Bernard Emile Vivian Burns (16 April 1889 – 29 November 1972) was a British communist, economist, translator and author as an active member of the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

Early life and family

Emile Burns was born in

Basseterre Basseterre (; Saint Kitts Creole: ''Basterre'') is the Capital (political), capital and largest city of Saint Kitts and Nevis with an estimated population of 14,000 in 2018. Geographically, the Basseterre port is located at , on the south-wester ...

St Kitts Saint Kitts, officially Saint Christopher, is an island in the West Indies. The west side of the island borders the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern coast faces the Atlantic Ocean. Saint Kitts and the neighbouring island of Nevis constitute one ...

, on 29 November 1889, the son of James Patrick Burns, the Treasurer and Harbour Master of St. Kitts and Nevis. He had three brothers,

Cecil Cecil may refer to: People with the name * Cecil (given name), a given name (including a list of people and fictional characters with the name) * Cecil (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) Places Canada * Cecil, Alberta ...

, Robert and

Alan Alan may refer to: People *Alan (surname), an English and Kurdish surname * Alan (given name), an English given name ** List of people with given name Alan ''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.'' * ...

, and one sister, Agnes. As a child, he and other boys would often swim out to the ships that were too big to come into the harbour, black and white boys played and swam together. However, once they reached their teens they were no longer allowed to play together. Burns attended

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

to study economics. While there, he met Elinor Enfield, and the two married in Nottinghamshire in 1913. Their first daughter, Susannah, was born 11 September 1914, and Marca was born on 4 January 1916. At this time Emile Burns was working for

Cunard The Cunard Line ( ) is a British shipping and an international cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its four ships have been r ...

, but was also serving on a national committee enquiring into poverty, which had been set up by

Eleanor Rathbone Eleanor Florence Rathbone (12 May 1872 – 2 January 1946) was an independent British Member of Parliament (MP) and long-term campaigner for family allowance and for women's rights. She was a member of the noted Rathbone family of Liverpool. ...

, and which published ''Equal Pay and the Family: A Proposal for the National Endowment of Motherhood''. The family moved to London sometime after April 1918 but prior to the end of World War I.

Politics

Emile and Elinor were both members of the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse work ...

, Emile joining the

(CPGB) in 1921, followed by Elinor in 1923. Emile found work as the secretary of the

Labour Research Department The Labour Research Department (LRD) is an independent trade union based research organisation, based in London, that provides information to support trade union activity and campaigns. About 2,000 trade union organisations, including 51 national ...

, except during the

UK general strike The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government ...

, when he worked as propaganda secretary of the St Pancras

Trades Council A labour council, trades council or industrial council is an association of trade union, labour unions or local union, union branches in a given area. Most commonly, they represent unions in a given geographical area, whether at the district, city, ...

. Emile was a supporter of the London busmen's

rank and file Rank and file may refer to: *A military term relating to the horizontal " ranks" (rows) and vertical " files" (columns) of individual foot-soldiers, exclusive of the officers *A term derived from the above used to refer to enlisted troops, as oppo ...

movement in the 1930s, and edited its newspaper, ''The Busmen's Punch''. In 1935, he was elected to the CPGB's executive, ultimately serving for more than twenty years. He held many positions within the party, most focusing on cultural or educational activity, including a spell as head of the party's propaganda department. He spent a period as editor of the ''Communist Review'', and was later editor of the ''World News''. In the early 1950s, he did much of the preparation work for the party's new programme, the '' British Road to Socialism''. Burns translated both political and non-political writings from Russian, French and German into English, including

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.Anti-Dühring ''Anti-Dühring'' (, "Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science") is a book by Friedrich Engels, first published in German in 1877 in parts and then in 1878 in book form. It had previously been serialised in the newspaper '' Vorwärts.'' There ...

'', and parts of

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

's ''

Theories of Surplus Value ''Theories of Surplus Value'' () is a draft manuscript written by Karl Marx between January 1862 and July 1863. It is mainly concerned with the Western Europe, Western European theorizing about ''Mehrwert'' (added value or surplus value) from abo ...

''. He wrote works of his own including ''Handbook of Marxism'', ''What is Marxism'' and ''Introduction to Marxism'', successive basic explanations of Marxism.

Books and pamphlets

:''Finance; an introductory course for classes and study circles'' 1922 :''Imperialism: an outline course for students classes and study circles'' 1927 :''Agriculture'' by H. B. Pointing and E. Burns 1927 :''Russia's Productive System'' 1930 :''The 2 classes'' in 1931 :''The only way out'' 1932 :''Capitalism, communism, and the transition'' 1933 :''What Is The Communist Party?'' 1933 :''The Roosevelt Illusion'' by Burns, Emile & Roy, F M 1934 :''Karl Liebknecht'' 1934 : ''A Handbook of Marxism'' 1935 :''Abyssinia and Italy'' 1935 :''Spain'' 1936 :''The People's Front'' 1936 :''Difficulties Facing Peace'' 1936 :''Money'' ~ The New People's Library Volume I 1937 :''Communist Affiliation Pamphlet'' – 1937 :''What Is Marxism?'' 1 Jan 1939 :''Party Organiser'' (CPGB) November 1939 (pamphlet) : ''Mr. Keynes Answered : an Examination'' ''of the Keynes Plan'' 1940 :''The Soviet Union and Finland'' (pamphlet) 1940 :''Labour's Way Forward'' 1942 :''Jobs, Homes, Security: Post-war Britain and the Way to Socialism'' (pamphlet) 1944 :''The Case for Affiliation: The Labour Party and the Communist Party'' 1943 :''The Fight for Labours Programme'' 1946 :''The Soviet Transition from Socialism to Communism'' 1950 :''The Meaning of Socialism'' 1950 : ''Introduction to Marxism'' Dec 1961 : ''Right-wing Labour: Its theory and Practice'' 1961 :''Communism: Your Questions Answered'' 1963 :''President Nkrumah on Neo-Colonialism'' 1966 (pamphlet) : ''Money and Inflation'' 1968 :''Winning the peace'' :''The Triumph of Communism: Communist Manifesto Centenary Speech'' :''The World of to-Day: Modern Finance'' :''The Marxist Reader: The Most Significant and Enduring Works of Marxism''

References

External links

Emile Burns Archive
at Marxists.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Burns, Emile 1889 births 1972 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Communist Party of Great Britain members People from Basseterre