The everlasting legacy of Cable Street
This month, over 80 years ago, over 200,000 anti-fascist protesters successfully blocked the road of Cable Street in London to stop a march of British fascists lead by Oswald Mosley.
Oswald Mosley, a rejected political outcast, set up the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932 to imitate the fascist movements of Mussolini and Hitler with the intention of creating a successful equivalent in Britain (though fascist parties had already existed in Britain). Indeed, Mosley often met with both Hitler and Mussolini with the former personally arranging Mosley’s marriage in Germany. Mosley’s anti-Semitism was a core part of the BUF doctrinal line, as was the norm of fascist parties in Northern Europe. Like most other fascist movements; the BUF organised itself with the Blackshirts, modelled on the identically fashioned Italian fascist Blackshirts, which served the purpose of beating up hecklers during Mosley’s rallies, intimidating opponents or staging provocative marches.
Mosley was a rich aristocrat who often socialised with the upper classes who often enjoyed his company. Mosley even came in contact with an aristocrat called Francis Beaumont, the heir to the Seigneur of Sark and the grandfather of the current Sark Seigneur; Christopher Beaumont. Mosley made an agreement with Francis to set up a fascist radio broadcast, called Radio Sark, with funding from the Nazi German government in 1937. Mosley’s aristocratic rapport was so effective that Lord Rothermere sung great praise of Mosley and the BUF. Lord Rothermere was the founder of the Daily Mail and ran a headline in January 1934 of “Hurrah for the Blackshirts!” and derides his left-wing opponents for following the creed of “the German Jew Karl Marx”.
This leads us the the inevitable confrontation between such left-wing opponents and Britain’s goose-stepping nazis. Despite the aristocratic base of the rulership of the BUF; the party also had sizeable support from persons of more common backgrounds which were used to fill the ranks of the often violent Blackshirt militias. This was a time when fascism was not a taboo subject and the idea of a war with Germany was unfathomable to most in the interwar period. The British navy helping the fascists in Spain, the Daily Mail staff having open meetings with Hitler, Britain and Nazi Germany signing military agreements and, of course, fascist parties gaining popular support. To exercise the party’s growing popularity and to spread their xenophobic bile; Mosley planned to march his Blackshirts down Cable street on the 4th of October 1936. His choice of provocation was deliberate. Cable Street was well known for its immigrant community, most notably Jews as well as Irishmen. This caused a massive outcry from London’s Jewish community who created a petition signed by 100,000 residents to the British government to ban the march. Instead, the government sent a 7,000 strong police force to protect the BUF in their planned route down Cable Street. This did not stop resistance however, nor did an announcement from the Board of Deputies of British Jews asking the Jews of Cable Street to just stay indoors and pretend like nothing was happening.
Instead, the greatest defiance against fascism on British soil before the Battle of Britain was set in motion. Ordinary folks of all backgrounds organised to block the road to British fascism by whatever means necessary with the rallying call of “No pasarán!” the famous anti-fascist slogan used in the defence of Madrid, who themselves were fighting fascists in the Spanish civil war. The vanguard of the resistance was headed by the local Jewish community and the Communist party headed by the Jewish Phil Piratin who themselves have had plenty of clashes from the BUF before Cable Street. However, most of the political organisation was done by local socialists, anarchists and Independent Labour Party members. The protesters was also made up of socialists, anarchists, Irishmen, dockworkers, local workers from the street shops and basically anyone else who had the common sense and dignity to oppose violent nationalism. Barricades were constructed from furniture, work equipment and even lorries to physically block the road. However, the main tactic of the antifascists was not specially to violently square off with the Blackshirts in a brawl; the protesters planned to simply clog the streets with one massive shoulder-to-shoulder human wall.
