Content uploaded by Christina Delistathi
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Christina Delistathi on Mar 22, 2023
Content may be subject to copyright.
Translator work practices and
the construction of the correct
interpretation of Marxism
in post-war Greece
Christina Delistathi
University of Westminster
In , the Communist Party of Greece published a Greek translation of the
Selected Works of Marx and Engels which included a statement on the work
practices followed for its creation. This article considers work practices as
processes of validated knowledge production. It investigates how they were
enacted to create the ‘correct’ translation of Marxist texts, and advances our
understanding of the relationship between social structures, power, and
processes of validated knowledge production. It argues that the party’s col-
laborative, centralised, and professionalised organisational model alongside
mechanisms of surveillance and discipline of agents in translation sup-
ported its claims of owning the ‘correct’ interpretation of Marxism. The
statement on the work practices was intended to inuence the publication’s
reception: the reader was encouraged to accept the party’s translation as
accurate. Adopting a Foucauldian perspective, the investigation draws on
party publications and archival material to study translation work practices
in novel ways.
Keywords: work practices, translator work practices, translation of
Marxism, Marxism in Greece, translation and knowledge production,
history of Marxism
1. Introduction
In , the Communist Party of Greece published a Greek translation of the
Selected Works of Marx and Engels (henceforth Selected Works), titled Μαρξ
Ένγκελ ιαλεχτά Έργα Marx Engels Dialechta Erga. It was carried out by a
group of agents involved at dierent stages of the translation process, such as
translators and revisers, who were employed in the party’s Department of Classics
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.21143.del |Published online: 16 March 2023
Target ISSN 0924-1884 |E‑ISSN 1569-9986 © 2023 John Benjamins
for the purpose of translating theoretical Marxist texts. The publication included
an explicit statement on the work practices followed for its creation. This article
investigates how these practices were enacted to create the correct interpretation
of Marxism as the party saw it. It aims at broadening our understanding of the
relationship between social structures, power, and processes of validated knowl-
edge production. It will be argued that these work practices supported both the
party’s claims of owning the correct interpretation of Marxism and the contin-
uation of its dominance on Marxist discourse. Adopting a Foucauldian perspec-
tive, the investigation, which is a work in progress and the rst of its kind in the
Greek context, draws on party publications as well as published and unpublished
material from the archive of the Communist Party of Greece (Κοουνιστικό
Κόα Ελλάδα Kommounistiko Komma Elladas, henceforth KKE) located at the
Contemporary Social History Archives (ASKI, Αρχεία Σύγχρονη Κοινωνική
Ιστορία Archeia Syngchronis Koinonikis Istorias) in Athens and available to the
public.
Although principles and methods that are or should be followed during trans-
lation have received attention in Translation Studies, there is little research on
how these underpin the work practices of translators and aect the status of result-
ing knowledge. However, it is generally accepted in all elds of knowledge pro-
duction that for knowledge to become authoritative, professionals must adhere to
practices valued in a society as suitable or necessary. Similarly, in translation, the
legitimisation of an interpretation as a correct rendering of an original is aected
by how it has been created. This relationship between processes of legitimisa-
tion and work practices links the latter to broader political concerns. Approach-
ing practices from this political perspective can illuminate the complex interplay
between power, social organisation, and the construction of authorised knowl-
edge.
The study of human practice encompasses an array of settings and contexts,
from professional and organisational to the privacy of one’s home, as well as a
wealth of theoretical perspectives. The focus of this paper is specically on work
practices, and these are oen conceptualised as “those actions members take in
the accomplishment of organizational goals” (Leonardi , ). Work practices
support an institution’s objectives and, so, are dened and limited by institutional
priorities. They also include established methods of action taking, repeatable pro-
cedures and control mechanisms, and are, thus, deliberate and regular.
This article reconstructs work practices followed by agents in translation
in the Selected Works. It begins with a contextualisation of the Selected Works,
followed by the purpose of its publication, the presentation of the theoretical
framework used for analysis, and research in Translation Studies. This leads to a
detailed examination of the work practices including analyses of (a) the method
[2] Christina Delistathi
deemed appropriate by the KKE for the translation of theoretical Marxist texts,
(b) the organisational principles in the Department of Classics, and (c) the struc-
tures and processes that operationalised this method.
2. The Selected Works of Marx and Engels
Published in , the Selected Works is a two-volume, scholarly publication. The
KKE’s full alignment with the Communist Party of the USSR is emphasised and
reinforced in the publication, which commemorated Stalin’s seventieth birthday.
A “Note by the Publishing House of the Central Committee of the KKE” at the
beginning of the publication states that the rst volume of the Greek edition cor-
responds to the rst volume of the Russian edition as “edited by the Marx-Engels-
Lenin Institute” in Moscow () (Anon a, n.p.). The Institute published
ocial translations and other theoretical Marxist texts authorised by the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the Greek edition
contained, as stated, the same texts that had been selected by the Institute.
The Greek publication was authorised by the party’s leading body, its Central
Committee, itself guided by the Soviets’ assumed theoretical and practical exper-
tise in Marxism. It contained works and excerpts from works, such as The Mani-
festo of the Communist Party,Wage Labour and Capital,The Civil War in France,
prefaces, and a selection of the authors’ personal correspondence which elucidates
theoretical aspects of Marxist theory. It was an important publication both for
the KKE and for Marxist discourse in Greece because it introduced works by the
authors that had been previously unavailable in the target language and provided
interpretative comments and references to other sources of information which
facilitated the study of Marxism. As it was the most comprehensive selection of
Marx’s and Engels’s works at the time, anyone wishing to study Marxism, write a
Marxist text or translate Marxist works into Greek would have to consult this pub-
lication. Thus, it was intended to shape Marxist discourse in Greece, and it marks
the process of codication of the theory in that language.
The Note mentioned above also makes an explicit statement on work prac-
tices:
The volume we submit today has been translated and revised by a team of trans-
lators, editors and partners. We carried out the translation directly from the orig-
inal, the German or English text. We translated and revised Marx’s works, such
as The Civil War in France, [and] Wages, Price and Prot, directly from the Eng-
lish original, considering also the corresponding editions in German and Russian
(Anon a, n.p.; my translation)language.
