Talk on Chinese Cloth Banknotes 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.

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 why this cloth banknote, designed and manufactured in a remote area of China in 1933, is 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 the forthcoming Money Talks exhibition.

£8