Maurice Levitas

Maurice Levitas (February 1, 1917-February 14, 2001) was an Ireland-born academic and communist. Levitas was involved with the Communist Party of Great Britain and was a Marxist-Lenininist throughout his political life. He was involved in military activity; first becoming involved with Comintern's International Brigades against the Nationalist insurgency during the Spanish Civil War and then during the Second World War, as a British citizen, he joined the British Army's Royal Army Medical Corps. After the War, he remained involved in Communist politics and also became a sociology lecturer at Durham University. In the 1980s, he relocated to the Eastern Bloc, teaching in East Germany, where he edited and translated a book on German politician Erich Honecker titled ''Erich Honecker Cross Examined''.

Biography

Levitas was born at Warren Street, in Portobello, Dublin. He was known to his family and friends as "Morry". His parents, Harry Levitas and Leah Rick, having emigrated to Ireland from Lithuania and Latvia in 1912, were married in the Camden Street Synagogue in Dublin. Harry Levitas was a member of the Tailors and Pressers Union, known in Dublin as the ''Jewish Union''. Maurice attended St Peter's Church of Ireland National School.
In 1927, when Morry was 10 years old, the family emigrated to Britain, first to Glasgow then to London where Maurice later joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1933. He was also an active trade unionist and he and his brothers Max and Sol, were involved in the 1936 ‘ Battle of Cable Street’ against the British Union of Fascists.

In 1937, he joined the Connolly Column of the International Brigade and fought in the Spanish Civil War.Irish Times Obituary, by Padraig Yeates Saturday, 24 February 2001 He was captured in 1938 and released in February 1939.

In 1942, Levitas enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps and served in India and Burma. In 1948, having resumed employment as a plumber, he was offered a place in an emergency Teachers' Training College. In 1964, Levitas graduated with an honours degree in sociology from the University of London and became a senior lecturer in the sociology of education at Durham University.

He remained an ardent Marxist–Leninist and a supporter of the Soviet Union, remaining a Communist Party member. This was tested by the invasion of Czechoslovakia to put down the Prague Spring of 1968. He emigrated to East Germany in 1985 to work as an English teacher. Later he edited a book on German politician Erich Honecker titled ''Erich Honecker Cross Examined''.

He attended the commemoration of the Connolly Column in 1991 in Liberty Hall, Dublin, where he was chosen to read out the list of members. He also attended, in 1997, a ceremony in the Mansion House, Dublin by the Lord Mayor of Dublin of the surviving Irish members of the International Brigade. He returned to England in 1990 following the fall of the Berlin Wall. He died in London on 14 February 2001.

His brother Max Levitas (1 June 1915 – 2 November 2018) was Communist councillor for 15 years in Stepney in London. His daughter is the sociologist Ruth Levitas and his son is the theatre historian Ben Levitas.

See also

* George Nathan
* Charlie Hutchison
* Bill Alexander
* Thora Silverthorne
* Ralph Winston Fox

Publications

* ''Marxist Perspectives in the Sociology of Education'' by Maurice Levitas (1974)
* ''Erich Honecker Cross Examined'' edited and translated by Maurice Levitas(1992)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levitas, Maurice
1917 births
2001 deaths
Academics of Durham University
Alumni of the University of London
International Brigades personnel
Irish Jews
Irish anti-fascists
Irish communists
Irish people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
Irish people of the Spanish Civil War
Irish sociologists
People from Portobello, Dublin
Royal Army Medical Corps soldiers
Irish emigrants to the United Kingdom
20th-century Irish Jews