Karl Radek

In this name that followsEastern Slavic naming customs,thepatronymicisBerngardovichand thefamily nameisRadek.

Karl Berngardovich Radek(Russian:Карл Бернгардович Радек;31 October 1885 – 19 May 1939) was a revolutionary and writer active in the Polish and German social democratic movements beforeWorld War Iand aCommunist Internationalleader in theSoviet Unionafter theRussian Revolution.

Karl Radek
Карл Радек
Radekc.1920s
Vice Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Russian SFSR
In office 1917–1919
Commissar	Leon Trotsky Georgy Chicherin
Preceded by	Office established
Personal details
Born	Karol Sobelsohn (1885-10-31)31 October 1885 Lemberg,Austria-Hungary
Died	19 May 1939(1939-05-19)(aged 53) Verkhneuralsk,Russian SFSR,Soviet Union
Citizenship	Russian Empire Soviet Union
Political party	SDKPiL SPD KPD KAPD VKP(b)
Spouses	Rosa Mavrikievna Radek, Larissa Mikhailovna Reissner
Children	Sofia Karlovna Radek
Occupation	Revolutionary, writer, journalist, publicist, politician, theorist
Known for	Marxist revolutionary activism
Central institution membership 1919–1924: Full member,8th–12thCentral Committee of VKP(b)

Radek was born to a Jewish family inLemberg,Austria-Hungary.He joined theSocial Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuaniaand took part in the1905 Russian RevolutioninCongress Poland.Two years later he was forced to flee to Germany, where he worked as a journalist for theSocial Democratic Party of Germany.After the outbreak ofWorld War I,Radek relocated to Switzerland and became an associate ofVladimir Lenin.Following theFebruary Revolution,Radek helped organize the return of Lenin and other Russian revolutionaries to Russia, though he himself was denied entry until after theOctober Revolution.As Vice-Commissar for Foreign Affairs, he took part in the negotiations of theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk.He helped establish theCommunist Party of Germanyafter therevolutionbegan, and spent a year in prison for his role in theSpartacist uprising.

After returning to Russia, Radek became a member of theComintern Executive Committee.The failure of the revolution in Germany, as well as his support forLeon TrotskyagainstJoseph Stalin,ultimately led to his fall from power and expulsion from the Party. He later recanted his views and was re-admitted to the Party. Nevertheless, during theGreat PurgeRadek was accused of treason and arrested. He was found guilty as a chief defendant at the secondMoscow Trialin 1937 and sentenced to 10 years of penal labor. He died in alabor campin theUralstwo years later.

Early life

Radek was born inLemberg,Austria-Hungary(nowLvivinUkraine), asKarol Sobelsohn,to aLitvak(Lithuanian Jewish) family; his father, Bernhard, worked in the post office and died whilst Karl was young.He took the nameRadekfrom a favourite character,Andrzej Radek,inSyzyfowe prace('The Labors of Sisyphus', 1897) byStefan Żeromski.

Radek joined theSocial Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania(SDKPiL) in 1904. When the1905 Russian Revolutionbroke out (includinguprisings across the Kingdom of Poland), Radek participated as a revolutionary organiser inWarsaw,where he had responsibility for the party's newspaperCzerwony Sztandar.

Germany and "the Radek Affair"

In 1907, after his arrest in Poland and his escape from custody, Radek moved toLeipzigin Germany and joined theSocial Democratic Party of Germany(SPD), working on the Party'sLeipziger Volkszeitung.He re-located toBremen,where he worked forBremer Bürgerzeitung,in 1911, and was one of several who attackedKarl Kautsky's analysis of imperialism inDie Neue Zeitin May 1912.

