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Cultus:
The Journal of Intercultural Mediation and Communication
2023: 16
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THE JOURNAL OF INTERCULTURAL
MEDIATION AND COMMUNICATION
Past and present
in translation collaborative practices and
cooperation
Guest Editors
Giovanni Iamartino
(University of Milan)
Mirella Agorni
(Ca’ Foscari University, Venice)
ICONESOFT EDIZIONI - GRUPPO RADIVO HOLDING
BOLOGNA - ITALY
Cultus
CULTUS
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Registrazione al Tribunale di Terni
n. 11 del 24.09.2007
Direttore Responsabile Agostino Quero
Editore Iconesoft Edizioni – Radivo Holding
Anno 2023
ISSN 2035-3111
2035-2948
Policy: double-blind peer review
© Iconesoft Edizioni – Radivo Holding srl
via Ferrarese 3 – 40128 Bologna
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CULTUS
the Journal of Intercultural Mediation and Communication
Editors
David Katan
University of Salento
Cinzia Spinzi
University of Bergamo
ICONESOFT EDIZIONI – RADIVO HOLDING
BOLOGNA
CULTUS
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CULTUS
the Journal of Intercultural Mediation and Communication
Scientific Committee
Michael Agar
Ethknoworks LLC and University of Maryland, College Park, USA
Milton Bennet
Intercultural Development Research Institute, Italy
Ida Castiglioni
University of Milan (Bicocca), Intercultural Development Research
Institute
Andrew Chesterman
University of Helsinki, Finland
Delia Chiaro
University of Bologna (SSLMIT), Forlì, Italy
Madeleine Strong Cincotta
University of Wollongong, Australia
Nigel Ewington
WorldWork Ltd, Cambridge, England
Peter Franklin
HTWG Konstanz University of Applied Sciences, dialogin-The Delta
Intercultural Academy
Maria Grazia Guido
University of Salento, Italy
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5
Xiaoping Jiang
University of Guangzhou, China
Tony Liddicoat
University of Warwick, England
Elena Manca
University of Salento, Italy
Raffaela Merlini
University of Macerata, Italy
Robert O’Dowd
University of León, Spain.
Anthony Pym
Intercultural Studies Group, Universidad Rovira I Virgili, Tarragona, Spain
Federica Scarpa
SSLMIT University of Trieste, Italy
Christopher Taylor
University of Trieste, Italy
David Trickey
TCO s.r.l., International Diversity Management, Bologna, Italy
Margherita Ulrych
University of Milan, Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Past and present in translation collaborative practices and cooperation.
An introduction
Mirella Agorni and Giovanni Iamartino 8
The collaborative translation of Buddhist scriptures in China:
from the second to the fifth centuries
Tianran Wang 18
Collaborative translation of buddhist texts: ancient Chinese assemblies and
contemporary organizations
Lifei Pan 44
Translation studies and the history of books:
a productive collaboration?
Mirella Agorni 66
Term formation as a collaborative practice:
between translation and cooperation among experts
Beatrice Ragazzini 89
“Of course there is something here and there I’m afraid I don’t quite
understand”. Cesare Pavese’s correspondence with Anthony Chiuminatto:
a collaborative translation strategy?
Kim Grego 112
Industrialisation of translation and collaborative practices
in the Greek translations of Marxist texts
Christina Delistathi 139
Collaborative translation(s) and feminism(s):
A diachronic perspective on the exchange of feminist theories and practices
between North America and Italy
Eleonora Federici 159
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Theatre translation: the oldest form of translaboration?
Massimiliano Morini 177
From suspicion to trust: “the pact of translation”
in two author-translator collaborations
Pascale Sardin and Serenella Zanotti 192
Showcasing Australian literature in China
Leah Gerber and Lintao Qi 215
Mapping collaboration and communication practices
in the French subtitling industry
Sevita Caseres 237
Love it, hate it, tolerate it: Translators’ experiences
with concurrent translation on collaborative platforms
Joanna Gough and Özlem Temizöz 262
Notes on contributors 292
Acknowledgments 297
Christina Delistathi
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Industrialisation of translation and collaborative practices
in the Greek translations of Marxist texts
Christina Delistathi
University of Westminster
Abstract
This paper investigates how collaborative translation practices were employed in the Greek
translations of theoretical Marxist texts published by the Communist Party of Greece in the
1950s. The party’s efforts to dominate Marxist discourse required the codification of Marxist
theory and the creation of accurate translations and retranslations of theoretical Marxist texts.
