Tuck's work is an attempt at the rehabilitation of Karl Radek, a sidekick of Lenin's who fell victim to Stalin's vengeance in the 1930s. Though not a full-scale academic biography, it is satisfying and fast-moving without being superficial, and offers an intellectually intriguing thesis. . . . Where others have seen betrayal, Tuck sees Radek the mischief maker. Although Radek implicated many guiltless people and testified to lies, Tuck argues Radek's performance was a master stroke of mischief making, turning the tables against Vyshinsky, showing up and revealing the truth about the show trials themselves. Choice
The enigmatic Karl Radek, a victim of the Moscow purge trials, was by turns a Pole, a Jew, a West European social democrat, a Soviet official, a Trotskyist, and a Stalinist. A born iconoclast, he began his career by attacking established political orders and ended it by defending one of the world's most blatant tyrannies. Tuck opens this analytical biography with an account of Radek's atypical early adolescence and then traces the evolution of Radek's political thought from Polish nationalism to patriotic and later international socialism. Radek's six years in Germany were marked by his journalistic success and subsequent disgrace as well as his expulsion from the German and Polish social-democratic parties. His fortunes turned when he joined Lenin in Switzerland, and thereafter he established himself as one of the leading rightists in the Communist movement. His romantic liaison with Larissa Reissner, his allegiance to Trotsky and later to Stalin, and his downfall following the publication of his satire on Stalin are treated in subsequent chapters. The work then presents an account of Radek's trial and banishment to the Gulag and an analysis of Radek's ultimate fate. It concludes with an overall assessment that challenges Arthur Koestler's evaluation of the man.

Engine of Mischief: An Analytical Biography of Karl Radek (Contributions to the Study of World History)

Tuck, Jim

Biographies & Memoirs

Praeger

The Liberal Civil War: Fraternity and Fratricide on the Left

The Liberal Civil War: Fraternity and Fratricide on the Left explores the struggles and controversy of the liberal community during the early years of the Cold War. It follows the issue of collaboration with communists through the anti-Communist revivals of the McCarthy era, the Vietnam War, and the celebrated feud and lawsuit involving Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy. With insights provided by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Leon Schull, and Gus Tyler, The Liberal Civil War details the internal strife and the external action of organized liberals such as labor unions and the Americans for Democratic Action while they struggled with communist paranoia in the United States.

History

Americas

University Press of America

The Liberal Civil War: Fraternity and Fratricide on the Left explores the struggles and controversy of the liberal community during the early years of the Cold War. It follows the issue of collaboration with communists through the anti-Communist revivals of the McCarthy era, the Vietnam War, and the celebrated feud and lawsuit involving Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy. With insights provided by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Leon Schull, and Gus Tyler, The Liberal Civil War details the internal strife and the external action of organized liberals such as labor unions and the Americans for Democratic Action while they struggled with communist paranoia in the United States.

The Holy War in Los Altos: A Regional Analysis of Mexico's Cristero Rebellion

University of Arizona Press

Pancho Villa and John Reed: Two Faces of Romantic Revolution

McCarthyism and New York's Hearst Press

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

This hard-hitting, meticulously researched study provides an in-depth analysis of the bizarre relationship between Senator Joe McCarthy and the Hearst press from 1942-57. Concentrating on the Journal-American and the Mirror in New York, Tuck looks deep into the center of the controversy and arrives at some surprising conclusions. Contents: The Cold War Within the Hot Water: Hearst as Pioneer; Pre-McCarthy McCarthyism: The Hearst Press and Parnell Thomas; The Hiss Case and the Mindszenty Trial; 1950: The Alliance Forms; 1951-52: The Alliance at High Noon; 1953: The Alliance Cracks; 1954: Fragmentation; 1955-57: The Reign of Silence; Epilogue: McCarthy as Redbaiter An Inquiry.

Jim Tuck's History 666

New Millennium Press

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Books by Tuck, Jim