(Militant International Review, No. 47, 1992)
Anti-fascist activity in the 1930s. Building a mass Communist Party in London’s East End. Peter Taaffe reviews Joe Jacobs‘ recently republished autobiography
Throughout Europe right-wing and neo-fascist organisations seem to be on the march. In France Le Pen’s Front National scored an incredible 38% in recent opinion polls. In Belgium the Flemish Bloc registered spectacular victories in the recent general election. In Germany, neo-fascist, right-wing groups and outright fascist organisations have experienced a resurgence. Even in seemingly tranquil Austria, the extreme right-wing Freedom Party received 25% of the vote in local elections in Vienna.
This growth of neo-fascism and racism is fuelled by a combination of factors. On the one side is the influx, which threatens to become a human flood, of economic refugees from the fledgling ‚mafia capitalism‘ in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. To the impoverished Russian masses, Poland appears as an Arcadia. To the Poles Germany appears like an El Dorado.
From the south also, the poverty stricken masses of North Africa seek to escape into Spain. France and Italy. Albanians, Europe’s boat people, seek refuge in Italy and Greece. Add to this potent brew the utter incapacity of the official leaders of the European labour and trade union movement to provide a class solution, that is a socialist solution, and the conditions have been created for the neo-fascist and racist demagogues to find an echo. The age-old tactic of divide and rule is once more deployed by a ruling class and its hirelings to deflect attention from themselves, the real culprits of the massive increase in unemployment, poor housing, education and other social deprivation.
This recent sprouting of right wing and neo-fascist organisations, however, can in no way be compared to its pre-war predecessors. Chastened by its experience at the hands of Hitler and Mussolini, let alone Franco, the capitalist class will never again entrust its fate to their would-be modern counterparts. Moreover, the mass basis of fascism, in the form of the rural petit-bourgeois in particular, has been significantly eroded by the post-war economic upswing and the rapid industrialisation which ensued. This does not exclude that, faced with economic catastrophe and the consequent revolt of working people, that the ruling class will not once more resort to the most drastic measures to retain its rule. In fact, it is certain unless the labour movement shows a way out. But in the future it is more likely that the capitalists will resort to the method of military-police dictatorships – Bonapartism – using some of the methods of fascism.
Fascist and neo-fascist organisations will be allotted an important role, but as auxiliaries to such a military dictatorship. This does not mean, however, that they should not be combated by the labour movement as energetically as in the past. Indeed, it is necessary to combat them even in their incipient stage. This is the historical lesson, written in the blood of the German, Spanish. Italian and more recently Chilean workers, that must be absorbed by the new generation of workers.
The tiny British fascist groupings, such as the British National Party, have found little echo as yet. Where they have sought a base, as in Scotland, they have been driven out of working-class areas of Dundee. Edinburgh and Glasgow by the mobilisation of workers and youth, within which Militant in Scotland has played a key role. Nevertheless, it is not excluded that given the rise in unemployment, the crisis in housing and education, and the seeming impotence of the tops of the labour and trade union movement, that fascist and racist groupings could find more of an echo in the period ahead.
If a Labour government is elected and fails to deliver the goods, as is inevitable on the basis of the present programme of the Labour leadership, fascist and racist organisations will exploit for their own ends the inevitable resentment which can accumulate amongst sections of disenfranchised youth, of petit-bourgeois youth in particular, and even of some workers. It is therefore necessary to step up a campaign, particularly amongst the youth, in opposition to racism and fascism. And there is no better way of politically preparing such a campaign than in studying the excellent Out of the Ghetto by Joe Jacobs.
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Recently reprinted, it pulsates with the life of the Jewish workers in east London in the inter-war period. The deep affection of Jacobs for the area and its people, which infects the reader, in no way leads him to dress up the grim reality of their everyday existence: the clothes factory „sweatshops were atrocious. Dirt and dust everywhere. The TB rate for our industry was very high.“ These conditions, together with the general political ferment, led Jacobs, with many of the Jewish workers of the area, to socialism and eventually to ‚communism‘.
