Editing Isaac Deutscher (section)

==Early life and communist involvement in Poland==

Deutscher was born in [[Chrzanów]], a town in the [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Galicia]] region of the [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian Empire]] (now in southern [[Poland]]), into a family of religiously observant [[Jews]]. He studied with a [[Hasidic Judaism|Hasidic]] [[rebbe]] and was acclaimed as a prodigy in the study of the [[Torah]] and the [[Talmud]].<ref>Deutscher, Isaac. ''The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays'', Introduction.</ref> He lived through three [[pogrom]]s in 1918 that followed the collapse of the [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian empire]].<ref>Deutscher, Isaac. ''The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays'', pp. 33-34.</ref> By the time of his [[Bar and Bat Mitzvah|bar mitzvah]], however, he had lost his faith. He "tested God" by eating non-[[Kashrut|kosher]] food at the grave of a [[tzadik]] (holy person) on [[Yom Kippur]]. When nothing happened, he became an [[atheism|atheist]]. Deutscher first attracted notice as a poet, when he began publishing poems in Polish literary periodicals at the age of sixteen. His verse, in [[Yiddish]] and [[Polish language|Polish]], concerned Jewish and Polish [[mysticism]], history and mythology, and he attempted to bridge the gulf between the Polish and Yiddish cultures. He also translated poetry from [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], [[Latin]], [[German language|German]], and Yiddish into Polish.<ref>David Caute, ''Isaac and Isaiah: The Covert Punishment of a Cold War Heretic'', pp. 1–35. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013.</ref>

Deutscher studied literature, history, and philosophy as an extramural student at the [[Jagiellonian University]] in [[Kraków]].<ref name=TD68/> Soon he left Kraków for [[Warsaw]], where he studied philosophy, economics and [[Marxism]]. Around 1927, he joined the illegal [[Communist Party of Poland]] (KPP) and became the editor of the party's underground press.<ref name=TD68/> He wrote for the Jewish ''[[Nasz Przegląd]]'' ("Our Review") and for the Marxist ''Miesięcznik Literacki'' ("The Literary Monthly").<ref name="Caviar and Ashes 68">[[Marci Shore]], Caviar and Ashes, p. 68. [[Yale University Press]], New Haven, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-300-14328-7}}.</ref> In 1931 he toured the [[Soviet Union]], seeing the economic conditions under the first [[Five-year plans for the national economy of the Soviet Union|Five Year Plan]]. The [[Moscow State University|University of Moscow]] and the [[Belarusian State University|University of Minsk]] offered him posts as professor of history of [[socialism]] and of [[Marxist philosophy|Marxist theory]], but he declined the offers and returned to Poland.<ref name=TD68/> Deutscher co-founded the first anti-[[Stalinism|Stalinist]] group in the Communist Party of Poland, protesting the party view that [[Nazism]] and [[social democracy]] were "not antipodes but twins."<ref name=TD68/> This contradicted the then [[Third Period|official communist line]], according to which social democrats were "[[Social fascism|social fascists]]", the greatest enemies of the [[communist party]]. In an article "The Danger of Barbarism over Europe", Deutscher urged the formation of a [[united front]] of socialists and [[communism|communists]] against Nazism. He was expelled from the KPP in 1932, officially for "exaggerating the danger of Nazism and spreading panic in the communist ranks."<ref name=TD68>Tamara Deutscher (1968), [http://www.deutscherprize.org.uk/Isaac%20&%20Tamara%20Deutscher.htm "Isaac Deutscher 1907 – 1967"], Preface to ''The Non-Jewish Jew & Other Essays''.</ref><ref>David Caute, ''Isaac and Isaiah'', pp. 99–106.</ref>