Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel, (1894 – 1940) was a Soviet journalist, playwright, and short story writer who was acclaimed by some as "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry".

Born in Odessa during a period of social unrest and mass exodus of Jews from the Russian Empire, Isaac Babel survived the 1905 pogrom with the help of Christian neighbors who hid his family.

As Stalin tightened his grip on Soviet culture in the 1930s, and especially with the rise of socialist realism, Babel increasingly withdrew from public life. During the Stalinist campaign against "Formalism" in the art, Babel was criticized for alleged "aestheticism" and low productivity. At the first congress of the Union of Soviet Writers (1934), Babel noted ironically, that he was becoming "the master of a new literary genre, the genre of silence."

In 1939 he was arrested and eventually interrogated under torture at the Lubyanka. On his arrest, Babel told his wife "Please see our girl grows up happy.“

After a forced confession, Babel was tried before an NKVD troika and convicted of simultaneously spying for the French, Austrians, and Leon Trotsky, as well as "membership in a terrorist organization."

Reportedly, while Babel confessed under torture, "once he realised he was doomed, he recanted" but "it made no difference." His last recorded words were,

"I am innocent. I have never been a spy. I never allowed any action against the Soviet Union. I accused myself falsely. I was forced to make false accusations against myself and others... I am asking for only one thing -- let me finish my work."

On January 27, 1940, he was shot in Butyrka prison. His widow, Antonina Pirozhkova did not know about his fate for fifteen years. His archives and manuscripts were confiscated by the NKVD and destroyed.

Source - Wikipedia