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Revision as of 20:10, 17 August 2006 by Asmillar (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Jakob Rudnik was a Ukranian-born agent for the Otdel Mezhdunarodny Sviasy (OMS), the Communist International's clandestine International Liaison Department. He rose to notoriety in 1931 under the nom de guerre Hilaire Noulens when he was arrested in Shanghai along with his wife Tatiana Moissenko. For almost 60 years the identity of Noulens was incorrectly thought to be Paul Ruegg. Thus in the few works that deal with the arrest of Rudnik and his wife on 15 June 1931, this mistake is common. It was only until an article by Dr. Frederick Litten in the China Quarterly in 1994 that Noulens' real identity was exposed.
In the press furore that Willi Münzenberg managed to stir up about the case celebrities such as Albert Einstein, H.G. Wells, Madame Sun Yat-sen, Henri Barbusse became involved in the Noulens/Ruegg Defence Committees that were established and the case was discussed in both the British House of Commons and the American Senate.
News of the couple's fate, which had previously gripped the public's attention, was soon overshadowed by events following the Japanese invasion of the Chinese administered areas of the city of Shanghai on 28 January 1932.