David Guest (communist)
David Guest | |
|---|---|
| Born | David Haden-Guest 1911 |
| Died | 28 July 1938 (aged 26–27) |
| Cause of death | Killed in action |
| Nationality |  British |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Occupation(s) | Mathematician, philosopher |
| Years active | 1932-1938 |
| Parent | Leslie Haden-Guest, 1st Baron Haden-Guest & Muriel Ethel Carmel Goldsmid |
| Relatives | Peter Haden-Guest, 4th Baron Haden-Guest (brother) |
David Guest (1911– 28 July 1938) was a Communist British mathematician and philosopher who volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War and was killed in Spain in 1938.
Biography
Guest was the son of Leslie Haden-Guest, 1st Baron Haden-Guest. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1929 and studied from 1930 to 1931 in Göttingen in Germany, where he became involved in anti-Nazi politics, and joined the Communist Party at Cambridge in 1931.
He became the head of a cell that included John Cornford, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Victor Kiernan and James Klugmann. [1] This enabled dons such as Maurice Dobb and John Bernal to take a back-seat. It was claimed that David Guest would "stride into hall at Trinity wearing a hammer and sickle pin in his lapel." [2]
After leaving Cambridge he lectured in mathematics and worked for the Communist party, even teaching in a secondary school for English-speaking children in Moscow.
In 1938 he left work as a lecturer at University College in Southampton to volunteer for the International Brigade fighting in Spain. He wrote of his decision:
- Today we have certainly entered a period of crisis, when the arguments of 'normal times' no longer apply, when considerations of most immediate usefulness come in. That is why I have decided to take the opportunity of going to Spain.
On 28 July 1938[3][4] during the Battle of the Ebro David Guest was killed on Hill 481[5] at Gandesa by a sniper as he read a newspaper.[6][7]
After his death, notes he had made while lecturing at the Marx Memorial Workers' School were published as A Text Book of Dialectical Materialism in 1939.
Publications
- Guest, David, (1939) A Text Book Of Dialectical Materialism, Lawrence And Wishart (republished as Lectures On Marxist Philosophy (1963))
References
- ^ Biography of David Guest
- ^ Phillip Knightley, Philby: KGB Masterspy (1988) page 32
- ^ Sugarman, Martin (2012). "Against Fascism - Jews who served in The International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War" (PDF). Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 6 April 2012.
- ^ Carmody, Jim; Baxell, Richard (2012). "List of those who died in Spain". International Brigade Memorial Trust. Retrieved 6 April 2012.
- ^ Jenkins, Nicholas (2012). "David Haden-Guest". W.H. Auden - Family Ghosts. Retrieved 6 April 2012.
- ^ Beaumont, Peter (1 May 2005). "Forgotten warriors return to battle sites". The Guardian. London: GMG. ISSN 0261-3077. OCLC 60623878. Retrieved 6 April 2012.
- ^ "TEACHER KILLED IN SPAIN - David Guest, British Communist, Fought With Loyalists". The New York Times. 7 August 1938. Retrieved 6 April 2012.
External links
- Template:Worldcat id
- Walker, Michael. "David Guest". A Compendium of Communist Biographies.
Further reading
- Guest, Carmel Hayden (1939) David Guest - A Scientist Fights For Freedom 1911-1938, Lawrence and Wishart.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
- 1911 births
- 1938 deaths
- 20th-century British mathematicians
- Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
- British Jews
- British Marxists
- British people of the Spanish Civil War
- British philosophers
- Communist Party of Great Britain members
- International Brigades personnel
- Jewish philosophers
- Military personnel killed in the Spanish Civil War