In September 1910, Radek was accused by members of the Polish Socialist Party of stealing books, clothes and money from party comrades, as part of ananti-semiticcampaign against the SDKPiL.On this occasion, he was vigorously defended by the SDKPiL leaders,Rosa LuxemburgandLeo Jogiches.The following year, however, the SDKPiL changed its course, partly because of a personality clash between Jogiches andVladimir Lenin,during which younger members of the party, led byYakov Hanecki,and including Radek, had sided with Lenin. Wanting to make an example of Radek, Jogiches revived the charges of theft, and convened a party commission in December 1911 to investigate. He dissolved the commission in July 1912, after it had failed to come to any conclusion, and in August pushed a decision through the party court expelling Radek. In their written finding, they revealed his alias, making it — he claimed — dangerous for him to stay in Russian occupied Poland.

In 1912August Thalheimerinvited Radek to go toGöppingen(near Stuttgart) to temporarily replace him in control of the local SPD party newspaperFreie Volkszeitung,which had financial difficulties. Radek accused the local party leadership inWürttembergof assisting revisionists to strangle the newspaper due to the paper's hostility to them.The 1913 SPD Congress noted Radek's expulsion and then went on to decide in principle that no-one who had been expelled from a sister-party could join another party within theSecond Internationaland retrospectively applied this rule to Radek. Within the SPDAnton PannekoekandKarl Liebknechtopposed this move, as did others in the International such asLeon Trotskyand Vladimir Lenin,some of whom participated in the "Paris Commission" set up by the International.

World War I and the Russian Revolution

After the outbreak of World War I Radek moved toSwitzerlandwhere he worked as a liaison between Lenin and theBremen Left,with whom he had close links from his time in Germany, introducing him toPaul Leviat this time.He took part in theZimmerwald Conferencein 1915, siding with theleft.

Karl Radek in 1919

During World War I, Radek engaged in polemics withVladimir Leninover the subject of the IrishEaster Risingof 1916; while Lenin was strongly enthusiastic about the Rising, seeing it as a blow toBritish imperialism,Radek disagreed. Basing his view onTheodore Rothstein,he claimed that, what he called the "Sinn Féinmovement "was petit-bourgeois and that the backbone of earlier rebellions in Ireland, the peasant farmer, had been placated at the start of the century by the British government. In his articleThe End of a Song,Radek claimed efforts to restore theIrish languageto official status were flawed because it was "medieval".Leon Trotskyheld a view halfway between Radek and Lenin.

In 1917 Radek was one of the passengers on thesealed trainthat carried Lenin and other Russian revolutionaries through Germany after theFebruary Revolutionin Russia.However, he was refused entry to Russiaand went on to Stockholm, where he produced German-language versions of Bolshevik documents and other information translated from Russian, which he published in the journalsRussische Korrespondenz-PravdaandBote der Russischen Revolution.

After theOctober Revolutionand the onset of theRussian Civil War,Radek arrived inPetrogradand became Vice-Commissar for Foreign Affairs,taking part in theBrest-Litovsk treatynegotiations, as well as being responsible for distribution of Bolshevik propaganda amongst German troops and prisoners of war.During the discussions around signing the treaty, Radek was one of the advocates of a revolutionary war.

Comintern and the German Revolution

Karl Radek (3rd from the left) at the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern, Moscow, 1920.

After being refused recognition as an official representative of the Bolshevik regime,Radek and other delegates —Adolph Joffe,Nikolai Bukharin,Christian Rakovskyand Ignatov — traveled to the GermanCongress of Soviets.After they were turned back at the border, Radek alone crossed the German border illegally in December 1918, arriving in Berlin on 19 or 20 December,where he participated in discussions and conferences leading to foundation of theCommunist Party of Germany(KPD).Radek was arrested after theSpartacist uprisingon 12 February 1919 and held inMoabit Prisonuntil his release in January 1920.While he was in Moabit, the attitude of the German authorities towards the Bolsheviks changed. The idea of creating an alliance of nations that had suffered from theVersailles treaty— principally Germany, Russia and Turkey — gained currency in Berlin, as a result of which Radek was allowed to receive a stream of visitors in his prison cell, includingWalter Rathenau,Arthur Holitscher,Enver Pasha,andRuth Fischer.

