what's the deal with karl radek?

[9]

So I always hear and read contradictory things about this guy.

Originally, I'd been under the impression that he was a left communist.
Then sometime last year, I was talking with a Trotskyist contact of mine, who informed me that Radek was a Trotskyist and had been part of the Left Opposition.
And then a few weeks ago, a former anarchyist who I have political discussions with began insisting - when I mentioned that Radek had been a Trotskyist - that he had actually been a Stalinist, but I think he must have been confusing him with someone else.
And then the day before yesterday, I read a post by someone on here (Zanthorous iirc) that said he was a left communist who had been one of the first to put forward a theory of state capitalism (which is similar to what my original understanding of him had been).

I just checked the wikipedia entry on him, which is totally unhelpful. Anybody know a bit more about him, care to fill me in?
Its a matter of great importance, as he was clearly the most hilarious-looking of all the Bolsheviks.

[Kléber]

Radek was a Bolshevik organizer of the 1917 revolution and a leading Left Oppositionist from that faction's 1923 foundation until it was banned in 1927. In 1930 he publicly renounced Trotskyism to get out of a hard labor sentence. In return for capitulating to Stalin he was given a job writing anti-Trotskyist propaganda and other bureaucratic hack work such as the 1936 Constitution. He may have snitched on and caused the death of Yakov Blumkin, who sent by Trotsky on a secret mission to win him back to the Opposition. Finally Radek was purged in 1937 and murdered by the NKVD in 1939 while in prison, probably for knowing too much. I'd never heard that he was a left-communist, but he seemed to be on the left of the party in 1919 - Trotsky brought him along to Brest-Litovsk to troll the Germans with his radical antics during peace negotiations.

[Paulappaul]

A trotskyist and old bolshevik. He wasn't a Left Communist, If I recall correctly he was in the KPD against the KAPD (a council communist organization).

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"But Trotsky’s organizing genius, and his boldness of thought are even more clearly expressed in his courageous determination to utilize the war specialists for creating the army. Every good Marxist is fully aware that in building up a good economic apparatus we still require the aid of the old capitalist organization. Lenin defended this proposition with the utmost decision in his April speech on the tasks of the Soviet power, In the mature circles of the party the idea is not contested. But the idea that we could create an instrument for the defense of the republic, an army, with the aid of the Czarist officers – encountered obstinate resistance. Who could think of re-arming the White officers who had just been disarmed? Thus many comrades questioned. I remember a discussion on this question among the editors of the Communist, the organ of the so-called left communists, in which the question of the employment of staff officers nearly led to a split. And the editors of this paper were among the best schooled theoreticians and practicians of the party. It suffices to mention the names of Bukharin, Ossonski, Lomov, W. Yakovlev. There was even greater distrust among the broad circles of our military comrades, recruited for our military organizations during the war. The mistrust of our military functionaries could only be allayed, their agreement to the utilization of the knowledge possessed by the old officers could only be won, by the burning faith of Trotsky in our social force, the belief that we could obtain from the war experts the benefit of their science, without permitting them to force their politics upon us; the belief that the revolutionary watchfulness of the progressive workers would enable them to overcome any counter-revolutionary attempts made by the staff officers." - Karl Radek. Leon Trotsky, Organizer of Victory

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

It's also rumored that he created a lot of the anti-government / Stalin jokes that were floating around the USSR at the time of his death.

[ComradeOm]

Radek is an exceptionally interesting character. I wouldn't classify him as a Trotskyist, if only because it would be deeply anachronistic to apply such labels before the mid-1920s. By this stage Radek had already carved out plenty of space in the history books for his roles in both Germany and Russia. The former is more important but I can't recall much about this much-criticised role as informal ambassador to the KPD. If you need details I can look them up

He was definitely part of the Left Communists in Russia during early 1918 and the opposition to Brest-Litovsk. When their position fell apart during the summer of that year he quickly re-aligned himself with Lenin and the party centre

[Devrim]

Originally, I'd been under the impression that he was a left communist.

He wasn't a Left Communist, If I recall correctly he was in the KPD against the KAPD (a council communist organization).

Thus many comrades questioned. I remember a discussion on this question among the editors of the Communist, the organ of the so-called left communists, in which the question of the employment of staff officers nearly led to a split. And the editors of this paper were among the best schooled theoreticians and practicians of the party. It suffices to mention the names of Bukharin, Ossonski, Lomov, W. Yakovlev.

