"Heart of the heartless world, / Dear heart, the thought of you" actually contain a blind quotation from Marx, who in the Introduction to his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right describes religion as "the heart of a heartless world." In his 1942 introduction to The Fury of the Living, a collection of poems by John Singer, Hugh MacDiarmid calls Cornford (along with Christopher Caudwell, another young writer killed fighting in Spain), one of the 'few inspiring exceptions' from the 'leftist poets of the comfortable classes'. His brother Christopher Cornford continued to be active in politics until into the late 1980s, in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and its offshoot Cambridge Against Missile Bases, and in the environmental movement as a signatory of the Blueprint for Survival and an early member of the Ecology (later Green) Party in the UK. John's son, James (1934–2011), who was two years old when John was killed in action, became an academic and social reformer. He led a variety of organizations, including the Nuffield Foundation, the Campaign for Freedom of Information (1984–1997), the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and the first director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, as well as a literary editor and later chairman of The Political Quarterly academic journal. He served as an advisor to David Clark, but when Clark's advocacy for a strong freedom of information law was rejected by cabinet, Clark resigned along with Cornford. James Cornford was survived by four children and his wife. Th character of Tommy Judd in the 1981 award-winning play Another Country by Julian Mitchell was based on Cornford." Works References Sources (Republished 1978 by Borderline Press ) Further reading External links Great Lives: Series 19 John Cornford "Saint John" By T.R. Healy 1915 births 1936 deaths People educated at Stowe School British people of the Spanish Civil War English communists Communist Party of Great Britain members English anti-fascists Military personnel killed in the Spanish Civil War Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge International Brigades personnel Darwin–Wedgwood family 20th-century English poets English male poets Communist poets