Anti-fascism (2026)

Book Review from the September 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bye Bye Blackshirt. By Mark Krantz. Bookmarks. 2026. 114pp

This book is a well-researched account of the opposition to Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) as that grouping rose to prominence in the 1930s on the back of similar movements in Italy and Germany. It offers a powerful evocation of the context and the atmosphere of the time it investigates, focusing in particular on the various ways in which, up and down the country and mainly in the years 1934-36, BUF activities were violently countered by left-wing groups and their supporters.

Taking their cue from Hitler’s Nazi party, Mosley and his BUF were virulently anti-semitic, portraying Jews as a malignant force in society – the enemy-in-chief. In a period of severe economic depression, they found a significant number of recruits among frustrated workers looking for ‘others’ to blame for their plight and sense of hopelessness. In London and up and down the country (for example Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Gateshead, Leeds, Swansea, Plymouth, Gillingham), the BUF organised large-scale meetings, both indoors and outdoors, often with Mosley at the helm and sometimes bringing along several thousand supporters dressed in black shirts who paraded slogans like ‘Perish the Jews’ and were primed to deal violently with protestors. At one of their rallies in 1934, Mosley announced that ‘Jews more than any single factor are undermining the prosperity of the British people today’.

The anti-BUF protests that took place were organised mainly by the Communist Party and the Independent Labour Party who themselves encouraged violent means to prevent meetings taking place or speakers being heard. Their tactic was what the author calls ‘direct confrontation and disruption’. So at a meeting in Gillingham in 1934, when Mosley appeared outside the meeting hall, we are told that ‘he was spat upon and missiles were thrown, including bottles’, and likewise, in Liverpool, he was ‘knocked unconscious by stones thrown at his head’.

Police were present at these events in numbers with a brief to facilitate the marches and meetings on ‘free speech’ grounds and thereby effectively siding with the Fascists in trying to prevent or ward off protests. The result was that protestors themselves were often dealt with violently by the police and arrested and charged with public disorder, in some cases leading to prison sentences.

At the most well-known of these events, ‘The Battle of Cable Street’ in October 1936, Mosley and his followers set out on a provocative march through what was known as the Jewish quarter of the East End of London. But the thousands of police seeking to ensure the BUF’s passage found themselves outnumbered by larger numbers of political opponents and locals who had put up barricades, mainly consisting of furniture, to block the procession. They charged to clear the way but were met, the author tells us, ‘with milk bottles, stones and marbles’ and ‘a brick went clean through the window’ of Mosley’s car’. The police gave it up as a bad job and Mosley and his followers had to turn back. The book describes the Battle of Cable Street, perhaps a little over-excitedly, as ‘the apex of the mass anti-fascist protests that stopped the advance of fascism in Britain’. And it is certainly true that, following this, support for the BUF began to wane and, by the time war broke out three years later, it had gone down dramatically, especially as it was seen by the British state as a potential ally to the Nazi enemy.

The book’s key argument is that the reason why the threat of a fascist takeover in Britain was never realised was the vigorous physical opposition it faced from left-wing forces and those who joined them. And this must indeed have had an effect. But it must be open to question whether, even it had not happened, any attempt at a violent takeover of the state by Mosley and his deluded followers could have had the same kind of success as Mussolini’s forces had had in Italy in the previous decade. Though the BUF presented itself as a threatening force, those workers willing to follow Mosley constituted a very small percentage of the population and would probably not have been capable of overturning the well-established system of capitalist democracy that existed in Britain, nor of setting up a repressive right-wing dictatorship as in Italy and Germany.

The writer also draws comparisons between Mosley’s movement in the ’30s and the current right-wing populism in Britain stirred up by such loathsome individuals as Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson. Will these be any more successful than Mosley in fomenting division and hatred among workers? It remains to be seen. But it has to be observed that the alarmism about this that Bye Bye Blackshirt evinces is typical of the longstanding Trotskyist belief in impending catastrophe and the hope that fear of this will cause workers to rally to the leadership of a vanguard party of the left to rescue them from the crisis and assert its own control. Such is the Trotskyist concept of ‘revolution from below’, which is entirely at odds with the need for a conscious spread of socialist understanding leading to democratic political action to establish a true socialist society of common ownership and free access – the real ‘revolution from below’.

