As the coup was under preparation in December 1917, Rakovsky was present on the border and waiting a signal to enter the country. When Bolsheviks were arrested and the move was overturned, he was probably responsible for ordering the arrest of Romania's representative to Petrograd, Constantin I. Diamandy, and his entire staff (all of whom were used as hostages, pending the release of prisoners taken in Iaşi). Trotsky, who was by then Russia's People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (Foreign Minister), called on the Romanian government of Ion I. C. Brătianu to hand in persons captured, indicating that he would otherwise encourage the communist activities of Romanian refugees on Russian soil, and receiving a reply according to which no such arrests had occurred.