To this end, a specific model of collaboration was developed based on the principles of industrial
production, and conceptualised here as “industrialisation of translation” (Mossop 2006). The
translation process resembled a production line where, at different stages, each contributor added
a part until the completion of a translation. The translation process is analysed by adapting
indicators of industrialisation from Mossop (2006), e.g., large quantities of materials to be
translated, centralization of translation, intensification of work, division of labor, and quality
control and employee discipline, to show how collaboration was central both to the completion of
translations and to claims about their accuracy.
Keywords: collaborative translation, translation and Marxism, Marxism in Greece, history of
Marxism, translation and communism.
1. Introduction
The study of collaborative practices in translation highlights the fact “that
translation involves more than one writing subject and more than one
interpretive position” (Bistué 2013: 1). These practices encompass an array
of relations and configurations, from dyadic interactions (Zanotti 2020;
Heller and Hawkins 2020) to extensive teamwork which may involve a
thousand contributors (St. André 2010). They can take place in formal or
informal groups (Yang 2020; Zielinska-Elliott and Kaminka 2016) where
contributors may occupy a variety of roles as translators, revisers,
proofreaders, editors and publishers. However, despite its long history,
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collaborative translation is a neglected area of research in Translation
Studies, so it is a welcome development that this is now changing with
more studies, from monographs to edited volumes and journal special
issues (Bistué 2013; Cordingley and Frigau Manning 2016; Zwischenberger
2020) including this volume. But, with some exceptions (Bingenheimer
2010; Neather 2012), the focus of such research remains on literary texts
and concerns mostly contemporary contexts and online interactions
(Heller 2016; Jiménez-Crespo 2017; Yang 2020) enabled by technological
innovations (O’Hagan 2009; Díaz Cintas and Muñoz Sánchez 2006). On
the other hand, and even though Marxist ideas have been key in most areas
of intellectual production as well as in events that have shaped our world,
there has been little attention in Translation Studies on the translation of
works by Marx and Engels. Even recent interest in translation in the
communist era in the USSR and Eastern Europe (Baer and Witt 2017;
Rundle et al. 2022) concerns mostly literature and religion, and do not
specifically attend to the translation of Marxist or more broadly political
texts.
This paper contributes to historical research in collaborative
translation by investigating the ways in which collaboration was
operationalized in the translations of Marxist theoretical texts. These
translations were commissioned by the Communist Party of Greece
[Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, henceforth ΚΚΕ], and performed by a
group of its members, employed by the party specifically for this task, with
different responsibilities and roles (e.g., translators, revisers and proof-
readers). They were political refugees based in Bucharest, Romania, where
the party apparatus had converged after the party’s defeat in the civil war
(1946-1949).
1
So, although translation was carried out by communists
living in a country of the Eastern bloc, it was not a state-sponsored
initiative. The paper aims at foregrounding the social structures and
conditions in which collaboration took place and translation was carried
out and, as Kalnychenko and Kolomiyets (2022: 142) note, to contribute
to “what translation can say about the history of communism”. It will be
argued that the model of collaboration that was put in place was organized
on the principles of industrial production and bore similarities to a
production line. Collaboration served as a way to both codify Marxist
theory and to create (the impression of) accurate translations.
!
1
The civil war (1946-1949) was fought between the regular Greek army with the support
of Britain and, later, the US and the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) [Δημοκρατικός
Στρατός Ελλάδας] formed by the KKE.
Christina Delistathi
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In their recent work on Translation under communism, Rundle et al.
(2022: 7), call for a greater attention to archival research in order to connect
translation with its social and historical context. This paper responds to
this call by utilizing biographies of those involved in translation work, party
publications from the period of study discussing aspects of translation,
secondary sources and archival textual material. The latter have been
collected from the KKE’s archive, located at the Contemporary Social
History Archives (ASKI) in Athens and available to the public. The
documents from ASKI used here include a) staff lists, that provide
information on the contributors’ identities, remuneration and
responsibilities, which, in turn, indicate their places in the organization’s
hierarchy and the tasks they performed; b) production reports; and c)
decisions and notes of correspondence between various party bodies
which convey the party’s policies and procedures and comment on their
successes and failures. Unfortunately, no translation drafts exist in the
archive, so this study also encountered the same problems noted by
Hersant (2016: 98) and also Zanotti (2020: 221) who laments the “paucity
of textual evidence of the [translation] process” and the difficulty in finding
materials that record the dynamics between collaborators.
The selection of the records to study was based on their date, title,
body of issue and description in the archival records. The archival research
is work in progress, so the following discussion represents preliminary
findings. However, partial as it is, it constitutes progress towards the study
of the history of collaborative translation practices and more specifically
those through which theoretical Marxist texts were made available. As
these texts have been translated in many languages, it is hoped that this
paper will help stimulate more research in the history of their translations,
and will extend our knowledge of the diverse and distinctive collaborations
that made them possible.
