Although in the standard history of the interwar BBC this episode is used to encapsulate the relationship between the Communist Party and the BBC in that period -- one of fierce and covert if unflappably courteous censorship on one side and low expectations on the other -- it is, in fact, a small detail in a larger and more complex story, an unwritten chapter in the history of both organizations.6 This article revisits that relationship, arguing that Communism was a spectre that haunted the early BBC, inhabiting the vision that shaped its formation. More particularly, it argues that Communists proved an influential if uneven presence on BBC radio in the 1930s. It is about Communists on the wireless in both senses: it recovers the Communist presence on the airwaves across BBC departments and regions; it also restores to view a body of prewar Marxist analysis of the technology and cultural form of radio, of the institution of the BBC, and of the possibilities for oppositional interventions. Drawing upon a range of sources from radio listings, Communist Party publications, BBC records, and the declassified MI5 files of broadcasting Communists, it situates the work of Communists on the radio -- and the ensuing patterns of BBC blacklisting and censorship -- in relation to the histories of both institutions through a tumultuous period. [from article]
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