As his health deteriorated, he was allowed to move to Saratov upon requests addressed by Krestinsky to Kaganovich, the Secretary of the Central Committee. He was visited by Louis Fischer, who recorded Rakovsky's determination not to submit to Stalin (contrasting his option with those of Radek, Yevgeni Preobrazhensky, Alexander Beloborodov and Ivar Smilga). Instead, Rakovsky incited further resistance to Stalinism, and issued a declaration of the united opposition; following this, he was sent to Barnaul, which he called a "hole in the barren cold ground". In another critical letter to the Party leadership (April 1930), he called for, among other things, the restoration of civil liberties, a reduction in the party apparatus, the return of Trotsky, and an end to forced collectivization.