Radek was a left communist in the early days after the revolution. The reason he remembers the discussion is that he too was one of the editors. It is well documented, but it is here in Brinton:

April 20 [1918]

The issue of workers' control was now being widely discussed within the Party. Leningrad District Committee publishes first issue of Kommunist (a 'left' communist theoretical journal edited by Bukharin, Radek and Osinsky, later to be joined by Smirnov). This issue contained the editors' "Theses on the Present Situation".

The paper denounced "a labour policy designed to implant discipline among the workers under the flag of 'self - discipline', the introduction of labour service for workers, piece rates, and the lengthening of the working day". It proclaimed that "the introduction of labour discipline in connection with the restoration of capitalist management of industry cannot really increase the productivity of labour". It would "diminish the class initiative, activity and organisation of the proletariat. It threatens to enslave the working class. It will arouse discontent among the backward elements as well as among the vanguard of the proletariat. In order to introduce this system in the face of the hatred prevailing at present among the proletariat against the 'capitalist saboteurs' the Communist Party would have to rely on the petty - bourgeoisie, as against the workers". It would "ruin itself as the party of the proletariat".

The first issue of the new paper also contained a serious warning by Radek: "If the Russian Revolution were overthrown by violence on the part of the bourgeois counter - revolution it would rise again like a phoenix; if however it lost its socialist character and thereby disappointed the working masses, the blow would have ten times more terrible consequences for the future of the Russian and the international revolution". (44)

After the left was defeated over Brest-Litovsk, Radek moved away from it, and during his work in Germany he was with the KPD leadership against the majority that later became the KAPD, a left communist party, not a 'council communist organisation.

Then sometime last year, I was talking with a Trotskyist contact of mine, who informed me that Radek was a Trotskyist and had been part of the Left Opposition.

Radek is an exceptionally interesting character. I wouldn't classify him as a Trotskyist, if only because it would be deeply anachronistic to apply such labels before the mid-1920s.

I think that ComradeOm is essentially right. The Left opposition in the twenties is not 'Trotskyist' in the sense that we understand it today, and contained various other currents from earlier, more radical oppositions.

Devrim

[Ismail]

It's worth noting that Trotsky sent letters to Radek in the early 1930's as part of oppositionist activity. The source for this isn't the Moscow Trials (though there Radek claimed to receive said letters—the content of them is what's in dispute) but is instead in Trotsky's own archive at Harvard.

See: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...11&postcount=7

At the time of the Moscow show trials, Trotsky denied that he had any communications with the defendants since his exile in 1929. Yet it is now clear that in 1932 he sent secret personal letters to former leading oppositionists Karl Radek, G. Sokol'nikov, E. Preobrazhensky, and others. While the contents of these letters are unknown, it seems reasonable to believe that they involved an attempt to persuade the addressees to return to opposition.

[....]

18 Trotsky Papers, 15821. Unlike virtually all Trotsky's other letters (including even the most sensitive) no copies of these remain the Trotsky Papers. It seems likely that they have been removed from the Papers at some time. Only the certified mail receipts remain. At his 1937 trial, Karl Radek testified that he had received a letter from Trotsky containing 'terrorist instructions', but we do not know whether this was the letter in question.

Jerome Davis, in his book Beyond Soviet Power in 1946, stated on p. 29 that:

I had interviewed him in his apartment in Moscow in 1935, knowing that he was in the opposition group. In the course of the conversation Radek remarked that he considered Foreign Affairs the best periodical in America. This seemed a strange comment for a man of his views, until I learned that Trotsky had just published an article there. From further conversation I received the distinct impression, which he possibly wished to convey, that Radek was in closest contact with Trotsky in exile.

So if he wasn't a Trotskyist it seems probable that he was still quite close with Trotsky.

[Kléber]

So if he wasn't a Trotskyist, it seems probable he was still quite close with Trotsky.

There is no evidence he replied to the 1932 letter. The Bulletin of the Opposition publicly denounced Radek from 1929.

For his part, Radek was paid to write Stalinist pamphlets, his most disgraceful piece being The Fascist Band, Trotskyist-Zinovievist, and its Hetman Trotsky.