Like many before him he soaked up the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, through almost everything written by Upton Sinclair, Jack London, John Dos Pasos, Zola, Romain Rolland, Mann, Tolstoy, Gorky and so on. Despite the backbreaking nature of his work and long hours, sometimes only getting four hours sleep a night, together with the best of his generation he greedily „devoured Wages, Price and Profit, Wage Labour and Capital… The Communist Manifesto, great works I thought“.
Not satisfied just with the basic ideas of Marxism, however, this generation sought to absorb the theoretical treasures of Marxism, as indispensable weapons for combating the evils of capitalism which surrounded them: „Eventually, we went on to tackle Capital in full. Marx, Engels, Lenin, and always there were classes where we could discuss all these.“ However, given the poisonous campaign against Trotsky undertaken by the Stalinised ‚Communist‘ Parties, Jacobs was inevitably prejudiced against Trotsky: „Certainly I would not read anything written by Trotsky. You might as well ask a Catholic to read Marie Stoppes, when the church had said he must not.“
He clearly underwent a re-evaluation of Trotsky on the basis of the shameful treatment meted out to himself by the leaders of the Communist Party (CP) later on. Before then, however, he was to go through the full gamut, of the ultra-leftism followed by opportunism, of the CP leaders. For example, he reports about when „JT Murphy had been expelled from the CP. This came like a bolt from the blue. The article (in The Daily Worker – PT) was a blistering attack for so-called anti-party activity. According to The Daily Worker, Murphy had been advocating the extension of trade between the Soviet Union and the capitalist world. He also thought that we should support the idea of extending credit to the Soviet Union. This apparently was anti-party, I didn’t know enough about these matters and I am afraid that I only heard the official party line. When JT Murphy was invited to speak at the Circle House in Aidgate, I helped to break up his meeting so that no one could hear what this ‚traitor‘ had to say. That’s how things were. I feel ashamed of this action now.“
This was the wildly ultra-left ‚third period‘ of Stalinism, when the social democrats were condemned as ’social fascists‘. Jacobs reports: „During the next few weeks The Daily Worker gave a lot of space to attacking Murphy, using language which was usually reserved for use against fascists. Murphy had been a leading and much respected member of the Communist Party for a long time.“
But no lies, no amount of bureaucratic hounding of opponents, can ever drown out historical truth, no matter how powerful ‚the machine‘ used to temporarily enforce them. Thus „as time went on, his (Murphy’s) views were adopted, but I can’t remember a single attempt to withdraw any of the awful things said about him and his ideas. This practise was commonplace without my being aware of it at this time. I had not read Trotsky or any other person who had been cast out. We learnt to accept all of this as the years passed, only to find that the accusers were guilty parties in respect of the charges they made.“
And yet the CP, both before and after this mad ultra-left phase, found an echo within the ranks of the Labour Party: „We had many sympathisers in the Labour Party as well as in the trade unions and other workers‘ organisations. Many of them took part in the activities I have mentioned. Often it was possible to get good campaigns going on special issues, and our contacts in the Labour Party were under fire from the leadership for their ‚fellow-travelling‘.“
There are many facets of this book of relevance to Marxists today. For example the ability of one outstanding rank-and-file CP leader, Nat Cohen, in handling new supporters and potential members of the Communist Party: „He wanted to give everybody an official title. If he had his way, everybody would be an officer. We would find the rank-and-file members later. He would not accept me for any of these positions. Nor some of the others who were already actively associated with him, because he was reasonably sure they would stick. What he wanted was to hold onto the newcomers. I began to learn a lot from him about how to handle people. Very important if you want to organise.“ ‚Open branch meetings‘ were organised to involve contacts and potential supporters. Closed branch meetings were kept for the discussions of internal matters, involving debates and discussion on strategy and tactics.
The CP, although it had the mighty authority of the October revolution at its back, nevertheless still had to earn its spurs through leading struggles of the British working class, incurring the enmity of the capitalists and their state. Jacobs reports that during September and October 1931, „109 leading Communists and active sympathisers (were) arrested for a variety of ‚offences‘.“
The role occupied by CP militants at that time, generally the most outstanding although politically confused representatives of their generation, is today occupied by supporters of the Militant. Of the 170 jailed for non-payment of the poll tax. 18 have been committed supporters of the Militant. And as with Militant supporters today, CP members were at the forefront of working class discontent at the impositions visited on them by the capitalists.
