Product Code Database
Husain Ar-Radi (;1924, Najaf – 24 February 1963, Baghdad), also known as Hashiim, 'Ammar, and Salam Adil (), was an communist politician as well as a Poetry and Painting. He was the leader of the Iraqi Communist Party from 1955 until his death by execution or under torture after the Baathist coup in 1963.
Muhammad's descendants through Fatimah are known as sharifs, sayeds or sayyids. These are honorific titles in Arabic, sharif meaning 'noble' and sayed or sayyid meaning 'lord' or 'sir'. As Muhammad's only descendants, they are respected by both Sunni and Shi'a, though the Shi'as place much more emphasis and value on their distinction.156
That same year, following the arrest of party secretary Baha al-Din Nuri, Abd al-Karim Ahmad al-Daud became party secretary and began to promote a far-left line as well as a considerable level of confrontational activity. Al-Radi opposed this line and in September the party agreed a more moderate policy, but on 16 June 1954 hardliner Hamid Uthman escaped from Kut jail and succeeded in reimposing the far-left line. He was elected party secretary in place of Al-Daud. Uthman accused al-Radi of rightist deviationism and had him expelled from the Central Committee. The latter then moved to the mid-Euphrates region.
Al-Radi's moderate approach was similar to that of Khalid Bakdash, secretary of the Syrian Communist Party and elder statesman of Arab communism. During the period 1955–1959, the Iraqi party was closer to Bakdash than at any other point. Al-Radi himself was not by inclination a theoretician, preferring to concentrate on party organisation and action; until 1961, he would be content to leave ideological questions primarily to Amir Abdallah, who was the party's dominant intellectual figure during this period and rather more cautious than al-Radi in his political approach.
The party suffered something of a crisis in the summer of 1959, with a minor crackdown by Qasim coinciding with the disturbances of July 1959 in Kirkuk, for which the Communists were widely blamed. A party plenum resulted in a victory for the right wing: it approved a highly self-critical report, published in the party newspaper Ittihad ash-Sha'ab. Al-Radi remained the nominal party leader, but his position as secretary was changed to that of first secretary, with three assistant secretaries appointed who were all close to Abdallah.
In the spring of 1960 the party came under renewed attack from Qasim, with Ittihad ash-Sha'ab banned first intermittently and finally completely. Communist supporters were removed from positions of influence in the government, party-backed organisations which provided a crucial element in its abilities to mobilize the masses were suppressed to a greater or lesser degree and thousands of Communist workers dismissed from their jobs. In November 1961 al-Radi struck back against his opponents in the party, and took full control. The "rightist" line was denounced, Abdallah left for Eastern Europe, and the three assistant secretaries were removed from the Central Committee.
However, with the party increasingly weak, al-Radi himself saw no alternative to a continued policy of critical support for Qasim, despite a renewed wave of repression in May 1962 following Communist-led demonstrations against the Kurdish war. In late 1962, the Kurdish Democratic Party suggested that the Communists collaborate with them in a coup attempt, but the latter rejected the idea. In January 1963, they warned Qasim that plans were afoot for a nationalist coup.
The Baathist coup of 8 February 1963 came as no surprise to the Communists, but they were unable to mobilize their supporters in the armed forces to oppose it effectively. Al-Radi reacted immediately by drawing up an appeal for mass resistance to the coup, and Communist supporters defended poorer districts of Baghdad against the new government until 10 February, suffering heavy losses.
|
|