Translator work practices [3]
The reader is alerted to the practices followed. Translation was a collaborative
endeavour, involving agents with an array of responsibilities. It was carried out
directly from the source language and revised, and other translations had been
consulted. These work processes are generally valued in contemporary societies as
appropriate and meticulous and, thus, encourage the assumption that the transla-
tions are accurate renderings of the original texts.
3. Discourse domination
The Department of Classics was set up with the explicit remit of translating the
works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, and the Selected Works is one of the
earliest translations carried out there. The Department was a subdivision of the
Translation Section, which gradually became the centre of the KKE’s previously
dispersed translation activity. The Translation Section was, in turn, part of the
KKE’s Publishing House (–) based in Bucharest, Romania, whose activ-
ities were supervised by the Committee for Enlightening (Mattheou and Polemi
, ). Aer , some operations of the Publishing House were modied and
sta with text-writing responsibilities were transferred to the border town of Dej
where translation activity continued. Bucharest became progressively the seat of
the KKE’s apparatus aer the party’s defeat in the civil war of –. The KKE
was illegal in Greece and its members and supporters were persecuted; those who
followed the retreat of the army formed by the KKE became political refugees dis-
persed in countries of the Eastern bloc where the party mainly operated.
Yet, despite these circumstances, the translation of theoretical Marxist texts
was a central priority as reected in the output of the party’s Publishing House:
in , translations amounted to . of the KKE’s publications; the ‘classics’
alone (i.e., works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin) made up . of all
translations (Mattheou and Polemi , ). Moreover, unlike pre-war eorts,
the focus of translation activity concerning the ‘classics’ was on scholarly, oen
multivolume, publications of selected and collected works (ibid.), a labour- and
resource-intensive endeavour. Given the political conditions, these publications
were practically impossible to distribute in Greece and yet the translation of the
classics specically as scholarly publications was a priority for the KKE. This
appears puzzling until the political context of translation is considered.
Regardless of the party’s continuing wish to improve the political education of
its members, the focus on the translation of the classics is linked to pre-war devel-
opments in the communist movement internationally. In , the KKE made
explicit its aspiration to dominate Marxist discourse in Greece, declaring that “our
Party should aim at the monopoly of representation of the Marxist-Leninist the-
[4] Christina Delistathi
ory” in order to marginalise rival, ostensibly Marxist political forces (Rizospastis
, ). In other words, the KKE declared its intention to control the interpre-
tation of the theory and to be acknowledged as its rightful representative. As
seminal Marxist texts were written in German, Russian, and English, dominat-
ing Marxist discourse entailed the codication of the theory through translation
(Delistathi a, –) and greater control of the translation process.
In the late s, the KKE began to characterise other le-wing forces, which
challenged its position in the labour movement, as agents of the bourgeoisie.
This new approach was common across communist parties internationally and
a corollary to the process of Stalinisation that these parties underwent, which
initiated fundamental theoretical and organisational changes within them. These
concerned, broadly, the model of economic development within the USSR and
the prospects for socialist revolutions elsewhere. Making this interpretation of
Marxism dominant in Greece was, thus, urgent for the KKE, key to securing its
prevalence at the ideological level. However, a succession of repressive govern-
ments as well as World War II and the civil war stalled this eort. By the early
s, the party had established itself politically as the dominant force in the
Marxist-oriented Le. Its pre-war rivals on the Le had been depleted and the
KKE and the Stalinist interpretation dominated Marxist discourse in Greece –
hostility towards competing interpretations shied against Titoism and against
members who were critical of the regimes of the Eastern bloc. It was a time of
political upheaval within the KKE, which oen accused its own members of devi-
ations from the true letter of the theory as a way of supressing internal disagree-
ment and dissent. The party conference emphasised the need for vigilance in
relation to members with unfavourable views of the Eastern bloc and those who
“pretended to be ‘hyper-revolutionary’,” supercially agreeing with the party, but
secretly aiming to destroy it (KKE , ).1
Dominating Marxist discourse served two major objectives: to strengthen
the party’s control over its own members and to sustain the dominance of its
interpretation of Marxism. The latter entailed eorts to control both the present
and the future of Marxist theory by guarding it from existing and prospective
rival readings; the codication of the theory through scholarly publications was
a means to this end. These new, authorised, and assumed denitive translations
aimed at shaping the development of Marxist discourse in Greece. They would
supersede and, thus, marginalise all previous translations (where these existed),
1. Several members were expelled that year, among them Kostas Karagiorgis, who initially
headed the Publishing House and was accused of spying, and Panayiotis Mavromatis, a transla-
tor in the Department of Classics (from German), who was accused of “anti-Soviet sentiments”
(KKE , ), but who kept his employment (Georgiou , ).
Translator work practices [5]
evaluate works by the authors, and rank them in order of importance, inuenc-
ing the study of Marxism: the preface of the Selected Works classied the texts in
the publication as the authors’ “most important works” (Anon b, ). More-
over, not only would these new translations expand Marxist discourse by making
available previously untranslated works, but the focus on selected and collected
works demonstrated that Marxism could become the object of scholarly enquiry
for a Greek-speaking readership. As mentioned earlier, the aim was that no one
wishing to study or write on Marxism in Greek could aord to ignore the KKE’s
Selected Works of Marx and Engels.
Essential to the project of codifying Marxism was, then, greater control over
what was translated, by whom, and how. Codication required standardised and
controlled work practices, that is, specic translation methods, structures, and
processes to eectuate authoritative translations. Foucault’s () concept of
‘regimes of truth’ provides an analytical framework that links work practices to
discourse domination, and is discussed in the next section.
4. Regimes of truth
Referring to validated scientic knowledge, Foucault (, ) contends that
“truth is a thing of this world.” He reminds us that what a society widely accepts
as true and correct is a social construct created in an array of complex social con-
gurations. His hypothesis is that
each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth – that is, the
types of discourse it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and
instances that enable one to distinguish true and false statements; the means by
which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the
acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts
(Foucault , )as true.
