I have made a point of annually remembering that on this day 4th October, 1936,
the Battle of Cable Street when Oswald Mosley's British Union of
Fascists attempted to march through the predominately Jewish section of East London, to be met by over
100,000 local residents and workers who fought with the fascists and the
police in order to protect their community, which forced the march to
be abandoned. The
people of the East End inflicting a massive defeat on Mosley’s British Union of Fascists that must never be forgotten.
During this time Britain was facing very serious economic problems,
with a climate of mass unemployment and economic depression, and far
right forces were intent on using this in order to exploit division and
stir up hate. Oswald Mosley, a former
member of Parliament known for his public speaking skills, founded the
BUF in 1932, and within two years membership had grown to
50,000. Mosley's fascists held vile anti-semitic views and tried to
blame Jews for the cause of the country's problems. Throughout the mid 1930s, the BUF moved
closer towards Hitler’s form of fascism with Mosley himself saying that
“fascism can and will win in Britain”. The British fascists took on a
more vehemently anti-Semitic stance, describing Jews as “rats and vermin
from whitechapel” and tried to blame Jews
for the cause of the country's problems. Mosley’s blackshirts had been harassing the sizeable Jewish population
in the East End all through the 1930s. By 1936 anti-semitic assaults by
fascists were growing and windows of Jewish-owned businesses were
routinely smashed. Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’ The notorious Daily Mail
headline is just one chilling indication of the very real threat Oswald
Mosley’s British Union of Fascists posed in the mid 1930s.
As the fascist movement developed, so too did opposition to it. Led
by Communists, socialists and trade unionists the anti-fascist movement
grew, supported also by Liberals and some anti-fascist Tories.
However, those who interrupted fascist meetings found themselves dealing with unprecedented violence from Blackshirt thugs.
The notorious Olympia meeting of 7 June 1934 came to symbolise
Blackshirt thuggery. After the Daily Worker posted the location of the
West London meeting, a number of anti-fascists attended, intending to
disrupt the meeting.
Hecklers were beaten by gangs of Blackshirts armed with
knuckledusters and other weapons and thrown into the street. The BUF was
roundly condemned by the mainstream and the violence of the meeting
effectively ended Mosley’s pretence of respectability.
Whilst the first Jews came to Britain following the Norman Conquest
of 1066, the Jewish community of London’s East End mainly comprised of
families that had arrived between 1881 and 1914.
Many of these families settled in England after fleeing antisemitism
and murderous pogroms in Russia, Poland and many other Eastern European
countries. They followed previous waves of immigration that had brought
Huguenots, Irish and other smaller groups into the area.
By the 1930s some 183,000 Jews lived in London, the majority in the
East End due to cheaper rents. Stepney was home to some 60,000 Jews and
the heart of Jewish East London.
With its reputation in tatters following Olympia and increasingly
under the influence of Hitler, BUF leaders sought to exploit the
reservoir of antisemitism in the East End in order to save the party.
By 1936 the BUF was pouring most of its resources into holding
meetings in the East End and distributing crude antisemitica. Mob
orators such as Mick Clarke and Owen Burke sought to whip up violence on
street corners night after night.
As this approach gradually gained support in poor neighbouring areas
such as Bethnal Green, Mosley announced he would celebrate the fourth
birthday of the BUF by staging a provocative march through Stepney, the
heart of the Jewish East End, on 4 October, 1936, following months of BUF meetings and leafleting in
the area designed to intimidate Jewish people and break up the East
End’s community solidarity.
Political leaders in the East End petitioned the Home Secretary Sir John
Simon to ban the march; however, their request was denied. On 2nd
October, the Jewish People’s Council presented a second petition with
100,000 signatures to request that the march be banned on the grounds
that the “avowed object of the Fascist movement in Great Britain is the
incitement of malice and hatred against sections of the population.”
Despite these efforts, the British government allowed the march to
proceed as planned and assigned 7,000 members of the police force to
accompany it. They were not to be welcomed, instead they were
met by protestors, waving banners with slogans such as
'They shall not Pass'( no pasaron, famous republican slogan from the
Spanish Civil War) , 'No Nazis here' and 'East End Unite.' A huge force had assembled prepared to defend their streets and neighbourhoods and their right to live in them.