In the summer of 1929, Blumkin visited me in Constantinople. Here is what I find stated in the Bulletin on the basis of letters received from Moscow. The date is December 25, 1929. And the quotation: 'Radek’s nervous babbling is well known. Now he is absolutely demoralized, like the majority of the capitulators ... Having lost the last remnants of moral equilibrium, Radek stops before no abjection.' The correspondence relates how 'Blumkin was betrayed after his meeting with Radek.' From that time on he became the most odious figure of the Left Opposition, because he was not only a capitulator, but a traitor."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trot.../session03.htm

[Kiev Communard]

Radek was an epitome of political opportunism, changing his viewpoints and leaping from one political group to another. His help may have been valuable in the course of 1917 revolution itself, but after that he strikes as rather ignoble figure, quite similar to Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès during the French Revolution.

[Ismail]

The Bulletin of the Opposition publicly denounced Radek from 1929.

From Trotskyism or Leninism? pp. 320-321:

As regards to the tactical side of it, a sudden moratorium of all criticism of the accused by Trotsky would have made the Soviet authorities suspicious; it was therefore necessary for Trotsky to continue with his public criticism of the accused while in practice cooperating with them...

Trotsky was notorious for forming blocs with all kinds of people whom he had often denounced in the periods immediately preceding the formation of such blocs... giving an estimation of Radek in 1918, he told the Dewey Commission:

He [Radek] was active for a certain time [in 1918] in the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, but the diplomats claimed it was impossible to say anything in his presence, because tomorrow it as known by all the city. We removed him immediately ...

This is what Trotsky thought of Radek in 1918. Yet this estimation of Radek did not prevent Trotsky from working in close cooperation with Radek from 1925 to 1928.

It was normal for those who later winded up in the Moscow Trials to denounce Trotsky. Bukharin used that as part of his defense during Central Committee meetings preceding his arrest. Obviously if Radek said something to the extent of "I will not attack Trotsky" then he wouldn't be in good graces for long.

Besides, it's been established that he sent at least one letter to Radek. Evidently he didn't consider him to be much of a turncoat, otherwise why risk sending a letter to him?

[Kléber]

That's all speculation. Trotsky was organizing a united opposition to restore Soviet democracy, not a Nazi-controlled terror network to destroy socialism.

I wonder if Hoxha had actually put together an anti-revisionist opposition movement in the USSR, you think the Soviet government would have said "They're just honest Marxist-Leninists who oppose our corruption, no CIA influence whatsoever, let them spread their documents and have their Stalin jubilee!"

[Ismail]

That's all speculation. Trotsky was organizing a united opposition to restore Soviet democracy, not a Nazi-controlled terror network to destroy socialism.

A letter was sent from Trotsky to Radek. That isn't speculation. Trotsky's son Sedov wrote (as noted in Getty article) of a bloc including "Zinovievists" (Trotsky, of course, wasn't fond of Zinoviev in public either) and of attempts to win over the "rights." That isn't speculation. As Getty pointed out in a footnote, "Included in file 13095 is a 1937 note from Trotsky's secretary van Heijenoort which shows that Trotsky and Sedov were reminded of the bloc at the time of the 1937 Dewey Commission but withheld the matter from the inquiry."

Trotsky wanted his "left" elements to lead the planned bloc and distrusted the right-wingers within it, but still sought to unite them with the "lefts."

This isn't speculation. You've given no proof of your position except from Trotsky's public utterances, which cannot be reconciled with his private activities.

So either Trotsky shot off letters to people he knew to be turncoats and irreconcilable opportunists for the hell of it (coupled with the obvious risks involved), or his public posturing on Radek and Co. wasn't too genuine.

[Lyev]

A letter was sent from Trotsky to Radek. That isn't speculation. Trotsky's son Sedov wrote (as noted in Getty article) of a bloc including "Zinovievists" (Trotsky, of course, wasn't fond of Zinoviev in public either) and of attempts to win over the "rights." That isn't speculation. As Getty pointed out in a footnote, "Included in file 13095 is a 1937 note from Trotsky's secretary van Heijenoort which shows that Trotsky and Sedov were reminded of the bloc at the time of the 1937 Dewey Commission but withheld the matter from the inquiry."

Trotsky wanted his "left" elements to lead the planned bloc and distrusted the right-wingers within it, but still sought to unite them with the "lefts."

This isn't speculation. You've given no proof of your position except from Trotsky's public utterances, which cannot be reconciled with his private activities.