Howard Moss

The Reaction in Europe and the S.P.G.B. (1934)

From the July 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Observers of political events since 1918 cannot fail to have noticed the change that has come over the general tone and attitude of the various so- called “left” elements among the workers. For the first few years after the war these elements were jubilantly proclaiming the imminence of the end of the present social order upon the strength of a few beggarly political and other reforms on the Continent. Because sections of the ruling-class lost their grip of things in the defeated countries (giving way to others who were prepared to provide safety-valves for working class discontent and place certain belated limits on their exploitation) we were asked to believe that our masters were at the end of their tether and would be surrendering the earth in a few short years.

Now we are asked to believe a very different story by these self-same elements. In their eyes now there are no limits to the powers of the master-class to impose what is commonly termed Fascism and to interfere with the general development of the working-class. Why? Because, forsooth, these reforms are being filched from the workers within a few years of being won. To crown all, instead of realising the futility of reform policies, these elements proclaim ever more loudly the need for still bigger and better reforms.

What is the attitude of the S.P.G.B. towards this change of front on the part of such bodies as the Communist Party and I.L.P. ? Briefly, it is to maintain unchanged our hostility to these bodies and to demonstrate that the capitalist system remains essentially unchanged, in spite of the manifold forms assumed by the different national States which uphold it.

Having had experience of partial suppression during the War, we are far from holding that it is a matter of indifference to the workers whether they are allowed political expression or not. The Socialist movement, which is the supreme expression of their needs, cannot arrive at maturity under conditions of political reaction. In Engels' phrase, the Socialist movement needs elbow-room.

Experience shows, however, that reform organisations, no matter how numerous their members and supporters may be, cannot guarantee to the workers these essential political conditions of development. So far from their being able to check reaction their inability when they become the Government to solve the economic problem, has provided reaction with its greatest political stimulus. Helpless before the economic blizzard, they are equally helpless in the face of its political reflexion.

The progress of scientific organisation under capitalism results in the weeding out of the smaller capitalists and, as a result, anti-scientific notions, such as Fascism, readily find acceptance among such groups during a period of economic depression.

Socialism alone can free the productive forces from restrictions imposed upon them by different sections of the capitalist class. In the meantime, these sections strive each to impose the amount and kind of restriction suited to its own interest. The small capitalists, faced with impending bankruptcy, strive to hamper the large-scale concerns, but neither Hitler nor Mussolini has discovered how to save these obsolete little “captains of industry." The big fish continue to swallow up the little fish.

Every national State, no matter how it may describe itself, endeavours to utilise science to the maximum degree in perfecting its instruments of aggression and defence. Hence, for this reason, if for no other, it encourages the development of large-scale industry, which alone can provide these instruments. This applies equally to Bolshevist Russia, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany—and to Britain, whether under “Labour” or "National” Governments. Large-scale industry progresses, in its turn, upon the ruins of small-scale industry.

This results in the development of the working-class, i.e., in the increase of its numbers, and in the growth of its organisation upon the industrial field. The intensity and scope of the class-struggle increase simultaneously.

The “dictators," Fascist and Bolshevist alike, attempt to repress this struggle by suppressing all political parties save one. The result is that discontented elements find their way into the one legal party, and are a constant menace to its unity. The “Dictator” preserves his authority over the different factions among his followers by avoiding going too far in any one direction. Hitler and Mussolini, Stalin and Pilsudski owe their positions to compromise just as surely as does Ramsay MacDonald, or any other Parliamentary politician.

In Britain, however, the capitalist class has long ago learned how to sink its internal struggles in critical moments, as a result of its more advanced economic development. It finds its solution, not in dictatorships, but in Coalitions or “National” Governments. The essential compromise is achieved by less violent means.

Under such conditions Fascists, so-called, are as little likely as Communists to become anything more than a thorn in the side of some larger party. Just as the Communists imported Russian jargon, but were utterly unable to bring over Russian conditions along with it, so the British Fascists will find that the novelty of teaching their political grandmothers to suck eggs will soon wear off. It is not necessary to credit Baldwin and Company with supernatural sagacity in order to anticipate that they will always be at least one move ahead of Sir Oswald Mosley.

The followers of this volatile politician may conceivably eclipse the Communists and I.L.P., but Socialists need not get excited about that. If the workers are still in the dark as to the direction to take, these latter bodies must accept a large measure of responsibility. They have induced the workers to support policies for which there was no chance of success. Disillusionment and apathy have, therefore, provided the material from which Mosley may build up a temporary alternative movement.

The S.P.G.B. is not a party of prophets, but whatever the immediate future may hold, we see no reason to deviate from the policy consistently pursued by us for thirty years. Just as we refused to be duped by Moscow, so we decline to be scared by what is happening in other Continental centres.

