In
Moscow, he worked as a translator. Later he was sent to
Tbilisi,
Georgia, where he also worked as a translator. He was informally warned that he should leave, advice that he did not follow. He did send his pregnant wife back to
England. George was arrested and put on trial for
espionage and
Trotskyism. He was convicted of Trotskyism. As he was
asthmatic his health deteriorated quickly in Russian prison. His father and his brother
Barthold Fles tried to have him released but to no avail. He died on May 31, 1939, in a prison near
Smolensk. After George's death, Pearl Rimel and their son
Michael John Fles emigrated to the United States and settled in
Los Angeles. At the request of family members, the Soviet Union later "rehabilitated" George Fles. ==Biography==