David Guest (communist)

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David Guest
Born David Haden-Guest
1911
Died 28 July 1938 (aged 26–27)
Gandesa, Spain
Cause of death Killed in action
Nationality United Kingdom British
Alma mater Trinity College, Cambridge
Occupation Mathematician, philosopher
Years active 1932–1938
Parent(s) 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

  1. Biography of David Guest
  2. Phillip Knightley, Philby: KGB Masterspy (1988) page 32
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External links

Further reading

  • Guest, Carmel Hayden (1939) David Guest - A Scientist Fights For Freedom 1911-1938, Lawrence and Wishart.