We realise that the master-class of this country possess means of intimidation as formidable as any that exist. We also realise that they control them through the support which they receive from the non-Socialist members of our class. By all means in our power, therefore, we strive to make Socialists.

Eric Boden

Blogger's Note:

See also the editorial, 'Reason or Violence', from this month's Socialist Standard.

Editorial: Must Socialism Wait for the Last Hottentot? (1941)

Editorial from the December 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many people who—without being Socialists—have seen that the future of the human race lies in the direction of international organisation are worried and perplexed by the problem of the “backward races.” Forgetful of the processes by which their own opinions were changed and their knowledge enlarged, they look with dismay at the seeming hopelessness of converting the rest of the population. As one “young man in a hurry,” who later drifted into Fascism, used to ask, “Must we wait for Socialism until the last Hottentot has been converted ?” At present nobody worries about the Hottentots and other dark-skinned peoples, for the apprehension has taken a new twist. Now we are asked how the world can ever deal with the savage Germans and jackal Italians and other low-grade peoples who have fallen into the absurdities and brutalities of Fascism. For their part, of course, Germans and Italians who have swallowed the racial dogmas of their leaders despise the supposedly degenerate supporters of democracy and loathe the Jews. Taking a short view, the outlook for Internationalism and Socialism may look black, but actually the widespread character of these theories of racial inferiority, and the multiplicity of changes they undergo from time to time, are a good indication that the whole conception is false and will not endure. If history could show that the majority of the human race had been consistent in its belief that some one section was inherently inferior there would be a case to look into. Instead, history shows no agreement, no consistency. The sub-human races of one day are the esteemed brothers in arms of the next, and each new generation has disproved the judgments of the last. In our own century there have been wiseacres who have said that the Slav races (notably the Russians) are incapable of acquiring the mechanical knowledge and skill of the Latins and Teutonic peoples of Western Europe; just as, less than a century ago, it was confidently prophesied that the Germans were incapable of catching up the industrial development that had gone ahead in Britain and France. Latterly the view was that the yellow and black races were inferior to the white in this matter of mechanical and inventive skill. Japan and China and India have disposed of that view, and the present war has shown North American Indians, Maoris, Indians, East and West Africans, and many others acquiring all the knowledge and training required in the handling of the mechanical marvels of modern war.

Only a few months ago the following report appeared in the Times of the training of Abyssinians to operate telegraph systems :

“One of the most curious and impressive sights in Addis Ababa at present is that of 200 young Ethiopians, with hardly a word of English between them, who are being initiated into the arts and mysteries of telegraphy by half a dozen British n.c.o.s of the Royal Corps of Signals. These pupils are destined to form the nucleus of both the new Ethiopian Telegraph Service and a signal company in the Ethiopian Army.

A few of them have had some slight experience of the matter during the period before the Italians were evicted, but most are complete novices. Nevertheless, after eight weeks’ training, a handful are already sufficiently advanced to be employed as assistant wireless operators, while others are out reconstructing the telegraph lines destroyed during the war, under the supervision of British signallers.”—”Times,” August 27th, 1941.

It will be said truly enough that mechanical skill and capacity is only part of the problem. What about the other qualities, without which the smooth working of a world social system based on common ownership is unthinkable ? How can peoples co-operate who are given to aggression and filled with a desire to dominate those weaker than themselves ? To which the answer is that these are not inherent, racial characteristics. There are no peoples or groups which would not acquire them under appropriate conditions and were incapable of shedding them with changed conditions and greater knowledge. Take the Italians who have supported or condoned Fascist intolerance and imperialist brutality. By general agreement the Italians were regarded, to use the phrase of a recent book on Italy, as “one of the most kindly and tolerant peoples on earth.” It was stated in the Press only last month that Italian prisoners of war in a camp in England refused to draw their small pay on All Saints’ Day. They asked that it be given to the poor in a neighbouring village, “especially to any poor families who have lost men in the present war” (Times, November 21st, 1941). Will anyone who knows the Italian workers and their past record of loyalty to the earlier attempts to form international working-class movements believe them incapable of playing their part in the future, on the ground that they fell into the common error of trying to solve the problems of capitalism by the road of dictatorship and colonial conquest ?

The truth is that, no matter how much the conduct of human beings may deteriorate under bad conditions, nor what mistakes workers may make in their search for a way out of the chaos in which the world finds itself, there are no nations or races in which the suppressed class have been or can be permanently robbed of the desire to understand and to learn. What Mr. H. G. Wells wrote of young people in this country is true, at least in large measure, of adults here and everywhere else. “Most people want to learn,” he wrote. “Put the stuff attractively before your new generation and they will take it greedily, just as they will grow healthily if wholesome food is put within their reach” (Sunday Dispatch, November 23rd).

