Editing Isaac Deutscher (section)

==Move to Britain and journalism (1939–1947)==

In April 1939, Deutscher left Poland for [[London]] as a correspondent for a Polish-Jewish newspaper for which he had worked as a proof reader for fourteen years.<ref name=TD68/> This move saved his life and paved the way for his future career. He never returned to Poland and never saw any of his family again. He became a [[United Kingdom|British]] subject in 1949, taking his oath of allegiance on 12 May 1949.<ref>London Gazette 21 June 1949 [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/38647/page/3062 London Gazette].</ref>

Germany [[Invasion of Poland|invaded Poland]] in September 1939 and Deutscher's connection with his newspaper was severed. He taught himself [[English language|English]] and began writing for English magazines. He was soon a regular correspondent for the leading weekly ''[[The Economist]]''. He joined the [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] [[Revolutionary Socialist League (UK, 1938)|Revolutionary Workers League]]. In 1940, he joined the [[Polish Armed Forces in the West|Polish Army]] in Scotland, but was interned as a dangerous subversive. Released in 1942, he joined the staff of ''The Economist'' and became its expert on Soviet affairs and military issues, and its chief European correspondent. He also wrote for ''[[The Observer]]'' as a roving European correspondent under the pen-name "Peregrine".<ref name=TD68/> He was one of the so-called Shanghai Club (named after a restaurant in Soho) of left-leaning and emigre journalists that included [[Sebastian Haffner]] (also on ''The Observer''), [[E. H. Carr]], [[George Orwell]], [[Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth|Barbara Ward]] and [[Jon Kimche]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Koutsopanagou|first=Gioula|title=The British Press and the Greek Crisis, 1943–1949: Orchestrating the Cold-War 'Consensus' in Britain|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2020|isbn=978-1137551559|location=London|pages=52–53}}</ref>

He left journalism in 1946–47 to write books.<ref name=TD68/> Deutscher's name (with the remark "Sympathiser only") subsequently appeared on [[Orwell's list]], a list of people (including many writers and journalists) which [[George Orwell]] prepared in March 1949 for the [[Information Research Department]] (IRD), a propaganda unit set up at the [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office|Foreign Office]] by the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] government. Orwell considered the listed people to have pro-communist leanings and therefore to be inappropriate to write for the IRD.<ref name="The New York Review of Books">[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16550 "Orwell's List" by Timothy Garton Ash.] ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'' Volume 50, Number 14. 25 September 2003.</ref>