Karl Radek

Karl Berngardovich Radek (Russian: Карл Бернгардович Радек; Polish: Karol Radek; 31 October 1885 – 19 May 1939) was a revolutionary and writer active in the Polish and German social democratic movements before World War I and a Communist International leader in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution.

Radek was born to a Jewish family in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary. He joined the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania and took part in the 1905 Russian Revolution in Congress Poland. Two years later he was forced to flee to Germany, where he worked as a journalist for the Social Democratic Party of Germany. After the outbreak of World War I, Radek relocated to Switzerland and became an associate of Vladimir Lenin. Following the February Revolution, Radek helped organize the return of Lenin and other Russian revolutionaries to Russia, though he himself was denied entry until after the October Revolution. As Vice-Commissar for Foreign Affairs, he took part in the negotiations of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. He helped establish the Communist Party of Germany after the revolution began, and spent a year in prison for his role in the Spartacist uprising.