these two journals with her drawings. Later, Robert Minor moved to the Southern States and became an activist in the campaign for Black Civil Rights. In 1936, he went to Spain as one of the organizers of the international battalion Abraham Lincoln during the Spanish Civil War. Robert Minor was one of the few founders of the American Communist Party, who remained orthodox Marxists till the end of their lives.
, 515, 2, 39, . 225. Il Comunista, [Roma], No. 10, 5 novembre 1921. First publication in: , , 1921, 4. 22 , 515, 2, 39, . 169.
21 20

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At the beginning of December 1921, Robert Minor was replaced by Ludwig Katterfeld as the American representative to the Executive Committee of the Comintern. More than a dozen of his reports to the Comintern leadership and to the leadership of the American Communist Party in New York have been stored in Comintern archives. On 18 January 1922, he informed the Executive Committee of the Comintern about the negative position of the IWW General Executive Council in Chicago concerning the accession of the organization to the Profintern, after hearing the report of the IWW representative at the First RILU Congress, George Williams. At the same time, Katterfeld stated that some of the organization members shared another views. This was proved in a letter by the editor of the Italian newspaper Il Proletario received by I.W.W. members here (Haywood and Andreytchine). In another note to New York, dated 22 January, Katterfeld stressed: The IWWs here are very much concerned over the stand taken by their home office over there regarding our affairs. They are sending a cable repudiating it, and are now drawing up a document in answer to Williams report. The Big Fellow here [Bill Haywood] is especially angry about it. 23 . In mid-October 1921, the Executive Director of the American Union for Civil Liberties and an active IWW figure, Roger Baldwin, informed William Haywood in Moscow with an official letter from New York that the bail for his release from the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, amounting to 15 000 US dollars, was confiscated and administrative measures were expected against the guarantors William Bross Lloyd, Charles Kerr and Mary Marcy. In the years to follow, IWW leaders repeatedly blamed Haywood that his escape to Soviet Russia had caused an irretrievable blow to the organization, created by him, and was doing a considerable harm to his close friends, who had guaranteed for him. Truly, in the second half of the 1920s, IWW gradually turned into a marginal regional organization. The main reason for this could be traced in the depersonalization of its positions and activities from the previous two decades. Newly discovered documentary data shed light over Big Bills reaction upon receiving the bad news. Obviously, he and the other former prisoners from Leavenworth, who were staying in Soviet Russia, raised the question of reimbursement of the amounts

12

for their bail. In a letter from 25 October 1921 one of the American delegates, Charles Wallace, who attended the Profintern Congress, informed Haywood that 30 000 dollars had been left at a secret place in Finland for this purpose. Bob Minor also wrote to New York on the same issue, and in March 1922, Ludwig Katterfeld once again discussed the financial problems of the US representatives with the Comintern leadership 24 . In the end, however, the huge sum of bails was not thoroughly collected. As a result, Bill Haywoods close friend from Chicago Mary Marcy lost her home, which might be a reason for her premature death at the end of 1922. George Andreytchine took part in the session of the Executive Bureau of the Profintern on 25 January 1922, where the question of the situation in the American trade union movement was brought up again. He was amongst the active participants in the second session of the Central Council, held in the Russian capital from 25 February to 5 March 25 . The refusal of the IWW General Executive Council to join the Profintern made his representation there pointless. A newly found letter from Andreytchines inmate in Leavenworth and IWW activist Jim Cannon (Cook) to Earl Browder (Dixon) elaborated on the reasons for Georges resignation from the Profintern leadership. On 18 June 1922, Cannon announced from Moscow to Browder in New York: Dear Dixon [Browder], Upon arrival here I found the following state of affairs: George [Andreychine] was away from the city at a sanatorium for his health. On the 4th of last March he had a disagreement with the other members of the Executive Bureau regarding a proposed trip to England which the majority of the Bureau did not approve. George lost his equilibrium, it seems, and resigned from the Bureau. [Heinrich] Brandler and [G.M.] Melnichansky both told me that, after ineffectual efforts to persuade George to withdraw his resignation, they accepted it, and provided him with the means to go to a sanatorium near Moscow in order to regain his health, which was in bad shape. As a consequence we have been without representation on the Bureau since March 4th [1922], so it is no wonder that we could not get any response to our communications or consideration for our requests When you consider that our place on this bureau has been vacant for 3 months, and that prior to his resignation George had been
23 24

, . 515, . 1, . 93, . 12, 113. , 515, 1, 39, . 135136; 93, . 2930. 25 Ibid, 534, 2, 1.

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away most of the time in Paris and Berlin, you will see what has been the matter Shortly before I got here George returned to the city [Moscow] with the intention of again taking his place on the Bureau. But the other members refused to permit it. I made a strong effort to induce them to let him continue in the position, at least nominally until the next [RILU] Congress, but they would not have it that way and insisted that I should take his place. They gave two reasons for this decision: first, that George had lost their confidence by his ill-considered action; second, that they wanted a representative who had not been so long away from America in order that the Bureau may have a more intimate connection with our movement. However, I think I will succeed in inducing the Bureau to moderate the original intention to eliminate George from the work entirely. 26 Grigory Melnichansky, whose name was mentioned in the letter, was an old acquaintance of Andreytchine from America. In 1910, he emigrated from Russia to the United States and was involved in the work of IWW and the American Socialist Party under the name George Melcher. He settled down in the small town of Bayonne, New Jersey, where the Bulgarian met him probably in the summer of 1916. At the beginning of April 1917, Melnichansky left for Russia together with Lev Trotsky, the editor of New World (Novij Mir) Chudnovsky and a few more Russian political emigres. At the end of 1917, he was elected the leader of the Moscow province trade union council, and at the beginning of 1922 he became a member of the all-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions and the Profintern leadership. Grigory Melnichansky was arrested a decade later during the mass Stalinist purges and was shot at the end of October 1937 as an enemy of the people. Heinrich Brandler was in the leadership of the German Communist Party. At the First Congress of the Profintern, he was elected under the name Mayer as a member of the Central Council and the Executive Bureau. At the end of the 1920s, he was expelled from the Party leadership along with other activists of the German Communist Party for factional work. Later, he founded an opposition organization of the German communists in immigration, and after World War II he accepted strongly anticommunist views. First Missions in Western Europe

14

At the end of 1921, (according to two reports from NKVD from a later time) George Andreytchine became a member of the Bolshevik Party and a Soviet citizen. This enabled him soon to get involved in government missions abroad and to hold influential government posts, similar to other Bulgarian political emigres, such as Christian Rakovsky, Roman Avramov and Boris Stomanyakov. Even though they were originally Bulgarians, they were all repressed as Soviet officials later. In September 1921, the second and quite unusual meeting between Charlie Chaplin and George Andreytchine took place. This time the meeting was in Berlin and the world-famous actor described it in the following way: The day after my arrival [to Berlin], I received a mysterious message. It read: Dear friend Charlie, So much has happened to me since we met in New York at Dudley Field Mallones party. At present I am very ill in a hospital, so please do come and see me. It will cheer me up so much The writer gave the address of the hospital and signed himself George. At first I did not realize who it was. Then it occurred to me: of course, it was George the Bulgarian, who had been due to go back to prison, for eighteen years. It seemed obvious from tone of the letter that it was all leading up to a touch. So I thought I would take along $ 500. To my surprise, at the hospital, I was ushered into a spacious room with a desk and two telephones, where I was greeted by two well-dressed civilians who, I learnt later, where Georges secretaries. One of them ushered me into a second room, where George was in bed. My friend! he said, greeting me emotionally. I am so glad you have come. Ive never forgotten your sympathy and kindness at Dudley Mallones party! Then he gave a perfunctory order to his secretary and we were left alone. As he never proffered any explanation about his departure from the States, I felt it would be indiscreet to ask him about it; besides, he was too interested in inquiring about his friends in New York. I was bewildered; I could not make sense of the situation; it was like skipping several chapters of a book. The denouement came when he explained that he was now the purchasing agent for the Bolshevik Government and was in Berlin buying railway engines and steel bridges. I left with my $ 500 27 .

26 27

Ibid, 515, 1, 93, . 51-52. Chaplin, Charles My Autobiography, (London: Penguin books, 1979), p. 341.

15

At the beginning of 1921, another Bulgarian became the trade representative of Soviet Russia to Berlin. This was Boris Stomanyakov, with whom Andreytchine coordinated his foreign trade mission. Apparently, later the two Bulgarians continued their professional collaboration in Moscow. In the mid-1920s Stomanyakov was a Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade, at the end of the decade he became a member of the Foreign Ministry Association, and from 1934 until his arrest in 1937 he was a Deputy Foreign Minister. At the end of August 1921, Georgi Dimitrov - the future Secretary General of the Comintern - arrived in Berlin. Andreytchine had met him just a month earlier at the Profintern congress in Moscow. The two of them were elected in the RILU leadership, although they represented organizations from different countries Bulgaria and the United States. Due to reasons easy to explain, no documentary evidence of their meeting in Berlin has been found. Some of Dimitrovs letters to Sofia show that he attended the international meeting in support of the starving people in the Povolzhie province, held on 4 September in Berlin. A new organization was set up at this meeting Workers International Relief (Mezhrabpom). The German communist Willi Muenzenberg, who died under obscure circumstances in 1940 in France, was elected as its Chairman. It is very likely that this international meeting for solidarity with the disastrous situation of the Russian people was attended by George Andreytchine. Jim Cannons letter, quoted above, shows that after Berlin Andreytchine visited Paris too. Presumably, his stay there was in relation to the discussions on the situation of the French syndicate organizations and their representation in the Profintern. Some publications inform about an accidental encounter between Andreytchine and the former Bulgarian King Ferdinand on the train while traveling on the territory of Czechoslovakia at this time. A fictional description of this event by American publicist Cyrus Leo Sulzberger generated some doubts as to its credibility 28 . Charles Bohlen also confirmed the version about a surprising meeting with King Ferdinand of Bulgaria with only one different detail from Sulzbergers story. Bohlen claimed that Andreytchine met the former Bulgarian king in a small station in Switzerland 29 .
28

Sulzberger, C. L. Seven Continents and Forty Years: A Concentration of Memoirs, (Chicago: Qadrangle Press, 1977), . 32. 29 Bohlen, Charles. Witness to History 1929-1969, (New York: Norton, 1973), p. 23.

16

Another piece of information, which could not be confirmed with facts yet, is Andreytchines visit to Bulgaria in 1922 and the conduct of a public meeting, organized by Vladimir Poptomov in his home village Belitsa, where he told about his life in the United States 30 . Such a demonstrative visit in his real personality was possible only in the context of the defrosting of the Bulgarian-Russian relations after talks were held between the Soviet Foreign Minister Georgy Chicherin and the Ukrainian Prime Minister with Bulgarian origin Christian Rakovsky with the Bulgarian Prime Minister Alexander Stamboliyski during the Genoa Conference in April 1922. According to some sensational stories, which appeared at that time in Romanian newspapers, after the Genoa Conference was closed, at the beginning of June 1922, Christian Rakovsky secretly visited his homeland Bulgaria. This suggestion was officially refuted in a statement of the Bulgarian government 31 . A photograph from the family archive shows George Andreytchine in an elegant suit, looking quite impressive. On the back side of the photo there was a seal from the photographic studio Br. Eliezer, Rousse Sofia. Handwritten words in English also prove that the picture was taken in Bulgaria. It is not clear how long Andreytchines stay lasted and when he returned to the USSR. Putting together various indirect facts, we believe this visit to Bulgaria could have taken place in August or September 1922. Most probably, the main reason for Andreytchines visit to his country was his mothers illness. Unfortunately, by the time he reached Belitsa she had died. American Colonism in Soviet Russia At the First Congress of the Profintern in Moscow, George Andreytchine met Ilza, four years his junior, who became his wife soon after. Ilza was born on 5 April 1898 in the family of engineer Karl Richter, owner of a factory for optic devices. He was a liberal of German-Polish origin from Bialystok (Belostok), a close friend of the initiator of the internationa language Esperanto, Dr. Ludwik Zamenhof. Her mother came from Riga. In March 1919, Ilza was working in Moscow as a translator and stenographer in the
, , (: , 1986), . 179. , . , (: , 2003), . 362363.
31 30

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Comintern Secretariat. Besides in Russian, she was fluent in German, English, French, Polish and Swedish. In July 1921, she moved to work in the Profintern 32 . The first photograph of the young couple, taken in 1922, is still preserved. The picture shows a small room with a poor set-up a table, a bed, a mirror... Their looks, however, radiate inner happiness and genuine optimism. Their first home address was written on the back Devjatkin Pereulok 33 . In April 1923, their first daughter, Ivona, was born and ten years later the second daughter Kira. It was in those years probably when George and Ilza Andreytchine made friends with Vassil Kolarov and his wife actress Tsvetana Kolarova. At this time Kolarov was the Bulgarian, holding the highest position in the international communist hyerarchy in Moscow Secretary General of the Comintern (19221924), and a Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party and the leader of the Communist faction in the Bulgarian Parliament. After the military coup in June 1923 in Bulgaria, he returned to his country to impose the Comintern line for the preparation of an armed uprising against the new right wing government of Professor Tsankov. After the defeat of the sporadic communist riot in September 1923, Vassil Kolarov, together with Georgi Dimitrov, moved abroad. Correpondence from a later period between Kolarov and Andreytchine clearly shows that the two families sustained close relations in the 1920s. In the period 19211924, George Andreytchine worked consecutively in several Soviet government institutions Prombank [Industrial Bank], Gosplan [State Planning Committee], the Ministries of Foreign Trade and Foreign Affairs. While in all new posts, he used his contacts and acquaintances in America, exchanged correspondence and escorted the few official visitors from America around the country. In the course of these years, he started cooperating with another newly established international institution the International Labor Defense (MOPR). The idea about its foundation was discussed by the leaders of the Comintern on 16 December 1922 and was approved at a session of the small committee in the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Comintern on 22 December under the chairmanship of Vassil Kolarov 34 . Wnen an International Labor Defense section was established in the USA, its first president became James Cannon.
32 33

, , (: , 1984), . 117118. , 24, . 12489. 34 Central State Archives, Sofia, (), 147-, 3, .. 1296, . 1.

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In August 1921 Armand Hammer, a 23-year old graduate in medicine arrived in Moscow as a representative of a family pharmaceutical firm. He was the only member of American business circles who had the opportunity during his over 90-year long life to meet practically nearly all Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, and Konstantin Chernenko. When in 1989 (shortly before his death) he was talking to Mihail Gorbachev, some journalists made a comment that he was the only one who could tell the last Soviet Union leader about his personal impressions of his first predecessor Lenin. Armand Hammer had direct contacts and served as a mediator for several US Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John Kennedy. During the Watergate affair, he was accused of donating too large sums for Richard Nixons presidential campaign. His name was actively involved in political intrigues decades after his death. When Vice President Al Gore ran for a candidate for President from the Democratic Party in 2000, a lot of media spread the news that his father, Gore Sr., had been a partner in one of the numerous companies of the Soviet agent Hammer. All that stories inevitably predetermined the existing for decades mythology about the personality and influence of Armand Hammer. In addition, he himself contributed to the creation of a number of mistifications. During the Soviet regime, there was the legend of the good capitalist and the billionaire philanthropist, a friend of the Soviet government from its creation till its disintegration. At the same time, in the early 1919, the founder of FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, personally shadowed each of his steps 35 . After Hammers death, a large number of publications appeared in Russia and the United States. Their purpose was to depict him mostly as a petty scoundrel and swindle, untalented or merciless businessman, unscrupulous and lewd parvenu, a pawn in the hands of the Soviet secret services and an influential conspirator and agent under the influence of KGB. Some statements and phrases from his FBI unclassified personal record were used intentionally, while others were ignored. Thus, for example, some publications claim that he failed and was not able to graduate from Columbia University. FBI agents, however, report authentic information from the University archives Armand
In a letter to the Secretary of Justice on 14 June 1921 J. Edgar Hoover underlined that he has paid personal attention to the issue of closer surveillance of the Hammers behavior.
35

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Hammer received Bachelors degree in medicine in 1919 and a Masters degree two years later, whereas during his student years he was in the prestigious student associations Phi Epsilon Delta and Alpha Omega Alpha 36 . The most significant information about the beginning of the Bolshevik trace in Armand Hammers career goes actually to his father, Julius Hammer, the son of Russianborn Jews, who immigrated to the United States in the 1870s. As a young man, Julius became a member of the American Socialist Workers Party and together with its leaders Eugene V. Debs and Daniel de Leon took part in the work of the Stuttgard Congress of the Second Socialist International in 1907. There, Boris Reinstein introduced him to Lenin, which was of key importance a decade later. In 1919, along with other members of the left wing of the Socialist Workers Party, Julius took part in the foundation of the Communist Workers Party of the USA and supported it financially. Archival documents of this Party refute some current claims that he was among the leaders and even received membership card 1. At the same time, however, Julius was in close contact with the representatives of the Bolshevik government in New York Ludwig Martens and Santeri Nuorteva, and secretly supported them with financial loans. When young Armand Hammer arrived in Soviet Russia in August 1921, his fathers friendly acquaintances opened Kremlins doors for him. After coordinating with Lenin, Martens offered him a tour around Ural. Just like he had done fifteen years earlier with his father in Stuttgard, this time the old family friend and functionary of the Comintern Boris Reinstein introduced him personally to Vladimir Lenin in Kremlin. The leader of the Bolshevik government gave him his full support and soon there were results. On 27 October 1921, Armand Hammer signed two contracts in Moscow for delivery of 5 000 tons of American wheat for the starving Russian population in the Povolzhie area (against Russian deliveries of caviar and chemical raw materials), as well as a contract for a concession to use the asbestos mines near Ekaterinburg. This was the first concession, given to a foreign firm in compliance with The New Economic Policy (NEP) of the Bolshevik government. This new economic policy was implemented by the suggestion of Vladimir Lenin with the purpose to overcome the severe economic crisis in the country after the end of the Civil War through introducing elements of the market economy and
36

FBI FOIA Files, No. 680-280-4.

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private initiative. Prior to his departure from Moscow, at the beginning of November, young Armand met the other Bolshevik leader Lev Trotsky. Upon his return to the USA, Armand Hammer was able to arrange a meeting with Henry Ford in Detroit. Regardless of the strong anti-Bolshevik feelings of the legendary American automobile tycoon, young Hammer convinced him of the benefits to establish trade contacts between Ford Motors Company and Lenins government and suggested that he represent the company in the course of negotiations for sales of American tractors in Soviet Russia. In March 1922, Hammer returned to Moscow with the news about a delivery of tractors from Fords factories. He met Bill Shatoff, who was in the leadership of Prombank. It is likely that exactly at that time George Andreytchine was also working there. Biographical documents about Andreytchine say that in 1922 he was appointed to manage and control the delivery of tractors, carried out by a special tractor group sent by the Association of Friends to Soviet Russia in the United States to the village of Toykino, Perm Province. There is a reliable hypothesis that this was the first delivery of 20 American tractors Ford-30, arranged by Armand Hammer, which arrived in May 1922 in Soviet Russia (in addition, the colonists supplied several tractors Case). This makes us believe that during his two-month stay there Hammer met George Andreytchine for the first time. The leader of the tractor team in the village of Toykino, Saraulski Uezd, Perm Province, was Harold Ware, the son of the old socialist suffragist Ella Reeve Bloor, who participated with Andreytchine in the Profintern Congress the previous summer. The American tractor team arrived in June; however they started work in the agricultural colony on 17 July 1922. The group included several farmers from North Dakota - tractor mechanics, who worked in the Case factories, a doctor, an agronomist and other experts. They brought with them over 50 carriages of food and industrial assistance for the needs of the project. Naturally, the question arose why the American colonists selected this undeveloped village in the remote Perm Province. Some authors state that the backwardness of the region, where the peasants had seen neither tractors, nor horses, was one of the main reasons for the implementation of a propaganda act to demonstrate

21

the advantages of mechanized agriculture. The sojourn of the Americans in Perm Province turned into a clash between two different civilizations. One of the local newspapers described the arrival of the first tractor in the village of Toykino. It was driven by a woman Harold Wares girlfriend Jessica Smith (Christa Ware) in the following way: An old woman was making the sign of a cross My Goodness, what a monster, puffing, smoking... No, there is something profligate and suspicious. Others were whispering See the merican, he wants to do everything in a non-Christian way. Now the bread will smell petrol 37 . Vladimir Lenin was personally interested in the work of the Americans with regard to the mechanized cultivation of the ground and the introduction of new industrial culture in the backward Russian agriculture. He repeatedly urged the local authorities to render the necessary support to the tractor team 38 , and in October 1922, in a special letter he welcomed the significant results achieved and stated that he was going to suggest the colony be declared as an exemplary agricultural enterprise 39 . Due to the fact that the local Soviet authorities did not provide the houses they had promised for the American specialists, in December 1922 most of them left Toykino and headed for a new colony in Chelyabinsk Province. Harold Ware stayed with his girlfriend in Russia till the end of 1922. Ware visited the Soviet Union again in the late 1920s. After going back to the United States in 1930, he and Lement Harris wrote a series of materials on the development of the Soviet agriculture 40 . Shortly after Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, Ware became the head of an expert team of agrarians, economists and lawyers directly subordinate to the Secretary of Agriculture in the USA. In the middle of 1935, Harold Ware died in a car accident. A decade later, testifying before the US Congress,
; , , , , 5, 2006, . 46. 38 , , . 12, (: , 1982). In a statement in July 1928 Joseph Stalin noted the youthful delight of Vladimir Lenin toward the activity of the American colony in Toykino. 39 Lenins letter had been translated by David Skvirsky and published on 15 November 1922 at Soviet Russia journal. 40 University of Iowa Libraries, Manuscript Division, MsC 475, Papers of Lement Harris, Box 3, Harold M. Ware (1890--1935) Agricultural Pioneer, U.S.A. and U.S.S.R.
37

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Whittaker Chambers revealed that Harold Ware had led a group of procommunist agents in the Federal administration, which had links with the Soviet foreign intelligence. Among these were Alger Hiss, George Silverman, Nathaniel Wheel, Viktor Perlo and Harry Dexter White 41 . Newly released documents of the Russian secret services show that the advisor to the Secretary of Finances, Harry Dexter White, was not really a Soviet spy, but he was used in 1941 by the head of the Soviet foreign intelligence station in the USA as an agent of influence to supply the Roosevelt administration with authentic information on the plans of the Japanese Empire. In September 1921, at a meeting between Lenin and American syndicalists, Haywoods old idea was discussed to establish an autonomous colony on the territory of Soviet Russia with the involvement of IWW members. A month later, by the suggestion of Sebald Rutgers, William Haywood and Herbert Calvert, the Soviet government adopted a decision to create Autonomous industrial colony (IC) in the Kuznetsk mining area in Ural. Rutgers was a Dutch hydroengineer, who lived in the United States between 1915 and 1918. In March 1919, he was member of the US delegation at the first Comintern Congress. Calvert worked as an engineer in the Ford factories in Detroit, and in the summer of 1921 he participated as an IWW delegate at the first Profintern Congress. On 14 December 1921, Vladimir Lenin signed Haywoods mandate as a member of the steering committee of this new economic project 42 . The main goal was to provide several thousand qualified American workers and specialists for the development of the fledgling Soviet industry. In January 1922, Bill Shatoff was appointed as the first director of AIC Kuzbas. The arriving American workers, most of whom were organized members of IWW, were sent to Kemerovo via Petrograd. A photo from the winter of 1922 shows that George Andreytchine was actively involved in the organization of their reception in Petrograd. In the published picture, he is together with Shatoff and Haywood 43 . The photograph caused
Latham, Earl. The Communist Controversy in Washington: From the New Deal to McCarthy, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), 101123. 42 See also: International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, Archief Sebald Rutgers, Fonds 626, Nr. 11. 43 Soviet Russia Pictorial, Friends of Soviet Russia, New York, 1923, p. 312. A year later the same photo was reprinted as illustration in another publication: Edmund Maguire, A Red Fiasco, McClures Magazine, No. 7, September 1923, p. 34.
41

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natural interest in the United States of America. A regional newspaper in Minnesota made a special comment for its readers: It is a long road from the mines of northern Minessota to the Boleshevist capital, Moscow, but George Andreytchine, former I.W.W. leader during the miners strike, has found the routes which led him to the heights of his ambition. According to word received here, the young Bulgarian, formerly employed by the Oliver iron Mining Company, is in Moscow along with Bill Haywood and William Shatoff. Friends who received a photograph from the young red say he looks prosperous and appears to be in better health than during his sojours here. 44 In her memoirs, Mary Heaton Vorse said that Haywood, Andreytchine and Shatoff were full of enthusiasm at the launch of the KUZBAS project 45 . The leadership of the project was stationed at three locations. The Central management was at 9 Volhonka Str. in Moscow, the Directorate of the colony was in the town of Kemerovo, Tomsk Province in Siberia, and the US representation in New York, at 799 Broadway. Two other offices were opened in Petrograd (since 1924 known as Leningrad) and Berlin. Herbert Calvert became the representative of the new international trust in the USA. The first manager of the colony in Kemerovo, Jack Bayer (originally an Indian from Cherokee tribe) was also a member of IWW and one of the defendants at the Chicago Trial. After his sudden death caused by a heart attack, Sebald Rutgers became director of AIC Kuzbas 46 . From January 1922 till December 1923, about 600 American specialists arrived in the colony. Only a third of them were communists, while the majority shared the anarchosyndicalist views of IWW on the industrial democracy and opposed the proletarian dictatorship. From the very beginning, this generated some reserves in the Bolshevik cadre and only the initial support of Lenin and Trotsky contributed to the implementation
I.W.W. Leader, Fomentor of Range Mine Strikes, is in Russia. Andreytchine Enjoys Moscow wuth Other U.S. Outlaws, The Duluth News Tribune, March 7, 1922, p. 5. 45 Vorse, Mary Heaton. A footnote to folly , . 381. 46 In a report from the chief of the Netherlands Intelligence service (CI) to the Minister of Justice on 8 August 1924 about some well known foreign revolutionaries, who could enter illegally in the Netherlands, for the second time was included the name of Andreytchine, correspondent of Vie Ouvriere in America. The previous information was enriched with new data about the proved collaboration between Andreytchine and Rutgers in Soviet Russia Lijst van vooraanstaande buitenlandse revolutionairen - Rapporten Centrale Inlichtingendienst 1919-1940, bewerkt door B.G.J. de Graaff www. historici.nl .
44

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of the project. At the end of 1923, the first clash occurred regarding the future of the Kuzbas project. The dispute took place at a higher administrative level between the Council for Labor and Defense, led by Lev Kamenev and Alexei Rykov, and the Workers and Peasants Inspection, headed by Joseph Stalin. Soon this social experiment failed and most of the American workers returned to the United States. A letter from engineer Sam Shipman, representative in the New York office, to the librarian in the colony, Ruth Kennel, dated 28 July 1926, discussed the departure of a group of American specialists from Kemerovo back to California: It seems strange for us to hear of people thinking about leaving Russia, because in this office and in the adjoining Technical Aid office we come in contact with so many cases of people who are casting about for the ways and means of getting into Russia 47 . After the appointment of a Russian director in the colony in the autumn of the same year, the fate of the project was finally predetermined. On 22 December 1926, the contract for autonomous management of the American colony Kuzbas was terminated 48 . The first documentary film clippings, which keep the live image of George Andreytchine, date back to this period. In 1920, Herman Axelbank, former employee in Samuel Goldwins film studio, launched a grand documentary film project. He was impressed by a speech, delivered by John Reed in New York, and by his book Ten Days that Shook the World and hired special cameramen to shoot the leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution Lenin and Trotsky and the events in Russia. The first documentary episodes were assembled in 1921 and 1922 (Russia through the Clouds and With a Camera through the Bolshevik Revolution). A decade later, in cooperation with Max Eastman, Axelbank created his famous documentary From the King to Lenin, whose first night performance was in New York in March 1937. Hoovers archives in Stanford still keep Herman Axelbanks film archive with some unique segments from the arrival of the first groups of American workers and the welcome of the American tractors in Russia in 1922, where the faces of Haywood and Andreytchine could be seen. Another film reel keeps a moment from a speech of the Bulgarian at an international forum. The segments with Andreytchine were incorrectly
47 48

, . 13 086 www.sibheritage.sc.ru . Morray, J. Project Kuzbas: American Workers in Siberia, (New York: International Publishers, 1983.

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dated decades later by Axelbank as a fragment from the First Comintern Congress in March 1919. Most probably, this film episode was from the First Congress of the Profintern in July 1921 49 . The only government organization from a large Western country to respond to the appeals of the writer Maxim Gorky and the future Nobel Peace Prize winner Fridtjof Nansen for the relief of the starving Russian population in 40 provinces from the Povolzhie area was the American Relief Administration (ARA), headed by the US Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover. From the end of September 1921 till June 1923, R collected over 137 million gold roubles for feeding nearly 10 million starving people in the Povolzhie. Colonel William Haskell was the mission Director in Moscow, while the total number of American associates exceeded 300. The Soviet government allocated 14,4 million gold roubles for their daily allowances during the mission. In 1921-1922, to support the ARA mission, a large number of missioners arrived in Soviet Russia - from the Jewish Assistance Committee Joint, the Quakers Union, The Union of Catholic Charitable Associations, the Union of Baptists, the Union of Mennonites and other charitable religious circles in America 50 . In his last report from August 1923, the chief of the mission Colonel Haskell noted with naive santimentality: This American humanitarian operation is a real miracle in the eyes of the Soviet leadership and the people. Our mission...has proved the advantages of the American system to the Russian people. An authentic fact that George Andreytchine sustained contacts with representatives from ARA in Moscow was a document from 25 April 1923, signed by him personally for the receipt through the ARA mission of a parcel with food, sent by his compatriot from Chicago Konstantine Pamukchieff. Most recent publications by Russian historians present a lot of data stating that the work of the American Relief Administration had attracted the attention of the Soviet special services from the very beginning. A special order, issued by VChK in October 1921, claimed that ARA representatives attracted hostile anti-Soviet elements, collected spy information about Russia, [illegally] purchased valuables. During the following
Herman Axelbank Film Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA, Reel 24, Segment 2 (5/431); Reel 28, Segment 2 (6/347); Compare with Reel 34. 50 Patenaude, Bertrand Big Show in Bololand. The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921, (Stanford University Press, 2002).
49

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months, summary reports from the Vice Chairman of GPU, Unschlicht, to the Bolshevik Politburo presented information about the espionage activities of a number of American missioners. One of the reports, for example, stated that 65 % of the personnel of the American Relief Administration were professional militaries. In July 1922, a special unit was set up in the newly created counterintelligence GPU department, whose task was to monitor the work of R and other Western organizations for assistance. On 23 March 1923, the Bolshevik Politburo made a decision to terminate the mission of ARA in Soviet Russia 51 . In their efforts to formulate their own policy toward Soviet Russia, the ruling circles in the United States inevitably showed interest to the attitude of the Bolshevik authorities to their country. A large number of the US Congress members shared the opinion of initial hostility of Vladimir Lenins government toward America and the American life style. Because of this, there was a large dose of mistrust and scepticism regarding the numerous Soviet attempts to develop commercial relations between the two large nations, an element of the tactics of the Bolsheviks for a break-through in the established economic and diplomatic blocade around their country. Of special interest were the statements of John Reeds widow, Louise Bryant, in front of the Overman Commission in the US Congress upon her return from the Russian capital in February 1921, as well as her book Mirrors of Moscow, published two years later. In the introduction of her book, Bryant elaborated on Lenins attitude: He is more interested in America than in any other country. I remember one afternoon just before I went up to interview him, an official in the Foreign Office told me that if America did not hurry and start trade negotiations with Russia, Russia would be forced to make a trade alliance with Japan. I mentioned this to Lenin and be said: "Nonsense! Even if we could trust Japan; which we cannot, what could she give us? We need thousands of tractors, railway engines, cars, things like that. We must get such things from America, we must make friends with America." I think he feels in closer contact with the United States, too, because of the number of former exiles who once fled to our shores and who returned
, ., , . () , , , 2006, 5, . 230243.
51

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after the revolution and now hold office under the Soviet Government. He likes the way they have been trained here. It has given him the idea of working concessions in the manner I have described. He also feels gratitude toward Raymond Robins and always asks about him, considers William C. Bullitt a man of honor, while John Reed was as near to his heart as was ever any Russian. He admires American energy so much that he comes very near understanding an American reporter's need for on-the-minute news, which no other Soviet official appreciates, except Trotsky. 52 . Among the original photographs, kept in Andreytchines family archives, there is a small photo, where George Andreytchine is wearing an elegant suit and a tie, and the background shows overgrown exotic vegetation. Later, a part of the photo was obviously torn out. Most probably, there was a face, which had to be hidden during the years of Stalinist purges. On the back there is a hadwritten text with information about the place and date of the event 19/ 22 Batumi. What could have been the reason for Andreytchines presence in the capital of the Adjar Autonomous Republic just a month after the ratification of the Kars Treaty in Erevan, according to which Batumi was returned to Georgia, and the two Armenian towns Kars and Ardahan to Turkey? In our opinion, George Andreytchines presence in the Black Sea port exactly at this time could be related in some way to two facts, proving the increased interest of the United States to this region. The construction of the oil pipeline Baku - Batumi, connecting the oil deposits in Azerbaijan with the Black Sea port, ensured the oil export from the Russian Empire to Europe in the years shortly before the First World War. After the successful offensive of the Red Army in the Caucasus in 19201921, in mid-March 1921 nearly the whole territory of Georgia was taken by the Georgian Bolsheviks and Soviet power was proclaimed. On 21 May 1921, a Treaty for a military and economic union was signed between Soviet Georgia abd Soviet Russia. One of the main tasks after the foundation of the Caucasus Soviet Republic in March 1922 was the restoration of the transport corridor Baku Batumi and of the oil industry as an element of the economy of the Soviet Union.
52

Bryant, Louise. Mirrors of Moscow, , (New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1923).

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Along with the state monopoly over foreign trade, this resulted in a considerable increase of petrol products. In the period November 1921 April 1922, the export for Europe amounted to 43 500 tons of oil, while in the next six months, by 1 November 1922, it became 100 000 tons. The refusal to restore or compensate for the nationalized property, however, led to a secret agreement in Paris in July 1922 between the leading petrol companies Standard Oil and Shell for a petrol blocade of the Soviet export. This had a short-term effect because the Soviet government succeeded in making a break-through with the help of smaller British and French companies 53 . One of Colonel Haskells most energetic collaborators in ARA was Erald Dodge. He left Soviet Russia at the beginning of November 1922, but appeared again in Moscow in April the following year as a representative of Standard Oil, authorized to hold negotiations for cooperation with the Soviet Foreign Trade Ministry. Other American citizens also demonstrated research interest in the development of the Soviet oil export, carried out mainly along the oil pipeline Baku - Batumi. Another focus of the American interest in the region was based on the increased presence of US naval ships in the Black Sea. According to an agreement between ARA and the Bolshevik government, in August 1921 a consensus was reached for US minesweepers to anchor in Odessa, Sevastopol and Batumi in order to provide transportation for the members of the assistance organization and the delivery of clothes and food for the starving population in Soviet Russia. A report from GPU to Lenin dated 31 March 1922 announced that the number of US Navy ships in the territorial waters of the country had increased to five minesweepers. Another document from December 1922 raised the alarm about the inadmissibility of the presence of a division of US minesweepers (8 ships) in the immediate vicinity of the Soviet borders 54 . Only the study of the Russian archives could give us the opportunity some day to learn about the real goal of George Andreytchines mission in remote Georgia two weeks before the opening of the Fourth Congress of the Comintern in Moscow. In a secret letter to Vladimir Lenin from the beginning of May 1922, Boris Reinstein informed that in November the previous year young Hammer was used as a
K o s t o r n i c h e n k o , V l a d i m i r . THE EXPORT VECTOR OF "RED" OIL, Oil of Russia, Moscow, No. 2, 2006. 54 , ., , . . .
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secret courier for the delivery of 33 000 dollars, provided by the Comintern, to the American Communist office in New York. A report, sent by Lenin to Josef Stalin, says also that Armand succeded in persuading the presidents of other large American companies to authorize him to hold trade negotiations with Soviet Russia. Upon his return to the USA in June the same year, the American mediator advertised his personal contacts with the leaders of the Bolshevik government in interviews for New York Times and other US media. Just a few months later, he was able to register a new American joint company, which represented the interests of 38 corporations, trade associations and banks in the United States. This endeavor opened widely the doors to the government in Moscow, and in 1923 he signed a new contract with the Soviet government. Together with his younger brother Victor, a Princeton graduate, Armand Hammer lived in Moscow from 1923 to 1930. Both of them married Russian women and lived in a luxurious palace with 26 rooms, called The Brown Palace. It was a meeting place for many Americans during their stay in the Soviet capital. In 1923, their father Julius Hammer arrived to stay with them. In his first public memoirs from 1932, Armand Hammer stated that as a result of the initial success of his United American Company in the development of trade contacts with the Soviet Union, he drew the interest of some political circles in Washington and organized the first visit to Moscow for prominent representatives of the Capitol Hill. In fact, in July 1923, an American Parliamentary delegation made an unofficial visit to the Soviet Union for the first time. It was headed by the Senator from Uta William King. Other members of the delegation were Senator Edwin Lad from North Dakota and Congressman Freer from Wiskonsin. In January 1924, just a few hours after Vladimir Lenins death had been announced, William King submitted to the US Senate a detailed report on the results of the US delegation visit, trying to unveil to some extent the mystery of the Russian Bolshevism. He said that during their ten-day sojourn in the Soviet capital, the members of the delegation had the opportunity to talk with the Bolshevik leaders, practically all of them except Lenin, whose precarious physical condition made it impossible for him to see visitors. He mentioned specifically the names of Buharin, Dzerzhinsky, Kalinin, Kamenev, Krasin, Trotsky, Tomsky, Radek, Rykov, Stalin, etc. In a conversation with the Foreign

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Minister Chicherin, the US Senator explained the reasons for the constraints of the US Government to establish official diplomatic relations with the USSR. Despite his sharp critical notes regarding the policy of the Bolshevik regime violation of the civil rights of the Russian people and repression on behalf of VChK (OGPU), suppression of religious cults, administration and bureaucracy monopoly in economy with confiscation and nationalization of private property, etc., King mentioned that the delegation had the opportunity to see everything they opted for and to talk freely with anyone they turned to. In two months, the American visitors traveled nearly 15 000 kilometers from Ural to Siberia, and from the Caucasus to Ukraine. They sailed on the Volga and Don and finally boarded a ship in Petrograd and left the territory of the Soviet Union. They could freely talk to famous Mensheviks, socialrevolutionaries, and anarchists, some of them waiting for court trials. In his report, Senator King reminded of the official data regarding the repressions against the rebels during the Civil War in Russia. In his response to a question from Senator Overman (Chairman of an investigation on the Bolshevik propaganda in the US Congress in 1919) whether he had met Americans, living in the Soviet Union, William King replied that he had interesting conversations with former political immigrants in the USA, such as Lev Trotsky, Santeri Nuorteva and Grigory Weinstein, as well as with Albert Rhys Williams and the IWW leader Bill Haywood. He did not mention any other names. However, we believe it is not unlikely that George Andreytchine was among them. The Senator mentioned also meetings with representatives of the American business, who had concessions in the USSR obviously Armand Hammer was one of them. The final conclusion of the report was that no conditions existed for the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union (something Senator William Borah from Idaho appealed for), however, the development of trade relations between the two countries was encouraged. Among the most successful business deals of Hammers company in those years was the mediation for a contract for the delivery of 20 000 tractors from Fords factories at the total amount of 15 million dollars, and a new concession in 1925 for building a large factory for the production of pencils under the license of the German concern Farben Industrie. Some publications claim that the Foreign Trade Minister Yury Krasin had

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reserves regarding the large personal profit of Hammers company. Then, old Julius Hammer requested Lev Trotsky for support. They had first met during Trotskys stay in New York at the beginning of 1917 55 . After Krasins death in 1926, Armand Hammer sustained his close relations with the new Minister, Anastas Mikoyan. These contacts continued during the next forty years, when Mikoyan was inevitably a part of the closest circle of the party and government leadership elite in Kremlin. When at the end of 1929 the American was forced to sell the extended production of the pencil factory to the Soviet government, he was generously rewarded with extremely favorable compensations.
, . . . : , , , 25 2004.
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Chapter 6 Trotskyism or Stalinism

On Trotskys Side If we unfold the pages of the periodicals from the first five or six post-War years, the names of two individials will stand out in the comments regarding the Bolshevik power the leaders of the Russian Revolution Lenin and Trotsky. Regardless of our present day assessment of the historical characters who laid the foundation of this grandeur social experiment that radically changed and even irreversibly terminated millions of human fates, our accont demands that we know considerably more about the attitude toward them in those specific circumstances. Moreover, during the following decades, the icon-like images of the Marxist saint-prophet and his antipode the antichrist were painted and intentionally imposed in the orthodox Soviet historiography. It was five or six years later when Josef Stalins personality, unknown beyond the Russian borders, started to replace Trotsky in the dualist leaders scheme. In the beginning, his name was mentioned mostly as the silent shadow of Lenin, his peculiar alter ego. In this way, Senator King presented him in his information before the US Senate hours after the death of the Bolshevik leader. In her book about Soviet Russia The Mirrors of Moscow, Louise Bryant provides very significant assessments. There is no place for Stalin in the book. Besides Lenin and Trotsky, the author pays special attention to some other individuals who have left a special trace in Bryants consciousness. On the first place comes Christian Rakovsky, an interesting personality and a man whose star is ascending. He is undoubtedly one of the strongest men in Russia. At the beginning of 1919, Louise and Jack Reed lived for some time in the same house with Rakovsky and his wife. To Louise, he looked more like an Old World diplomat than a revolutionist. The American journalist, who was at that time a collaborator in several editions of William Randolph Hursts newspaper empire, listed personalities like Zinoviev, Kamenev, Buharin and Rykov, but she also drew very interesting portraits of Dzerzhinsky and the VChK, Lunacharsky and the culture, Kalinin and the peasants, Kollontay and the women, Chicherin and diplomacy.

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Most attention was paid to the second leader of the October Revolution. The author suggests very briefly how extraordinary in comparison with the traditional perception of a political figure his character was. The verbal portrait she made was undoubtedly shared by many other foreign visitors to Bolshevik Russia:

Leon Trotsky, has no prototype in history. Therefore, he cannot be compared, he can only be contrasted. He is without question the most dramatic character produced during the whole sweep of the Russian revolution and its only great organizer. No man will overshadow his eminence in the history of the revolution except Lenin. They will remain the two most distinguished personalities. They are complementary figures. Lenin represents thought; Trotsky represents action. Trotsky is not a diplomat. He was not successful as Foreign Minister. Diplomacy is too cut and dried to be harmonious with his talents. No one is neutral about him, Trotsky is either loved or despised. 56 During this period (19221924), Andreytchine was in close friendly relations with prominent foreign supporters of Trotsky, such as Andres Nin 57 , Victor Serge 58 , Alfred Rosmer 59 and Boris Souvarine 60 . Victor Kibalchich (Victor Serge) was born in Belgium in the family of a Russian political immigrant. His uncle was a famous Russian inventor, who was hanged for his complicity in a coup against Emperor Alexander II. Young Serge was involved in radical and anarchist organizations in Western Europe (France, Germany and Spain). He left for Soviet Russia shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution. Andre Grio (Alfred Rosmer) was a French anarchist and syndicalist, an activist of the General Confederation of Labor in France since 1909. After the First World War he was one of the founders of Humanite newspaper and a member of the leadeship of the French Communist Party. However, he was expelled from the Party in 1924 for opposition activities. In the middle of the 1930s, he harshly condemned the Stalinist repressions and chaired the French
Bryant, Louise. Mirrors of Moscow, (New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1923). Landau, Katia. Stalinism in Spain, Revolutionary History, Vol. I, No. 2, Summer 1988. 58 In his memoirs Victor Serge reminds that the American-Bulgarian Andreytchine impressed him during their first meeting at the Profintern Congress with his fervour. - , , (: c, 2001), . 176. 59 Gras, Christian. Alfred Rosmer et le movement revolutionnaire international, (Paris : F. Maspero, 1971), 65, 226. 60 Souvarine, Boris. Exclus mais communists, Le Bulletin communiste, Paris, No. 1, 23 octobre 1925.
57 56

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Committee in Trotskys defense. In 1938, the first conference of the Fourth (Trotskyist) International took place in his home. Boris Lifschitz (Souvarine) was born in Kiev. In 1906, he immigrated to Paris and became an activist of the French socialist movement. He was one of the founders of the Communist International in 1919. In 1924, he was expelled from the French Communist Party for support of the left opposition in Russia. Later, he withdrew from the political affairs and dealt mainly with historical research. In an article about one of his journeys to Moscow, published in the British Communist press in July 1922, Alfred Rosmer vividly described his arrival in the Soviet Holy City: The train stopped. One is semi-conscious even when half asleep, and we became aware of the sound of voices talking, curiously noticeable in the stillness after the continuous rumble of the journey. What was it all about? But already our carriage is besieged by a lively group of Russian comrades accompanied by Boris Souvarine... As soon as the breakfast bell strikes we are up and ready, for we know that round the long table we shall meet all our friends. Here is Nin, whom I saw a few months ago in Germany... Here is Andreytchin, happy, exuberant, as he always is, unless he is ill. Then, this is Haywood, the big giant, now become quite a Russian, and in high spirits over the installation very shortly of a strong contingent of American workmen in the Kousnetz Basin, in Siberia, where they will work the mines and factories. 61 In his later reminiscences, published in Paris, Boris Souvarine also shared his impressions of the personality of young Andreytchine: Andreichin was an unsophisticated, generous, spontaneous young fellow, whose eclectic anarcho-syndicalist views were in sharp contrast to the dogmatism of the Social Democrats converted in communism. 62 After his departure to France in 1922, Boris Souvarine did not terminate his contacts with George. In a long and very interesting philosophical letter to Trotsky from June 1929, Souvarine recalled that at the end of 1923 he received a message from
Rosmer, Alfred. A Day in Moscow, The Communist Review, London, 1922, No. 3. Le Contrat Sociale, (Paris: Institut dhistoire sociale, 1965), Vol. 9; Milorad Drachkovitch, Branko Lazitch, The Comintern; Historical Highlights, Essays, Recollections, Documents, (F. Pragere/Hoover Institution, 1966), p. 182.
62 61

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Andreytchine from Moscow, containing detailed information about a session of the Moscow council. A lively debate started during the meeting, when one of Stalins closest Bolsheviks, the future Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, severely attacked the left opposition. 63 In August 1922, the publisher of The Masses and The Liberator, Max Eastman, who was one of Georges best Bohemian friends, arrived in Moscow. Together with his friends - publicist Lincoln Steffens and sculptor Joe Davidson, Max attended the opening of the Genoa Conference in April 1922. There he met the leaders of the Bolshevik delegation Georgy Chicherin, Christian Rakovsky, Maxim Litvinov, Yuri Krasin, Adolf Joffe, Waclaw Worowski. He was a frequent visitor to his Soviet hosts in Hotel Imperial near the Italian resort Santa Margerita, about 30 km along the coast outside Genoa. There he met Maxim Litvinovs young secretary Elena Krilenko. Elena was Nikolay Krilenkos sister. A member of Lenins first government, later Minister of Justice in Stalins government, he was shot in 1938 as an enemy of the people. In 1924, Litvinovs secretary Elena became the wife of the American journalist in the Russian capital. After his arrival in Moscow, Max Eastman resumed his friendly relations with Lev Trotsky, whom he had met in New York. He was in the center of a group of American radicals, who had come to the Soviet capital at the end of 1922 to attend the congresses of the Comintern and the Profintern. Almost all of them were accommodated in Hotel Lux on Tverskaya Street in the center of Moscow, where Comintern members usually stayed. A few photographs from December 1922 show Max with his old friends from IWW Bill Haywood and Jim Cannon. One of The Liberators editors, the black poet Claude McKay, joined them. Even though he was not a member of a political party, McKay was given the opportunity to greet the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, apparently in his capacity of a representative of the underprivileged black brothers in America. His book of poems in Russian and a book with essays on the Negro problem in America were published in Moscow at the beginning of 1923. In his memoirs about his stay in the Soviet capital, Claude McKay shared that the communist discussions in Hotel Lux were boring and he preferred going to Domino Caf,
Freymond, Jaques Contributions a lhistoire de Comintern, (Paris : Hautes Etudes Internacionales, 1965), p. 192.
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where avant-garde and decadent Russian poets got together. He was often accompanied by Max Eastman, and probably by Andreytchine, too. In another avantgarde caf Pegasus Stable McKay spent several nights with the Russian lyric poet Sergei Yesenin and his fascinating wife ballet dancer Isadora Duncan. A year later, Yesenin recalled with allegory these Bohemian evenings in his poem The Black Man. In a special letter, dated 23 December 1922, Claude McKay addressed Vassil Kolarov, who had just been elected a Secretary General of the Comintern at the International Communist Congress, in which he elaborated on the possibilities for a subsidy to start a propaganda Negro paper in America 64 . It is very likely that the contacts between Kolarov and the black poet were facilitated by Andreytchine. At the end of 1923, George Andreytchine was elected a member of the capitals district council (Moscows Soviet). From the beginning he became an active exponent of the leftist Trotskyist views on the emerging Soviet state bureaucracy and the negative consequences of Lenins New Economic Policy (NEP). On 16 December 1923, for instance, the head of the New York Times bureau in Moscow Walter Duranty (who had come to Soviet Russia two years earlier) informed his readers in the USA that: Elected a few days ago a member of the Moscow Soviet for the working class district across the Moscow River, Andreychin has come to the fore as a fearless partisan of the elements of the party opposed to the bureaucratic and military rigidity of the machine. In a speech to which the Pravda gives first place in its report of the party debate on the subject, Andreychin gets closer to the heart of the problem now facing the Communist Party than the majority of those who took part in the debate. The real trouble, he says, is that the nepmen (profitees) are eating up state-controlled business [] The only way to check the nepmen is to harness all the energies of the Communist Party to the task of economic reconstruction, and this you can never do while the upper sections of the Communist Party are fixed in bureaucratic rigidity and the rank and files are discouraged by their own impotence and subservience. This frank presentation of facts elicited greater applause from the meeting than the elaborate speeches of leaders like Sapronof and Preobrajenski [] It is a moot question whether Andreychin is right in believing that the maladministration [ ] is the chief reason for the economic crisis [concluded
64

, , 515, 1, 93, . 9293.

