Michael Tippett
Famous composer, Sir Michael Tippett’s very short, and largely unknown, period of Communist Party membership was prompted by a hitch-hiking holiday through the depressed north of England during the 1930s.
However, his incipient Trotskyist leanings soon put him in conflict with the Party and he simply left it by lapsing.
Later, in 1940, he joined the Peace Pledge Union, much later even becoming its President. He was jailed for two months because of his conscientious objection during the Second World War.
He died aged 93 in 1998.
Source: Morning Star 10th January 1998
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