They did not pass!

 by New Worker correspondent

Comrades were out on Sunday to mark the day the fascists were stopped in their tracks in London. On 4th October 1936 hundreds of thousands of workers took to the streets to stop Sir Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts marching through the Jewish quarter in the East End of London. And last Sunday former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn paid tribute to those who put up barricades and battled with the police to stop Mosley’s thugs in what soon became known as the “Battle of Cable Street”.
    The Communist Party played a major part in the mobilisation along with the Independent Labour Party and the Jewish Ex-Servicemen's Association. On the eve of the Mosley march the Daily Worker warned that "the fascists are pouring out unimaginable filth against the Jews. The attack on the Jews has been the well-known device of every bloodthirsty, reactionary, unpopular regime for centuries". The issue was "not merely a question of elementary human rights…the attack on the Jews is the beginning of the attack to wipe out the socialist movement, trade unionism and democracy in Britain".
    On the day, the Blackshirts and thousands of police were met by a hostile crowd who had erected barricades to stop the fascists marching. After hours of clashes with the police and many arrests, the police told Mosley the march would have to be abandoned.
    On Sunday, at the rally just off Cable Street, Corbyn told the crowds that, despite Mosley’s attempt to use anti-Semitism to divide the working class, something “totally remarkable” happened on that day in 1936. “The Jewish community and the Irish community came together to say: ‘they shall not pass’.”
    This was echoed by the local Labour MP, Apsana Begum, who called it an “incredible triumph of humanity, a victory of people’s power”, whilst warning that hate speech was on the rise again in Britain and around the world.

When the Blackshirts were stopped in their tracks!

Andy Brooks with London, Italian and Greek comrades by the mural

by New Worker correspondent

 Hundreds of thousands of anti-fascists took to the streets of London’s East End on Sunday 4^th October, 1936 to stop Sir Oswald Mosley’s fascist Blackshirts marching through a predominantly Jewish part of London. Communists played a major part in the mobilisation along with members of the Independent Labour Party and the Jewish Ex-Servicemen’s Association, and their efforts were recalled by British, Italian and Greek communists at a ceremony in London’s historic East End last weekend.

London communists joined comrades from Greece and Italy at the Cable Street mural on Saturday to remember the Cable Street fighters and all the anti-fascists who fought in the Second World War for a better world.

NCP leader Andy Brooks and Alfredo Maira from the Communist Party of Italy’s Pietro Secchia (UK) branch paid tribute to the East Enders’ heroic stand against fascism that stopped the Blackshirts in their tracks in 1936.

On the eve of the Mosley march the Daily Worker warned that: “The fascists are pouring out unimaginable filth against the Jews. The attack on the Jews has been the well-known device of every bloodthirsty, reactionary, unpopular regime for centuries.” The issue was “not merely a question of elementary human rights…the attack on the Jews is the beginning of the attack to wipe out the socialist movement, trade unionism and democracy in Britain.”

On the day some 3,000 Blackshirts and thousands of police were met by a hostile crowd who had erected barricades to stop the fascists marching. After hours of clashes with the police and many arrests the police told Mosley that the march would have to be abandoned.

The massive mural, painted by a number of local artists, was started in 1979 and finally completed in 1983. The work has been vandalised by fascists several times but it was substantially restored in 2011.

 The design was based on original photographs of the battle and the buildings of the day. Some of the people who took part in the battle are depicted in the mural along with others who symbolise the people of the East End today.

Communists remember Battle of Cable Street

Dermot Hudson, Daphne Liddle and Andy Brooks to the fore

by New Worker correspondent

THE BANNER of the New Communist Party (NCP) Central Committee was among hundreds of banners of anti-fascist, anti-racist and left-wing parties and groups marching through London’s East End last Sunday to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street.

In this month in 1936 the working class people of the East End – including dockers and their families, Jewish and Irish immigrants, and left-wing refugees from the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany – came out on to the streets en masse to block the path of a march planned by Sir Oswald Mosley’s fascist Blackshirts.

The leaderships of the Labour Party and the British Board of Jewish Deputies had told their members to stay indoors and ignore the fascists. But the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) mobilised at short notice – abandoning a previously planned rally in Trafalgar Square – to urge the people to come out onto the streets and make a stand against the fascists.

They did not take much urging; they came out eagerly and built barricades of overturned vehicles, furniture and whatever was to hand.

Massive numbers of police, including mounted police, charged the crowds repeatedly to try to clear a path for the fascists, attacking the people with considerable brutality and making many arrests.

But the people would not be dislodged and eventually the police gave up and the fascist march was abandoned.

It was a significant turning point in the fortunes of fascist organisation in Britain. It gave courage to local populations throughout London and the whole country to challenge the fascists whenever they tried again to march.

One of those taking part was the young Max Levitas, a Jewish member of the Communist Party, whose job it was to knock on doors and urge the people to come out and stop the fascists.

And he was there again last Sunday at the rally in St Mary’s Churchyard in Cable Street, aged 101, to speak to the crowd and warn that the dangers of racism and fascism have not gone away but are still very real today.

A young woman taking part in the crowd blocking Mosley’s march in 1936 went on to become the mother of Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party.

Corbyn also spoke to the rally in St Mary’s Churchyard, close to the giant mural of the battle of Cable Street, and mentioned his mother telling him as a child of the need to oppose racism and fascism.

Corbyn went on to call for unity to oppose all forms of racism/bigotry, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Last Sunday’s march set out from Altab Ali Park in the Whitechapel Road, named after a young Muslim who was murdered nearby by racists in 1978.

It was a colourful and noisy march, with plenty of music from a local Jewish band on the march and our Italian communist friends from the Partito Comunista Gran Bretagna-Sezione Pietro Secchia singing Italian Communist songs.

The march was a couple of thousand strong but police had not closed the roads, forcing marchers to make their procession on the pavement and in cycle lanes – at some parts too narrow to allow for banners to pass facing forwards.

The Metropolitan Police are under pressure to prioritise the needs of commerce and big business over historical anniversaries.

But the fascists are still being kept out of the East End of London. Five years ago the Islamophobic English Defence League (EDL), at the height of its powers, tried to lead a mass march along the Whitechapel Road past the biggest mosque in Britain.

But the local community, including Muslims, Jews, Christians, communists and many others again came together for a demonstration that blocked the road. Police had to contain the racists in Aldgate, to the west of the boundary with the City of London.

After that the EDL found itself blocked by local anti-racist communities in Brighton, Bristol, Colchester and many other places. It declined and has split into warring ineffectual fragments. Further attempts by the EDL and its splinters to pass through London’s East End have been total failures.

•  80thAnniversary of the Battle of Cable Street
• Cable Street Mural
• The making of the mural