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Duranty] Certainly there are many here Russians and foreigners, Communists and non-Communists who agree with him. 65 . At the end of 1923 and the beginning of 1924, Stalins influence in the Comintern circles became stronger. Its outer expression was the union between Zinoviev and Stalin (the first one was the Comintern Chairman, the second Secretary General of the Bolshevik Party) against Trotsky. The debates on the events in Germany and Bulgaria in the fall of 1923 were the first serious clash between Stalin and Zinoviev on the one side and Trotsky on international issues. Along with the disagreements on other disputable topics, this conflict generated a severe struggle within the Party. This was the beginning of a series of events, intentionally used in the hot duel for personal superiority after Lenins death in January 1924. The Russian issue, or rather Lev Trotskys case, became the basic topic of discussion at the Fifth Congress of the Comintern in June 1924. The Chairman of the Russian committee was the Secretary General of the world Communist organization, Vassil Kolarov. At that time, he was still keeping good relations with the leader of the Party opposition. According to Tsvetana Kolarovas memoirs, prior to her husbands departure to Bulgaria in the summer of 1923, Trotsky presented him with a revolver as a token of friendship. In a personal letter from May 1924, Vassil Kolarov expressed his regret about Trotskys definitive movement to the internal Party opposition in the Bolshevik Party. An official letter from Kolarov to Trotsky, dated 28 June 1924, has been preserved, saying: As I am sending to you a copy of the adopted by the Congress resolution with regard to the discussion on the Russian question, I request you on behalf of the Presidium of the Congress to inform me in due time whether you think it would be necessary to speak on this issue. You, of course, understand the colossal interest, shown by all Comintern sections and the whole Congress toward the disagreements in the Comintern leading Party. Regardless of the attitude of the Russian comrades on this issue, I believe that they are obliged to give clarification to the Congress from all sides, contradictory, about this vitally important for the whole International Russian question. 66
Duranty, Walter. Economic Dictator Wanted in Russia. Situation Becoming Worse, New York Times, December 17, 1923, p. 6. 66 , 147-, 2, .. 1228, . 4.
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Vassil Kolarovs attitude to Trotsky changed significantly during the public debates at the end of 1924. The reason for this was Lev Trotskys polemic paper Octobers Lessons. There, he criticized the leadership of the Comintern, who had encouraged the armed conflicts in Germany and Bulgaria in an inappropriate moment in the autumn of the previous year. An odd reply to Trotskys thesis was Stalins book On the Roads to October. In his preface, written on 17 December 1924, Stalin entered into polemics with the Trotskyist theory of the permanent revolution. Vassil Kolarov also criticized Trotskys statements in public in his article Comrade Trotskys October Lessons and the Bulgarian Communist Party, published in Pravda in December 1924. Despite the fact that the following year Kolarov and Trotsky were taking a rest in the same sanatorium in Kislovodsk, the rupture was inevitable. In his statement at the Seventh Plenum of the Comintern in December 1926, Kolarov completely stood by Stalins report (which continued for five hours!) against the malicious members of the opposition. During the next Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Comintern in May 1927, in a letter to his wife, Vassil Kolarov wrote: The opposition, represented by Trotsky, is attacking us violently, beyond all boundaries. These people are obviously resolved to try all means. However, the unanimity of the Russian proletariat and the Comintern is full. Undoubtedly, Kolarovs position influenced to some extent his personal relations with Andreytchine, who was totally supporting the inner Party opposition. In spite of this, their confidential contacts continued in the following years, proved by the well-preserved correspondence between them. The behind-the-scene struggle to restrict Trotskys influence had started in the previous months. Differently from the arrests and exile of his prominent upholders, typical of the end of the 1920s, at this early stage their elimination was carried out with more civilized means by sending some of them on diplomatic missions abroad. Most of the active Trotskyists had broad knowledge, had lived in Western countries and were able to speak a few foreign languages; therefore, their involvement in the accomplishment of the foreign policy goals of the Soviet State under the conditions of a political and economic stabilization in Europe was totally justified. This organizational-cadre approach

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of Stalin and his followers in the Party and State machine, however, had significant consequences for the further imperceptible isolation of the main rival for power. The flaring struggles in the Bolshevik Party attracted the attention of the international observers, including Max Eastman. A year later, Eastman published for the first time in his book the famous Lenins Testament two confidential notes, dictated in 1923 by Lenin, who was seriously ill at that time. The Testament of the Bolshevik leader, which became known to the delegates of the Congress of Russian Communists in May 1924, was one of the most concealed by Stalin political documents due to the sharp criticism toward his own personality. The complete text of the document was presented by Eastman to be published in New York Times 67 . The memoirs of the famous American journalist, published forty years later, reveal how he could get access to the confidential papers proving the struggles within the Party in the Soviet Union: I postponed the more fundamental task I had undertaken, and spent my last few days in Moscow gathering all the newspapers, documents and items of information that were essential to a complete account of the conflict. A fervent help in gathering these documents was rendered by my friend, the Bulgar-American, George Andreytchine, who knew Russian like his native tongue I was able to leaving Russia to take along a bulging package of these papers, notwithstanding the attention I was now receiving from the GPU, because I left in the diplomatic car chartered by the Foreign Office to carry Maxim Litvinov and his delegation to the London Conference of JuneJuly 1924. 68 The close relations between Eastman and Andreytchine and the willingness of the Bulgarian to submit authentic information about the political struggles within the Bolshevik Party were not a secret for the Soviet secret police. This was probably one of the main reasons for his elimination far beyond the territory of the USSR, offering him a diplomatic post in London. Twenty-five years later, a report of MGB specifically pointed out: In 1924, it was found that Andreytchine supplied the American correspondents with information on the domestic political situation from Trotskyist point of vew 69 .
New York Times, October 18, 1926. Eastmann, Max. Love and Revolution. My Journey Through an Epoch, (New York: Random House, 1964), p. 430. 69 Archive of the Ministry of the Interior, Sofia, (), 1, 1, .. 573, . 1.
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A Diplomatic Mission in London The first in British history Labor Party government of Ramsay MacDonald recognized the government of the USSR on 1 February 1924. The chief of the Soviet mission at that time was Christian Rakovsky, characterized by the famous British historian . H. Karr as the most prominent Soviet diplomat of the 1920s 70 . Among the other known diplomats in the Soviet representation were Arkady Rosengoltz and Jan Berzin (Ziemelis). At the beginning of April 1924, Rakovsky was authorized to hold negotiations with MacDonalds government. The main problem in the development of the bilateral relations at this moment was Tsarist Russias unsettled old debt to the British Empire. According to the British side, this financial debt amounted to 3,360 billion dollars. The Soviet government claimed a counter request for about 4 billion dollars worth of compensations due to the British military intervention during the Civil War in Russia (19191920). On 14 April 1924, British-Soviet trade negotiations started, led by Ramsay MacDonald and Christian Rakovsky respectively. The Soviet delegation included also Tomsky, Stomanyakov, Preobrazhensky, Joffe, Shvernik and others. The negotiations were completed successfully with a trade agreement in mid-August. This extremely responsible for the Soviet diplomacy mission was a considerable break-through in the existing political and economic isolation of Kremlin. With regard to the achievement of the Soviet foreign policy goals in Great Britain, in May 1924 George Andreytchine was appointed a caunsellor (press attache) in the Soviet diplomatic mission to Great Britain. In her memoirs, Rakovskys niece Lilyana Gevrenova described interesting episodes from the life of the Soviet diplomatic representatives in London. She also evidenced about George Andreytchines frequent visits to her uncles home and described him in the following way: This was a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair, with regular features and dark eyes, whose look radiated some sadness 71 .
In a commentary for Toronto Daily Star in 1922 Ernest Hamingway wrote that Christian Rakovsky reminds him the figure of an ancient Florentine noble. 71 , 2910-, . 815.
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Frequent visitors in Christian Rakovskys home in Eton Avenue and in the diplomatic mission in Chesham House in the luxurious London district Belgravia were famous intellectuals and liberal politicians, such as the founders of the Fabian Society Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Lady Muriel Paget and others. Lady Paget, the daughter of the 12th Lord of Winchisely, was a prominent philanthropist. During the World War I, she organized an Anglo-Russian field hospital in Russia. In May 1918, Lady Paget visited the US President Woodrow Wilson in Washington in order to inform him about the situation in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution. Before the end of her life in June 1936, she repeatedly visited Moscow and once again at the beginning of the 1930s met Rakovsky and Andreytchine. Among the visitors in Rakovskys house was also Winston Churchills excentric cousin, sculptress Clare Consuelo Sheridan. She sculptured her hosts bust; just like four years earlier during her visit to Moscow she had moulded the busts of the Bolshevik leaders Lenin and Trotsky. During her visit to the USA in May 1921, Clare Sheridan stayed in Croton-on-Hudson with Max and Crystal Eastman, Floyd Dell and other old friends of Andreytchines from the circle around The Masses and The Liberator. It is possible that the two of them recalled their common American friends during the talks in Rakovskys home. Documents of MI-5, released in 2002, show that the British counterintelligence service suspected Sheridan of providing information to the Soviet representatives about confidential statements in a close circle around her influential cousin and future Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill 72 . Another visitor in Rakovskys house on Eton Avenue in 1924 was the irresistible Alexandra Kollontay, a diplomatic representative of the USSR to Norway at that time. The hasty acquaintance of Kollontay and Andreytchine during her stormy performance with lectures in support of the feminist cause in a number of cities in the United States in 1916 was probably resumed during her stay in London. George Andreytchine met in London another close friend from the United States his collaborator from IWW and inmate from Leavenworth, the poet Charles Ashleigh. Half a year after his return to the Federal prison in May 1921, influential relatives succeeded in arranging through the British Embassy in Washington his expulsion to native Great Britain. Soon after his arrival in Europe,
72

Churchill's Bolshevik cousin was Soviet informer, The Independent, London, November 28, 2002, p. 3.

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however, at the beginning of September 1922, Ashleigh left for a secret remote mission as the Comintern envoy to India. Presumably, at the end of the same year, he met Bill Haywood, George Andreytchine and Max Eastman in Moscow, in the days of the Fourth Congress of the Comintern and the Second Congress of Profintern. When Andreytchine arrived in London, Charles Ashleigh was contributing to several left editions and in addition made his living by translating from German. He was one of Great Britains last communist intellectuals who in 19251927 were still writing with respect about the personality of the foresaken Leon Trotsky. In his capacity as a press attache, George Andreytchine maintained professional contacts with representatives from different media in the British capital. Undoubtedly, he visited the Bureau of the new information agency Federated Press of America (FPA) in London. Established in Chicago in November 1919 as a specific consortium of 32 syndicate and socialist editions, the Agency soon represented the interests of over 110 left and liberal newspapers and magazines in the United States. The work of the FPA Bureau in London was carefully examined by MI-5 agents, and starting from the fall of 1924, Scotland Yard had its own informer there journalist Arthur Lake. One of the influential British newspapers, which often published well-meaning comments on Soviet Russia, was Daily Herald. Its publisher, George Lansbury, was one of the leaders of the Labor party opposition in the British Parliament during the next years. At a session of the leadership of the Socialist Workers International in Vienna at the end of June 1924, a topic of discussion became the issue of unacceptable involvement of Daily Heralds editors office in the Soviet position, as well as the publication of information, acquired mainly through the diplomatic representative in the USSR to Great Britain, Christian Rakovsky. The foreign policy editor of Daily Herald at that time was William Norman Ewer. A former private secretary of a Liberal Party Member of Parliament, on the eve of the World War I, Ewer became a supporter of the trade union and suffragist movements and joined the Fabian Society of George Bernard Shaw and the Webbs. In 1920, he took part in the foundation of the Communist Party of Great Britain and in January 1922 and the spring of 1923 he visited Moscow. Due to his close relations with the Soviet diplomatic mission, the

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Anglo-Russian trade society Arcos and radical left editions, the British counterintelligence service suspected him as an active agent of OGPU and the Comintern. In the period 19231925, Norman Ewer published some of Lev Trotskys polemic materials, and at the end of the 1920s, he criticized the imposition of dictatorship in the USSR and suspended his contacts with the British Communist Party. In 1937, one of his closest friends, Rose Cohen was arrested by NKVD in Moscow as a British spy. This caused his furious comments against the Stalinist purges. In one of them, he compared Stalin to Chingiz Khan. During the Cold War after 1947, Ewer adopted strong anticommunist attitude, and in the 1950s, in a series of radio shows on BBC, he aimed at destroying the Soviet myth 73 . Among the representatives of the press was the promising young journalist Vernon Bartlett, who was interested in the personality of Christian Rakovsky. Shortly after World War I, he was a correspondent for Daily Mail, and later he joined the Reuters team, on whose behalf he reflected the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. In his capacity as the foreign policy observer of the London Times, Bartlett attended the Genoa Conference in April 1922, and during the same year he was appointed director of the London office of the League of Nations. Later, he gained more popularity with his weekly radio comments for the BBC and the foreign policy comments for News Chronicle. After some time, the roads of Vernon Bartlett and George Andreytchine crossed again in other European capitals. Soon after Andreytchines arrival in London, Max Eastman joined him there. He was accompanied by his wife Elena, who was still working as a secretary to the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Litvinov. Max Eastmans sister, Crystal, also spent a short time in the British capital. In London, the journalist wrote his first analytical book about the ongoing processes in the Soviet Union After Lenins Death and started his preparation to write a book about Trotsky. He collaborated with the independent communist edition Plebs, which published materials and documents of the internal Party opposition in the USSR. According to his own words, while writing his books, Max received valuable advice and comments from Christian Rakovsky. This was probably the reason for one of the
Callaghan, John, Morgan, Kevin. The Open Conspiracy of the Communist Party and the Case of W. N. Ewer, Communist and Anti-communist, The Historical Journal, Cambridge University Press, 2006, No. 2, p. 549564.
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accusations of NKVD against Rakovsky during the trial against the right-Trotskyist opposition in March 1938 that he maintained close contacts with the British secret agent Max Eastman in London 74 . In 1926, the two of them resumed their meetings in Paris, where Rakovsky was a Soviet diplomatic representative until 1928. After Lev Trotskys expulsion from the Soviet Union in 1929, Max became his literature agent for America. After World War II, Max Eastman adopted strong anti-Soviet attitudes, expressed in publications for Readers Digest in the years of McCarthyism. While in London, as a result of the persistent requests of Vassil Kolarov and Georgi Dimitrov, George Andreytchine took part in the organization of a campaign in line with the International Labor Defense against the white terror of Alexander Tsankovs regime in Bulgaria. In a letter to Kolarov in Moscow, Georgi Dimitrov wrote from Vienna on 21 August 1924: Send to Andreytchine in London our Partys appeal to the British workers. Give me Andreytchines address so that we could establish direct contacts. 75 The document to the British workers, prepared by Dimitrov, was a material with information on the mass political arrests in Bulgaria and murders of left wing deputies. It was published in the German edition of MOPR Internationale Presse Korrespondenz, printed in Vienna. Obviously, the appeal was quickly sent to Andreytchine by a courier, translated into English by him, and presented to the British section of the International Labor Defense. The document was published on 4 September in the London edition International Press Correspondence. The direct link between Dimitrov in Vienna and Andreytchine in London was established around mid-September 1924. In an announcement to Moscow from 6 November, Georgi Dimitrov informed I wrote to Andreytchine and sent him all necessary materials 76 . Two weeks later, in another letter to Kolarov, he argued the need for sending a Bulgarian representative to the French capital. The document clearly stated:
ONeill, William. The Last Romantic. A Life of Max Eastman, (Somerset, N.J.: Transacted Publishers, 1990), . 106, 181. 75 , . , . 16, (: , 1990), . 159. 76 Ibid, . 297.
74

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We have already written to the Central Committee to search and nominate an appropriate comrade for Paris, similar to Andreytchine in London, and we are expecting a reply soon 77 . Most probably, the appropriate comrade was not found, since in the mid-1920s Andreytchine himself visited Paris through the International Labor Defense. In his own words, he was sent by Georgi Dimitrov to France in a conspiratory way. We have no available documentary evidence of the nature of his tasks there. However, we shall not ignore the fact that in 19261927 the Soviet diplomatic representative in the French capital was his older friend, Christian Rakovsky. Some archival documents prove that at that time George Andreytchine was fluent in English, Russian and French and had working knowledge also in German and Italian. At the beginning of October 1924, the Labor Party government lost the nonconfidence vote in the House of Commons and declared preliminary Parliamentary elections. In a situation of a fierce pre-election campaign, four days prior to the elections, a letter of the Comintern was published (Zinoviev Letter). It contained instructions for the British communists to conquer the army in the course of preparation for an armed revolution on the Island. The result was a failure for the Laborists at the elections and a new Conservative government into power. The consequences of the newly created psychological atmosphere were the termination of diplomatic relations between Great Britain and the USSR in 1927. The discussion whether the letter from the Chairman of the Comintern, Grigory Zinoviev, to the leader of the British communists, Arthur McManus, dated 15 September 1924 and published in the Daily Mail, was original or fake went on for decades. Immediately after the document was published, the Soviet diplomatic representative in London, Rakovsky, presented a memorandum with several arguments in support of the claim that it was a fake. Four years later, additional information was presented at a discussion at the British Parliament. As early as those years, a version was boosted that Zinovievs Letter was manufactured in Berlin by famous Russian forgers, hired by the
77

Ibid, . 310.

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Polish secret services (Druzhilowski, Zhemchuzhnikov, Orlov, and Gumanski) 78 . Later an understanding was adopted that the letter was partially forged and supplemented on the grounds of Zinovievs original instructions to the British communists. In his publication, Christopher Andrew claimed that in mid-October 1924, Foreign Office received information on the authenticity of the document simultaneously from a British agent in Russia through Intelligence Service (Secret Intelligence Service SIS), probably Sidney Riley, as well as from an agent of the counterintelligence services (MI-5), who had penetrated the management of the English Communist Party 79 . In his latest book, another British historian of the intelligence services, Nigel West (literature pseudonym of the former Conservative deputy Rupert Allason), confirmed that in the middle of the 1920s MI-5 had its informers in the Anglo-Soviet trade society Arcos and succeeded to trace a part of the correspondence with Moscow and the Soviet diplomatic representation in Chesham House 80 . However, he did not find any proof of the authenticity of The Letter of Zinoviev. According to West, the most significant success of the British secret services in their efforts to intercept and decipher the secret exchange of information between Moscow and the Communist Party of Great Britain was achieved in the mid-1930s through MASK operation and in the years of World War II with ISCOT operation. The most comprehensive and competent analysis of the mysterious case with The Letter of Zinoviev was contained in a Foreign Office Report from 1999, after a comparative study of the British and Russian records. The report confirmed the suggestion that the document was forged by Russian white migrs in Berlin. Later, with the help of the British secret services it was used by the Conservative circles in London to provide psychological prerequisites for the defeat of the Laborists under Ramsay McDonald during the elections on 29 October 1924. 81 Under the raging anti-Soviet propaganda campaign after the Conservative government of Stanley Baldwin came into power, Christian Rakovsky was forced to leave
78 79

Fischer, Louis The Soviets in World Affairs, (Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 492498. Andrew, Christopher. The British Secret Service and Anglo-Soviet Relations in the 1920s, Part I: From the Trade Negotiations to the Zinoviev Letter, The Historical Journal, Camridge University Press, 1977, No. 3, p. 676678, 686705. 80 West, Nigel. MASK: MI5's Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain. (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 9, 12, 1617. 81 A Most Extraordinary and Mysterious Business. The Letter of Zinoviev of 1924, (London: Foreign and Commonwealth Office. General Service Command, 1999).

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London. After a short stay in Moscow, he was again removed from his active involvement on Trotskys side in the internal Party struggle. In October 1925, Rakovsky was appointed a Soviet diplomatic representative in Paris; however, he was recalled in October 1927 due to his affiliation to the opposition in the Bolshevik Party. George Andreytchine also left Great Britain at the end of 1924 or the beginning of 1925. Amtorg and a New Mission in Vienna

In his later autobiographical notes, Andreytchine mentioned that in 1925 he was appointed a representative of the Moscow office to the stock trade society for AmericanSoviet trade with a headquorters in New York mtorg. A number of books from the previous decades had created the impression that this organization was established on an agreement between Vladimir Lenin and Armand Hammer from 1922. It is possible that Hammer rendered support to the initial work of Amtorg, but actually we are talking about a brand new type of organization, competitive to his own company, which at the end of the 1920s totally monopolized the Soviet trade with the United States. Some contemporary publications present the suggestion that initially Amtorg was created to conceal the activities of the Soviet foreign and military intelligence. The newly revealed Russian arhival documents from the past years, used in the research of some Russian historians, clarify the real story of Amtorg 82 . With regard to the unreality about a forthcoming establishment of diplomatic relations with the USA, in January 1923, the Soviet government made a decision to set up its own unofficial trade representation in New York, applying the legal form in accordance with the American legislation. In June the same year, Isaiah Hurgin arrived in the United Sates, and after studying the specific situation he recommended a unification of the existing two competitive trade companies with Soviet representation into one American company for Soviet-American commerce. In May 1924, the American trade society Amtorg was officially founded in New York. The first Board Director of Amtorg was Hurgin, although following the national
, . . , , , 2001, 3; , . - 20- , , , 2002, 2.
82

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legislation the management officially comprised mostly American citizens. In Moscow, another personnel issue arose very soon it was quite difficult to find skillful experts with good competence in English. Due to this reason, in the first years of existence of this trade society the employees were mostly American communists, syndicalists or radicals, living in the Soviet Union. This was probably the reason for Andreytchines involvement in the newly established foreign trade company. It is possible that Amtorg incidentally facilitated the funding of the American Communist Party, although this usually happened through other channels by couriers of the Cominterns Department of International Relations (OMS). Amtorg was used more often as a cover for the representatives of the Soviet intelligence services in the USA after 1927. In January 1926, in a letter to Georgi Dimitrov from Vienna, Vassil Kolarov suggested that George Andreytchine be sent to assist the Foreign bureau of the Bulgarian Communist Party, whose office was in the Austrian capital then. In his reply to Kolarov from 15 February 1926, Dimitrov announced: I have made all necessary steps for Andreytchine... The Russian comrades, as I understand, will not oppose our request that he be under our supervision. He has welcomed his new job and is ready to leave any moment now 83 . In a letter from Vienna, dated 3 March 1926, to his wife Tsvetana in Moscow, Vassil Kolarov mentioned . has arrived and started work. He is also planning to call his family to join him here 84 . In fact, in a letter to Moscow dated 29 April 1926, Andreytchine requested permission for his wife Ilza to come to Vienna, where she would help as a translator and secretary of the Bulletin publisher. In the Austrian capital, Andreytchine also worked as a journalist through the International Labor Defense. Most likely, he had close contacts with the Soviet diplomatic representatives in Vienna, whom he had met in London Ambassador Jan Berzin and the Counsellor Dmitry Bogomolov. Both of these names appeared along with Andreytchines name during the trial against the right, 146-, 6, .. 180. In a previous letter Kolarov clarified that he received his confidential correspondence with Moscow via the Soviet diplomatic mission in Vienna unsing a code name A.B.C..
84 83

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Trotskyist block in March 1938, and the two of them were later executed as foreign spies. In the meantime, he fulfilled missions through the Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO) (united), established in October 1925 in Vienna, whose political secretary was his fellow-villager Vladimir Poptomov. Poptomovs wife, Milanka, witnessed later about an encounter of the two families on the streets of Vienna 85 . In Vienna, Andreytchine met again Pavel Shateff, who was working not only in the procommunist Macedonian organization, but also as an agent of the Soviet military intelligence service (under the codename Kosta) 86 . Differently from the other leader of VMRO (united) and BCP, Dimitar Vlahov, who held responsible posts in Vardar Macedonia after 1944, Shateff had a more tragic fate. After the split between Stalin and Tito, in October 1948 he succeeded in submitting through the Bulgarian Embassy in Belgrade a letter with evidence of the anti-Bulgarian policy of the Yugoslav government in Vardar Macedonia. He was arrested soon after by Titos secret police UDB and died in full isolation and poverty in 1951. The Internal Party Opposition A document of MGB from 1950 claims that since 1923 Andreytchine has been an active Trotskyist, directly connected with Trotsky, Radek, Rakovsky and other enemies of the people. Other documents state that he was a close friend of Trotsky and probably his personal secretary. In any case, the relations between the two in the mid-1920s were particularly close. In May 1925, Lev Trotsky was appointed at his last official state position in his career Chairman of the Main Concession Committee (Glavconcescom) in the Soviet government. It is very likely that upon Andreytchines return from Vienna in the summer of 1926, Trotsky invited him to work in his secretariat. One of Trotskys closest admirers, Victor Serge, described in his memoirs the special atmosphere in the small building of Glavconcescom on Petrovka Street in Moscow:

, 214-, . 1, .. 4, . 15. , . . , (: , 2004), . 145. In the mid1920s Vienna became a center for Soviet military intelligece in South East Europes activity.
86

85

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The circle around Trotsky, which comprised young people, was involved in completely different matters. His secretariat was a unique laboratory, which constantly generated new ideas... There, I met again George Andreytchine, an energetic Bulgarian with blazing black eyes 87 . Victor Serge avoided the wave of initial repressions against the supporters of the internal Party opposition in 19281929. Nevertheless, he was arrested by the police in 1932. Due to the public support by famous intellectuals (e.g. Romain Rolland) he was deported from the Soviet Union in 1936. After the Nazi occupation of France, he was able to escape to Mexico, where he died in 1947. Victor Serges memoirs, written in 1941, were published in America for the first time shortly after the War, and in 1951 they were published in French in Paris. Their first Russian edition appeared in Moscow only after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In 1925, the Soviet government made a concession for joint exploitation of a manganese mine with the influential American industrialist and banker William Averell Harriman, who made a lightning diplomatic career in the following years as the special envoy of four presidents (Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson), an Ambassador to Moscow and London, Assistant Secretary of State, Secretary of Commerce and Governor of New York 88 . At the beginning of December 1926, Harriman talked in Berlin with the Soviet Foreign Affairs Narcom Chicherin, and two weeks later he went to Moscow to hold negotiations with representatives of the Soviet government. On 28 December 1926, he was accepted by Trotsky with regard to some problems in the management of the joint concession. The meeting was attended by George Andreytchine in his capacity as Trotskys personal translator 89 . In his memoirs decades later, Harriman described his preliminary fears of a possible unfavorable outcome of the negotiations due to the quite unstable political position of Trotsky at the moment. Upon completion of the official talks, Andreytchine indirectly confirmed the suspicion of the American guest 90 . Along with his international missions, Andreytchine actively proceeded with his involvement in the internal party struggles in the USSR. During the period 19261927, he
87 88

, . , . 254. He was also nominated twice a Democratic party candidate for the US President. 89 (), , 8350, 1, 802, . 198. . : , . - , , , 2-3, 2005.

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was a participant in the united Trotskyist-Zinoviev opposition in VCP (b). More evidence of Andreytchines activity at that time could be found in Pierre Pascals diary. A diplomatic assistant and interpreter in the French Embassy in Sankt Petersburg during World War I, the ardent Catholic and gifted writer Pascal supported the Bolshevik government, similarly to Captain Jacques Sadoul. He remained in the Soviet Union until the mid-1930s and was involved mainly in translations of classic works from the Russian literature. Victor Serge used to say ironically that he heard him justify his transition to the Bolshevik camp with selected quotes from the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Upon his return to France, Pierre Pascal started work as a professor in Slav languages in the Sorbonne and later was recognized as one of the best connoisseurs of Russian literature. On 13 October 1927, Pascal wrote in his diary about a meeting with George Andreytchine, who supplied him with documents of the anti-Stalin opposition 91 . American Journalists in Moscow The New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty was a widely recognized doyen of the American journalist society in Moscow in the 1920s. Successions of memoirs of American journalists describe his prominent presence and typical posture, a mixture of romanticism and cynicism 92 . Ten years later, when the popular American comic Will Rogers visited Moscow, his first wish was to meet the unique Walter Duranty. The British journalist Garret Jones also described him as the unofficial American ambassador every newcomer wanted to meet 93 . In one of the series of books about Soviet Russia, published shortly after his return to New York in 1935, Walter Duranty described the frequent visits to his home paid by Bill Haywood and the group of former IWW members and the lively discussions they had 94 . A recently revealed fact from the Russian archives is very interesting. On 27 October 1925, Deputy Foreign Minister Litvinov made a proposal and the Politburo of the
90 91

Harriman, Averell. America and Russia in a Changing World, (New York: Doubleday, 1971), p. 34. Pierre Pascal, Russie 1927: mon journal de Russie, LAge dHomme, Paris 1982, p. 225. Pascals Personal Records became available in 2006 at Biblioteque Documentation Internationale Contemporaine (Nanterre Paris) F 883: Fonds Pierre Pascal (18901983). 92 Fischer, Louis. Men and politics: an autobiography, (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1970), p. 155. 93 Experiences in Russia 1931. A Diary, (Pittsburg, PA: Alton Press, 1932; reprint 2002), p. 26.

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Bolshevik Party decided to immediately deport from the country the US correspondent Duranty due to unfavorable for the Kremlin comments, published in New York Times. Two days later, the decision was cancelled as a result of flow of information on this issue. An urgent investigation showed that Duranty had been informed in time about the secret decision by George Andreytchine! 95 In his book from 1935, the American journalist described in a very different way this case. According to his words, he learned that he was supposed to be expelled only after he met in Paris the Soviet Ambassador to France, Christian Rakovsky 96 . Several years later, Walter Duranty was one of the few foreign journalists, who suceeded in taking a personal interview from Josef Stalin. This was probably a specific award for the change in the journalists attitude. Until his departure in 1934, he acted much more like a spokesman of the official Soviet propaganda than like a critical observer of the Stalinist regime. This was particularly true for his infamous repudiation of the real facts of mass starvation and death of millions of peasants due to the forceful Stalinist collectivization in Ukraine in 1932-1933. The correspondent for The Nation and Baltimore Sun, Louis Fischer, elaborated in his publications on the atmosphere in the Soviet capital, which was totally different from the conditions under which the Western journalists worked in Moscow in the following decades. In the course of a decade, he was among Andreytchines closest American acquaintances in the Soviet capital. In 19211922, George and Ilza Andreytchine established friendly family relations with Louis and his wife Berta (Markusha) Fischer and in the spring of 1923 their first-born children Ivona and Victor were born. In his memoirs of 1941, Fischer mentioned Andreytchine as a dear friend of mine 97 In the preface to the second edition of his book on Soviet foreign policy from the 1920s, the US journalist described the relatively friendly discussions among the representatives of foreign media and the Soviet diplomats during the periodical tea meetings in the Narcomindel (Soviet Foreign Ministry). Fischer referred to this period:

94 95

Duranty, Walter. I Write as I Please, Cornwall Press, New York, 1935, p. 169. , . . , , , 2004, 3. 96 Duranty, Walter. I Write as I Please, p. 264265.

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By 1927, when I commenced writing this book, I had established friendly relations with most of the top and middle-rank personnel of the Soviet Foreign Office. For more than a year, I went every Sunday afternoon to [Foreign Commissar Chicherins] big office in the Foreign Commissariat on Kuznetsky Must and made quick longhand notes as he talked at nlenght about Soviet negotiations and dealings with foreign countries In August 1929 I spent more than a week with Chicherin in Wiesbaden, Germany Maxim Litvinov, Chicherins assistant until 1930 and successor from then until 1939, likewise received me in Moscow and Berlin. Most of the Moscow talks took place in his appartment in the Sugar Kings Villa on the Moskva River just opposite the Czars Palace in the Kremlin Once, when Litvinov had finished the description of the important Anglo-Soviet conference of 1924, he said, I have told you everything I remember. The man who really knows what happened was Rakovsky. But Rakovsky, former Soviet Ambassador to London and Paris, was in exile for Trotskyist deviations. Today [1950] it would be worth a Soviet officials life to advice a foreigner to visit a banished Communist and the advice would be less practicable than a suggestion of flying to Saturn. I had no difficulty, however, in locating Rakovsky in Saratov on the Volga. I brought Rakovsky a letter from Litvinov It was written and signed by Litvinov and addressed not to Rakovsky but to Theodore Rothstein, chief of the Commissariat Press Department... For eight days, for six hours each day, Rakovsky spun the exciting narrative of Soviet foreign relations. Evenings, other banished Trotskyists called on Rakovsky in his appartment and he introduced them to me This political criminal was probably the most revered person in the town. In 1928, Stalinism was still relatively liberal 98 . Other interesting talks with Soviet diplomats of that time, mentioned by Fischer, were his meetings with the Deputies of Trotsky, Chicherin and Litvinov in the Narcomindel - Adolf Joffe, Leo Karakhan and Nikolai Krestinski. . Joffe was among Trotskys closest friends and he committed a suicide when he heard at the end of 1927 that he was going to be arrested by OGPU. Leo Karakhan came from a wealthy Armenian family and studied law before he got involved in the underground revolutionary activities as a member of the Bolshevik Party. He and Krestinski were arrested by NKVD during the trial against the right-Trotskyist opposition and were executed in 1938. At the beginning of the 1930s, Louis Fischer maintained relatively close contacts with senior Soviet and Comintern functionaries. In 1936, he often had meetings with the
97

Fischer, Louis Men and politics: an autobiography, p. 94.

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Secretary General of the Comintern, Georgi Dimitrov, to discuss the campaign for rendering support to the Republican government in Spain after the beginning of the Civil War in the country in July the same year. 99 Two years later, however, the American journalist refused categorically to return from Republican Spain to Moscow. With the support of the US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, he moved his family from Moscow to New York and very soon the NKVD declared him a Trotskyist and an enemy of the Soviet Union. On the grounds of his previous personal experience, Fischer made a categorical comparison in the preface to his book of 1950: Christian G. Rakovsky, Adolf A. Joffe, Litvinov, and their fellow Soviet diplomats were of the same party but not of the same cultural breed as the Gromykos, Maliks, and Vishinskys. They behaved like titans compared to the pygmies who now [1950] kowtow to the dictator. During the years of World War II, Louis Fischer traveled to India, where he met Mahatma Gandhi. In the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, he toured repeatedly many countries in Europe and Asia and was able to interview leading political figures. Only after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, the American journalist, who had been declared by the Stalinist secret police an enemy of the Soviet Union, had the chance to see Moscow again, as well as to visit some East European capitals. Interesting evidence about the 1920s is to be found in the memoirs of another leading US journalist William Henry Chamberlin. Shortly after the end of World War I, he was a member of the cosmopolitan Bohemian intellectual society in New York and described in his later memoirs the attractive atmosphere of the life in Greenwich Village 100 . Chamberlin was a correspondent for Christian Science Monitor in Moscow from 1922 to 1934. His publications appeared in other American periodicles as well, such
Fischer, Louis. The Soviets in World Affairs, p. v-viii. In his memoirs Fischer made an interesting verbal portrait of Dimitrov: His robust figure, leonine head with black hair, and free, frank face spoke defiance There was something heroic and historic about him, a man made of one piece. I had the same feeling when I met Winston Churchill. But since Dimitrov is simpler than Churchill, the impresson of unity is greater. Dimitrov is the old-type Balkan peasant-revolutionsit equipped with a modern weapon organized Communism. He is, above all, a fighter, and Moscow ruined his personality by making the Third International a rubber stamp. Louis Fischer, Men and politics: an autobiography, p. 404. 100 Chamberlin, William Henry. The Confessions of an Individualist, (New York: Macmillan, 1940), . 60-61.
99 98

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as Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, Yale Review, and in Manchester Guardian. In 1931, he published one of the first analytical books about the leaders of Soviet Russia 101 . At the beginning of the World War II, Chamberlin traveled to the Far East and France and left Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation. In the post-War years, he radically changed his views and during the 1950s and 1960s he was among the most influential Conservative intellectuals in the United States 102 . Sharing in his essays of 1962 his impressions of the first Soviet government leaders, such as Lenin, Rykov and Chicherin, the famous American publicist paid special attention to Andreytchines personality: The most colorful personality I recall from my Russian days was George Andreytchine He was self-educated, but well-educated, fluent in several languages, and with infectious warmth of personality From Andreytchine I learned more about the day-by-day routine of Communist Party life, about the pressures used to keep dissidents in line, about heretical trends in Communism, than I would ever have learned from Soviet newspapers and talks with more careful exponents of the official viewpoint Andreytchine retained some friendly memories of America, evidently enjoyed its more bizarre aspects and could always bring down the house at a party with a spirited imitation of the evangelist Billy Sunday declaiming: Ill fight the Devil. And, if he runs to the North Pole, Ill put on skates and chase him down to hell! 103 After his return from the Far East at the end of 1939, in one of his books, Chamberlin added one more stroke to the psychological portrait of the Bulgarian, just like he remembered him. Comparing him to another colorful personality from Central America, he noted: The new Mexican Ambassador to Japan, General Francisco Aguilar reminded me in many ways of my old ex-I.W.W. friend of Moscow days, George Andreytchine, one of the many victims of the purge against the Trotskyists. Like Andreytchine, the Mexican diplomat was a very exuberant
Chamberlin, William. Soviet Russia: A Living Record and a History, (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1931) Viels Bjerre-Ponlsen, Right Face: Organizing the American Conservative Movement. 19451965, (niversity of Copenhagen Press,2003) . 28, 99, 143. 103 Chamberlin, William Henry. Russian Recollections, Russian Review, Vol. 21, No. 4, October 1962, p. 337 338.
102 101

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personality, full of fun and vitality, with a rich fund of anecdotes drawn from a life which had included a good deal of fighting and some periods of hardships and exile. 104 . Among Andreytchines acquaintances American journalists was Anna Louise Strong, whom the Bulgarian had met as an I.W.W. activist in Chicago or Seattle. Only twenty-three years old, with a PhD degree from the University of Chicago from 1908, Anna Louise Strong returned to her home to her father, a priest in the local Protestant church. In 1916, in her capacity as a journalist, she described one of the IWW strikes in Seattle and became close to the leaders of the trade union movement. Strong stood by them categorically in support of the causes of pacifism and suffragist movement. In 1921, Lincoln Steffens persuaded her to go to Moscow as a representative of the society Friends to Soviet Russia. In the Soviet Union, Strong sent reports about some of Hursts editions. For a short period of time, she was Lev Trotskys English teacher probably recommended by Bill Haywood or George Andreytchine. When in 1924 she published her first book about Soviet Russia in London, Trotsky wrote the preface to it 105 . The strange story of two official proofs, provided by Anna Louise Strong and William Henry Chamberlin, regarding their contacts with George was revealed during a study of the archives of the USA immigration services. In March 1923, D-r Stoycoff sent his first request to the Secretary of Labor James Davies for reimbursement of the bail of 1 000 dollars, paid in June 1919 for the release of his friend Andreytchine from the Federal penitentiary in Leavenworth. The request was based on the fact that Andreytchine had left the United States and was in Soviet Russia. Over a month later, the Department of Labor responded to Dr. Stoycoff with another request to submit evidence to show that he is in Russia. In September, Christ Stoycoff presented a slip of paper dated 25 April 1923 with Georges signature and the address: Moscow, Granatna Street 13, which confirmed the receipt of a package through American Relief Administration. He also enclosed a clipping from Soviet Russia Pictorial with the picture, showing Bill Shatoff, Bill Haywood and George Andreytchine in Petrograd. The reply from the Department of Labor said: the inclosures forwarded with your letter of September 8th do not constitute proof that the
104 105

Chamberlin, William Henry. The Confessions of an Individualist, p. 203. Strong, Anna Louise. The first time in history; two years of Russia's new life. With a preface by L. Trotsky, (London: Labour Publishing Company, 1924).

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alien has left the United States. Two years and a half later, in March 1926, Dr. Stoycoff presented a notarized affidavit from Anna Louise Strong to certify that during her stay in Soviet Russia from 1 September 1921 till 1 October 1925 she personally saw and met the above named GEORGE ANDREYTCHINE in the City of Moscow, Country of Russia. The reply from the federal government was laconic: the Department is unwilling to accept the affidavits as sufficient proof that this man is in Russia. At the end of September 1926, Christ Stoycoff submitted another proof, this time it was notarized on 11 September by the British Consulate in Moscow. The document, signed by the correspondent for United Press William H. Chamberlin claimed that the undersigned hereby testify that I have known Mr. George Andreytchine that upon my arrival in Moscow in August 1922 I found him living at the address No. 2 Deviatkin Periulok, Moscow, Russia, and that I have personal knowledge that he is residing at that address now. Only then, in November 1926, the Department of Labor made a final decision to cancel the bond and those 1 000 dollars were finally paid back to Dr. Stoycoff. 106 The correspondents for Chicago Daily News Junius Wood, Negley Farson and the future biographer of Franklin Roosevelt and Dwaight Eisenhower, John Gunther, were among the journalists and publicists, who visited Moscow for a short time in the middle and the end of the 1920s. Another representative of the cosmopolitan megalopolis in Illinois was Vincent Sheenon. He had also worked for Chicago Daily News, but he arrived in Moscow as the correspondent for Chicago Tribune. As students in the University of Chicago or beginning journalists, each of them kept up with the events around the famous trial against IWW activists in 1918. In the Soviet capital, they had the opportunity to meet at least two of the accused at the Chicago Trial Bill Haywood and George Andreytchine. In October 1927, ten years after the Bolshevik Revolution, one of the most prominent representatives of the intellectual Bohemia in Greenwich Village, Sinclair Louis, arrived in the Soviet Union. He was a close friend to the editors of The Masses and The Liberator Max Eastman, John Reed and Floyd Dell. His novels Main Street (1920), Babbit (1922), Arrowsmith (1925) made him internationally famous, which contributed to his Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 the first American to become a laureate of this
106

NARA, RG 85, Series A: Subject Correspondence Files, Case Nr. 54 182/2b Andreytchine Case.

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prestigious international prize. During his visit to Moscow, he was accompanied by the ambitious and temperamental journalist Dorothy Thompson, a famous activist in the suffragist movement from her student years in the Syracuse University in New York in the years shortly before World War I. The popular couple was given special attention by the American colony in Moscow and we can suggest with a great degree of probability that Haywood and Andreytchine joined the stormy night debates of the miscellaneous international company in the restaurants of the big hotels National and Savoy in downtown Moscow. Elegant and blond, Dorothy was not successful in penetrating the severe government corridors in the Kremlin, but her publications about the Soviet Union were watched with attention in America 107 . A year after their visit to Moscow, Sinclair Louis and Dorothy Thompson got married in Berlin. In 1931, Dorothy was able to interview Adolf Hitler. After the Nazis came into power, however, her critical reports were the reason for her becoming the first US publicist, ousted from the territory of the Third Reich. In 1939, The Time magazine qualified her as one of the most influential woman in the United States, next to the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Theodore Dreiser was also invited on the occasion of the Tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in the Soviet Union. He arrived in Moscow at the beginning of October 1927. During his stay, Ruth Kennell was attached to him as his secretary and interpreter a former librarian in the Autonomous industrial colony KUZBAS. Along with the prominent representatives of the Soviet culture, such as Sergei Eisenstein, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Konstantin Stanislawski, the American writer talked to some political figures Carl Radek, Nikolay Buharin, etc. Dreiser met his old acquaintances from New York and Chicago the IWW leader Bill Haywood in the first place. It is possible that some of the meetings were attended by George Andreytchine, although the writers diary notes do not mention his name (in fact, even Ruth Kennells name was not mentioned in his book Dreiser Looks at Russia, published at the beginning of 1928). Years later, Ruth Kennell reminded of a discussion with Dreisers participation in Bill Haywoods room on the second floor of Hotel Lux: This November evening some Wobblies, American
107

. . Time, New York, 2 April 1928.

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communists and Union leaders, including several Negroes, sat around talking with nostalghia about the old ways of struggles and meetings 108 . During the same 1927, another famous intellectual, Ivy Lee, visited the Soviet Union. Even today, he is considered by many experts to be the founder of the theory of Public Relations due to his formulation of conceptual ideas in the Declaration of Principles in 1906. Later, he became a personal advisor to old John Rockefeller, and during the years of the World War I he was a Deputy Chairman of the American Red Cross. During his visit to the USSR, Lee had a series of meetings with representatives of the official government circles in Moscow, he visited Amtorgs office, talked to Trotsky in Glavconcescom, but he was not accepted by Stalin. Soon after his return from Moscow, he tried to acquaint the American audience with the Russian enigma in his study Russia Today, where he declared his support to the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet government. One of Ivy Lees original, however quite naive thesis, was that the establishment of commercial and diplomatic relations and exchange of capital, ideas and people with the Soviet Union could result in the elimination or alleviation of the militant doctrinal Bolshevism 109 . It is quite possible that George Andreytchine held special talks with the first official American trade union delegation in the USSR, which arrived in Moscow at the beginning of September 1927. On 9 September, the delegation members James Maurer, John Broffy, Frank Palmer, James Fitzpatrick and Albert Koyl were honored with the special privilege to be accepted by Stalin. Later, a lengthy journey across the country was organized for them. The American delegation attended the celebrations for the Tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, and the First Congress of the societies for friendship with the USSR, which took place in the Column Hall of the Trade Union Palace in Moscow. Upon its return to the United States, the syndicate delegation published an account on the meetings and talks it had held and formulated several main reasons in support of the thesis of the necesity for establishing diplomatic relations with the USSR. Besides the expected arguments about the benefits for the USA foreign policy and
Kennell, Ruth. Theodore Dreiser and the Soviet Union, 19271945: A First-Hand Chronicle. (New York: International Publishers, 1969), . 48. 109 Princeton University, Manuscript Division, MS 085, Ivy Lee Papers, Box 1, Folder 7; Box 9, Folder 9; Box 23, Folder 5.
108

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commerce, the trade union leaders presented a surprising and to a great extent a paradoxical ideological idea the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union would lessen hostile foreign thoughts against Russia, and by reducing the fear of external aggression would lead to less repressions and more democratic methods in Russia itself 110 . A former contributor to The Liberator, John Dos Passos, was among the representatives of the so-called Lost Generation American writers in Europe. In 1928, he spent half a year in Moscow and Leningrad. He was internationally recognized for U.S.A. Trilogy, written in the period 19301936. During the Spanish Civil War, his political views changed considerably under the influence of the communist attacks against the Spanish anarchists. Following the anti-Trotskyist processes in Moscow in the late 1930s, the author became a severe critic of Stalinist totalitarianism. In his monography on the beginning, development and specific features of the American left wing trends, John Diggins very skillfully described the cultural roots and the evolution of radical intellectuals in the first half of the 20th century. In his opinion, the enthusiastic lyric left around The Masses and The Liberator from the years of World War I, which opposed the Puritanism of the Victorian status quo through an emotional riot, was intellectually related to the writers from the Lost Generation in the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s. It is just that their Promised Land had moved from Greenwich Village to Montparnasse. One of the important psychological factors for both of them to lose their political innocence was the completion of the Stalinist totalitarian regime and the merciless terror against everyone who thought differently. Their followers from the new left in the 1960s and the academic left in the 1980s never possessed the same nave optimism and purity 111 . It was probably considered as normal that many of the prominent intellectuals from the lyric left underwent a drastic change in their views, and being repelled by Stalinism, adopted strong anti-Soviet and conservative positions in the Cold War years. On the Steppes in Kazakhstan
RUSSIA AFTER TEN YEARS: Report of the American Trade Union Delegation to the Soviet Union, (New York: International Publishers, 1927), . 94. 111 John Patrick Diggins, The Rise and Fall of the American Left, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1992).
110

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Along with the other activists of the united opposition, Andreytchine was expelled from the Bolshevik Party at the 15th Party Congress in December 1927. At the beginning of September, in a letter to Politburo of the Central Committee of VCP (b) and the Executive Committee of the Comintern, Lev Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolay Muralov pointed out a large number of facts referring to the expulsion of their followers, who were deported from Moscow and Leningrad and taken to Central Asia. The letter said: They want to remove for agricultural work Comrade Andreytchine a revolutionary with a lot of experience in the international work... On 2 November 1927, two weeks prior to his own dismissal, Trotsky wrote to the Secretary of the Party organization in the Main Concession Committee: Allow me with this written report to join the majority which supports Comrade Andreytchines request for reconsideration of his case at the highest control instance 112 . George Andreytchine was arrested on 12 January 1928 and received a term of three years in exile for involvement in the Trotskyist opposition. A week or two earlier, his wife Ilza had left for Stockholm since she was appointed in the Soviet trade mission in Sweden. On her way to the Swedish capital, she left their four-year old daughter Ivona with her mother in Bialystok. In February 1928, Ilza received a postcard from Moscow, informing her, among other things, about her husbands arrest. George could not personally get in touch with her for over two months because he was kept in the internal prison of OGPU (Lubyanka). A few months later, in a letter to Trotsky, Andreytchine quoted the words of one of the jailers from Lubyanka, who mentioned that all members of the opposition had to be shot. At the end of February, he was transferred to the Butirka prison. Initially, he was kept in a common cell with class enemies and criminals, who additionally committed outrages over the political members of the opposition like him. As a result of his energetic protest, he was moved to an individual cell. His fate was finally determined at the end of
, . /./, , 19231927, . 4, (, 1990), . 103, 239.
112

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March, when he was transported to Kazakhstan. Only after reaching Petropavlovsk, Andreytchine understood that he was sentenced to a three-year exile in Akmolinsk (todays Astana). The present day capital of Kazakhstan was then a small settlement in the steppes, created in 1824 as a Kazakh fortress on the ancient trade road from Central Asia to Western Siberia. The name of the place came from the Kazakh Ak Molla (White Hill). Together with the Bulgarian, a few more active Trotskyists from Leningrad were sent into exile to Akmolinsk - L. Ginsburg, Kontorovich and Nuridjiyan. At the same time, Lev Trotsky was exiled in Alma Ata, but he was very active in his epistolary activities. According to his own memoirs, only in the months April-August 1928, he sent over 550 telegrams from Alma Ata and received nearly 700 from his adherents. George Andreytchine sent his first message to Lev Trotsky from Petropavlovsk on 9 April 1928. On 15 April 1928, Trotsky received a new telegram from Akmolinsk, signed by L. Ginsburg and G. Andreytchine 113 . In a postcard to Trotskys son and his personal secretary, Lyova Sedov, George informed about the living conditions in Akmolinsk a poor small town, dirty streets with walking cows and camels, no electricity, one hundred verst (350 000 feet) away from the nearest railway. Andreytchine was accommodated in a small house of the widow Kuchkovska. 114 In May, George wrote two detailed letters to Lev Trotsky, in which he specifically dealt with the Soviet foreign policy and the US-Soviet relations. In his first letter, dated 15 May, he wrote: Dear Lev Davidovich, I recently received several American magazines and I have sent you the most interesting 12 of them. I am drawing your attention to a monography, published by Chase National Bank in New York. They have adopted a completely new approach to Marxs theory the author even admits that Marx was a genius. As a whole, the American capitalism is a unique phenomenon and should be studied fundamentally.
, ; , ; , /./, , . 2, (, 2001). 114 Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University, bMS Russ 13, Trotsky Collection, Series I, 1291.
113

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Further on, Andreytchine informed that he had not been given any work yet, and in compliance with an order from OGPU he was not allowed to leave the town in spite of the sand hurricanes, which made his breathing difficult. The end of the letter was intentionally written in English because it contained severe personal assessments of Stalin: I think that this is a manoeuvre of a very ephemeral character. Koba [pre-revolutionary pseudonym of Stalin] is only temporarily on top. Rykov and his group are not defeated they are only checked in their attempt to overthrow Stalins hegemony. Qui vivra, verra! I dont think the April [party] resolution is a sufficient ground for changing our appraisal out appreciation of the situation. How can one believe in Stalins sincerity and honesty when he is tightening the noose around the neck of the real and true Bolsheviks? I understand there are many more arrests taking place after the plenum than before it. As far as I am concerned I am willing to watch the developments even from Akmolinsk. We are still young and history works for us. Dear friend, I wish you good health. Kisses, G. Andreytchine P.S. I am enclosing in this envelope clippings from New York Nation 115 . Ten days later, on 26 May, George sent Trotsky another comprehensive letter with interesting comments on the United States policy. Referring to a review, published in The Nation journal, he argued about the US presence in Africa (Liberia) as a discrete attempt to push the leading colonial empire Albion (i.e. Great Britain) out of the country. Andreytchine paid special attention to the new presidential candidate for the upcoming elections in the United States Herbert Hoover: Hoovers nomination for the President of the United States is significant. He is one of most fierce enemies of British imperialism. You probably remember Tirklands words about him that he liked to twist the
115

Ibid, T 1462.