One nation learns from another, and one group of workers learns from another as well as from their own experience. If we who are Socialists look after the task of teaching Socialism, we shall not in the long run have to trouble overmuch about the so-called backward or degenerate races.

Blogger's Note:

Naturally, I was intrigued by the following passage in the editorial, 

As one “young man in a hurry,” who later drifted into Fascism, used to ask, “Must we wait for Socialism until the last Hottentot has been converted ?”

I believe this is in reference to a debate that the SPGB had with the British Union of Fascists in 1935 where the B.U.F. representative, Probyn, said the following during the debate:

Socialism asks us to wait until world conditions are ready for a change, but that will be over 500 years hence. We are not going to wait until every Hottentot has a bicycle. Fascism believes in getting down to earth and making the best of the material we have now  . . . 

(April/May 1935 Socialist Standard)

Earlier in his speech Probyn had 'confessed':

Mr. Probyn said that as usual he found nothing new in the Socialist case. He had been a Socialist for ten years and had even flirted with the S.P.G.B. However, he would leave the question of Socialism until his second speech and would first put the case for Fascism.

 Funnily enough that line "Socialism asks us to wait until world conditions are ready for a change, but that will be over 500 years hence . . . " sounds familiar. Didn't Lenin say something along the same lines?

What the Parties Say about the War (1939)

From the October 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Below are extracts from the official statements on the war made by various Parties.

The Labour Party.

(Extract from the Manifesto issued by the National Executive of the Labour Party, published in the Daily Herald, September 2nd, 1939.)

“It will, now that the die is cast, use all its influence and authority to secure a Peace, the basis of which is in accord with the faith it holds.

It will resist any attempt to use the present conflict for ends that sow the seeds of further war. So long as its principles animate those whom Herr Hitler has driven to resistance against his aggression, so long they can count on the support of British Labour. None know better than the Labour Movement the tragic folly of war; but a stage has been reached in the development of Europe where War has been chosen by Herr Hitler as a deliberate instrument of national policy.

It is impossible for Labour to acquiesce in claims supported, or conquests achieved, by this method. To do so would be an indefensible betrayal of its own vital faith.

The British Labour Movement, therefore, call upon all its members to stand solidly behind it in resistance to aggression.

Until those who have been willing to resort to its use have been overthrown it sees no prospect of an enduring Peace. The Movement must summon all its energy and devotion to the task of defeating the aggressor.

British Labour has taken this stand with calmness and without passion.

It will hold itself free to define in its own way the conditions of a just settlement at a later stage.

It will use all its authority to build a Peace of justice which removes the cause out of which War comes. With the defeat of the aggressors, there emerges the prospect of building a better world from which the roots of economic and political grievance have been removed.

The British Labour Movement will give all its strength to making the foundations of that world a secure defence of Peace and Justice.”

* * *

The Communist Party of Great Britain.

(Extract from Manifesto issued by Central Committee, September 2nd, 1939.)

“You are now being called upon to take part in the most cruel war in the history of the world.

One that need never have taken, place. One that could have been avoided even in the very last days of the crisis, had we had a People’s Government in Britain.

Now that the war has come, we have no hesitation in stating the policy of the Communist Party.

We are in support of all necessary measures to secure the victory of democracy over Fascism.

But Fascism will not be defeated by the Chamberlain Government.

The first and most vital step to victory is a new Government in which the key positions are in the hands of a trusted representatives of the people who have neither imperialist aims, nor latent sympathies with Fascism.

This is absolutely vital for any success in a war against Fascism abroad and the friends of Fascism in Britain.”

Then, one month later, the Communist Party thought it had supported the war long enough and announced :—

“We are against the continuance of the war. We demand that negotiations be immediately opened for the establishment of peace in Europe.”— (Daily Worker, 4th October).

* * *

The Social Democratic Party of Germany.

(Extract from Manifesto issued by the exiled Executive of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.)

“To the German people,

With Hitler’s criminal attack war has begun. In this historic moment the executive of the German Social Democratic party appeals to the German people and to the whole world. It is the last body which was elected by the Social Democratic mass organisations in Germany itself. It speaks for the party, and beyond the party, for that section of the German people which hates war and dictatorship and whose aim is to live in peace and freedom.

The whole weight of guilt for this monstrous crime against peace and humanity rests on Hitler and his system. The destruction of freedom and the disturbance of world peace was from the outset the sum and substance of National Socialist policy. The fall of Hitler is therefore the aim for which we shall fight, together with all the democratic forces in Europe.

