Rajani Palme Dutt
Rajani Palme Dutt (19 June 1896 – 20 December 1974), best known as R. Palme Dutt, was a leading journalist and theoretician in the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Biography
Early years
Rajani Palme Dutt was born in 1896 on Mill Road in Cambridge, England. His father, Upendra Dutt, was an Indian surgeon, his mother Anna Palme was Swedish; he was thus half-Bengali and half-Swedish. Anna Palme was a great aunt of the future Prime Minister of Sweden Olof Palme.
Dutt was educated at The Perse School, Cambridge and Balliol College, Oxford, where he obtained a first class degree in classics after having been suspended for a time due to his status as a conscientious objector in World War I.
Dutt married an Estonian, Salme Murrik, the sister of Finnish writer Hella Wuolijoki, in 1922. His wife had come to Great Britain in 1920 as a representative of the Communist International.
Political career
Dutt joined the Labour Research Department, a left wing statistical bureau, in 1919. The following year, he joined the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and in 1921 founded a monthly magazine called Labour Monthly, a publication which he edited until his death.