In this sense, statements are not inherently true or false, but some statements
are accepted as true because they are part of powerful discourses. For Foucault
(), “‘truth’ is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which pro-
duce and sustain it, and to eects of power which it induces and which extend it”
(). Knowledge is then “both generated and generative” (Winter and Cree ,
). This recursive relationship between “power, the capacity to inuence what
counts as knowledge, and the capacity to circulate those claims” further assists
the dissemination and reproduction of truth (Cronin , ). Foucault, thus,
provides a framework that illuminates processes of knowledge production (Gore
[6] Christina Delistathi
, ), but also of power production, which are pertinent to the analysis of
translation work practices.
Foucault critiques epistemological assumptions that are taken-for-granted
and are, thus, considered ahistorical and apolitical. The explicitly political term
‘regime’ connects truth as validated knowledge directly to political agendas
(Lorenzini , ). Additionally, truth is political in ways bearing directly on
power: among many statements, only some are admitted in discourse as truths.
By addressing the historicity and political character of validated knowledge, Fou-
cault unveils the conditions and processes by which statements come to function
as truths (i.e., how consent is created and what mechanisms and processes can
discern untruths). However, for Foucault discourses are never absolute or totalis-
ing (Nicholls , ); alternative knowledges are not eliminated but only sub-
jugated (Avgerou and McGrath , ), so an array of diverse knowledges may
coexist at a given time, but as marginal and peripheral. Consequently, dominant
truths do not mean uncontested truths; validated knowledge is contingent and
changeable (Lorenzini , ).
Moreover, specic institutionalised means and processes, such as professional
organisations and qualications, as well as quality standards, function as mecha-
nisms to preclude and disqualify certain statements as untruths whilst valorising
others. In this sense, truth “is the issue of a whole political debate and social con-
frontation (‘ideological’ struggles’)” (Foucault , ). Moreover, truth state-
ments are not simply the result of social processes and structures; instead, who
utters them and their position in the nexus of power is decisive in gaining entry
in discourse, a position similar to Bourdieu’s (), who contends that whether
statements are admitted in discourse as truths depends on the authority vested in
their speakers.
Additionally, Foucault denies that the technologies and procedures which
produce and sustain truth are neutral, and prompts us to think of the relationship
between the status of truth claims and the means of their creation. Foucault
reminds us that for knowledge to become validated, the practices employed for
its construction, which include methods, processes, and technologies, have to
be admitted by a community as appropriate and rigorous. As with statements,
these have also been selected among other possibilities, which have been valued
as impermissible or inapposite, and function as gatekeeping mechanisms con-
structing, reproducing, and regulating truth. Approaching the study of practices
through the notion of regimes of truth allows us to “interrogate the everyday”
(Winter and Cree , ), the normative practices which have gained wide
consensus and have become common sense, as well as their eects and their rela-
tion to power and knowledge. In this way, Foucault shows the interconnectedness
of mundane everyday practices with the broader domain of ideas, the historicity
Translator work practices [7]
of such practices and their relationship with broader social and political struggles
for domination which are pertinent to this discussion.
The concept of regimes of truth pertains mostly to discourses of dominant
ideas in society. However, as Gore (, ) shows, Foucault’s own references to
local centres of power-knowledge allow us to perceive society at a more micro
level “whereby discourses and practices can contain a local politics of truth.” This
observation aords an expansion of the application of the concept to discourses of
counter-hegemonic ideas, such as Marxism in Greece, and the acknowledgment
that these contain their own constellation of power relations (Delistathi ).
Along these lines, the Stalinist interpretation of Marxism, dominant within
Marxist discourse, can be regarded as a regime of truth. By aligning itself with,
propagating, and practicing that version, the KKE had generally succeeded in
gaining the status of the correct interpreter of Marxism in Greece and this associ-
ation was reinforced with various references to the Soviet edition in the Selected
Works, as mentioned earlier. The prevalence of this version of Marxism was the
product of political developments, and translations functioned as means of sus-
taining and reproducing the regime of truth, even more so as they entered acade-
mic discourse in the form of scholarly publications and, thus, became the version
of Marxism to study. Foucault’s consideration of techniques and procedures and
of their value in the production of truth, brings work practices into focus. Follow-
ing work practices which were and still are widely accepted as rigorous, actualised
the translations whilst adding credibility to the interpretation presented in them,
and advanced the codication of Marxism and the further reproduction of the
dominant version.
5. Research in translation work practices
The study of work practices is an emerging research area in Translation Studies.
Employing an array of theoretical frameworks, such as Bourdieu’s sociological
approach (Simeoni ; Inghilleri ) and Luhmann’s social theory (Hermans
; Tyulenev ), existing scholarship has investigated literary and non-
literary translator practices both in commercial and non-commercial institutional
settings with diverse research aims. Koskinen () investigates translation in
the European Commission, and conceives of it as a collective process in which
the translator bears limited responsibility for the nal version. Buzelin (), in
the context of independent commercial publishers, shows how changes in pub-
lishing impact on publishers’ management of translation projects, and concludes
that the resulting translations are cooperative in nature and reect the outcome of
a process of negotiation between dierent agents.
[8] Christina Delistathi
Olohan () is one of few scholars who relate practice to knowledge. Using
practice theory, she considers aspects of practice in the translation department of
a research organisation to discuss how translators’ collective knowing is enacted
in those practices. In a later work, Olohan () further develops practice theory
as an analytical tool to study, conceptualise, and interpret translation practice in
commercial settings. Although it focuses on the situational context and knowing
in practice, the analysis is not concerned with the relationship between practice
and power or their eects on the production of knowledge.
A notable attempt to consider explicitly the impact of social structures on the
practice of translation can be found in Mossop (). Locating the Canadian
government’s translation activity in a context of new political priorities, Mossop
shows how these generate new perceptions of translation and alter practice. While
translation had previously been seen as an exclusively cultural activity, it was sub-
sequently transformed into an economic one, in the sense of “treating translation
as a business” (Mossop , ). Mossop terms this shi “industrialisation of
translation,” and states that it is marked by various changes in the organisation of
work practices, such as the division of labour among translators, standardisation
of work organisation, and quality management (–), which, in turn, moulded
translators’ lexical choices. Mossop’s attention to the transformative eect of new
exigencies on work practices and his conceptualisation of these advance under-
standing of the relationship between structural changes at the macro level and
translator choices at the micro level. As will be discussed in Section ., the analy-
sis in this article bears some similarities to the “industrialisation of translation” in
relation to the organisation of work.