Hitler and the new German militarism are one. The defeat and final overthrow of this militarism are the prerequisites for the peace and reorganisation of Europe. As a force allied with all the opponents of Hitler who are fighting for freedom and civilisation in Europe, our efforts in the war will be directed to this end. We are waging this war for the German people’ and for the great goal of safeguarding liberty, peace, and democracy in Europe.

We appeal to the German people. Fight for your freedom. Get rid of Hitler. The overthrow of the system will shorten the war, preserve millions of lives, and save the nation. Hitler’s policy is not the fulfilment of national needs. It is a relapse into the superstition that the future and well-being of people depend on the conquest of territory.”—(Published in Manchester Guardian, September 5th, 1939.)

* * *

The I.L.P.

In the introduction to a ”Socialist Programme During the War,” the I.L.P. made the following declaration (New Leader, September 8th.)

“The I.L.P. will remain true to the principles of International Socialism in this war as it did in the war of 1914-18.

At this dark moment it holds out hands of solidarity across the frontiers to the workers of other countries, and over the roar of guns, greets those heroic Socialists who in German territory maintain their opposition to the Fascist regime and to war.

During the war the I.L.P. will do all that it can to retain the spirit, organisation and action of International Socialism. …”

(The programme itself consists of such demands as recruitment of Trade-Unionists, the maintenance of contact with working-class organisations abroad, increased old age pensions, a national living wage with family allowances, etc., etc.)

* * *

The British Union (Mosley-Fascists).

(Extract from a statement published in Action, September 16th, 1939.)

“The policy of British Union was, is, and will be, Britain first.

We mean by Britain first: (1) If any nation attacks, or threatens, the life of Britain or her Empire, we fight for Britain; (2) with us the life and interest of the British people come first, and, therefore, the lives of British people are more important than any foreign quarrel. That is why we have said, and now say, “Mind Britain’s Business.”

Our Peace policy is the same as ever, and by this policy Peace can still be won.

(1) We have no interest in the East of Europe, which is no concern of British Empire ; therefore, we should cease to intervene in any Eastern European quarrel.

(2) We are determined at all times to defend and to maintain British Empire, but we have no interest in “Mandated Territories,” which do not belong to British Empire.

(3) Britain can and must be strong enough to defend herself from any attack by any nation in the world, but should never intervene in foreign quarrels which do not concern Britain or the Empire.

(4) We desire a permanent peace and understanding among the great nations of the West of Europe.

The practical test of our Peace Policy is this: Can the British people make a peace that secures the integrity .of British Empire and the peace of Western Europe? Which of our opponents can deny that this can be done?

Their only argument is that they do not trust the word of a Foreign Government. Then why not trust the strong arm of Britain instead? In the strength of British Union we should have nothing to fear from any attack even if we stood alone. So we should have no need to wage war in case we were attacked at some future date.

Therefore before, and after, the outbreak of war the Peace Policy of British Union remains exactly the same.

* * *

The German Communists

According to the Daily Worker (September 8th, 1939) the German Communist Party have issued a call to the German people to overthrow the Hitler regime. The Worker says : “It supports the Soviet Union arid the peace policy of Stalin, which resulted in a split of the Powers supporting aggression.”

Among the points in the declaration are the following: —

“In this hour, when Hitler attacks the Polish people, we call all German workers, and the whole German people, to fight for the saving of the peace of the world in this last hour . . .

“In case of war we must fight the Nazi regime and for the downfall of Hitler.”

* * *

Manifesto of a group of Labour M.P.s, Candidates and others.

LABOUR DURING THE WAR.

Twenty years after the “war to end war,” Capitalism has again plunged the peoples of the world into mutual slaughter.

Once again the ideals of liberty and democracy are invoked by Governments which deny liberty in their own colonies and social justice at home.

We share with countless working men and women in Germany the desire to end the barbarities of Nazism and the Hitler Government.

But it is tragic that the Labour Movement of Britain has forgotten all it owes to the teachings of Keir Hardie and the other pioneers, and repeats its blunder of 1914, lining up with Capitalism in the waging of a war to defend Imperial interests.

Large numbers of Labour Party, Trade Union and Co-operative members are deeply distressed by a war which will inflict endless suffering on the peoples whilst making enormous fortunes for profiteers.

The workers must preserve and strengthen their organisations on an independent basis. Let them hold fast to their right to organise, to meet together, to speak freely, so that they may keep their power to influence events and to work for Socialism and Peace.