2. Collaborative translation in historical studies and political texts
Translation Studies scholars have noted the variety of contexts in which
the term collaborative translation has been used and the consequent
challenges in defining it (Neather 2020: 70; Cordingley and Frigau Manning
2016: 2-4). In this discussion, it will refer to a situation “when two or more
agents cooperate in some way to produce a translation” (O’Brien 2011: 17).
This wide-ranging definition allows for the involvement of at least one
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translator and other contributors, such as revisers, editors, and
proofreaders, as is the case in this study, and suggests that the absence of
one of the contributors may jeopardize the completion of the translation.
It is a useful definition because, as will be shown, each contributor
executed a part or aspect of a translation without which the final version
would not have been possible.
Although studies regarding historical accounts of collaboration are
still limited, they provide a rich account of the various contexts of such
practices. Perhaps one of the most eminent works in historical instances of
collaborative translation is Bistué (2013). In her study of translation in
medieval Europe, Bistué shows the importance of collaboration in the
transmission of philosophical and scientific texts. She challenges the long-
held beliefs which perceive the translated text as the exclusive creation of a
single person with bilingual expertise (Bistué 2013: 2) and argues that
despite these beliefs and claims, translation as a collaborative act was a well-
established practice.
Other studies concern missionary and colonial settings. Hill (2013)
and Hofmeyr (2004) have called attention to the complex positions that
various contributors can occupy in the creation of translations. Colonial
encounters were sites where collaborative practices emerged, but the power
imbalances were such that the native person’s position was often one of
extreme subservience (Hill 2013: 34). Through historical examples of
collaborative translation in the Chinese context, St. André (2010) discusses
the process of the translation of sutras into Chinese over a period of ten
centuries, which involved not only relay translation, but also discussion and
revision among large groups of contributors (ibid.: 74). St. André argues for
the value of historical research in translation groupwork and stresses its
importance in translation education. Looking at more recent periods in film
translation, Zanotti (2020) uses the term ‘translaboration’ to investigate the
power imbalance in a dyadic collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and his
translator in the 1980s. Using archival materials from the official Stanley
Kubrick Archive, translation drafts and audio-material of phone
conversations from the translator’s estate, Zanotti shows how Kubrick
intervened in the translation process to guide the translator’s interpretation
in ways that she describes as a more or less forced collaboration (Zanotti
2020: 222).
Finally, studies of collaboration specifically on political texts are few
and tend to focus on contemporary settings. One of the earliest is by
Koskinen (2008) who investigates translation practices in the European
Christina Delistathi
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Commission and the ways that collaboration shapes the translated text.
Koskinen shows that in the final version it is the institution that ‘speaks’
through the translations (Koskinen 2008: 22) and the individual translator
bears limited responsibility. Similarly concerned with the impact of
collaboration on the lexical choices and construction of the TT are Fournel
and Zancarini (2016) who describe their own collaboration during the
translation of political texts from Italian to French. Following a historical
and political analysis of the STs, and combining their different competences,
the two translators describe how they arrived at their lexical choices (ibid.:
71) and refer to their collaborative model as “political philology”. It is a
philology because they begin the translation process with a slow, careful
reading of the originals, and political both because of the types of texts they
translate, and because “approaching texts critically and reflecting on the
meaning of the words has an eminently political value” (ibid.: 71). Their
paper describes the application of theory into practice by close textual
analysis and provides much-needed evidence of the impact of “translating
together” on the wording and construction of translated texts (ibid.: 72).
Having outlined previous studies of collaborative translation in historical
studies and political texts, the discussion will move to the context of
production of translations by the KKE followed by a detailed discussion of
its model of collaboration.
3. The KKE and the translation of theoretical Marxist texts
From the late 1920s onwards, Marxist ideas began to gain credence in
Greece, causing a surge in the translation of theoretical Marxist literature
(Elefantis 1976: 137f; Noutsos 1993: 372). For the KKE, which had closely
aligned itself with the Marxism propagated in the USSR, its translation
efforts intended to address two major priorities: firstly, to educate members
in Marxist ideas and raise consciousness among the working class; secondly,
to secure its domination over Marxist discourse and defeat its political
opponents on the Marxist-oriented left in Greece. These political groups
offered alternative interpretations of Marxism and had considerable
influence within the Greek labor movement in the pre-war era. In its 1927
Congress, the party’s intention to control Marxist discourse was
unambiguously stated (Delistathi 2023: 4): “our Party should aim at the
monopoly of representation of the Marxist-Leninist theory” in order to
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marginalize rival, ostensibly Marxist political forces (Rizospastis 1927: 1)
(my translation).