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The book’s main theme, however, is the rise of fascism, in the form of Mosley’s Blackshirt movement, and the role of CP militants such as Jacobs in combating this. There are undoubtedly certain tinges of ultra-leftism in his approach, the elevation of ‚direct actionism‘ and the false counter-posing of this to broader political objectives and perspectives. Nevertheless, what shines through is the basically correct instinct of the best workers, like Jacobs, in how to combat the mortal threat they perceived to them, their class and their organisations from fascism. This is particularly so when compared not only to the passivity of the official leaders of the labour and trade union movement but to the dilatory approach adopted by the very leaders of Jacobs‘ own party, the Communist Party.
It was the world slump of 1929-33 that saw the emergence of Mosley’s fascist movement. The relatively favourable position of British capitalism in comparison to its Italian and German counterparts in particular, had meant that the British ruling class had up to then no need to deploy murderous fascist bands against the working class and its organisations. Fascist organisations were merely kept in reserve for use at a later stage.
This began to change, however, with the slump and the inevitable resistance of the working class. As is well known Mosley himself left the Labour Party in March 1931 to form ‚The New Party‘. Mosley in turn ‚evolved‘ towards fascism and in the process shed some of those lefts who had mistakenly followed him into this party. By 1934 significant sections of big business were backing Mosley, including Lord Rothermere, owner of The Daily Mail, who called on people to join the Blackshirts. Mosley and his fascist forces made serious attempts to break into working class districts, such as Deptford, but were resisted and had to beat a hasty retreat. But at the big ‚mass demonstration‘ organised by Mosley in June 1934, the British working class were given a little taste of what to expect if Mosley was to follow Hitler and Mussolini in taking power. Fascist thugs organised in specially trained bands, mercilessly beat hecklers while the police stood by. Mosley followed this by attempts to penetrate working class areas including the East End.
But they were incapable of holding meetings in many parts of London. The CP and the Young Communist League (YCL) „were emerging more than ever as the ‚leaders‘ of the fight against fascism.“ This demanded a new approach by the Communist Party. This in turn brought to a head a simmering conflict which had been brewing in the east London CP. Those youth like Jacobs had come into conflict with the older layer more rooted in the trade unions and with a longer term perspective. He comments „voices were being raised against some of us, who it was said, paid too much attention to street meetings and demonstrations, etc., and not enough to work in the trade unions.“ He responded by claiming „that those who were mainly engaged in trade union work, were neglecting the other important facets of the class struggle. For example, German fascism, unemployment, rents, Mosley, etc. This kind of argument had been going on for a long time and came to the surface more and more, as time went on.“
Jacobs comments „the real basis for this division is to be seen in the fact that the trade union people saw the organised labour movement as the most likely place from which to develop the Communist Party and so hasten the revolution. Whereas it was alleged that those who favoured ’street work‘ saw the future in terms of the organisation of the unorganised, who were the overwhelming majority of the working-class.“ He then goes on to make the relevant comment: „You may well wonder why a combination of both should not have been agreed upon. In theory, it was.“
The poll tax struggle and the role of the Militant in this have shown that it is utterly false to counterpose work amongst the ‚organised layers‘ of the working-class to the so-called ‚unorganised‘. The organised working-class within the unions and the labour movement are decisive. It is ABC for Marxists, a generally accepted historical proposition, that only the organised working-class in the long run is capable of mobilising behind it the unorganised and downtrodden layers.
Yet there are periods when the labour movement is empty, virtually paralysed, due to the bureaucratic dead hand of right-wing leaders. In this situation, as the poll tax struggle demonstrates, work amongst the so-called ‚unorganised‘ exercises a powerful effect on the organised working-class. Militant gained from the poll tax struggle not just amongst the most impoverished sections of the working-class but reached trade unionists, shop stewards – future workers‘ leaders in the factories – in the course of this movement. They will in due course prove to be a vital leavening in raising up a fighting militant movement in the trade unions themselves. Therefore it is absolutely false to counterpose work in the ‚official‘ labour movement to work allegedly ‚outside‘. Such an approach can become, in the hands of some, a policy for quiescence and passivity.