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lions tale, when here in Britain no one ever thought of plucking out a single feather from the tale of the American eagle. The deterioration of the Anglo-American relations coincided with Hoovers mandate at the top of the Department of Commerce: initially the cotton, and later the rubber war... were his achievements. I am convinced that if he were elected the President, which is very likely to happen, the consequences could be colossal ... Hoover is the most accomplished type of aggressive American politician aware of the mission of his plutocracy in the area of the foreign policy. He is very different from the Boston provincial Coolidge, or the weak old man from the Middle West Kellogg. This is an experienced man he has lived and worked in Europe for many years and managed a large financial and industrial firm before the War. During the War and after it he stepped forward on the political stage as a re-builder of devastated Europe. He knows Europe in detail particularly England, and he is closely related to the Far East. He is relatively young and under his governance the Department of Commerce dims the role of the State Department. He is in close relations with the financial capital and organized the famous Bureau in the Department of Commerce for studying world economy from the point of view of the development of American trade. I am inclined to believe that electing Hoover will affect us directly. He is not afraid of the Bolsheviks, as he has repeatedly said, and to some extent he can even help us providing some financial assistance. 116 In his autobiography written in exile, Lev Trotsky cited a letter from Alma Ata sent to his supporters in August 1928: You surely have noticed, that our newspapers do not publish any comments from the American or European press regarding the events in our countryNow I have some very important evidence from newspapers. Comrade Andreytchine had sent me a page from the February issue of the U.S. left democratic journal The Nation with a short account on the last events here. 117 . It could be presumed with a high degree of credibility that Andreytchine received this article from the correspondent for The Nation journal, Louis Fischer. As has been already mentioned, a year later, in April 1929, Fischer visited Christian Rakovsky - an exile in Saratov 118 . It is also possible that the article was brought by Andreytchines old
Ibid, T 1533. , . , . 2, (: . , 1995), . 328. 118 , , . 481; Gabriel Gorodetsky /Ed./, Soviet Foreign Policy. 1917-1991: A Retrospective, (London: Frank Kass, 1994), p. 54.
117 116

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IWW friend and his inmate in the prison in Leavenworth, James Cannon, who visited the USSR once again in July 1928 to attend the Sixth Congress of the Comintern. A few months later, Cannon left the Communist Party of the United States and became the leader of American Trotskyists. At the end of 1928 James Cannon started to edit a new leftist weekly The Militant where he remained in an article of the second issue about the imprisonment of George Andreytchine by the Stalinist regime 119 . During the first year of his exile, George Andreytchine sent Lev Trotsky and his elder son Lev Sedov over ten letters, telegrams and postcards 120 . Some of the letters, however, did not reach their addressee (e.g. a detailed letter, dated 3 May, where George described his life in the OGPU prison). Andreytchine exchanged letters with other activists in exile from the left internal Party opposition, including Christian Rakovsky. In a letter to Trotsky from June 1928, Rakovsky mentioned a letter he had received from Akmolinsk from his adherent and compatriot 121 . In July 1928, George informed Trotsky that after a six-month separation his wife Ilza and their daughter Ivona had finally arrived. Another letter from 5 September, six pages long, was quite interesting. The main information concerned the internal party struggle in the Bolshevik Party and the moods of some opposition leaders, such as Carl Radek, Ivar Smigla, Georgy Pyatakov, etc. Andreytchine contemplated also on the Chinese question and informed Trotsky about his correspondence with Christian Rakovsky. He highly appreciated Rakovskys concept on the reasons for the reincarnation of Soviet bureaucracy. The end of the letter said: After Comrade Arshavskys arrival, our colony has increased to five persons. We live in a friendly atmosphere. All are lively and healthy. Ginsburg was reinstated in his former office. I was also promised a job. Right now, we are well. GPU gives 5 roubles for the woman and the child. I receive piles of books from America. If you need anything, write to me. Ill supply anything you want. Do you receive newspapers and magazines? If you do not receive any, I can send you New York Times and the London Times. I have very good friends they are ready to do
The Militant, New York, No. 2, 1 December 1928, p. 8. Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University, bMS Russ 13, Trotsky Collection, Series I, T 1654, 1689b, 1742, 1747, 2100, 2221b, 2303, 2486, 2569. 121 , ; , . , (: , 1997), . 131.
120 119

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anything. They say that our platform was published in New York in English, good translation... Greetings to Natalia Ivanovna, Lyova and Ana. My wife and daughter send you their cordial greetings! G. Andreytchine P.S. I enclose an article from New Republic 122 . Trotskys letters to Andreytchine have not been preserved, except for several drafts of short telegrams, kept in the personal archives of the Bolshevik leader. In a letter from 24 September, Andreytchine raised the alarm again: This is the third time Im writing, and there has been no response. Lyova wrote to Kontorovich that you had sent me letters on 8 and 23 August. I havent received them, neither have I received the letter from 8 July... I am astonished by the conduct of the authorities in the past they read the correspondence, but they let it through [correspondence], while with the regional administration in Akmolinsk, a lot of letters disappear and I am completely cut off from my friends 123 . Shortly before his deportation at the end of 1928, Trotsky succeeded in sending a brief note to Andreytchine in Akmolinsk 124 . Even though we have no information available on the letters between Andreytchine and Trotsky, confiscated by the Soviet secret services, a reference from MGB from the end of the 1940s explicitly confirmed that their correspondence was carefully observed: We have the correspondence between Andreytchine and Trotsky and other Trotskyists during his stay in exile. All his letters from that time are full of libels and abuses against the leaders of the Party and the Soviet state 125 . A letter from George Andreytchine to Vassil Kolarov from the summer of 1928 explicitly shows the disagreements in the Russian Party. The document unambiguously says:
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University, bMS Russ 13, Trotsky Collection, Series I,, T 2488. 123 Ibid, T 2648. 124 Ibid, T 2848. 125 , 1, 1, .. 573, .1.
122

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Rykov is accusing Stalin of moving on the positions of Trotskyism Stalin says that Rykov went to the enemy camp of the Proletariat. Both the Thermidorians and the Centrists are afraid of opening the locks of party democracy they are afraid that the waves will carry them to the dumping ground of history, therefore they are fighting using only organizational tricks, and they show up in front of the press and the meetings of the Party with veiled threats, totally unclear for the people. I believe you can read between the lines of these riddles and puzzles, published as lectures, reports The leadership is a patchwork of countless in number and diverse factions, groups and streams which have inherited this mess and will sink in it. The unanimity demonstrated around the leader and the encouraged intolerance to those who thought differently were a significant prerequisite for the consolidation of Stalins dictatorial regime. Andreytchine showed this well and drew the inevitable parallel: This unanimity killed Robespierre when the hurricane of the Thermidor struck. The letter openly insisted on the need for development of party democracy as the only precondition for overcoming the inevitable split in the Bolshevik Party. Finally, Andreytchine informed Kolarov about his heart problems and asked him, if possible, to intercede for him in Moscow to be moved (following the local doctors advice) to a town with more favorable climate Ulyanovsk, Samara, Kazan, Saratov, Voronezh or Tashkent 126 . Andreytchines letter has been kept in Kolarovs personal archive. However, there is no information available whether he did anything for his younger friend and wherther he replied to his letter at all, since he catergorically stood by Stalin in his campaign against the Trotskyist-Zinoviev opposition. Andreytchine continued writing letters to Trotsky even when the latter was forced to leave the USSR. On 23 September 1929, he sent an interesting letter to Lev Sedov in Istanbul. He infomed in detail about the situation in the Soviet Union and the disputes between the different opposition groups. George asked Trotskys son to send him some new publications, among which the famous works of Albert Maties on the history of the French Revolution (La Revolution Francaise, 3 vols; La Reaction Thermidorienne Autour de Robespierre) and Andre Ziegfrieds study on the USA (Les tats-Unis
126

, 147-, 3, .. 123, . 12.

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daujourdhui). A few sentences in the letter describe Andreytchines life in Akmolinsk during the past year: During the whole winter and summer we were not given any work I had to work as a carpenter and a builder People are very pleased with our work, they buy everything. I am making chairs, tables, cupboards, sofas, beds, wooden boxes, suitcases etc. The summer was terribly dry, the whole steppe has burned down and there is no green at all. Sand storms occur daily one cannot see anything through the dust and sand. It is hard to breathe. Only now it is raining. The entire harvest has been damaged... My daughter is in good health, just that she is very bored. My wife is also well now. We often think about you, several times a day. All the comrades think about you: what would the Old man say... Write more often, we are also expecting a letter from the Old man. Try to send your letters to my wifes name: Ilza Richter, Stepnaya Str. 61... I hold everyone tightly, George 127 Georges repression as an activist of the Russian internal party opposition was not a secret for a number of his friends abroad. In 1929, the French syndicate journal published a special material regarding the arrest and coercive exile of notre ami Andreytchine, un militant des IWW. 128 Andreytchines last two postcards, preserved in Trotskys archive, were from 1929. After Lev Trotskys deportation abroad, most of the Trotskyists in exile publicly gave up their opposition views and their sentences were cancelled. Andreytchine, Arshavsky, Ginsburg and three other men in exile in Akmolinsk were among them. 129 One of the last exiles, publicly forced to break off with Trotsky, was Christian Rakovsky, but this happened at the end of 1933. Lev Ginsburg and Zinovy Arshavsky, who were released together with Andreytchine, were arrested again in Moscow in April 1936 and shot six months later for counterrevolutionary activity.
The Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University, bMS Russ 13.1, Trotsky Collection, No. 12652. 128 Un refugie politique emprisonne en Russie, La revolution proletarienne: revue syndicaliste rvolutionaire, (Paris, 1929), No.71. 129 , . , , , 46, 1935.
127

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A reference from MGB claims that in November 1929 Andreytchine sent a request for breaking off his relations with the internal party oppozition. A month later, his three-year sentence was cancelled and he was allowed to return from exile. This document also informs: Our observation over Andreytchine has shown that he has submitted an application form for breaking off with the opposition out of tactic purposes, continuing his contacts with the Trotskyists... 130

130

, 1, 1, .. 573, .1.

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Chapter 7 A Temporary Pardon

Deputy Director of Intourist At the beginning of 1930, George Andreytchine and his family returned to Moscow. Judging by the available documents and his autobiographical notes, it becomes obvious that in the period 19311934 he worked simultaneously in the Moscow office of Amtorg and as a Chief Inspector (Deputy Director) in Intourist 131 . The revealing of additional evidences (e.g. chronological notes in the diary of the British publicist Malcolm Muggeridge) gives us reasons to believe that at the end of 1932 Andreytchine was temporarily expelled from work in Amtorg 132 and was totally committed to his large-scale activities in Intourist. His most important function was his personal responsibility for the stay of a number of important visitors from English speaking countries. This was the routine practice imposed by the Stalinist regime in those years. Nikolay Buharin, Carl Radek, Mihail Koltsov, Ilya Erenburg and other intellectuals, who had lived abroad, were personally appointed to escort influential foreign guests. They were expected to make sure that the visits of foreign delegations were in line with the intentions and goals of the Soviet propaganda for creating a positive image of the USSR and Stalin in Europe. Every critical comment or assessment of the distinguished visitors after their stay in the Soviet Union, particularly regarding the leader, was used later as a reason for retribution with the former members of opposition. Some of the Western visitors had reasons to be apprehensive that their companions were at the same time used as informers by OGPU-NKVD. Despite the fondness and respect the foreign visitors had for Andreytchine, he was also subject to suspicion. It is difficult to believe that the former oppositioner, who had recently returned
131

The Washington Post correspondent in Moscow also wrote that Andreytchine was a Deputy Director of Intourist Russian Witch Hunt, Washington Post, March 19, 1938, p.X7 132 The Diaries of Malcolm Muggeridge. Like it Was, (New York: Morrow, 1982), p. 57.

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from exile, would be allowed to communicate freely with foreigners, some of them being sceptic about the authoritarian Stalinist regime. Judging by indirect archival information, the Soviet secret services had really requested Andreytchine to collaborate with them upon his return to Moscow. A report from MGB from the end of the 1940s claims that he was asked to observe the activities of the Trotskyists; however, during the years he has been in contact with us he has not presented any serious material on the Trotskyists. The report continues: We have a letter, written by Andreytchine during his exile, expressing his intentions to denounce, when possible, the work and methods of OGPU 133 . The real reason for Andreytchines dismissal from active involvement in Amtorg at the end of 1932 could be traced in the re-orientation of this company to commitments in the area of the defense industry and its use as a cover for Soviet scientific and technical intelligence operations. At the time when Andreytchine returned from exile, Amtorg was making significant progress. The company had a four-story main office in New York and employed 500 people, working in six departments. In 1930, a unique trend in the SovietAmerican relations was observed. For the first and last time, the emigration of Americans to Russia considerably outnumbered the reverse process of Russian emigrants to the New World. This was due to the effect of the economic crisis in the United States in 1929. When the Amtorg central office in New York announced the need for 6 000 qualified workers and technical staff to build the Moscow underground and other large-scale economic projects, nearly 100 000 applications from unemployed Americans were received in the company in just a few weeks! All in all, over 11 000 US technicians were working in the Soviet Union in the years 19301931 and it was for them that the Moscow News newspaper was initially published in English. The year 1929 marked the beginning of the secret stage of the history of the Soviet-American trade association. As a result of an agreement between the foreign trade company and the Red Army Command, in April 1929, the representative of the Soviet defense industry V. Buzanov (under the name Karpov) arrived in the USA through
133

, 1, 1, .. 573, . 2, 3.

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Amtorg. Later in the same year, six Soviet military experts were employed by the company. When in May 1930, Petr Bogdanov was appointed the Director of Amtorg, the former defense attache in Paris A. Sergeev became his deputy. P. Bogdanov was a famous economic expert from the early 1920s, but he was shot by the Stalinist police in March 1938. As follow-on to the confidential talks with the American tank constructor J. Christy, the new models of tank M1931 with all the patent documentation were purchased and arrived in Moscow through Amtorg in December 1930. Later, this prototype was used to design the new Soviet generation tanks from the series B (including the T-34, which became famous in the years of the World War II) 134 . During the following years, negotiations were held with Lockheed and other aviation companies in the USA for the purchase of patents and documentation of new aircraft models, and in 1936, 18 DC-3 aircraft were delivered in the USSR from the famous American company Douglas Aircraft. In the 1930s, a large number of Soviet scientific and technical intelligence officers penetrated under cover Amtorg central office in New York. During the World War II, they succeeded in extracting extremely valuable information on the top secret US nuclear project under the code name Manhattan. One of Andreytchines first tasks after his return to Moscow was to prepare the Russian edition of the memoirs of his old friend Bill Haywood, who died in a Moscow hospital in May 1928. He wrote an extensive 35-page preface to Haywoods book. Besides the usual Bolshevik rhetoric, the preface was characterized with some specifics, not typical of that time. In the first place, Andreytchine reminded of the role of trade union leaders such as Daniel de Leon and Eugene Debbs, who had been stigmatized by the Bolshevik dogma as opportunists and traitors to the working class ideals. Something more, G. Andreytchine even pointed out that Bill Haywood was often unfair to them. Second, the preface quoted the works of prominent American sociologists, such as Paul Frederick Brissenden, Robert Bruir, Carlton Parker, Louis Levin, etc., who were pioneers in the study of the IWW history. Third, Andreytchine supported his statements with his personal evidence, making them more convincing. He did not hesitate to draw his friends real live portrait, too far from the sterile official Stalinist iconography of the lives of
134

, ., . ., . 5960.

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revolutionaries. Thus, he did not spare Haywoods addiction to alcohol, known from his early years in the mines. In a very friendly manner, George Andreytchine compared Big Bills personality with Gargantua the literary personality of Francoise Rable: Bill was a real Gargantua in his unusual passion both for food and for his love to physical delight. He never restrained his motives because of morality. His life was rich and full of adventures. 135 Andreytchines preface to the Russian edition of Haywoods autobiography did not remain unnoticed by the Moscow cultural society. Special attention was paid by the famous literary critic and one of the founders of the School of Russian cultural constructivism, . Zelinsky. Even 40 years later, Andreytchines article was still present in Soviet publications 136 . After his return from exile, George Andreytchine presumably looked for some of his old acquaintances from America staying in Moscow. A year earlier, some leading functionaries of the Communist Party of the USA had been expelled for Trotskyist or right opportunist deviation, while others left the Party by their own will. Among those were Georges good acquaintances Jim Cannon, Ben Gitlow and Jay Lovestone. The Thunderer from Kremlin was personally involved, just as he had been in the previous years when discussing the internal conflicts in the Polish and the German Party. Typical of Stalins conduct and personality was his attitude to the old trade union activist and straightforward communist William Foster. At a session of the American Commission in the Executive Committee of the Comintern in May 1929, the leader stated sarcastically: Didnt Comrade Foster know that he was supposed to keep away from the undercover Trotskyists in his group? At a following session, however, Stalin said in a demagogic way:

, . , , ( : , 1932), . 335. 136 , . , , , 1932, 8; , , (: , 1974), . 70.

135

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Foster and Bittelman have declared themselves Stalinists. But this seems very indecent, dear comrades! Isnt it clear to you that there are no Stalinists and it is not possible that any Stalinists existed! 137 This was not the last expulsion from the Bolshevik church, said Max Eastman in a surprisingly sagacious way a decade earlier at the time the Communist Party of the United States was founded. During the years of World War II, in 1944, another friend of Andreytchines, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the USA, Earl Browder, was expelled. He was accused of conciliation with the US government and preaching class peace with the American imperialism. Actually, Browder only developed further the concept on a wide democratic front in the struggle against fascism. It is possible that today his attitude is interpreted as a specific American manifestation somewhere in the series of conceptual perceptions between the idea of industrial democracy and the future theory of convergence between capitalism and socialism. It is more important to understand, though, that Earl Browders expulsion was a clear instruction in the period of reformulation of the model of post-War world how far the relations in the antifascist coalition could expand. One of the friends George Andreytchine inevitably met upon his return in the Soviet capital was Bill Shatoff. He was the man who provoked Senator Overmans strong interest at a discussion in the Foreign Relations Commission in the US Senate during the previous decade. After several years spent on construction sites in the Far East, from 1927 till 1930 Shatoff was the manager of one of the largest infrastructure projects at the time - TURKSIB (Turkestan-Siberian railway road). In the early 1930s, he returned to Moscow and was appointed Deputy Minister of roads, responsible for the railways. The old anarchist from New York did not get away with the Stalinist purges. In the summer of 1937, he was arrested by NKVD and in October the same year sentenced to be shot for anti-Soviet activities. Mihail Borodins fate was quite interesting. In 1951, John Foster Dulles qualified him as one of the ten most interesting personalities in the history of the Soviet State. After a secret mission of the Comintern in Great Britain in 1922 (under the name George Brown), in 1923 Borodin became an advisor to the Chairman of the Chinese government
137

, . , , 1930, . 7, 29.

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(Guomindan) Sun Yat-sen. The Western press called him The Red Richelieu, and Sun Yatsen called him Lafayette of the Chinese Revolution 138 . After the death of the Guomindan Chairman in 1925, Borodin stayed an advisor to his successor Chiang Kaishek (the two successive chairmen of the Chinese government had a family relation their wives were sisters). In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek broke off the political union with the communists and started their mass persecution. Therefore, during the same year Mihail Borodin was expelled from Canton to Moscow and appointed a Soviet Deputy Minister of Labor. Louis Fischer stated in his memoirs that he tried to learn more about the development of the Chinese Revolution from Borodin after his return from Canton in 1927, but he was too reserved and evasive 139 . It was only in 1930 when Borodin became more open in his relations with the American journalist, which brought about an accusation by the Soviet secret services a decade later. In 1932, Mihail Borodin was assigned Deputy Director of TASS news agency and was responsible for the English edition of Moscow News. Once again not for the last time their paths with Andreytchine crossed. Another of Georges old acquaintances worked with Borodin in the editors office of Moscow News from the very beginning journalist Anna Louise Strong. In 1933, Charles Ashleigh an old friend of Andreytchines from Chicago and Leavenworth arrived in Moscow. In 1930, he published his semi-fiction, semi-memoir book on the strongest days in the history of IWW, appraised by the literary circles in London. Ashleigh also contributed to Moscow News for a short time 140 . He attracted to the newspaper the young American proletarian writer Jack Conroy 141 , who was severely criticized upon his return to the United States by the orthodox American communists for his Bohemian conduct. Another friend who attended the First Congress of the Union of the Soviet Writers in Moscow in April 1932 was Walt Carmon a publisher of the left radical journal New Masses in New York. In 1931, the American Suzannie Rosenberg
An article about him was entitled The Mysterious Borodin in China New York Times, 26 December 1926. 139 Fischer, Louis. The Soviets in World Affairs, p. ix. 140 In a very contradictory book of Webbs some of his articles had been cited Sidney & Beatrice Webb, Is Soviet Communism a New Civilization?, (London: Left Review, 1936). 141 Wixson, Douglas. Worker-Writer in America. Jack Conroy and the Tradition of Midwestern Literary Radicalism. 1898-1990. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999), p. 256289.
138

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returned to the USSR and contributed to Moscow News. She first came there in 1921 through the society Friends of Soviet Russia 142 . Other old acquaintances from Chicago or from the Bohemian society of radical intellectuals in Greenwich Village appeared in the Soviet capital in the early 1930s. One of the most colourful personalities was the exquisite American poet, publicist and playwright Edward Cummings. Still as a student in Harvard at the beginning of the World War I, he was a fierce pacifist together with John Dos Passos. This attitude of his was the reason for his arrest in Paris on 21 September 1917 and his deportation in a concentration camp in Normandy. Exactly at the same time, Andreytchine and his followers from IWW were also arrested in Chicago for anti-war activities. Coming back to New York, Cummings became a prominent propagandist of modernism, Dadaism and surrealism. In 1921, he left for Paris again and in the following years he was a constant member of the glorious company of talented American intellectuals, such as Ernest Hemingway, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, etc. In 1931, E. E. Cummings set out on a six-week journey around the Soviet Union. He spent three weeks in Moscow, and the rest of the time in Kiev and Odessa. Two years later, in his typical modernist work Eimi, he described his impressions of the communist world quite different and hostile to his own anarcho-democratic ideas. The American journalist circles in Moscow featured some other talented writers and journalists. Eugene Lyons, a graduate of Columbia University, was affiliated with the communist movement in America in 19191920. According to his own words, in 1919 Lyons visited Haywood and Andreytchine in the prison Leavenworth 143 . In the early 1920s, he was a correspondent for TASS in New York. He actively defended the convicted Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. From 1928 till 1934 he was a representative of United Press in the Soviet capital. Lyons was the first journalist who succeeded in penetrating the unapproachable Kremlin walls and had the chance to take an interview directly from the enigmatic for the Western public authoritarian leader of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin. A few days later, the doyen of the American journalism in the
142 143

Rosenberg, Suzannie. A Soviet Odyssey, (Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 107. Lyons, Eugene. Assignment in Utopia, (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1991), p. 500

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USSR, Walter Duranty, was allowed to see the leader after three years of unsuccessful attempts. Eugene Lyons was among the first radical American intellectuals, who visited the Soviet Union and felt a strong disappointment with what he saw in the country of the triumphant proletariat. In 1937, he published his work Assignment in Utopia, which contained severe criticism of the Stalinist regime and of the leader personally. Later, it inspired George Orwell to write his classic futuristic anti-utopia 1984. After World War II, Lyons stood on conservative and anti-Soviet positions and was one of the editors of Readers Digest. The atmosphere during the meetings with foreign visitors, organized by Intourist representatives, was reflected in detail in Garrett Joness diary, a foreign policy advisor to the former British Prime Minister Lloyd George. Garrett visited the Soviet Union for the second time in August-September 1931, accompanying the food tycoon from Pennsylvania, Jack Heinz . In his diary notes, published anonymously a year later, he transcribed a number of conversations between visiting foreigners, staying in the imposing Moscow Hotel Metropol. Among the hotel visitors in those days were the philanthropic British aristocrat Lady Muriel Paget and the US Colonel Hugh Cooper, chief consultant of the biggest hydroenergy project in Europe, located on the Dnepr River (initially the project was called Dneprostroy, but in 1933 it was renamed into Dneprogres). Joness diary described encounters with various American experts and businessmen, and with members of the Journalists Guild in Moscow Walter Duranty, Louis Fischer, Eugene Lyons, William Chamberlin, etc. 144 During his next visit to the Soviet Union in 1933, Garrett Jones was among the first to write about the horrible famine in Ukraine, which made him persona non grata in the eyes of the Soviet authorities and OGPU. Several years later, during his visit to China, the British journalist was kidnapped and murdered by unidentified bandits. Further evidence about G. Andreytchine in that period was given by John Lovett general manager of the Michigan Manufacturers Association. As a reporter in Chicago, he knew Andreytchine from the 1918 IWW trial. In an article written after a visit to Moscow in September 1931 Lovett wrote:
144

Experiences in Russia 1931. A Diary, (Pittsburg, PA: Alton Press, 1932; reprint 2002).

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Andreytchine has had plenty of vicissitudes since he went to Russia. He has just returned from a three-year exile in Siberia [Lovetts natural error] imposed by the present Russian government because he connived with Leon Trotsky against Stalins regime. How did you like Siberia? I asked Andreytchine. The penitentiaries and county jails in the United States are hotels compared with what I have been through in Siberia. he said. I went to the Moscow office of Amtorg for certain figures which I desired on the Russian exports. I was assured by Andreytchine that I would have them within a few days. 145 At that time, the Deputy Director of Intourist maintained friendly relations with representatives of the Soviet literature, theater and cinema. He knew some of them from the beginning of the 1920s. Todays Russian publications on the Soviet culture in the period before World War II mention the name of the Bulgarian literary man Georgy Andreytchine along with the names of noted writers, playwrites and publicists. During the summer of 1931, George and Ilza Andreytchine toured North Eastern Russia. They sailed on the Volga River and passed through Nizhni Novgorod (from 1936 Gorky) and Samara (from 1935 Kuibyshev), where they stayed for a long time exactly a decade later, in the years of the German-Soviet War. During their journey, the Andreytchines visited the writer Artem Vesyoly (whose real name was Nikolai Ivanovich Kochkurov) in the small village of Sutilya by the river Vetluga. Andreytchine knew the original proletarian author from the beginning of the 1920s, when together with Vladimir Mayakovsky and other young and courageous poets he wandered around the avantgarde literary cafes in Moscow. According to the reminiscences of his contemporaries, noisy and fierce discussions were heard till late at night in Vesyolys house on Tverskaya Street in those years. Brought up in Samara, the young anarchist became a volunteer in the Red Army during the Civil War years, which he described in his bestseller Russia, Washed in Blood. He belonged to the uncompromising proletarian literary organizations Pereval and RAPP, whose ideological programs were an eclectic combination of Tolstoyist ideas and revolutionary phraseology. At the time, when the Andreytchines visited Artem Vesyoly and his third wife Lyudmila Borisevich in the village of Sutilya, the writer had just returned
145

Lovett, John L. Women do heavy work in rebuilding Russia, Los Angeles Times, September 25, 1931, p. 5

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from a sailing. He had traveled hundreds of miles along the Volga River, collecting impressions for his future novel about the Cossack Ataman from the 16th century, Ermak the explorer of Siberia (Gulyay Volga, 1932). Artem and George continued to maintain their friendly relations later in Moscow 146 . In the spring of 1932 few US cultural delegations visited Moscow. Amongst them was an Afro-American group, headed by a Harlem poet Langston Hughes. He stayed in the Soviet Union a year, traveling and exploring different places with the support of Intourist guides. In April 1932 a famous playrighter and a liberal humanist Elmer Rice also arrived in Moscow with his son Robert. Seventy years later the critics continued to assign him a distinguished place in the history of American drama. In 1929 Rice was awarded the Pulitzer Price for the play Street Scene. Samuel Goldwyn made a movie based on the play which became one of the most matchible of the early talkies. A couple of years later Street Scene was turned into a hit Brodway musical with mix of Jazz, Blues and Spirituals, where the lyrics were written by Langston Hughes. The next Rice play Counsellor-at-Law was a greater success at Broadway in 1931-1932 running for 412 performances. In his memoirs thirty years later Elmer Rice related that while in Moscow he visited a gala performance at Bolshoi Theatre in company with George Andreytchine. Rice wrote with symphaty about his talks with the Bulgarian, mentioning his attractive personality. 147 In his letter to Trotsky from 26 May 1928, Andreytchine expressed his assumption on Herbert Hoovers possible more active and realistic position towards the Soviet Union after his election for the President of the United States. This idea was confirmed three years later after the USA government managed to overcome the most severe consequences of the great economic crisis from 1929. In 19311932, President Hoover discussed confidentially with State Secretary Henry Stimson the adoption of a practical economic approach to the USSR through the development of commerical relations to create favorable conditions for the recognition of the Soviet government. Stimson was one of the most influential American statesmen from the early 20th century. Before World War I he was appointed a Secretary of War in President William Tafts administration and
146

, ( ), , , , , 1990, 3, . 135154. 147 Rice, Elmer, Minority Report. An Autobiography, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963), p. 301-302.

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completed his successful career again as a Secretary of War in the governments under Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman in the years of World War II. The prominent American banker William Lancaster, Director of National City Bank in New York, arrived in Moscow at the beginning of June 1932. This was not only one of the most influential banks in the United States, but it held a considerable part of the Russian debt from the years preceding the Bolshevik Revolution. This debt represented a delicate topic in the discussion on a possible establishment of diplomatic relations between the two great nations. The first official representatives to meet Lancaster in the Soviet capital were the Deputy Director of Gosplan, Valery Mezhlauk 148 and George Andreytchine. The archive of the President of the Russian Federation has preserved Andreytchines comprehensive report on his talks with the American banker. Lancaster informed George that before his departure for the USA he had an important conversation with his old friend Henry Stimson. The Secretary of State unofficially advised him to inform Moscow that if the Soviet government raised the question of resuming the diplomatic relations between the two countries, this would not be received with a hasty refusal. Further on, Lancaster mentioned that the issue of normalizing the bilateral relations could be solved with a positive outcome after the Presidential elections at the end of 1932 only if the Soviet government promised not to make communist propaganda on the territory of the United States and demonstrated readiness to settle the issue of the Tsarists debt 149 . Although Josef Stalin was in Sochi, Crimea, at that time, he was informed about the talks with Lancaster in due course by Lazar Kaganovich and Vyacheslav Molotov the two most trusted by the leader Party functionaries from the so-called close Stalinist circle in Politburo of the Bolshevik Party. In a detailed letter to Stalin, dated 6 June 1932, Kaganovich announced: The Lancaster matter is not over. The first discussion was inconclusive, he did not make any statesments and mostly listende instead,
After Valerian Kuibyshevs death in 1935 Mezhlauk became Deputy Prime Minister; however, he was arrested in December 1937 and received a death centence during the Radek-Pyatakov trial. 149 Davies, R. W. /ed./, The Stalin-Kaganovich correspondence, 193136, (New Haven [Conn.]; Yale University Press, 2003), p. 111.
148

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but then yesterday we received [a report] from the Amtorg representative in Moscow, Andreichin (incidentally he is not especially trustworthy), on Lankasters discussion with him. It is clear from this discussion that Lancaster is seeking something and quite persistently. We resolved that Mezhlauk should meet with him again and hear him out without getting into a discussion of the subtance of the issues and without making any promises. I am sending you both letters, and I will write you about the results of Mezhlauks new discussion. In view of the fact that something substantial is possible here, please let us know how we should priceed from here. 150 . Josef Stalin perceived the visit of the American banker quite seriously as a demonstration of a new approach of the US government to the Soviet Union. In a cable to Molotov and Kaganovich, dated 9 June, he noted: [Andreichins] memorandum and the second interview with Mezhlauk attest that the question of recognizing the USSR and offering us credit loan is ripening in America, or has already ripened 151 . Any further negotiations with the American banker failed, however, since his Russian hosts understood that he had received quite limited authorization from Washington and New York. In mid-July he left Moscow without any tangible results, and his visit was not officially covered in the Soviet Union, or in the United States. Another important visit to Moscow at the same time was William Bullitts visit. In the spring of 1919, authorized by President Woodrow Wilson, Bullitt performed a confidential mission to Soviet Russia with the purpose to study the conditions for recognition of Lenins government. He was born in the family of Philadephia aristocrats. He studied in Yale and Harvard. On the eve of the World War I, he visited three European capitals, where the world history was forged after the Congress of Vienna (1815) London, Berlin and Saint Petersburg. Bullitt became popular in Washington with his journalist comments and joined the close friendly circle of President Wilson. In December 1917, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of State of the United States and accompanied the President at the Peace Conference in Paris. After the failure of his mission in Soviet Russia and the disappointment with the Versailles trreaties dictate, he resigned and settled in New York, where he became close with the radical intellectuals from Greenwich Village. In the 1920s, he lived mostly in Europe, but after his divorce
150 151

Ibid, p. 120. Ibid, p. 112.

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from Louise Bryant, he returned to Washington. In 1932, he was actively involved in Franklin Roosevelts presidential campaign. Presumably, George Andreytchine and William Bullitt met in 1919. This was confirmed by one of Bullitts biographers without defining the exact time of their first encounter in New York 152 . The personal records of a Louise Bryants biographer also contain information about meetings with George Andreytchine. Probably, this happened after Georges release from the prison in Leavenworth in June 1919 153 . It was Andreytchine who accompanied William Bullitt in July 1932 to John Reeds grave near Lenins mausoleum in the Kremlin. Eugene Lyons, a New York Times correspondent, recalled this visit: Sentimental to the core, Bullitt felt he could not leave Moscow without placing flowers on the grave of his friend John Reed, whose widow, Louise Bryant, he married some time after Reeds death. Reeds ashes were buried on Red Square being surrounded by an iron fence There was the eternal problem of obtaining a propusk, a permit to go behind the fence. George Andreytchine finally elicited the propusk. Early one morning, Bullitt, Andreytchine, and I drove to Red Square. Two of us watched from the distance while Bullitt, carrying a large wreath, walked solemny toward Reeds grave. We saw him place the flowers on the stone and stand there with bowed head for many minutes. When he returned to the car, tears were rolling down his cheeks and his features were drawn with sorrow. 154 . During this visit to Moscow, William Bullitt discussed with his Soviet partners the key issue of regulating the official relations between the two countries. Before his trip to the Soviet Union, he had informed some close friends of the Democratic Party presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt about his intentions to clarify the future of the Soviet-American relations. The Soviet side carefully studied what the American guest said. In a letter to Stalin from 12 June 1932, Lazar Kaganovich stated: A number of new facts show that indeed in America the matter of recognizing the USSR is taking or has already taken shape. I am sending
152

Brownell, Will. So Close to Greatness: a biography of William C. Bullitt, (New York: Macmillan, 1987), p. 157. 153 Tamiment Library, Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York, Virginia Gardner Papers, Box 5, Folder 8. 154 Eugene Lyons, Assignment in Utopia, p. 500.

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you a memorandum from Radek and Andreichin on their discussions with Bullitt, quite a major political figure, and with the engineer Pope. The memoranda are very interesting and show that the issue of recognizing the USSR is being framed more and more realistically from various standpoints But the question now arises: is this enough? Shouldnt we sound out some issues in America itself? We await your advice about this.155 Right after his return to Washington in early August 1932, William Bullitt informed Franklin Roosevelt in writing about the talks held. In early October, just a month before the presidential elections, the two of them had a profound conversation regarding the political situation in Europe. Malcolm Muggeridge, who called himself an adventurer, Tolstoyist and an ardent supporter of socialism, arrived with his wife in Moscow on 16 September 1932. A prominent novelist, satirist and a Christian philosopher, decades later he was declared one of the most talented British masters of the fine word of the 20th century. Later, in one of his works, he ironically compared the generation at that time to pilgrims from America and from the Fabian society in Great Britain. Two days after his arrival to the Soviet capital, Muggeridge met George Andreytchine in the home of Alfred Cholerton a correspondent for the British News Chronicle. Cholertons wife was Russian (Ekaterina Georgievna) and he was known among the foreign journalists in Moscow for his gloomy sense of humor and his ironic attitude to the Soviet reality. One of his famous aphorisms was In Russia everything is true, excepting the facts 156 . On the following day, Muggeridge and his wife Kitty had lunch in Hotel Metropol with the US journalist William Chamberlin and his wife Sonia - a Russian Jew. At their suggestion, the Muggeridges moved to the Chamberlins apartment on Borisoglebski Pereulok in downtown Moscow. The house became a meeting place for many Americans. The British author noted in his diary, and later in his memoirs, that George Andreytchine was a frequent visitor to the home of William and Sonia Chamberlin. Other regular guests were the doyen of American journalism Walter Duranty and the correspondent for Baltimore Sun and Nation, Louis Fischer.
155 156

The Stalin-Kaganovich correspondence, 193136, p. 130. Hunter, Ian. Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography, (Vancouver: Regent College Publishers, 1999), p. 79.

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On 20 September 1932, Muggeridge visited Andreytchine in his Amtorg office. Twenty days later, a group of Western journalists led by Andreytchine left for Ukraine. Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bulgarian traveled together on the train for Kharkov and had a possibility to hold extensive conversations. Forty years later, the British writer and philosopher mentioned this journey in his memoirs: I shared my apartment with a charming Bulgarian named Andreychin whom I had met at one of Sonia's salons. As we lay in our berths we talked together through much of the night. With the blinds up, we could look out of the window at a countryside now bathed in moonlight, most wonderfully still and serene, with just an occasional little cluster of lights coming into view and then disappearing. Andreychin had lived in America, where he had been a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies). Describing to me with great zest and delight the antics they got up to with a view of undermining the economy of the State, he spoke of it all as though it had been an undergraduate frolic in his golden youth; something so delightful and gay and blameless that he could not hope ever again to recapture its spirit. Occasionally he broke out into one of their Wobbly songs, as it might have been a boating or a drinking song at some festive campus fraternity gathering, rather than a call to workers to rise up in their might and fury, and death to all bosses... Already he had done one stint in a labour camp. "But surely, I said, what you were striving after in America you've got here. Yes, he replied, doubtfully; it must be so. 157 . In his Russian Diary, Muggeridge wrote in detail about his talks with Andreytchine. He has left one of the most penetrating psychological portraits of the Bulgarian from those years. In his diary notes from 11 October 1932, he pointed out: I looked across at Andreychine, while he was asleep and thought how utterly unsuitable he was to file on important administrative post. These adventurers revolutionaries are, in a way, aristocrats. Dashing, full of vitality, bolding nowhere in particular. They are against society because society offers them no scope for their particular talents But are they happy? I doubt it. Whatever they may profess, they have little or no symphaty with the tyranny and puritanic theory of the Soviet Government. They do not find the bare hand life amiable for them in Soviet Russia congenial Thus I felt a sudden wave of symphaty with Andreychine. 158 .
157

Muggeridge, Malcolm. Chronicles of Wasted Time: The Green Stick, (Washington D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1989), p. 247. 158 The Diaries of Malcolm Muggeridge. Like it Was, (New York: Morrow, 1982), p. 2829.

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On 13 October 1932, Muggeridge wrote in his diary that on the way back to Moscow he shocked poor Andreychine with his comment on the theory of Trinity Marx, Lenin and Stalin. In his own insights after his first contact with the reality in the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks could exchange the dead tree of the European civilization for new civilization. If they were unsuccessful, however, they would leave only a dead desert behind. A month later, Muggeridge and his wife Kitty enjoyed together with Andreytchine the superb performance of The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov in Stanislawskys theater 159 . On 25 December 1932, a group of friends got together around the Christmas table in William and Sonia Chamberlins home. Muggeridge wrote in his diary that the dinner was attended by the correspondent for New York Herald Tribune Ralph Barnes, as well as by George Andreytchine and his wife Ilza. The observant Brit went on drawing the psychological portrait of the intriguing Bulgarian. In his opinion, George did not conceal his doubts about the progress of the Stalinist regime. The description of their conversation regarding Andreytchines stay in Great Britain in 1924 was of particular interest: [Andreychine] and his wife look back on the time they lived in Hampstead, when he was attached to the London Embassy, as a golden period. Hampstead! A little flat! Taking the baby out in a park in the morning. In a way, it is queer to find so ardent, and in the past, active a revolutionary, with such essentially bourgeois conceptions of happiness. 160 For the cosmopolitan Brit, the nostalgic return of the Bulgarian to the years of the Bohemian youth in New York and Chicago and his short stay in London was simply an expression of petty bourgeois feelings. At the same time, he mentioned conscientiously two or three times in his diary the uncertainty Andreytchine felt from the drastic inconsistency between his illusions and the Soviet reality. The two of them met for the last time at a Soviet Foreign Office party on 7 January 1933. On the next morning,
The Diaries of Malcolm Muggeridge, op. cit., p. 30; The Very Best of Malcolm Muggeridge, (Vancouver: Regent College Publications, 2003), p. 8788. 160 The Diaries of Malcolm Muggeridge, op. cit., p. 57.
159

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Muggeridge wrote only one significant phrase: Andreychine [was] very pale and anxious 161 . The journey of the British publicist in Ukraine in the early 1933 destroyed all his initial illusions about the Soviet reality and he left Moscow in June the same year totally disappointed by the Stalinist regime. He was the first foreign journalist to reveal in his reports for the British newspapers Morning Post and Manchester Guardian in the summer and autumn of 1933 (in contrast to the publications written by the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism, Walter Duranty, in New York Times and by Louis Fischer in Nation) the truth about the famine in Ukraine and the horrifying policy of total control by OGPU and VCP (b). He was the one to compare Lenin to Peter the Great and Stalin to Ivan Grozni and to say that if Louis V had claimed L'tat, c'est moi, for Stalin it would be more appropriate to state Le people, c'est moi. The journalist Palph Barnes, who attended the Christmas dinner at the Chamberlins and was mentioned in Muggeridges diary, was at that time among the aces of American journalism in Moscow 162 . In May 1932, he was honored to receive a personal response from Stalin to his inquiries. Along with this, he was one of the few foreigners who were allowed to approach closely the leaders family. It was Barnes, who informed for the first time the American readers about the life of Stalins second wife, Nadezhda Alilueva, whom he met several months before her suicide in November 1932. The following year, the American told his readers overseas about his visit to School No 25 in the Soviet capital, where he talked to the fifth grade student Vasily Stalin, the younger son of the Kremlins dictator. On 20 March 1933, Stalins new responses to Ralph Barnes inquiries were published with regard to the sensational arrest of English technicians from Metro Vickers Company, who were accused of harmful acts. At that time, the Soviet government was encouraged by certain signs from the administration of the new US President Franklin Roosevelt to establish diplomatic relations between the two great states. This was the
161 162

Ibid, p. 62. Mahoney, Barbara Dispatches and Dictators: Ralph Barnes for the Herald Tribune, (Oregon State University Press 2002). Barnes was later a correspondent in Berlin and London and died in an air crash fluing over Yugoslavia in 1940.

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reason for the dictator to be unusually polite and friendly in his answers to the New York Herald Tribune correspondent: Your concern about the security of the American citizens in the Soviet Union is totally groundless. The USSR is one of the few states in the world where the acts of national hatred or unfriendly attitude to the foreigners are persecuted by law. 163 Less than two years had passed when in the bacchanalia of mass arrests one of the main convictions was unregulated contacts with foreigners. In an editorial in March 1938, the French edition Journal de Moscu raised the schizophrenic appeal that every foreigner in the Soviet Union was a spy and an enemy. Another famous traveller and adventurer, who visited the Soviet Union at that time, was the American national hero from the 1920s Charles Lindbergh, who performed the first direct trans-Atlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927. Soon after the tragedy in the young family Lindbergh (the kidnapping and murder of their young son in the summer of 1933), Charles and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh flew over Greenland, Iceland and Scotland to Leningrad. The US pilot was welcomed with enthusiasm in Moscow and Leningrad during their one-week sojourn in late September 1933. Amongst the welcoming party was the Bulgarian Andreytchine. An archive photograph shows Charles Lindbergh and George Andreytchine talking in a friendly manner and smiling at each other 164 . As it was already mentioned, according to journalist Bill Lawrence Andreytchine knew well the pilots father the Congressman from Minnesota, Charles August Lindbergh - Sr. Anne Morrow Lindberghs diary, published forty years later, shows that the famous American family had mixed feelings about their visit. On the one hand, they were moved by the hospitality and were interested in the enthusiasm of the Soviet aviation fans, united in the public organization Osoviahim. On the other hand, they could not help noticing the monotony and boredom of the surrounding daily routine. Probably, these details were more impressive for the daughter of the former US ambassador to Mexico,
163 164

, . , . 11, (: , 1951), . 217. , 24, . 12485.

