Socialists and 'socialists' language skills

[CatsAttack]

Let's post the language skills of various political figures. I'll start with a few.

1. Stalin; spoke Georgian (native language) and accented Russian. Tried to learn German but quickly gave up.

2. Mao; spoke the Hunan dialect of Chinese (native language) had trouble with Mandarin, the national language. Didn't speak a word of any other language although had an English tutor.

3. Che Guevara; Spanish (native language) and spoke French. Spent some time in the US, had terrible English, never learned it.

Now these are easy ones, it gets trickier with people who spoke many languages, like Marx and Lenin. Can someone post which languages they and other political figures knew?

[CatsAttack]

I'm interested which languages Kim il-Sung knew. He spent many years in the Chinese party, spent some time in Russia as well. Does anyone know? There must be some sources for this from all his meetings with the Russians and Chinese.

[CatsAttack]

Fidel Castro: Spanish (native language) and English, although very shy to speak it. Perhaps not at a high level since he insists all English books be translated to Spanish before he reads them. Good command and comprehension of conversational English nonetheless.

[Brutus]

Stalin learnt English by listening to church sermons.
Lenin spoke German, French and English, (plus his native Russian) and was willing to lecture in all bar English.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Didn't Engels speak like about 2 million languages or something?

[CatsAttack]

Didn't Engels speak like about 2 million languages or something?

Engels wrote freely in English, French, Italian; he read Spanish and almost all Slavic and Scandinavian languages.

-Trotksy

[Pirx]

As far as I know Stalin as a Russian Orthodox seminarian had to learn Old Greek. Later on he was reading Plato in original language.

[CatsAttack]

As far as I know Stalin as a Russian Orthodox seminarian had to learn Old Greek. Later on he was reading Plato in original language.

Your assertion is laughable. I like how you prefaced it though.

Stalin had issues constructing grammatically correct phrases in Russian. He sure as hell wasn't reading Plato in the original.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Before this thread derails with some outrage over Stalin's language skills, this thread reminds me of a something I recently read in one of Marx' letters:

"As a relaxation in the evenings I have been reading Appian on the Roman Civil Wars, in the original Greek text. A very valuable book."

[CatsAttack]

Deng XiaoPing: Sichuan dialect of Chinese (native language), terrible mandarin. Studied in France yet spoke no French.

Add him to the ignorant pile of bumpkins.

[slum]

Before this thread derails with some outrage over Stalin's language skills, this thread reminds me of a something I recently read in one of Marx' letters:

"As a relaxation in the evenings I have been reading Appian on the Roman Civil Wars, in the original Greek text. A very valuable book."

Appian was ethnically Greek (altho born in Egypt), and even if he were not, it was not unusual for Roman authors to write in Greek rather than Latin

Marx as Classicist interests me. where are his letters published?

[CatsAttack]

Appian was ethnically Greek (altho born in Egypt), and even if he were not, it was not unusual for Roman authors to write in Greek rather than Latin

Marx as Classicist interests me. where are his letters published?

Complete works of M&E, several volumes dedicated to letters.

[Bostana]

I thought Engels knew exactly nine languages

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

They also are on MIA.

[International_Solidarity]

3. Che Guevara; Spanish (native language) and spoke French. Spent some time in the US, had terrible English, never learned it.

Che also studied Russian at the Russian Embassy while in Mexico, however he had to learn from a French-Russian textbook, as no Spanish-Russian existed. And he also enrolled in Russian language classes which were organized in Cuba after that Revolution. The text that I have doesn't state whether he ever gained fluency or not, just that he studied it thoroughly.

Source:
Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by John Lee Anderson.

Also, Trotsky spoke Russian and Ukrainian, and according to some sources he spoke French. He did speak at least a little English and a little Spanish during his lifetime, but wasn't fluent in either. Mixed sources stating his fluency/speaking of German.

[International_Solidarity]

Lenin spoke German, French and English, (plus his native Russian) and was willing to lecture in all bar English.
Lenin also knew Latin. It was his favorite class in his primary schooling. He attempted to teach it to his sister when they were both young.

[CatsAttack]

Che also studied Russian at the Russian Embassy while in Mexico, however he had to learn from a French-Russian textbook, as no Spanish-Russian existed. And he also enrolled in Russian language classes which were organized in Cuba after that Revolution. The text that I have doesn't state whether he ever gained fluency or not, just that he studied it thoroughly.

Source:
Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by John Lee Anderson.

Also, Trotsky spoke Russian and Ukrainian, and according to some sources he spoke French. He did speak at least a little English and a little Spanish during his lifetime, but wasn't fluent in either. Mixed sources stating his fluency/speaking of German.

Lets not post outright lies here mate.

1.Trotsky knew German, he lived in Vienna for over 10 years for goodness sakes. And he knew French and English although he spoke them with an accent. lol @ 'according to some sources he spoke french" theres video of him speaking french for goodness sakes.

2. Che did not speak a word of Russian, he was a fanboy bumpkin.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

2. Che did not speak a word of Russian, he was a fanboy bumpkin.

"Yo fuck this guy's sources I'm going to sling ad hominem at the topic because I'm right and fuck you."

[CatsAttack]

"Yo fuck this guy's sources I'm going to sling ad hominem at the topic because I'm right and fuck you."