Overall, the exploration of work practices in Translation Studies has been
valuable in positioning translators in a matrix of relations and socio-political
concerns and has opened up new strands of investigation; nevertheless, existing
studies do not specically explore the correlation between work practices and val-
idated knowledge and, thus, our understanding of this aspect of translation is still
limited. The next sections consider this in detail by analysing the work practices
employed in the translation of the Selected Works, starting with the translation
method and continuing with the organisational principles and the power struc-
tures and processes which made translation happen.
6. Translation method: Correctness and truth
The establishment of the Translation Department corresponded with the rst
explicit statements by the KKE on translation methods. Petros Rousos, member
of the party’s Central Committee and second secretary of the Committee for
Translator work practices [9]
Enlightening which oversaw the activities of the Publishing House, was himself
involved in the nal inspection of translations. Reviewing the Greek translation
of Stalin’s Collected Works, Rousos articulated the party’s views, acknowledged
the problem of how best to translate Marxist theoretical texts, and described the
method to be followed:
Experience shows that the most correct rendering is achieved with greater adher-
ence to the original, and with the best possible expression by the means aorded
by the language of translation (for us the Greek language), and with the maxi-
mum possible preservation of the author’s style. Word-for-word translation can
kill the text because it disregards the underlying dierence[s] in the texture of
languages. A freer translation shows irresponsibility.
(Rousos , –; my translation)
Rousos’s statement recalls the well-known debate about free versus word-for-word
translation and proposes a generally accepted method. The objective is to create
“the most correct” translation among other possibilities, in Foucauldian terms the
‘truth’. Although correctness here, as I understand it, refers to accuracy of meaning
transfer and stylistic faithfulness to the source text, these concerns are mitigated
by attention to uency and readability. The optimum method to translate is to stay
as close to the original as necessary because this can ensure that both priorities of
accuracy and style are met. This method presupposes the integrity and sincerity
of those involved in translation. This is important because, in the pre-war era, the
KKE had accused its rivals on the Le of producing deliberately inaccurate trans-
lations with the explicit aim of falsifying Marxism (Delistathi ). Moreover, for
the party, a single exact meaning of the source text exists objectively and transla-
tors should discover and formulate it, so the correct interpretation is established.
This denitive interpretation can then be presented once and for all, closing o
the reading of the theory, so no rival interpretations can be viable.
However, as Rousos states, other methods to translate exist, but are disquali-
ed. Following a ‘freer’ translation privileges uency and style over accuracy with
undesirable eects: as it extends the bounds of a translator’s subjective interpre-
tation, which can alter the true meaning of the original, it makes allowances for
untruths, so it is an irresponsible method. Similarly, word-for-word translation,
with its sole emphasis on accuracy of meaning transfer, disregards the author’s
style and disrupts the readability of the text, obstructing access to the truth. This is
an example of how alternative methods for knowledge creation can be disallowed
because they are judged to produce unreliable knowledges.
So, only one method is deemed the ‘most correct’ and it is the one which,
if adhered to, can create knowledge authorised by the party. These institutional
instructions signify a shi in work practices with traceable eects on translation:
[10] Christina Delistathi
the translation of the Communist Manifesto included in the Selected Works
appears to be more literal in relation to earlier versions (Delistathi b, ).
However, this was not always the case. Despite disapproval of word-for-word
translation, it was oen followed in practice. In , Rousos called again upon
the party’s translators to avoid word-for-word translation because it results in the
unncecessary addition of the personal pronoun before a verb in the target text
(Rousos , –). In Greek, the personal pronoun is indicated by a verb’s end-
ing. Its explicit addition, he observed, aects the smooth ow of the text and
creates an error in meaning transfer because it denotes emphasis in the target lan-
guage which is absent from the original (ibid.).2Using pronouns in this way was,
thus, rejected because it resulted in creating untruths.
So, although employees of the Department had been warned against word-
for-word translation, as can be seen from Rousos’s statement above, it kept reap-
pearing, creating tensions by obstructing both the uency and accuracy of target
texts. Although there is a spectrum of possible strategies to resolve translation
problems, again only one can eectuate a correct translation; others create knowl-
edge which is rejected as substandard. Rousos’s institutional instructions to trans-
lators on how to produce correct translations and avoid errors are instances of
the eects that dierent translation practices may have on knowledge, and of the
eects of power on knowledge production. His suggested method to translate was
operationalised through specic organisational principles and structures as will
be discussed in Section ..
6.1 Organisational principles and power relations
The establishment of the Department of Classics which, by , employed een
people3represents an unambiguous, coherent, and long-term commitment to
2. Rousos provided the following example: where the Russian text says “‘παλεύουε για την
ειρήνη και καλούε του λαού’ [palevoume gia tin eirini kai kaloume tous laous ‘[we] strive for
peace and [we] call on other peoples’], if we translate word-for-word ‘εεί παλεύουε για την
ειρήνη και εεί καλούε του λαού’ [emeis palevoume gia tin eirini kai emeis kaloume tous
laous ‘we strive for peace and we call on other peoples’] apart from creating a pleonasm, we also
make a mistake because in Greek ‘εεί’ [emeis ‘we’] will go only where emphasis is needed, that
is when you say ‘οι ιπεριαλιστέ ανάβουν τον πόλεο, ενώ εεί παλεύουε για την ειρήνη’
[oi imperialistes anavoun ton polemo, eno emeis palevoume gia tin eirini ‘the imperialists stoke
up war, whereas we strive for peace’]” (Rousos , ).
3. ASKI b., f.//. (All references to archival material here include the location of the
material at ASKI, followed by ‘b’ which denotes the box number where the documents are held,
followed by ‘f ’, denoting ‘le’. This is followed by the serial number of the document referred to
as it is recorded in the archive.)