Key to the success of the project of discourse domination was the
codification of Marxism, which involved, on the one hand, the
(re)translation of Marxist theory into Greek, and, on the other, establishing
these official party (re)translations as the only correct interpretations of the
original texts (Delistathi 2011: 208-209). This latter aspect was important
because the party claimed that earlier translations published by its political
rivals contained errors that they had deliberately inserted to manipulate
Marxism for their own ends (Delistathi 2017: 208-209). Political events and
the intense state persecution of communists throughout the 1930s and
1940s impeded but did not banish the translation of Marxist literature; even
during the Axis occupation (1941-1944) there had been a handful of
translated publications, e.g., Dialectical and historical materialism [Διαλεκτικός
και Ιστορικός Υλισμός] (1942). But after liberation in 1944, when, briefly,
conditions became less restrictive, there was once again a surge in translated
Marxist texts: in 1945, their number soared to 40% of book production,
dropping sharply to 7% the following year at the beginning of the civil war
(Noutsos 1993: 372).
By the end of the Axis occupation, the KKE had become the
dominant party of the Greek left and the influence of its pre-war rivals had
diminished. Now it directed its criticism against the version of Marxism
propagated by Tito in Yugoslavia and against those party members who
espoused critical views of the regimes of the Eastern bloc. Having been
defeated in the civil war, the KKE was made illegal in Greece and its
members and supporters were persecuted. Tens of thousands crossed the
borders and became political refugees dispersed in Eastern European
countries; the party apparatus converged in Bucharest. Despite these
difficulties, codifying Marxism in translations remained a priority and the
stability provided in Bucharest gave this project a new impetus as evident
from the output of the party’s publishing activities: in 1951, translations
accounted for 50.8% of its overall publication output (Mattheou and Polemi
2003: 64). In the pre-war era, the translation of theoretical texts in the KKE
was usually undertaken by an individual (where translators’ names are stated
this seems to be the case). However, because the published translations were
authorized by the party, it is certain that at least one other person would
have checked and approved them on its behalf. In this respect, translating
had always had a collaborative aspect in the KKE.
Christina Delistathi
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This is the historical context of the Greek translation of the two
volume Selected works of Marx and Engels [Μαρξ Ενγκελς Διαλεχτά Έργα]
which were published in 1951. The Selected works are one of several
authorised party translations created through collaborative practices and the
publication is an example where these practices are explicitly stated for the
readers to see. Early in the first volume, there is a “Note by the Publishing
House of the Central Committee of the KKE” informing the reader that
this volume of the Greek edition mirrors that of the Russian edition as
“edited by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute” in Moscow (1948) (Anon.
1951: n.p.) by including the same texts. The Institute was the ultimate
interpreter of theoretical Marxist texts and published official translations
and other authorized works by the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (Delistathi 2023: 3). The Note states:
The volume we submit today has been translated and revised by a
team of translators, editors and partners. We carried out the
translation directly from the original, the German or English text. We
translated and revised Marx’s works, such as The Civil War in France,
[and] Wages, Price and Profit, directly from the English original,
considering also the corresponding editions in German and Russian
language. (Anon. 1951: n.p.; my translation)
The Note makes the organization of the translation process and the
different contributors visible. Readers are reassured that no relay translation
and no unsupervised and unauthorized interpretations had been introduced,
but it is unclear how editions in other languages had been considered.
However, the practice of direct translation contrasts with the experience in
Ukraine where the works of Marx and Engels were only allowed through
relay translation from the authorized Russian versions (Kalnychenko and
Kolomiyets 2022: 153). In any case, the Note makes clear how important it
was for the party to document and explain the practices used for the
creation of the publication and the following discussion will elaborate on
how these were organized and actualized in this and other party
publications.
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4. Industrialization of translation
In a study which specifically relates political priorities to the organization of
translation work, Mossop (2006) addresses the effects of the Canadian
government’s 1995 state policy on translations. The new policy transformed
translation from cultural activity into a business for profit (Mossop 2006:
18). This, in turn, ushered in changes in the organization of translating
which left visible traces in translators’ lexical choices. To account for these
changes, Mossop (2006) uses the term “industrialization of translation” to
mean not a transition from a pre-industrial to an industrial era, but a change
in the perception of translation as business. Mossop borrows from Gouadec
(2002: 237-254) several “indicators of industrialization” and identifies
sixteen categories that stratify these changes in work organization and
practice. They include: substantial quantities of material to be translated,
standardization of work organization, division of labor, search for
productivity gains, and appearance of quality management and salaried
employees (Mossop 2006: 10-11).
