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RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: may 2017 :: RMTnews
26
The British Library, a stone’s
throw from RMT’s London
headquarters, has launched what
it describes as a “definitive”
exhibition taking a fresh look at
the Russian Revolution 100
years on, from the reign of
Russia’s last Tsar to the death of
Lenin in 1924.
Russian Revolution: Hope,
Tragedy, Myths presents rarely
seen items from across the
political spectrum, from a 1848
first edition of the Communist
Manifesto to anti-Bolshevik
propaganda alongside the tales
of ordinary people living
through extraordinary times.
Not surprisingly, as one of
the country’s largest research
resources, it draws much of its
material from printed matter
including posters, letters,
photographs and banners as
well as recordings and film.
Some most absorbing items
include a request from future
Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin
to join the British Museum
Library as a reader in 1902 and
a letter from 1922 from
Scotland Yard requesting that
Bolshevik literature should not
be made public by the library.
There are also an amazingly
well-preserved Items of Red
Army uniform and a banner
gifted by young Bolsheviks to
the Shipley Young Communist
League.
The Red Bolshevik
propaganda on display here is,
of course, far superior and more
striking and engaging than the
White Tasrist material in
defence feudal obscurantism.
The exhibition begins with
the last days of the Russian
Empire and the downfall of the
last Tsar Nicholas II, only
reinforcing the ludicrously
backward nature of the regime.
White Army propaganda
generally made few attempts to
harness local support as they
generally saw the peasantry as
lower than vermin.
Conversely, much of the Red
propaganda focuses heavily on
the abolition of ignorance with
EXPLORING
THE REVOLUTION
The British Library hosts the Russian Revolution: Hope,
Tragedy, Myths exhibition but does it tell the whole story?
A worker Sweeping Criminals
out of the Soviet Land' from
Russian Placards 1917-22
© British Library Board
Red Army poster
© British Library