On the other hand, the ultra-left sects counterpose ‚direct action‘ to the difficult but absolutely vital task of winning the support of the official organisations of the working-class, the Labour Party and trade union movement. The correct policy is to seek to organise those who are prepared to struggle now, but at all stages linking this to the need to win over the shop stewards organisations and the official organisations of the working-class themselves. The echoes of the debate which took place in Jacobs‘ day in the CP are reflected within the labour movement today.
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Nine-tenths of the right in the approach towards combating fascism lay on the side of Jacobs and his comrades. Mosley had held an inaugural meeting in east London in 1934 but had to be rescued by the police. Nevertheless he announced a rally in Hyde Park for September of that year. Predictably the „official Labour Party, trade union and co-ops, the National Council of Labour, signed by Walter Citrine and Arthur Henderson, called on the workers to have nothing to do with the Mosley rally in Hyde Park.“ Shades of opposition to the non-payment anti-poll tax campaign! One million leaflets were distributed during the campaign to oppose Mosley and 150,000 mobilised in Hyde Park. The rally was a fiasco. The fascists were hurriedly marched in at 6pm and out again at 7pm under the protection of a massive display of police.
Jacobs‘ increasingly militant stance brought him into conflict not just with the local but with the national leaders of the CP. The roots of this conflict lay in the instinctive opposition of Jacobs, and those who supported him, to the methods deployed by the CP leadership nationally and internationally. He thought that „surely the best defence of the Soviet Union would be the extension of the revolution to other countries, especially Germany, France, Spain and Great Britain.“ Like many CP members at the time and since, he was searching for the ideas of genuine Marxist criticism of Stalinism, as reflected in the works of Trotsky. This is borne out by his comments about Stakhanovism, the trial of the ‚Old Bolsheviks‘, which was met with perplexity, etc. But his opposition grew primarily on the immediate issue of how to combat fascism.
In relation to the arguments of his opponents, „as I saw it, none of these things could be a substitute for workers‘ participation in direct action to secure the demands of the unemployed and to fight for shorter hours and higher wages. Nor could they be a substitute for direct opposition to landlords, direct defence of civil liberties and democratic rights, and the direct independent pursuance of a whole range of social demands … I felt that any work inside the mass reformist organisations would have to be expressed in such a way as to lead to actions in the factories and on the streets.“ Modern reformism merely echoes the passivity of its forebears: „It could be argued, and it was, that by reacting as we did, it only served to help Mosley and we were playing into his hands. But what do you do when the local people, on whose doorsteps these fascist meetings were being held, turned out in opposition? Were we to say ignore them, you only play into their hands; what about the antisemitic abuse, what about the violence, what about the fact that, as each attempt met with some partial success, this only meant a further penetration into areas which had previously been closed to the fascists? Inside the CP and elsewhere, these questions were debated. I think the majority view, certainly among the youth, was that Mosley should be met everywhere with the maximum force available.“
Despite his growing doubts Jacobs nevertheless kept up a ferocious work rate for the party that he perceived was the only hope for the working class: „We made a big drive to raise sales of The Daily Worker in Stepney. The first weekend selling was from 6am to 8am on Saturday and Sunday, from 10am to 2pm. Then we had a demonstration to Trafalgar Square and then more selling until midnight.“
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In the lead up to the famous battle of Cable Street the simmering conflict within the Stepney CP came to the boil. Mosley announced that the British Union of Fascists (BUF) was to march through the East End on 4th October 1936. The YCL had organised a rally in Trafalgar Square on the same day in support of the Spanish workers. The London YCL secretary confirmed to Jacobs that the London district committee of the party (DPC) were going ahead with the plan for the Trafalgar Square demonstration, „he said Spain was more important than Mosley. I was horrified!…
„This attitude clearly reflected what I already knew was the London district party leadership’s position on Mosley. I was furious. I could hardly believe what I was reading. I had been fighting their ideas for years. Here was the confrontation and I could not withdraw. On the contrary, I knew that if the DPC line was carried, a heavy blow would fall upon the workers of east London and workers everywhere. It would also be the end of me. I had nothing to lose and everything to gun by fighting these pernicious tactics.“
Moreover, as Jacobs points out „other organisations were organising and calling for opposition to the march. Others were telling people to stay at home and leave it to the police to see that Mosley’s hordes behaved. We in the CP were supposed to tell people to go to Trafalgar Square and come back in the evening to protest after Mosley had marched.“
Rubbing salt in the wound, the east London organiser left a note for Jacobs, on 28th September, in which he stated „Keep order: no excuse for government to say we, like BUF, are hooligans. If Mosley decides to march let him. Don’t attempt disorder (time too short to get a ‘They Shall Not Pass’ policy across. It would only be a harmful stunt) Best see there is a good, strong meeting at each end of march. Our biggest trouble tonight will be to keep order and discipline.“
Jacobs, expressing the fury felt at the time by himself and others like him, states „I could hardly believe my eyes. How could they be so blind as to what was happening in Stepney.“ He phoned the London CP headquarters and reported that the CP ranks in the East End would defy the London leaders if they persisted with their false policy of mobilising in Trafalgar Square while Mosley was marching through the East End.