Translator work practices [11]
codifying Marxism which enabled, but also restricted translation. It also brought
about a three-way shi in work practices: rstly, whereas before World War II,
translation was mostly a solitary undertaking (still overseen and authorised by the
party), now it involved a team of translators, revisers, and other agents. Secondly,
while previously translation was an ad hoc commission given to selected mem-
bers, now it became professionalised. Thirdly, whereas earlier translations were
performed in a private space, now all aspects of translation activity became even-
tually centralised in a single workplace.
Teamwork and collaboration between dierent agents were vital as they made
possible the completion of a large volume of translations within tight deadlines.
Agents in translation were professionals in the sense that they were salaried party
employees for the purpose of producing translations. The institution specied
their duties, systematised their work processes, structured and regulated their
conduct, and evaluated their output. By making translation a visible and recog-
nisable occupation, the status of translation and of its agents was enhanced within
the party. Professionalisation instituted a layer of members procient in the inter-
pretation of Marxist texts and created a distinct identity for them as competent,
skilful, and knowledgeable specialists. Professionalisation is, thus, indicative of
the value and weight of translation within the party, but also of regular and stan-
dardised work practices.
Concurrent to professionalisation was centralisation, which facilitated trans-
lation by enhancing coordination and assisting communication between agents.
This new organisation of work also improved productivity, which was a persistent
requirement. The annual Report on the activities of the Publishing House
praised the increase in translation output, which rose gradually from pages
per week in March , to and then to later in the year.4However, cen-
tralisation also constrained translation as it brought about greater control of the
institution over its professionals and, consequently, over Marxist theory. New
processes were set up to establish and regulate how translation was carried out.
Initially, production was organised around collective and individual monthly and
annual production plans, which we would call ‘targets’ today, a practice estab-
lished in .5Production plans were distributed to employees and indicated the
number of pages to be translated, revised, or otherwise checked by specic dead-
lines. The Report mentioned above noted the introduction of the production
plan specically “as a method of permanent control and establishment of the feel-
ing of personal responsibility” of the employees.6Control over employees’ work
4. ASKI b., f.//.
5. ASKI b., f.//.
6. ASKI b., f.//.
[12] Christina Delistathi
intensied the following year when production plans were further particularised
into personal daily plans.7
Together with production plans, supervisory and disciplinary mechanisms
were also put in place to ensure compliance by prescribing how and when work is
to be carried out (Norbäck , ). In , a “Regulation of Internal Order” was
issued to the employees of the Publishing House. It dened unacceptable conduct
that impeded production, such as “turning up late” for work, “delaying others,”
or producing “defective goods,” and stipulated disciplinary procedures and sanc-
tions against culpable employees, ranging from censure to dismissal.8Regarding
text production, the Regulation specically characterised as a defective product
“a bad translation which required double the normal time for revision, a reprint
due to errors in translation or revision, [and] bad typing which exceeds the toler-
able margin of errors and complicates typesetting.”9In other words, a mechanism
for reporting underperformance was established under which revisers were asked
to report translators or other revisers for poor translation quality. Indeed, under-
performance was a serious matter and had consequences: in , it was pro-
posed that a female translator who did not perform satisfactorily, work as a typist
instead.10 Consequently, although centralisation advanced the eective coordina-
tion of translation, it also intensied the surveillance of employees by the insti-
tution and its ability to discipline them and control their work. Despite being
professionals, translators and revisers could not translate as they chose; instead,
the ultimate expert in translation was the institution, which imposed the stan-
dards to be observed.
Finally, the organisation of translation on the principles of collaboration, pro-
fessionalisation, and centralisation, allowed the standardisation and regularisa-
tion of work practices. Indeed, as will be discussed, the procedures followed in
the making of the Selected Works were repeated in the translation of other Marx-
ist theoretical texts, and so became normative. As they developed into an insti-
tutionalised way for translating correctly, their recurrence also functioned as a
mechanism of legitimising the published translations as (the only) truthful inter-
pretations of their originals.
7. ASKI b., f.//.
8. ASKI b., f.//.
9. ASKI b., f.//.
10. ASKI b., f.//.
Translator work practices [13]
6.2 Structures and processes
The Department of Classics was characterised by a high level of organisation,
which was required by the high volume of commissioned translations. Given the
KKE’s close relationship with the Communist Party of the USSR, it is reasonable
to assume that the organisation of the Department and the translation processes
closely resembled those in the Soviet Union; however, I have not located a similar
study in the Soviet context or a document in the KKE’s archive to conrm this.
The following discussion draws on the Publishing House’s annual production
plan for (written in ) for the translation of the classics presented in
Mattheou and Polemi (, ), on the remuneration records of 11 and other
archival material. Although the translation team of the Department of Classics
moved to Dej at the end of , the organisation of work did not change in ,12
so the production plan is a credible record of the established translation process.
It indicates a timeline of identical translation processes and stages across several
publications, whereas the remuneration records name the dierent responsibili-
ties and corresponding wages.
Based on the remuneration of sta and job titles, it is possible to describe
the institutional hierarchy. At the top was the Head of Department, followed by
revisers, translators, and then employees without translation-related responsibil-
ities who were involved in various processes, such as typists for the handwritten
dras. There were also stylists (στυλίστε stylistes), ‘contrasters’ (παραβολή par-
avoli), correctors (διορθωτέ diorthotes), and proofreaders (αποδιαβαστέ apo-
diavastes), but it is not always clear what the responsibilities of these agents
involved. A party document records that stylists were very helpful in conveying
the meaning of texts,13 by which I understand that stylists may have improved
expression in the target language. Thus, translators and revisers were primarily
concerned with accurate meaning transfer, whereas stylists focused on the uency
of the target text. This was necessary not only because translators did not always
adhere to the instruction of avoiding word-for-word translation, as we saw earlier,
but also because collaboration between translators and revisers created poly-
phonic texts; stylists could unify the dierent voices and improve the overall con-
sistency and readability of a translation.
