David Crook

Who is David Crook?

David Crook was a British-born Communist ideologue, activist and spy, long resident in China. A committed Marxist from 1931, he joined the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, then was recruited by the KGB, the Soviet Secret Police, and was sent to China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. There he met and married his wife, Isabel, a teacher and social activist. The couple stayed in China after 1949 to teach English.

In 1959, the Crooks published Revolution in a Chinese Village, Ten Mile Inn and in 1966 came The First Years of Yangyi Commune. The British Sinologist Delia Davin wrote that through that "classic study" and other writings and talks, the Crooks "provided a positive picture of China to the outside world at a time when cold war simplifications were the norm." The Communist Party of Great Britain called Revolution a "seminal work, which has been bringing the achievements and challenges of the Chinese agrarian revolution to life for English-speaking readers since 1959." Crook died at 90 after spending his last five decades in China, his political beliefs largely unshaken despite five years’ imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution.