London people drove away fascists in 1936

From London daily The Guardian:

Day the East End said ‘No pasaran’ to Blackshirts

Audrey Gillan

Saturday September 30, 2006

They built barricades from paving stones, timber and overturned lorries.

Women threw the contents of chamber pots on to the heads of policemen and children hurled marbles under their horses and burst bags of pepper in front of their noses.

Next Wednesday marks the 70th anniversary of the day that Jews, communists, trade unionists, Labour party members, Irish Catholic dockers and the people of the East End of London united in defiance of Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists and refused to let them march through their streets.

Shouting the Spanish civil war slogan “No pasaran” – “They shall not pass” – more than 300,000 people turned back an army of Blackshirts.

Their victory over racism and anti-Semitism on Sunday October 4 1936 became known as the Battle of Cable Street and encapsulated the British fight against a fascism that was stomping across Europe.

Mosley planned to send columns of thousands of goose-stepping men throughout the impoverished East End dressed in uniforms that mimicked those of Hitler’s Nazis.

His target was the large Jewish community.

See also here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

The Battle of Cable Street, which took place 75 years ago this week, was a key moment in anti-fascist history when mass working class resistance stopped the Blackshirts: here.

From Cable Street to Oldham, book review: here.

Advertisements