By Paul Gerrard
The Battle of Cable Street ranks alongside Peterloo, the General Strike and the Battle of Orgreave as an inspiring and unforgettable example of the working class mobilising in action. On that day, 300,000 working-class people defied the Home Secretary and the police to physically prevent the British Union of Fascists from staging a provocative march through London’s East End.
The defence of the area was organised under the slogan borrowed from the Spanish Civil War of “They shall not pass” (“No pasarán”). This confrontation with the fascists has a particular relevance for socialists today, given the rise of the far right and racist attacks.
The British Union of Fascists (BUF) had been formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley, a British aristocrat and Sandhurst-trained officer, who at different times in the 1920s had been a Conservative and then a Labour MP before forming his own party, the New Party. The New Party merged with fascist groups who had been active strikebreakers in the General Strike of 1926 to form the BUF.
The core of the BUF were ex-servicemen from the First World War, supplemented by unemployed workers who received a small income from selling the party paper, and impoverished small business owners hit by the deepening crisis of capitalism following the crash of 1929. As with the Nazis in Germany, they initially tried to co-opt ‘socialist’ rhetoric, with propaganda against the large corporations and campaigns against evictions, but this was rapidly shed in favour of naked racism and militarism. They were virulently antisemitic and blamed the world economic crisis on Jewish bankers.
They wore a black-shirted uniform — for which they were named “blackshirts” — drilling and parading as a private army. They broke up trade union and left political meetings, and when left-wingers heckled their Olympia rally in 1934, several were brutally beaten as the police looked on. For a period, the BUF received support from Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, which even printed the headline “Hurrah for the Blackshirts”.
Buoyed by this support from sections of the capitalists, and confident that they could march wherever they wanted with impunity, they decided to mount a provocative attack on the East End — where generations of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe had settled.
They published their plan on 26 September 1936, giving a week’s notice of the march planned for Sunday 4 October. Starting at 2:30pm from Tower Hill, four columns would march to four open-air rallies in Bethnal Green, Bow, Hoxton and Limehouse. The BUF were better known in fashionable Chelsea, and their headquarters was in Westminster, so to march in the East End was a deliberate provocation.
There was consternation in the Jewish community, and within two days the Jewish People’s Council collected over 100,000 signatures on a petition calling for the march to be banned. The petition included signatures of all five mayors of East London boroughs. The Tory Home Secretary Sir John Simon refused the request, and it was then clear that the police would support the fascists in their assault on the East End.
Working-class resistance
The working-class movement — members of the Communist Party (CPGB), the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and the Labour Party — had just a week to organise. Initially, the Communist Party leadership were uncertain whether to oppose Mosley’s march, but the local party in Stepney, who had developed a strong base there through consistent anti-fascist activity and militant action against slum landlords, insisted that Mosley couldn’t be allowed to march.
The Young Communist League (YCL) in particular had been playing a key role in the battles with the BUF. Police records show that 60% of BUF meetings were disrupted in 1936, and the YCL were known for their audacious actions. As a result of pressure from the local party, a YCL rally in support of the Spanish Republic, due to take place in Trafalgar Square on the same day as the fascist march, was cancelled so activists could stay to defend their local areas.
Preparation was key. The main rallying point for the anti-fascists was to be Aldgate, with the aim of blocking one of the three routes into the East End, but with groups of activists posted along other routes, runners to communicate between streets, and detachments sent to occupy the rally points the fascists intended to use. Both the CPGB and the ILP set up medical stations to look after the injured, which they knew would result from the fighting.
On 4 October, it is estimated that 250,000 gathered at Aldgate. Six thousand police were on duty, plus the whole of the mounted division, and for the first time a spotter plane was used to report on crowd movements.
The anti-fascists received a major boost when four tram drivers abandoned their vehicles mid-route, making it much harder for the mounted police to be deployed. Where mounted units were used, the crowd tossed marbles on the ground, causing the horses to skid. The police initially tried to make arrests but abandoned that tactic and concentrated on repeated baton charges, trying to force an alternative route for the marchers through the back streets of the East End. Alertness and flexibility were required from the anti-fascist organisers.
The final battle took place in the narrow environs of Cable Street. From upstairs windows, rotten vegetables, boiling water (and worse) rained down on the police. Irish dockers and Somali seamen who lived in the area constructed a succession of street barricades from carts, building materials and whatever came to hand.
The police captured the first barricade, but in attacking further barricades several policemen were captured and kept under guard throughout. At 3pm, Mosley arrived in his open-top Rolls-Royce, expecting to drive triumphantly through the newly ‘occupied’ areas — but instead he was met with a hail of bricks and missiles. The Metropolitan Police commander had to admit that it wasn’t possible to provide passage for the BUF, and they had to return to the affluent West End to complete a sorry-looking march there.
An anti-fascist victory march was held in the area on the Monday, but BUF thugs returned to Stepney a day later, beating people up in the streets until they were chased away and their East London offices virtually trashed. Cable Street was a victory, but it in no way indicated that fascism was on the run. Mosley went on to organise big rallies in Leeds, Manchester and elsewhere until the outbreak of WWII cut across fascist activity.
The legacy of Cable Street
What is striking about the victory is the leading role played by the Communist Party. At the time, the Communist Party supported the policy of the Popular Front, according to which all classes and parties must unite against the threat of fascism.
In practice, while the capitalists — whether in Spain or England — would prefer to rule through parliamentary democracy, their fear of the working class and potential expropriation was greater than their fear of fascism. Instead, Leon Trotsky and the Marxists organised around the Fourth International pointed out that the only force that can reliably fight against the far right is the organised working class.
This explains the tension and dithering in the Communist Party once the march was announced. The leading bodies of the party, wedded to the idea of a Popular Front, were initially in favour of a muted response — one which would avoid ‘rocking the boat’ and scaring off would-be capitalist allies. But the local activists sensed the opportunity to bring workers together — CPGB, ILP, Labour, Jewish garment workers, Irish dockers, Somali seamen — in a united front. This was ultimately what was effective.
What are the take-aways for today’s anti-fascists? The state is not on our side — neither the Labour Home Secretary nor the Met. Defence of working-class and immigrant areas is vital — we need to protect and control our streets, and we need democratic debate about how best to do that.
We need a party at the heart of the working class, a party of struggle which wins the confidence of workers who will follow it into battle. We believe that’s the role which the new left party can and must play.