In contrast to its use by Mossop (2006), the term industrialization
usually denotes a period of major socio-economic transformation marked
by the reorganization of production and labor practices, and an orientation
towards mass production for a mass of consumers. It is associated with the
rational division of labor and its subsequent further reorganization around
the principles of the assembly and production line for increased productivity
and profit. As will be shown in the following sections, the process of
translating followed in the Selected works and other publications by the KKE
shares many similarities with a production line (Delistathi 2023: 18), but also
important differences. Whereas it is certainly the case that translating was
reorganized collaboratively and hierarchically, that each contributor created
an aspect of the translated text, and that productivity was key, it is also the
case that scholarly publications like the Selected works were neither intended
for a mass readership nor were they expected to make a profit in the
monetary sense. Instead, the party would benefit from an increase in its
cultural and political influence.
Nevertheless, the concept “industrialization of translation” provides
useful directions which I will follow to systematize the analysis of
collaborative practices. It foregrounds the fundamental changes in the ways
in which translations were created within the KKE in the early 1950s in
relation to the pre-war era, through a particular collaboration, a specific way
of organizing work. Many of the categories in Mossop (2006) mentioned
Christina Delistathi
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earlier are helpful here. To facilitate the discussion, I have reordered and
modified them as follows: 1) large quantities of materials to be translated,
2) centralization of production, 3) intensification of work and productivity
gains, 4) division of labor, and 5) quality control and employee discipline.
In this last category, I have added the dimension of employee discipline
because, as it will be discussed, discipline related to translation quality. Each
of these categories will be analysed in the following sections.
4.1. Large quantities of materials to be translated
A common association of the word “industrial” is with large-scale
production; in the case of translation this encompasses both the volume of
texts to be translated and the number of contributors involved (Mossop
2006: 14). Unlike pre-war times, the KKE now had a clearer and more
consistent translation policy, with a distinct focus on the translation of the
‘classics’ (i.e., works by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin) in scholarly, and
often multi-volume publications of selected and collected works. The extent
of the operation becomes clearer when we consider that the translations of
the ‘classics’ in 1951 totalled 28.9% of all translations by the KKE, and in
1954 40% (Mattheou and Polemi 2003: 64). The scale and complexity of
translating the ‘classics’ as well as the importance of their translations (cf.
St. André 2010: 79) determined the size and range of operations and the
scope of collaboration. An extensive number of dedicated and specialized
contributors was required to undertake this task and a large scale and precise
organization was needed to coordinate and supervise their activities. To
facilitate this, the KKE set up the Department of Classics discussed below.
4.2. Centralization of translation
An important element of industrialization is the centralization of
production from small and dispersed sites to sizable units. By 1951, most
party translation activity had coalesced into the Publishing House (1949-
1954), formalizing the collaborative dimension of translation within the
party. Based in a five-storey building in Bucharest,
2
its activities were
supervised by the Committee for Enlightening (Mattheou and Polemi 2003:
56) and financed by the Labor Party of Romania, which collected all income
generated by book sales (ibid.: 49). The Publishing House, which had its
!
2
See photograph in Patelakis (2019: 370).
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own printshop, was divided into sections and included a Translation Section
with its own sub-divisions, such as the Socio-political Department, the
Literature Department and the Department of Classics (ASKI b.239,
f.13/1/2),
3
so different contributors specialized in the translation of
different text types. The Department of Classics was set up specifically for
the translation of the ‘classics’ in scholarly editions. One of its earliest
publications was the Selected works of Marx and Engels [Διαλεχτά Έργα Μαρξ
Ένγκελς] (1951) as well as Lenin’s Collected works [ Άπαντα] (1952, volume
III) and Stalin’s Collected works [ Άπαντα] (1953) among others. By bringing
together different contributors in a single location, creating easy and clear
lines of communication between them and enhancing coordination,
centralization made possible the timely completion of the translations.
An effect of centralization was the appearance of salaried employees
engaged expressly in translating theoretical Marxist texts. By 1954, the
Department of Classics was employing 15 people, including Domna
Christea, Petros Rousos, Leonidas Stringos and Panagiotis Mavromatis
(ASKI b.286, f.13/48/131). However, it was not uncommon for personnel
to move between departments according to needs and personal abilities.
