Thanks for that Tinners + Bryn. Strange that Tom Service, who did ask some sensible questions, seems to think that Cardew died a Maoist - and nobody thought to correct this.

In the absence of a copy of the book or of Bryn (I mean Bryn himself, not a copy of him) or Autoharp, at the time of Cardew's death he was an active member of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) which renounced Maoism in the late 1970s, taking the side of Albania in the ideological split between China and Albania which took place around then.

Indeed, richard. Cardew was a vehement critic of 'Maoism' in the years immediately preceding his death. I don't have the text to hand, but one of his songs performed at the QEH Memorial Concert for him contains a verse which denounced Mao's ideology in no uncertain terms. By then, Mao and his Party were viewed by Cardew and his comrades as quasi-feudal nationalists, IIRC. Autoharp had more contact with Cardew than I during that period, I think. My own relationship with him had become strained some years earlier, mainly due to his approach to personal relationships, though we also differed on wider political issues, too.