Relax there mate. His source says Che tried to learn Russian, I do not doubt this and accept it as fact. Did he actually learn enough Russian to be to read a basic sentence or even engage in small talk? No, obviously he did not.

[Questionable]

holy shit i have never seen a topic this bad nor met a user as idiotic as CatsAttack.

i hope i got infracted for this post because it will illustrate even further how ineffective the moderation team is.

[Skyhilist]

Holy fuck can't there be a single discussion without counterproductive arguments? Seriously, this topic should be fucking harmless.

[L.A.P.]

Ho Chi Minh knew about five languages, I believe; Vietnamese, Russian, French, English, and Japanese

[CatsAttack]

Ho Chi Minh knew about five languages, I believe; Vietnamese, Russian, French, English, and Japanese

You need to replace Japanese with Chinese there mate. He lived in China, was married to a Chinese, worked with Chinese, etc. Where you get Japanese from?

Ho Chi Ming is an interesting one. It's really hard to tell how many he spoke and their quality. He's on video speaking really great french, hardly surprising since Vietnam was a french colony and he even spent a bit of time in france. Now his russian is questionable, we need to find out, when he visited the SU, did he use a translator? I don't know. Theres also talk of Ho knowing some thai language. Also, you might be able to devide his Chinese into two languages, cantonese and mandarin, but its also possible that he only learned cantonese, as thats where he spent his time.

[International_Solidarity]

Lets not post outright lies here mate.

1.Trotsky knew German, he lived in Vienna for over 10 years for goodness sakes. And he knew French and English although he spoke them with an accent. lol @ 'according to some sources he spoke french" theres video of him speaking french for goodness sakes.

2. Che did not speak a word of Russian, he was a fanboy bumpkin.

Trotsky also lived in Mexico for many years but he never learned how to fully speak Spanish. He did speak some French, but he was never "good" at speaking another language. He actually stated in My Life that he only ever spoke Ukrainian and Russian fluently. Here is a quote from My Life by Leon Trotsky:


I managed to get four copies of the Bible in different languages. So I read the Gospels, verse by verse, with the help of the little knowledge of German and French that I had acquired in school, and side by side with this a parallel reading in English and Italian. In a few months, I made excellent progress in this way. I must admit, however, that my linguistic talents are very mediocre. Even now I do not know a single foreign language well, although I stayed for some time in various European countries.

I have seen videos of him speaking in various languages. Here he speaks in English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv--EVbmMys


I assumed that we were speaking about languages which they spoke fluently. Reading from a pre-made speech does not denote fluency. ¡Mira! Hablo Español.. I added in the little bit about Che hoping that someone knew whether he ever completed his studies of Russian or not, I ended up having to search through the text on my own. Of course, your uneducated bantering with a complete lack of citations didn't really add at all to the educational value of this thread.... But maybe someone else will use sources!

Here are the quotes I have from Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life:

Pg. 334

the learning of English was now discouraged. Russian was the second language to learn in the “new” Cuba. Che began taking twice-weekly Russian-language classes from Yuri Pevtsov, a philologist sent from Lermonstov University to be his interpreter and personal tutor. They had no Russian-Spanish manual to work from, so the two made do with a Russian-French primer.

I was actually able to find a quote that proved that he didn't complete his learning of Russian, and actually is a pretty funny anecdote:

Pg.364

Over the coming days, Fidel was consumed with bitter recriminations against Khrushchev, and the hapless Mikoyan was dispatched to Havana to patch things up. Mikoyan did what he could, but Fidel and Che were convinced that Khrushchev had sold them out for his own strategic interests. Their talks went on for several weeks and at times were exceedingly tense. One day, a mistranslation by the Russian interpreter sparked a shouting match. When the misunderstanding was cleared up, Che calmly removed his Makarov pistol from its holster, handed it to the interpreter, and said: “If I were in your place, the only thing left to do ...” According to Alexandr Alexiev, everyone laughed, including Mikoyan. Che’s dark humor had cleared the air.

I would really appreciate it if you would use sources. For example, where is the video of Trotsky speaking French? I was actually unable to find that one. When you don't use sources, it makes you look like the one that's posting outright lies, mate.

[Pirx]

Your assertion is laughable. I like how you prefaced it though.

Stalin had issues constructing grammatically correct phrases in Russian. He sure as hell wasn't reading Plato in the original.

I am referring to a completely Anti Stalinist source: Donald Rayfield, Stalin and His Hangmen (2004).

[Brutus]

Lets not post outright lies here mate.

1.Trotsky knew German, he lived in Vienna for over 10 years for goodness sakes. And he knew French and English although he spoke them with an accent. lol @ 'according to some sources he spoke french" theres video of him speaking french for goodness sakes.

2. Che did not speak a word of Russian, he was a fanboy bumpkin.

Prat level: increased

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Trotsky taught himself Norwegian so he could read Ibsen in the original language. His English seems fluent but heavily accented

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv--EVbmMys

Trotsky apparently knew French well enough to spend Politburo sessions reading French novels (in French). In his letters to James Cannon and other US Trotskyists he seems to have a very good grasp of American colloquial English of the time.According to one of his letters, among the last books he read was a dictionary of American slang. He was dissapointed that there were many terms for a "college girl" but few words for scientific or political theories.

Trotsky loved in Vienna for about ten years and wrote articles the German and Austrian socialist parties-in German.