Although further information about Domna Christea is unclear, Rousos and
Stringos were longstanding party members occupying various leading
positions, as was Mavromatis until his expulsion from the KKE in 1950,
although he continued to work in the Department and was translating
directly from German (Georgiou 1992: 609-610). Overall, the appearance
of salaried personnel with distinct responsibilities gave visibility and formal
recognition to translators and other contributors and acknowledged them
as specialized in the interpretation of Marxism (Delistathi 2023: 12).
Regarding the organization of daily work, little is known other than
that it was eight hours long (ASKI b.293, f.13/55/25). Part of the workplace
life was a “factory committee” which followed up “all relevant matters
(production and norm, quality of work, discipline, order, cleanliness, moral
commendations)” (ASKI b.294, f. 13/56/17). From 1950, there was a
canteen for all employees, for printers as well as for those with text-writing
responsibilities regardless of rank, which improved nutrition by providing
meat four times a week (Mattheou and Polemi 2003: 47), although rationing
was in place for basic foodstuff, clothes and shoes (Georgiou 1992: 609).
!
3
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 ‘file’. This is followed by the serial number of the document referred to as it
is recorded in the archive.
Christina Delistathi
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149
Overcrowded housing, however, remained a pressing issue with fourteen
rooms housing 61 employees (Mattheou and Polemi 2003: 47). In terms of
their place in the Romanian society, employees were largely isolated from
the local population, which was “unpleasant for all” (Georgiou 1992: 609)
and nearly all aspects of their lives were planned, provided for and
controlled by the party.
4.3. Intensification of work and productivity gains
Similarly to the experience in other countries of Eastern Europe, such as
Bulgaria (Ivleva 2022: 361), translation work was carefully planned in the
party, but the introduction of production plans and targets for all employees
of the Publishing House in 1950 accelerated its pace. What were initially
collective and individual monthly and annual targets (ASKI b.294,
f.13/56/17) soon also became daily (ASKI b.109, f.4/1/139), a change
which further intensified work and added pressure on employees. This was
also an indirect way of controlling and regulating employee behavior.
Undoubtably, production plans and targets were a fundamental feature of
the economies of the Eastern European bloc and, given the KKE’s political
affiliation, it is unsurprising that it adopted this approach to production. But
they were also part of an overall effort to make productivity gains and enable
industrialized production. The 1950 annual Report on the activities of the
Publishing House commended employee performance which improved
translation output, from 300 pages per week in March 1950, to 430 and then
to 534 later in the year (ASKI b.294, f.13/56/17).
This pace of production depended on overtime, which was frequent
and often unpaid: for example, in order to fulfil the 1951 production plan,
employees worked 15,387 hours of overtime until 25 November 1951 and
it was anticipated that by the end of the year there would be an additional
1,400 hours; of the overtime already worked, only 7,500 hours had been
paid (ASKI b.294, f.13/56/67). Indeed, work was fast paced. Vassos
Georgiou, Head of the Publishing House (1950-1951), noted that the Selected
works of Marx and Engels were issued ahead of their deadline (Georgiou 1992:
618) and that staff “worked intensely because deadlines were tight from the
start” (Georgiou 1992: 610). But these levels of intensification caused
resentment and complaints were logged against Georgiou’s
disproportionate demands (ibid.). Occasionally, though, it was accepted by
the party that pressure was extreme. In 1953, it was acknowledged that in
the Department of Classics “most of the revision work falls on [the
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shoulders of] comrades Stringos and Mavromatis. The plan is too big for
two” and a third person was needed, so the department “would be able to
respond more comfortably and satisfactorily” to its assigned targets (ASKI
b.239, f.13/1/6). Adherence to targets and deadlines was especially
significant for the KKE: it confirmed not only the importance of the
codification of the Marxist theory within the Greek context and the urgency
of this task, but it also signalled the party’s continuous strength and
achievement despite its defeat in the civil war. Regardless of its exile and
persecution, the party could still mount an extensive and elaborate
operation and sustain a dominant ideological presence within the Greek left.
The intensification of translation work was accompanied by meticulous
planning and a clear division of labor as discussed in the next section.
4.4. Division of labor
Personnel records from the KKE's archive provide names, so we can
discern the organization of the Department of Classics. Additionally, the
production plan for 1955 cited in Mattheou and Polemi (2003: 65) has been
used, which shows the names of contributors, responsibilities, number of
pages to be worked on by each contributor and deadlines for the submission
of work. All these documents have helped me reconstruct the timeline of
the translation process and the workflow in the Department of Classics.
Industrialization is usually associated with the division of labor
between supervised workers with distinct tasks, degrees of specialization
and responsibilities. In the Department, production was hierarchically
organized, with clear lines of managerial responsibility and division of labor.
