They did not pass!

by New Worker correspondent

London communists returned to Cable Street last weekend, to remember the epic day in 1936 when the Sir Oswald Mosley’s fascist legions were stopped in their tracks in London on 4th October 1936.
    NCP members and Greek KKE comrades paid tribute to the heroic stand of the Londoners who stopped the Blackshirts, at a ceremony by the Cable Street mural in London’s East End.
    On that day, thousands of working people, led by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Independent Labour Party (ILP) rose early from their beds to occupy four key places along the route of a planned march by Mosley and his British Union of Fascists, in order to block its path.
    Throughout the day they stood firm, despite mounted police baton charges and numerous arrests.
    By noon, Gardiner’s Corner was impassable due to the number of anti-fascist demonstrators. Police tried to clear a route through Leman Street – but this was blocked by a tram, deliberately abandoned by its driver.
    Police tried to reroute the march through Cable Street. Anti-fascist demonstrators, the vast majority local residents, blocked Cable Street with barricades in three different places. Police fought their way through one barricade, only to be confronted by the second.
    Eventually the police gave up and ordered Mosley to abandon his march. They escorted him to the Embankment where his followers dispersed.
    This was a humiliating defeat for Mosley and it eventually led to a cutting off of vital funds from his main financial sponsor, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The Battle of Cable Street marked a significant turning point and the end of any prospects of fascism becoming a truly mass movement in Britain, as it had done in some other European countries.
    The massive mural in Cable Street, 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.

When Londoners stood up to Mosley

Italian comrades opening the ceremony

By New Worker correspondent

Comrades from Britain, Greece, Italy and Israel gathered at the Cable Street memorial in Shadwell on Saturday to remember that epic day in 1936 when Sir Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts were stopped in their tracks on 4^th October 1936. 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.

NCP leader Andy Brooks and comrades from the Communist Party of Italy’s Pietro Secchia (UK) branch, along with members of the Greek communist party (KKE) and the Communist Party of Israel, paid tribute to the East Enders’ heroic stand against fascism.

On that 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.

• Islington Tribune