Portrait byIsaak Brodsky,1920

On his return to Russia Radek became the Secretary of theComintern,taking the main responsibility for German issues. He was removed from this position after he supported the KPD in opposing inviting representatives of theCommunist Workers' Party of Germanyto attend the 2nd Congress of the Comintern, pitting him against the Comintern's executive and theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union.It was Radek who took up the slogan of Stuttgart communists of fighting for aunited frontwith other working-class organisations, that later formed the basis for the strategy developed by the Comintern.

In mid-1923, Radek made his controversial speech 'Leo Schlageter: The Wanderer into the Void'at an open session of theExecutive Committee of the Communist International(ECCI).In the speech he praised the actions of the GermanFreikorpsofficerLeo Schlageterwho had been shot whilst engaging in sabotage against French troops occupying theRuhr area;in doing so Radek sought to explain the reasons why men like Schlageter were drawn towards the far left, and attempted to channel national grievances away fromchauvinismand towards support of the working movement and the Communists.

Although Radek was not atChemnitzwhen the decision to cancel theuprising in November 1923took place at the KPD Zentrale, he subsequently approved the decision and defended it.

At subsequent congresses of the Russian Communist Party and meetings of the ECCI, Radek and Brandler were made the scapegoats for the defeat of the revolution byZinoviev,with Radek being removed from the ECCI at theFifth Congress of the Comintern.

Into the Left Opposition

Karl Radek (holding Aleksandr Voronsky's daughter) among the writers ofKrasnaya Nov

Radek was part of theLeft Oppositionfrom 1923, writing his article 'Leon Trotsky: Organizer of Victory'shortly after Lenin's stroke in January of that year.Later in the year at theThirteenth Party CongressRadek was removed from the Central Committee.

In the summer of 1925, Radek was appointed Provost of the newly establishedSun Yat-Sen Universityin Moscow, where he collected information for the opposition from students about the situation in China and cautiously began to challenge the official Comintern policy.However, the terminal illness of Radek's lover,Larissa Reissner,saw Radek lose his inhibitions and he began publicly criticising Stalin, in particular debating Stalin's doctrine ofSocialism in One Countryat theCommunist Academy.Radek was sacked from his post at Sun Yat-Sen University in May 1927.

Radek was expelled from the Party in 1927 after helping to organise an independent demonstration on the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution withGrigory ZinovievinLeningrad.In early 1928, when prominent oppositionists were deported to various remote locations within theSoviet Union,Radek was sent toTobolskand a few months later moved on toTomsk.

After the Opposition and Show Trials

Karl Radek attends the funeral of his wife, the Soviet revolutionary leader Larissa Reissner

On 10 July 1929, Radek, alongside other oppositionistsIvar SmilgaandYevgeni Preobrazhensky,signed a document capitulating to Stalin,with Radek being held in particular disdain by oppositionist circles for his betrayal ofYakov Blumkin,who had been carrying a secret letter from Trotsky, in exile in Turkey, to Radek.However, he was re-admitted in 1930 and was one of the few former oppositionists to retain a prominent place within the party, heading the International Information Bureau of the Russian Communist Party Central Committeeas well as giving the address on foreign literature at the First Conference of theUnion of Soviet Writersin 1934.In that speech, he denouncedMarcel ProustandJames Joyce.He said that "in the pages of Proust, the old world, like a mangy dog no longer capable of any action whatever, lies basking in the sun and endlessly licks its sores" and compared Joyce'sUlyssesto "a heap of dung, crawling with worms, photographed by a cinema apparatus through a microscope."

