In 1928–29, after a tumultuous stay in Greece (where he was engaged in fights with the police and invited to leave the country), he went again to the Soviet Union. Through extended visits in more remote places such as the Moldavian ASSR (where he got in touch with his friend Ecaterina Arbore), Nizhny Novgorod, Baku and Batumi, Istrati learned the full truth of Joseph Stalin's communist dictatorship, out of which experience he wrote his famous book, "The Confession of a Loser", the first in the succession of disenchantments expressed by intellectuals such as Arthur Koestler and André Gide. Istrati dealt with the mounting persecution of Old Bolsheviks and the gradual victimization of whole population groups. His views were also harshly made clear in two letters he sent to the GPU leadership in December 1928.