Regardless, the police’s job, as required by the British Government, was to ensure the Blackshirt’s march made it all the way down the street. This meant that the police, with only 7,000 men to utilise, had to clear a 200,000 strong human mass to make way for the fascist procession with Mosley at the head. Regardless of the costs; the metropolitan police on horseback moved into the crowd of workers indiscriminately striking anyone within their reach with batons. Such was the haste to clear the people’s resistance from the road that people were falling under the horses hooves and according to a young Jewish witness there “was literally blood everywhere” as the police conducted brutal baton charges into the protesters to make sure the tiny and outnumbered fascist march of 2,000 Blackshirts made their way through Cable Street. There were roughly 175 injuries during the battle, however this number could be higher as many went unaccounted for, as many were being treated at local and self-run medical stations set up by the protesters. Important to note that Mosley and his gang actually did very little marching in the area of Whitechapel. They stood aside giving Roman salutes to their Fuhrer whilst the police did all the dirty work. Even so, an important facet in the battle was the attitudes of the protesters (which is largely synonymous with the local community at the time) towards the police, considering how violent the battle became between the two. Much of the violence against the police was purposeful; the local community felt angry and betrayed that the police and the government would honour violent anti-Semitic fascists to goose step down a working class, left-wing and rather Jewish area of London.
See, this is how fascism functions, now and certainly then; fascism gains power by exerting authority literally on the street. For example in Italy, where Mosley draws inspiration, the Italian Blackshirts conducted parades and marches in working-class areas. They then use this control to target socialists, anarchists and other opponents in these areas to build more power. Do such in cities across the country and over time you will practically own the country. This is how Mussolini came to power with his ‘March on Rome’. It is the exact same with Hitler’s Brownshirts who were used to exercise control on the streets, used eventually to violently target Jews and to gain electoral victories by voter intimidation. It’s the same now with groups like the Golden Dawn, Identity Europa and the EDL. Hence, to effectively combat fascism is to strike at the core of its praxis by denying their ability to effectively organise on the street.
When the the police eventually reached the narrow street of Cable Street itself; they realised that the fight was only starting. Having gotten around a double-decked tram abandoned as a barricade by a sympathising communist tram driver; the police reached the barricades of overturned lorries and carts. Women and shop workers from the flanking windows, seeing the police batter away at their already bloody neighbours, threw dirty water, garbage and lard down onto the police as they battled past their houses. As the battle raged on, the tide started to turn. The police were getting tired and were unable to break the defiant spirit of the local people, despite how bloody and bruised they became. As the police got pushed back, some became enveloped by the protesters and retreated into sheds of local shops along the street, barricading themselves in. The families who were jeering and harassing the police from their windows came down and got the police to come out of the sheds and surrender to the protesters. The locals let them out and released them but kept their helmets as souvenirs.
After much fatigue and loss of morale; the police realised that they had lost the battle. Despite roughly 150 arrests made over 4 hours of fighting but with prison cells overflowing; the police got Mosley to cancel the march through Whitechapel.
It is obvious to say that the Battle of Cable Street was a great victory in the early war against fascism. Locals and activists, communists and anarchists, Jews and Irishmen stood side-by-side to bar the road to British fascism. The fascists never dared to march to Whitechapel ever again, nor the surrounding Wapping. The Blackshirts were stopped from their provocative marching with heavy handed police escorts and Irish dockworkers no longer needed to stand guard at synagogues in Stepney.
However, the battle was not over. Mosley still organised his fascists ideas despite his fascist party being largely discredited by the ultimate conclusion of the Second World War. But even fascism being brutally crushed and discredited as an idea in the Second Great War; Mosley still made futile attempts to bring fascism into the political discourse. Indeed, in a similar series of events; Mosley and his new neo-fascist party, the ‘Union Movement’, planned a speech in Trafalgar Square in 1962 to promote their new pan-European group called the ‘National Party of Europe’ which included the ‘German Reich Party’ led by a clique of former Nazi Party members. A large crowd gathered in protest, evidently still bitter from the memories of World War Two. The 500 strong police force where even more outnumbered than at Cable Street and very soon their lines scattered to the wrath of the angry native crowd. Mosley’s platform with his flags, cardboard signs and tables were torn apart and objects were thrown at Mosley and his redesigned Blackshirts in disgust. The same year, Mosley went to Dalston in London to make a speech in a similar manner. Much in the same way, the police struggled to keep the massive crowd from stopping the speech. Indeed, Mosley was pushed to the ground as the locals in the crowd shouted “Down with Mosley!”. When Mosley got to his podium, he was not even able to make himself heard due to the loud jeering and booing in the crowd. He left in defeat after just 5 minutes. Being shunned and rejected again and again; Mosley finally quit politics after his fascist party only received 4,000 votes in the 1966 general election and Mosley’s fascist movement dissolved into obscurity in 1973.
