Karl Radek, Trotskyist?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

He advocates working within unions and fighting "side by side" with the proletariat in its everyday struggles in "Way of the Communist International" while he criticises the "2 1/2 International" for its conservative view on proletraian dictatorship. I was not aware of Radek earlier, but was he not openly a Trotskyist?

[Blake's Baby]

Radek is far to complex and contradictory to be labelled a Trotskyist. His time in the Left Opposition was something like 4 years out of 30 years involved with the SDKPiL, SPD and the Bolsheviks.

[Paulappaul]

I've heard him even characterized a Left Communist.

[Blake's Baby]

I've heard him even characterized a Left Communist.

I'd say he supported the (Russian) Left Communist position at Brest-Litovsk, but he opposed the invitation of the KAPD to the Communist International, which is distinctly not a 'Left Communist' position, as the KAPD were the Left Communists at that point... As I say, complex character.