THE CHINESE CLOTH BANKNOTE TALK

Sat 2 Nov, 2–3pm

Online and at the Museum

This event is at the Museum in the Headley Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom

With Dr Paul Bevan, Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies

In China, during the turbulent decade of the 1930s, a number of Chinese soviet areas were formed as a direct reaction to the violent government crackdown on left-wing organisations.

At this time of turmoil, the Sichuan-Shaanxi regional government's Provincial Soviet Workers and Farmers Bank used cloth rather than paper to print their banknotes. The cotton note issued in 1933, by one of the best known early Chinese communist banks, was for circulation in the revolutionary base area on the borders of Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces. The slogan 'Workers of the World Unite!' was written at the top.

These cloth banknotes display many of the symbols commonly associated with the worldwide socialist movement.

1930s Soviet workers and farmers Chinese banknote - back and front - made from cloth

1930s Soviet workers and farmers Chinese banknote, obverse & reverse © The Trustees of the British Museum / Creative Commons

The reverse of the notes, however, show highly stylised Chinese characters, similar in design to typographical features found in the left-wing print media in Shanghai, which had their origins in the USSR.

In his talk, Dr Bevan will discuss this aspect of Soviet Russian art and design, adopted by the creators of the cloth banknote in a remote area of China in 1933, and why it's so important in the fields of numismatics, textile history, and the history of art and design in China.

An example of the Chinese cloth banknote is on display in our forthcoming Money Talks exhibition.