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who was used to an opulent lifestyle 165 . In August 1938, Charles Lindbergh visited the Soviet Union again. This time he was totally disappointed by the psychological atmosphere and the low living standard in the Stalinist Empire. Lindbergh kept expressing his strong Anti-Soviet attitude till the end of his life 166 . After the new administration under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office, the governments of the United States and the USSR intensified the unofficial probing contacts between their representatives aiming at studying the possibilities to establish bilateral diplomatic relations. One of the first important visits to Moscow in this context was the visit of Colonel Raymond Robins. He was a prominent American liberal from Chicago, who ran for a senator from Illinois on the ticket of the Progressive Party in 1914. His wife, Margaret, was for a long time the Chairwoman of the National Womens Trade Union League with an office in Chicago. In June 1917, Raymond Robins was the leader of the American Red Cross mission to Russia and he witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution. He had a number of encounters with Lenin and Trotsky. In his reports to Washington, he insisted on recognizing the new government of Soviet Russia. After his return to the United States, Robins supported the campaign of Senator William Borah from Idaho at the beginning of the 1920s for the recognition of Vladimir Lenins government. Raymond Robins arrived in Moscow for the second time at the end of April 1933. On 13 May 1933, he was received in the Kremlin by Josef Stalin. During his conversation with Stalin, the American noted that he was not an official representative of Roosevelts government. At the same time, he expressed hopes that first-hand information could help to settle the bilateral relations and to launch cooperation between the two countries. As a matter of fact, before his departure for Europe, Robins held a lengthy talk with President Roosevelt in this context. During his one-month sojourn in the Soviet Union, he had an intensive program that included visits to industrial and economic enterprises, schools and universities, and encounters with many official Soviet representatives. In a monography
Lindbergh, Anne Morrow. Locked Rooms and Open Doors. Diaries and Letters. 19331935, (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1974), . 116120. 166 Leonard Mosly, Lindbergh: A Biography, (New York: Dover Publishers, 2000). Linberghs pro-German statements in 1939-1940 damaged in some way his image of a National Hero. After Pearl Harbor attacks, however, he contributed in cooperation with Henry Ford for the development of modern aircraft buildup as a significant part of the US national defense industry.
165

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on Raymond Robins life, the author particularly stressed the importance of Robins talks with George Andreytchine during his stay in Moscow in May 1933. Andreytchine presented every advantage of skilled knowledge of people and places and able interpretations for conversations, which were of interest to the guest 167 . On 6 August 1933 another renowed personality one of the former leading figures of the Progressive Party and a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, described as an iconic spokesmen for the middle class America, leaved on a Soviet steamer Great Britain departing for the USSR. William Allen White, a publisher from Emporia, Kansas, and a Pulitzer Prise winner, was met in Leningrad by the head of Intourist George Andreytchine. Few months later a representative of Intourist office in New York sent to him a message from Andreytchine accompanied with Whites picture, made by the Bulgarian at the Roof garden of Hotel Evropa in Leningrad 168 . After two weeks in Leningrad and Moscow, William Allan White left for Warsaw. The US diplomatic representative in Poland sent on 30 August 1933 report to the Secretary of State about talks with his influential guest. According to the dispatch: Mr. White stated that he was very well treated in Russia and have had an enjoyable stay in that country. The head of the Intourist office was particularly agreeable and made an especial effort to make Mr. Whites stay in Leningrad pleased. He informed Mr. White that he had been a reader of the Emporia Gazette for two years. Responding to the question where he had lived in Kansas, he replied that he was spending two years in the penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. 169 The information from US embassy in Warsaw informed Washington as well about the categorical view of William Allen White in favor of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union because of the stable situation of the Soviet government. He did not forsee any drastic changes in Russia, so, the continuing reluctance to recognize the Soviet regime could make the American government to begin to look
Salzman, Neil. Reform and Revolution: Life and Times of Raymond Robins, (Kent State University Press, 1991), p. 356 168 Kansas State Historical Society Records, Item No. 226040. 169 NARA, RG 59, Records of the Department of State relating to the internal affairs of the Soviet Union, 1930-1939, 861.5017. Living Conditions. 701-808-861.5032/169, p. 29-32.
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foolish. Another argument was that the recognition will help business with Soviet Russia. In the fall of 1933, the US government finally adopted a policy of recognizing the USSR. Andreytchines old friend, William Bullitt, played the key role in formulating the official USA position. On 4 October 1933, he sent a memorandum to the US Secretary of State. It contained the main prerequisites to be submitted to the Soviet representatives in the course of discussions on settling the issue of bilateral relations. A very important preliminary condition was the commitment of the Soviet government not to conduct communist propaganda on the territory of the Soviet Union. At the proposal of Secretary of State Cordel Hull, William Bullitt took part in the negotiations for establishing diplomatic relations between the USA and the USSR in November 1933. The talks were completed successfully after the Head of the Soviet delegation, Maxim Litvinov, signed a letter stating that the Soviet government would officially take the responsibility to fulfil the preliminary American conditions. On the first day after setting up diplomatic relations between the two states, Bullitt was appointed the first official envoy of the United States to the Soviet Union. The US Ambassadors Friend

On 8 December 1933, the first US Ambassador to the USSR, William Bullitt, arrived in Moscow from Paris. Shortly after his arrival, he received a message from Andreytchine saying: My illness prevents me from shaking your hand, and helping you in your first steps here (and I could render you some service for our long and lasting friendship). A few days later, William Bullitt left his own message to Andreytchine at the reception of Hotel National: My dear George, I was delighted to get your note, as I had hoped to see you as soon as I reached Moscow and wondered where you were. I hope

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most sincerely your illness has not been serious and that we may consume some caviar and vodka together soon. Yours always, William C. Bullitt 170 On 20 December 1933, Bullitt had a meeting with Stalin in the Kremlin. Soon afterwards he departed for Washington, leaving alone in Moscow the third secretary of the Embassy George Kennan 171 . Returning back in March 1934, Bullitt had already formed his team of young American diplomats, including alongside Kennan also Loy Henderson, Charles Bohlen, Elbridge Durbrow and Charles Thayer most of whom would make a successful diplomatic career in the next decades. In his Witness to History memoirs written forty years later, Charles Bohlen would recall the atmosphere of their arrival in Moscow: As our train drew into Moscow station on March 8, 1934, Ambassador Bullitt, noting a band on the platform, put on his hat and overcoat and prepared for a small welcoming ceremony. But when he stepped down from the train, he saw that the band, instead of being opposite his compartment, was facing the third-class cars. The musicians were there not to welcome him but to greet a delegation of Communist women arriving for the celebration of Red International Womens Day. The only Russians meeting the Ambassador and his staff were the Soviet Chief of Protocol and George Andreychin, an old friend of Bullitts. This trivial incident turned out to be a symbol of Bullitts missionthe great expectation and the dashed hopes 172 . A day after their arrival, the US Ambassador received a message from his friend George Andreytchine, with few snapshots of the welcoming of the group. The message also informed: Tomorrow night we are going to see Prince Ygor. Would you want to include of your crowd? Let me know please.
In 20042005 William C. Bullit & Louise Bryant personal records have been delivered by their daughter Anne for temporary storage at the Yale University library. In the beginning of 2006 we found in those records a file with Bullit Andreytchines correspondence William C. Bullitt Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, Manuscript Group 112, Series I, Box 2, Folder 41. All cited letters were used in this book after receiving a special permission by Anne Bullits legal advisers from Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP in New York. 171 Foreign Service Journal, Washington, February 2004, p. 18; George Kennan, Memoirs. 1925-1950, (Boston: Little, Brown , 1967), p. 58. 172 Bohlen, Charles Witness to History 19291969, (New York: Norton, 1973), p. 14.
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Ever affectionately George Right after his arrival in Moscow, the first American Ambassador to the USSR launched an ambitious reconstruction of the building, where the US diplomatic mission has been accommodated until today Spaso House. The Soviet Foreign Ministry appointed Andreytchine to be in direct contact with the US Ambassador. Soon, he met the young diplomats from Bullitts team George Kennan, Charles Bohlen, Charles Thayer 173 and the rest. Andreytchine rendered constant assistance in the refurbishing of the old Embassy building; however, he was not among the US Ambassadors 500 guests (including some of Stalins later victims, such as Buharin, Radek and Tuhachevsky) at the splendid spring reception on 23 April 1935. Mihail Bulgakov, who attended the reception, described in his own way the extravagant event in his masterpiece The Master and Margarita. According to some Russian authors like Alexander Etkind, Bullitt was the prototype of his main character Voland. Bullitt gave rather interesting characterization of George Andreytchine in a personal letter to President Roosevelt, dated 13 April 1934: My dear Mr. President, I have not burdened you with letters because I know you get too many from ambassadors. But I wish so much that I could talk with you tonight that I am seizing the excuse of a couple of matters that cannot go into dispatches to the Department in order to give myself the sensation that I am not utterly cut off from you. First a pardon, which would not only give me a deep personal satisfaction but also would greatly strengthen our position in Moscow. George Andreytchine has been appointed by the Foreign Office to look out for all the wants of this Embassy. He saved our tempers and almost our lives two or three times a day. He is one of the loveliest human beings I have ever known a sort of Jack Reed in Macedonian terms. Some day he should be the Soviet Ambassador in Washington. He has been a close friend of mine for years and his feeling for the United States is deep and genuine In Moscow, Andreytchine served in the Foreign Office and at other government jobs. Trotsky was his intimate friend, and when Trotsky was
In the summer of 1934 Thayers sister came to visit her brother in Moscow. Soon she married Chip Bohlen. Half a century later their own daughter Avis Bohlen became a US Ambassador to Bulgaria (19961999), and Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control (1999-2002).
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exiled Andreytchine was imprisoned in Siberia. About two years ago he was released. Since then he has been acquiring gradually the position to which his brain and personality entitle him. He is deeply anxious to be pardoned, and I can think of no other act which would cost us so little and win so much good with here for you and for me. In a letter from April 23rd, the President of the USA informed his Ambassador: Dear Bill, In regard to your bail-jumping roommate, I am sending that part of your letter in confidence to the Attorney General and I will let you know if we can do anything about it. Perhaps if we collected the amount of the bail the Government might feel that the offense had been at least in part expiated! After he received the written statements on the Andreytchine case from the Attorney General Homer Cummings and Assistant Secretary of State R. Walton Moore, on 21 May 1934 Franklin Roosevelt sent his Ambassador part of the documentation concerning Andreytchines show trial. The President of the United States expressed his regret that at the current political moment he was not in a position to cancel the sentence 174 : Dear Bill, I enclose the correspondence in regard to the Andreytchine case Sorry we cannot accommodate him for the moment! As ever yours, FDR The US Ambassador and George Andreytchine sustained their friendly relations and they were often seen playing tennis on the diplomatic courts in Moscow 175 . Even the old IWW activists in the United States learned about the close contacts between the US Ambassador and the Bulgarian. In his memoirs, Ralph Chaplin mentioned that he was
The documentation has been preserved at President Franklin Roosevelt records Franklin D. Roozevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y., Franklin Roozevelt Presidential Papers, Official Fle 1110: Andreytchine. 175 In 1998 . in a screenplay ( , , ) a dialogue between Andreytchine and Bullit about the theatrical life in Moscow during a tennis game was reproduced. The US Ambassador was also an ardent propagandist of baseball and polo among the Soviet political and cultural elites Yale University Manuscripts & Archives, Record Group 112, Box 180, Folder 11, Files 71127117.
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surprised to see in 1934 a postcard, showing George Andreytchine smiling at an official dinner with William Bullitt and other distinguished guests 176 . We found an interesting document from that time in the personal archive of the writer Edna St. Vincent Millay, kept in the Library of Congress in Washington. In an extremely cordial letter to Edna and her husband Eugene (Gene) Boisivein from 23 April 1934, Ambassador William Bullitt wrote how much he had missed their company in Moscow. At the end of the letter, there was a short note with Andreytchines handwriting: Dear Gene and Edna, Do come, I implore you! George 177 Remembering the atmosphere around the US Embassy in Moscow in those days, Charles Bohlen underlined in particular the contacts of the US diplomats with two persons the writer Mihail Bulgakov, and George Andreytchine: Another Soviet citizen whom we saw a good deal was friend, George Andreychin. His dark face and bushy gray hair fitted the stereotype of the radical. But Andreychin, although he believed theoretically in the Revolution, was not a man of violence; in fact, he had a gentle, almost sweet nature. He was articulate and had much to talk about [] In our early days in Moscow, Soviet authorities assigned Andreychin, who spoke English perfectly, to be the companion of Americans. 178 . Bohlens personal records in the Library of Congress keep the extensive reminiscences of the former US Ambassador to the USSR. Some of them have not been included in his book of memoirs, published in 1973; therefore they are new to the wide public. In one of these unpublished drafts, we came across another interesting description of Georges personality, written by the famous American diplomat years later: He was a most attractive human being, with a very warm heart and a keen brain and a very idealistic nature, and I think his fate is symptomatic of
Chaplin, Ralph. Op. Cit., p. 335; Time, Vol. XXVI, No. 10, September 2, 1935. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Manuscript Division, MSS 32 920, Papers of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Box 75, William C. Bullitt. 178 Bohlen, Charles. Witness to History, p. 2223.
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many Europeans who were caught up in the attractions of Communism at the time and suffered for their illusions 179 . George Kennan, one of the most respectful American diplomats of the 20th century, wrote in his memoirs about the situation in the first months after the establishment of the US diplomatic mission in the Soviet Union. In his book of memoirs from 1967, the veteran of the American Sovietology in the US State Department noted: I bear that pleasant winter [of 1934] in memory as an example of what Soviet-American relations might, in other circumstances, have been 180 . As part of his official contacts with foreign representatives, Andreytchine visited other diplomatic missions in the Soviet capital, participated in public gatherings, organized by the Soviet Foreign Ministry (Narcomindel). Years later, he reminded of two Western diplomats French and English, who were extremely stingy (skinflints in his words) and provoked ironic comments among the diplomatic corps in Moscow. There was even a scandal at a reception in the Japanese legacy. The guests noticed with astonishment that the French diplomatic official Jean Erbat was putting in his pocket some silverware, provided by the diplomatic mission of the Japanese Empire 181 . Explicit evidence of the continuing cordial and friendly relations between the US Ambassador and George Andreytchine in those days was their personal correspondence from the summer of 1934. On August 13th, for example, William Bullitt wrote from Odessa to George in Moscow: Dear George: I have been hoping that you might find to come down here for a holiday Your friend Dementieff has organized the hotel so well that it is, to my mind, one of the pleasantest hostelries that I know in the world. I shall certainly be back in Moscow before the end of the month and I hope that you will not be somewhere piloting some traveling Englishman! The Amercian Embassy needs you much more than the visiting Britishers,
Library of Congress, Washington DC, Manuscript Division, The Papers of Charles E. Bohlen, Container 10 Witness to History drafts, p. 2728. 180 Kennan, George. Memoirs. 19251950, Little, Brown, Boston, 1967, p. 60. 181 , , 1, .. 535, . 6162.
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A couple of days later, the US Ambassador received a response from his old Bulgarian friend: Dear Bill, Your letter made me very happy; first, because it tells me that you are enjoying yourself and second, that you have not forgotten me. I am missing you terribly A young woman arrived a few days ago from America. She knows Marguerite Lehand 182 Miss Lehand had been planning to come to Moscow and the damned New Yorker spoilt it all. She tells me that my name is known there and that some day my case may be taken up and perhaps you and I may play a few games together in Washington and New York. Preferable with Mrs. Hare and Charlie Chaplin. Dont be jealous of the Britishers: they can never alienate my affection for you. H. G. Wells was no fun at all. Soon Will Rogers 183 is coming and I expect to hear many an amusing story from him. Please be nice to my old and very dear friend Dr. Stoycoff who was my playmate in Chicago. He is a reticent but charming fellow. I want you to ask Dementiev to wire me the date of your arrival so that I could come to embrace you at the station. Affectionately and in haste Ever your devoted George Will Rogers, who was mentioned in the letter, was a very popular American humorist and a film star in the first half of the 20th century. In the summer of 1934, after hosting the Seventh Annual Academy Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles (known as the Oscar Awards), the actor started a trans-Atlantic tour. While traveling, he crossed the whole territory of the Soviet Union from Siberia to Moscow. Next year, the famous American actor and author of humorous newspaper comments and radiosketches died in a plane crash in Alaska 184 .
Marguerite Missy Lehand a longtime private secretary and close friend to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 183 Will Rogers a very popular US humorist and film star of the first part of the XX Century. In the summer of 1934, after hosting the 7th Annual Academy Awards Ceremony at Los Angeles he made a globe-girdling tour, crossing as well by train Siberia to Moscow. Next year he died in a plane crash in Alaska. Find more in: P. OBrien, Will Rogers: Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom, (Philadelphia: Kessinger Publishers, 2005). 184 - : P. OBrien, Will Rogers: Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom, Kessinger Publishers, Philadelphia, 2005.
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Besides Will Rogers, in 1934 another famous American comic visited the USSR. In December 1933, the literary and theater critic from New York Times Alexander Woolcot sent a telegram from Moscow to his good acquiantance Harpo Marx, proposing a visit to Moscow and a performance of his pantomime program in the Soviet capital. The actor one of the four Marx brothers, who had conquered the world cinematographic and variety show theaters, had recently achieved success with the last of the series of silver films Duck Soup. Initially, Harpo encountered difficulties after his arrival in Moscow in May 1934. At the border, he was treated with suspicion, and his artistic commitments and partner actors were not clear at all. In addition, he was constantly escorted by an official, which annoyed the independent artist very much. Only after the personal interference of the US Ambassador Bullitt and the Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov, things were immediately settled. It is absolutely logical to assume that George Andreytchine was also among the people involved with the tour of the famous US actor, a good friend of Charlie Chaplins and his competitor for the film audience. Even before his first performance, Harpo had phenomenal success the ovations did not stop for over ten minutes. The first one-man show of the American actor in the Soviet Union continued for six weeks, every night in a crowded auditorium! Shortly after his return from Moscow, Harpo Marx and his brothers Grucho and Chico created the next comedy film masterpiece One Night in the Opera 185 . In mid-July 1934 an old Georges friend from his Bohemia days in New York the famous feminist Margaret Sanger arrived in Moscow with a group of American travellers 186 . She was accompanied by her son Grant, a medical student in Cornell University. The primary goal of her visit to Soviet Union and other European countries was to examine the medical conditions in regard to the issue of securing free birth control for those females who had their reasons to choose abortion. Later on she acknowledged that had received an opportunity to see "anything that I asked to see and many things I was not supposed to see", including dispensaries, hospitals, clinics, and Institutes for the Protection of Motherhood in Lenigrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, Odessa, and several smaller
Marx, Harpo. Harpo Speaks. (New York: Random House, 1961), p. 317318. Among them was one of the best-known Evangelist missionary and writer Sherwood Eddy, who had visited the Soviet Union a few times earlier (in 1926 and 1929). Sherwwod Eddy had published meanwhile
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cities and towns. George Andreytchine was totally arranged in those days with the visit of Herbert Wells and had no much time to be with Margaret. Before leaving Moscow she left on 28 July a message for Andreytchine. Several months later, after viewing a movie about Margaret Sangers travel to Volga River, the Bulgarian sent on 23 January 1935 a very emotional letter to her, where he wrote: I know you feel very strongly about this matter and your opinion is very valuable to all of us. I hope you made contacts with practical people engaged in birth control work in the Soviet Union and that they would put our case before you in its proper light and proportion You cant imagine how happy I was to see you and Grant after 18 years of separation and I regret that I could not devote a little more time to your interests in Moscow and the country in general. 187 In 1934, a popular Afro-American singer visited Moscow for the first time. He became a frequent visitor to the Soviet Union in the next decades. Paul Robson, the son of a Prinston priest, was a popular sportsman and artist from his early age. In 1919, he started work as a football coach in Columbia University in New York. At the same time, he played in Eugene ONeills plays in Provincetown Theater. He also became popular as a performer of Afro-American folklore songs, and during his recitals he often sang the famous ballad about the IWW bard, Joe Hill. When he arrived from Paris to Moscow in 1934, the well-known film director Sergei Eisenstein offered him the main role in his new film about the national hero of Haiti, Toussaint Louverture. This project, however, was never realized. His public support to the Soviet Union brought him a lot of trouble later in the years of McCarthyism, when his passport was confiscated at the insistence of FBI. At the end of his life, in the mid-1970s, the popular singer and representative of the Harlem Rennaissance Paul Robson came down with manic depression and tried to commit a suicide twice 188 . The letter to the US Ambassador, dated September 1934, showed that Andreytchine took care of the visit to the Soviet Union of his Chicago friend Dr. Christo
two brochures about the good and evil in Soviet Russia, while in 1932 wrote also a personal letter to Joseph Stalin. 187 The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Vol. IV, Ed. By Esther Katz and Kathy Hajo, (Univ. of Illinois Press, Microfilm Edition, 2011), LCM 20:547. LCM 20:637. 188 Diggins, John Patrick. p. cit., p. 134138.

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Stoycoff. Very little information is available about his contacts with other Bulgarian immigrants in America. In September 1932, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote in his diary that George introduced him to his compatriot from Macedonia, Markovich. He had spent seven years as an immigrant in Chicago. In the 1920s, together with 28 other Americans he left for Moscow, where he found full-time work 189 . There is no other information about this American Bulgarian-Macedonian, but apparently he was not the only one among Andreytchines acquaintances in the Soviet Union. Herbert Wells Visit As it was mentioned in the correspondence between Bullitt and Andreytchine from August 1934, in July the same year the world famous British writer Herbert Wells paid a short visit to Moscow. After John Galsworthys death, he was elected as the President of the International PEN Club. The Kremlin made a decision that the Deputy Director of Intourist would officially escort the writer. The historical meeting between Wells and Lenin took place in 1920 and was described by the writer in a separate book. In June 1934, he held a conversation with President Roosevelt in Washington. The purpose of his second visit to the USSR was to meet the new Kremlin host Josef Stalin. Archival snapshots show George Andreytchines permanent presence during the visit of the noted British guest. Alongside the well-known Soviet publicists Mihail Koltsov and Ilya Erenburg, he met Herbert Wells and his son at Moscow airport. He was together with the British science fiction writer at the opening of the hydroelectric miracle Dneprogres on the Dnepr River. He accompanied Wells to Leningrad prior to his departure to Talin. A reel from the documentary chronicles shows a lively conversation between Andreytchine, Wells and the famous Soviet writer Aleksey Tolstoy in Leningrad 190 . Although he was a constant escort of the British guest, Andreytchine was not present at his meeting with Stalin, where the interprepter was the Secretary of Narcomindel and future Soviet Ambassador to the United States and Mexico, Konstantin
189 190

The Diaries of Malcolm Muggeridge, Live it was, op. cit., p. 18. , 24, . 12490, 12491.

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Umansky. Two days later, however, Herbert Wells was accompanied by Andreytchine and Umansky to the home of the Soviet literature classic, Maxim Gorky. Fifty years later, a long time after the writers death, a postscript to his biography was published in London, telling about an interesting incident during the meeting with Gorky 191 . At the dinner, Umansky accidentally mentioned that a week earlier Gorky had been visited by Baroness Budberg, which was confirmed by Gorky himself. At the same time, however, Wells was passionate about the mysterious adventurer, who had repeatedly declined his proposal to marry him and categorically refused to accompany him during his visit to Moscow in July 1934. Herbert Wells was deeply depressed by this disclosure and demonstratively did not say a word to his company on the way back from Gorkys villa. Andreytchine tried to settle the problem as he obviously knew about the Baronesss mysterious visit to the USSR. Who was actually the Iron Lady, as Gorky called her, or the Red Mata Hari, as she was referred to in a report of the British counterintelligence service -5? The young Countess Maria Zakrevskaya 192 married in 1914 the Russian Ambassador to Berlin Count Beckendorf. After his assassination at the beginning of 1918, she became the lover of the former British Ambassador to Petrograd, Robert Bruce Lockhart, who was at that time assigned a mission by SIS to frustrate the separative talks between Soviet Russia and Germany. The disclosure of The Lockhart Plot represented the success of the newly established Soviet secret police VChK. Mura Zakrevskaya-Beckendorf was arrested together with her lover on 31 August 1918. She was soon released from prison at the special order of Felix Dzerdzhinskys deputy and Chairman of the revolutionary tribunal Jakov Peters. For this reason, she was suspected later as being an agent of the Soviet secret services. After her release from prison, Mura sustained her relations with adversaries to the Bolshevik regime. In 1919, author Korney Chukovski introduced her to Maxim Gorky, who had just returned to Russia, and she became his personal secretary. Meanwhile, she made friends with Herbert Wells in Gorkys house in Petrograd in 1920. The same year, the Countess illegally left for Estonia. Threatened by deportation, she contracted a
191 192

Wells, Herbert George. In Love: A Postscript To An Experiment In Autobiography, (London, 1984). Nina Berberova, Moura: The Dangerous Life of the Baroness Budberg, (New York Review Books, 2005).

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ficticious marriage of convenience to Baron Nikolay Budberg and received Estonian citizenship. While in emigration, Baroness Budberg lived with her patron Gorky in Germany and Italy, but she often visited London, Vienna, Prague and other European capitals. She encountered Bruce Lockhart again and provided him regularly with huge amount of information on the Russian issues, as he wrote in his book Memoirs of a British Agent. Presumably, Mura met George Andreytchine in those years in Berlin, Vienna or London. In 1931, she resumed her intimate relations with Herbert Wells. While in Gorkys villa, he was surprised to understand that she had had at least three secret visits to the Soviet Union. In fact, at that time Andreytchine explained to Wells that her visits to the USSR were secret to some extent and therefore he asked the writer not to tell anyone about them. When Herbert Wells met his beloved in Talin and asked for clarification, she only replied that probably Andreytchine had made some mistake in the translation during the meeting with Gorky. Later, the fate of Baroness Budberg was indicative. With Stalins personal permission, she was officially allowed to visit Maxim Gorky, who was severely ill. She was with him shortly before his death in 1936 193 . During the World War II, the Baroness contributed to the journal Free France. At that time, she was living with Herbert Wells in London and was with him when the author died in 1946. The incident with the news about Mura in Gorkys villa directly affected Wells attitude toward the USSR. His conversation with Stalin was published in New Statesman with the writers critical comment. This probably brought about the dictators fury and in November 1934 Karl Radek suggested in a letter to Stalin that the British writer be ridiculed discredited. There is no information whether the main escort Andreytchine was subject to criticism for the failure of Wells visit. It is not by accident, however, that he was among the first former oppositioners to be arrested during the new mass wave of purges right after Leningrad Party Secretary Sergey Kirovs murder in December 1934.

This allegation was a reason for few Russian authors to claim that she had poisoned the writer by NKVD order. A more reliable version was that under Stalins request the Baroness arranged to return to Moscow a part of Gorkys personal papers, kept in Italy. Inside that documentation were some confidential letters of Nikolay Buharin, Alexander Rykov, Christian Rakovsky, Nikolay Krestinsky, which NKVD used during the investigation against the leaders of the right Trotskyist bloc in 1937.

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Chapter 8 GULAG
Beginning of the Mass Terror On 11 February 1935, George Andreytchine was detained and taken to the internal prison of NKVD in Lubianka 194 . The Central archive of the Federal Service for Security (FSB) of the Russian Federation has preserved A Questionnaire of the arrested Georgy Ilich Andreytchine, completed on 13 February 1935. The column nationality and citizenship says: Macedonian (Bulgarian), Soviet citizen, and the column profession journalist. The last address where he lived with his wife Ilza Karlovna and their two daughters was Staropimenovsky Pereulok, 14, appartment 11. Almost fifteen years later, in Bulgaria, he wrote in his brief autobiographical notes Under the psychosis after Comrade Kirovs murder, an unstable situation arose and many absolutely innocent comrades suffered. On 25 February 1935, Loy Henderson informed briefly from Moscow the Ambassador William Bullitt, who was then in Paris: George is out of Intour and priged from Party. Allegedly on vacation or orders issued for arrest. 195 . In his report to US Secretary of State Cordell Hull from 26 April 1935, William Bullitt informed about the arrest of George Andreytchine, who last year was assigned to work out the physical difficulties of the American Embassy by the Foreign Office and was of invaluable assistance to us. Bullitt informed the Secretary of State confidentially that among the charges against him [Andreytchine] is the accusation that although he saw constantly the American Ambassador to the Soviet Union, he was unable to influence the Ambassador to take a more favorable view of Soviet policy. Because of the importance of the information on the situation in Moscow and the beginning of mass arrests after
194

Charles Bohlen mentioned in his memoirs that Andreytchine was arrested a day or so after he had lunched with me in my apartment Charles Bohlen, Witness to History, p. 45.

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Sergey Kirovs assasination, Hull redirected the letter personally to Franklin Roosevelt. On 1 May 1935, in a confidential letter to the US President, Bullitt stated: The only real friend of this Embassy, George Andreytchine, whom I asked you to pardon last year, is in the Lubyanka prison awaiting either death or exile. In fact, strictly between ourselves, I got a message from Andreytchine, sent grapevine from the OGPU Lubyanka prison, asking me for Gods sake to do nothing to try to save him. If I should, he would certainly be shot. 196 In a reply to Bullitt from 3 June 1935, President Roosevelt stressed: Dear Bill, As usual I was much interested in your letter to me and also the dispatch which the Secretary of State let me read. That was a fascinating story. Do write me often. 197 In mid-May, the American Ambassador went by the wave of terror, which had flooded Moscow, to formulate his radical change in his attitude to the USSR in another letter to President Roosevelt. Now it is clear that we cannot have any normal relations with this country. According to Charles Bohlen, from the spring of 1935 to the end of his life Bullitt was a persistent and furious enemy of the Soviet Union 198 . George Kennan noted the same in his memoirs, adding that most of the diplomats in the US Embassy totally supported the new hard line to the Kremlin 199 . Explicit expressions of this hard approach were the acts of the US Ambassador toward the Seventh Congress of the Comintern. At the beginning of June 1935, Louis Fischer visited the Ambassador in Spaso House and informed him about the forthcoming international communist congress, which made Bullitt postpone his holidays in Europe and stay in Moscow. In a dispatch to the Secretary of State in Washington, he suggested
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Manuscript Division, MSS 53 314, Loy Henderson Papers, Box 14, USSR: The Great Purge, Tel. No. 79, February 25, 1935. 196 Nixon, E. B. /Ed./, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs, Vol. II, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969), p. 493. 197 For the President. Personal and Secret, p. 121. 198 Bohlen, Charles. The Transformation of American Foreign Policy, (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 57. 199 Kennan, George. Memoirs. 19251950, (Boston, 1967), p. 8081.
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that Fischers visit was a probing mission, inspired by some Soviet institution. In a conversation with the Soviet Foreign Minister Litvinov, the US Ambassador stated that holding the Comintern Congress and the prospective discussion on the internal political situation in the United States at this forum would represent a violation of the agreements from November 1933, stating that the Soviet government shall not interfere in the internal affairs of the United States. At his follow up meetings with Maxim Litvinov and Karl Radek, Bullitt insisted that the International congress be cancelled. Both of them rejected the idea with the argument that discussions, held by foreign citizens at a congress of the International organization in Moscow, did not engage the policy of the Soviet government in any way. In the days of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern (20 July 21 August 1935) William Bullitt sent the President and the State Secretary in Washington a large number of dispatches on the statesments made by Earl Browder, William Foster and other American delegates and paid special attention to Georgi Dimitrovs report on the policy of the peoples antifascist fronts. Bullitts reaction was clearly demonstrated in his extensive report to Secretary of State Hull on 21 August 1935, with a covering personal letter to President Roosevelt. He insisted that the bilateral Soviet-American relations be significantly constrained in order to defend the American people from the efforts of the Soviet Government to produce bloody revolution in the United States. The Ambassador suggested that a serious written protest be sent, and that the US President expose his ideas in a public speech: The leading orator of the Congress (Dimitrov) laid down the course to be pursued by Communists of the United States and all other democratic countries. Communists in all democratic countries have been ordered by the Communist Congress in Moscow to worm their way into the labor unions, the farmer organizations, the womens peace organizations, all organizations of youth, all liberal, political, social, and religious organizations, and into all ranks of the intellectuals, there to work as bosom friends of their fellow members of these orgabizations until the day comes when they hope to be able to establish Soviet tyranny in the United States and destroy their fellow workers who have trusted them. The American Communists are also directed to work especially among our Negro fellow

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citizens to the end that they may be incited to a massacre of their white brothers. 200 Some diplomatic documents and memoirs clearly show that Franklin Roosevelt and Secretary of State Hull accepted with a dose of skepticism Bullitts reports and appeals. Other diplomatic reports to the State Department claim that the Bulgarian Dimitrov, who became quite popular after the Leipzig Trial and his personal verbal duell with the Nazi No. 2 Hermann Gring, proposed to postpone the Proletarian Revolution and to adopt a new antifascist approach, but not to destroy the American capitalism. A letter from the President to the Assistant Secretary of State Walter Moore, dated 23 August 1935, quoted an important text from the resolution on Dimitrovs report, which elaborated the essence of the new more flexible policy of the popular fronts 201 . Some American authors claim that with his reaction and proposals from the summer of 1935, William Bullitt discovered the Cold War a dozen of years before this term became a topic of the present day 202 . Others quote the assessment in the diary of the US Ambassador to Berlin, William Dodd, and state that Bullitt took as a personal offense the demonstrative change in Kremlins attitude to him. Since he could not rely on any improvement in the Soviet-American relations, he became committed to their restriction. In this situation, President Roosevelt could not afford to let Bullit stay in Moscow any longer. In the summer of 1936, he sent him an Ambassador to Paris, where he stayed till the occupation of France by Nazi Germany in June 1940. Although the Tsarists government in Sofia did not recognize him as a Bulgarian citizen, the name of George Andreytchine appreared in diplomatic reports from Moscow. In a confidential report to the Foreign Minister in Sofia from 6 July 1935, the Bulgarian diplomatic representative in the Soviet capital, Professor Dimitar Mihalchev, informed about the arrest of the Bulgarian George Andreytchine from the village of Belitsa (Bulgarian Macedonia), who has been an important activist in the main office of
Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS], The Soviet Union, 19331939, (Washington: State Department, 1952), p. 245247. 201 Williams, William. American-Russian Relations, (New York: Rinehart,1952), p. 241; Maddux, Thomas. Years of Estrangement. American Relations with the Soviet Union. 19331941, (University of Florida Press, 1980), p. 4042. About the Comintern congress see: E. H. Carr, Twilight of the Comintern. 19301935, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982), p.154155, 424426. 202 Pratt, Julius. Cordell Hull, Vol. 2, 19331944, (New York: Cooper Publishers, 1964), p. 599601.
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Intourist 203 . The attitude of the Bulgarian legacy in Moscow was explicitly expressed in a letter by the new plenipotentiary Minister Nikola Antonov to Bulgarian Prime Minister Georgi Kyoseivanov from 2 February 1937. The letter told about the confusion, turning into disgust by the ongoing bloody purge. In a previous letter to Kyoseivanov from November 1936, Antonov stated: Finally, I have to inform you that lately... some Bulgarian citizens have been arrested, for whom the Legacy has demanded explanations for each individual case without receiving any satisfactory reply from Narcomindel. In this situation, I refrain from performing any protest acts, in order not to provoke any political comments on some kind of solidarity with Germany; all the more many of our people here are considered Soviet citizens 204 . The further career of the Bulgarian diplomat Nikola Antonov, who became known for his involvement in the negotiations for establishing Bulgarian-Soviet relations in 1934, was full of ups and downs. After leaving his post in Moscow, he was appointed Bulgarian plenipotentiary Minister in Stockholm. In 1942, he was used by the Nazi government for the realization of a planned diplomatic game with the Soviet Union, similarly to the attempt of the Stalinist government to use his successor in Moscow, Ivan Stamenov. In his capacity as the plenipotentiary Minister in Ankara in the post-war years, Antonov carefully watched the process of Stalinization in his country and in 1948 he opted to stay as a non-returner, immigrating to Egypt and the United States. Unexpectedly for many, after preliminary consultations with the Bulgarian Embassy in Washington, in 1971 Nikola Antonov volunteered to return together with his personal diplomatic records to Communist Bulgaria, where he lived the last years of his life. In September 1935, George Andreytchine was moved to the Butirka prison. On 1 November 1935, he was allowed to see his wife Ilza. Two personal report cards for Andreytchine are kept in the archive of the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Komi 205 . The first card said that on 25 October 1935 he was convicted by NKVD of counterrevolutionary Trotskyist activities and arrived from the Butirka prison to the distribution
, /./, .19341939, (: , 2001), . 29. 204 , 176-, 6, .. 2712, . 1012, 2728.
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camp in Kotlas, Arhangelsk Province, on 17 November 1935. 206 At the end of December, Ilza Andreytchine received two letters from her husband from the distribution camp in Kotlas. In his letter of 23 December, he informed her that he was to go on foot to Chibiu (present day Uhta) the distance of 500 miles away from Kotlas at outside temperature of minus 40 degrees Celcius. On 7 January 1936, Ilza Andreytchine redirected this information to the head of the Bulgarian section at Comintern, Vassil Kolarov. In his letters, Andreytchine claimed that he was not Trotskyist or double-dealer, but rather an honest proletarian revolutionary and pleaded his Bulgarian friends from the Comintern for assistance: Is it possible that they cannot save me when I saved the lives of hundreds and thousands revolutionaries from the cruel retribution of [Prime Minister Alexander] Tsankov and his executioners? What would cost them to say a few words to mitigate the punishment? If I was younger and healthier, I would bear and would not ask for help. 207 As with other Bulgarians who occupied Soviet government and party positions, the Bulgarian leaders in the Comintern did not have a good reason for a formal intercession. It is not clear whether Dimitrov and Kolarov were personally interested in Andreytchines case. In Georgi Dimitrovs personal records and in the Comintern archives, there are a number of reports about steps, made in favor of repressed Bulgarians; however, George Andreytchines name is not among them. During the period of rightist Terror in Bulgaria between 1923 and 1944, out of over 2 000 Bulgarian political emigres in the Soviet Union, 868 individuals were repressed, 579 of them died. Documents prove that Dimitrov interceded for the release of at least 228 repressed Bulgarians. Between November 1937 and June 1948, thirteen lists with names with Dimitrovs signature and over 50 individual requests were sent for the release of Bulgarian political immigrants, arrested by NKVD. (For example, the list from 3 December 1938 comprised 131 names, from 11 June 1940 122 names, from 21 February 1941 132 names, from 19 May 1942 38 names, from
These two documents were delivered to us in October 2008 by Dr. Mihail Rogachev, President of the Public Fund Pokayanie [Repentance] for the victims of political repressions in Komi Autonomous Republic. 206 , . 8, . 1 (: , 2005). 207 , 147-, 3, .. 121, . 12.
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22 November 1943 40 names, from 8 June 1946 28 names). Some of the arrested men, however, were shot soon after their detention in 1936 1937 without any information being sent about their fate and the efforts for their release continued... ten years after their death. The first recorded case of intercession by Dimitrov was a letter to the Minister of Justice Krilenko from January 1935 on the occasion of the ten-year sentence of the ethnic Bulgarian Mihail Danailov, who immigrated to Russia before World War I. The request was not granted, and the convict was characterized as active Trotskyist, who admitted his guilt. In the case with the other defendant from the Leipzig Trial, Blagoy Popov, Dimitrov sent at least ten requests for his release. However, Popov was let from the camp in Siberia in 1954. Even when in his capacity as the Prime Minister of Bulgaria in March 1948 Dimitrov presented to the Chief of the Soviet Secret Services Lavrenti Beria another list with 23 names and a request to let them free and to secure their return to Bulgaria, the people in Moscow continued to conceal the truth that some of these individuals had been executed in 19371938 208 . With regard to Vassil Kolarov, a number of publications tell about his direct responsibility for the repressions against activists of the Bulgarian political immigration. In the period 19351936, over 1 000 Bulgarian functionaries in the USSR were investigated. Twenty out of 28 members of the underground communist leadership, who were qualified by a special Commission of the Bulgarian representation to the Comintern (headed by Kolarov) in a negative way as factionaries or Trotskyists, died during the Stalinist purges in 19361938. In the Far North It is very likely that Andreytchines early departure to the Far East saved him from a terrible fate during the bloody purges in 19361937. His second personal card, kept in the State archive of the Russian Autonomous Republic of Komi, registered his arrival on 30 December 1935 in the headquarters of the Uht-Pechorian labor camp the
, . , : , (: , 1998), . 339348.
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settlement of Chibiu by the Uhtarka River. On 18 January 1936, he was moved to oilfield 3 near the village of Yarega. In August the same year, he was transferred to Department 4, located in the agricultural sector of Uht-Pechorian concentration camp near the village of Shudayag on the opposite side of Chibiu. According to the reports of the GULAG authorities, a year later on 25 May 1937, Andreytchine was taken to a remote coal mining area near the village of Ust Ussa near Pechora River. He was moved to the second camp center Vorkuta on 11 June 1938. The last notes in the form seem very strange, though quite brief. In October 1938, Andreytchine was closed in the central investigation isolator in Vorkuta, and on 3 January 1939 an unexpected order was received from Moscow for his transportation back to the NKVD Butirka prison. There is no information about the reasons for his arrest, the interogations in Vorkuta, nor for the reasons to send him back to the Soviet capital. His personal file was sent to Moscow with him, though it is still unaccessible and is probably kept in the central archives of the Federal Service for Security in Russia. Charles Bohlens unpublished memoirs contain interesting, though disputable evidence. A decade later, (in Moscow or in Paris, it is not clear) George Andreytchine mentioned to the American diplomat that during his stay in the concentration camp in the Far North he was summoned by NKVD representatives in Moscow to clarify his testimony from 1935. According to Andreytchine, his file record from Butirka prison was either lost or misplaced after the arrest of NKVDs chief, Henrik Yagoda. As a result, George was asked to explain whether he was detained as a Trotskyist or as an American spy. Charles Bohlen wrote what the Bulgarian shared with him. Since he was known for being an ardent follower of Trotsky, he preferred to accept only this accusation 209 . Chip Bohlens notes are subject to additional comments. A piece of information about Andreytchine, presented in August 1989 to the special rehabilitation commission in Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, headed by Alexander Yakovlev, caused further confusion. One of the attached documents claimed that George Andreytchine was convicted by the Military Staff of the Supreme Court of the USSR on 20 April 1936 for espionage and relations with the Trotskyists and
Library of Congress, Washington DC, Manuscript Division, The Papers of Charles E. Bohlen, Container 10 Witness to History drafts, p. 1517.
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sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp 210 . It is not clear where this claim came from, but it contradicts his own authentic testimony, kept in Vassil Kolarovs records, as well as the personal cards from the camp in Vorkuta. One of the few stories about Andreytchines stay in the camp was shared with the family decades later by another former political prisoner, who was allowed to serve as a doctor in Vorkuta. He said he was surprised to find out that in one of the cottages the prisoners did not have the scurvy, while in all others they suffered from this disease. He was curious about the reason and he was told that one of the prisoners, George Andreytchine, had his inmates make tea out of pine needles. This infusion was really used as a natural remedy against the scurvy. The doctor managed to take Andreytchine to work for him and appointed him responsible for the dispensary on the camp. Another report says that during the severe Siberian winter the Bulgarian took the initiative and dug the first dugout in the camp. They were followed by other inmates and this helped them to survive in the freezing temperatures. Trying to reconstruct Andreytchines life odissey from those years, we sometimes come across vague information, disclosing unexpected dramatic events. Such is the story of the riot of the exiled Trotskyists in the Far North in late 1936. The Uht-Pechorsk (Uhtpechlag) labor camp, which included the camps Chibiu and Vorkuta, occupied a special place in the Stalinist Prison Empire called GULAG. It was created on the grounds of a geologic-industrial company from 1931 for research and extraction of coal, petrol, radium and timber. In 19351936, it became a labor camp. A large number of representatives of the former anti-Stalinist opposition were imprisoned exactly in this concentration camp. At the beginning of 1936, the number of Trotskyists and counterrevolutionaries in Uhtpechlag exceeded 15 000. Many of them represented the technical, scientific and cultural intelligentsia and tried to have some cultural life even under the terrifying camp conditions 211 . On 18 October 1936, an unprecedented event in the history of GULAG surprised the warders from NKVD. Over 200 Trotskyists, imprisoned in Vorkuta, sent a written protest and started a hunger strike with demands for separation of the political prisoners
, , 107, 1, . 35. , . , 19291956, (E: , 2000), . 31, 40.
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from the criminals, an eight-hour working day and normal for the human survival rations. The strike continued until 13 February 1937 and surprisingly finished with success. Over 1 200 political prisoners from Uhtpechlag got involved in it. Former Trotskyists were allowed to live in separate cottages, while some of them were even appointed as clerks, accountants or given other administrative positions 212 . During the next wave of massive repressions in the second half of 1937, the Kremlin dictator and the NKVD leadership decided to destroy brutally any anti-Soviet activity in the labor camps in the Far North. In December 1937, the NKVD chief Nikolay Ezhov, strictly following Stalins instructions, signed a secret order 00409 for the physical liquidation of the organizers of the Trotskyist strike. The number of this order unambiguously shows that it was created under the direction from the highest level. A special commission, headed by GULAGs Third Department Deputy Chief, Captain A. Y. Grigorovich from NKVD, arrived in Uhtpechlag in August 1937 and started a mass transportation of the Trotskyists to two new settlements near Chibiu and in a mine near Vorkuta. In January 1938, NKVD Lieutenant Efim Skomorowski (Kashketin) arrived from Moscow to Vorkuta. In 1936, he was fired by NKVD due to a proven schizophrenic neurosis. In January 1938, however, he was rehabilitated on his position and appointed as the chief of the newly established special group for struggle with the counterrevolutionary uprising in Uhtpechlag in compliance with the secret order 00409. Kashketins reports, published recently in Russia, represent terrifying statistics. In one day only, on 1 March 1938, 173 Trotskyists were executed; on 29 March other 563 individuals were killed in a deserted brick factory near Vorkuta, and 212 more died by Uhtarka River near Chibiu. According to the information from NKVD from 21 July 1938, at the time of the notorious Kashketin executions, 2508 political prisoners lost their lives 213 . The mass executions were preceded by interrogations under constant physical violence and psychological torture. In January-February 1938, some important Trotskyists were separated from the rest and moved to Moscow, most probably with the
, ?, . 5, , (, 1997). , . 1-8, (, , 19982006); , , . 50, 15 2005, . 3. One of the first evidence in the West appeared in the 1960s - Trotskyites at Vorkuta. An Eyewitness Report, International Socialist Review, Vol. 24, No.3, Summer 1963, p. 9497. A new publication in English was that of Christopher Joyce - Recycled Victims: Repressions in the Komi Republic, PERSA Working Paper, Warwick University, Birmingham, No. 41, 18 February 2005, p. 3536.
213 212

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purpose to be used in some way in the last trials against the right-Trotskyist bloc or new propaganda campaigns against the European Trotskyism. In September 1938, Lieutenant Kashketin arrived from Moscow to Vorkuta again and declared he was sent personally by the Minister of Interior Ezhov to hold new mass interrogations to expose the covered Trotskyists and counterrevolutionaries. The first interrogations of the arrested over 200 Trotskyists started in early October 214 . The new arrests and interrogations stopped unexpectedly after the removal and execution of the almighty Minister of Interior Nikolay Ezhov in November. The fate of Skomorowski (Kashketin) was quite similar. After his return to Moscow in December 1938, he was also arrested, charged with exceeding his authorities and shot in March 1940. Documents briefly show that in the early 1939 the political prisoner Andreytchine and the Stalinist executor Kashketin ironically were detained in the same place the NKVD Butirka prison in Moscow. The second revised edition of Alexandr Solzhenitsyns The Gulag Archipelago presents interesting evidence. As a result of the energetic international protests, in 1974 Solzhenitsyn was allowed to emigrate from the Soviet Union. In the United States, he met a former Stalinist prisoner a Jew from Brazil called Frank Dickler. His life was described in the new edition of the book of the Russian dissident. In 1937, Dickler left New York and moved to Moscow. However, the same year he was arrested amidst the massive repressions against foreigners. He was sent to the Far North, where he started work as a railway station brakesman in the vicinity of Vorkuta. A year later, he was surprised to notice a familiar face among a new group of prisoners George Andreytchine. Twenty years earlier, Frank had had the opportunity to hear Andreytchines speech at a meeting in New York. After their encounter in the camp, George told him about the Trotskyists hunger strike and its success at the beginning of the previous year. Soon after this encounter, Frank Dickler noticed Andreytchine among a group of prisoners, loaded on the open train platforms, heading for an unknown direction. While the train with the prisoners was leaving slowly, George also noticed Frank and started to shout loudly in English, without looking directly at him:
214

, . " 00409 - , , . 8, .2, (, 2006), . 181-209.

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Frank! Just listen, dont say a word! This is the end. Were going to be murdered in cold blood! Frank! Listen! If you ever get out, tell the world, who they are: a bunch of cut-throats! Assassins! Bandits! Other prisoners, who were apparently able to understand English, started to yell together with Andreytchine. The trainmaster had to stop the train for a while. Shots were heard. After the train started again, Dickler did not see the Bulgarian anymore, nor did he hear anything about him during his stay in the Stalinist camps 215 . Very little is known about the life of Andreytchines wife and their two daughters during the years of his absence. According to family reminiscences, after the arrest of her husband, and with the support of Lenins sister Maria Ulyanova, Ilza managed to find work in a scrap warehouse. Here is an interesting fact from the memoirs of Lyudmila Borisevich, wife of the writer Artem Vesyoly, who was arrested on 28 October 1937 and was shot six months later. After she had spent almost twenty years in camps, upon her release in 1956 Lyudmila said: Soon after she had heard about Artems arrest, Ilza who had visited us on the Vetluga River [1931] came round. She kept silent for a while and then said: It is good that Artem was able to sail [on the Volga River]. I said I was afraid about Artem, since he was intemperate and could be killed. She kept silent for a moment and then said: Lyusya, you should have taken the kids to your father. The meaning of her words reached me only two months later when I was arrested 216 .

Christian Rakovskys Confessions Shortly before the beginning of the February-March Plenary of the Central Committee of VCP (b) in 1937, where the approach of total terror was categorically adopted (after the physical elimination of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rikov, Pyatakov and many other former members of the opposition), the preparation for the retribution with Nikolay
215 216

, . , . II, (: , 1993), . 56. , . . .

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Buharin and other representatives of the right-Trotskyist bloc started. Christian Rakovsky was among the arrested. After eight months of silence in the prison of Lefortovo, at the beginning of September the inquisitors from NKVD made him speak. On 14 September 1937, he signed his written confessions saying how he was recruited by British Intelligence Service at the end of 1924 in London. The former Soviet Ambassador to Great Britain mentioned a number of names of the former Naval officer Armstrong, the permanent Secretary of Foreign Office Sir William Tyrrell, Lady Muriel Paget, Churchills cousin Clare Sheridan, the American journalist Max Eastman, the British commerical attache in Tokyo Morrison, and some others. Rakovsky confessed that he himself had recruited the former Counsellor in the Soviet diplomatic missions in Austria, Germany and Great Britain and Ambassador to Poland and China, Dmitry Bogomolov, as well as the press attache in the Embassy in London, George Andreytchine. Further in his confessions, he stated that two months after his visit to Tokyo in September 1934, Andreytchine came to him and handed him an order on behalf of British Intelligence Service to prepare information about his visit. In reply to Rakovskys inquiry, George Andreytchine informed him about the name of the British Intelligence station chief in Moscow, assigned as a Counsellor to the British Embassy in the Soviet capital. On 17 September 1937, Rakovsky added to his confessions about the recruitment of Andreytchine and Bogomolov. At the end of September, Rakovsky had to confront other defendents, who were qualified as foreign agents in his confessions 217 . There is no information available about such a confrontation with the Intelligence Service agent George Andreytchine. Here is the first reaction of the former Soviet Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Italy, Iran, Austria and Japan Konstantin Yurenev (Krotovsky) during a confrontation with the former Prime Minister of Ukraine, who had been tortured for weeks: Question to Yurenev: Do you know each other? Answer: Rakovsky, I have known you for a long time, but I couldnt recognize you now.

217

, ; , . , (: , 1997), . 220230.