Regarding contrasting, it was requested that “for this team comrades with the
same skills as those of the correctors are needed.”14 A later document from ,
11. ASKI b., f.//.
12. ASKI b., f.//.
13. ASKI b., f.//.
14. ASKI b., f.//.
[14] Christina Delistathi
which describes the responsibilities for each role, denes a contraster as someone
who compares the typed manuscripts with the hand-written ones to ensure that
all corrections were accurately integrated.15 Correctors are recorded in the
sta list together with typists and, so it is likely that they corrected typing errors in
dras. A proofreader, on the other hand, would work on the nal approved dra,
inserting textual features such as page numbers and tables of contents.16
In the early s, positions with translation-creating responsibilities involv-
ing the Head of Department, translators, and revisers were occupied by party
cadre who were usually also members of the Committee for Enlightening. It is
unclear if the translators or revisers received any training or instructions prior
to commencing their work. In general, it can be said that knowledge of foreign
languages and Marxist theory was insucient for a translator’s or reviser’s posi-
tion. To become authorised to translate or revise Marxist theory, a member also
had to be trusted by the party, considered to be loyal to its own interpretation
of Marxism, and demonstrate this by creating translations in line with this. To
ensure constancy, a four-member Editorial Committee of the Publishing House
was established in , staed by the Head of the Department of Classics and
other high-ranking party ocials whose tasks were to oversee the Publishing
House’s entire work and to approve a publication before its printing (Mattheou
and Polemi , ).
For most of the period covered here, the Head of the Department of Classics
was Leonidas Stringos who remained in the party’s leadership until . It is
likely that the Head set the personal production plans for the Department’s
employees. According to the production plan, the Head had overall responsi-
bility for the preparation of a publication and his authorisation (or that of another
member of the Editorial Committee) was required before a translation could be
printed. This suggests that the Head also had editorial responsibilities and read
the nal dra of a translation. His decisions overruled everyone else’s, facilitating
translation, but also limiting and regulating all other agents’ actions. In authoris-
ing a translation for publication, the Head represented the party; he sanctioned
knowledge on behalf of the institution.
Revisers, who succeeded the Head in the power hierarchy, were subdivided
into Reviser I and Reviser II. As indicated by the number of pages required to
revise in the production plan and by their higher remuneration, the former
had more extensive input than Reviser II. The dates in the production plan
indicate that revision was happening almost in parallel with translation, as it pro-
gressed, as opposed to aer the completion of the entire dra of a translation.
15. ASKI b., f.//.
16. ASKI b., f.//.
Translator work practices [15]
This practice would have accelerated production and made more ecient use of
resources, but it would have impeded consistency, for example, in the translation
of Marxist terms which were in the process of being standardised into Greek. It is
unclear how terminological consistency was maintained, and if this was also part
of a reviser’s responsibilities, but later, in the s, a system of cards was used for
this purpose, perhaps similar to today’s ashcards.17
It is not possible to conrm whether revision involved comparison of the tar-
get text with the source text or, in the case of the Selected Works of Marx and
Engels, with a Russian translation. However, the Note by the Publishing House
stating the work practices in the Selected Works discussed earlier, refers to the use
of Russian and English translations, obviously to assist with the interpretation
of challenging passages, proclaiming a sophisticated engagement with the trans-
lation process. Moreover, in his autobiography, Georgiou, in charge of the Pub-
lishing House from to , commenting on his own involvement with the
translation of the classics notes that he had “a rough time” checking in “German,
Russian and French dictionaries for the best expression and smooth language”
(, ). One way or another, revision involved a serious engagement with the
source text, following practices that are common among professional translators
in our times. It went beyond the quest for accuracy, also attending to concerns of
uency, as had been instructed by the institution.
It is remarkable, however, that there is no mention of earlier Greek transla-
tions as reference material despite the fact that the party’s own translation of the
Communist Manifesto of has extensive textual similarities with the ver-
sion, which allows us to say with certainty that it had been consulted (Delistathi
b, ). This apparent rejection of previously validated knowledge indicates
a desire to discourage the reading of earlier versions. By ignoring its own earlier
translations, the party breaks with the past and disowns its previous interpreta-
tions in favour of the new codied one. Existing knowledge, as presented in ear-
lier translations, is disqualied as inadequate (see Avgerou and McGrath ,
) and an attempt is made to marginalise it. This is an example of the ways in
which what was considered validated knowledge can change and of how retrans-
lation recongured Marxist discourse by recasting existing knowledges as periph-
eral. Alternative knowledges existed, but only the codied version was acceptable
as the truth.
As regards translation problems, in theory, revisers and translators had to
cooperate for the optimum solution, a practice comparable to state-controlled
translation in s East Germany where literary translators were “required to
discuss all remarks and corrections made by the editor” (Thomson-Wohlgemuth
17. ASKI b, f.//.
[16] Christina Delistathi
, ). However, cooperation did not always happen in practice, as stated
by the Director of the Publishing House in (Mattheou and Polemi ,
). Instead, by identifying translation errors and recommending textual changes,
revisers were able to alter the work of translators, directing them to a course
of action and, thus, controlling their behaviour. The institution formalised the
extent of a reviser’s authority over a translator’s work in the Regulation of Internal
Order referred to in Section .. An extensive number of translation errors, in
the Foucauldian framework ‘untruths’, was intolerable and translators or revisers
who made them ought to be known to the party. Revision was, thus, not simply
a process of quality control, of conrming accuracy and rectifying translation
errors, it was also a mechanism for detecting those who uttered untruths.
For their part, translators were subdivided into Translator I and Translator II;
the latter role appears to have been occupied by less experienced or productive
translators. In , the salaries of the translators ranged from to
Romanian Lei, amounts received by a Translator II and Translator I respectively,
sometimes with the additional responsibility for ‘styling’.18 Georgiou (, )
conrms that there was a speaker of German among the team, Panagiotis Mavro-
matis, who “translated from the German original” as well as “a group of speakers
of Russian.” The pace of translation work was intense and deadlines tight, causing
complaints among sta (). To speed up the translation process, a source text
was divided between translators and each was given a specic number of pages
to translate. The resulting target text was, thus, the product of the work of several
translators, similar to what Jansen and Wegener () term “multiple translator-
ship.”
Translators collaborated both vertically in the hierarchy, with other agents,
and horizontally, among themselves. This was not only due to the division of a
text between dierent translators, but also due to their ability. Indeed, an infor-
mal system of apprenticeship or mentoring was in place where less experienced
or competent translators oen consulted more procient colleagues when con-
fronted with challenging passages,19 facilitating the timely completion of a project.
