The Battle of Cable Street

OCTOBER 4, 1936

Eastenders Defeat the British Union of Fascists 



Sir Oswald Mosley and the Blackshirts

The BUF was formed in 1932 by the aristocratic political adventurer Sir Oswald Mosley who publicly stated:  "Our object is no less than the winning of power for Fascism, which we believe is the only salvation for our country. The BUF made a definite impact, with its full-time blackshirted Defence Force, its aristocratic and Tory sympathisers, and, for a period, the backing of Lord Rothermere and his Daily Mail.



Daily Mail Founder Lord Rothemere (Harold Harmsworth) and Adolf Hitler



Its meetings – notably the Olympia rally in June 1934 – were ruthlessly stewarded, and it spread the fascist message through provocative demonstrations and a range of publications. The police treated the fascists with the utmost leniency.

Eastenders

The East End of London offered the fascists definite possibilities. Although the 350,000 Jews in Britain were only 0.7 per cent of the total population in 1936, nearly half lived in the East End – 60,000 in Stepney alone. Then, as now, it had some of the worst living conditions in Britain.  It had also been a seedbed of anti-semitism and racist propaganda in general.

The British Brothers’ League, founded by ex-army officers in 1900, claimed 45,000 members in the East End. Organised on a semi-military footing, it campaigned against "alien" and especially Jewish immigration from eastern Europe, influencing the passing of the Aliens Restriction Act in 1905.





No Pasaran! They Shall Not Pass!



Mosley’s East London campaign began in earnest in the summer of 1936 with a big rally in Victoria Park in June. Through endless street-corner meetings, fire-bombing and smashing the windows of Jewish shops, racist abuse and physical attacks, the fascists worked overtime to create an atmosphere of siege.

The Police Supported the Fascists

In late September 1936 the BUF announced its intention to mount a show of strength on the afternoon of Sunday October 4, designed to intimidate the organised working class and in particular the local Jewish community. Uniformed fascists were to gather in military formation at Royal Mint Street, where they would be reviewed by their führer, before marching in separate contingents to four meetings in East London.

Cowardly Leninist-Stalinists

Typically cowardly, the local leadership of the reactionary, state-Capitalist, Moscow-line Leninist-Stalinist Communist Party ordered their cadre out of the area in advance of the march. And so, whilst exercising their perfectly reasonable democratic right to march in the name of free speech Moseley and his lackeys were subsequently given a bloody good hidin' as the massed ranks of the Working Class had their say too, and the fascists had to escape in very short order.  And since that day organised elite sponsored fascism has never dared to raise its' preposterous head in these islands.  

For myself, these events are way before my time.  But I will never forget meeting an old lady in London in the late 1990's - she was very frail and sat in a wheelchair and I offered to push her to a meeting on Marxism and Democracy, which we agreed are indivisible doctrines.  She told me in passing she had knocked a policeman's helmet off his head at Cable Street.  She said she was only six at the time and was sat on her Daddy's shoulders.  I'll never forget her. 

Some friends of mine - The Men They Couldn't Hang - wrote a song called The Ghosts of Cable Street:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzKv5gjOzTA 
and someone put it to film.  It is worth a look and listen.