Photographs from the archives of the Daily Worker and Morning Star newspapers. Unless otherwise stated these images are Copyright Morning Star, Courtesy Marx Memorial Library, London
The Organ of Social Democracy was first published in 1884 as the weekly newspaper of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) of the United Kingdom and was published until 1933. After the SDF became the British Socialist Party in 1911, then the National Socialist Party in 1916 and finally the Labour Party, Justice continued as its regular publication. In 1925 the name was changed to the Social Democrat until it ceased publication. Contributors to the publication include: Ernest Belfort Bax, August Bebel, Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, Jean Jaurès, Paul Lafargue, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Dora Montefiore, William Morris, Harry Quelch, Theodore Rothstein and Clara Zetkin. At the MML we hold a print collection of Justice spanning September 1893 to December 1922, including copies under the revised title The Social Democrat many of which have now been digitalised and can be accessed online including the article "Wait and see in Russia" from January 1918.
The Marx Memorial Library is home to over 2000 posters, filling three A0 plan chests at historic Marx House In Clerkenwell. Subjects range from the Russian Revolution, to the Spanish Civil War, anti-apartheid campaigns and the post-war movement for nuclear disarmament. Each print has been individually photographed and catalogued in detail; researchers can look up artists, descriptions, subjects and dates. The resource is hosted on the MML’s website, searchable through its Soutron catalogue. The posters - which include, for example, a 1893 Manchester Anarchist Group notice for a meeting on Stevenson Square, a work by Denisov on the 1917 Russian Revolution, and works promoting literacy produced by the Spanish Republican government during the 1936-39 civil war, - are available to researchers, on loan to galleries and museums and to school and student workshops on request.
After the Bolshevik Revolution, David Riazanov (1870–1938) founded the Marx-Engels Institute as a branch of the newly formed Socialist Academy of Social Sciences. The Institute was to be a place where historians and activists could study ‘the birth, development and spread of the theory and practice of scientific socialism.’ To make this possible, Riazanov acquired an excellent collection of socialist authors from the recently nationalised libraries, but to obtain other works that had never been freely admitted into Russia he arranged for the purchase of books, pamphlets and newspapers from across Europe. In 1922, he wrote to A. F. Rothstein and A. A. Bogdanov that the Institute had created a rich collection for studying the history of the English people and workers’ movements and their section on Chartism was second only to the British Museum. After the Institute was abolished in 1993, ‘The English Cabinet’ was integrated into the archives at the Centre of Social and Political History in Moscow. Nearly a thousand of its books and pamphlets and 45 newspapers and periodical titles can now be searched online at www.frontlinestates.ltd.uk/the-english-cabinet.
The Worker: The Organ of the Workers’ Committees Scotland was published in Glasgow between 1916 and 1931 and represented the Clyde Workers’ Committee. The Worker advocated the introduction of Communist principles into the industrial organisation of the working class and to promote unity and solidarity among workers of competing Scottish organisations. Contributors included Communist MP for Willie Gallacher, Guy Aldred and John William Muir who also edited the publication.
At the Marx Memorial Library we have a print collection of The Worker for the years 1920 to 1921, some of which have now been digitalised and can be found online.
A series of films from the Marx Memorial Library, the International Brigade Memorial Trust and Platform Films showcasing MML's unique Spanish Collection
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