It appears that three versions of a dra were produced, and the workow of a
translation would have been as follows: the Head would distribute individual pro-
duction plans and initiate the translation process. Translators’ manuscripts would
be handed over to typists who would pass on the rst dra to Reviser I. Hand-
written changes were proposed, passed on to the typist and then to the corrector
and/or contraster, and a new version was produced to be checked by Reviser II.
A similar process would have followed, with hand-written suggestions by Reviser
18. ASKI b., f.//.
19. ASKI b., f.//.
Translator work practices [17]
II sent to the typist and then to the corrector/contraster. The translation was by
then at an advanced stage and it is likely that the stylist would take over, smooth-
ing and unifying expression, and forwarding their version for a nal check and
then proofreading. At that point the footnotes and table of contents would have
been added. Finally, the Head (or other authorised ocial) would comment on
the suitability of the manuscript for publication.
This hierarchical, centralised, and professionalised way of working recalls
the process of “industrialisation of translation” discussed in Mossop () with
its mechanisms of quality management, division of labour, and large volume of
translation to be carried out. But, unlike the Canadian government, the KKE did
not perceive of translation as an economic activity. Rather, the term “industrial-
isation of translation” is pertinent here to describe the organisation of work that
resembles a factory production line, with separate stages in production, where
each agent completes part of the product and has a distinct place in the hierar-
chy. As in a production line, the processes are transparent and precise with well-
dened steps to follow, which are ordered, standardised, and repeatable for all
translations.
The end product was the result of collaborative work. Although many pro-
fessionals contributed, no one’s name is explicitly mentioned except the commis-
sioning party’s. This practice is similar to translation activities carried out within
EU institutions where translated texts are also the product of teamwork and indi-
viduals bear limited responsibility for the nal version; the translation “belongs
to the institution” (Koskinen , ) and represents it. In the KKE’s case, this
established and standardised “network of accountability” (Fournier , )
between dierent agents in the hierarchy aimed specically at eliminating the per-
sonal and, therefore, subjective interpretation in favour of a collective and (an
assumed) objective one, which represented the institution. A function of the dec-
laration of the work practices at the beginning of the Selected Works is to tell the
reader that this translation is categorically not the work of identiable individuals,
but the work of a team in the service of the institution which claims authority over
the text and expertise in the interpretation of Marxist theory.
The practices that supported the endeavour for accurate and uent transla-
tions, with the corresponding multiple levels of quality control are evaluated in
our society as appropriate and rigorous and are consistent with practices followed
by experts in translation. They encourage and support the assumption that errors
of meaning transfer are minimised and translations are accurate, and corroborate
the party’s narrative as the authority in the interpretation of Marxist theory. In the
KKE’s translations, work practices conveyed a political statement: they became a
marker of quality, objectivity, trustworthiness, and authority – a marker of cor-
rectness, reproducing and further legitimising the KKE’s version of Marxism as
[18] Christina Delistathi
a regime of truth. It is an instance of how truth statements and systems of power
sustain and remake each other (Foucault , ).
7. Conclusion
Starting with Foucault’s hypothesis that validated knowledge is a social construct,
this article set out to examine how the work practices of agents in translation were
enacted in the Greek translation of the Selected Works of Marx and Engels with
the aim of better understanding the relationship between power, social structures,
and processes of validated knowledge production. The KKE’s eorts to dominate
Marxist discourse and establish its own reading of Marxism as a regime of truth
entailed the codication of the theory and the creation of denitive translations
which would be accepted as the correct interpretation of the theory. The party’s
own aliation with the Communist Party of the USSR, and its leading position
within the Greek Le, gave it the status and legitimacy to inuence what counted
as ‘truth’.
To succeed in this endeavour, the KKE assumed rm control over the trans-
lation process by establishing work practices which are considered rigorous in
contemporary societies. It launched itself as the expert in the translation of Marx-
ist theory and instructed on the appropriate method to translate, so the resulting
translations would be accurate, uent, and objective renderings of their originals,
and preserve the authors’ style. Only knowledge produced according to this
method would be authorised and available to readers. Other methods were dis-
qualied as unsuitable, and ensuing knowledges were marginalised as unreliable,
closing o alternative readings of Marxist theory. Consequently, earlier Greek
translations of texts in the Selected Works were rejected as unreliable and cast
in the periphery of discourse. Retranslations recongured Marxist discourse by
changing what was previously considered ‘truth’ or validated knowledge.
The KKE operationalised its translation method by organising translation
on the principles of collaboration, centralisation, and professionalisation, and
employed party members to translate and check translations. It established a
web of hierarchies of responsibility and accountability to enable translation and
to identify and eliminate errors (i.e., untruths). The subjective interpretation of
the individual was replaced with the supposed impartiality of teamwork. It also
created overt mechanisms of surveillance and discipline, with the explicit aim
of controlling the behaviours and outputs of agents in translation, thus restrict-
ing their choices. The explicit statement on the work practices they followed
was intended to aect the publication’s reception: the reader was encouraged
to accept the party’s translation as the correct interpretation of Marxism. The
Translator work practices [19]
resulting translations secured the KKE’s control over the present and future of
Marxist theory by creating the most authoritative renderings that no one wishing
to study Marxism in Greek could ignore.
Considering translation work practices as processes of knowledge validation
is a novel approach in Translation Studies. It allows us to see work practices
through a new perspective which relates them to power preservation and (re)pro-
duction, and discourse control. ‘Truth’, created through social structures in which
translations were validated to function as ‘truth’, was generated by power and, in
turn, became generative of power. This regime of truth created eects of power
both within the KKE and externally, in society at large, vis-à-vis rival readings of
Marxist theory. Foucault’s framework provides a set of powerful analytical strate-
gies for the investigation of work practices in translation that can further our
understanding of this relationship.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Peter Skrandies, the anonymous reviewers and editors of Target for their com-
ments on earlier dras of this article.
References
Anon. a. “Σηείωση του Εκδοτικού τη ΚΕ του KKE [Note by the Publishing House of the
Central Committee of the KKE].” In Μαρξ Ένγκελς Διαλεχτά Έργα [Marx Engels selected
works]. Bucharest: New Greece.
