The Marx Memorial Library was established in 1933 in Clerkenwell in East London as a permanent memorial to Karl Marx on the fiftieth anniversary of his death, and as a place of study for those interested in socialist and Marxist ideas and history.
The library's holdings include books, pamphlets and journals on Lenin, the Spanish Civil War, and the British Labour Movement, among other subjects, and the building itself contains the 1934 mural The Worker of the Future Clearing away the Chaos of Capitalism by Viscount Hastings who studied under Diego Rivera, the great Mexican muralist.
The collection is an eclectic mix of politics, portraits and events where images of Robert Maxwell or Oswald Mosley sit side by side with photos of Billy Bragg, Sylvia Pankhurst, Graham Greene or Arthur Scargill. There are some great scenes of rallies, strikes, pickets, and campaigning, and a particularly entertaining photo of the 1983 Bermondsey by-election with Peter Tatchell, Simon Hughes and Screaming Lord Sutch on the podium together. |