Alfred Salter (Labour M.P. for West Bermondsey). Cecil H. Wilson (Labour M.P. for Attercliffe). Fred Longden (Labour Candidate for Deritend). Jack Gibson (Labour Candidate for Lanark). Gordon Stott (Labour Candidate for W. Edinburgh). Reg. Groves (Labour Candidate for Aylesbury). W. T. Colyer (Labour Candidate for Chislehurst). Donald Fraser (Labour Candidate for North Norfolk). W. H. Morris (Labour Candidate for Hampstead). Wilfred Wellock (Labour Candidate for Stourbridge). David Freeman (Labour Candidate for N.W. Hull). Jim Simmons (Labour Candidate for W. Wolvehampton). Rose Simpson (General Secretary, Women’s Co-operative Guild). Mrs. M. Pavitt (Treasurer of the Women’s Co-operative Guild). M. G. Grindley (Women’s Co-operative Guild). Charles A. Smith (Chairman of the I.L.P.). Fenner Brockway (Political Secretary of the I.L.P.). John McNair (General Secretary of the I.L.P.). John Aplin (Chairman of London I.L.P.). Will Ballantine (Member of N.U.R. Executive). Alexander Kelley (General Secretary of the Scottish Bankers’ Association). John Goldie (Scottish Bankers’ Association). P. Cowan (Scottish Bankers’ Association). Stewart Purkis (Ex-Member R.C.A. Executive). B. Porter (Baillie, Glasgow Corporation). J. A. W. Douglas (Labour Councillor, Bermondsey). James Ross (Chairman, W. Edinburgh Labour Party). James H. Hudson (Ex-Labour M.P., Huddersfield). G. F. Dutch (Vice-President, London Co-operative Society). J. Allen Skinner (Chairman, Pacifist Research Bureau).

Ethel Mannin.

Lennox Kerr.

Thomas Burns.

Norrie Fraser.

Farringdon (Lord).

Huntingdon (Lord).

What to Do About Fascism (1936)

From the November 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Fascist Pot and the Communist Kettle

In the sacred name of liberty Sir Oswald Mosley – who proposes, like his heroes, Mussolini and Hitler, to destroy all opposition parties if he gets power – demands the right to lead his blackshirt troops into the East End. In the sacred name of liberty the Communists – who propose here, as in Russia, to crush all opposition parties if they get power – call upon us all to rally against Sir Oswald Mosley. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, which does not propose to prevent anyone, anywhere, from voicing his opinions and organising peacefully to propagate them, is completely and permanently opposed to both of these suppressive movements. We are opposed to their objects, their methods and their secret finances, but principally to their objects because they neither of them have the solution for the problem of our age. The underlying discontent with things as they are in State-capitalist Russia is so widespread that the dictator and his yes-men are thoroughly scared lest one exile in Norway should prove a rallying point and endanger their positions. In the Fascist lands poverty and promises are as much the order of the day as in the capitalist democracies. Italy and Germany are as much the paradise of the moneyed men, the exploiters of human labour, as England and America. Nothing is changed except the patriotic trimmings and the colour of the shirt.

The Right to Wear what Clothes We Wish

When Sir Oswald Mosley, fresh from his visits of adoration to Mussolini and Hitler, asks if in this country “a man might not wear the clothes he wished to wear?” as he did in an address to Manchester business men on October 9th (Manchester Guardian, October 10th), he at once betrays the limitations of the Fascist movement, and of his own understanding. Nowhere in the capitalist world, whether under Baldwin, Sir Oswald’s former political associate, or under the foreign Fascist dictators, at whose feet he now sits, can a man wear what clothes he wishes to wear. All he can wear is what his class-position enables him to afford. If he is a typical worker, a wealth-producer, he will wear clothes that are cheap and nasty, tasteless and inadequate. If he is a member of the propertied class, whether Liberal or Nazi, Conservative or Fascist, then, and only then, can he exercise his choice about the way he lives, including the clothes he wears. This is the crucial test of all the reformist movements from Mosley to Morrison. None of them dare face up to the question why it is that they propose to use power to preserve the class ownership of the means of production and distribution.

The Fascists Can’t Cure Capitalism

True, the Fascists can point to the manifold reformist activities of the Fascist Governments – and to the decline of unemployment. But this is now the favourite theme of all the apologists for capitalism, everywhere. Capitalism, after its latest crisis, is going through an expanding phase. So unemployment declines because of the expansion of trade and also because of the expansion of capitalism’s most thriving industries: armies and armaments. The Berlin correspondent of the Economist (September 19th, 1936) reports that the official number of unemployed is down to 1,098,000, and adds:

  "The Reich Unemployment Board considers that the shortage of skilled labour in certain industries is the result of compulsory military service.”