Radek's NKVD mugshot, 1937

Later in his life he adopted a position that the Soviet government should be close to Germany. In 1934 he was interviewed by a German politician, at which both of them deplored the hostile drift of their respective governments, and Radek made a controversial remark: "There are some fine lads in the SA and SS."In 1936 he congratulatedGeneral Ernst Köstringon the day GermanyoccupiedtheRhineland,along withMikhail Tukhachevsky.He helped to write the1936 Soviet Constitutionbut, during theGreat Purgeof the 1930s, he was accused of treason and confessed, after two and a half months of interrogation,at the Trial of the Seventeen in 1937, the so-called SecondMoscow Trial.He was sentenced to 10 years ofpenal labor.

Death

He was reportedly killed in alabor campon Stalin's orders following a fight with a fellow Left Opposition inmate named Varezhnikov.According to an investigation of the Central Committee of the CPSU and theKGBafter theKhrushchev Thaw,his murder was organized under the Supervision of the senior NKVD operative Pyotr Kubatkin.

Radek has been credited with originating a number ofpolitical jokesaboutJoseph Stalin.He was posthumouslyrehabilitatedin 1988, underMikhail Gorbachev.

Selected works

Available in English

• "The Unity of the Working Class"(1909)
• "Marxism and the Problems of War"(1914)
• "The End of a Song"(1916)
• "The Development of Socialism from Science to Action"(1918)
• "Karl Liebknecht – At the Martyr’s Graveside"(1919)
• "Anti-Parliamentarism"(1920)
• Proletarian Dictatorship and Terrorism.Forgotten Books. 2012 [1920].
• "The Labour Movement, Shop Committees and the Third International"(1920)
• "The Polish Question and the International"(1920)
• "England and the East"(1920)
• "Bertrand Russell’s Sentimental Journey"(1921)
• "Is the Russian Revolution a Bourgeois Revolution?"(1921)
• "The Downfall of Levi"(1921)
• "On the Trade Unions",Second Congress of the Communist International, response to the discussion (1921)
• "Outlines of World Politics"(1921)
• Richardson, Al, ed. (1995) [1922]. "The Paths of the Russian Revolution".In Defence of the Russian Revolution: A Selection of Bolshevik Writings, 1917–1923.Porcupine Press. pp.35–75.ISBN978-1899438020.
• "Foundation of the Two and a Half International"(1922)
• "Eve of Fusion of the Second and Two-and-a-Half International(1922)
• "From the Hague to Essen"(1922)
• "The Greek Revolution"(1922)
• "The Winding-Up of the Versailles Treaty",report to the IV. Congress of the Comintern (1922)
• "Leon Trotsky, Organizer of Victory"(1923)
• "Ruhr and Hamburg"(1923)
• "Lenin"(1923)
• "The International Outlook"(1923)
• "Leo Schlageter: The Wanderer into the Void"( "The Schlageter Speech" ) (1923)
• "Fascism and Communism"(1924)
• "Through Germany in the Sealed Coach"(1924)
• "November: A Page of Recollections".Soviet Studies.III:411–430. 1951–1952 [1926].Retrieved1 May2019.
• "A Letter to Klara Zetkin"(1926)
• "Larisa Reisner"(1927)
• "Appeal for Trotsky"(1928)
• "Capitalist Slavery vs. Socialist Organisation of Labour"(1931)
• "Greetings to Romain Rolland"(1931)
• "The Revision of the Versaille Treaty" (Labour Monthly, 1933)
• "The Birth of the First International"(1934)
• "Fifteen Years of the Communist International"(pamphlet) (1934)
• "Contemporary World Literature and the Tasks of Proletarian Art",speech at the Soviet Writers Congress (1934)
• "Felix Dzerzhinski(1935)

Available in German

• Theorie und Praxis der 2 1/2 Internationale(Theory and Practice of 2 1/2 International) (1921)

External links

• Quotations related toKarl Radekat Wikiquote
• Media related toKarl Radekat Wikimedia Commons
• Biographyon Spartacus Educational
• Newspaper clippings about Karl Radekin the20th Century Press Archivesof theZBW