George Hanna (translator)

Last updated

George Hanna (died c. 1962) was the British Communist, who worked in Russia as a translator for the Foreign Languages Publishing House and also Radio Moscow. He was imprisoned by the Stalinist regime, during the 1940s, and after about 10 years in prison was released in 1957. [1] He celebrated his release with a party at the Hotel Astoria in Gorky Street, Moscow. Sam Russell, Moscow correspondent of the Daily Worker attended the party. [1]

Hanna translated a great deal of the works of Lenin, for example, his revisions of What Is to Be Done? were incorporated into the revised translation included in the English edition of Lenin's Complete Works. [2]

He also wrote:

Related Research Articles

Leninism Communist ideology and state ideology of socialist states

Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party, as the political prelude to the establishment of communism. The function of the Leninist vanguard party is to provide the working classes with the political consciousness and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism in the Russian Empire (1721–1917). Leninist revolutionary leadership is based upon The Communist Manifesto (1848) identifying the communist party as "the most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country; that section which pushes forward all others." As the vanguard party, the Bolsheviks viewed history through the theoretical framework of dialectical materialism, which sanctioned political commitment to the successful overthrow of capitalism, and then to instituting socialism; and, as the revolutionary national government, to realize the socio-economic transition by all means.

August Bebel German social democrat politician (1840-1913)

Ferdinand August Bebel was a German socialist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) in 1869, which in 1875 merged with the General German Workers' Association into the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD). During the repression under the terms of the Anti-Socialist Laws, Bebel became the leading figure of the social democratic movement in Germany and from 1892 until his death served as chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

Varlam Shalamov Russian chronicler of the gulags

Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov, baptized as Varlaam, was a Russian writer, journalist, poet and Gulag survivor. He spent much of the period from 1937 to 1951 imprisoned in forced-labor camps in the Arctic region of Kolyma, due in part to his support of Leon Trotsky and praise of the anti-Soviet writer Ivan Bunin. In 1946, near death, he became a medical assistant while still a prisoner. He remained in that role for the duration of his sentence, then for another two years after being released, until 1953.

Chinghiz Aitmatov Soviet and Kyrgyz author (1928-2008)

Chinghiz Torekulovich Aitmatov was a Kyrgyz author who wrote mainly in Russian, but also in Kyrgyz. He is one of the best known figures in Kyrgyzstan's literature.

Dmitry Antonovich Volkogonov was a Soviet and Russian historian and colonel general who was head of the Soviet military's psychological warfare department. After research in secret Soviet archives, he published biographies of Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, among others. Despite being a committed Stalinist and Marxist–Leninist ideologue for most of his career, Volkogonov came to repudiate communism and the Soviet system within the last decade of his life before his death from cancer in 1995.

Philosophy in the Soviet Union was officially confined to Marxist–Leninist thinking, which theoretically was the basis of objective and ultimate philosophical truth. During the 1920s and 1930s, other tendencies of Russian thought were repressed. Joseph Stalin enacted a decree in 1931 identifying dialectical materialism with Marxism–Leninism, making it the official philosophy which would be enforced in all Communist states and, through the Comintern, in most Communist parties. Following the traditional use in the Second International, opponents would be labeled as "revisionists".

Progress Publishers

Progress Publishers was a Moscow-based Soviet publisher founded in 1931.

Yedinstvo or Edinstvo was a faction within the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) between 1914 and 1917 and then a small independent party in 1917 and 1918. It was led by Georgi Plekhanov.

The Group of Democratic Centralism, sometimes called the Group of 15, the Decists, or the Decemists, was a dissenting faction within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the early 1920s.

Alexander Serafimovich Russian and Soviet writer

Alexander Serafimovich was a Russian/Soviet writer and a member of the Moscow literary group Sreda.

Vladimir Lenins Hanging Order Russian Civil War

The Hanging Order is a name given by the U.S. Library of Congress to Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin's telegram on suppressing the kulak revolt in the Penza Gubernia region. The telegram was addressed to Penza Communists Vasily Kurayev, Yevgenia Bosch and Alexander Minkin and dated 11 August 1918.

Joe Fineberg (1886–1957) was a prominent translator for the Communist International. He produced English translations of works by Alexander Bogdanov, Nikolay Dobrolyubov, Ilya Ehrenburg, Vladimir Lenin, Boris Polevoy, Leo Tolstoy and others.

Margaret (Peg) Wettlin (1907-2003) was an American-born Soviet memoirist and translator, best known for her translations of Russian literature. While living in Russia, she was forced into spying for its secret service.

Omana and Moscow Gopalakrishnan

Omana (1936–2003)and "Moscow" Gopalakrishnan (1930–2011) was an Indian husband and wife duo noted for their translations of Russian books into Malayalam language. These translations are sometimes regarded as the best example of children's literature in Malayalam published in the later half of the 20th century. The couple, introducing Russian literature to Kerala, translated nearly 200 books into Malayalam with simple prose and diction.

Georgi Plekhanov Russian philosopher (1856–1918)

Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov was a Russian revolutionary, philosopher and Marxist theoretician. He was a founder of the social-democratic movement in Russia and was one of the first Russians to identify himself as "Marxist". Facing political persecution, Plekhanov emigrated to Switzerland in 1880, where he continued in his political activity attempting to overthrow the Tsarist regime in Russia. Plekhanov is known as the "father of Russian Marxism".

Russian Constituent Assembly Legislature of the Russian Republic

The All Russian Constituent Assembly was a constitutional body convened in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917. It met for 13 hours, from 4 p.m. to 5 a.m., 18–19 January [O.S. 5–6 January] 1918, whereupon it was dissolved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, making the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets the new governing body of Russia.

Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine and tradition within socialism which stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary in order to bring about structural changes to society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for a transition from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production. Revolution is not necessarily defined as a violent insurrection; it is defined as seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the state is directly controlled or abolished by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests.

In the context of the theory of Leninist revolutionary struggle, vanguardism involves a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form organizations in order to draw larger sections of the working class towards revolutionary politics and serve as manifestations of proletarian political power opposed to the bourgeois.

Socialism in one country was a theory put forth by Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin in 1924, which was eventually adopted by the Soviet Union as state policy.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1917, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. Based in Marxism, his political theories are known as Leninism.

References

  1. 1 2 Durham, Michael (1992). "Russians wrong about Briton who 'died in Stalin camp'". The Independent. No. 6 September 1992.
  2. Lih, Lars T. (2006). Lenin Rediscovered: What Is to Be Done? in Context. leiden: BRILL. ISBN   9789004131200.