David Guest

David Guest, born David Haden-Guest on 6 January 1911, was a British mathematician and Marxist philosopher. He was the son of Leslie Haden-Guest, 1st Baron Haden-Guest, and Muriel Ethel Carmel Goldsmid. Guest studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the University of Göttingen, where he became involved in anti-fascist activities and joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1931. He was part of a notable communist cell at Cambridge. After graduating in 1932, he became active in the Young Communist League and worked at the People's Bookshop and the Marx Memorial Workers' School. He also taught mathematics at University College, Southampton. In 1938, Guest volunteered for the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. He was killed in action on 26 July 1938, during the Battle of the Ebro, at the age of 27. His lecture notes were posthumously published as 'A Textbook of Dialectical Materialism' in 1939.