So either Trotsky shot off letters to people he knew to be turncoats and irreconcilable opportunists for the hell of it (coupled with the obvious risks involved), or his public posturing on Radek and Co. wasn't too genuine.

I may be missing something here, but why is Trotsky sending a letter to Radek of any importance or historical interest? Is this to back up the claim that he was an opportunist - i.e., had a tendency to change political groupings when it suited him - or something along those lines? edit: ah ok, just read the thread properly. But sending a letter or two to someone does not make them "quite close", necessarily. Marx sent letters back and forth to Lassalle but they disagreed on a whole host of issues.

[Ismail]

I may be missing something here, but why is Trotsky sending a letter to Radek of any importance or historical interest? Is this to back up the claim that he was an opportunist - i.e., had a tendency to change political groupings when it suited him - or something along those lines?

Let us quote The Great Conspiracy: The Secret War Against Soviet Russia by A.E. Kahn, which is mostly just a summary of the Moscow Trials and was written all the way back in 1946 (whereas Getty's article was written in 1986 with access to Trotsky's archives at Harvard University):

Throughout 1932, Russia's future Fifth Column began to take concrete shape in the underworld of the Opposition. At small secret meetings and furtive conferences, the members of the conspiracy were made aware of the new line and instructed in their new tasks. A network of terrorist cells, sabotage cells and courier systems was developed in Soviet Russia...

Trotsky's emphatic demand for the preparation of acts of terror at first alarmed some of the older Trotskyite intellectuals. The journalist Karl Radek showed signs of panic when Pyatakov acquainted him with the new line. In February 1932, Radek received a personal letter from Trotsky conveyed, as were all Trotskyite communications of a confidential character, by secret courier.

"You must bear in mind," Trotsky wrote his wavering follower, Radek, "the experience of the preceding period and realize that for you there can be no returning to the past, that the struggle has entered a new phase and that the new feature in this phase is that either we shall be destroyed together with the Soviet Union, or we must raise the question of removing the leadership."

Trotsky's letter, together with Pyatakov's insistence, finally convinced Radek.

I now repeat Getty's quote:

At the time of the Moscow show trials, Trotsky denied that he had any communications with the defendants since his exile in 1929. Yet it is now clear that in 1932 he sent secret personal letters to former leading oppositionists Karl Radek, G. Sokol'nikov, E. Preobrazhensky, and others. While the contents of these letters are unknown, it seems reasonable to believe that they involved an attempt to persuade the addressees to return to opposition.

[....]

18 Trotsky Papers, 15821. Unlike virtually all Trotsky's other letters (including even the most sensitive) no copies of these remain the Trotsky Papers. It seems likely that they have been removed from the Papers at some time. Only the certified mail receipts remain. At his 1937 trial, Karl Radek testified that he had received a letter from Trotsky containing 'terrorist instructions', but we do not know whether this was the letter in question.

[black magick hustla]

Radek was an epitome of political opportunism, changing his viewpoints and leaping from one political group to another. His help may have been valuable in the course of 1917 revolution itself, but after that he strikes as rather ignoble figure, quite similar to Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès during the French Revolution.

i dont think he was an opportunist as much as he didnt want to have a bullet lodged in his head/rot in prison which at the end of the day he was probably murdered by the nvkd imo

opportunism is more akin to jump on the coat ttails of a tendency to gain power or priviliege not so much to survive

[Kléber]

A letter was sent from Trotsky to Radek. That isn't speculation.

That much isn't, but insinuations about the nature and contents of this letter do amount to nothing more than speculation.

Trotsky's son Sedov wrote (as noted in Getty article) of a bloc including "Zinovievists" (Trotsky, of course, wasn't fond of Zinoviev in public either) and of attempts to win over the "rights." That isn't speculation.

It isn't news either. Of course there was mass opposition to Stalin's clique across the Bolshevik and Soviet political spectrum, why else would sweeping repressions of the party and citizenry be necessary for the rulers to hold on to power?

Unless of course, you subscribe to some kind of bourgeois idealist theory that the Bolsheviks destroyed themselves Jim Jones style because of their own inherent communist madness and paranoia.

As Getty pointed out in a footnote, "Included in file 13095 is a 1937 note from Trotsky's secretary van Heijenoort which shows that Trotsky and Sedov were reminded of the bloc at the time of the 1937 Dewey Commission but withheld the matter from the inquiry."