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In the trial against the defendents in the right-Trotskyist opposition in March 1938, a very interesting incident occurred during Christian Rakovskys interrogation. New York Times correspondent Harrold Denny, who in April 1934 took over from the veteran Walter Duranty in Moscow, paid special attention to this interesting fact in one of his articles. At the hearing on 5 March 1938, Rakovsky reiterated in front of the court his confessions, which had been previously extorted from him by torture - that he had collaborated with the British Intelligence service during his diplomatic mandate in London in 1924. With regard to this, Rakovsky pointed out that the communication was carried out with the help of a British journalist and two other officials from the Soviet Embassy, who served as his personal liaison. Harrold Denny reported that Christian Rakovsky had mentioned the name of only one of these George Andreichin when Mr. Vishinsky stopped the mentioning of names. 218 . The same episode drew the attention of other foreign journalists attending the Moscow show trials. Bill Porter, for example, wrote in Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune: The name of Andreytchine, incidentally mentioned by Christian Rakovsky in his confessions, has become of interest to the American observers at the process. Rakovsky said that Andreytchine had been his liaison in London with the British Intelligence in 1925. Officials here are not able to confirm whether this could be George Andreytchine, former miner from Minnesota, who after a 20-year sentence from the Chicago Trial against IWW members in 1918, was released on bail and has disappeared. The same Andreytchine was later in London and consequently became a press censor in Moscow. The latest information about him is that he is somewhere in exile 219 . The unfortunate fate of Andreytchine was a topic of discussion even at the Congress of the US Socialist Labor Party in late April 1938. One of the Party leaders mentioned his exile in Sibiria and exclaimed maliciously: There is such a thing as poetic
Denny wrote also that This Andreichin could not be identified. However, a New York Times editors comment added: George Andreichin was a close friend of William C. Bullitt, former United States Ambassador to Moscow, and now Ambassador to France. Mr. Andreichin diappeared during the purge following Mr. Kiroffs assassination. - Harold Denny, Bukharin Says He Led Coup Plot, Aiming to Set Up Fascist Regime, New York Times, March 6, 1938, p.1. 219 The Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, 7 March, 1938.
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justice. If Andreychin had remained in the United States he would probably be one of the great "leaders" here... 220 The sentences against Buharin, Rikov, Krestinski, Rakovsky, Rosenholz and 16 other accused individuals in the trial against the anti-Soviet right-Trotskyist bloc were announced on 13 March 1938. By March 26th, the Foreign Workers Publishers in Moscow had printed the signal issues of the German and English editions of the minutes from the trial, containing 880 printed pages. A day later, the French edition was ready. The foreign publications of the minutes were prepared at an incredible speed in order to counteract the unfavourable comments abroad with the only evidence available the candid confessions of the defendents. The script from Christian Rakovskys interrogation, dated 5 March 1938, contains his confessions about the agents of Intelligence Service Naval Captain Armstrong, Lady Paget, Max Eastman, but there is no trace of George Andreytchines name 221 . As a result of the unwillingness of the Prosecutor Vyshinsky to mention Andreytchines name, the alert editorial intervention removed the Trotskyist Andreytchine both from the Russian original and from the foreign translations of the trial minutes! It is still difficult either to confirm or reject the claim of former Bulgarian political emigres in the Soviet Union that Andreytchine evaded death thanks to his final agreement to collaborate with NKVD. According to his wifes testimony from April 1956, in 1939 he was summoned in Moscow for a revision of the case and was rehabilitated. In another document from the same period, she stated that her husband was completely rehabilitated in 1941 upon his return to Moscow. Is there an accidental error in the dates or actually this is another of the myriad of mysterious and unclarified circumstances related to his biography? A totally unexpected hypothesis was underlying in the testimony of the former volunteer from the International Brigades in Spain Nikolay Zadgorsky, who became later Chief of the Bulgarian counterintelligence in May 1947. He was arrested after Stalin-Tito split to testify for Deputy Prime Minister Traicho Kostovs interrogation. In August 1949
Proceedings of the National Convention of the Socialist Labor Party, 1938, p. 139 Prozessbericht uber die Strajsache des Antisowietischen Blocks der Rechten und Trotzkisten, Moskau, 1938. In his personal copy of the German edition Georgi Dimitrov underlined by coloured pensils particularly some very rude expressions of the Vishinskys attacks against the accused Buharin and Rakovsky.
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Zadgorsky mentioned twice that in 19391940 along with the other Bulgarian Brigadists, at the end of the Spanish Civil War George Andreytchine was also detained at the Gurs camp in France! In an extremely detailed (and full of many specific names, geographic places and events) narration about the fate of a group of Bulgarian volunteers in Spain, who crossed the border with France after the fall of the Republican government, Andrytchines name was mentioned twice. The first time was in February 1939, when he mentioned the camp Gurs in France. The second time referred to the events of 2023 June 1940, when the camp fell into the German zone and the refugees volunteers from the International Brigades withdrew. Andreytchines name was mentioned again with the group that went along the River Po Valley: Targo Toulouse Narbonne Perpignan Algers station. There, Zadgorsky and Andreytchine parted and later Zadgorsky managed to reach Slovakia 222 . More than 450 Bulgarian volunteers took part in the Spanish Civil War. They arrived in Spain not only from Bulgaria, but also from France, Austria, Yugoslavia, the USA, Argentina and other countries. Over 100 political emigres came from the Soviet Union, while some of them had graduated from military schools. The first Bulgarian International Brigade volunteers got involved in the hostilities over Madrid in the autumn of 1936 as part of Fifth workers Regiment a military formation of the Spanish Communist Party. Later, the majority of the Bulgarians were grouped in Twelfth International Brigade (later divided into Brigade Garibaldi and Brigade Dombrovski) and in Fifteenth International Brigade (where the Slavic battalion Dimitrov fought together with the American battalion Lincoln). In the spring of 1938, the International Brigades were regrouped and 129th International Brigade Georgi Dimitrov was formed. Bulgarians were involved also in the subunit for guerilla and diversion acts under the secret name 14th Army Corps. Another Bulgarian, Ivan Vinarov, a Soviet military intelligence representative in France in 19361938 supervised and performed few secret missions in Spain. Along with Andre Marti, Palmiro Togliatti (Erkoli), Luigi Longo (Gallo), Victorio Codovilla (Luis), Ern Ger (Pedro) and Manfred Stern (Walter), the Bulgarian Stoyan Minev (Moreno) worked in the representation of the Comintern in Spain.
222

, 10, -7, .. 28, . 2, . 267, 269.

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The International Brigades, whose strength reached 50 000 during the three years of the Civil War, were dismissed after the official statement of the Spanish Prime Minister, Juan Negrin, to the League of Nations at the end of September 1938. Fewer than 5 000 out of a total number of 12 000 volunteers, who were in Spain at that time, had left the country by the end of the year. More than 6 000 people were demobilized and stayed in Cataluna. The last volunteers to leave Spain crossed the French border on 9 February 1939. 223 After the recognition of Gen. Frankos regime by the French and British governments on February 24th the same year, most of them were deported in prisoner-ofwar camps. The Bulgarian members of the International Brigades, who stayed in Spain, in February 1939 managed to withdraw together with part of the Republican Army in France in the Pyrenees. About 160 Bulgarians, who were denied Bulgarian citizenship and were not allowed to return to Bulgaria, were detained in French camps (mostly in Algeres Sur Merre and Gurs). For decades, the communist historiography described only the Soviet military and material support to the Spanish Republican government and the heroism of nearly 50 000 volunteers from over 50 countries in the battles against Frankos army and the supporting 120 000 Italian and German volunteers. What could never become a topic of discussion was the parallel internal war on the territory of Republican Spain, waged by Stalins emissaries and NKVD agents the extermination of a number of anarchist, socialist and Trotskyist activists, who were declared the Fifth column of fascism. The events in Spain in the years 19371938 resemble to some extent the methods and means, used a decade later to impose the Stalinist political regimes in Eastern Europe. It could be stated with a large dose of certainty that the repressive acts of the Stalinist representatives in Spain were a significant factor for the demoralization of the Republican Camp, and eventually brought about the final defeat of the Peoples Front Government. At the same time, these acts caused a radical change in the attitudes of many left and liberal intellectuals, who had come to Spain to support the Spanish Republic, such as Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, George Orwell, etc.
Durgan, Andy. Freedom fighters or Comintern army? The International Brigades in Spain, International Socialism Journal, London, No. 84, Autumn 1999.
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In December 1936, the Bolshevik Party daily Pravda announced that a campaign had started in Cataluna against the Trotskyist elements, which would be carried out with the same energy as it is carried out in the USSR. This was a clear signal to begin the retaliation against the leaders of POUM, led by Andres Nin Minister in the regional Catalan government. Similarly to Andreytchine, as a close adherent to Trotsky, in 1927 Nin was expelled from the Bolshevik Party, which he had entered in 1923. He evaded being arrested, but in 1930 he was deported from the Soviet Union and soon became the leader of the small pro-Trotskyist party POUM with headquarters in Barcelona. In February 1937, the newspaper of the Spanish International Brigades Soldado de la Republica appealed to fight the adherents of Trotsky in Spain, who had been denounced at the court trials in Moscow as the Fifth Column of fascism. The investigations among foreign volunteers of the International Brigades were headed by the Comintern representative Andre Marti. The repressions against the Spanish Trotskyists were carried out by NKVD representatives under the leadership of the State Security Major 224 Lev Nikolsky (Leiba Feldbin), known as General Alexander Orlov after he stayed in the West in 1938. In May 1937, the secret operation Nikolay was conducted. According to this operation, the POUM leaders were accused of organizing antiRepublican mutiny in Barcelona and maintaining relations with agents from Nazi Germany. The aim of the operation was the complete discreditation of the Spanish Trotskyists and eventually the set up of a show trial against them to confirm the accusations from the Moscow trials. After Andres Nins arrest in June 1937, he was secretly abducted from prison by two Germans (nicknames Bom and Shved) and two Spaniards under the direct supervision of Nikolsky. A new NKVD agent was also involved in the operation Iosif Grigulevich Griguljavichus (Yuzek), who was later instrumental in Trotskys liquidation. At the end of 1952, in his official capacity as a Costa Rican diplomat in the Vatican, he was involved in another plot that was never implemented the assassination of another personal enemy of Stalins the Yugoslav Communist leader J. B. Tito. During the next decades, Iosif Romualdovich was reincarnated in a totaly new role. He became one of the most prominent Soviet researchers for Latin America. Under
224

This was an Army equivalent of Colonel.

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the literary pseudonym Lavretsky, he published the popular biographies of Simon Bolivar, Salvador Allende, and Ernesto Che Guevara... Despite the physical torture, Andres Nin refused to sign the confessions and two days later he was shot on the road near Alkala de Enares. By an irony of fate, a few days after the secret execution of the POUM leader, the Trotskyist newspaper in Paris came out with an article criticizing Nins wrong and false international and domestic policy, focused on preserving the alliance within the Peoples Front government in Spain 225 . The story of Nins assassination was first described in the memoirs of the former communist minister in the Republican government, Jesus Hernandez. After Nikolskys escape, Hernandez maintained relations with the new NKVD resident in Spain, Colonel Naum Eitington (Leonid Naumov, General Kotov), known later as the organiser of the secret operation DUCK aiming at the assassination of Lev Trotsky in Mexico in 1940. After the defeat of the Spanish Republic, Jesus Hernadez left for Moscow. Following the suicide of the Spanish communist leader Jose Diaz in Tashkent 1942, he had serious disagreements with Dolores Ibarruri (La Pasionaria) over the leadership in the Spanish Communist Party, and finally immigrated to Mexico. In 1944, Hernandez was dismissed from the Spanish Communist Party, so in the early 1950s he founded his anti-Stalinist Communist Party with main office in Belgrade. It was at that time when he stated publicly his version on the assassinations of Andres Nin and Lev Trotsky. As it is well known today, the operation in Mexico in 1940 for the liquidation of Stalins most vicious enemy was carried out with the involvement of two parallel NKVD teams the local group of artist David Alfaro Sikeiros and Trotskys real assassin Raul Merkader (Frank Jackson), assisted by the Soviet illegal Iosif Grigulevich (Yuzek). Additional research on the correspondence between the Bulgarian Legacy in Paris and the Foreign Ministry in Sofia has confirmed to a certain extent Zadgorskys words. In May 1940, a group of Bulgarians, imprisoned in Gurs Camp, submitted individual requests to the diplomatic representation of the Kingdom of Bulgaria in France to assist them in their return to Bulgaria. The Legacy readdressed to Sofia the names of the Bulgarians, who had been detained in the French camps. The names were divided
225

, , 5657, - 1937. Among the arrested was alos the future famous British author George Orwel. Since then he became an ardent anti-Stalinist.

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into two lists volunteers from the International Brigades, and individuals who had worked for the defense industry of Republican Spain. Number 61 on the second list was Nikolay Zadgorsky, while number 42 was Georgi Andreev from Belitsa, Region of Razlog. A handwritten request from Georgi Andreev, dated 4 May 1940, has been preserved informing that the term of the one-year visa in his Bulgarian passport (issued on 26 January 1937) had expired long time ago and insisting that his entry visa be prolonged, so that he could return to his birthplace. 226 The thorough revealing of the diplomatic correspondence shows that in August 1949 the arrested Zadgorsky did make an accidental mistake instead of the really existing member of the International Brigades from Belitsa Georgi Andreev, in his testimony he mentioned his good acquaintance George Andreytchine! Yet, these two years in George Andreytchines life odyssey have not been clarified. In the reminiscences of his younger daughter, Kira, no one in the family knew any details about his fate, but there existed a vague rumor that between 1939 and 1941 he was taken to one of Stalins secret settlements, called sharashki. It was a place to keep in deep concealment scientists, researchers and experts from various areas for the purpose of making new inventions and products mostly for the needs of the defense industry. The famous aircraft designers, who had been arrested in the previous years - . N. Tupolev, V. . Petlyakov, V. . Myasishchev and R. L. Bartini, for example, worked in one of these secret places under the code name CKB-29. Another documentary evidence suggests the possible authenticity of the presented version. In December 1973, at the order of Todor Zhivkov, the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party elaborated a brief biographical reference about George Andreytchine, based both on his autobiography and on confidential archival materials. The note contained some inaccurate data, but it presented unambiguously two interesting statements. First, Andreytchine carried out tasks, assigned by the special services of the USSR; second, he was rehabilitated in 1939 227 . The genuine facts, of course, will come out only after the Russian archives are disclosed.

226 227

, 382, 2, .. 1586, . 1-2; .. 1652, . 33-34. , 1-, 36, .. 3415, . 3.

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Chapter 9 In the Years of the World War II

SovInformBureau Whatever the truth might be, in the days of the Nazi Germany invasion over the USSR in June 1941, Andreytchine was back in Moscow with his family. His good acquaintance from the Profintern Solomon Lozovsky invited him to work with him. During the War years and until his return to Bulgaria in November 1945, he was a Deputy Chief of the Department for Anglo-Saxon countries in SovInformBureau, where he also worked as a translator and editor. The Soviet Information Bureau (SovInformBureau) was set up after the decision of the Soviet Government two days after the invasion of Nazi Germany on 22 June 1941. Officially, this new organization for information and propaganda was at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Narcomindel), but its activities were under the direct control of the Central Committee of VCP (b). The formal director of the institution was the Secretary of the Central Committee for propaganda issues, Alexander Shcherbakov. The whole management of SovInformBureau, however, from the very beginning was practically executed by the former Profintern Chairman, and from 1937 Deputy Foreign Minister Solomon Lozovsky. He spoke fluently several European languages. Unlike Shcherbakov, he was a man of broad international culture and knew how to organize activities that were not typical of the confined Soviet society for example, holding regular press conferences for the representatives of foreign media, or the preparation of information materials, appropriate to be published in the Western editions. On 25 June 1941, Lozovsky sent Shcherbakov a proposal for the structure and personnel of the new information agency for his approval. The selection of experienced staff with good knowledge of foreign languages was not an easy task for Lozovsky, who wanted to do the job himself. He was warned by Alexander Shcherbakov: You have to look for people, capable of working, and who are not on the front. At the end of 1941, the SovInformBureau personnel were approximately 80 people, working in four major

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departments International, Literature, Counterpropaganda and Broadcasting. The technical and editorial work was performed in supplementary sections. Three years later, the payroll of the Bureau included 215 individuals, and the structure swelled to 11 departments. In 1945, regional directorates were established, the leading ones being USA and Great Britain. For the entire period from July 1941 till May 1945, SovInformBureau prepared and broadcast over 2 000 daily reports on the course of hostilities, the foreign political events, the internal political life in the country, etc. The Department for Literature in SovInformBureau attracted the most famous Soviet authors and publicists Aleksey Tolstoy, Michail Sholokhov, Boris Polevoy, Konstantin Simonov, Leonid Leonov, Korney Chukovsky, Alexander Fadeev, Yevgeny Petrov, Konstantin Fedin, Margarita Shaginyan, Vasily Grossman, Nikolay Tihonov, Vilis Latzis, Evgeny Tarle and others. For example, during the war years, Ilya Erenburg wrote over 300 articles, which SovInformBureau and Associated Press spread in over 1 600 publications in the United States 228 . Andreytchines old friend Mihail Borodin was appointed Chief Editor of SovInformBureau. Director of the International Department was G. F. Saksin. Former Comintern activists, such as Emelyan Yaroslavsky and Eugen Varga, were called in for the political overviews. After a significant part of the organization staff was moved to Kuibyshev in October 1941, some problems arose with ensuring the information flow through Moscow to other countries. Meanwhile, new tasks came out with regard to the intensive cooperation with the Ministry of Information in Great Britain and the Bureau for Military Information in the USA. We can assess the intensity of work in the International Department, where the regional sections originated later, by the fact that 492 articles were submitted in the first ten months from Kuibyshev, while in the period 10 November 10 December 1941 their number was 56. In Kuibyshev

, . , , , 10, 21 2001.

228

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In the period October 1941 - August 1943, George Andreytchine was in Kuibyshev (Samara), where the foreign embassies and journalists were evacuated. On 15 October 1941, most of the foreign diplomats, many members of the Soviet Government (led by the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the USSR Mihail Kalinin) and some Comintern leaders (led by Georgi Dimitrov) left urgently the Soviet capital, threatened by Nazi occupation, and arrived in Kuibyshev five days later. The majority of the personnel of SovInformBureau returned to Moscow in April-June 1942. Solomon Lozovsky stayed in Kuibyshev with some of his closest collaborators till August 1943. Andreytchine was among them. While in Kuibyshev, he re-established the contacts with the representatives of the U.S. Embassy to the U.S.S.R. The U.S. Ambassador Steinhardt with some of his staff (Thurston, Dickerson, and Thayer) went to Kuibyshev, but a few other U.S. diplomats stayed in Moscow (Thompson 229 , Reinhardt). At the end of December, the Second Secretary in the Embassy, Fred Reinhardt, arrived in Kuibyshev too. Together with Andreytchines old acquaintance from 1934 Charlie Thayer, Reinhardt was among Georges best friends in the first months following their evacuation from the capital. After recalling the Ambassador Steinhardt from the USSR in early November, for a couple of months the position of US charge in the Soviet Union (located in Kuibyshev) was occupied by Ray Thurston. However, on December 17th he departed for Moscow and left the First Secretary of the Embassy, Charles Dickerson, as a charge daffairs. On December 28th 1941, Dickerson sent from Kuibyshev a strictly confidential message to the Secretary of State Cordell Hull, entitled Memorandum of Conversation with Mr. George Andreichin. The Memorandum started with very interesting information about the Bulgarian: George Andreichin, who has returned from six-years exile in the Komi area and is now completely rehabilitated (whatever that may mean) called on me today and stated that while he has not yet been placed on an official job, he is hoping that Lozovsky will take him into the Informburo where he could be most helpful to the Soviets and the foreign press. In the meantime, he was grateful to us in the Embassy for keeping him going and recently Charlie Chaplin had sent him through
229

Llewellyn Thomson a decade later would become US Ambassador to Austria (1952-1957), and Soviet Union (1957-1962, 1966-1969).

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Ambassador Bullitt $ 500 which will see him and his family through the winter. Mr. Andreichin then gave me some exceedingly interesting explanations with regard to the mysteries of the Soviet Union from 1936 to 1939. He said that Troyanovsky 230 , who has no important post at the present time but is nevertheless supposed to have considerable influence, talked with him recently with regard to Soviet-American relations and particularly with regard to the personalities connected with that subject. Further on, Dickersons Memorandum informed in detail of Troyanovskys comments about the evaluations of the Soviet leaders on some US diplomats in Moscow after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, such as Bullitt, Henderson, Kennan, Thayer, Colonel Fayonville, and Steinhardt. The document finished with two particular topics: Troyanovsky had suggested to Andreytchin that he, as one of Bullitts oldest friends, whose arrest and exile had played no small part in Bullitts defection, must try to reestablish contact with him (Bullitt) by writing him a letter and thus use his influence to soften Bullitts feeling toward the Soviet Union. Troyanovsky closed his conversation with Andreytchin with the remark: Over there in the Embassy (American) they think I dont know anything about what theyve been doing but I have ways and means of knowing all that they do. 231 Andreytchine followed the advice of . Troyanovsky to re-establish his contacts with Bullitt in the next months. However, if the Soviet authorities could learn what he had shared in his letters with the former US Ambassador to Moscow, his fate would have been different as a result of the acts of the political police under Lavrenti Beria. The letter to Bullitt, dated 30 April 1942, is a document with an astounding emotional content and openness. To a large extent, we could accept this document as an inner revelation and confession of the Bulgarian in a particularly dramatic historical moment. The letter is one of the very few similar documents, which managed to cross the borders of the Stalinist
230

Alexander Troyanovsky former Soviet Ambassador to the United States (1934-1938). The original was kept at NARA; however, we found a declassified copy of the Memorandum inside William Bullit papers Yale University Library, Manuscript Group 112, Series I, Box 2, Folder 41.
231

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Empire by chance; therefore, it is worth presenting here a significant part of these four handwritten pages: Dear Bill, It was wonderful to get your message which Eddie Page brought along. Now that I have a tangible token of your friendship and affection, I am not only happy as a lark but full of hopes and plans for the future. It appears that friendship like mine gets stronger and finer with age. It might sound strange and incredible that it is a fact nevertheless that the only real and dear friends I have are Americans. I still live on the interest of the spiritual values which I accumulated in my youth in America, but being cut off from that source for so many years I have been devastated and spiritually beyond remedy, I fear. Twenty years spent in Russia have taught me that friendship, love and all human relations in general need certain conditions sine qua non for their thriving, otherwise they are but a hollow name and machinery. I have always believed that I was a very socially person but with the exception of one man I found in the prison camp beyond the Polar circle, there is not a single person in this country I can honestly call my friend. It is dreadful; it is appalling to make such a discovery after having yearned for friendship such a long time. Now I am not only a very lonely man but an outsider, a person to be shunned. I know now that I shall never feel at home again in this country I have always found joy and happiness in fighting and this is what I am denied now. I am not ever allowed to fight the way I can die Gzen mchten with which you are at grips now. I hate to think that all what I have stored away in my memory is to die with me never to be revealed even to my friends. But I dont despair as long as I enjoy your friendship. Without your help I dont think I shall be able to see better times and new horizons. On you, Charlie 232 and Mrs. Hare I join all my hopes I have very bad luck with my friends in the Embassy: I had Charlie who was like a brother to me and he went away. Then Freddie Reinhardt took his place and as we were warming to each other he is called away to Washington. I am glad you have spoken to Eddie Page. I believe were going to be friends he and I. On the while practically all the boys in the Embassy have been more than friendly and very helpful and obliging. Thats the only place I feel at home and I go there each time there in a moment free from work and worries... The eyes of Russia are turned towards the East, towards America and its great president. May God give him strength, health and vigor and many successes in his noble work.
232

Charles Chaplin

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Charles Thayer, who was the Third Secretary and Vice Consul at the US Embassy in Moscow from 1934, in March 1942 was appointed Acting Charge dAffair in the Embassy in Kabul. In his memoirs about the Soviet Union, published after the World War II, Thayer said that he invited his friends to a farewell dinner before his departure and summarized: Life in Kuibyshev was not already as dull as one could have expected in a small, overrounded, provincial city. 233 . Frederick Reinhardt returned to Washington in May 1942. After World War II, he continued his diplomatic career. In the early 1960s, he held the posts of US Ambassador to Cairo and Rome. Edward Page was a Vice Consul in Paris in the late 1930s. His fluency in Russian sent him to the Soviet Union. In 1943, he was given the office of US Consul in Moscow, being at the same time one of the closest assistants to the new American Ambassador Hariman. After the World War II, he held diplomatic posts in Italy and West Germany. His last diplomatic mission in his career was a plenipotentiary minister in Sofia immediately after the restoration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Bulgaria in 1959. The letter to Bullitt reveals a typical feature in the character and personality of Andreytchine, which was demonstrated in his early years as an immigrant in Minnesota. Regardless of the circumstances, he found every single chance to educate himself, to read the newly published books. In Kuibyshev, he had the rare opportunity to use the small wartime personal libraries of foreign diplomats and journalists to return to the world of culture after the harrowing isolation in the years spent in camps in the Far North. In his letter, regardless of his suffering, Andreytchine did not miss the opportunity to comment on topics related to culture and civilization that excited him: Slowly I am beginning to catch up with the development of literature and politics in my absence by reading books, magazines, and all kinds of anthologies. It makes me glad to see the practically all American intellectuals have come home to roots. After all they have discussed through the mirage and are beginning to appreciate their own country, people and its civilization with all what it implies. Democracy is coming of age, with its own (?) the minds and hearts of its prodigal sons like Edmund Wilsons, Lewis Mumford, John Dos
233

Thayer, Charles. Bears in the Caviar, (New York, 1951), . 236, 241.

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Passos and tutti quanti. How Id love to be there and see and feel their process of sobering up. Andreytchine familiarized himself with the works of the above mentioned American authors from the radical intellectual circle around The Liberator at the time he lived in New York. Edmund Wilson was a well-known literary critic and novelist, inspired both by Zigmund Freud and Karl Marx. In the early 1930s, he lived in Europe together with his wife Mary MacCarthy, also a literary critic. In those years, Wilson was close friend to Ernest Hemingway and Francis Scott Fitzgerald. In 1940, his book on the history of European social democracy until the time of the Bolshevik Revolution was published 234 . Andreytchine probably got access to it while he was in Kuibyshev. Lewis Mumford was a modern social and urban critic, whose most popular books from that period were Technics and Civilization (1934) and The Culture of the Cities (1938). In his extensive letter to the former American Ambassador in Moscow, George did not miss the opportunity to comment on the current news from the front lines. He particularly stressed on the attention paid to the intensive military acts of the Western allies in the Pacific region: We are waiting for news of General MacArthurs coming offensive from the Antipodes. Good Luck, dear friend, and best wishes to yourself and Anne. My wife and daughters join me in sending our best greetings to both of you. Using the opportunity of Ray Thurstons departure for Washington a few months later, on September 2nd 1942 George Andreytchine sent another confidential and very friendly letter to William C. Bullitt, where he wrote: Loy Henderson, who is now in Kuibyshev, tells me that you have received the letters I sent you through Charlie and Freddie Reinhardt John Russell, a dear friend of mine and Charlies, has also promised to deliver a note to you and give a description by word of mouth of my delicate position in this country. I hope he is not going to forget my little commission and my message to you and Charlie Chaplin.
234

To the Finland Station, (New York: Doubleday,1940).

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Both the material and moral sides of my existence are very precarious. I shall never feel safe as long as I remain here and you can imagine how this insecurity preys on my mind day and night. There are so many things I want to tell you but I dare not put down my thoughts on paper: the time has not arrived yet and people are so suspicious and irritable in war time Dear Bill, now that you are in the Navy I would like to tell what great satisfaction we all got in hearing the news of your first successes off Midway and the Solomon Islands. You must bear in mind that these were the only happy events in so many long months and everybody in Russia appreciates their significance and portent Everybody here lives with the one thought and hope when your boys are going to jump at Hitlers throat in France and Belgium. You can see that I am a great enthusiast of this war and read with great love and personal gratification all news of your successes in the Pacific, in China, in the Near East and in Western Europe. My wife and children join me in wishing you much health and all success in your work. Please give my warmest regards to Anne. I would like you to send a word to Charlie Chaplin and tell him that never forget him and hope to hear from him one day. Affectionately, George. In August 1942, Loy Henderson was sent as an Inspector to check the work of the diplomatic missions abroad. He spent nearly six months in the Soviet Union. After World War II, the US diplomat was appointed Ambassador to India (19481951) and Iran (19511954), where his name got involved in the coup against the nationalist Iranian Prime Minister, Mosaduk, carried out with the support of CIA. As Andreytchine stated in front of Charles Dickerson in December 1941, alongside with George Kennan, Henderson was regarded by the Kremlin as one of the most extreme anti-Soviet members of William Bullitts team. Thirty years later, Loy Henderson recalled the reaction of the Soviet Ambassador in Washington and former Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov when he heard about his new trip to Moscow and Kuibyshev: When in July 1942, I applied for a visa to go to the Soviet Union, Litvinov was obviously annoyed. He asked me why I was planning to go to Moscow. When I told him in the capacity of an Inspector of Embassies and Consular Offices, he was quite rude. He said he did not see why I should go to the Soviet

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Union as an Inspector. Nevertheless, the visa was issued and I arrived in Moscow in the middle of August... Admiral [William H.] Standley returned to the Soviet Union in January 1943 and I prepared to go back to Washington. Before I left he told me that I ought to know that just prior to his departure from the United States, Litvinov had asked him if it was true that I was coming back again to work on Eastern European Affairs. When Standley had replied in the affirmative, Litvinov had said that the United States and the Soviet Union would never have good relations so long as Henderson was on that desk. 235 . A newly disclosed document indirectly confirmed the claim that George Andreytchine had contacts and personal correspondence with Charlie Chaplin during the war years. In September 1942, Wendell Willkie, a special envoy of Franklin Roosevelt and former Presidential candidate from the Republican Party in 1940, visited China and the Soviet Union. On the eve of the visit of the American politic, on 3 September 1942, S. Lozovsky sent from Kuibyshev to J. Stalin and V. Molotov in Moscow a detailed secret report of nine pages concerning his personality, views and public statements in the last months. In his cover letter, Lozovsky stated: I am sending detailed information about Wendell Willkies personality. I am drawing your attention to his demagogue statement on 23 August for the newspapers prior to his departure from the United States. Willkie intentionally demonstrated his anti-fascist attitude because he is of German origin and is afraid of being accused of insufficient American patriotism. All of his postSoviet declarations are of selective nature, since he hopes that the wave of sympathy to the Soviet Union will help him to win the Presidential elections in 1944. A careful study of the document shows that it was prepared in Lozovskys Secretariat on the grounds of current information, received in the SovInformBureau Anglo-American Department. Therefore, we could suggest the possibility of George Andreytchines involvement in working out the document. After it was received in Moscow, the Soviet Foreign Minister wrote a clear resolution on Lozovskys letter: The report is quite good (which happens rarely in NKID!). Following Molotovs directions, the document was sent as information to . Mikoyan, . Voroshilov, L. Beria, L. Kaganovich, . Vishinsky and other members of the senior Soviet leadership.

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On 17 September Willkie and his team arrived in Kuibyshev and spent there four days before leaving for Moscow to hold talks with Josef Stalin. Through one of Willkies company, Andreytchine managed to send a personal letter to the famous film actor. Most likely, this was Joseph Barnes, former correspondent of New York Herald Tribune in Moscow in the 1930s. In 19411944, he was Deputy Director of the International Department in the USA Office of War Information. According to information, disclosed through the secret counterintelligence VENONA Project, one of the decoded telegrams from NKGB to the Soviet intelligence representation in New York in the fall of 1944 mentions the name of Joseph Barnes as a potential source of information for the Soviet foreign intelligence, without his suspecting this. New archival evidence confirms indirectly that George tried successfully to contact the movie star Charlie Chaplin in various ways. In Chaplins FBI File there was kept a large security information from October 10th, 1952, where an informant reported about the letter, recalling meanwhile Charlie Chaplin George Andreytchine meetings in the USA and Germany. The FBI Report noted: In April 1943 informant furnished information that CHARLIE CHAPLIN once assisted a Soviet agent in leaving the United States by supplying him with funds. This agent, whose name the informant did not know, was later alleged to be the Chief Soviet Agent in Bulgaria. Informant described the man as the Number One Communist in Bulgaria. According to the informant CHAPLIN apparently had nothing from this person for a number of years until he, CHAPLIN, was in Berlin. Germany, and allegedly received a telephone call from this unknown agent requesting that CHAPLIN call at this mans hotel. CHAPLIN went to the hotel and found the man living in luxury in an extensive suite and was apparently at that time in ill health. Informant continued that on the occasion of WENDELL WILLKIEs visit to the Soviet Union, one of the members of his party met this unknown Soviet agent in Russia and the agent feeling himself in danger by Stalinist animosity wrote a letter requesting CHAPLINs assistance. According to the informant this letter was delivered to CHAPLIN by an unknown member of WENDELL WILLKIEs party and informant stated that he, himself, had seen this letter. 236 .

Truman Library Archives, Independence, MO, Oral Interview with Loy Henderson, 14 June 1973. www.fadetoblack.com/foi/charliechaplin/fbifile Federal Bureau of Investigation Summary Report, 10/14/52, p. 108.
236

235

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Interesting evidence on the time, spent in Kuibyshev, presented half a century later James McCargar, one of the junior assistants in the US diplomatic mission in the Soviet Union from July 1942 until the spring of 1944. Later, in the post-War years, his work was closely connected with the work of the American intelligence in Eastern Europe. In an interview in 1995, McCargar recalls: We were not allowed to see any Soviet citizens. Kuibyshev didnt have the facilities for such encounters that Moscow had. But I did see one person there who always impressed me. He came around to the Embassy, usually in the evenings, when either food or drink, or both, were available. He was a rather famous figure in history. His name was George Andreichin. He was a Bulgarian who had been very prominent in the Comintern. How he had survived until 1942, I dont know. He came in and talked very freely with a lot of us in the Embassy. We assumed he went back and reported whatever he picked up. Eventually Stalin had him executed, in 1947. A very interesting man. He knew a lot of history, and he was not averse to telling it. I was fascinated with all of this. 237 At the beginning of March 1943, members of the first diplomatic mission of Canada arrived in the USSR, after official relations between the two countries had been established in June the previous year. The Canadian plenipotentiary minister (from 1944 Ambassador) in the Soviet Union L. D. Wilgress spoke fantastic Russian, which he learned while working as a trade representative of his country to the Russian Empire in the years of the World War I. Later, after the World War, Wilgress managed the Canadian diplomatic mission in London and in the United Nations, and in the 1950s he held the posts of Deputy Foreign Minsiter and representative of his country to NATO. In his memoirs, L. D. Wilgress stated that during his stay in Kuibyshev (March August 1943) he was restricted in establishing extensive contacts with official Soviet representatives, which impeded the receipt of genuine information about the situation in the country and about the main intentions of the Soviet foreign policy 238 . The government in Ottawa, however, highly appreciated the analyses it received from its representative to the USSR. In one of his first extensive reports from Kuibyshev from April 1943, Wilgress
Interview with James McCargar, The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Historical Collections (American Memory) Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington D. C., 2006. 238 Wilgress, Leolyn Dana. Memoirs, (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), p. 129.
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informed about interesting facts, collected during informal meetings with representatives of other diplomatic missions (Sweden, Great Britain, Australia). As a source of his information, the Canadian plenipotentiary minister mentioned also the BulgarianAmerican revolutionary with Soviet citizenship Andreytchine 239 . A frequent guest of Andreytchines in Kuibyshev was the prominent commentator from New York Times, Cyrus Leo Sulzberger, who was in Bulgaria in 19391940. Years later, Sulzberger recalled in his memoirs the war evenings, spent in discussions with Andreytchine while in Kuibyshev in 19421943 240 . Henry Shapiro, the doyen of the American journalists in the Soviet Union, was in Kuibyshev at the same time. From 1934 until 1947 he was a correspondent for New York Herald Tribune, and later managed the United Press International Bureau in the Soviet capital for a long time. After the end of the War, Shapiro was one of the few representatives of US media to stay in the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. He was the first foreign journalist to announce Stalins death in March 1953. Among the American journalists, who lived for some time in Kuibyshev, was Wallace Carroll. After his departure from the Soviet Union, he was appointed Director of the US Office of War Information in London, as well as an advisor to General Dwight Eisenhower for a short period of time. In one of his reports from Kuibyshev, Carroll described the meetings, organized by Solomon Lozovsky in the local Grand Hotel for the diplomatic representatives of the United States and Great Britain and the foreign journalists in town. Carroll named some of the hosts former Soviet Ambassadors to Washington and Paris Alexander Troyanovsky and Jakob Suritz, composer Dmitry Shostakovich, as well as the Secretary General of SovInformBureau Misha Borodin 241 . Without being specifically mentioned in the report, most of these events with the US allies were apparently attended by George Andreytchine too. While fulfilling his daily tasks pertaining to reviewing the English press during his stay in Kuibyshev, Andreytchine could not have missed the sensational reports in the
Smith, Dennis. Diplomacy of Fear: Canada in the Cold War. 1941-1948, (University of Toronto Press, 1988), p. 46. 240 Sulzberger, C. L. A Long Row of Candles, p. 177. Andreytchine and Sulzberger met again during the Paris Peace Conference in 1946. 241 Carroll, Wallace. From Moscow to Kuibyshev, In: They Were There. The Story of WW II and how it came about, (New York: Libraries Press, 1944), p. 318320.
239

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American press in January 1943 about the murder of the Italian anarchist Carlo Tresca in New York. Thirty years earlier, the two of them had worked together with the leaders of the big strike in Minnesota. In 19221923, Trescas name was again in the newspaper headlines as one of the organizers of the campaign in defense of Sacco and Vanzetti. In the late 1930s, he fiercely attacked the Stalinist repressions in his newspaper Il Presso (The Hammer) and at public meetings. The death of his old friend anarchist at the height of World War II seemed to mark the symbolic end of a round of Anreytchines memories about his own odyssey in the other world in the course of the previous world war, and put forward a number of serious issues related to the global ideological duels of the 20th century. FBI archives have preserved a bulky file record (over 1300 pages) about the dangerous subversive individual Carlo Tresca 242 . The file also keeps a brochure of a special committee on the investigation of the assassination of the Italian radical sindicalist and journalist. The Committee included many well-known intellectuals, familiar to Andreytchine Arturo Giovannitti, John Dos Passos, William Henry Chamberlin, Oswald Garrison Willard, Edmund Wilson and some others. In the course of the next few years, this Committee sent a number of appeals to the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover for clarification of Trescas mysterious murder. Comments within the Bureau explicitly show that the Federal agents abstained from being involved in the investigation, which was left in the hands of the New York police. Along with this, however, the main three versions for the reason for the murder were stated a communist affiliated to the Stalinist secret services; a member of a profascist organization; a representative of a mafia faction. Carmino Galante, who had links with the Italian-American mafia, was identified as the main suspect. The investigation of the different versions for Carlo Trescas unrevealed murder continued in the late 1940s without real success. Andreytchine did not terminate his contacts with the American diplomats after his return to Moscow in August 1943, although meetings with them took place much more rarely. He met the new US Ambassador Averell Harriman again after his arrival in
242

FBI FOIA Files. No. 611335.

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Moscow in October 1943 243 . Through the Second Secretary in the Embassy John Melby, Andreytchine met the author of the popular play The Little Foxes (1938), Lillian Hellman 244 . John Melby came to the USSR in March 1943, initially taking the office of a Vice Consul. Soon after the famous American writer Lillian Hellman arrived in Moscow with a cultural mission on 5 November 1944, she accepted the invitation of the Ambassador and his daughter Cathleen to be a guest at Spaso Hause. On 23 November, Harrimans Deputy George Kennan organized a reception for Thanksgiving Day at the Ambassadors residence. It was then that the intimate relation between Melby and Hellman started 245 , and was investigated for years by FBI agents, after the authors name was included in the Blacklist of the MacCarthy Commission 246 . During the war years, George Andreytchine maintained good relations with officials from the British Embassy in the Soviet Union. In 1943, his name surprisingly appeared in secret documents of the British Special Operations Executive S.O.E. On 1 March 1943, officials from the S.O.E. discussed with representatives of Foreign Office the odd looking idea of asking NKGB to lend for a while the Bulgarian political immigrant in the Soviet Union, George Andreytchine in order to receive more credible information on the resistance movement in the Balkans and the situation in Bulgaria 247 . The surprising proposal was made by the Secretary of the British Embassy, John Russel. He met Andreytchine in Kuibyshev and characterized him in a telegram to London as a friend, keeping relations with the allies. Andreytchines name was discussed once again in a
Harriman, Averell; Abel, Elie. Special Envoy to Churchill & Stalin. (New York: Random House, 1975), p. 49. A testimony relates that George was particularly nice to Lilian telling her stories about Bulgaria Bulgarian Review, 1982, p. 30. 245 Rifbert Nowman, The Cold War Romance of Lillian Helman and John Melby, 1989. 246 Even in September 1941 FBI agents announced Helman for a notorious Communist after her appearance together with Ernest Hamingway as speakers at a meeting in New York in favor of the Spanish Republican Army officers, detained in camps of the Vishy regime in France FBI FOIA Files, Subject: Ernest Hemingway, p. 24. 247 British secret services relied initially on information of the Bulgarian Agrarian leader Dr. G. M. Dimitrov, who collaborated with MI-6 in 1939-1941 before leaving illegally his own country. However, Dr. Dimitrovs reports from Cairo had been qualified as ineffective. Until transferring two S.O.E. officers (Mostin Davies and Frank Thompson) close to Bulgarian border in early 1944 London did not had available information about the real situation in the country and the strength of the anti-Nazi armed forces.
244 243

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S.O.E. Memorandum from 16 June 1943. Eventually, the proposal was withdrawn as being too risky and unrealistic 248 . The problems related to the unfeasibility to organize effective wartime cooperation between S.O.E. and NKGB in the Balkans were discussed again at a meeting with the Director of the Special Operations Executive, Colin Gubbins, on 5 November 1943. 249 At the beginning of January 1944, a possibility was discussed for the S.O.E. representative in Moscow, Brigadier George Hill, or the British Ambassador Archibald Clark Kerr, to raise the issue of NKGB assistance in the preparation of operations in Bulgaria. After coordinating with Foreign Office, the topic was removed from the agenda. At that time, the groups under Major Mostin Davis and Captain Frank Thompson were sent to Serbia close to the prewar Bulgarian border. After establishing initial contacts with the Bulgarian partisans, they submitted detailed notes to the central office in Cairo about the status of the Bulgarian armed anti-fascist movement 250 . General Donovans Visit Judging from the notes of US Ambassador to Moscow Averell Harriman, George Andreytchine attended the Christmas reception at the American Embassy in December 1943, where the US Intelligence Chief, General William Donovan, appeared unexpectedly. Unfortunately, available information does not give enough evidence whether Andreytchine was introduced to the General, but his presence there suggests such a possibility. Moreover, General Donovan showed particular interest in the situation in the Balkans at that time, as well as in the assessments made by Georgi Dimitrov in an article called The Crisis in Bulgaria, published in Pravda. Actually, the MGB report from the 1940s, which has been already quoted, claims that Andreytchine met General
National Archives of the United Kingdom (NAUK), Kew, HS 5/ 179 1.03.1943 SOE London memo; HS 5/180 14.6.1943 SOE London memo. For a broader discussion on the British policy toward Bulgaria see: Stankova, Marietta. Bulgaria in British Foreign Policy, 1943-44, (PhD thesis, London: LSE, 1999). 249 NAUK, HS/8/204. 250 , . . 1939-1945, (: , 1994), . 132154.
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Donovan, who, according to Andreytchines words, suggested that he go to America to organize a propaganda center for Bulgaria 251 . What was actually the reason for William Donovans confidential visit to Moscow in December 1943? Although it might look quite unlikely at first glance, it was indirectly related to the situation in Bulgaria. After the completion of confidential information missions in Great Britain and in the Balkans in early 1941, Wild Bill Donovan was personally invited by President Franklin Roosevelt to establish an organization for foreign political intelligence, which did not exist in the United States before the World War II. In July 1941, he was appointed with a Presidential Decree a coordinator of the Information Bureau, which a year later split into two services Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Office of War Information. The Office of Strategic Services, founded by General Donovan, is considered the predecessor of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Four of the future CIA directors served in the OSS during the War under Donovans direct supervision Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby and William Casey. In the early 1950s, however, the Office of Strategic Services and its founder were the target of a fierce attack. Decoded Soviet intelligence telegrams (Operation VENONA) revealed that some high ranking Office officials, including one of Donovans deputies, Duncan Lee, served as sources of information about the Soviet intelligence representation in the USA. Late in August 1943, a meeting was held in London between Donovan and the Directors of the British Intelligence Service (SIS), Stuart Menzis, and the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Colin Gubbins. It was for the first time that the US representative demonstrated interest in the issue of coordinating joint secret operations in Bulgaria and Romania through the main office of SOE in Cairo. The American interest towards Bulgaria was presumably brought about by the political crisis in the country after the unexpected death of King Boris III. Discussions certainly included the issue of conducting joint operations in Western Europe, more specifically in France. During the following months, this turned out to be a central topic in the relations between the two secret services with regard to the preparation of OVERLORD Operation the debarkment of allied troops in Normandy at the beginning of June 1944.
251

, 1, 1, .. 573, .2.

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Upon his arrival in Moscow on 25 December 1943, General William Donovan and US Ambassador Averell Harriman met the Soviet Foreign Minister and raised the issue of the prospective cooperation between the intelligence services of both countries in operations in South Eastern Europe and particularly in Bulgaria. The American representatives relied on the Soviet assistance to establish contacts with the resistance groups in the Balkans. On the other hand, they offered support in transferring Soviet sabotage groups in Western Europe. Two days after his conversation with Molotov, the Chief of the US Intelligence had a surprising visit by his Soviet counterpart, Geheral Pavel Fitin. The role of the interpreter was played by Charles Bohlen, who was asked by President Franklin Roosevelt to do the same job at the tripartite Conference in Tehran a month earlier, and a year later he would be the Presidents special interpreter at the Conference in Yalta 252 . In his conversation with General Fitin, the Director of the Office of Strategic Services presented confidential information on the goals, structure and the basic activities of his organization and suggested that the two intelligence services exchange their representatives as liaison officers in Moscow and Washington respectively. In fact, at the beginning of 1944, Colonel John Haskel was nominated to leave for Moscow, and Colonel Andrey Grauer for Washington 253 . The contacts with representatives of the US Intelligence in Moscow were the responsibility of Colonel Gayk Ovakimyan (Osipov), who managed the residenture of the Soviet scientific and technical intelligence in the United States from 1933 to 1941 under the cover of an Amtorg engineer. With regard to the coordination in the Balkans, in March 1944, the Soviet side submitted to London and Washington extensive information on the resistance movement in Bulgaria. Collaboration between NKGB and the Western allies regarding Bulgaria was suspended when in late September 1944 the Command of Third Ukranian Front
On November 30, 1943 President Roozevelt wrote to Bohlen: Dear Chip, Your precise knowledge of the meaning of the Russian language as well as your understanding of the Russian mentality have made a real contribution to my inportant duties in Tehran. - Library of Congress, Washington DC, Manuscript Division, The Papers of Charles E. Bohlen, Container 10. 253 Memoranda for the President: OSS-NKVD Liaison, Studies of Intelligence, Washington, 1963, No. 3, p. 63-74; Clauseen, Martin, ed. The OSS-NKVD Relationship, 1943-1945. Vol. 8 of Covert Warfare series. Garland, New York, 1989.
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imperatively insisted that the American and British military missions withdraw from Bulgarian territory, which was seen as part of the Soviet operational zone 254 . At the same time, however, another secret duel on the invisible front was taking place. The American and British secret services had another two parallel top secret sources of information from Moscow. On 1 February 1943, the radio intelligence service of the US Army (prototype of the National Security Agency) launched a new secret program under the code name VENONA. The main goal of the project was to intercept and decipher radiocorrespondence between Moscow and the diplomatic and trade representations of the USSR (including Amtorg) to Washington, New York, San Francisco and other American cities. Between 1942 and 1945, over 3 000 airgrams were deciphered, most of which were correspondence with the NKGB and GRU representatives in the United States of America. This documentation was made public by the National Security Agency only fifty years after World War II (between July 1995 and September 1997). Simultaneously with VENONA Operation, from March 1943 until the spring of 1945, the British radiointelligence service implemented another top secret program under the code name ISCOT. The project contributed to decipher dozens of telegrams between the leadership of the Comintern and the Communist Parties in Europe and China (after the disbanding of the international communist organization in June 1943, the relations were maintained through the so-called NII 205 in Moscow) 255 . Soviet and Bulgarian archives keep information about an unexpected continuation of the conflict between the secret services of the allies. On 29 November 1944, the Chief of the Soviet foreign intelligence, General Fitin and his Deputy, Colonel Ovakimyan (Chief of the Department for the USA and Great Britain) informed Georgi Dimitrov: We have received data that the British intelligence is intercepting and deciphering a considerable number of coded messages, transmitted on the line from Moscow to Poland, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. As a result of the analysis of the deciphered telegrams, the British intelligence has concluded that the secret radiocommunications are being carried out by the Joint Slavic
254

, . ., (: , 1995), . 56, 5860, 6263. Soviet Military Command acted according to a secret Stalins imperative directive , 18, 893/9, . 43 255 Herbert Romerstein, Aspects of World War II History Revealed through ISCOT Radio Intercepts, Journal of Intelligence History, Munster, Vol. 5, No. 1, Summer 2005.

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Committee, a successor of the Comintern The issues they deal with are the partisan struggle and Moscows interference to get communists involved in the governments of some countries. After an immediate inspection, Dimitrov received a message from Sofia that the most likely reason for the leak of information was the fact that too many people have become aware of this secret information 256 . A year later, G. Dimitrov received new information from General Fitin that the British Intelligence (3300) deciphered the Bulgarian (3322) and Yugoslav (3366) coded correspondence with Moscow (4400). According to Soviet intelligence experts, these codes could not have been deciphered by means of analytical methods. This created the hypothesis that the enemy must have received confidential information after their deciphering. A follow up analysis from Sofia insisted Our code with Moscow is absolutely reliable; our telegrams could not be deciphered. It is believed also that the people who sent the wires were perfectly reliable. A new hypothesis was voiced that the location of the secret radio transmitter of the Communist Party (Krasno Selo), disclosed by a finder of the Bulgarian Military Intelligence a few months earlier, was also known to the British military representatives in Sofia 257 . Apparently, the intelligence information, received from London from the so-called Cambridge Five KGB agents was not sufficient in order to reveal the top secret British Intelligence project ISCOT. At the moment, however, we are not able to prove the hypothesis of a disinformative operative game by NKGB through the utilization of the available channels in Sofia, Warsaw and Belgrade. It is almost certain that George Andreytchine had no idea of another paradox correspondence in those months, an indirect dispute between the USSR and the USA, where his name was used as a political argument. In a reply to a request by the Library of Social Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the U. S. S. R. in Moscow to submit issues of the IWW periodical in Chicago, the editors office of Industrial Worker responded in January 1945 with sarcastic lines against the repressions and tyranny of the Stalinist regime. Along with some other arguments, the journalists from the central IWW periodical in Chicago asked a rhetoric question in their reply to Moscow:
256 257

, 146-, 4, .. 171, . 11. , 146-, 5032, . , 1 , 7 .

