The Secret War Against the Arts: How MI5 Targeted Left-Wing Writers and Artists, 1936-1956

258 Pages·2020·27.379 MB·English

by  Richard Knott

The Secret War
Against the Arts
‘Will you please find out if this person is all right
from the MI5 point of view?’
… W.H. Auden, C. Day Lewis, Stephen Spender and Doris Lessing
Olivia Manning, Storm Jameson, George Orwell, Felicia Browne
and Julian Trevelyan
Paul Hogarth, Clive Branson, J.B. Priestley,
Sylvia Townsend Warner …
The Secret War
Against the Arts
How MI5 Targeted Left-Wing
Writers and Artists, 1936–1956
Richard Knott
First published in Great Britain in 2020 by
Pen & Sword History
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Yorkshire – Philadelphia
Copyright © Richard Knott 2020
ISBN 978 1 52677 031 8
The right of Richard Knott to be identified as Author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.
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‘ My God, when I think what is happening, what is going to happen
to art in this country, squeezed between the public and the
Government.’
In the Second Year, by Storm Jameson
‘ Can they hear whispers over their microphones? … Can they hear
me at certain moments? Is someone in earphones writing everything
down?’
Christopher’s Ghosts, by Charles McCarry

Contents
Glossary ix
List of Illustrations x
Dramatis Personae xii
1 Hogarth and Branson 1
2 Art and Marx 11
3 ‘A Bastard of a War’ 21
4 For the People of Spain 31
5 The Artist Who Sometimes Wears Sandals 47
6 Blacklist 51
7 ‘Are You For Stalin or For Us?’ 65
8 Artist and Soldier 72
9 ‘Slimy with Self-Deception’ 77
10 ‘One of the More Important Communists’ 85
11 Clive in India 89
12 No Peace for MI5 93
13 Doris Lessing Reads Clive Branson 101
14 ‘Afterwards I’ll Paint All Right’ 104
15 The Travels of Comrade Hogarth 107
16 The Artists’ Dilemmas 110
17 A Communist Cell at the BBC? 115
viii The Secret War Against the Arts
18 Listed by Orwell 120
19 Austerity and Restriction 124
20 The Watched One 127
21 ‘Absolute Typical Stephen’ 131
22 Paul Hogarth’s Defiant People 137
23 The Failing God? 139
24 The Party is Not Yet Over 143
25 Hogarth and Branson (2) 148
26 Lines from the Burma Front 155
27 Hogarth in China 158
28 Being a Red is Tough 162
29 Hogarth and Lessing go to Africa 165
30 Resignation 171
31 Burma 1944 179
32 Aftermath 182
33 Towards an Ending 185
Dramatis Personae: A Retrospective 197
Notes 200
Acknowledgements 217
Bibliography 218
Index 222
Glossary
ABCA Army Bureau of Current Affairs
AIA Artists’ International Association
ANC African National Congress
ARP Air Raid Precautions
CND Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain
DI Defence Intelligence
ENSA Entertainments National Service Association
FO Foreign Office
GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters
GPO General Post Office
HOW Home Office Warrant
IRD Information Research Department
ILP Independent Labour Party
JSM Joint Staff Mission
KGB Committee for State Security, Soviet Union
MI5 the Security Service
MI6 Secret Intelligence Service
MOI Ministry of Information
NKVD The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs
PEN International PEN Club (now PEN International)
PF personal file
POUM Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista
RSM Regimental Sergeant Major
SIS Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)
SLO Security Liaison Officer
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
Uzzbuzz US Strategic Bombing Survey
WAAC War Artists’ Advisory Committee
YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association