Point in fact: it was 1937, people remotely connected with the Opposition was being taken out and murdered, sometimes along with their family. Damn right Trotsky and Sedov withheld sensitive information where necessary to protect the lives and honor of their comrades, hunted by the Stalinites in one of the most brutal persecutions in the history of the workers' movement!

Trotsky wanted his "left" elements to lead the planned bloc and distrusted the right-wingers within it, but still sought to unite them with the "lefts."

This isn't speculation. You've given no proof of your position except from Trotsky's public utterances, which cannot be reconciled with his private activities.

As Rogovin said, 10% of the purge trial accusations were true - there was a bloc of communists who thought Stalin was unfit for leadership, and Trotsky was in contact with them. Of course it's not speculation, it's something to be proud of: we almost got rid of the bastard. No amount of speculation about Trotsky's private activities can denigrate the determined, historic stand of the Bolshevik Leninists and all communist oppositionists against Stalinite bureaucratist revisionism.

But, 90% of the trials were based on slander and lies. The opposition did not conduct sabotage, assassinations; it was not in contact with or in the service of German, British, Japanese, or any other imperialisms. Neither Ryutin nor any other oppositionist called for the blood of Stalin, but this spurious claim is, in a way, a tacit admission by Stalin's own propaganda apparatus of the seething hatred held by the masses and the communists for their "leader."

So either Trotsky shot off letters to people he knew to be turncoats and irreconcilable opportunists for the hell of it (coupled with the obvious risks involved), or his public posturing on Radek and Co. wasn't too genuine.

Here we have a blind apologist for the Molotov-Ribbentrop betrayal, a worshiper of the Stalin who had a Radek on his payroll for 8 years, up on his high horse scolding Trotsky for associating with this fellow. Only on Revleft.

Trotsky's letters to the capitulated oppositionists may have been reconsidered, discarded and never sent. The letters could have been misinformation to confuse censors and send the NKVD on a wild goose chase. I am just speculating here, but so are you when you suggest that the letter contained a diagram showing how to assassinate Stalin, and when you quote arch-hacks Sayers and Kahn. Even if Trotsky was trying to re-recruit capitulators, he may have just wanted to use them for information. Of course he knew Radek was a waverer, but Lenin said a scoundrel can be useful to us simply because he is a scoundrel.

So what if Trotsky tried to organize his comrades for a political struggle against the ruling faction? Did you forget your own tendency and its opportunist sectarian jihad against the USSR? Where was Hoxha's anti-revisionist Soviet workers, except on paper? Where did Trotskyists fight against the Soviet army and its proxies like Hoxhaists in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Ethiopia etc? Even in Vietnam, the Trotskyist guerrillas practically stood there and let the Stalinites murder them.

[Kléber]

i dont think he was an opportunist as much as he didnt want to have a bullet lodged in his head/rot in prison which at the end of the day he was probably murdered by the nvkd imo

opportunism is more akin to jump on the coat ttails of a tendency to gain power or priviliege not so much to survive

Uh, no. You can make that argument for Nazi collaborators. Snitches always have an "excuse." It doesn't matter if their family is held hostage. A snitch is a traitor and a disgrace, only good one is a dead one. Fuck Radek, that whore of the Kremlin. He betrayed his friends and worked as Stalin's hack, making up lies and insults against his old comrades.. until the pigs saw no more use for him. If that isn't opportunism I don't know what is.

[Kléber]

A joke about Radek:

During the purges, three prisoners in Siberia find themselves sharing a cell together. After long silence between them, one asks, "So, what are you in for?"

The second cellmate replies, "I'm innocent, of course - but they put me here for defending Karl Radek."

The first shouts back in astonishment, "What?! But I'm here for denouncing Karl Radek!"

Both prisoners pause awkwardly.. then their gaze turns to the third cellmate, sitting quietly in the dark corner. "Hey you," they ask, "what are you in for?"

The third cellmate says back, "I'm Karl Radek."

[DaringMehring]

Radek was a first-class wit, and a great organizer. He was a great Old Bolshevik.

His weakness was his lack of political tenacity --- which is really harsh to say, since he was tested in the most extreme circumstances, and passed many of those tests --- and eventually his immense talents and great spirit were subverted. But so what. All the Old Bolsheviks ended up with a Stalin bullet eventually. Some ended up broken by the end, others had more dignity. It's a postscript.

Karl Radek was a great guy.