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Can you give us back the lives of Shatoff and Andreychinemen whose competence and services your government lauded so highly, but who were murdered because they foolishly believed they had the right to their own thoughts? We'd rather have some of the Jimmie Higginses you have murdered, but we'll trade for the lives of these two boys. We will trade you many a volume of the Industrial Worker for the diaries of William D. Haywood which your government burned, lest the wage workers of the U.S. learn something of the truth of the tyranny then in birth, but now in full maturity in your Communist heaven. Would YOU dare send it out to us, knowing that willingly, we would print it? 258

Looking Forward to Bulgaria It could be assumed that during the war years George Andreycthine resumed his contacts with Georgi Dimitrov and Vassil Kolarov. So far, we have not had access to authentic data about any specific meetings between them, or to the editions of the radio emissions broadcast in Bulgarian from the Soviet Union (radio stations Hristo Botev, Peoples Voice and the Bulgarian emission of Radio Moscow). Judging by Milanka Poptomovas memoirs, in 19431944 Andreytchine repeatedly met his fellow villager Vladimir Poptomov, who managed the Bulgarian section of Radio Moscow during the war 259 . He sent information and comments on the situation in Bulgaria to the Anglo-Saxon countries. One of the editions, which regularly published materials about Bulgaria, including the two famous articles by Georgi Dimitrov on the domestic political crisis following the death of King Boris III, was the London journal World News and Views 260 . Georgi Dimitrovs Diary does not contain any notes about a meeting with George Andreychine through the SovInformBureau either in Kuibyshev or in Moscow. It is known, however, that there was a regular flow of information, bulletins and other materials
Industrial Worker, Chicago, January 27, 1945. In the postwar years Poptomov was a member of the Bulgarian Communist party Politburo. From 6 August 1949 till 27 May 1950 he served as a Foreign Minister, and than until his death in 1952 he was a Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria. 260 World News and Views, London, No 33, August 15, 1942, p. 342; No. 38, September 25, 1943, p. 307309; No. 6, February 5, 1944, p. 46, etc.
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between the Comintern and SovInformBureau, and joint discussions were periodically held to coordinate the radio propaganda. It is worth mentioning that in those months Dimitrov received confidential information on talks held in the US Embassy through the Daily Workers correspondent in Moscow, Janet Ross. Thus, in August 1942, Ross informed the Secretary General of the Comintern about two meetings between General Omar Bradley and Averell Harriman with American journalists in Moscow. Their comments on the status of the Soviet-British-American relations were immediately transferred by Dimitrov to the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov 261 . After the pro-communist coup on 9 September 1944, George Andreytchine paid more attention to the situation in his own country. It is most likely, however, that he had no real possibility to learn about the percentage agreement between Great Britain and the Soviet Union, reached as a result of a three-day lively bargaining between Churchill and Eden on the one side, and Stalin and Molotov on the other (911 Otober 1944) 262 . In the spirit of the European traditions of Realpolitik, this confidential agreement divided the Balkans into spheres of influence before the end of the war and thus contributed to the separation between Western and Eastern Europe several months before the agreements in Yalta and Potsdam were signed. In mid-October 1944, Andreytchine presumably had the chance to see some of the members of the Bulgarian government delegation to sign the truce with the allies from the anti-Nazi coalition. The delegation was headed by Foreign Minister Professor Petko Staynov. Members of the delegation were Ministers Dobri Terpeshev, Nikola Petkov and Petko Stoyanov and the advisors General Georgi Popov, Professor Dimitar Mihalchev, Colonel Ivan Antonov and Secretary Krum Kyulyavkov. Andreytchine met Professor Dimitar Mihalchev for the first time when he arrived in Moscow in September 1934 as the first Bulgarian plenipotentiary minister in the USSR. On 10 December 1944, the first official political representative of the Fatherland Front government, Professor Dimitar Mihalchev, arrived in Moscow. On the very next day, he called Andreytchine and requested a meeting with him. On 15 December 1944,
The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov. 1933-1949, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 236 ; Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, The Venona Secrets, (Washington DC: Regnens Publishing, 2001), . 441 442. 262 NAUK, PREM. 3/434/2; FO. 800/302.
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George Andreytchine visited Dimitar Mihalchev in his place. The two of them discussed in detail the situation in Bulgaria, the Macedonian issue and other current topics. In a report to Georgi Dimitrov, Andreytchine informed about his conversation and quoted exactly the definite words, used by Mihalchev to condemn the lawlessness of the new power: Really, there is chaos and lawlessness in the country: local partisans are taking revenge on a large scale and do not obey any instructions from the center... Actually, can we allow for valuable officers staff to be killed without any reason? 263 Despite the insistence of his direct supervisor and friend Lozovsky to stay in SovInformBureau, Andreytchine, assisted by Georgi Dimitrov, finally returned to Bulgaria in November 1945. Two months earlier, in a personal letter to Dimitrov, he desparately requested that his return to Bulgaria be accelerated. One of the arguments, presented in the letter, was quite symptomatic: My health is very bad and it could be recovered only in Bulgaria 264 . On 6 October 1945, Georgi Dimitrov wrote in his diary that he accepted Andreytchine on the occasion of his return to Bulgaria 265 . In a cable to the Secretary of the Bulgarian Workers Party (communists) Traycho Kostov in Sofia on 28 October, along with the discussion of some specific details pertaining to his own upcoming return to his country, Dimitrov announced: By the end of November, Stepanov and Andreytchine will be in Sofia at the disposal of the Central Committee. Stepanov can be appointed directly in the Central Committee, and Andreytchine, most likely, through the Ministry of Information 266 . The name Stepanov from the above document is another Bulgarian with astounding international activities Stoyan Minev. In the mid-1920s, he worked in the Latin American Secretariat of the Comintern and was sent on secret missions in Central
263 264

, 146-, 5, .. 573, . 14. , 146-, 4, .. 11. 265 , . , (: , 1997), . 506.

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America. For a short time, he supported the representatives of the anti-Stalinist inner Party opposition, but in 19291930 he even worked for a while in Stalins Secretariat (under the name Lebedev). After 1932, he was responsible for the work of the French Communist Party, and during the Spanish Civil War he represented the Comintern in the Iberian country under the nickname Moreno. When in the early 1939 he returned to Moscow, Minev was made to write detailed evaluation on the defeat of the Republican Army alongside Andre Marti, Jose Diaz, Dolores Ibaruri and other Civil War leaders. Probably the fact that he worked for a short time in Stalins Secretariat helped him to evade the fate of other Soviet and Comintern functionaries in Spain, accused of contributing to the enemys victory. During the World War II, Stoyan Minev (Stepanov) continued his work in the Comintern and was still responsible for the French Communist Party. Parallel to this, he directed for a while the emissions of Inoradio the editors office for the Comintern emissions, broadcast in 18 languages. Dimitrovs statement elicited the information that Traycho Kostov and the leadership of the Communist Party in Bulgaria were well aware of Andreytchines name and there was no need to send additional biographical data about him. Presumably, Traycho Kostov had the opportunity to talk to George Andreytchine during his visit to Moscow in January 1945. In addition, Vassil Kolarov also returned to Sofia in early September after a long period of immigration. It was with him that the fate linked Andreytchine in the last Bulgarian round of his life odyssey. The Last Meeting in Spaso House One of Andreytchines last visits before his departure from Moscow was in the US Ambassadors residence Spaso House on 30 October 1945. Their meeting was arranged through the mediation of the Secretary at the Embassy and invariable interpreter during the talks between the Ambassador, Stalin, Molotov and other Kremlin dignitaries, Edward Page. Averell Harrimans personal records have preserved detailed information on this dialogue. This document was labelled as Top Secret and was completely declassified
266

, 1-, 7, .. 539, . 1.

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only after the authors death in July 1986 267 . The essentials of the content of the conversation (even with some additional details) became public earlier after the memoirs of the former US Ambassador to the USSR were published in 1975. During his straightforward talk with his host, the Bulgarian warned in a low voice about the presence of many bugs, installed in the residence building during the tenure of the previous US Ambassadors. He stressed that microphones were built in during the reconstruction of the building at the time of Ambasador Bullitts mandate. Some of the evidence used against him after his arrest in 1935 was based on recordings between him and Bullitt in the same building. Although Averell Harriman convinced him that they had performed a thorough check up to look for tapping devices, at Andreytchines suggestion the discussuin continued in ... the bathroom. As Harriman referred to this meeting in confidential information, the Bulgarian looked extremely happy..., [that] he had finally obtained approval to leave the Soviet Union and return to his native country, Bulgaria. He believed that although he was thrown out of the Communist Party, his long experience was going to be appreciated. As a start, he planned to support his family through writing. Andreytchine tried to explain to the Ambassador the specific differences in the attitude towards the Soviet Union in Bulgaria and in the other occupied by the Red Army countries. In his opinion, the Bulgarian people were still keeping their pro-Slavic and proRussian feelings. In the Central European countries, on the contrary, there was fear and suspicion to the Soviet Army, which could lead to responsive firm steps and willingness on the part of the Russians to dominate at any cost in the states bordering the USSR. As for the United States, the Bulgarian people experienced very good feelings to America. A reason for this was the existence of American educational institutions in the country. In addition, George Andreytchine expressed his belief that it will be easier to obtain in Bulgaria a situation which would give the Soviets their desired security and fixed position without complete domination of the country and continued maintenance of economic and cultural relations with the United States and the Western countries.
Library of Congress, Washington, Manuscript Division, The Papers of W. Averell Harriman, Special Files: Public Service, Box 183, Folder 10.
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According to Harrimans testimony, in the course of the dialogue Andreytchine confirmed the Ambassadors assumptions pertaining to the effect of the US nuclear bomb over the Soviet policy. Harrimans hypothesis for the interdependence between the hardening of the Soviet foreign policy and Washingtons nuclear diplomacy was shared in a close circle with officials in the US Embassy in Moscow on 10 October a day after the Ambassador returned from the London Conference of the four foreign ministers. In a reply to Edward Pages inquiry whether there was difference in the Soviet attitude after Potsdam, Harriman voiced that he felt the stronger aggression in the position of the Soviet Foreign Minister. He also quoted the impressions voiced by Chip Bohlen that Molotov had arrived with a chop in his shoulder 268 . By the look of Andreytchines words, at the meeting in Spaso House the presence of American nuclear weapons revived the old feeling of insecurity from the previous decades in the Soviet leaders. (Actually, in a statement to the leaders of the Soviet nuclear program Vannikov and Kurchatov, Stalin made a comment that Hiroshima wrecked the balance of forces in the world policy). In a coded telegram to US State Secretary James Byrnes, dated 27 November 1945, Averell Harriman referred to Andreytchines view to explain the aggression of the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov at the London Conference in October. The American Ambassador summarized at the end of the document that his message offered a partial explanation about the odd psychological effect of the atom bomb over the behavior of the Soviet leaders 269 . In the course of talks in Spaso House, Andreytchine shared his observations on the reaction of the ordinary Russian soldiers, who came back from Eastern and Central Europe. Many of them were shocked and depressed to see that even in the Balkans the people lived much better and had more than the people in the Soviet Union 270 . This undoubtedly had impact over Kremlins attitude, which became more aggressive in order
Ibid, Folder 7 Notes from 10 October 1945. Harriman, Averell; Abel, Elie. Op. it., p. 519520; Joseph Whelan, Soviet Diplomacy and Negotiation Behavior: emerging new context for U.S. Diplomacy, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1979), p. 206; Glinsky, Albert. Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage, (University of Illinois Press, 2000), p. 260; Suny, Paul. The Structure of Soviet History: Essays and Documents, (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 276277. 270 The perceived change in the moods and views of the returning from Central Europe Soviet soldiers has been commented in few contemporary publications as well e.g. , : , (: , 1999), . 186-188; Vladislav Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), p. 2-5.
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not to show any weakness before the people. Harriman wrote another interesting statement about Anreytchine: George said that Molotov and Vyshinsky made foreign policy and that Stalin, who had no independent source of information was approving their aggressive over suspicions policies. He in no sense is hopeful that there will be any change or modification of the present attitude both internal and external. There is no doubt that part of his pessimism is due to the fact that he is elated at the thought of getting out of the country and going some place where he hopes to be a free man again. One of Andreytchines prophetic comments was that the abrupt deterioration of Soviet-American relations after the end of the war would result in new purges and the elimination of other influential representatives of the Soviet Party and State administration, very similar to the purges in the mid-1930s. This view of Andreytchines amazingly coincided with the assessment, written in a coded message by the Acting US Ambassador in Moscow, George Kennan, to Harriman three weeks earlier. In a cable from 4 October 1945 regarding the first clash at the London Conference, Kennan pointed out that the tension in relations between the allies could lead to possible effect on the political situation in Moscow. If so, Russian political life could again be shaken to its foundation as it was during the purge of 1936-37 271 . During his farewell talks with the US Ambassador, George Andreytchine proposed the idea to organize radio emissions in Russian to present possible information about the American lifestyle and way of thinking. At that time, from February 1942 till October 1945, the US Office of War Information organized the first radio broadcasts of the Voice of America to counteract the radio propaganda of Nazi Germany and Japan. In a telegram to US Assistant Secretary of State William Benton dated 21 November 1945, Harriman took advantage of Andreytchines advice and insistently suggested to think about the creation of an American radio transmitter that could broadcast in the native languages of the peoples from Eastern Europe and Russia. In his reply, Benton
Library of Congress, Washington, Manuscript Division, The Papers of W. Averell Harriman, Special Files: Public Service, Box 183, Folder 3 From Kennan to Harriman, 4 October 1945.
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passionately supported the constructive proposal, which marked the beginning of the project for Voice of America broadcasts for the Soviet Union 272 . At the end of their conversation, the US Ambassador unexpectedly raised the question of possible collaboration with Andreytchine after his return to his native country: I asked him whether he would be ready to become an advisor to us in Bulgaria. He said he would, providing could work with men who personally understood him and trusted him, such as Bohlen, Durbrow, Page, etc. In answer to my question [would he accept compensation he said [that] it should be understood that he would not work for us but would give his best advice and thought he could be useful. He said he would gladly come to the United States to talk to his friends providing it could be done secretly without publicity as he was afraid his record in the United States during the last war would make a sensational story. As it became obvious from the brief summary of the confidential talks in the US Ambassadors residence, the meeting was of great importance and went far beyond a regular farewell visit. At the same time, it has brought about some additional comments. First, the question arises to what extent Andreytchines words were spontaneous outbursts of sincerity, or were they manipulatively predicted in advance. Analysing carefully the specific content of the meeting and comparing with previous statements made by George in front of William Bullitt, it is difficult to assume in this case the presence of a game, directed by the Soviet secret services. Most of the conceptions expressed in the dialogue were in no way serving the interests of the Stalin foreign policy, nor were they trying to mislead the famous partner. This was really a risky fatal step, which was undertaken with a clear mind about the turning point a dramatic period in the life of the Bulgarian was coming to end. There was new hope for better future with vague outlines, though. Second, it is not clear yet whether the apprehension about the working microphones was reasonable. Only a few years later, Andreytchine would be involved in the trap of the imaginary espionage case Harriman, and the accusations against him would prove how much the secret services knew, like in the case with the talks with Bullitt in the same house. Here, we could ask another question how is to be qualified (from the
272

Harriman, Averell; Abel, Elie. Op. it., p. 521.

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perspective of the past) Andreytchines willingness to collaborate with the American diplomats. In the framework of the bipolar confrontation model, when roles were clearly differentiated into ours and yours, the answer has one definitive dimension. If we read carefully once again the script of the talk, we will see an undisputable, maybe too naive and illusive, but sincere desire to build a more balanced international system of mutually beneficial co-existence, even before the final separation of two hostile worlds has become an irreversible fact. In the days shortly before Andreytchines return, the publisher of Louisville Courier, Mark Ethridge, was sent to the Balkans with a special investigation mission. In his memoirs years later, Ethridge recalled that his mission in Sofia, Moscow and Bucharest was initiated by State Secretary James Byrnes right before the failure of the London Conference between the foreign ministers of the four great powers. Due to an objection, made by the Soviet Foreign Minister regarding the authenticity of the reports, submitted by American representatives in the two Balkan states, the US State Secretary wanted to show that he could rely on another independent source of information through Ethridge 273 . The envoy of State Secretary Byrnes arrived in Sofia on 22 October 1945, accompanied by the official from the Section for Eastern Europe in the US State Department Cyril Black, whose mother was Bulgarian, and whose father had been the Director of the American College in Sofia for many years. Within his 20-day stay in Bulgaria, Mark Ethridge toured the country and held lengthy talks and consultations with over one hundred Bulgarian political and public figures, including the regents Todor Pavlov and Venelin Ganev, Prime Minister Kimon Georgiev, Foreign Minister Petko Staynov, the Communist Party leaders Georgi Dimitrov, Vassil Kolarov and Traycho Kostov, the opposition party leaders Nikola Petkov, Krastu Pastuhov and many others. His visit generated strong interest and was widely covered in the Bulgarian press with regard to the upcoming Parliamentary elections, postponed from August to November 1945. The reaction to the mission of the American envoy among the Bulgarian public brought about indicative intervention from Moscow. Upon the receipt of additional information from the Chairman of the Allied Control Commission in Sofia, General Sergei
273

ruman Library Archives, Independence, MO, Oral Interview with Mark F. Ethridge (1974), p. 89.

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Biriuzov, and after consultations with Molotov, Georgi Dimitrov wrote to Traycho Kostov before his return to Bulgaria: What is happening with regard to his mission smells too strong, and in my opinion, harmful admiration for the Americans. He is almost presenting himself as a Messiah for Bulgaria. As if the fate of the Bulgarian people depends exclusively on Truman. By the way, there is no doubt at all that it is not America that will be the decisive factor in regulating our international situation... It is detrimental to let the people believe that earlier all our hopes were reposed in the USSR, and now these hopes are suddenly redirected to America, to Truman 274 . A commentary by the US political envoy in Sofia, Maynard Barnes, presented the concept that the firm tone in the first public statement of the Bulgarian Communist leader right after his return to his native country on 4 November 1945, was partially due to the ambition to mute the wide repercussions from Mark Ethridges visit to Bulgaria. In the evening on 9 November, three days before his departure from Sofia, Ethridge had a long meeting with Georgi Dimitrov. There is no available documentary data, but we could guess that Dimitrov took advantage of George Andreytchine as an interpreter during his talks with the US State Secretary envoy. It is hard to assume that the former Secretary General of the Comintern would use a Foreign Ministry official for this important political dialogue (such as the Legacy secretary and former Bulgarian consul in the USA, Jupiter Doychev, for instance), or the officially attached to the American guest lieutenant from the Bulgarian War Ministry. Anyway, even if this important meeting in early November 1945 did not take place, in a little over a year George would have the opportunity to conduct meaningful talks with Mark Ethridge in other Balkan capitals Athens and Belgrade.

274

, 1-, 7, .. 539, . 2-3.

III. The Third Round: A Bulgarian Diplomat

Chapter 10 In Defense of the Bulgarian National Cause

Talks in Copenhagen and Paris Right after his return to Bulgaria, George Andreytchine was employed at the Ministry of Information and Propaganda and was tasked with organizing the publishing of the Free Bulgaria newspaper in English. The mission of the fortnightly edition was to popularize the Bulgarian national cause abroad on the eve of the Paris Peace Conference; the first few issues had announced that the newspaper would present a variety of political, economic, social and cultural information. Initially, Andreytchine lived with his family in rented accommodation at No 3 Ivaylo Street, and later moved to No 20 Veliko Tarnovo Street opposite the Doctors Garden in the center of Sofia. The adjacent building (No 18 Veliko Tarnovo Street) belonged to the banker Angelo Kouyumdjiyski and was granted for a residence of the US diplomatic representative in Sofia. Today, the building still performs the same function. Shortly after the Parliamentary elections on 18 November 1945, Andreytchine was appointed Chief of the Office of the Chairman of the 26th Regular National Assembly, Vasil Kolarov. Most likely, this appointment took place in the spring of the following year, because initially Chief of Kolarovs office was Hristo Boev, another Bulgarian political migr with an enigmatic biography, who had returned to Bulgaria in June 1945. In May 1921, Boev had become a collaborator of the Soviet military intelligence. During the following two decades he carried out (under the pseudonyms Russev, Dimov, Bergman) secret missions in Bulgaria, Turkey, Austria, Czechoslovakia, China, France and other countries. Later, in the late 1940s, Hristo Boev was one of the founders of Bulgarian foreign intelligence: in 19481949 he was its resident (head of section) in London, and in the period 19501952 he headed the new intelligence directorate (First Directorate of State Security). In April 1946, Andreytchine was included in the Bulgarian delegation to the annual conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Copenhagen. In a letter from the Foreign

Ministry Chief of Protocol to the Peoples Militia Directorate regarding the issuing of diplomatic passports for the Bulgarian representatives to the Inter-Parliamentary Conference, George Andreytchine was mentioned as an advisor and expert at the Foreign Ministry 1 . In the official list of the members of the Bulgarian delegation, his name was followed by the description editor of Free Bulgaria, advisor, expert 2 . The delegation included deputies from the parliamentary parties in the 26th National Assembly, such as Mihail Genovski (Bulgarian Agrarian Union party), Zdravko Mitovski (Social Democratic Party), Vasil Yurukov (middle class Zveno party), Pencho Kosturkov (Radical Party) and Tsola Dragoycheva (Communist Party). Due to the unreliability of air travel in post-war Europe, it took the Bulgarian delegation three days to get to Copenhagen via Belgrade, Prague and Berlin. During the four days of sessions in the Danish capital, the Bulgarian representatives had meetings with a number of foreign delegations aiming to present their arguments for the benefit of a fair peace for Bulgaria. The first postwar conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union was attended by representatives of 18 countries, including three East European states - Bulgaria, Poland and Yugoslavia. George Andreytchines notes, which served as the draft of Vasil Kolarovs report to the Parliamentary Commission for Foreign Affairs 3 , could help us to follow the work of the Bulgarian delegation during the plenary sessions of the Inter-Parliamentary Conference and outside the conference halls. Right after the Bulgarian parliamentarians arrived in Copenhagen on 23 April 1946, they received invitations to a reception hosted by the British delegation at the Hotel Angleterre on the following evening. At the reception, they held talks with Milner, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons, with Reese Davis, the leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party faction, and with other West European parliamentarians. The Chairman of the Bulgarian Parliament spoke fluent French as he had studied law in Geneva at the end of the previous century, but he barely knew any English. Therefore, Andreytchine often played the role of an official interpreter at the meetings with representatives from Anglo-Saxon countries. He translated the conversation between Reese Davis and Kolarov at the reception in the Angleterre:

, 5, 3, .. 1365, . 1. , 147-, . 2, .. 1039, . 9. 3 The report of the Chairman of Bulgarian Parliament Kolarov, made on Andreytchines hand notes, was published as a separate brochure , , (, 1946).
2

Are you really independent? Can you make your own decisions? Our Government and our Parliament comprise a coalition of five parties; the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister come from bourgeois parties... You can send a delegation to check and make sure. On the next day, Andreytchine wrote in his notes, the British were much friendlier toward us. The British Parliamentary delegation also included the independent Member of Parliament Vernon Bartlett, a good acquaintance of Andreytchines from London. An open adversary to the Munich Agreement which appeased (or rather conciliated) Hitler in September 1938, Bartlett stood as an independent left-radical candidate at the Parliamentary elections the following November. Surprisingly, he won the seat for Bridgewater, traditionally considered a safe Tory (Conservative Party) constituency. In the summer of 1941, he briefly visited the Soviet Union in his capacity as the Press Attach of the British Embassy; however, his impressions of the Stalinist regime were rather negative. It is very likely that he and Andreytchine established contact at that time. After leaving Parliament in 1950, Vernon Bartlett joined the Labour Party and worked as the chief editor of the News Chronicle and the Manchester Guardian for many years. Andreytchines notes mentioned that in their first meeting in Copenhagen he invited Bartlett to visit Bulgaria and to see for himself the political situation in the country. The latter, however responded rather apprehensively and found an excuse that he could not set out for the Balkans right away, since he had a lot to do at the conference in Paris. Before the departure of the British parliamentary delegation from the Danish capital, Milner invited Andreytchine to his hotel on the morning of 28 April and they had a 30-minute conversation. The Labour MP stated: In my capacity as the Deputy Speaker of the Commons, I need to be impartial. But I have my sympathies. I like you. I also like Kolarov, this is not official at all. It would be good if you came to London 4 . On the advice of Christopher Powell, the Secretary of the British delegation, Vasil Kolarov sent a letter requesting that the Bulgarian delegation visit London after the session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Copenhagen. The British Government did not grant this request, however, justifying their act with the lack of regular diplomatic relations between Great

, 147-, . 2, .. 1039, . 1020, 3276.

Britain and Bulgaria 5 . While in the Danish capital, the Bulgarian delegates established contacts with members of parliament from France, Norway, Finland, Belgium, Turkey and Egypt. In a personal letter to his wife Tsvetana, the Chairman of the Bulgarian Parliament reproduced in a curious way his official conversation with the Danish King. It was difficult for the monarch to conceal his resentment when Kolarov mentioned that the reason for his previous visit to Copenhagen had been his participation in the Congress of the Socialist International in 1910. After Copenhagen, Andreytchine and Kolarov left for Paris, where the Foreign Ministers of the Four Great Powers were discussing the future peace treaties with the European allies of Nazi Germany. On 4 May 1946, the Bulgarian representatives had a meeting at the Bulgarian Legation with a number of French left-wing intellectuals and political activists, such as the mayor of the municipality of Versailles Emile Labeyri, the editor of LHumanit Marius Manien, the author Claude Morgan, and the artist Andre Fuseron, winner of the National Art Prize in France for 1946. On 5 May, Vasil Kolarov visited the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Two days later, he was received by the Chairman of the French Parliament Vincent Auriol. He also held confidential talks with the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. On 9 May 1946, the Chairman of the Bulgarian Parliament gave a grand press conference at the Hotel Place Atene, where he elaborated on the Bulgarian position and answered many questions of journalists. This was the largest press conference, given by a Bulgarian representative abroad in the first postwar years. Over 120 journalists represented all central French editions, the SS, Reuters, Associated Press and United Press agencies, the Times, Daily Mail, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Chicago Sun, and other newspapers. 6 Andreytchine undoubtedly contributed to the organization of this press conference, which was assessed as a success for Bulgarian diplomacy. On the next evening, the Bulgarian delegates attended a reception, hosted by the Soviet Foreign Minister for his Western counterparts. On 16 May, Vasil Kolarov had a meeting with the Foreign Office official James Marchbanks. The well-known British historian Arnold Toynbee, who had participated in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 as a British expert, was also present. George Andreytchine represented Bulgaria at the talks. In a telegram from the Bulgarian Legation in Paris, Marchbanks was incorrectly qualified as the General Secretary of the Foreign Office. In fact, in those days the future Lord James Alexander Marchbanks of Edinburgh was still a senior
/./, , , . 3, 19441950, (: , 2005), . 207. Professor Toshkova reasonably supposed in her comments that Andreytchines hand notes, written in Russian, were delivered not only to Kolarov, but also to the Soviets. 6 Paris-Sofia, No. 19, 28 mai 1946.
5

official there. In the next decades, he reached the high position of an Assistant Secretary of State of the Foreign Office and was appointed the first Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the European Economic Community in Brussels. On the next day, Andreytchine was the interpreter at the talks between Kolarov and Averell Harriman, who was at that time the US Ambassador to Great Britain. According to some sources, it was George Andreytchine who succeeded in arranging the one-hour meeting between the two at the Hotel Meurice. The First Secretary of the US Embassy in Moscow, Frederick Reinhardt - another good acquaintance of Andreytchines, also attended the meeting. During this rather candid conversation, Averell Harriman noted that their meeting was unofficial, however he was going to inform the US Secretary of State in detail about the topics of discussion. These were the prerequisites for peace with Bulgaria and the chances for the Bulgarian Government to be recognized by the United States. Asked by Harriman when the Soviet troops were expected to leave the country, Kolarov replied that this was beyond the control of Bulgaria but it was rather a matter of agreement between the governments of the Great Powers 7 . Vladimir Topencharov later shared with Georgi Bokov that the contacts Kolarov established with American and British diplomats in Paris were to a large extent due to the contacts secured by Andreytchine 8 . On the next day, Vasil Kolarov was received by French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault. The Bulgarian delegation returned to Bulgaria on 29 May 1946. George Andreytchine accompanied Kolarov again during his second trip to Paris in midJune, when the National Assembly Chairman played the role of a Bulgarian observer at the Second Session of the meeting between the four foreign ministers. On their way to the French capital on 16 June, the Member of Parliament from Zveno party Ivan Harizanov and the military expert from the General Staff Colonel Ilia Iliev joined them 9 . On 28 June 1946, US Secretary of State James Byrnes and British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin consecutively received Vasil Kolarov. The meeting with James Byrnes continued for over an hour and was attended by the European Division Chief in the State Department, Freeman Matthews, and by George Andreytchine, who interpreted for Kolarov. The US Secretary of State highlighted the warm feelings of the American people toward Bulgaria despite the fact that they had been in a state of war, and pointed out that he understood the close relations between Bulgaria and
7 8

, 2, .. 80, . 100, 103; , 147-, 2, .. 1039, . 67. , . . ., . 9899 9 , 2, .. 81, . 154, 166.

the USSR. He listened carefully to Kolarovs arguments on the disputed issues of reparations and territorial problems and finally said: The main reason for the unsatisfactory relations between the two countries today is that our people does not feel whether you have granted your people with the required civil rights. The conversation with British Foreign Minister Bevin, where Andreytchine was once again interpreting for Kolarov, was considerably tenser with clarifications and objections on both sides 10 . On 29 June, the Chairman of the Bulgarian Parliament discussed the problems related to the Peace Treaty with Bulgaria with the Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and his deputies - ndrey Vishinsky and Vladimir Dekanozov. There is no written evidence whether the Chief of Kolarovs Office was present at the talks. However, each encounter with Andrey Yanuarievich Vishinsky undoubtedly reminded him of the malicious role the former Attorney General of the Soviet Union had played during the political trials in the late 1930s. Yet, a month later, George Andreytchine received a personal invitation signed by Molotov to a reception at the Soviet Embassy in Paris on 9 August 1946. 11 Family memories for a confidential conversation between George Andreytchine and his wife Ilza after his return from Paris mention a meeting between Kolarov and the Soviet Foreign Minister, where Molotov reprimanded Kolarov for his separatist talks with the two Western diplomats without preliminary coordination with the Soviet delegation in Paris. It is difficult either to confirm or to deny such a claim; moreover, the Bulgarian archives have not preserved any shorthand report from the conversations between Vasil Kolarov and Molotov, Vishinsky and Dekanozov on 29 June. Decades later, the then Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Topencharov would claim in his memoirs that Andreytchine playing the role of a mediator between Kolarov and US Secretary of State Byrnes, would become the scapegoat for the Soviet suspicion. 12 Following these unprecedented meetings for a Bulgarian statesman in the postwar period, on 5 July 1946 the Chairman of the National Assembly addressed the Foreign
, 2, .. 80, . 139, 141; , 147-, 2, .. 1044, . 2-9; .. 1045, . 1117. Bulgarian version was published at: , , . 3, . 222248. American version can be found in: Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1946, Vol. V, (Washington DC, 1969), p. 109111. 11 The original letter of invitation with Molotovs signature is currently stored at the paper collections of National Museum of History in Sofia. 12 , . , (: 2000 , 1993), . 28.
10

Ministers of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France. The document presented the hopes of the Bulgarian people for a fair and well-deserved peace treaty. The statement was supplemented by ample documentary material in support of the Bulgarian position on the most controversial questions 13 . Prior to the departure of the Bulgarian representatives from Paris, George Andreytchine had a few more informal meetings with members of the American and the British delegations. On 6 July, he talked to his old acquaintance from Moscow Charles Bohlen, and on 9 July to James Marchbanks. According to Andreytchines handwritten notes, Bohlen said that after the Parliamentary elections in Bulgaria in October 1946 the US political envoy in Sofia Maynard Barnes would be immediately recalled ... and replaced with an appropriate candidate. Surprisingly, Marchbanks also suggested that upon his return (to Bulgaria) Andreytchine inform him on the domestic political situation in the country 14 . At the Peace Conference Soon after the Bulgarian delegation returned to Sofia, Vasil Kolarov talked with Foreign Minister Georgi Kulishev (a representative of Zveno coalition partner to the Communists) regarding the possibility for Andreytchine to start a diplomatic career. On 18 July 1946, with Decree 23 he was appointed as a First Secretary to the Bulgarian diplomatic mission in Ankara. However, due to the urgent need of reinforcing the Bulgarian delegation at the Peace Conference in Paris, it was decided that George Andreytchine be sent to the French capital again. The composition of the Bulgarian official delegation for the Peace Conference, headed by Prime Minister Kimon Georgiev, was confirmed at a session of the Council of Ministers on 1 August 1946. 15 Two days earlier, however, the Chairman of the National Assembly, accompanied by the Chief of his Office G. Andreytchine and the parliamentarian Ivan Harizanov had already left for Paris 16 . An interesting incident took place during departure from Sofia airport, showing how much Kolarov appreciated his Chief of Office. In the haste before take off, the wife of the Bulgarian Minister Plenipotentiary in Paris, General Ivan Marinov, made a mistake and left

13 14

, , .. 579. , 147-, . 2, .. 1044, . 27-28. 15 , 136, 1, .. 359; , , .. 295. 16 , 2, .. 81, . 229, 231.

Andreytchines luggage. Right after their arrival in Paris, Vasil Kolarov quickly wrote a telegram to the Foreign Minister: At our departure, Andreytchines suitcase, which contains important documents, was not loaded... We are in need of these most important things for our work. Please, make your orders to send what has been left immediately. After an investigation in Sofia, the stranded suitcase was delivered to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Minister Kulishev immediately informed Kolarov in a telegram: Andreytchines suitcase will be sent to Prague and from there on 5 August it will leave by plane to Paris 17 . During his third visit to the French capital, George Andreytchine was very proactive once again and used every possible opportunity to get in contact with members of the British and American delegations and with Western journalists. Unfortunately, due to easily-explained reasons, part of his sources of information were presented anonymously in the coded correspondence between the Legation in Paris and the Ministry in Sofia. Telegrams to Foreign Minister Kulishev and the Bulgarian Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov (in his official capacity as the Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission for Foreign Affairs) from 4 and 7 August 1946 report talks held with a reliable English source and with someone from the American delegation, who was tasked to deal with the Bulgarian issues. Some of the available information proved the strong anxiety of the American side generated by the launch of mass repressions against officers and political figures who disagreed with the Communist Party 18 . In a telegram, dated 7 August, Vasil Kolarov appealed: The Greeks are taking advantage of their position and are attacking us more violently; beyond the new decision of the US Senate, they have succeeded in the French press...
17 18

, 2, .. 80, . 183; .. 81, . 252. Just ten days after Winston Churchills famous speech at Fulton, in a cable to Georgi Dimitrov in Sofia on 16 March 1946 Molotov categorically insisted that Bulgarian Foreign Minister Prof. Petko Stainov must be changed because the Soviets do not rely on his loyalty. In the beginning of June during a meeting with Tito and Dimitrov in his personal dacha near Moscow Joseph Stalin strongly rebuked Bulgarian Communist leaders that they have left the Bulgarian Army command in other hands. In the beginning of July 1946 under observance by the Soviet generals at the Allied Control Commission for Bulgaria, mass discharges and arrests of senior old tsarist officers was carried out. The Defense Minister Gen. Damian Velchev, a representative of Zveno party, was also removed, and only an intercession by his friend Prime Minister Kimon Georgiev, saved him from arrest.

Anti-Bulgarian attitudes are still dominating in England. At the Conference, the Greeks will have a lot of delegations on their side, it is crucial that we do not allow deterioration of our relations with America. In a new telegram dated 8 August, Kolarov informed: What I was told by the American specialist for Bulgarian language was reiterated today in a sharper tone to Andreytchine by Mowrer, a personal friend of President Truman; the American representatives in Sofia were humiliated, they were not allowed to walk freely, they were spied on, those who sympathized with America were arrested. We remembered America only when treaties had to be signed. It was time to hear a good word from Sofia and not to turn our backs and spit on their faces. We couldnt complain about the treaty; we just about got Dobrudzha, and it was a nuisance to claim more territories. As for the reparations, we received a big amnesty because of our allies. It is clear we are witnessing a worsening of Americas attitude toward us 19 . The above-mentioned Edgar Ansel Mowrer was a famous American journalist. After the First World War, he was a correspondent for the Chicago Daily News in Italy, where he covered the work of the Genoa Conference in April 1922. Later, he was sent to Germany. In 1933, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his objective and comprehensive reports on the Nazi coming into power and one of the first descriptions of the personality of the new Chancellor Adolf Hitler. As a result of his critical comments on the Third Reich, he was ousted from Germany. In 19341940, Mowrer was a correspondent for the Chicago Daily News in France and risking his life he succeeded in leaving the French capital when the German troops invaded. In London, he collaborated with General William Donovan and was sent on a risky mission to China on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1944, he sent reports on the Dumbarton Oaks conference of the Allies, and during the Peace Conference in Paris in the summer of 1946 he was a foreign political commentator for the New York Times. In the meantime, in the period 19461948, Edgar Mowrer visited President Harry Truman several times in the White House and testified as an expert at the Foreign Affairs Commission in the US Congress during the debates on the ratification of the peace treaties with Italy, Finland, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. In 1954, however, the FBI Director Edgar Hoover issued an order for an investigation of Mowrer who had publicly supported Senator William Fulbrights criticism of the acts of the McCarthy Commission.

, . 2, .. 80, . 187, 201, 204. Published from another archival source in: , , . 3, . 294-296.

19

Most probably, the acquaintance between George Andreytchine and Edgar Ansel Mowrer dated back to Chicago. The two of them had common friends such as the popular authors from the Chicago Literary School Carl Sandburg and Sherwood Anderson. It is possible as well that they met in Moscow, since in the 1930s the US journalist travelled from Berlin and Paris to the USSR on several occasions. On 9 August 1946, the Secretary General of the Peace Conference, Fuc Duparc sent an official invitation to the Bulgarian government to take part in the plenary debates. On the evening of 11 August, the official Bulgarian delegation arrived in Paris, where it was joined by the Chairman of the Parliament, the MP Harizanov and the chief expert of the delegation, Andreytchine. The delegation included deputies from the five parliamentary political parties (Communist, Agrarian, Social Democratic, Radical and Zveno). There were also diplomatic, economic and military experts, as well as Bishop Vasil Zyapkov, a representative of the Evangelical Church. The Secretariat of the Bulgarian delegation was accommodated in the Palais dOrsay hotel. On 14 August at 10 a.m. the Chairman of the plenary session of the Peace Conference in the Luxemburg Palace, James Byrnes, invited the Bulgarian delegation into the hall. It was headed by Prime Minister Kimon Georgiev, the Chairman of the National Assembly Vasil Kolarov and the Foreign Minister Georgi Kulishev. The other members of the delegation, including Andreytchine, took their seats next. 20 . Following the official Bulgarian statement, the members of the Bulgarian delegation held many meetings with Western diplomats and politicians. On 27 August, Prime Minister Kimon Georgiev, Vasil Kolarov and Georgi Kulishev had an official meeting with US Secretary of State Byrnes. The main topics of discussion, however, were not the disputed territorial, military and economic provisions in the Draft Treaty, but rather the internal political situation in Bulgaria and the relations between the government and the opposition 21 . Two days later, the leaders of the Bulgarian delegation tackled the same issue with US political envoy in Sofia Maynard Barnes. On 1 September, they met US Ambassador to Paris Jefferson Caffery, a US representative at the political and territorial commission for Bulgaria 22 . George Andreytchine remained in Paris after Kolarovs departure for Bulgaria on 12 September. During his two-month stay in Paris, he took the opportunity to meet some old

, , , . 1946, (: , 1947), . 4546. 21 , . 2, .. 80, . 218. American version in: FRUS, 1946, Vol. VI, p. 137138. 22 , . 2, .. 80, . 220, 226.

20

acquaintances among the American and British diplomats and journalists. He also established new contacts with influential Western politicians. Reports by the Soviet Intelligence service (MGB) inform that in the days of the Peace Conference Andreytchine met Harriman and submitted confidential information on the Bulgarian position. Similarly to the previous meeting in Spaso House in Moscow in October 1945, it could be assumed that the Soviet Secret Services carefully observed and kept track of any contacts between Bulgarian and Western officials. The US Ambassador to Great Britain Averell Harriman arrived from London to Paris once again at the end of August 1946. On 27 August he had lunch at the Hotel Meurice with the members of his former Moscow team Chip Bohlen and Edward Page. In the following days, he attended several sessions of the political and territorial commissions for Bulgaria and Romania, held in the Orange Hall of the Luxemburg Palace, where the French Senate meets today. He was there on the evening of 2 September, when the Chairman of the Bulgarian Parliament Vasil Kolarov presented in fluent French (as some Western journalists noted afterwards) the emotional speech in defense of the Bulgarian national cause. Harrimans personal archive in the Library of Congress in Washington DC contains a bulky folder with materials on the discussions in the political and territorial commission for Bulgaria, held at the Peace Conference in Paris. One of the documents was an appeal in English from the Union of the Bulgarian Evangelical Church for signing a fair peace treaty with Bulgaria, dedicated to all who love the truth and work for Peace. The brochure bears a gift inscription, To Hon. Averell Harriman with highest respects. Rev. Vasil Ziapkoff, Palais DOrsay 23 . The diary notes of the US Ambassador read: Sept. 6, 1946 5.15 p.m. Long talk with Geo Andreychin, Maynard Barnes, Amb. Bedell Smith 230 R. Hotel Meurice 24 General Walter Bedell Smith, who was present at the meeting, was at that time the US Ambassador to the USSR (19461950). After his return to Washington, he became Director of the CIA. Shortly after the new administration of President Dwight Eisenhower took office,
Library of Congress, Washington, Manuscript Division, The Papers of W. Averell Harriman, Special Files, Paris Conference, Box 216. 24 Ibidem.
23

Bedell Smith was replaced by the new Director Allen Dulles. However, he was invited by the other Dulles brother John Foster to become his assistant at the US State Department. Recalling this last meeting with Andreytchine, William Averell Harriman noted several years later: We talked freely in Paris and he gave me some very good steers. My great regret was that he never wrote the story of his extraordinary life. It would be a document of major importance. 25 . William Henry Chamberlin, a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor in Moscow for many years, wrote in his later recollections of an encounter with his old friend Andreytchine in the French capital: My last meeting with George Andreytchine was under most unexpected circumstances. My wife and I were sitting in a restaurant on the Left Bank in Paris in 1946 when we saw Andreytchine sitting with a group of men and speaking a language that was neither Russian nor French. It was like seeing a ghost. Our last word had been that he was in a Soviet concentration camp. We decided to leave to him the question of recognizing us. As soon as he saw us he came over with the familiar warm greetings and in this and other meetings we learned that he had been released from the concentration camp, employed in translations during the war, and finally permitted to return to his native Bulgaria. The men in the restaurant with him were members of the Bulgarian peace delegation 26 . On 24 September 1946, Foreign Minister Kulishev informed in a telegram to Premier Kimon Georgiev and Georgi Dimitrov from Paris: In private conversations, the American side informed one of our men, that they were expecting to see results after the talks with Secretary Byrnes, and more specifically that the opposition would be allowed to participate freely in the elections. In a following telegram from 26 September, Kulishev pointed out: An individual, close to the American delegation, mentioned in a private conversation that some members of the delegation, maintaining close relations with Maynard Barnes, shared the opinion that America would not sign a peace treaty with the current Bulgarian government... According to other Americans, the
25 26

Harriman, W. Averell, Abel, Elie. Op. Cit., p. 520. Chamberlin, William Henry. Russian Recollections, Russian Review, Vol. 21, No. 4, October 1962, p. 338.

US interest was Turkey... Todays pressure over Bulgaria was a method of bargaining in order to gain concessions for the Soviet side in the disputes over Trieste, Turkey and elsewhere 27 . In a letter from Paris to Vasil Kolarov, dated 2 October 1946, George Andreytchine informed: Dear Vasil I met Bohlen and General Smith at lunch in the Generals house. The tone of the conversations was much more conciliatory, which does not mean, however, that they will stop exerting pressure concerning our issues. I was promised that Barnes would be given instructions not to meddle in these problems, and particularly to refrain from giving advice to the opposition. Not to boycott the elections, these were Bohlens words The tone of the two was much more conciliatory than a month ago: In this case, we are going to wait for the elections outcome Bohlen said 28 . It is interesting to refer to Chip Bohlens memoirs regarding the nature of his talks with Andreytchine. The handwritten notes from his personal archives were not included in his book of memoirs Witness to History. However, they disclose clearly enough the feelings of trust between the two of them, although at the Peace Conference they officially represented two different worlds, divided and severely opposed to each other. A quarter of a century after the talks in Paris, Charles Bohlen wrote: I last saw George in the summer of 1946 at the Paris conference He was just as informative as he had been in the past. He would come to breakfast in Paris and after making a few of the party line statements about Bulgarian policy, would then begin to talk more frankly and realistically. 29 .

At that time Bohlen was still an advisor at the US Embassy in Moscow, but he had won his reputation as the personal interpreter of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman at the conferences in Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam. In 1947, he joined the team of the new Secretary of State George Marshall and alongside George Kennan took part in drafting the Secretarys strategic speech known in history as the Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of post-war Europe. In

, . 2, .. 80, . 262, 266. , 147-, 4, .. 166, . 6. 29 Library of Congress, Washington DC, Manuscript Division, The Papers of Charles E. Bohlen, Container 10 Witness to History drafts, p. 18.
28

27

the period 19531957, Charles Bohlen was again in Moscow - as the US Ambassador to the USSR. In a letter from Paris, Andreytchine informed Georgi Dimitrov of his encounter with the leader of the left wing in the Labour Party and British MP, Koni Zilliacus. His letter said Georgi, this is Zilliacuss journal. He is sending it to you with his best wishes" 30 . In Paris Andreytchine met another leftist Labour deputy John Mack. During his visit to Sofia several months earlier, he had promised to support the Bulgarian national cause 31 . After his return to Bulgaria in mid-October 1946, Andreytchine continued his work as Chief of the Office of Vasil Kolarov who after a referendum on the form of government had assumed the newly-established post of President of the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria. A service report from the Ministry of Interior specified Andreytchines position as Chief Secretary at the Presidency of the Republic 32 . Andreytchine did not leave the editors work in the biweekly Free Bulgaria published in English. At the beginning of December 1946, the newspaper printed information on the Memorandum of the Bulgarian government to the session of the Council of the Four Foreign ministers in New York. It once again presented the Bulgarian position on some contentious provisions in the draft peace treaty. The entire Resolution adopted by the Great National Assembly on this question was published too 33 . In handwritten notes from 14 November 1946, kept in Vasil Kolarovs personal archive, George Andreytchine outlined his conversation with the US political envoy to Sofia, Maynard Barnes. The event had been initiated by the American representative who requested a meeting with Kolarov so as to exchange views on the current topics of the day. During the meeting, Barnes stressed some differences in the British and American policy to Bulgaria, giving examples of the controversial position of the British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin before and during the session in New York. Andreytchine wrote in his diary: He (B.) read one of his telegrams to Byrnes, where he denounced the inconsistent policy of England on the Bulgarian question. It turned out that in early October Bevin had suggested to Byrnes: 1. To recognize the Bulgarian government. 2. To sign a peace treaty with Bulgaria.
, 146-, 4, .. 11. In the beginning of September 1947 John Mack again arrived in Bulgaria. He had talks with Vasil Kolarov, who was accompanied by Andreytchine NAUK, Kew, Foreign Office. Political. 371/66909, 2223. 32 , 5, 3, .. 1365, . 3. 33 Justice for Bulgaria, Free Bulgaria, Sofia, No. 26, 5 December 1946.
31 30

3. To ratify this treaty immediately in order to launch peaceful cooperation with both Russia and Bulgaria starting with a trade contract. Barnes [was] categorically against Churchill and Eden in Moscow sold Bulgaria to Russia. They once again gave up valuable positions when signing the armistice 34 . George Andreytchine accompanied as well the President of the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria and made a record of the conversation between him and Maynard Barnes on 16 November 1946. The US envoy explored the opportunity for a new compromise with the involvement of government opposition members, similar to his advice at the Moscow Conference of the Four Foreign ministers of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France in December 1945. Two weeks later, Andreytchine had another meeting with Barnes at the US envoys residence. The main reason for the meeting was the Program Declaration of the new government under Georgi Dimitrov 35 . In late October 1946, Andreytchine welcomed to Bulgaria another Labour Party Member of Parliament from Great Britain, Morgan Philips Price. The son of an MP from the Liberal Party, educated at Harrow and Cambridge, Price had begun his professional career as a foreign policy commentator for the Manchester Guardian. During the First World War, he had been assigned coverage of the events on the Eastern Front and so he had witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution. Similarly to John Reed, he had felt sympathy to Lenins government and after his return to Great Britain he had described his impressions of Soviet Russia in a book. In 1919, in his capacity as a journalist he had covered the November Revolution in Weimar Germany. He had collaborated for a short period with the British Communist Party. However, he had been disappointed by its orthodoxy, so in 1923 he became a member of the Labour Party. It is quite possible that Andreytchine and Price knew each other since 1924 in London, where the British journalist was working for the Daily Herald and ran unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate for a Member of Parliament for Gloucester in the October elections. In the period 19291931, Morgan Philips Price was a MP for a short time but later he spent fifteen years (19351950) as a Labour Party representative in the House of Commons. Right after the end of the Second World War, he had several consecutive trips to East European countries and the Middle East. In 1946, he visited Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Palestine and

34 35

, . , . 3, . 360. , 146-, 4, .. 11; 147-, 2, .. 1060.

