This Day in Labor History: October 4, 1936

On October 4, 1936, British fascists decided to hold a march in London. The British labor movement and others on the left who despised these fascists bastards showed up ready to fight and for the most part, they won the day. The Battle of Cable Street became an iconic moment in 20th century British history.

The specter of fascism appeals to far too many people. That’s sadly become true again in the twenty-first century and the future of democracy in the United States and other nations remains unclear. That was most certainly true in the 1930s too. With the rise of Mussolini in Italy, the appeal just grew. In 1932, the vile Oswald Mosley started the British Union of Fascists. Initially, the BUF had a lot of supporters and even had 50,000 members at one point. But the rise of Hitler and the clear desire of Mosley to follow in those footsteps led to a sharp decline in membership numbers. But that didn’t stop the radicalism of Mosley and the use of violence against decent humans. In 1934, during the Olympia Rally, the Fascist Defence Force, the BUF’s paramilitary wing, beat up some antifascists.

By 1936, Mosley and the BUF were embracing more extreme anti-Semitism, following their friends in Germany. October 4 was their fourth anniversary and so they decided to have a big public march in the East End. This was the home of the Jewish population of London. It was also where the BUF’s mass base was, in the non-Jewish English-born population, basically people left behind and still poor, surrounded by immigrants, Jews, and other people they found icky. The East End was the home not only of Jews, but the center of London’s immigrants and leftist politics. It’s hardly surprising that someone like Mosley thought he could target it. For example, in 1920, Winston Churchill wrote:

“This (Jewish and Communist) world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development… has been steadily growing.”

Nice guy, that Churchill.

The Jewish People’s Council decided to challenge the fascists. Basically the entire British labor movement came out in support. That included members of the Communist Party, other leftists, and just regular trade union members. If the British right was growing, so was the British left, with an increasingly strong labor movement developing and ready for action. Interestingly, the preparations for this battle were all happening openly, with stated times and everything. People were ready for war, quite literally. Not only the BUF but also the Communists and the Independent Labour Party set up their own medical facilities ahead of time to treat their wounded. The police were of course there too, but they did not control the situation.

Now, there were about 3,000 fascists. There were about 6,000 cops. They were more or less on the side of the fascists, as cops usually are. The anti-fascist forces? Minimum 100,000 and some have suggested up to three times that. But even if you go with the conservative estimates, it’s a lot of pissed off people. One of the most important people here was Communist Party activist Phil Piratin. He was also Jewish and so Oswald’s attacks were quite personal, as well as political. And like everyone came out on the East End. You didn’t even have to be political. Yes, it was largely Jews leading the resistance. But it became about as pan-religious as you could get. Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, all ready to fight fascists showed up. Even a group of Somali Muslims in port came out, and this at a time when there almost no Muslims in England. Initially, the Communist Party was to hold a rally the same day at Trafalgar Square but they cancelled it and urged everyone to come fight the fascists in the East End.

The other big leader of the anti-fascist forces was Fenner Brockway, head of the Independent Labour Party. By this time, he had a twenty year career of leftist activism that began with resisting conscription during World War I, for which he was imprisoned three times. He was elected to Parliament as part of Labour in 1929, but he and the ILP left Labour shortly after and all the ILP members lost their elections in 1931. To say the least, Nazism killed the pacifism in him, though he still respected peace movements when facing something less apocalyptic. But fascists must be crushed. So by the time we get to 1936, Brockway had been trying to warn the British of the Nazi threat, which its own government had downplayed, and resist fascism at home. So the ILP rallied its troops to fight the British Nazis in the streets of London. Brockway was the representative of perhaps the most organized faction. Meanwhile, Mosley, trying to get his march through, turned unexpectedly down Cable Street, a narrow street. Here, the forces met and were at the point of violence. At 3 PM during the march, with tensions rising, Brockway found a phone and called the Home Office with a warning. He stated:

“There are a quarter of a million people here, they are peaceful and unarmed, but they are determined that Mosley’s provocative march shall not pass. If you permit it, yours will be the responsibility for the serious consequences”

Well, the Home Office didn’t really do anything. People put up barricades to stop the march. They also found a lot of marbles (I suppose kids played with them a lot back then when there wasn’t much else to do) and rolled them on the street, which was enough to seriously slow down the march. The cops started taking apart the barricades, so people attacked the cops. A lot of people in the East End still didn’t have indoor plumbing in 1936, so they threw their chamber pots at the cops. Finally, the cops told Mosley to get out of the East End. He held a rump rally in the West End instead and the day ended without actual violence. The cops meanwhile enjoyed beating up the workers and leftists. They arrested 79, many of whom showed up to prison bloodied from the cops batons and fists. Some of the leftists were sentenced to hard labor. Of course only 6 fascists were arrested and seem to have mysteriously not been beaten.

In the aftermath, the BUF eventually declined, but that took awhile. Two days after this, Mosley flew to Germany for his wedding, which took place in the home of Joseph Goebbels, with Hitler attending. The Public Order Act of 1936 banned the wearing of uniforms in public, though this might have allowed the BUF to improve its image since the brownshirts were no longer so obviously in the streets. As for Piratin, he remained one of the most prominent communists in Britain until the repression of Hungary in 1956, at which point he dropped out in disgust. Many of the communists and anarchist leaders of the resistance soon went to the Spanish Civil War, where their chant of Cable Street, ““They Shall Not Pass” became “No Pasarán!” in Spain.

This is the 537th post in this series. Previous posts are archived here.