Even though uniformed policemen on horseback were employed to allow
Mosley's march to pass through, anti-fascists blocked the route by
barricading the street with rows of domestic furniture and the police
were attacked with eggs, rotten fruit and the contents of peoples
chamber pots. Local kids rolled marbles under police horses hooves. A
mighty battle ensued, with people seriously hurt on both sides.
Eventually, the police ordered the fascists to disperse, but the
Metropolitain Police had by now (correctly) been perceived as having
protected the BUF and were turned upon by local residents.It now became a
battle between the cops and the local population. It goes almost
without saying that local people won that fight, with the police having
to withdraw after having bowls of urine and faeces dumped on them by
residents above, police horses being immobilised by thumbtacks [drawing
pins] being littered all along the street, and officers being pulled off
their horses, spat -- and even urinated -- upon and beaten up.
Cable Street is rightly remembered because it saw thousands of people, from many walks
of life, women, children, local jews, Irish groups, communists,
socialists, anarchists standing firm as one in an incredible display of
unity who worked together to prevent Mosley's fascists from marching
through a Jewish area in London. Remembering too the support of the Jewish community in the dock strikes of
1912, Irish dockers stood in solidarity with Jews against the fascists,
ripping up paving stones with pickaxes handles to add to the barricades.Together, they won a famous victory and put the skids under Britain’s first fascist mass movement.The fascists did not get to march and they did not
pass, and were left in humiliation so today we look back on this living
history in celebration and pride.
There is much to learn from the Battle of Cable Street about the power
that individuals and groups wield in the face of intolerant policies and
behaviours when they unite against racism and discrimination. Hopefully
by engaging with this history, we can think critically about the
choices made by the East End community and its allies in 1936 and then
consider choices available to us as agents of change in the face of
prejudice and discrimination in our society and communities today.
Significantly, for some people
that were involved in the protest, Cable Street was the
road to Spain, and many would go on to volunteer as soldiers for the
Republicans there.The legend that was Cable Street became the
lasting inspiration for the continuing British fight against
the fascism that was spreading all across Europe and would eventually
engulf the planet in a terrible world war, the event also launched movements for tenant rights,
against economic injustice, and in defense of immigrants.
Commissioned in 1976 by the Tower Hamlets Arts Project, the artist Dave Binnington drawing inspiration from Spanish muralists and Picasso’s Guernica.
Binnington after interviewing many local characters and includong them in the
design, started painting a large mural
commemorating
the battle on the side wall of St George's Town Hall. In 1982, the
still uncompleted mural was vandalised with right-wing slogans, after
which Binnington abandoned the project in disgust. It was
subsequently finished by Paul Butler, Ray Walker and Desmond Rochfort,
and officially unveiled in 1983. It has subsequently been vandalised,
and repainted, several times. The mural depicts the events of a very
physical confrontation between police and protestors in stunning
detail, anti-fascist protestors proudly carrying banners, punches being
thrown, a barricade of furniture and an overturned vehicle across Cable
Street manned by residents of all ages and ethnic backgrounds, a chamber
pot being thrown under the hooves of horses being ridden by
baton-wielding police, and fascist with a startling resemblance to
Adolf Hitler, looking very alarmed in just his underwear and socks. The mural stands today as a powerful symbol
of anti-fascism in the East End.
There is much to learn from the Battle of Cable Street about the power
that individuals and groups wield in the face of intolerant policies and
behaviours when they unite against racism and discrimination. Hopefully
by engaging with this history, we can think critically about the
choices made by the East End community and its allies in 1936 and then
consider choices available to us as agents of change in the face of
prejudice and discrimination in our society and communities today. We might
like to think those days are
behind us, but
anti-semitism, racism and intolerance is on the rise. The foul winds that blew across Cable Street ago still exist today..Far Right and fascist groups are trying to grow again. We have to organise to stop them. Today and tomorrow we must still rally around the cry of No Pasaran - They shall not pass.
