Manchester’s People’s History Museum will be taking part in a project with the University Of Manchester which aims to uncover previously inaccessible archive collections on leading figures in the Communist Party of Great Britain.

An Arts & Humanities Research Council funded project, it aims to challenge popular perceptions of Communism in Britain and beyond by focussing on Communism’s interventions across civil society (culture, education, media, science).

The museum will be cataloguing and opening to researchers the papers of three British Communists who emphasised the importance of civil society in politics; Monty Johnstone, John Attfield and Paul Olive. 

 Covering the 1945-1990 period, this new material will substantially enhance the internationally significant archive of the Communist Party held at the museum.
Throughout the project the museum will be be scrutinising the past and asking what, if anything, of 20th century Communism remains as a resource for progressive politics in the centenary year of the October Revolution.
As part of the project which will run for eighteen months, A British Communism and Commitment day school will be held at PHM on Thursday 9 June 2016 will bring together researchers and former Communist Party activists to analyse ideas of Communist commitment

Two exhibitions at PHM in 2017 will draw on these new collections and de-familiarise British Communism for the general public by highlighting its concerns, conflicts and contradictions

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