A delegation was sent to the East End by the London leadership to impose the line. Jacobs and his friends argued „that the best way to help the Spanish people was to stop Mosley marching through east London. It was, in fact, the same fight. If we said the fascists should not pass, it was what the Spanish were trying to ensure and giving their lives in the process. A victory for Mosley would be a victory for Franco. In any case, the people of east London had their own ideas about all this and would oppose Mosley with their bodies, no matter what the CP said. We argued long and hard.“
However, during this meeting an emissary from the national leaders of the CP arrived and „announced that the centre had decided to change the line. The call would go out to all branches to rally to Aldgate instead of Trafalgar Square on 4th October. The slogan would be ‚They Shall Not Pass‘, which was already being repeated all over Stepney and could not be ignored, in this case, by the CP or anyone else.“
In the days leading up to 4th October „I never saw such enthusiasm before. The air was electrified … every kind of anti-fascist organisation was full out. Thousands of people were in the street. Ordinary people who had not taken part in this kind of political activity before.“
What followed in the battle of Cable Street is history. It was a decisive turning point in the battle against the fascists in Britain. Estimates of 500,000 – Jacobs puts it at 250,000 – mobilised to confront Mosley’s pathetic 2,500 fascists protected by 10,000 police, including mounted police. Despite repeated baton charges, the police and the fascists were repulsed by the workers who threw up fresh barricades when other barricades were demolished. The defeat in Cable Street in 1936 was a big blow to Mosley. Fascist activity in the East End receded, with demoralisation in the fascists‘ ranks, while the working class were given a big boost to their confidence.
However, after 1936 the policy of the CP and the YCL changed. In line with Stalin’s attempts to forge agreements with ‚democratic‘ capitalist countries, the CP proposed a policy of class collaboration between workers and ‚good‘ capitalists. The British CP, abandoning any class analysis of capitalist society, even advocated a united front with the Tories and Liberals, at one stage calling for a ’national government‘. The British CP, attempting to placate Tories and Liberals, distanced itself from any militant opposition to fascism. This was reflected in the refusal to mobilise against Mosley’s monster Earls Court rally just before the outbreak of the second world war. Only the Trotskyists and a small band of anti-fascist militants demonstrated in opposition to Mosley.
This was reflected in Stepney with statements in the Stepney CP bulletin that „while it is correct to say that the previous attitude of the party to do everything possible to prevent the conducting of fascist meetings was a proper one in view of the political situation existing at the time, it does not follow that the same attitude would be proper at the present time.“ Jacobs, with others, resisted this position. Inevitably his conflict with the local and national leadership of the CP led to his expulsion. He nevertheless continued with his heroic work in the labour movement and was eventually re-admitted into the CP only to be expelled once more in 1952.
As a graphic picture of one man’s involvement in the labour movement between the wars this book is well worth reading. But it represents a lot more than that. It provides a key on how to fight, and how not to fight, fascism. Its lessons are as relevant to the struggles that loom in the 1990s as they were to the struggles of the 1930s. Readers of the MIR should acquire this book and ponder on the main lessons contained in its pages.
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