David Shub

David Shub Давид Натанович Шуб (13 September 1887 – 27 May 1973) was a social democrat activist, journalist and historian.

In 1930 he wrote the lead article on Stalin, probably the first authoritative profile to appear in the American press, for The New York Times Magazine (22 March 1930). His 1948 biography of Lenin has been reprinted over sixteen times, described as "indispensable to the student of contemporary history, of Russia, and of social revolution".

Biography

David Shub was born and educated in Potov (Yiddish name for Postavy), Vilna district, Russian Empire, now in Belarus. Arrested for activity in the 1905 Russian revolution and exiled to Siberia in 1906, Shub escaped to the United States in 1907.

In 1904-1905 he lived in London, Paris, and Geneva, where he often met with leaders of the Social Democratic Party, both Menshevik and Bolshevik, including Lenin, Georgi Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod, Vera Zasulich, Alexander Bogdanov, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich, Julius Martov, Alexander Potresov, and Fyodor Dan.

David was an editor of the Jewish Daily Forward for 45 years, joining the editing board in 1924. He wrote and solicited articles about the international Socialist movement.

He retired in 1969, though he continued to contribute articles in Yiddish and Russian in other publications for the rest of his life.

He died on May 27, 1973, in a Miami Beach hospital from complications following a series of heart attacks. He was survived by a daughter, Mona (a social worker), with whom he lived; a son Anatole Shub, editor of Radio Free Europe, and three grandchildren.

Books

• Lenin, der mentsh, der revolutsyoner un diḳtaṭor, a politishe byografye fun dem komunizm (Lenin, the man, the revolutionary, and dictator, a political biography of Communism) (New York: Veker, 1928), 234 pp.
  • Shub, David (1948). Donald Porter Geddes (ed.). Lenin: A Biography (16 ed.). New York: Mentor Books.
  • Shub, David (1966). Lenin: A Biography (revised ed.). London: Pelican.
• Heldn un martirer, di geshikhte fun di amolike groyse rusishe revolutsyonern un fun zeyer heroishn kamf far frayhayt (Heroes and martyrs, the history of the great Russian revolutionaries of the past and of their heroic struggle for freedom) (Warsaw: Kh. Bzshoza, 1939), 580 pp.
  • Hebrew translation by M. Benayahu as Haloḥamim leḥerut (The fighters for freedom) (Tel Aviv: M. Nyuman, 1945/1946), 216 pp.
• Fashizm un komunizm, vi azoy moskve hot geholfn brengen fashizm un natsizm af der velt (Fascism and Communism, how Moscow helped bring fascism and Nazism to the world) (New York: Veker, 1939), 48 pp.
• Fun di amolike yorn, bletlekh zikhroynes (From years past, pages of memoirs) (New York, 1967), 2 vols., awarded a prize from the Khanin Foundation in 1970
• Sotsyale denker un kemfer (Social thinkers and fighters) (Mexico City: Shloyme Mendelson Fund, 1968), 2 vols

References

• Gibson, Hugh S. (1948). "Editor's Note". Lenin: A Biography. By Shub, David (revised ed.). New York: Mentor Books.

External links

• David Shub, from the Jewish Virtual Library