Anon. b. “Εισαγωγή τη Ρωσική Έκδοση [Introduction to the Russian edition].” In
Μαρξ Ένγκελς Διαλεχτά Έργα [Marx Engels selected works], –. Bucharest: New
Greece.
Avgerou, Chrisanthi, and Kathy McGrath. . “Power, Rationality, and the Art of Living
through Socio-Technical Change.” MIS Quarterly (): –.
Bourdieu, Pierre. . “The Economics of Linguistic Exchanges.” In Social Science Information
(): –.
Buzelin, Hélène. . “Translations ‘in the Making’.” In Constructing a Sociology of
Translation, edited by Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari, –. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Cronin, Anne. . “Currencies of Commercial Exchange: Advertising Agencies and the
Promotional Imperative.” In Journal of Consumer Culture (): –.
Delistathi, Christina. a. “Translation as a Means of Ideological Struggle.” In Translation
and Opposition, edited by Dimitris Asimakoulas and Margaret Rogers, –. Bristol:
Multilingual Matters.
Delistathi, Christina. b. Translation and Ideological Struggle – A Case Study of the
Translations of the Communist Manifesto into Greek, 1919–1951. PhD diss. Middlesex
University.
[20] Christina Delistathi
Delistathi, Christina. . “‘He Stole Our Translation’: Translation Reviews and the
Construction of Marxist Discourse.” In Translation in Times of Technocapitalism, edited
by Stefan Baumgarten and Jordi Cornellà-Detrell, special issue of Target (): –.
Foucault, Michel. . “Truth and Power.” In Power: The Essential Works of Foucault
1954–1984, volume 3, edited by James D. Faubion, –. London: Penguin.
Fournier, Valérie. . “The Appeal to ‘Professionalism’ as a Disciplinary Mechanism.” The
Sociological Review (): –.
Georgiou, Vassos. . Η Ζωή μου [My life]. Athens: n.p.
Gore, Jennifer. . The Struggle For Pedagogies: Critical and Feminist Discourse and Regimes
of Truth. New York: Routledge.
Hermans, Theo. . The Conference of the Tongues. Manchester: St Jerome.
Inghilleri, Moira. . “The Sociology of Bourdieu and the Construction of the ‘Object’ in
Translation and Interpreting Studies.” The Translator (): –.
Jansen, Hanne, and Anna Wegener. . “Multiple Translatorship.” In Authorial and Editorial
Voices in Translation 1: Collaborative Relationships between Authors, Translators, and
Performers, edited by Hanne Jansen and Anna Wegener. Montreal: Éditions québécoises.
KKE. . “Απόφαση Πάνω στο ο Θέα [Decision on the second topic].” In KKE Επίσ ημα
Κείμενα τόμος 7, 1949–1955 [ΚΚΕ ocial documents volume , –], –. Athens:
Modern Era.
Koskinen, Kaisa. . Translating Institutions: An Ethnographic Study of EU Translation.
Manchester: St Jerome.
Leonardi, Paul M. . “Studying Work Practices in Organizations: Theoretical
Considerations and Empirical Guidelines.” Annals of the International Communication
Association (): –.
Lorenzini, Daniele. . “What is a ‘Regime of Truth’?” Le foucaldien (): –.
Lorenzini, Daniele. . “Foucault, Regimes of Truth, and the Making of the Subject.” In
Foucault and the Making of Subjects, edited by Laura Cremonesi, Orazio Irrera,
Daniele Lorenzini, and Martina Tazzioli, –. London: Rowman & Littleeld.
Mattheou, Anna, and Popi Polemi. . Η Εκδοτική Περιπέτεια των Ελλήνων
Κομμουνισ τών – Από το βουνό σ την Υπερορία, 1947–1968 [The publishing adventure of
Greek communists, –]. Athens: Vivliorama.
Mossop, Brian. . “From Culture to Business: Federal Government Translation in Canada.”
The Translator (): –.
Nicholls, David. . “Foucault and Physiotherapy.” Physiotherapy Theory and Practice ():
–.
Norbäck, Lars. . “New Modes of Internal Governance of Higher Education Institutions:
The Case of Göteborg University.” Tertiary Education and Management : –.
Olohan, Maeve. . “Knowing in Translation Practice: A Practice-Theoretical Perspective.”
Translation Spaces (): –.
Olohan, Maeve. . Translation and Practice Theory. London: Routledge.
Rizospastis. . Αι Αποφάσει του Γ΄ Τακτικού Συνεδρίου του Κόατο [The decisions of
the III Ordinary Party Conference]. http://emeris.nlg.gr/ns/pdfwin_r.asp?c=
&pageid=-&id=&s=&STEMTYPE=&STEM_WORD_PHONETIC_IDS
=&CropPDF= Accessed August , .
Translator work practices [21]
Rousos, Petros. . “Η ιδασκαλία του σ. Στάλιν και η Ελληνική Γλώσσα, έρο [The
teachings of Comrade Stalin and the Greek language].” Νέος Κόσμος [New world] :
–.
Rousos, Petros. . “Η Ελληνική Έκδοση των Απάντων του Στάλιν [The Greek edition of
Stalin’s collected works].” Νέος Κόσμος [New world] : –.
Simeoni, Daniel. . “The Pivotal Status of the Translator’s Habitus.” Target (): –.
Thomson-Wohlgemuth, Gaby. . Translation under State Control: Books for Young People
in the German Democratic Republic. London: Routledge.
Tyulenev, Sergey. . Applying Luhmann to Translation Studies: Translation in Society. New
York: Routledge.
Winter, Karen, and Viviene Cree. . “Social Work Home Visits to Children and Families in
the UK: A Foucauldian Perspective.” In British Journal of Social Work : –.
Address for correspondence
Christina Delistathi
Centre for Education and Teaching Innovation
University of Westminster
Regent Street
WB HW LONDON
United Kingdom
c.delistathi@westminster.ac.uk
Publication history
Date received: September
Date accepted: February
Published online: March
https://orcid.org/---
[22] Christina Delistathi
