exaggerate the revolutionary aspects, while testimonies presented to government or police authorities may underplay them. It appears that being known as a man who had survived a death sentence for revolutionary activities back in 1917 gave Sachse a certain kudos with comrades, and during the 1920s he became increasingly effective as a writer-journalist who a took real delight in writing. It may be because much of Sachse's political work took place on the outer fringes of legality that sources are not always unanimous over where he was when. He clearly visited the Soviet Union during the middle 1920s. According to one source there were two lengthy visits: between January 1924 and January 1925 he visited Moscow and Leningrad, with a second visit taking place between May and October 1925. A principal objective of these visits seems to have been his participation in a lengthy course in journalism. There are reports that in December 1925 the police in Moscow were looking for him, but by this time he was probably back in Germany. On 6 March 1926 the "Hamburger Echo", a Social Democratic newspaper, published exerts from a grovelling letter which Sachse was said to have sent to the Kaiser in 1917, begging for mercy in respect of the death sentence he received that year. Sachse always insisted that no such letter had been written by him, but his reputation within the party was nevertheless tarnished and he lost his place on the party central committee. His position with the Hamburg party also became difficult, and he left the city, moving back to Leipzig, in or before May 1926. The second half of 1926 Sachse spent in a Leipzig prison cell, held in "investigative custody" on suspicion of having committed high treason. In the event, very little investigation seems to have taken place, with Sachse undergoing very little questioning during his imprisonment. He was - as was normal in Germany - permitted to exchange letters and write articles for friends during this time, although outbound correspondence tended to be held up for weeks while prison staff laboriously copied down their contents. His arrest was triggered by a renewed interest on the part of the authorities in Sachse's role in the mutiny that had occurred in the imperial fleet in 1917. Their attention had been caught by a stout leaflet circulated among Communist Party members, initially in 1923, on the subject of