At the top of the hierarchy was the Head of Department, followed by
revisers, sub-divided into reviser A and reviser B, and a person completing
the last check of the final draft which was usually the Head. Reviser A
worked on the first draft and had more extensive input than B who revised
the second draft. Translators were also sub-divided into translator A and B,
perhaps according to experience and/or competence. Other contributors
to translation were typists and proofreaders (αποδιαβαστές) as well as those
whose responsibilities and place in the timeline are not entirely clear, such
as stylists (στυλίστες), contrasters (παραβολή), and correctors (διορθωτές). It
seems that stylists were responsible for improving expression, particularly
after so many different voices had been involved in creating the translated
text, whereas correctors probably rectified typing errors (Delistathi 2023:
14-15). The contrasters’ responsibilities were described in a later document
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in 1962 as those who compared the typed manuscripts with the hand-
written ones, presumably checking that all corrections had been
incorporated (ASKI b.250, f.13/12/310).
Decisions about the translation process were made at the top of the
hierarchy and were issued down the chain of command; the workflow was
as follows: each ST was divided into parts (perhaps by the Head);
4
these
were assigned to individual contributors, initiating the translation process.
Translators would complete a first draft, which would be sent to a typist
and then to Reviser A, who would comment and propose changes. A
second draft would be prepared and typed (and perhaps checked by a
contraster) and forwarded to Reviser B for more comments and changes. A
third and final draft would be prepared and sent to the stylist and
proofreader and then to the Head or other approved official for the final
check and authorization to print (Delistathi 2023: 17-18). It is unclear,
however, whether revisers contrasted the Greek translation with the original
German or English text (for the works of Marx and Engels) or with their
Russian translations.
Regarding the dynamics of interactions between contributors,
translators could exercise their judgment on lexical choices, however, the
extent of this was bound by what was institutionally allowed (see next
section). They bore responsibility for their choices, but revisers were
empowered to challenge and reverse them; the Head, as the person who
authorized a translation on behalf of the institution, could veto everyone
else’s decisions; thus, contributors found themselves in a web of power
relations and a cline from less to more powerful.
The 1955 production plan shows the timeline of the translation
process including clear and identical stages which were followed across
different publications, so for the translation of theoretical Marxist texts the
translation process was standardized. As indicated by the deadlines for each
task in the same plan, revision was happening as translation was progressing
and revisers would not wait for the whole draft of the translation to be
completed first. This meant that production could keep moving towards the
realization of the plan, making a more rational and productive use of labor
and ensuring a faster turnover. It is clear from the structure of the workflow
that every contributor specialized in an aspect of the translation process,
from creating the first draft of the translation to improving its accuracy and
fluency in later drafts. The collaborative translation process, during which
!
4
A similar process described in Mossop (2006, p. 24) as “chunking”.
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contributors constructed different parts of the translation and performed
different textual processes to prepare the text for the next stage of
production, can be likened to a production line where each contributor adds
a component or applies a process to the product which then moves to the
next workstation. In this way, no single contributor is visible or solely
responsible for the end product, but all have added their expertise for its
construction.
4.5. Quality control and employee discipline
Central to the codification of Marxism was the production of translations
which would be accepted as accurate interpretations of their originals, so
quality control, another aspect of industrial production, was key. Speaking
on behalf of the party, Petros Rousos, second secretary of the Committee
for Enlightening (the supervisory body of the Publishing House) who
authorized translations, opined on the best method to translate theoretical
Marxist texts that party translators should follow: neither word-for-word, as
it would “kill the text” by not making it fully comprehensible to the reader,
nor a free translation which “shows irresponsibility”; translators should,
instead, opt for “greater adherence to the original” while preserving the
author’s style in a fluent expression (Rousos 1953: 79-80; my translation).
The party stated the characteristics of a good quality translation: both word-
for-word and free translation were considered unreliable.
5
Instead, a good
translation should be accurate, but also fluent and reproducing the authorial
style. With its various levels of scrutiny, correction and supervision, the
party’s collaborative model was the appropriate way to organize translation
work in order to create such translations. On the one hand, quality control
helped to eliminate translation errors as the party saw them; on the other
hand, it also increased the party’s control over the translation process and
the actions of its own members.
The translated text became the product of a production line with
many contributors and processes. As it was checked and modified by
different people, moving across various phases of inspection and
correction, its reliability and trustworthiness increased, gradually becoming
more suitable for authorization and endorsement by the institution. The
personal, subjective interpretations of individual contributors were
eliminated by the impersonal and seemingly objective, and thus correct,
!
5
In the context of literary translation in the GDR free translation was also discouraged as
“a falsification of the original text” (Blum 2022: 302).