And what does it mean, anyway, when we admit that all the capitalist Governments are busy with schemes for patching up this, that and the other evil of capitalism? It means that capitalism is always producing more evils, and that the Fascists are as incapable as any other capitalist Government of solving them. Catholic Dictator Schuschnigg, in Austria, plays the age-old game of bread and circuses because the “Corporative State” is as mangy as all the other variations of capitalist rule. Read what the Vienna correspondent of the Daily Telegraph writes:

  “The Government is presenting 50,000 tickets of admission to football matches, 50,000 cinema, and 10,000 theatre tickets to the members of the (Fatherland) Front. About 400,000 free breakfasts and free railway transport for all will be provided.” (Daily Telegraph, October 15th, 1936.)

This was Schuschnigg’s great victory parade at which the population were to give a spontaneous demonstration of loyalty and enthusiasm. The attendance was splendid – it was compulsory for large numbers of workers: “attend or lose your job” was the threat. Still the dictator failed. His “promises of improved conditions for the masses were received without enthusiasm. When he denounced Socialism and democracy the great crowd remained silent.” (Daily Telegraph, October 19th, 1936). It appears that the workers opened their mouths for the free meal and then kept them obstinately shut.

In Italy, a land of semi-paupers and millionaires, like the rest of the big powers, Mussolini blethers about Empire and prosperity like any Conservative but he cannot cure unemployment, he does not find a remedy for desperate poverty, and he never fails to look after capitalist interests. What else can he do, having no choice but to carry on capitalism? On Tuesday, October 13th, his Government instructed stockbrokers to submit the names and addresses of all clients who buy industrial shares. This was at 9.30 a.m. The Fascist syndicate of brokers promptly held a meeting and passed a resolution that “it would be advisable to close all the bourses rather than have to obey the latest order.” The Government instantly climbed down and agreed by 9.45 a.m. to waive the order. (Daily Telegraph, October 14th, 1936.) This is Mosley’s paradise for the workers in which he affects to believe that money no longer rules.

Then in Germany, where the Nazis claim to have got rid of talking-shops, and introduced Socialist deeds instead of capitalist and Labour Party promises, Hitler stages his own brand of circuses for keeping the workers’ attention off their own slave-like conditions. The Nuremberg rally of the Nazi Party in September, at which Hitler begged the German workers to keep their eyes fixed on poverty in Russia (lest they should look nearer home), was a splendiferous jamboree costing £2,000,000 (Daily Telegraph, September 8th, 1936). It contained all the fun of the political fair, every species of mental dope calculated to stop a worker from thinking.

Then, at home, what has Mosley to offer except a mixed bag of reforms of capitalism picked up on his passage from the Conservative Party, via the Labour Party, I.L.P., and New Party to the British Union of Fascists. I.L.P. reforms – 40 years old – plus Communist violence, plus the current exaggerated economic nationalism and patriotism, plus half-baked Stafford Cripps doctrines of rule by Order in Council. That is the sum total of Mosley’s programme: it is as rotten as the rubbish heaps from which it has been gathered.

The Fascists and Disorder

The Fascist technique of propaganda and gaining power is simple, but its effectiveness depends entirely on the level of political knowledge and experience of the workers and on the behaviour of the opponents of Fascism. Fascism (copying most of the traditional methods of the Labour Parties) exploits every phase of working-class and small-capitalist discontent. It denounces Jews, Freemasons, Catholics, Trade Union officials, bankers, all big corporations, bureaucracy, Parliament, financial scandals, unemployment, etc., etc. Where it scores over the older methods is in provoking disorder with the assistance of those who believe they are hindering it. Given an increasing number of marches and the appearance if not even the reality of disorder the Fascist leaders know that they can count, with certainty, on growing support from numerous quarters. They get the support of all who have grievances against Jews, Freemasons, and so on, but, above all, they get the support of large numbers of people who, knowing little of politics, are simply scared by disorder. Such people, if they believe they have to choose between the Communist Party and the Fascists, choose the latter. Every riot brings Mosley support from them.

How, it may be asked, do the Fascists manage to win over workers who formerly supported the Labour Parties; as they succeeded in doing in Italy and Germany, and are doing here? Why is the Labour Party reformist demagogy less successful than it used to be? The answer is simple.       

