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It is impossible to be a leader of the working class without knowing the whole history of the class. The leaders of the labour movement must know the… - Karl Radek
" "It is impossible to be a leader of the working class without knowing the whole history of the class. The leaders of the labour movement must know the history of the labour movement; without this knowledge there can be no leader, just as nowadays there can he no great general who could be victorious with the least expenditure of force unless he knew the history of strategy. The history of strategy is not a collection of recipes as to how to win a war, for a situation once described never repeats itself. But the mind of the general becomes practised in strategy by its express study; this study renders him elastic in war, permits him to observe the dangers and possibilities which the empirically trained general cannot see. The history of the labour movement does not tell us what to do, but it makes it possible to compare our position with situations which have already been experienced by our class, so that in various decisive moments we are enabled to see our path clearly, and to recognise approaching danger.
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About Karl Radek
Karl Berngardovich Radek (31 October 1885 – 19 May 1939) was a Marxist active in the Polish and German social democratic movements before World War I and an international Communist leader in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution.
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Karl Berngardovich Radek
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Additional quotes by Karl Radek
History has prepared our party for various tasks. However defective our state machinery or our economic activity may be, still the whole past of the party has psychologically prepared it for the work of creating a new order of economy and a new state apparatus. History has even prepared us for diplomacy. It is scarcely necessary to mention that world politics have always occupied the minds of Marxists. But it was the endless negotiations with the Mensheviki that perfected our diplomatic technique; and it was during these old struggles that Comrade Chicherin learned to draw up diplomatic notes. We are just beginning to learn the miracle of economics. Our state machinery creaks and groans. In one thing, however, we have been eminently successful – in our Red Army. Its creator, its central will, is Comrade L.D. Trotsky.
Comrades, the question of the relationship between the Communist International and the trades unions is the most serious, most important question facing our movement. The trades unions are the biggest mass organisations of the working class; they play a decisive role in the economic struggles, the chief elements in the disintegration of capital, and after the victory of the revolution the trades unions will be in the forefront of those organisations called on to work at the economic construction of socialism.
Ready for peace, ready for concessions, Russia waits; ready for peaceful cohabitation with capitalist countries even, as long as Labour in the West suffers the burden of the capitalist system. But Soviet Russia is not a carcase upon which the vultures of Imperialism will sharpen their beaks and claws. Soviet is a power, a power that is firm and growing, and it will compel its enemies to treat it as such and allow it to live in peace.
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