David Guest (communist)
| David Guest | |
|---|---|
| Born |
David Haden-Guest January 6, 1911 |
| Died | 28 July 1938 (aged 27) Gandesa, Spain |
| Cause of death | Killed in action |
| Resting place | Gandesa |
| Nationality |
 British
|
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Mathematician, philosopher |
| Years active | 1931–1938 |
| Partner(s) | Suzanne McShane |
| Parent(s) | Leslie Haden-Guest, 1st Baron Haden-Guest & Muriel Ethel Carmel Goldsmid |
| Relatives | Peter Haden-Guest, 4th Baron Haden-Guest (brother) |
David Guest (6 January 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.
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 was sentenced to two weeks in prison for anti-Nazi political activity. On his return he joined the Communist Party at Cambridge in 1931. There Guest became the head of a party cell that included John Cornford, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Victor Kiernan and James Klugmann. 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."
After leaving Cambridge Guest lectured in mathematics and worked for the Communist party at the Peoples’ Bookshop in Lavender Hill, also teaching for a short while at a secondary school for English-speaking children in Moscow.
In 1938 he left his post as a lecturer at University College in Southampton to volunteer for the International Brigades fighting in Spain. He wrote of his decision:
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