Red Symphony
A secret NKVD chemical laboratory. A hidden transcript of Stalin-era interrogations — narrated by Theo Polo.
Who narrates Red Symphony: Chapter XL, X-Ray of Revolution?
Theo Polo narrates Red Symphony: Chapter XL, X-Ray of Revolution, written by Joseph Landowski.
What is Red Symphony about?
Dr. Landowski was a Russianized Pole whose father, a Colonel in the Russian Imperial Army, was executed by the Bolsheviks during the 1917 revolution. After completing his medical training in Russia and Paris, Landowski specialized in the effects of pharmaceuticals on human physiology for surgical use — expertise that caught the attention of the Soviet secret police. In 1936, the NKVD forcibly conscripted him into a chemical laboratory near Moscow, where he was compelled to assist in interrogations and witness torture sessions carried out under Stalin’s regime.
Red Symphony documents Landowski’s firsthand account of questioning former French Ambassador C.G. Rakovsky during the 1938 Trotskyist show trials, where he administered drugs to influence Rakovsky’s demeanor under interrogation. Landowski secretly transcribed these sessions in French, preserving a clandestine record of Soviet secret police operations and political persecution during one of history’s darkest periods — and later smuggled his account to the West.
Nonfiction · History · Russia · Politics & Government
Author: Joseph Landowski
Narrator: Theo Polo
Publisher: Dauphin Studios
Released: November 30, 2024
Runtime: 3 hr 54 min
Red Symphony: Chapter XL, X-Ray of Revolution is a rare firsthand document of Stalin-era Soviet secret police operations, told through the eyes of a physician forced to participate in them. Equal parts historical record and personal testimony, it offers a chilling, intimate window into the machinery of political persecution during one of the twentieth century’s most brutal chapters.