Husain al Radi

Husain al-Radi was an Iraqi communist politician, poet and painter. He was the leader of the Iraqi Communist Party from 1955 until his death by execution or under torture after the Baathist coup in 1963¹. He was born into a Shia Muslim family of sayyids in southern Iraq in 1924. His father was a junior clerk in a flour mill. Al-Radi trained as a teacher at the Elementary Teachers' College in Baghdad, where he first came into contact with the Communist Party in 1943. After graduating, he was appointed to a school in Diwaniya but was dismissed in 1946 on account of his political activities. He then moved to Baghdad, where he made a living selling grilled meat on the streets¹. He was arrested at a demonstration and imprisoned in 1949. On his release in 1951, he was appointed comrade in charge of the southern division of the Iraqi Communist Party, and in 1953 he became a member of the party's Central Committee. In that year, he represented Iraq at the second London Conference of Communist Parties in the Sphere of British Imperialism. He opposed the far-left line of the party secretary Hamid Uthman and advocated for a more moderate policy, focused on an alliance with all potential progressive and national forces. He was recalled by the Central Committee in June 1955, after it removed Uthman from the secretariat. He became the party secretary and led the party through a period of mass mobilization and popular support. He also participated in the 1958 revolution that overthrew the monarchy and established a republic. He was a member of the National Council of the Revolutionary Command and a close ally of Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim. He advocated for a democratic and socialist Iraq, and opposed the interference of foreign powers. He also wrote poems and painted, expressing his political and social views. He was married to Thamina Naji Youssef, a fellow communist and feminist activist. They had three children, Iman, Shatha and Ali. He was arrested along with many other communists after the Baathist coup of 1963. He was tortured and killed by the regime, although the official cause of death was announced as hanging. He is remembered as a martyr and a hero by the Iraqi communists and the progressive forces in Iraq¹.