Christina Delistathi
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interpretation of the team (Delistathi 2023: 18). In other words,
collaboration was not only a mode of work organisation, but also a process
of achieving (assumed) objectivity. The Note in the Selected work of Marx and
Engels announcing the collaborative translation practices mentioned earlier
declared the rigorous processes followed to assert the supposed accuracy of
the translations.
Did the overall quality of translations improve because of
collaboration? Georgiou was sceptical of the venture to translate the
‘classics’ and of their overall quality: “I don’t know what the outcome of
this endeavour was after all and what its quality was” (Georgiou 1992: 610).
In 1951, the politburo noted that the party’s translations had “serious
deficiencies” (Mattheou and Polemi 2003: 52). Issues identified concerned
expression and the “quality of revision”, but accuracy was not specifically
mentioned. For the party, these problems were rooted, on the one hand, in
insufficient knowledge of publishing practices and on the other, in
“inadequate ideological party work” (ibid.: 52).
Overall, the industrialization of translation enabled the party to keep
firmer control not only of the translation process and the translated text,
but also of its own members. If production plans were a means for the
intensification of production and the indirect control of employee actions,
there were also specific supervisory mechanisms for their discipline. A
“Regulation of internal order” (1953) with the specific purpose of
“organizing discipline” to “ensure compliance with socialist discipline at
work, increase in productivity at work and production of good quality
products, [and] realization and transcendence of [production] plans with
reduction in production costs” (ASKI b.295, f.13/57/73) was intended, on
the one hand, to prevent employees from disrupting or undermining
production, and on the other, to ensure that they carried out their duties in
institutionally defined ways. Regarding translation, the Regulation defined a
“defective product” to be “a bad translation which required double the
normal time for revision, a reprint due to errors in translation or revision”
(ASKI b.295, f.13/57/73). Increase in productivity was key and employees
were expected to complete the assigned tasks within and even before the
deadline. Detecting undesirable behaviour was central: the need for more
than the allocated revision time delayed production and signalled
underperformance by a translator, while a reprint would be a more serious
matter as it wasted both time and printing resources. A five-tier system of
disciplinary measures was put in place to ensure conformity, ranging from
reprimand to dismissal. As in the experience of Eastern Europe (see Rundle
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et al. 2022), so here, translation was carefully guarded, a politically important
and ideologically sensitive enterprise as well as an output of industrial
production subject to scrutiny and to the monitoring and discipline of its
creators.
5. Conclusion
Central to the KKE’s project to dominate Marxist discourse was to codify
Marxist theory through good quality translations as the party saw them.
From this point of departure, this paper investigated ways in which
collaborative translation practices were operationalized to create
institutional translations of Marxist theoretical texts. It showed the
relationship between political priorities and social structures and argued that
to advance codification, a specific model of collaboration was developed
based on the principles of industrial production, referred to as
“industrialisation of translation”. This model was critical to the successful
completion of the translations, but did not necessarily bring the desired
quality. The term “industrialisation” encapsulates different characteristics of
the organisation of the collaborative translation practices, commonly
associated with industrial production. The volume of material to be
translated was significant enough to require standardised translation
processes and repeatable stages, and the involvement of multiple
contributors with different specialisations and levels of expertise, such as
translators and revisers. In the hierarchically structured Department of
Classics, where operations were centralized, contributors occupied distinct
places in a web of power relations and accountabilities. Collaboration was
organized as a production line where supervised contributors added parts
and performed processes until the translated text was completed and
authorized for publication. Production plans, which intensified work and
tightened the party’s control over its employees, ensured productivity gains
were made, and specific mechanisms of discipline were put in place to
ensure compliance with institutional demands. The rational division of
labour was essential both to guarantee that production targets were met and
to introduce different levels of quality control throughout the translation
process.
Indeed, producing translations that would be accepted as accurate was
part of the success of the project of discourse domination, so clear
pronouncements were made on what constituted a good translation and the
Christina Delistathi
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155
best method to translate. In the example of the Selected works of Marx and
Engels, collaborative work practices were brought to the reader’s attention.
With their various layers of checks and corrections, collaborative practices
suggested processes of text-creation through which individual and
subjective interpretative positions were erased, promoting instead the
assumed objectivity of the group (Delistathi 2023: 18). Collaborative
translation practices functioned both as a means of controlling translation
and as a means of evoking the accuracy and objectivity of translations in the
service of discourse control. Considering collaborative practices as part of
an industrialized model of translation production illuminates new aspects of
past practices in translation and the varieties of contexts and models in
which these practices were implemented.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the reviewers for their feedback and to Peter Skrandies for
his comments on an earlier draft.
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