Iran. In special memoranda for the Foreign Office, he described the conflict situations related to the Russian influence in Persia and the British influence in Palestine 36 . In October 1946, on his way to Turkey, Price spent several weeks in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. He showed special interest to the situation along the Bulgarian-Greek border which was at the time subject to discussion at the United Nations Organization. In a later publication about this journey, Philips Price wrote about his visit to the border areas: I went back to Sofia for a day, and then I was picked up by Mr. Andreytchine, Secretary of the President of the Republic Mr. Kolarov, in order to visit Bulgarian Macedonia. This was a mysterious region of Bulgaria, located on the corner between the Yugoslav and the Greek borders 37 . In a report to Georgi Dimitrov from 31 October 1946, George Andreytchine informed of his meeting with Philips Price the previous day. The British MP was obviously annoyed by the fact that he was not received by Dimitrov and Kolarov even though he had an appointment. In fact, as Andreytchine pointed out in his letter, the reason for avoiding the meetings by the senior figures of the Fatherland Front was due to his relations with the opposition. During his stay in Sofia, the Labour Party representative severely criticized the five-year sentence against the leader of the opposition Social Democrats Krastyu Pastuhov, due to his views, presented in an article or in a speech. The British visitor categorically shared with Andreytchine: Russia is exerting too strong an influence on Bulgaria to the detriment of Bulgarian democracy 38 . During the first weeks after his return from Paris, George Andreytchine had contacts with some Western journalists who had arrived in Bulgaria to cover the parliamentary elections for the Great National Assembly. One of them was the correspondent of the Chicago Daily News William MacGanfurd, who arrived in Sofia on 9 October 1946. It is possible that it was MacGanfurd, who brought a special gift for George a new monograph on the work and the artistic career of his old friend from the New York Bohemia Boardman (Mike) Robinson. The book had just been published by Chicago University on the occasion of the artists 70th anniversary. The gift was accompanied by a small envelope with Mikes photograph and a
More detailed data about Philips Price trips could be find in his personal records in Oxford and Cambridge. There are stored also some materials about Greek and Bulgarian territorial claims at the Peace conference in Paris St. Anthony College, University of Oxford, Price Collection; Cambridge University D-5755. 37 Morgan Philips Price, Through the Iron-laced Curtain: A Record of a Journey through the Balkans in 1946, (London: Low, 1949), p. 108. 38 , 146-, 4, .. 11. Following Bulgarian documents, Prof. Toshkova inaccurately described Philips Price as journalist, and not as a MP , . 19191989. , (: , 2007), . 262.
36

photocopy of Andreytchines oil portrait, made in Croton-on-Hudson in 1920. On the back of the artists photo the dedication from his wife read To George with love. Sally R.[obinson]. In spite of his responsible government post, the Chief of Office of the President of the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria was still subject to special care and assessment by the security services. A report to the Chief Inspector of the Central Department Security at the Ministry of Interior, dated 23 December 1946, informed on his personality: Nothing definite is known about his political activities in the past. He is known as a good member of the Fatherland Front, who likes talking with his roommates on different political issues. Thanks to his humanity, he has won the sympathy of the staff in his institution.... Morally, he has had no misdeeds 39 . It is probably a paradoxical coincidence that on the same day the secret services turned out a report on him, George Andreytchine received a government prize. He was awarded with the medal For Civil Merits, degree, for his contribution to defending the Bulgarian national interests at the Paris Peace Conference 40 . Parallel to this, in a new report by Foreign Minister Georgi Kulishev, dated 13 November 1946, he was once again nominated for diplomatic service. On 11 January 1947, the new Prime Minister Georgi Dimitrov approved the proposal of Assistant Foreign Minister Todor Vladigerov that George Andreytchine be appointed minister plenipotentiary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and assigned to work with the President of PR Bulgaria. A resolution in his personal record by the new Foreign Minister and previous Prime Minister Kimon Georgiev from 15 January read that due to long years of social and political activity Andreytchine is to be appointed Minister Plenipotentiary degree. Presumably, one of Andreytchines last duties at the Presidential Office was to organize a meeting of representatives of the Bulgarian emigr circles, who had taken part in the All-Slav Congress in Belgrade in December 1946. In his diary notes from 9 January 1947, Vasil Kolarov wrote: I received in the Presidency a group of American Bulgarians and Macedonians, delegates to the All-Slav Congress. Since many Bulgarians from America and Canada were willing to return... I told them that not only they would be welcomed, but this should happen in an organized manner, when they would
39 40

, 5, 3, .. 1365, . 3. , 24, . No. 12 472.

buy in America with their money machines and equipment following a well prepared and coordinated plan 41 . Kolarovs notes about the meeting with Bulgarians living abroad did not mention Andreytchines name, but the atmosphere directly corresponds to the latters activities in Soviet Russia between 1921 and 1922, as well as to some of his other statements from 1947. After George Andreytchine was appointed to the Foreign Ministry, his previous position of Chief of the Office of the Chairman of Parliament was taken over by another Bulgarian political emigrant who had returned to Bulgaria in 1946. This was Anton Nedyalkov (Volodin), who similarly to Andreytchine had not escaped the Stalinist repressions in the Soviet Union. He had been released from an NKVD prison only a few days after the intercession of Georgi Dimitrov with the Military Attorney General of the USSR in early January 1940 42 . During the war, Nedyalkov had been the editor of broadcasts for Bulgaria. His daughter, Polina, an officer from the Soviet Army, had participated in the Spanish Civil War and in the Second World War, and years later she became the first female with rank of General in the Bulgarian Army. The UN Balkan Commission With a resolution of the Council of Ministers from 24 January 1947, Andreytchine was included in the Bulgarian delegation to the United Nations Survey Commission on the Balkans (UNSCOB), established after the accusations of the Royal Greek government against Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania of direct intervention in the waging of civil war in Greece 43 . For two months, the Bulgarian delegation was involved in disputes at the Survey Commission in Athens and Thessaloniki, while in late March 1947 they went to Belgrade and Sofia, and in April and May the sessions were held at the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva. Before the delegation left, Prime Minister Georgi Dimitrov talked to its members, and in a separate letter to the head of the delegation and former Foreign Minister, Georgi Kulishev, he underlined: You understand that the essential point in the whole story with the Survey Commission is to focus the attention on the real domestic reasons for the deep
41 42

, . , 1947, , , , 2002, 3, . 127. , , 495, 73, 88, . 1. 43 , 136, 1, .. 422, . 19.

political crisis in Greece. In this respect, our delegation shall try to contribute as much as possible 44 . Parallel to the official reports by the head of the delegation Georgi Kulishev to Foreign Minister Kimon Georgiev, Andreytchine sent personal letters to Dimitrov and Kolarov. He revealed the position of the head of the American delegation Mark Ethridge (who was particularly interested in the Macedonian question) on the arguments of the British, Greek and other delegations 45 . For example, Andreytchines letter to Kolarov from Athens, dated 9 February 1947, read: For your information, I am telling you that serious disagreements have arisen between Ethridge and US Ambassador MacVeagh. The latter believes that Ethridge is exceeding his authority and is often intervening in purely Greek internal affairs, insisting on termination of executions 46 . In another message to Prime Minister Georgi Dimitrov from 19 February 1947, Andreytchine informed of another conversation he had with the head of the US delegation. Mark Ethridge wanted to make a short visit to Sofia so he could speak to the American political envoy Maynard Barnes. He invited Andreytchine to fly in his plane to Sofia and back to Thessaloniki 47 . Photographs from that time show the members of the Bulgarian delegation (Georgi Kulishev, Dimitar Ganev, Gen. Georgi Popov, Georgi Andreytchine, Vladimir Topencharov and support staff) together with Mark Ethridge and other members of the American delegation. The staff of the US delegation involved in the sessions of the US Survey Commission on Greece included State Department officials Arthur Parson, Harry Howard, Cyril Black, Colonel Allen Miller and others. It would be interesting to note that there are no other photographs from meetings between the Bulgarian delegation and other foreign members of the Commission, not even with the head of the Soviet delegation and former Minister Plenipotentiary in Sofia, Alexander Lavrishchev. Without any exaggeration, we could attribute the maintenance of fairly good relations with Ethridge under conditions of evident hostility toward the Bulgarians in the Greek capital to the efforts of George Andreytchine. In his memoirs from 1974, Ethridge noted that the Russians tried to frustrate the visit of the UN Commission to Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. He also stressed that he explicitly opposed
44 45

, 146-, 6, .. 1052, . 12. , 146-, 4, .. 11; 5, .. 540, . 1-5; 147-, 4, .. 166, . 14. 46 , 147-, 3, .. 122, . 5. 47 , 146-, 6, .. 1409, . 48.

the stupid policy of the Royal Government under Konstantinos Tsaldaris in Greece and insisted on decisive American intervention, something that was declared a month later, on 12 March 1947, in Trumans Doctrine. With regard to Tsaldaris, Mark Etheridge wrote categorically in his memoirs: Anyway we did get rid of Tsaldaris. Tsaldaris was a stupid fool. The day I got to Greece he gave a luncheon, and MacVeagh was there and Paul Porter, and I; and Tsaldaris backed me in to a corner and said, "Now the first thing we must do is get back the Rhodope Mountain territory that Bulgaria had lost, we must recapture Epirus." I said, "My God, you don't even hold Athens, how are you talking that way? You just hold a part of Athens, and you don't hold anything except garrison cities. How the hell are you going to get back anything?" He was a stupid fool. 48 . Another extensive message from George Andreytchine to Kolarov is of particular interest. It was sent from Geneva on 1 May 1947: Yesterday, the British once again raised the question of our involvement in the final phase of the work of the Commission. They wanted to eliminate us completely but only two other nations joined them China and Australia. Ethridges conduct was very proper and he strongly supported our participation at this stage of the work... I am not a pessimist regarding the final outcome of the Commission work. There has been talk that the Security Council is going to discuss the results of our Commission around 25 May. Here, a question arises, which we talked over in Sofia: who of us is going to New York to defend our cause... It would be good to sort this out, in order to get prepared. Kulishev and I believe there is no need to send a large delegation. He insists that I go, because he has his party commitments in Sofia... My trip to America will be of double benefit: this is a suitable moment to go and see our people regarding those matters we have talked about: technical and financial support for our construction, and to use all contacts in New York to defend our cause... I am enclosing a series of clippings. Lippmans article, published in the New York Herald Tribune on 30 April, is to be translated by all means. This is an important and systematic document 49 . In a telegram to Foreign Minister Kimon Georgiev from 7 May, Georgi Kulishev reiterated Andreytchines position:

48 49

Harry Truman Library, Independence, MO, Oral History Interview with Mark F. Ethridge (1974), p. 3133. , 147-, 3, .. 122, . 14.

The work of the Commission will be completed in about ten days and then small delegations are leaving for New York... I do not regard my presence there as necessary, the more so as I have an important commitment in Sofia. It will be enough if Andreytchine goes, because together with Atanasov they will manage. You decide. 50 Two days later, however, after coordinating with the Soviet delegation, it was decided that Bulgaria and the other East European countries terminate their further participation in the work of the UN Survey Commission on the Balkans. Yet, at the beginning of June 1947, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kimon Georgiev informed the Commission that the Bulgarian government had approved the request for providing a possibility for crossing the BulgarianGreek border in order to carry out the necessary investigations. An announcement in the New York Times read: George Andreytchine was named the liaison authority to arrange everything in connection with the investigation of the two alleged incidents and all questions pertaining to them. 51 A UN official publication the bi-weekly bulletin of the world organization, the United Nations Bulletin, from 1947 quoted a statement made by Andreytchine. According to the information, he had explained to the members of the international UN Survey Commission the conditions under which they were going to cross the Bulgarian checkpoint Kulata and to stay on the territory of Bulgaria 52 . George Andreytchines meeting with members of the Commission (from China and Belgium) took place on 11 June on the borderline on the bridge over the Bistritsa River. A month later, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister informed the Chairman of the UN sub-commission that Andreytchine had been nominated as the delegate of the Bulgarian government to the forthcoming final session in Thessaloniki. He stayed in Thessaloniki from 8 until 13 July 1947 and then returned to Sofia for consultations with his Ministry 53 . Bringing up the question of Andreytchines nomination as the official Bulgarian representative in the UN Balkan Commission in New York at governmental level suggested that the legitimacy of his stay on the territory of the United States be dealt with. Even though more than 25 years had passed since his illegal departure and it might be expected that the
50 51

, 2, .. 115, . 70. New York Times, July 8, 1947, p. 13. 52 United Nations Bulletin, (UN Department of Public Information, New York, 1947), Vol. II, p. 133. 53 See: , (1944-1949) : , (: , 1982), . 8891.

old sentence from the years of the First World War had lost its validity a long time ago, it turned out that this was not the case. An unexpected advert from March 2007 in the global online platform e-bay for the sale of an authentic FBI document, signed by J. Edgar Hoover, has cast light on the answer to this question. This was an official Identification order of the FBI Director, dated 13 February 1946, to the regional branches of the US counterintelligence service concerning the most wanted political and criminal offenders on the territory of the country at that moment 54 . The list contains about 70 names some of which notorious members of the criminal world and escaped Nazi criminals. Alongside these stood the names of Charles Rotfisher, Herbert McCutcheon, George Andreytchine (the number of his FBI file was 1003), Vladimir Losieff and Fred Yaakola, all five of them defendants from the Chicago Trial in 1918, who had secretly left the United States in 1921! Andreytchines new appointment as official liaison with UN international delegates kept him busy during the next months. On 22 January 1948, George Andreytchine sent his last detailed report to Kolarov concerning the incidents on the Bulgarian-Greek border and the accusations by the Greek government submitted to the UN Survey Commission on the Balkans. 55 A month and a half later, however, at a meeting at the Foreign Ministry, he had the chance to present an overview of the economic, political and social situation in Greece. The beginning of his briefing on 10 March 1948 revealed interesting new facts to the effect that George Andreytchine was supposed to become the Bulgarian Minister Plenipotentiary in Greece, but the issue was removed from the agenda. The political situation in Bulgarias southern neighbour country at the end of the Second World War and the raging civil war in the summer of 1946 hampered the re-establishment of Bulgarian-Greek relations after the Paris Peace Treaty entered into force. At the same time, as a result of the talks on the Greek question within the world organization, the UN General Assembly put forward a proposal for inviting Bulgaria and Greece to resume the diplomatic relations between the two countries. In a letter to the UN Secretariat from 9 December 1947, the Bulgarian government gave its consent in principle for starting talks with the Royal Government in Athens 56 . It was probably in this context that the idea of nominating George Andreytchine as minister plenipotentiary to Greece was generated.

54 55

FBI Identification Order - Wanted List, February 13, 1946. , 147-, 3, .. 1640, . 1. 56 , . , . 3, . 417418.

The proclamation of the Interim Democratic Government of EAM, headed by the partisan commander General Markos (Markos Vathiadis), on 23 December 1947 was a turning point in the international dimensions of the civil war. The sharp diplomatic and military political reaction of the Greek government and the Western governments brought about changes in the initial intentions of the East European countries to establish official relations with General Markoss government. On 29 December 1947, the UN Balkan Commission adopted a resolution which proclaimed the Western view: Recognizing, even informally, the so-called Interim Democratic Greek Government... would be a serious threat to international peace and security. On 3 January 1948, the British Minister Plenipotentiary in Sofia J. Sterndale Bennett raised with the Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Sava Ganovski the issue of possible confusion and complications as a result of Bulgarias possible recognition of Markoss government. On 6 January, the US Minister Plenipotentiary Donald Heath also warned the Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kolarov that recognizing the Markos government would be a violation of international laws and UN principles. On 10 January, the French Ambassador to Sofia, Jacques Paris, held talks with Kolarov on this sensitive issue. In both cases, Vasil Kolarov replied that the government had not discussed and made a decision on this issue, but they were following with increased interest the developments in neighbouring Greece 57 . At the beginning of his substantial report at the Foreign Ministry session on the evening of 10 March 1948, 58 G. Andreytchine tried to draw a realistic picture of the economic situation and natural resources of neighboring Greece. This was going to give him the starting point for the further political analysis, expected from him: ANDREYTCHINE: First of all, I would like to present briefly a few figures to compare our country with Greece. The size of the territory of Greece is similar to Bulgaria. KOLAROV: Leave the theory aside. ANDREYTCHINE: Just a couple of words... They have more natural resources that have been developed... An expert on these problems, one of the economists working around Sophulis, informed me that during the German occupation over 700,000 people died in the region, and since then due to the civil war there has been no increase in population whatsoever... They have iron ore and produce over 150,000 tons of iron annually, 25,000 tons of chromium... KOLAROV: We also have chromium.
57

I , : , (: , 1999), . 149150. 58 , 1, .. 531, . 151-163.

ANDREYTCHINE: ...manganese 6,000 tons... KOLAROV: We have it as well. ANDREYTCHINE: ...lead 10,000 tons, nickel and silver, bauxite 200,000 tons, magnesium 5,000 tons, pyrites 250,000 tons... KOLAROV: We have pyrites. ANDREYTCHINE: In the extraction of nickel, cobalt, chromium and pyrites Greece occupies a notable place among the European countries. This is the opinion of this same economist. They have a textile industry, nearly as welldeveloped, as ours with wool, cotton and silk particularly well-developed. They have chemical fertilizers, they have large plants; their pharmaceutical industry is quite big... In addition, they have quite a well-developed food industry... Before this war, in 1940, Greece made some progress in electrification... In terms of sea transport Greece occupies ninth place in the world. Without skipping over the social differentiation and political conflicts in Greek society, Andreytchine highlighted in his presentation the feelings and attitudes of the common people. He built his assessments on the grounds of his own impressions during his stay in Athens and Thessaloniki in February-March 1947. What is typical of his statement is his attempt to overcome the biased black-and-white picture and to reveal the real situation beyond the typical propaganda schemes: When we arrived there, we were biased, knowing about the propaganda in Greece for the past years, and we asked ourselves how the Greek people would meet us. On the same day in the evening, the Greeks did not meet us at the airport upon our arrival. Not a single Greek representative showed up to meet us. There was only one English sergeant from their Air Force, who said just two or three words to leave the plane and follow him to the airport lounge... On the following morning, Comrade Topencharov and I went for an early walk around the town ... We went into several shops without any purpose whatsoever; just to see what was going on. Every time we were met in a very friendly manner and when they heard that we were Bulgarians, they whispered in a low voice: Dzito Georgi Dimitrov (Long live Georgi Dimitrov). This is exactly the case. Comrade Topencharov is here and he can confirm. We walked for a long time. We visited their theaters. I must say that none of the foreign delegation members neither the Americans, nor the French nor the British, went to the theater or to a concert. They visited nightclubs, which are abundant there. However, Comrade Topencharov and I went to the theater. There was not a case when the Greeks, hearing that we were Bulgarians, would not come and translate for us what was happening on the stage. And in a very friendly tone... This was a great surprise for us. Because we did not conceal that we were Bulgarians, when we walked on the streets we spoke in Bulgarian in a loud voice. There are many people who know Bulgarian, so very often they turned around and smiled at us. I did not see a single hostile look, or a hostile act... We came back at 2 a.m., we went to meetings, we talked loudly in Bulgarian on the streets and nobody showed any hostility toward us.

George Andreytchine paid special attention to the external factors in the development of the Greek drama. He gave a number of examples of the negative attitudes of the Greek population, including the so-called middle class, toward the conduct of the British expedition troops in their country. His attendance of the UN Survey Commission the previous winter had overlapped with the radical re-orientation from predominantly British to decisive American support for the Royal Government in Greece as declared in the Truman Doctrine on 12 March 1947. Drawing attention to certain manifestations of popular discontent and EAM-organized acts against foreign intervention, Andreytchine tried to present some of the psychological factors underpinning the new US global doctrine for unconditional assistance to the conservative governments in Greece and Turkey against the communist threat: I am going to say a few words about what we have been talking here concerning Markoss government... His army includes a large number of Macedonians and they are Markoss bravest fighters. Our comrades saw slogans Let the British flee! They were written in large letters... I want to say what made the Americans adopt this doctrine with regard to Greece. This was undoubtedly the EAM demonstration in Athens. Both Ethridge and Black said at first, If there are elections, there will be a shift in the balance. The Communists will gain 80100 deputies. However, after they observed this demonstration, they were scared and fell into disagreement with the US Ambassador to Athens. He was recalled to the United States. Our friendship was over. Ethridge, being an old liberal, was gesticulating, showing he was against Tsaldaris, against this attitude of Tsaldaris. This time he was crushed. They got scared that the people in Greece could really rise and make their domination over Greece impossible. In his reply to an inquiry concerning public life in Bulgarias southern neighbor, George Andreytchine stated without hesitation that under the conditions of political terror it was not possible to have a real public life or manifestations of non-governmental organizations, including trade unions. He gave a series of examples of mass arrests, executions and deportations of activists and adherents to the Greek opposition all over the Greek islands. It is a paradox that Andreytchine made his comments on the lack of democracy in neighboring Greece at a time when the supporters of the opposition in his Fatherland were persecuted and taken to jail or labor camps only for their political ideas.

Chapter 11 Stalinist Bulgaria and The Bipolar Confrontation Model

Dividing Europe and the Containment of Communism

For Bulgaria, the first serious signs of the upcoming confrontation of the Cold War were evident in mid-1946. During a notorious meeting with the Bulgarian Communist leaders (Dimitrov, Kolarov, and Kostov) in early June 1946 in Moscow Joseph Stalin gave categorical instructions to start immediate radical purges against the old monarchist generals and officers within the Bulgarian Army and to discharge the non-Communist War Minister, Gen. Damyan Velchev. In the next two months more than two thousand officers were dismissed, while a number of army commanders were sent to jail and accused of fabricated military conspiracies against the peoples power. A year later the time came for a strike against the political opposition in the country. On June 7th 1947 the leader of the parliamentary opposition and of the Agrarian Union Nikola Petkov was arrested and received a death sentence two months later. Among the most serious accusations was that he had conspired and denigrated the Fatherland Front government and the peoples democracy during his talks with the US political representative in Sofia Maynard Barnes. After his death sentence was passed Petkov was forced to plead for mercy to the Supreme Court. While in the Sofia central prison he addressed letters also to Georgi Dimitrov, Vasil Kolarov, and the Soviet ambassador Stepan Kirsanov. On August 21st 1947 in a letter to the Prime Minister Dimitrov Nikola Petkov wrote: Mr. Prime Minister, you can receive the most reliable information about my relations with the American representatives from Mr. Georgi Andreytchine. He is a very close friend to Mr. Barnes, and also a close friend to the former US ambassador to Moscow, Mr. Harriman Mr. Andreytchine could brief you fully regarding my personal relations with the American political representative. 59

, (.), , (: . , 1992), . 48.

59

In late August 1947, Vasil Kolarov held talks with the US political envoy John Horner and the British Minister Plenipotentiary J. Sterndale Bennett on the occasion of the trial of the opposition leader Nikola Petkov 60 . Several days later, on 15 September 1947, Bennett had a private talk with Kolarov, discussing the same matter in the presence of Andreytchine. In his report to the Foreign Office the British diplomat wrote: Finally, I noted that though principally concerned with the immediate relations between our two countries, I would like to say something that went beyond my limited functions The history of Bulgaria from the World War I till nowadays was full of constant violence and death. Could not the Bulgarian government make a contribution towards initiating a real and not merely a formal era of peace? With great emphasis I made a final appeal to His Excellency to use his influence in favour of a wider and longer view. The issues at stake went far beyond the life of one man but it so happened that the life of that man would be in present circumstances a symbol 61 . It is well known that Vasil Kolarov was the only Bulgarian Communist leader to oppose the execution of Nikola Petkovs death sentence. In a reply to Kolarovs personal letter from 13 September 1947, on 17 September Prime Minister Georgi Dimitrov sent a telegram to Kolarov and Traycho Kostov from Moscow, where he was receiving medical treatment at the moment: After the Anglo-Americans interfered and demanded the rescinding of the death sentence, the issue has acquired new dimensions in light of our domestic and foreign politics and calls for change of our initial plans. All that has a direct influence on Bulgarias sovereignty and also encourages the activities of the reaction in our country. If we do not carry out the sentence, it would be considered, both in the country and abroad, a surrender to outside interference and would undoubtedly encourage renewed intervention Any wavering on this issue, to judge from the standpoint of the current situation in our country and abroad, might only cause damage. You should act firmly, with long-term state interests in mind. This is also the opinion of our [Soviet] friends. 62 . After Stalins final arbitration decision, the fate of the Agrarian leader was predetermined. The death sentence was carried out in the night of 23 September 1947, a week after the peace treaty with Bulgaria had entered into force. At the beginning of October 1947, Bennett met again with Andreytchine. In their conversation the British diplomat expressed his

60 61

, 117, 4, .. 393, . 4-7. NAUK, Kew, F. O. 371/66921, p. 41-43. 62 The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, p. 427-428.

great regret and asked the talk between him and Kolarov on 15 September to be considered as a non-event 63 . On 30 September 1947, George Andreytchine participated in the welcome ceremony for a group of U.S. senators and congressmen that visited Bulgaria for 24 hours. The main goal of the so-called Smith Mundt committee was to explain to the countries of Eastern Europe the nature of the Marshall Plan. The group, led by Senator Alexander Howard Smith (R, N.J.) and by Congressman Karl Earl Mundt (R,S.D.), included also Senators Bourke Blakemore Hickenlooper (R, IA), Alben William Barkley (D, Ky.), Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (R, MA) and the Congressmen Lawrence Henry Smith (R, WI), John Davis Lodge (R, Ct.), Mike Mansfield (D, MT), Pete Jarman (D, Al.), Thomas S. Gordon (D-Il.) and Walter Henry Judd (R-MN). This was the first visit of the kind of a representative group of legislators from Capitol Hill to the small Balkan country. On 18 September, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry submitted to the Chairman of the Great National Assembly Vasil Kolarov a report containing short biographical data of the members of the US Congress delegation. A handwritten note in Kolarovs personal archive gives instructions to George Andreytchine to go to the airport and welcome the US Senators and Congressmen to the country on behalf of the Chairman of the Bulgarian Parliament Due to the holiday season, he was not able to invite them to attend parliamentary sessions, to greet them and the American people or to express the sincere desire of the Bulgarian people to live in peace and friendship with the United States like they did in the past 64 . In a report to the Foreign Ministry from 1 October 1947, George Andreytchine stated: Upon the arrival of the American delegation, I had a short conversation with Alexander Smith and Karl Mundt... During the lunch, hosted by Horner... I was sitting next to Senator Alexander Smith from New Jersey. He showed a lively interest in the Balkan temper and told us that he had been a student of President Wilsons at Princeton University. His words were literally: There will be no peace in the Balkans, unless a Balkan Federation is set up, which together with the Federation of the Danubian countries enters the Common European Federation, like the United States... Wilson taught us that Bulgaria is to have an outlet on the Aegean Sea... Smith called our two-year economic plan very ambitious

NAUK, Kew, F. O. 371/66922. , 3 1949 . . 64 , . 147-, . 2, .. 1013, . 1.

63

Prior to their departure, both Smith and Mundt said that Bulgaria looked like a workshop... Mundt shared that the Bulgarians in America were known for their hard work. In conclusion, Andreytchine pointed out: I would like to underline that in my presence the American Congressmen demonstrated a proper conduct and did not ask a single question to offend our country. 65 In contrast to Andreytchines statements, the Bulgarian secret services submitted totally different reports on the provocative conduct of some Congressmen. Some members of the US delegation demonstratively and symbolically laid flowers in front of the portrait of the antiCommunist opposition leader Nikola Petkov who had been executed a few days earlier after a frame-up show trial. This was also reported to the Foreign Office by the British diplomatic representative in Sofia, Bennett 66 . Several days before Nikola Petkovs execution, William Lawrence, a correspondent for the New York Times in the Balkans, visited Bulgaria. He had been interested in the historical development in Eastern Europe for years. He had visited the Soviet Union twice during the war (November 1943 and July 1944) and had the chance to meet personally Stalin, Molotov, Eden, Hull, and Harriman. In March 1947, he had visited his old friend Mark Ethridge in Greece. Twenty years later, the famous American journalist, who had personal contacts with six US Presidents in a row (from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon), described his visits to Sofia in his memoirs: My best friend in Bulgaria was an official of the Bulgarian foreign office, a man with a stranger-than-fiction history, by name, George Andreychine, who had been in and out of favor with the Communists for nearly half a century, often in Communist jails when he ran afoul of their plans. Andreychines story is hardly believable... I had come to know Andreychine well while we were together with the Balkan Commission in Geneva during the early summer of 1947, and we had maintained our friendship during my occasional visits to Sofia. He was courageous enough to come to dinner with me and American Legation friends,
65

, 4, .. 22, . 4-5. Information about the visit of US delegation can be found as well at the personal records of Senators Smith and Mundt Princeton University, Seeley G. Mudd Library, Alexander Smith Papers, Series IV, Boxes 9394, Voice of American: Smith-Mundt trip to Europe, 1947 ; Dakota State University, Madison, Karl Mundt Library, RG III, Smith-Mundt Congressial Committee Tour of Europe, 1947. 66 NAUK, Kew, F. O. 371/66939, p. 36; 371/66961, p. 3847.

notably Stanley and Sally Cleveland 67 , but we had our best talks riding Pontiac along the Sofia streets and roads near the capital. He told me he could talk more freely in the automobile because he knew it was not bugged by the secret police. I had loaned Andreychine Orwells brilliant satire Animal Farm, which was a devastating ridicule of the Communist system in which the pigs, like the Commissars, were more equal than other animals. On one of these rides, I told him in jest the American government planned to print millions of copies of the Orwell book in Bulgarian and drop them from airplanes over his country. Your government isnt that smart, he said, his eyes twinkling. We took another one of those automobile rides on the day [Nikola] Petkov was hanged. My wife says the Americans were the winners today, Andreychine said. She said the Bulgarian government should have let Petkov live, and I agree with her. 68 Research on the famous British writer, published in Cambridge in June 2007, presents a different view of Andreychines attitude to George Orwells work. According to Professor Robert Conquest, in 1946 or 1947, during his tenure as press attach at the British Legation in Sofia, he presented the newly published Animal Farm to the advisor to the Bulgarian President George Andreytchine. Andreytchine was strongly impressed by Orwells book. In the spirit of Orwells vision, the Bulgarian shared that the only useful practical achievement in his intensely dramatic life were some privileges for his fellow-villagers in Belitsa 69 . The prominent British historian and author Robert Conquest first visited Bulgaria in 1937. During the Second World War he shared pro-Communist views and started learning the Bulgarian language in the Slavonic Languages Department at London University. From 1945 to 1948, he was in charge of the press section of the British Mission in Bulgaria. The process of Stalinization of the country gradually turned him into an ardent anti-Communist. Upon his return to London, he was employed at the Information and Research Department of the Foreign Office, where his main task was to support anti-Soviet propaganda. Later, in his capacity as an independent political writer and historian, he was one of the founders of a school of literature figure-headed by the famous satirist Kingsley Amis. In 1968, Conquests

anley Cleveland arrived in Bulgaria in December 1946. According to Bulgarian State Security documentation, he lived in Sofia at No. 9 Nikolay Nikolaevich Street while serving as a Second Secretary at US Legation. He departed from Bulgaria in July 1949, and further continued his diplomatic career at State department, serving as a head of section inside NATO department. 68 Lawrence, Bill. Six presidents, too many wars, (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972), p. 162163. 69 Conquest, Robert. Orwell, Socialism and the Cold War, In: The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell, (Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 129.

67

seminal study The Big Terror, dealing with the Stalinist repressions in the 1930s, was published 70 . In July 1947, the opening article published by the influential US journal Foreign Affairs was The Sources of Soviet Conduct, signed with the initial . The identity of the author was not a secret for professional politicians and diplomats in Washington DC. This was George Kennan, one of the architects of American postwar foreign policy, who formulated the strategy of containment of international Communism 71 . A prominent representative of the postrevisionist school in American historiography, Professor Melvyn Leffler defined him as the most influential foreign policy official in US history 72 . Kennans programmatic article brought about a lively discussion in American political circles. The famous liberal commentator Walter Lippman presented his polemic criticism to some of Mr. Xs arguments in an article for the New York Herald Tribune. The comments of the future Pulitzer Prize winner (1958) were symptomatically entitled The Cold War. After the article was published, this appropriate figurative comparison permanently penetrated the international political lexicon. Even nowadays, there are good reasons to consider Walter Lippman the godfather of the term which described a whole epoch in postwar international relations 73 . At the same time, he started his comments with the categorical statement: Mr X's article is . . . not only an analytical interpretation of the sources of Soviet conduct. It is also a document of primary importance on the sources of American foreign policy--of at least that part of it which is known as the Truman Doctrine. 74 . In a letter from 20 September 1947, George Andreytchine sent the translated article from Foreign Affairs to Bulgarian Prime Minister Georgi Dimitrov, who was then receiving medical treatment in Moscow, with an explanatory note about its author. The note read:

More details for Robert Conquests life see in: The Guardian, London, February 15, 2003. See: John Jatrides, George F. Kennan and the Birth of Containment, World Policy Journal, New York, No. 3, Fall 2005, p. 126145; John Lewis Gaddis, George Kennan. An American Life, (New York: Penguin Books, 2011). The book of Gaddis was winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Price in Biography. 72 Melvin Leffler, Remembering George Kennan: Lessons for Today?, USIP Special Report, No. 180, Washington, December 2006, p. 2. 73 Actually, the same term was used also in April 1947 by President Trumans economic adviser Dr. Bernard Baruch. For the first time Cold War as a political expression was used by Eduard Bernstein in 1893 in an article for Die Neue Zeit , , , , 1, 1996, . 4344. 74 Walter Lippman, The Cold War, Foreign Affairs, Washington, No. 65, Spring 1987, p. 864869.
71

70

The enclosed article... was written, as it was recently revealed, by George Kennan, Chairman of the Council for US Foreign Policy Planning. Kennan is an experienced diplomat, an expert on Soviet issues. In 19341938, he was Secretary at the US Embassy in Moscow, in 19431946 the chief advisor to Harriman and General Smith again in Moscow. Kennan learned Russian in his childhood from his father... Currently, Kennan is acting as liaison between US diplomats and the military, since the Council he chairs involves both military officers and diplomats. Therefore, we could conclude that this article was approved by the leadership of American foreign policy before being published because it did not take long to learn that Kennan was its author 75 . Andreytchines letter presents clear evidence that the author behind the initial was well known in Eastern Europe and the views, presented in the strategic article of the US diplomat, were taken into serious consideration. The US Legation in Sofia On 11 December 1947, after the adoption of the new Bulgarian Republican Constitution, Vasil Kolarov took office as Foreign Minister in the second government under Georgi Dimitrov. A Ministerial Decree from 24 February 1948 promoted George Andreytchine to Minister Plenipotentiary at large, the equivalent to an ambassadors rank. After Kolarovs appointment as Foreign Minister, Andreytchines main responsibilities remained the same to maintain official contacts with representatives of the American and British diplomatic missions in Sofia. He had several meetings with the new US Minister Plenipotentiary Donald Heath, who sought his advice on some urgent bilateral problems related to Bulgarias fast transition to open Stalinist-type dictatorship. The available records of some conversations explicitly prove how cautiously and diplomatically Andreytchine tried to fulfill his duties and to present the official Bulgarian position. At the same time, his reaction to Heaths words and even half-expressed thoughts were evidence of his effort to keep normal human relations and demonstrate respect for the others ideas. He did not deny the growing ideological aggression in Bulgarian policy to American imperialism and yet did not overstep the limits of conduct of a loyal government official. By an irony of fate, the first US Minister Plenipotentiary in Bulgaria after the Second World War had presented his credentials a day before the 30th anniversary of the Bolshevik
75

, 146-, 5, .. 1352, . 111.

Revolution in Russia. During his short stay in the country, Donald Heath witnessed the intensive Sovietization of Bulgaria. Unlike the former US representative Maynard Barnes, he was not able to influence Bulgarian internal political life in any way. Shortly after his arrival in Bulgaria, Heath had to direct his efforts to resolving some newly-arisen problems in BulgarianAmerican relations. After the adoption of the Law of Nationalization of industrial Plants and Banks in December 1947, the Bulgarian authorities nationalized the Petrol Trade Company, which had US shareholders. At the same time, a campaign was launched to close all foreign language colleges (French, Italian, and American) in Bulgaria. Growing political repression resulted in the arrest of some Bulgarian citizens, who had worked for the US Legation. Heath repeatedly tried to put forward these problems to Foreign Minister Kolarov during meetings in January, March, May and July 1948. All meetings were attended by George Andreytchine, Kolarovs special assistant- as he was described in the American diplomatic correspondence. In the first meeting on 6 January 1948, Vasil Kolarov proposed that the US Legation assist some American journalists with their visit to Bulgaria to get acquainted with the situation in the country. In response to this proposal, Donald Heath informed Kolarov in a letter from 19 January that influential journalists, such as Wes Gallaher from the Associated Press, William Leigh from Time and John Philips from Life would be interested in attending the Fatherland Front Congress in Sofia, scheduled for 12 February. Heath announced that he was ready to send the US Legation plane to Vienna to bring the American journalists to Bulgaria. On 22 January, Andreytchine informed Kolarov of the letter of the US Minister Plenipotentiary. The document bears the handwritten positive resolution of the Bulgarian Foreign Minister 76 . As a result of this approval, Donald Heath arranged the arrival of eight American journalists by plane at the end of January. They were joined by the correspondent for the New York Times in Bucharest, William Lawrence. The Bulgarian Foreign Minister suggested that the US journalists be given the status of government guests, however they categorically refused. The British Minister Plenipotentiary in Sofia Bennett wrote in a confidential letter to the Chief of the South European Department of the Foreign Office, Geoffrey Wallinger: It was clear from the very beginning that there would be problems, since all the Americans arrived with their extremely critical attitude and they were not interested in the Congress at all [of the Fatherland Front], but they were eager to observe the scandalous side of the Bulgarian life... They left on 7 February. Lawrence, however, wished to stay for another week... On 10 February [Vladimir]
76

, 5, .. 60, . 12.

Topencharov attacked him verbally and on the next day he was expelled from the country 77 . A quarter of a century later, Bill Lawrence referred to this incident in his memoirs: Andreychine was scheduled to dine with me on the very same night I was ordered by the government to leave Sofia. After my expulsion notice had been broadcast, Andreychine telephoned to Stanley Cleveland at the American Legation to say that he would not be able to come for dinner. Bill will understand, I hope, Andreychine told Cleveland. I did. And I understood also when Andreychine again disappeared into the silence of another Communist jail never to emerge alive. There was no trial, and no formal charges, but it was obvious the old IWW leader was too free a spirit for his Communist masters. 78 On the morning of 9 February 1948, George Andreytchine received the US Minister Plenipotentiary at the Foreign Ministry; the two continued their discussions on the nationalization of the Petrol Trade Company and on the restoration of the American College near Sofia. However, due to lack of instructions, Andreytchine refused to make any comments on the recently publicized accusations of a new political trial against one of the leaders of the opposition Agrarian Union party, Dimitar Gichev. When Heath asked for advice whether to discuss this trial at an unofficial meeting with Prime Minister Georgi Dimitrov, Andreytchine replied: I would rather request you to wait until Mr. Kolarov is back from his sick leave and to seek his advice. But I think that this is not a good time for such a meeting. At the end of their conversation, the US Minister Plenipotentiary suggested an exchange of visits between Bulgarian and American journalists, where Andreytchine replied: If such a proposal is made formally, it will have a favorable solution 79 . Of course, the phrase sick leave, used in the conversation, concealed the top secret urgent trip to Moscow made by Georgi Dimitrov, Vasil Kolarov and Traycho Kostov on the same morning. In the evening the Bulgarians together with the Yugoslav representatives Edward Kardelj and Milovan Djilas were subject to severe criticism and pressure by Stalin and Molotov. As mentioned, from 10 to 12 March 1948 Foreign Minister Vasil Kolarov organized a meeting of the senior staff of the Ministry with the Bulgarian plenipotentiary ministers abroad. This was the first joint meeting, obviously influenced by the diplomatic practice in the Soviet
77 78

NAUK, Kew, Foreign Office. Political. 72 154, p. 8. Lawrence, Bill. Six presidents, too many wars, . 163. 79 , 4, .. 64, . 1213.

Union in the 1920s. It was in line with the efforts of the new Foreign Minister for radical reorganization of the structure of the Foreign Ministry and for improving its analytical work and expertise. In 1948, Kolarov suggested that the staff of the Ministry move from the small building on Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard (todays south wing of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) to the larger former home of the Ministry of Justice on Slavyanska Street, adjacent to the Ministry of Defense. Six sessions took place during the three days of meetings in the Foreign Ministry in March. Each day lasting from 9.3010.00 a.m. till 20.0020.30 p.m. Vasil Kolarov gave the floor to all Bulgarian diplomatic representatives in the West, the South direction (Turkey, Greece, the Middle East) and the East European countries, and finally he summarized the results of the three-day discussions. The first to speak was the Bulgarian representative in the USA, Dr Nisim Mevorah, followed by the acting Minister Plenipotentiary in France Assen Georgiev. Due to the fact that a few days or weeks prior to the meeting three Bulgarian plenipotentiary ministers in important West European countries had demonstratively resigned and refused to return to Bulgaria (Nikola Dolapchiev in Great Britain, Former Defense Minister Gen. Damyan Velchev in Switzerland and Vasil Yurukov in Belgium), the situation in those countries was presented by Todor Genov. The next speakers were Varban Angelov (Turkey), Dr Pavel Tagarov (Poland), Petar Popzlatev (Sweden), Nayden Nikolov (USSR), Stefan Simov (Czechoslovakia), Nikola Vanchev (Hungary), Dimitar Bratanov (Italy), Dimitar Ganev (Romania), Georgi Stankulov (Albania), Sava Ganovski (Yugoslavia). The shorthand record of the meeting at the Foreign Ministry, comprising five bulky folders with 423 pages in total; opening it inevitably reveals another mystification, where Andreytchines name and work have been confused. The name Lyubomir Andreytchine is written on the title page and after the above-mentioned briefing on the situation in Greece, presented during the second session on the evening of 10 March. The same name appears on the last two pages of the shorthand record, where Andreytchine interrupted and added on to the Foreign Ministers concluding speech. His name was correctly spelled where George Andreytchine interfered with questions, comments or complements during the other sessions 80 . The most logical explanation for this initially-strange inconsistency or technical error comes from the possible date of decoding and printing of the shorthand report. Kolarovs personal archives have preserved the notes from his introductory and concluding words, but there is no copy of the complete report. This indirectly confirms our assumption that the

shorthand minutes were completely deciphered and typed up only after Vasil Kolarov took the office of Prime Minister and left the Foreign Ministry in the hands of his successor Vladimir Poptomov, that is in early August 1949, or possibly even after his death in January 1950. Precisely at this time any reference to George Andreytchines name was inadmissible. Therefore, the most visible places in the shorthand text were carefully corrected by an editor, who put the name of the prominent Bulgarian linguist Professor Lyubomir Andreytchine instead. He had no relation to George whatsoever, nor did he have anything to do with diplomatic work. In a similar way in those years, archive photographs were retouched in order to delete the image of an unsuitable political personality. George Andreytchines short comments during the speeches of some plenipotentiary ministers clearly showed that beyond his direct professional commitments, he possessed detailed information about the situation in other countries as well Poland, Sweden, etc. Another fact is more interesting, though. Although he was the expert supporting the Foreign Ministers dealing with the diplomatic representatives of the United States and Great Britain and undoubtedly he was the Bulgarian foreign policy official most knowledgeable of the policy of the Western superpower - he never interrupted with a comment or a question the chaotic and perfunctory speech of the Bulgarian Minister in Washington. In fact, at the beginning of his speech, Dr. Nisim Mevorah explained that it was difficult for him to make a deep analysis, since he had been in office for a month and a half only. In addition, although he spoke French and Spanish, he barely knew any of the official language of the country where he was posted. It is not difficult to imagine Andreytchines feelings when he heard the Bulgarian diplomatic representative in Washington say: I, personally, was unfortunate to become Minister [plenipotentiary] in a country, whose language was totally strange to me. I wasted a lot of time studying, studying grammar. 81 The prominent lawyer Dr. Nisim Mevorah was made to return to Bulgaria only half a year later, before even completing the first year of his term. At the height of the SovietYugoslav conflict, he was accused of being sympathetic to Iosip Broz Tito and the reaction.

80 81

, 1, .. 531, . 26; .. 532, . 9, 25, 38; .. 534, . 53; .. 535, . 25. , .. 531, . 41.

And he was indicted of admiring the technical progress and the national standard of living in America 82 . The most active of the Bulgarian diplomats to speak during the three-day meeting at the Foreign Ministry was the advisor at the Legation in Paris, Assen Georgiev. He demonstrated notable self-confidence, covered different topics, sometimes interrupted and corrected his colleagues. Presumably, his name today would be unknown to many, although his life was quite interesting. His career was mentioned as illuminating of the Cold War years in the second edition of the memoirs of the legendary CIA director Allen Dulles, The Craft of Intelligence. An active figure in the Bulgarian Communist Party, Ivan-Assen Georgiev became the first Secretary General of the Ministry of Interior after 9 September 1944. From April 1946 till February 1948, he was First Secretary and Counselor at the Bulgarian Legation in Paris. At the same time, he took the position of First Secretary of the Bulgarian government delegation at the Peace Conference in the summer of 1946. Georgiev possessed strong personal ambitions and was obviously not satisfied with his prerogatives. Today, it would be curious to read one of his secret reports from Paris to Foreign Minister Vasil Kolarov, dated 26 January 1948. The report contains rather critical comments on the state of the Bulgarian intelligence group in France and expresses strong discontent with some deficiencies in the methods of Bulgarian intelligence: People, unsuitable for this job, are being sent abroad as intelligence officers. They recruit unfit agents. The enemy, however, works at a high level. As a result, intelligence is ineffective and is replaced by a stream of gossips and libels, which ruin the services abroad and the unity of Bulgarians. All essential intelligence data, submitted to Sofia to date, has been collected exclusively by me... I was the one to receive the information because the sources had confidence in me only. It is high time we looked extremely seriously into the intelligence work in France and appointed and sent a special individual, who would be serious, mature and honest 83 . The letter presented devastating assessments of five Bulgarian intelligence officers in France and quoted their real names (an unthinkable act for someone from the special services). Georgiev indirectly offered himself as the Bulgarian intelligence resident in France, but he was soon recalled to Sofia and continued his career in the Foreign Ministry. Later, from
82

. : , , , , 2003, 4, . 8395.

1956 until 1961 he held the responsible position of deputy chief of the Bulgarian mission in the United Nations in New York. In 1962, he was elected the Chairman of the International Institute for Space Law. Exactly at this time, in May 1962, the Department for Surveillance Abroad at the State Security Committee intercepted a letter to Assen Georgiev, posted by a known professional CIA officer from the US Legation in Sofia. This was the beginning of the counterintelligence operation Double-dealer against Ivan-Assen Georgiev as an agent of US intelligence since 1956 under the code name George Duval. After a few months of tracking and consultations with the KGB, a special team of the State Security Committee reinforced by another 80 operative workers from the KGB arrested Georgiev in September 1963, during his visit to Moscow 84 . A few months after his arrest, he was sentenced to death at a show trial. In the first days of January 1964 he was executed a common practice in the East European countries in the Cold War years. A day after concluding the first meeting of diplomats at the Foreign Ministry, on 13 March 1948, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister received the US diplomatic representative in Sofia in Andreytchines presence. Another interesting conversation between Donald Heath and George Andreytchine took place on 16 April. The U.S. representative raised the issue of those Bulgarian employees at the US Legation, who were investigated for their alleged involvement in a subversive plot. Heath categorically claimed that he did not believe a word of these tales of subversive activity. Under present circumstances it was inconceivable that anyone was actively working against the government. In a cable, sent to the U.S. Secretary of State the next morning Donald Heath informed about the very specific reaction of George Andreytchine to his statement: While Andreichin did not contest latter statement and gave impression of perhaps privately agreeing with me I do not believe [Bulgarian] Foreign Office will use its influence to obtain release of employees already arrested. It may, however, exert some restraining influence on any future arrests 85 .

83 84

, 147-, 3, 1633, . 57. , 1, 10, 102, . 75-125; , 1-, 24, 292, . 13. 85 NARA, Washington, RG 59, Decimal Files. 124.743/4-1748

During another meeting on 9 May 1948, the American diplomat commented on Kolarovs categorical statement regarding a new international inspection of the Greek-Bulgarian border. In a telegram to Washington after the visit to the Foreign Ministry, Heath informed that: Prior to seeing Kolarov I spoke with his special assistant George Andreichin who had asked me to come earlier to talk with him. I remarked to Andreichin that Foreign Ministers speech had been strong and I had not understood his statement that proposed border inspection was unlawful. Andreichin said we must understand that it had been his duty to bring to Kolarovs attention statements recently made by Law in debate in Parliament to effect that Greek-Bulgarian border should be sealed by international troops and if inspection for fortifications were denied by Bulgarian Government then an aerial photographic survey should be made of Bulgarian borders. This taken together with a statement made by someone in US Congress that three or four American divisions should be sent to guard border and only present lack of troops prevented this from being done naturally alarmed Foreign Minister. Andreichin then changed the subject [] Andreichins remark above-quoted is another indication that there is real apprehension lest international guards be assigned to seal Greek-Bulgarian border. In this connection, it will be recalled that Kolarov stated to Bulgarian journalists that Bulgaria did not want American troops on frontier. One is tempted to think that if Bulgarian Government (i.e. Soviets) does not wish international guards posted in Greece that it must be right thing to do 86 . Another quite informative personal meeting of the two happened on 6 October 1948. The immediate reason for it was the exchange of diplomatic notes between the two governments on the renewed Bulgarian request for U.N. membership. At that time Foreign Minister Kolarov was in Paris where during the Third session of the U.N. General Assembly he held talks on that issue with the U.N. Secretary General Trygve Halvdan Lie, the Chairman of the Political Commission Paul Henri Spaak, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schumann and the U.S. representative to the U.N. Warren Austin 87 . In his telegram Heath informed Secretary of State George Marshall, of the main points of his talk with Andreytchine: I remarked that I much preferred the frankness of Lenin who had not pretended that the stage of dictatorship of the proletariat was democratic or protected human and political rights.

FRUS, 1948, Vol. IV, Washington DC, 1974, p. 335336. , 147-, 4, .. 44a. .
87

86

Andreitchin made no attempt to contend that human rights were protected in Bulgaria but went on to argue that the United States had supported the application for membership in the United Nations of countries where human and political rights were far from secure as, for example, Portugal. Why did we not approve Bulgarias entrance into the United Nations and, if we had complaints about her system of government, we could then debate them before that forum? I replied that we had not approved the candidacy of Spain and that the case of Bulgaria and the other satellites was entirely different since peace treaties and the Yalta agreement, which must be respected if we were to have a progressive and peaceful world, solemnly and specifically provided for protection of human and political liberties. Andreitchin remarked regretfully that there had been a possibility of a freer system developing in Communist Russia, but the first international war against Russia, then the civil war and only a few years after a second world war followed by a revolution of polarization of power between the Soviets and the United States has maintained a situation of instability and suspicion in which one could not even trust ones own brother and made a regime of human freedoms impossible for the time being 88 . In a new cable to George C. Marshall from 26 October 1948, Donald Heath returned back to his 6 October talk with Andreytchine. He informed that at the end of the conversation George had asked about the opinion of the US Head of Mission on the outcome of the current Berlin crisis. Heath informed the Secretary of State that: At the time I had expressed hope of a very early, peaceful settlement but remarked that as it stood the situation was explosive and that peaceful intentions were at the mercy of an incident. I ended jokingly that if the dreaded explosion came we might find ourselves in opposite camps. (I may also add that all members of the legation are on terms of some friendliness and humorous informality with Andreitchin, although we know him to be a convinced Communist.) I attached no importance to this interchange which was not included in my airgram account, but yesterday [Assistant Foreign Minister] Ganovsky said the Foreign Office had since speculated whether I had made the remark under the instructions of my government and by way of a threat to reinforce the severe representations delivered in our Aide Mmoire of September 23. 89 . The US representatives continued their regular contacts with Andreytchine also on other occasions, particularly in regard to the status of some Bulgarian employees at the US Legation in Sofia. In a cable to the Secretary of State from November 5, 1948, Donald Heath informed Washington:

88 89

FRUS, 1948, Vol. IV, p. 379380. NARA, RG 59, Decimal Files. 874.00/10-2648.