W.H. Davies ( 3/7/1871 - 26/9/40 ) The Battle for Cable Street.
You ask me how I got like this, Sir
Well, I don't care to say
But I will tell you a little story
Of when I was in a big fray.
I'm not very well in my old age
And as I sits drinking my broth
My mind goes back to 1936
That Sunday,Otober the fourth.
I was walking down Bethnal Green Road, Sir
just walking about at my ease
When the strains of a famous old song, Sir
Came floating to me on the breeze.
I stoppe, I looked and listened
Now where have I heard that old song?
Then I dashed to the Salmon and Ball, Sir
I know I wouldn't go wrong.
It was the Intenationale they were singing
They were singing it with a defiant blast
And holding up a big banner
With these words: " THEY SHALL NOT PASS"
And we then marched on to the East End
They were five thousand of us , I am sure
And when we got to the Aldgate
We were met by three hundred thousand more.
'Red Front! Red Front! these workers cried
It was a sight I wouldn't have missed
To see these thousands of defiant workers
Holding up their Mighty Clenched Fist.
The police said 'Now move along please,
This is all we ask'
But we said 'No, not for those blackshirts
Those rotters THEY SHALL NOT PASS'
We then marched on to Stepney Green Sir
You could see that this fight was no sham
For there were thousands of and thousands of workers
Marching from Limehouse,Poplar, Stratford and East Ham.
You could see that Mosely wouldn't get through Sir
That our slogan that day was no boast
And I shouted 'Hip Hip hurrah'
And I saw our flag being tied to a lamp post
the children shouted from the windows "O, golly"
For Mosley, no one seemed sorry
But someone had the goodness
To lend us their two ton lorry
We got it over on its side Sir
It wasn't much of a strain
But the police kept knocking our barricade down
So we built the damn thing up again.
The police said we worked mighty fast
As with a hanky their faces they mopped
So we got out our big red banner
And stuck it right on the top.
The police then charged with their truncheons
They charged us, the working class
But they couldn't pinch our red banner
With these words THEY SHALL NOT PASS
I wish you had been there to see it
You would have said it was a ruddy fine feat
How we kept that old Red Flag flying
On those barricades of Cable Street.
So this is the end of my story
And I must get back to my broth
But I hope you will never forget Sir
It was Sunday October the fourth.
Video Ghosts of Cable Street, set to the music of Men they couldn't hang
Cable Street - The Young 'Uns
On the fourth of October 1936 I was only a lad of sixteen. But I stood beside men Who were threescore and ten And every age in between.
We were dockers and teachers, Busmen, engineers, And those with no jobs to do. We were women and children Equal in union — atheists, Christians, and Jews.
And we had so much to lose.
For with Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain, We knew what fascism meant. So when Mosley came trouncing, Denouncing the Jews, To the East End of London we went.
For I’d met refugees, who had fled o’er the seas, Germans, Italians, and Jews. And I knew their despair For what they’d seen there And I couldn’t let them be abused.
We had so much to lose.
Now 3,000 fascists — their uniforms black — Had set out to march on that day. And 6,000 policemen Intended to greet them By making clear the way.
But we were there ready — Our nerves they were steady — One hundred thousand en masse. And we planted our feet along Cable Street And we sang: They shall not pass!
We sang: They shall not pass!
Then all us young lads, We were sent to the side streets To stop the police breaking through. And with swift hands we made strong barricades Out of anything we could use.
And they came to charge us, But they couldn’t barge us, With fists, batons, and hooves. With as good as we got, we withstood the lot, For we would not be moved.
We would not be moved.
And, yes, there was violence. And, yes, there was blood. And I saw things a lad shouldn’t see. But I’ll not regret the day I stood And London stood with me.
And when the news spread the day had been won And Mosley was limping away — There were shouts, there were cheers, There were songs, there were tears, And I hear them all to this day.
And we all swore then we’d stand up again For as long as our legs could And that when we were gone, Our daughters and sons Would stand where we stood.
Was the first time I’d heard two tiny words Said by every woman and man. Now I say them still And I always will: ¡NO PASARÁN!
👍
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