Hugo Dewar

Hugo Dewar (9 August 1908 – June 1980) was an author, poet, and political activist influential in co-founding two of the earliest British Trotskyist groups.

Dewar was born in Leyton in London in 1908.[1] He joined the Independent Labour Party in 1928, and in 1930 co-founded the Marxian League (aka Marxist League).[2] He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1931, but was expelled the following year. He was one of the founders in 1932 of the Communist League, and remained active in International Left Opposition groups until he was drafted into the army in 1943.[3] He worked as an adult education tutor.

In 1946, Dewar stood unsuccessfully for the ILP in the Battersea North by-election.

In early 1938 in London, Dewar married Margareta Watzova (1901-1995), a fellow Communist and Trotskyist, who had been born in Latvia in the Russian Empire.[4]

Dewar died in West Sussex in 1980.

  1. ^ "Papers of Hugo Dewar (1908-1980), Trotskyist". mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  2. ^ Alexander, Robert Jackson.International Trotskyism, 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement. Duke University Press, 1991, p438
  3. ^ "Papers of Hugo Dewar, Trotskyist (1871-1891)". Trotskyist Sources at the Modern Records Centre. Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. Retrieved 6 May 2009.
  4. ^ "Logie Barrow: Obituary - Margaret Dewar (1901-1995)".