The Counselor of the Legation on November 1 called on George Andreitchin, Special Assistant to the Foreign Minister who promised to discuss the case with [Assistant Foreign Minister] Kamenov. The following day Andreitchin informed the Counselor that Kamenov said that if we could provide anything like a legal travel document Mrs. [Alexandra] Secoulova would be given her exit visa After a delay of two days the Chief of Protocol in charge of such matters informed the Legation that the document was not valid as a travel document. Protest was made to Andreitchin and he promised to look into the matter. As no answer was received, I insisted on another appointment with Kamenov, whom I say yesterday, November 4. Kamenov pretended not to be fully informed of the matter Kamenov promised that there would be no militia molestation of Mrs. Secoulova, but I pointed out to him that the militia had already called once at her residence during her absence. 90 In the last months of 1948, George Andreytchine received a special gift from the US Minister Plenipotentiary the recently published book of memoirs of his old friend and brotherpublisher from Chicago, Ralph Chaplin. The memoirs of the famous Wobbly poet were published in the middle of 1948 by Chicago University and were repeatedly used and quoted by American historians in the next decades. On the inner side of the cover stands the signature of Donald Reed Heath, which proves that the book belonged to his personal library. This is another evidence of the nature of relations between the US diplomat and the senior official at the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, going beyond formal diplomatic protocol to a more personal level. After the period of the Stalinist purges in the 1930s, Ralph had become much more critical of the reality of the social experiment in Soviet Russia. At the end of his memoirs, he expressed his personal position regarding the Muscovite totalitarism and Stalins red terror stating frankly: I opposed Stalin just as I opposed Hitler, and for the same reason The last shreds of my class orientation had been torn to bits by hangman Vishinskys insistence on the death penalty for nonconformists during the blood purges in Russia. No one had to remind me that the concentration camps and quick-lime pits of the USSR were full of the likes of me. It was only natural therefore that I was unable to appreciate the advantage of being liquidated by an NKVD firing squad for upholding the cause of freedom in the Workers Fatherland instead of jailed in capitalist America for the same crime For reasons good and sufficient to myself, I was now opposed to such things both in principle and in practice 91 .

90 91

Ibid, Decimal Files. 124.743/11-548. Ralph Chaplin, Op. Cit., p. 414419.

There are plenty of handwritten notes on the pages of Ralph Chaplins book of memoirs, and the paragraphs about Andreytchine are underlined in pencil. It is obvious that George Andreytchine traced very carefully the thoughts of his old friend, concealing his own ideas and feelings. The book has survived in the family library just because nobody in Bulgaria searched the house after Andreytchine was arrested and secretly taken to Moscow. In mid-December 1948, George Andreytchine received in Sofia another of his American acquaintances Charles Thayer. From January 1948, the former diplomat of the US Embassy in Moscow held another senior post - that of Director of the Voice of America broadcast. He was assigned to this post right after the US Congress adopted the Law of Information and Educational exchange (known as the Law Smith-Mundt) on 27 January. This was the fourth consecutive initiative of a global ideological approach by the leading superpower after the proclamation of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan in 1947, and the adoption of the Law of National Security, which marked the official set up of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. In compliance with the Smith-Mundt Law, active radio propaganda was launched, aimed at the peoples in the countries under Soviet influence. Charles Thayer arrived in Bulgaria at the time of the Fifth Congress of the Bulgarian Communist Party, which publicly decreed the adoption of the Stalinist model of political power in the country 92 . The Press Attach at the British Legation, Blackwell, ironically mentioned in a private conversation that the mere fact of issuing an entry visa for the director of The Voice of America these days was a sensation and a political joke. Information from the State Security clearly shows that Thayer received a Bulgarian visa thanks to the insistence of Andreytchine! The information also made comments on the indecent and arrogant conduct of the American during his stay in Bulgaria 93 . A New Wave of Political Repression Nothing seemed to predict the forthcoming dramatic change in the fate of George Andreytchine. On 8 December 1948, he was awarded the medal For Civil Merits for the second time. In a letter from 16 January 1949, he raised the question of defining his party
In the beginning of December 1948 at a secret consultative meeting in Kremlin Stalin categorically rejected the proposed by Dimitrov concept that the peoples democracy regimes in Eastern Europe represent political system different from the Soviet regime. In the days of the Bulgarian Communist Party congress such imperative directive was repeated again in a peremptory form by Soviet leading ideologist Mikhail Suslov.
92

membership, since following his expulsion from Bolshevik party in 1927 he was treated in all personal documents as non-party. At the same time, he continued contributing to the Free Bulgaria newspaper, where he wrote articles under the pseudonym The Balkan Man. George Andreytchines official status in Bulgaria, in fact, was not in line with the secret assessments of him made by agents of the Soviet secret services in Bulgaria. Not even for a second did they stop monitoring his routine work in the country and abroad. The confidential information from the MGBs Report on Andreytchines work, quoted several times in the previous chapters, is of particular interest. The document is written in Russian, there is no date or address, but the contents suggest that it was worked out in the second half of 1948. The name bk, written by hand, stood at the bottom left corner on the last page. This is a categorical confirmation that the information came from Gen. Viktor Abakumovs institution in Moscow. The report read: After Andreytchines departure for Bulgaria, we are still in contact with him, taking into account his close relations with Barnes, and we are willing to understand the true nature of the relations between him and the Americans. Analysis of materials, submitted by Andreytchine during this period, proves that at all his meetings with Barnes, Andreytchine pursued the same policy. He conveyed Barness recommendations on issues related to the Soviet policy in the Balkans, the need for democratization of the domestic regime in Bulgaria, and attempts to scare the Soviet Union and the Bulgarian government with sanctions by the US side in case these recommendations were not accepted. This information provokes some doubts regarding its reliability and looks like a provocation maneuver. Along with this, sometimes Andreytchine gave quite interesting information about US foreign policy, received during conversations with Barnes, Ethridge and other American representatives, trying in this way to sustain our interest to his contacts with the Americans. Lately, we have observed Andreytchines persistent aspiration to go to America under any pretext. He has addressed our representatives repeatedly requesting their intercession with the Bulgarian government to send him to work in the USA. He gave different explanations for his willingness to each of our officers. He told some that he wanted to go to America in order to study the Macedonian problem, in other cases he tried to raise the interest in his connections in the United States (Bullitt, Harriman, the Trotskyte Max Eastman, journalist Ku Frederick (American intelligence officer) and others)... Taking into consideration the suspicious character of Andreytchines relations with the Americans, his dishonest collaboration with us, his intentions to voice denunciation, and the harm he could do to our country and to Bulgaria, we have decided to terminate our contacts with him as an agent.
, 1, 1, .. 727, . 128129.
93

In addition, we believe it is necessary for our common interests to isolate Andreytchine from government work in Bulgaria, not to let him go abroad and frustrate his uncontrolled contacts with foreigners. To this end, we believe he is to be appointed to another, no less honorable post, which is not related to foreign policy and government issues (such as the mayor of a big town, the director of an institute, etc.). We shall make sure that Andreytchine is under observation and investigation by experienced and loyal agents. We will have in mind that he is always on alert and possesses knowledge about the agents methods, which he gained while working with us. Under no circumstances is Andreytchine to be allowed to go abroad, taking into account his voiced intention to make public denunciations and the interest of the Americans in this act 94 . Another demonstration of the special attention to George Andreytchines personality on behalf of the secret services was the top secret report of the State Security on 9 March 1949. Unlike their Soviet supervisors, the Bulgarian agents pedantically reproduced details from previous reports and autobiographical notes, without drawing any final conclusions on hostile or suspicious activities 95 . Recently disclosed documents from the Bulgarian secret services, however, have proved that agents from Section A of the First Department of State Security listened in and recorded Andreytchines conversations with officials from the US Legation, even the official ones held in the Foreign Ministry building. At the same time, some of Andreytchines close acquaintances and collaborators such as Lozovski, Borodin and others were arrested in deep secrecy in Moscow. In mid-January 1949, the Director of SovInformBureau, Solomon Lozovski, was summoned to go to the Central Committee of the VKP (b) in order to meet Georgiy Malenkov and give an explanation regarding the work of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, which had turned out to be a spy organization of Jewish nationalists. Two days later, he was expelled from the Bolshevik Party by a special decision, and on 26 January he was arrested by the GB authorities 96 . In January 1949, another symptomatic party decision was made in Moscow. It had been prepared by Mikhail Suslov, the new grey cardinal of the Politburo after the death of the ideologist Andrey Zhdanov. The decision, transformed several days later into an editorial article in the Party newspaper Pravda, rebuked acts of futile cosmopolitism and admiration for Western culture. On 20 January, the publication of the Moscow News was terminated. A few days later, the newspaper editor Mikhail Borodin was arrested. On 28 February, Time
94 95

, 1, 1, .. 573, . 34. , 5, 3, .. 1365, . 4. 96 , 17, 3, 1074, . 7; 15624, . 315316.

magazine informed that two weeks earlier the 63-year-old Ann Louise Strong had been arrested in Moscow and accused of espionage and subversive activity against the Soviet Union. Just a week earlier, the New York Communist newspaper the Daily Worker had proposed that Strong be nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for her reports from China 97 . A few days after her arrest, Ann Louise Strong was deported from the Soviet Union. Borodin was not that fortunate. Being constantly tortured, he kept refusing to confirm his confessions for two years. On 29 May 1951, he was finally crushed. As a result of a severe beating, however, he died in the MGB prison on the same day. In 1958, Ann Louise Strong left the United States once again. This time she set for Beijing, where she maintained friendly relations with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. As a matter of fact, some of her biographers mentioned that in her life she had love affairs with three famous revolutionaries Lev Trotsky, Mikhail Borodin and Zhou Enlai. This, however, can hardly be ever proved with documents. The Trial of the Evangelical Priests One other event also seemed to attract the attention of the secret services in Bulgaria and the Soviet Union to Andreytchines personality in the spring of 1949. A few days after the trial of Cardinal Josef Mindszenty in Hungary which President Harry Truman called shameful - a show trial against 15 Protestant Ministers took place in Sofia. They were accused of espionage on behalf of Great Britain and the United States. The main defendant was Rev. Vasil Ziapkov, who had been a member of the official Bulgarian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1946. In a cable from 11 February 1949, the Charg of the US Legation in Sofia Sidney E. ODonoghue reported that he had called that morning on George Andreichin, Special Assistant in the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, to express his personal disgust at the publication of the indictment against the Bulgarian Protestant pastors. 98 . On the same day, the Press Secretary of the Department of State made an official statement on this issue:

97

In a Biography of Strong it was wrongly stated that she was arrested by Stalins secret police because of her pro-Chinese feelings. In fact, the Sino-Soviet split started a decade later Tracy Strong & Helene Keyssar, RIGHT IN HER SOUL. The Life of Anna Louise Strong, Random House, New York, 1984. 98 FRUS, 1949, Vol. 5, (Washington, 1976), . 326.

Similarity between fantastic accusations being made against Protestant religious leaders in Bulgaria and those against Cardinal Mindszenty in Hungary, whose trial has so recently concluded, strikingly emphasizes concerted nature of this continuing Communist assault on religious liberties in Eastern Europe. On 2 March 1949, Ziapkovs defense called as its witness George Andreytchine. Unlike most of the other witnesses, his testimony (surprisingly for most present in the court room), was almost entirely in favor of the main defendant. The same evening, the British diplomatic representative in Sofia Paul Mason informed London: Todays hearing has been devoted to witnesses On the other hand, several witnesses for the defense, mentioning notably Mr. Andreichin of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have attempted to whitewash Ziapkovs activities in Paris 99 . More detailed information was sent from Sofia by the New York Times correspondent M. S. Handler: The two witnesses whose testimonies cast favorable light on the record of one defendant were Georgi Kulishev, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, a member of the disbanded Zveno party and a member of the Executive Committee of the Fatherland Front, and Georgi Andreytchine, counselor to Vasil Kolarov, Bulgarian Foreign Minister. Their testimony was offered in favor of the Rev. Vasil Ziapkov and more or less substantiated the churchmans own testimony on his role as technical adviser to the Paris peace conference Mr. Andreytchine, however, said that the Rev. Mr. Ziapkov had personally reported to him on meetings with Mrs. Claude Pepper, wife of the Florida Democratic Senator, and Bernard M. Baruch The Rev. Mr. Ziapkov asked Mr. Andreytchine whether he recalled that he had congratulated him warmly for his work in Paris and Mr. Andreytchine replied in the affirmative 100 . On 9 March, the Bulgarian government declared the First Secretary of the British Legation in Sofia Denis A. Greenhill persona non grata. Greenhill and several other staff of the British and the American diplomatic missions were mentioned in the testimony of the main defendant Pastor Vasil Ziapkov. On 14 March, British diplomatic representative Paul Mason handed in to Deputy Foreign Minister Sava Ganovski a sharp note of protest, rejecting the allegations against Greenhill and warning of reciprocation in case the Bulgarian government
99 100

P.R.O., F.O. 371/78293, p. 29. M. S. Handler, Witnesses accuse Sofia churchman, New York Times, March 3, 1949, p. 12.

maintained the demands for his deportation. Ziapkovs testimony included also Louis Beck, attach at the US Legation. In a cable from 15 March 1949 to the Secretary of State George Marshall, the US Charg dAffaires in Sofia ODonoghue reported his conversation with the Chief of the Political Directorate of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, Todor Genov, regarding Greenhills Case. The US diplomatic representative categorically rejected the allegations against Greenhill and Beck as absolutely incorrect. Further on, the information read: At Foreign Office this morning Andreitchin also raised the question and I repeated my remarks as above.. I have informed British Minister of these conversations which evidence concern of certain officials over situation. 101 . The aggravation of the bipolar confrontation in Europe directly affected the development of Bulgarian-American relations. The fabricated trial against Traycho Kostov at the end of 1949 involved the name of the American Minister Plenipotentiary in Sofia Donald Reed Heath. On 19 January 1950, he was declared persona non grata and was ordered to leave Bulgaria. Some authors believe that this was not a mere Bulgarian decision, but rather a foreign policy act, coordinated with the Soviet comrades 102 . Just a day later, on 20 January 1950, the Bulgarian diplomatic representative in Washington Petar Vutov was summoned to the Department of State by Assistant Deputy Secretary of State Llewellyn Thompson who handed him a verbal note. The Department of State requested that the Bulgarian government withdraw their demand and the accusations against the US Minister in Sofia and stated that otherwise, the US government would recall their diplomatic mission and suspend diplomatic relations with Bulgaria. For a month, the Bulgarian government neither responded to the American note, nor gave any additional instructions to the Legation in Washington. Bulgarian diplomatic documents show that initially the Foreign Ministry in Sofia assumed quite thoughtlessly and unprofessionally that the American note was just a threat and there would be no drastic suspension of bilateral relations. Dr. Petar Vutov wrote in his memoirs that judging from the information he had, it was on the evening of 19 February that the Foreign Ministry decided to withdraw their order for Donald Heaths expulsion. From Vutovs perspective, this decision was fatally delayed by nine hours because the US
101 102

FRUS, 1949, Vol. 5, p. 329. , . . .

government had already made a decision to recall their representative from Sofia after having waited for a response for a whole month 103 . In her latest study of Bulgarian-American relations in the 20th century, Professor Vitka Toshkova, not ignoring the option of inertia in the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, reasonably raised the question of the decisive role of Soviet diplomacy at a moment when a small East European country undertook such a serious foreign policy act regarding the leading superpower in the postwar world. In fact, in a cable to Moscow from 21 January 1950, the new Bulgarian Prime Minister Valko Chervenkov requested Stalin, with regard to the exchange of notes with the US government, to provide instructions on our further conduct. Three days later, Foreign Minister Vladimir Poptomov reported: The act has been coordinated with the Soviet comrades 104 . Thus, within less than a decade, two Bulgarian governments under the influence of their big-power allies rather thoughtlessly terminated their official contacts with a world power playing a key role in the international relations in the 20th century. The US Department of State recognized the global dimensions of this provocative act of the Bulgarian government. A secret analysis from 6 April 1950 read: There is ample evidence that the USSR has determined to close off as completely as possible the normal avenues of communication between the Soviet world and the United States. The break in diplomatic relations with Bulgaria may be considered a test case, indicating the extremes to which the USSR is prepared to go in this respect. 105 . The Bulgarian-American relations were restored only nine years later after several repeated attempts by the Bulgarian side. Donald Heaths premature return to Washington did not affect his diplomatic career. In the middle of the 1950s, he became the first US Ambassador to South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

103 104

, . , , ., 2004, . 265268. , . . 1919 1989. , . ., . 269, 332362. 105 FRUS, 1950, Vol. IV, (Washington, 1980), p. 290.

Chapter 12 The Last Odyssey

Missing Without a Trace Andreytchines tragic end proved once again that the Stalinist repressive institutions never granted full rehabilitation. Moreover, they performed secret operations on the territory of allied states, supported by local security services. In fact, besides the unconditional obeying of instructions and directives given by Soviet advisors to the Bulgarian security services, in early 1949 the leadership of the Ministry of Interior raised the question of sending arrested internal political prisoners to Siberia. In a conversation with a representative of the Soviet Embassy in Sofia on 31 January 1949, Deputy Minister of Interior and Director of State Security Gen. Russi Hristozov highlighted: Some members of Politburo share the idea of sending Bulgarian political criminals to the USSR, since ensuring their full isolation from the population in Bulgaria is quite difficult, and their communication with people (relatives, etc.) has negative effect on the internal political situation in the country 106 . Andreytchines wife, Ilza, went in vain from door to door and told people for years how her husband, who lived at 20 Veliko Tarnovo Street, in the night of 29 April 1949 was summoned to go to work and never came back. There was a rumour that he was taken to the Soviet Union, others said he was sentenced to 15 years as a British spy. By order of the Soviet Embassy in Sofia, several days after the Bulgarian Minister Plenipotentiary had vanished, his elder daughter Ivona was dismissed from work at the Bulgarian-Soviet mining company GORUBSO. The initial task of the company after its establishment in 1945 was to supply the necessary quantities of uranium to ensure the secret Soviet nuclear program. On 31 July 1949, Andreytchine was dismissed in the interest of the service from the Foreign Ministry with Decree 697 of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly, dated ... 8 August 1949! Even those mere facts from his personal career record in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs provide important evidence of the historical atmosphere in those days, ruining the lives of so many Bulgarian families.

This is the third time now that we are raising the question whether Andreytchines old friends Dimitrov and Kolarov were interested in his fate the first one Prime Minister, the latter Foreign Minister. After a medical consultation and clear diagnosis, made on 25 February 1949, on 4 March Georgi Dimitrov was transported by plane to the Kremlin government hospital and died in Moscow on 2 July 1949. The coded reports, sent to him daily in the period April - June 1949, do not mention the name of Andreytchine even for once. In mid-April 1949, Foreign Minister Vasil Kolarov escorted a Czechoslovak government delegation around the Evksinograd state residence near Varna. Then he spent a few days in the former kings residence in Krichim near Plovdiv, but he definitely chaired the sessions of Politburo of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party and the Council of Ministers in Sofia on 2526 April 1949. It was not possible that the arrest of an ambassador from the Foreign Ministry and his close assistant happened without his knowledge. Exactly in these days and months, Kolarov was preparing political arguments for the elimination of his recent party rival Traycho Kostov. In the autumn of 1949, in the capacity as Prime Minister of Bulgaria he would closely follow the investigation against Kostov. The order for Andreytchines arrest came directly from Moscow; therefore, Kolarov definitely could not or rather did not want to do anything to alleviate the fate of his former chief of cabinet. Still, it is difficult to explain why Andreytchines formal dismissal took place three months after his arrest. In vain did Ilza Andreytchine seek information from the Ministry of Interior and the State Prosecution: her three letters to Prime Minister Valko Chervenkov, as well as some others to the Soviet Embassy in Sofia, were left without response 107 . It is likely that as a result of one of these requests, after the Minister of Interior Russi Hristozov was replaced by Georgi Tsankov in January 1951, an investigation was carried out by Second Department of State Security (counterintelligence) into the fate of George Andreytchine, who vanished in March-April 1949 after Traycho Kostov was accused. An additional report gives information on the testimony of Ivan Mateev and Blagoy Hadjipanzov from October 1949, as both were investigated in the trial against Traycho Kostov 108 . From the standpoint of the first one, at the beginning of 1946,
, (: , 2005), . 226. According to an evidence by Prof. Irina Chervenkova to one of the authors of this book (Jordan Baev), her father, Bulgarian Prime Minister Valko Chervenkov had displayed special interest toward the fate of Andreytchine; however, he was informed by the State Security chiefs, that Andreytchine was arrested by Soviet secret services officers at Bulgarian-Romanian border, and there was nothing more known further about his fate. 108 The second in rank at the Communist hierarchy and Vice Prime Minister until mid-December 1948 Traicho Kostov was accused by Stalin in insincerity toward the USSR at a secret meeting in Kremlin on 6-7 December 1948. In March 1949 he was accused at a special CC BCP Plenary meeting, and on 20 June he was arrested. After a fabricated show trial he was declared as a Titoist and American spy and executed on 16 December
107 106

George Andreytchine was attracted by Traycho Kostovs ideas of separation from the USSR and adopting a new course regarding the United States. Hadjipanzov, former advisor at the Yugoslav Embassy in Sofia, who stayed on Stalinist positions after the conflict with Tito in 1948 but was arrested as a Titoist agent a year later, described Andreytchine as the agent of the Yugoslav intelligence. Recently declassified documents from the archives of the Ministry of Interior unambiguously show the course of events. Only after an inquiry was sent to the Department for Analysis and Information at the State Security, chief inspector Krum Binev disclosed the truth in a report from 10 December 1951 to the new Assistant Minister of Interior Georgi Kumbiliev,: I inform you that on 29 April 1949, GEORGI ILIEV ANDREYTCHINE was arrested in the office of Comrade Evgeni Kamenov, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs. The following individuals were involved in the arrest: Comrade VELYO CHANKOV, the then chief of Department X, STEFAN MITEV, current chief of State Security department in Plovdiv, and I. Comrade HRISTOZOV attended as well 109 . On the following day 30 April, on the orders of Comrade Hristozov, I and Comrade Stefan Mitev drove this individual in a car to the State Security in Rousse and handed him over to Comrade VASIL KONSTANTINOV, the then chief of sector in the Ministry of Interior in Rousse... According to information, received from Comrade V. Konstantinov, on the orders of Comrade Hristozov, he handed the individual over to a Soviet comrade a colonel. Afterwards, the individual was taken to the USSR 110 . Regardless of the quoted report, a new proposal was made in April 1952 to include the issue of tracking down GEORGI ILIEV ANDREYTCHINE in the central bulletin of the Ministry of Interior. By order of the leadership, the exchange of letters under 43-95 was soon terminated and placed in the archive of the State Security in August 1952. 111 Despite this fact, a new report from senior intelligence officer Tanev from 29 September 1953 claimed that the individual is currently missing. The activities of Andreytchines family (his wife and two daughters) were also monitored. The information read The three of them are Soviet citizens;

1949. More about Soviet role in Traicho Kostov Case see in: , , (: , 2009), . 46-51. 109 Rusi Hristozov was appointed as a Chief of State Security and Deputy Minister of the Interior from April 1946 until August 1949, when he became Minister of the Interior. He was removed from that position in January 1951. 110 , 5, 3, .. 1365, . 7. 111 In the original of the document with proposal for a new search of Andreytchine a handwritten resolution was added: by chiefs directive we must not display interest for the fate of that person because he is not a target of our department. George Andreytchines Dossier at the Ministry of the Interior in that period has No. 166 651 V-0.

they are not members of any Fatherland Front organization. No hostile acts have been observed 112 . Shortly after the 20th Congress of the CPSU and a few days after the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party in early April 1956, Ilza Andreytchine wrote more letters to the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party and to the Chairman of the National Assembly, Georgi Damyanov: For the past seven years we have been sending letters to various institutions the Prosecutors office, the Ministry of Interior, the State Security, personally to Comrade Chervenkov. So far, we have received no reply, besides the one that George Andreytchine has not been arrested by the Ministry of Interior. I urgently request you not to leave me without a response what happened to my husband, what was he accused of, is he alive, where is he? 113 In October of the same year, Andreytchines wife turned to the Central Control Commission of the CPSU in Moscow with an urgent request for information of the allegations on which he was detained, whether he was alive and what the term of his sentence was. Another strong appeal to Moscow came from Paris. In July 1956, a French leftist journal published an Open letter to Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Bulganin which declared:

Enfin, Andreytchine, ouvrier dorigine bulgare, migr en Amrique avant la premire guerre mondiale, qui dut senfuir de ce pays par suite de son activit militante au sein de lorganisation syndicaliste rvolutionnaire des Travailleurs Industriels du Monde (IWW), et qui rejoignit alors la Russie en pleine rvolution, fut perscut de toutes manires ds que le rgime bureaucratique sy installa ; exil en Sibrie, maintenu en cellule des annes durant, etc., il fut libr en 1941 lorsque la menace des armes hitlriennes sur Moscou obligea le tyran avoir recours ses services, mais, envoy ensuite en Bulgarie, aprs la dfaite allemande, il en disparut subitement, peu avant la mort de Kolarov. Quest devenu Andreytchine? Sil vit et sil nest point libre, nous vous demandons galement sa libration. 114
, 10, , .. 7, . 49. The State Security report informed as well that the younger daughter of Andreytchine Kira had married a few months earlier for a navy officer. It is not accidental, however, that a decade later her husband Ventsel Raichev, who became a well known journalist after discharing from the Navy, translated from Russian A Day of Ivan Denisovich, the only book of Alexander Solzhenitsin published in Bulgaria until 1990. 113 , 10, , .. 7, . 49, . 1213. 114 Finally, Andreytchine, worker of Bulgarian origin, immigrated to America before the First World War, who had to run away from this country due to his militant activity within the revolutionary union organization of the IWW, and then joined Russian revolution, was anyway persecuted as soon as bureaucratic regime became established there. Exiled in Siberia for years he was liberated in 1941 when the threat of the Hitlers armies to Moscow made
112

Typical evidence is to be found in Cyrus Sulzbergers notes, where he described his conversation with Vladimir Topencharov 115 at a dinner in Sofia on 25 March 1956 in honor of the influential American publicist, winner of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for 1951. Sulzberger wrote in his diary: I asked him about George Andreytchine and he officially informed me that he was not in prison, but he was alive and very well 116 . In 1957, Ilza Andreytchine received a letter from the wife of the journalist Louis Fischer Berta (Markusha), with whom she had lived in Moscow in the early 1920s 117 . There is interesting information emerging from a conversation between the Bulgarian Ambassador in Cairo Boris Popov and his American counterpart Frederick Reinhardt in April 1961. The initial words of the US Ambassador during the protocol meeting referred to the fate of George Andreytchine, who had impressed him while he still was a young diplomat at the US Embassy in Moscow, and later during their encounters at the Paris Peace Conference. The Bulgarian Ambassador noted in his report to Sofia I replied that I had heard that name and that he was supposed to be in Bulgaria. Summing up quite characteristically what had happened, William Chamberlin wrote in his already cited article from 1962: George Andreytchine had exhausted his nine lives of a cat. If he had only made a break for freedom while he was still in Paris he could have written one of the most brilliant and informed books about the Soviet Union. But his family had been detained in Bulgaria; a jail sentence was hanging over him in the United States. He took his chance, went back, and lost 118 .

the despot have recourse to his services. Sent then to Bulgaria, after German defeat, he disappeared suddenly a little before the death of Kolarov. What happened to Andreytchine? If he is still alive and if he is not free, we also ask you for his release. Lettre ouverte MM. Khrouchtchev et Boulganine, La Rvolution proltarienne, Paris, Juillet 1956. 115 Vladimir Topencharov was arrested because his own sister Lyuba was wife of Traicho Kostov. In the prison Topencharov commented that Andreytchine has had a secretary to the famous Trotskyite Christian Rakovsky. , 10, , .. 7, . 49. 116 Cyrus Sulzberger, The Last of the Giants, Macmillan, New York,1980, p. 267. After receiving the information Sulzberger wrote in his notebook briefly: He is dead! 117 Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Louis Fischer Papers, Series 8, Box 39, Folder 2. 118 William Henry Chamberlin, Op. Cit., p. 338.

Until recently, encyclopaedic reference books gave vague information that Andreytchine died in 1952 119 Apparently due to the testimonies of Mateev and Hadjipazanov from October 1949, some authors connect his arrest with the beginning of the Traycho Kostov trials in Bulgaria 120 . A publication from 2001 points out that he was arrested on the indictment of Macedonism, nationalism and collaboration with Tito 121 . A monographic study on the Bulgarian immigration in North America, published in 2003, mentioned that he died in his native village Belitsa in 1950 under unclear circumstances 122 , and a Russian reference book on the Comintern indicated 1948 as the year of his death. 123 The Accessible Truth The first authentic reports were received by his daughter Kira Andreytchina in the late 1990s after the declassifying of new documents from the archives of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation, the successor of the KGB. After repeated inquiries from Sofia, at the end of February 1998 the Bulgarian Embassy in Moscow sent the Foreign Ministry copies of materials from the investigation for Andreytchines trial. At the beginning of 2005, other important documents from the Central Archives of the Federal Security Service (Inventory 7) and from the Archives of the President of the Russian Federation were published on the internet site of the Russian non-governmental organization Memorial. In addition, the journalist from Radio Liberty Vladimir Tolz initiated a discussion on 4 June 2005. All this new documentary evidence has cast considerably more light on the fate of the Bulgarian politician, journalist and diplomat. After capital punishment was officially abandoned in the Soviet Union in May 1947, on 12 January 1950 a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR allowed once again passing death penalties against individuals accused of being traitors to the homeland, spies and subversive diversionists. The main goal of the new decree was to make legal the
, , , . . 18781988, , ., 1989, . 378; , . , . 16, . 584. 120 , . ., . 85. During the trial against Traicho Kostov the name of Andreytchine appeared once. When one of the witnesses, Georgi Madolev was asked about the visit of Yugoslav representative Dimitar Vlachov in Pirin Macedonia, he responded that Titos emissary Vlahov was accompanied in Bulgaria by Ivan Maslarov and George Andreytchine. 121 ; ; /./, , . 2, , 2001 165. 122 , . . ., . 308. 123 , , . 1919-1943, (, 1997), . 253.
119

retribution against those who had been arrested the previous two years in the so-called Jewish and Leningrad cases. On 23 March 1950, the State Security Minister Viktor Abakumov proposed to Joseph Stalin that 85 individuals be sentenced to death by the Military Committee of the Supreme Court of the USSR. The majority of the arrested traitors to the homeland, spies and terrorists belonged to the Jewish Antifascist Union and were accused mainly of espionage for the benefit of the United States. These were 21 men including Solomon Lozovski, Isaac Fefer, Mikhail Borodin, Yosif Yuzefovich and some others. Another large group of 31 party, state and economic leaders from Leningrad (Voznesenski, Kuznetsov, Radionov, Popkov, etc.) were arrested in August 1949. Joseph Stalin sent back the extensive list, since his intention was to organize show trials on the Leningrad and Jewish cases, similar to the Trotskyist trials prior to the war. On 11 April 1950, Abakumov presented a new list with 35 names only, this time approved by the dictator. Everyone in the presented list was sentenced to death by the Military Committee, and the sentences were carried out between 20 and 28 April 1950. George Andreytchine was present in both lists presented by Abakumov (in the first one under 58, in the second one under 8). The reasons for the death sentence deserve special attention; therefore, the entire declassified document will be presented here: ANDREYTCHINE, Georgiy Ilich, former chief of information department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria, born in 1894, Bulgarian, from 1921 to 1925 member of VKP (b). Arrested on 12 May 1949. Accused of espionage. Agent of the American and British intelligence. From 1923 he was an active Trotskyite, directly connected with Trotsky, Radek, Rakovski and other enemies to the people, with whom he carried out subversive acts against VKP (b) and the Soviet Union. In 1924, while working in the mission of the USSR in London he was recruited by the British intelligence and provided espionage materials on the political and economic situation in the Soviet Union. In 1931, he maintained in Moscow spy relations with British intelligence officer Alfred Cholerton (deported from the USSR). Since 1941, he has been US intelligence agent and was in contact with the collaborators of the US Embassy in Moscow intelligence officers THAYER, DICKERSON and Deputy Naval Attach RULLARD, to whom he submitted intelligence data on the situation in the Soviet Union. In 1945, he arrived from the USSR in Bulgaria and was ordered by former US Ambassador in Moscow HARRIMAN to establish contacts with the US representatives in the Allied Control Commission for Bulgaria, BARNES. Later on, with BARNES help and during a private meeting with HARRIMAN in Paris, where ANDREYTCHINE arrived in his capacity as a member of the Bulgarian delegation to the peace conference, he provided HARRIMAN with secret information on the political and economic situation in Bulgaria.

He was exposed by the testimonies of the arrested MATUSIS, TENNOV and PALATNIKOV 124 . All the available information shows that even the date of his arrest (12 May 1949) was wrong. Actually, Andreytchines personal file, kept in the Central archive of the Federal Security Service, contains different data Date of arrest 29 April 1949; arrived from the town of Constance, Romania 4 May 1949. This is an unambiguous proof that Andreytchine, who was arrested in the night of 29 April, was immediately taken to the Soviet headquarters in Romania, and then was transported to the inquiry prison of the MGB in Moscow. The above-mentioned spies Alfred Cholerton and Charles Dickerson had never been agents of British and American intelligence respectively. Charles Willer Thayer, a close acquaintance of Andreytchines since 1934, was actually an employee of US intelligence at the end of the Second World War. In September 1944 October 1946, he worked consecutively in Belgrade and Vienna before moving to The Voice of America radio station in 1947. At the end of 1949, however, the FBI launched an investigation against him for his leftist convictions (one of the secret services documents contains the words disloyalty and subversive political views). In 1950, the director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover readdressed the accusations to the infamous commission of Senator Joseph McCarthy, a step that definitely closed Thayers opportunities for a future career at the CIA 125 . His career of a state official and diplomat ended in 1953, when the McCarthy commission made him and some of his colleagues leave the US Department of State 126 . Commander George Rullard was Deputy Naval Attach at the US Embassy during the war. In 1941 and 1942, he was involved in the American missions in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, where his main task was to coordinate the Land-Lease supplies from the United States to the Soviet Union. In December 1945, Rullard was engaged in an incident with an officer from the NKGB, who insisted on checking the personal luggage of the US officer, which according to the diplomatic protocol was inviolable. Irina Matusis, the daughter of active Trotskyites, was born in New York. After her arrest, she was accused of being recruited by Captain Rullard while working as a translator at the US Consulate in Arkhangelsk. After her arrest, she turned over 20 American spies,
, , 3, 57, 100, . 37, 6061. Dean, Robert. Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy, Univ. of Massachusetts Press 2003, p. 102-107. 126 The personal correspondence and diaries of Charles Thayer are kept currently at the Presidential Library of Harry Truman Truman Library Archives, Independence, MO, Charles W. Thayer Papers.
125 124

among them Andreytchine and Mikhail Borodin, the latter accused in turn of maintaining spy relations with the US intelligence agent and Trotskyite Louis Fischer. As for Tennov and Palatnikov, who were also arrested, there is no information available. Without having the opportunity to analyse all investigation materials from Andreytchines case, it is difficult to state categorically the specific reasons for his arrest. It is not by accident, however, that his arrest by the MGB at a time when he enjoyed his deserved reputation in his country, took place shortly after the arrest of his former boss and long-term friend Solomon Lozovski (29 January 1949). The plot to involve him in the trial against Lozovski was probably changed due to some unknown reasons, similar to the case of Krastu Rakovskis indictment a decade earlier. An indirect argument for the connection between Lozovskis arrest and Andreytchines arrest was the claim that Andreytchine was executed in September 1952, the time when Lozovski was in fact murdered. Nowadays, the protocols from the trial against the leaders of the Jewish Antifascist Committee are available. The indictment conclusion of investigation case 2354 was signed by Deputy Minister of State Security, Colonel Mikhail Ryumin. Just a year earlier, he had sent a report against his boss Abakumov and thus contributed to his arrest and execution in exchange of his own tremendous promotion. Shortly after Stalins death, however, Ryumin was arrested and shot in the trial against Lavrentii Beria. The conclusion of investigation case 2354 contains a number of imaginary and totally absurd claims, such as the following: The accused YUSEFOVICH has confessed: in the autumn of 1944, in the home of the press attach of the US Embassy in Moscow, PHILIPS, he met the American intelligence agent EGAN, and following the order of LOZOVSKI he handed over to her secret information regarding the Soviet trade unions.

What was missing from the final indictment statement are the names of Mikhail Borodin and George Andreytchine, although both of them had worked in close collaboration with the former director of SovInformBureau and exposed American spy Solomon Lozovski. It is likely that their names were not mentioned during the Jewish trial in August 1952 because of the fact that they were not alive any more. While the leaders of the Jewish Antifascist Congress were being tortured in order to confess the absurd accusations against them, and after death sentences had been pronounced against those who had not yet died the prison, the publication of an epoch-

making series of books started in Moscow and in the satellite East European capitals the selected works of the leader of the world proletariat. Volume 13 of this documentary collection, published in the Soviet capital in 1951, and in Sofia in 1952, holds a letter by Joseph Stalin from 12 January 1931 in reply to an inquiry of the Jewish information agency in the United States. The document stated the categorical assurances of the dictator: In the USSR, anti-Semitism is punished severely by law as a phenomenon, deeply hostile to the Soviet Union. Active anti-Semites are punished by Soviet law with death. In fact, some of those who were directly responsible for repression against the activists of the Jewish antifascist committee, led by former minister of State Security Abakumov in 1951, were arrested and executed in 1954. After Stalins death, other inspirers of postwar repressions, such as Beria, Ryumin and Kobulov were also murdered as quickly as possible. Their fate, however, was predetermined by the boomerang of imaginary accusations of espionage, which this time affected them personally, similarly to the manner in which other schizophrenic hangmen like Yagoda and Ezhov were caught a decade and half earlier. Three years after Joseph Stalins death, some of the hundreds of thousand repressed during the mass repressions were rehabilitated by the official Soviet judicial authorities, most of them posthumously. The Military Committee of the Supreme Court of the USSR passed the death penalty for George Andreytchine on 20 April 1950. The sentence was executed on the same day. Information from the Central Archive of the Federal Security Service tells that after the execution his remains were burned in the nearby crematorium, and then his ashes were buried in common grave 3 in the Donsk Cemetery in Moscow. Andreytchine was completely rehabilitated by the Military Committee of the Supreme Court of the USSR five years after Stalins death on 11 March 1958. On 15 July the same year, the Central Committee of the CPSU sent a brief telegram to the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party regarding the rehabilitation of the Bulgarian. Like many other similar announcements, however, the date of death was intentionally falsified died on 17 September 1952. 127 Nearly two years later, at a session on 4 January 1960, the Bulgarian Party leadership (Politburo) voted a decision to grant hereditary pension to George Andreytchines wife 128 . In
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the years after her husbands disappearance, Ilza Andreytchine managed to make her living in Bulgaria working as a typist at the Main Roads Directorate, where she was employed with the support of the Director, Gen. Ivan Vinarov, who had worked for Soviet military intelligence from 1924 till 1944. Vinarov was a resident of Soviet military intelligence in Vienna (responsible for Central-Eastern Europe) and Paris (responsible for covert operations in Spain during the Civil War), and was for three years among the military advisors to Chinese armed forces (19261929). Most probably, they new each other with George Andreytchine from Vienna, and later on in Moscow, where during the Second World War Vinarov was a deputy commander of the NKVD International Battalion. According to family recollections, Ilza maintained close friendly relations with Vinarovs wife, Galina, a Russian by origin. Ilza Richter - Andreytchine also worked as a translator from Russian and German in the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency for a short period of time. During the last years of her life, her two grandsons, Andrey and Vladimir, gave her consolation. The elder one, Andrey Raychev, remembered that babushka Ilza preserved her sense of personal dignity till the end of her days. Even when her daughters had to support her financially, she insisted on paying back with the money from her next pension. Over a decade after his official rehabilitation and on the occasion of Andreytchines 80th anniversary, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party made a decision to place a memorial plaque in his native town Belitsa 129 . A decade later, on the occasion of his 90th anniversary, in January 1984 a memorial meeting was organized. The event was commemorated with a personal message regarding the revolutionary example of George Andreytchine by the Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, Todor Zhivkov 130 , one of the witnesses and active participants in political life in the late 1940s. Authentic materials pertaining to Andreytchines tragic end, however, became publicly accessible only fifty-five years after his death.

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AN ODYSSEY ACROSS TWO WORLDS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ILLUSTRATIONS: Part One

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1. The Primary School in Belitsa, A photo made in the 1920s 2. G. Andreytchine /in the middle/ with his schoolmates, Samokov, Mid-1910s 3. Autograph of G. Andreytchine for his parents on the back side of his schoolboy photo 4. George Andreytchine at high school, Samokov, [1910] 5. I.W.W. leaders at Paterson, NY, (From left to right: Patrick Quinlan, Carlo Tresca, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Adolph Lessing, and William D. Hawood, The Worlds Work, 1913 6. Industrial Workers of the World demonstration, New York City, August 1916 7. Los Angeles Times, 27 Nov. 1919 8. New York Times, 1 Dec. 1919 9. Chicago Daily Tribune, 27 Nov. 1919 10. George Andreytchine, Chicago, July 1917 11. Autograph of G. Andreytchine for his mother on the back side of his portrait, Chicago, 20 July 1917 12. A Front page of The Masses journal, New York City, 1917 13. John Reed as an editor of The Masses, New York City (1916-1917) 14. John Reed and Louise Bryant, New York, 1916 15. A Note from George Andreytchine to John Reed, New York, [August] 1916 16. George Andreytchine and Genevieve Semashko with Russian political migrs, Chicago, Summer 1917 17. Portrait of Ralph Chaplin, Editor of Solidarity, [1917] 18. Portrait of George Andreytchine during the trial by Art Young, published in Liberator, Sept. 1918 19. Hold the Fort Grand Entertainment leaflet, drawn by Carl Sandburg, Chicago, Oct . 1917 20. Chicago Daily Tribune, 6 Oct. 1917 21. Mrs. Edith Chaplin and Ms. Genevieve Semashko, A photo made for Chicago Daily Tribune, Chicago, Nov. 1917 22. Genevieve Semashko and George Andretchine, Chicago Daily Tribune, 11 Nov. 1917 23, A Front page of Daily Bulletin of the I.W.W. Trial, Chicago, 1918 24. Remember, a leaflet, published by I.W.W., Chicago, 1918 25. Chicago Daily Tribune, 2 April 1918 26. George Andreytchin, Chicago, 1918 27. George Andreytchine at Leavenworth prison, Sept. 1918 28. Chicago Daily Tribune, 4 April 1918 29. Christian Science Monitor, 25 July 1918 30. An oil portrait of G. Andreytchine by Boardman Robinson, Croton-on-Hudson, (1920) 31. Portrait of Charlie Chaplin [1920s] 32. Portrait of Edna Vincent Millay [1920-1921] 33. Warren Beatty (as John Reed), Diane Keaton (as Louise Bryant), and Jack Nicholson (as Eugene ONeil) in 3 Oscars winner movie The Reds (1981) 34. The Syndicalist Movement in France by George Andreytchine, The One Big Union Monthly, Aug. 1919 35. Call for Proletarian International by George Andreytchine, The One Big Union Monthly, Feb. 1920 36. Solidarity, 16 April 1920 37. Investigation of the Administration of Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis F. Post, US Congress, 1920 38. Letter from BG M. Churchill, Director of Military Intelligence, to J. Edgar Hoover, Washington DC, 20 March 1920 39. International News by George Andreytchine, Industrial Pioneer, February 1921 40. Christian Science Monitor, 30 April 1921 41. New York Times, 30 April 1921 42. Memorandum for J. Edgar Hoover, Washington DC, 9 May 1921 43. Identification Order No. 82, signed by J. Edgar Hoover, Washington DC, 14 May 1921

ILLUSTRATIONS: Part Two

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1. Washington Post, 26 July 1921 2. Chairman of Profintern Solomon Lozovsky in his office, Moscow, 1920s 3. G. Andreytchines signed declaration without a date for resignation from RILU Executive Council membership when requested, Moscow, August 1921 4. Max Eastman, James Cannon, and Bill Haywood, Moscow, December 1922 5. Bill Shatoff, Bill Haywood, and George Andreytchine, Petrograd, 1922 (McClures Magazine, September 1923) 6. Letter from Soviet Russian Customs Department to Customs Office in Petrograd for free US delivery to Kuzbas industrial colony, Moscow, 22 November 1922 7. Letter from an American colonist in Kuzbas, Kemerovo, 8 November 1924 8. American colonists in Ural, May 1923 9. Duluth Tribune, 7 March 1922 10. G. Andreytchine with his wife Ilse, Moscow 1922 11. G. Andreytchine and Yakov Karavaev, Batumi, Adjaria, 19 October 1922 12. G. Andreytchine, Sofia, 1922 13. New York Times, 17 December 1923 14. G. Andreytchine with his daughter Ivona, London, 1924 15. Lev Trotsky in exile, 1930s 16. The Militant, New York, 1 December 1928 17. G. Andreytchine, Moscow, 1920s 18. A view from downtown Akmolinsk, Kazahstan, 1920s 19. Letter from G. Andreytchine to Vasil Kolarov, Akmolinsk, Kazakhstan, Summer 1928 20. Letter from G. Andreytchine to Lev Trotsky, Akmolinsk, Kazahstan, 5 September 1928 21. A Postcard from G. Andreytchine to Lev Trotsky in Istanbul, Akmolinsk, 10 October 1929 22. G. Andreytchine with his daughter Ivona after returning from exile, Moscow, 1930 23. Los Angeles Times, September 1931 24. US Journalists William Chamberlin, Louis Fisher, and Eugene Lions at the opening of TURKSIB highway, 1932 25. G. Andreytchine in his office at AMTORG, Moscow, 1932 26. Bill Haywoods Memoirs with a Forward by G. Andreytchine, Moscow 1932 27. Message from G. Andreytchine to William Allen White, Moscow, 26 February 1934 28. US President Franklin Roosevelt with William Bullitt, Washington DC, November 1933 29. A Note from G. Andreytchine to US Ambassador William Bullitt, Moscow, 7 March 1934 30. Message from William Bullitt and G. Andreytchine to Edna Vincent Millay, Moscow, 23 April 1934 31. G. Andreytchine with an American guest, Moscow, 1 May 1934 32. G. Andreytchine with Charles Lindbergh, September 1933 33. G. Andreytchine with Christ Stoykoff, USSR, Summer 1934 34. Arrival of Herbert G. Wells at Moscow Airport (right to him G. Andrreytchine and M. Koltsov), Moscow, 22 July 1934 35. Maxim Gorky with Moura Countess Zakrevskaya (Baroness Budberg), Petrograd, 1920 36. Herbert G. Wells and G. Andreytchine, Leningrad, July 1934 37. Herbert G. Wells, Alexei Tolstoy, and G. Andreytchine, Leningrad, 29 July 1934 38. Inquiry of detained G. Andreytchine, NKVD prison Lubianka, 13 February 1935 39. Uhtpechlag (GULAG), Vorkuta, 1930s 40. New York Times, 6 March 1938 41. Memorandum of conversation with G. Andreytchine by Charles Dickerson, Kuibyshev, 28 December 1941 42. G. Andreytchine with his wife Ilse and elder daughter Ivona, Moscow, 30 October 1945 43. G. Andreytchine with his younger daughter Kira, Moscow, 30 October 1945 44. Information from US Ambassador W. Averell Harriman about his confidential conversation with G. Andreytchine, Moscow, 30 October 1945

ILLUSTRATIONS: Part Three

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1. G. Andreytchine with his sisters Yana and Maria, Sofia 1946 2. G. Andreytchine with his sister Maria at their native house, Belitsa, 1947 3. G. Andreytchine on the road to his native village Belitsa, 1947 4. G. Andreytchines information on Vasil Kolarovs talks with US Secretary of State James Byrnes, Paris, 28 June 1946 5. Vasil Kolarov, Bulgaria at the Peace Conference, Sofia 1947, (A Brochure based on Andreytchines notes) 6. Prime Minister Kimon Georgiev, Foreign Minister Georgi Kulishev, and Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov meet the delegation led by Vasil Kolarov (behind Kolarov is G. Andreytchine), Sofia Airport, June 1946 7. Bulgarian delegation at the Peace Conference (from right to left: Alexander Obbov, Agrarian Union Party MP, Georgi Kulishev, Kimon Georgiev, Pencho Kosturkov, Radical Party MP, Vasil Kolarov), Palais Luxembourg, Paris, August 1946 8. W. Averell Harriman, 1946 9. Members of Bulgarian delegation at UNSCOB (on first row G. Andreytchine and Dimitar Ganev), Athens, 2 February 1947 10. Bulgarian delegation at UNSCOB session (right to left: Vladimir Topencharov, G. Andreytchine, Dimitar Ganev, Georgi Kulishev), Athens, February 1947 11. Bulgarian delegation at UNSCOB with Mark Ethridge and other US delegates, Athens, February 1947 12. Letter from G. Andreytchine to Prime Minister Georgi Dimitrov, Athens, 19 February 1947 13. Letter from G. Andreytchine to Vasil Kolarov, Geneva, 1 May 1947 14. New York Times, July 1947 15. Letter from G. Andreytchine to Foreign Minister Vasil Kolarov, Sofia, 22 January 1948 16. US President Harry Truman with Assistant Secretary of State Robert Lovett, George Kennan and Charles Bohlen, Washington 1947 17. G. Andreytchines information on his talks with US representative to Bulgaria Donald Heath, Sofia, 9 February 1948 18. G. Andreytchine, Sofia, 1948 19. Information from Donald Heath to US Secretary of State George Marshall regarding his talks with G. Andreytchine, Sofia, 26 October 1948 20. New York Times, March 1949 21. Portrait of Boardman Robinson, sent to G. Andreytchine by his wife Sally, 1948 22. Note from Sally Robinson to G. Andreytchin on her husbands portrait 23. A book on Boardman Robinson, sent to G. Andreytchine 24. Ralph Chaplins memoirs, delivered to G. Andreytchine by US diplomatic representative in Sofia Donald Heath, 1948 25. G. Andreychin in the MGB prison Lubianka in Moscow, 1949 26. Letter from Gen. Victor Abakumov to Joseph Stalin with a proposal for execution of some spies and traitors, Moscow, 11 April 1950 27. Reference from 1st MGB Department that the death sentence of George Andreychin has been executed on 20 April 1950