World War 1 & 2
French WW2 booklet broadside “Stalin, you betrayed the proletariat!” by Feodor Raskolnikov.
Price: $190.00
Note from Wikipedia: Fyodor Fyodorovich Raskolnikov 1892 – 1939), was an Old Bolshevik, politician, participant in the October Revolution, writer, journalist, commander of Red fleets on the Caspian and the Baltic during the Russian Civil War, and later a Soviet diplomat. From 1930 Raskolnikov was the plenipotentiary representative to Estonia 1930–33, and Denmark 1933–34. When diplomatic relations with Bulgaria were re-established in August 1934, after they had been severed since the Russian Revolution, Raskolnikov was appointed head of the diplomatic mission in Sofia. In March 1938 he was recalled from Sofia to the USSR, but on April 1 refused to return. He moved with his family to France. In 1939 he published his famous Open Letter to Stalin in which he criticized Stalin's repressions during the Great Terror and the emerging German-Soviet alliance. Not long after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Raskolnikov was admitted to a mental hospital because the signing of the pact was a severe shock to him. He promptly died from "falling out of a window" while staying in the hospital. According to the writer Nina Berberova, Raskolnikov committed suicide. This account was contested by Raskolnikov's wife at the time, who claimed her husband died of pneumonia. According to the historian Roy Medvedev, Raskolnikov might have been assassinated by NKVD agents. There are theories that the assassin might have been Sergei Efron, the husband of the poet Marina Tsvetayeva.
Raskolnikov was posthumously rehabilitated in 1963. However, "Around the end of the decade his photographs disappeared from reference books, and editors mentioning him favourably were reprimanded or dismissed. Finally, in February 1969 the Party organ, Kommunist, categorised him as 'a deserter to the side of the enemy and a slanderer of the Party and the Soviet state'." His reputation would be restored during the Glasnost period, with the publication of his Open Letter to Stalin in the Soviet press.
French WW2 broadside titled “Bolshevism and Gaulism in North Africa”. A scathing indictment of French communist leader Andre Marty and Charles De Gaulle. Produced before D Day, it criticizes the two men during the time that Marty was sent to Algeria following Operation Torch, to work with De Gaulle’s Free French forces. 2 pages.
Price: $250.00
Note from Wikipedia: André Marty (6 November 1886 – 23 November 1956) was a leading figure in the French Communist Party (PCF) for nearly thirty years. He was also a member of the National Assembly, with some interruptions, from 1924 to 1955; Secretary of Comintern from 1935 to 1943; and Political Commissar of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1938. He was sentenced to 20 years prison for his actions aboard the battleship Jean Bart when it mutinied in the Black Sea in 1919. Released early, he immediately joined the PCF. During the Spanish Civil War he served as the political commissar of the International Brigades. In the spring of 1939, the Spanish Civil War ended. Instead of returning to France, Marty went to the Soviet Union to work full-time for the Comintern. He was still there when World War II started. Despite the German-Soviet pact, as an active and very prominent Communist, it was far too dangerous for him to return to Nazi-occupied France. From May to October 1943, after the success of Operation Torch (a key component of the Allied North African campaign), Marty was sent to Algiers. He served as the PCF's official representative with Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces, which were based there. After the Liberation of Paris, in August 1944, Marty returned to France. He attempted to take advantage of the chaos that prevailed during the early days of de Gaulle's Provisional Government by starting a revolution. However, it failed to generate support either from other PCF leaders or from the rank and file. Marty's efforts ended when Soviet premier Joseph Stalin vetoed the plan.