Labour Parties and Fascism           

Before the War the world was obviously governed by and for the propertied class, landed and plutocratic, on a more or less restricted Parliamentary franchise. The inevitable discontent with capitalism naturally drove workers to support democratic parties claiming to be particularly concerned with political and social reforms.

After the War the franchise was made more or less universal in nearly all countries, and Labour or Liberal-Labour Governments became common. With what result? Capitalism continued, therefore discontent continued. But now the discontent had to find a new outlet. Having tried capitalism under democracy, the workers were ripe for a new kind of demagogue, one preaching dictatorship. Renegade Labour leaders hastened to adjust themselves to the change of fashion. They reaped the harvest, but who sowed the seed? None other than the Labour Parties. It is they who poisoned politics with their doctrines of reforming capitalism without abolishing it.

The Key to Modern Politics

The idea still survives that politics is concerned with a struggle of ideas about Government, trade, etc. Nothing could be further from the truth. Politics is concerned with the ownership of the land, factories, railways and all the accumulated property of the country. The small minority who own and control all that matters, the late Sir J. Ellerman with his £50 million, Joseph Rank and Lord Nuffield, reputed to be worth upwards of £20 million each, the Lady Houstons and the Wills and Coats families, and all the rest of the owning class, have one overriding interest, one motive, one determination. They may tell simple-minded newspaper readers that “Money means nothing to me. I could just as easily go back to where I started – in fact, I might be happier if I did” (Lord Nuffield, News Chronicle, October 17th, 1936), but their actions, individual and combined, belie their words. No exploiting class ever gives up its privileged position until it has tried every conceivable device to retain what it has.

Broadly speaking, in the 20th century the capitalist class are on the defensive. Ideas are on the march. Workers are beginning to think. From the capitalist standpoint that movement must be stopped, destroyed, divided, or turned into blind alleys – anything to preserve capitalism. If the discontented organise to secure reforms the capitalists can try buying off the leaders, offering small concessions to the rank and file, playing off one section against another, Catholic against Protestant, Jew against Arab, German against English, Blackshirt against Greenshirt and Redshirt. And if one group forges ahead and becomes influential, then the capitalists must come to terms with it – hence Labour Governments, and if, in due course, the popularity of Labour Governments wanes then the new rounders-up of working-class votes, the Fascists, must be given their turn. So capitalism goes on.

In Italy and Germany Mussolini and Hitler trod on the heels of discredited Syndicalism and Labourism, backed by capitalist money and under the protecting arm of the State.

Now Mosley says that he is receiving support from English industrial capitalists (see Rome Giornale d’Italia, quoted in News Chronicle, October 19th, 1936). They hope that he will be able to give capitalism – meaning themselves – a further lease of life.

If the Workers Go Fascist

Many who are alarmed at the growth of Fascism in England talk in a panicky way of fighting or crushing the movement, and appeal to the Government to ban uniforms. This is all so much waste of words. The issue rests with the workers in the main. If the workers understood capitalism and Socialism they would not fall for the Fascist claptrap – but neither would they fall for Liberal. Labour or Conservative claptrap. If, on the other hand, the workers here can, as in Italy and Germany, be won over in their hundreds of thousands to the Fascist programme then all talk of suppression is idle. If the workers want Fascist Government they will get it, as they got Labour Government. At certain stages of the Hitler movement the Prussian and German Governments did try to ban his movement, forbid uniforms and demonstrations, etc., but they failed to stem the drift towards him.

The only answer to Fascism, as to other capitalist-reformist movements, is knowledge and understanding. Their economic programme would deceive no worker who gave serious thought to it –which is, doubtless, one reason why the Mosleyites prefer riotous demonstrations to quiet meetings at which their programme has to be stated in all its poverty.

The most seductive claim of the Fascists is that they are Socialists. Hitler repeated this again in Berlin on October 6th (News Chronicle, October 7th, 1936), and it is the common argument of the Mosley movement nowadays. Every Labourite will laugh at the notion that the Mosleyite programme of reforms is Socialist; but they have little enough reason to laugh. Who, if not the Labour Party and I.L.P., started this dishonest practice? Who made it possible for Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express to say (October 1st) that it opposes Socialism but not the Labour Party – “that is a very different thing.”

If the Fascists can get support by misrepresenting Socialism, that is largely due to all the Labour speakers who have done the same in the past.

The Struggle Will Go On

The rise of Fascism to power in this country is, to say the least, improbable. The problems facing the British capitalists, in particular the international situation, are not of a kind to make them give up flattering the Labour and Trade Union leaders in order to encourage Mosley. At a pinch a more likely development, if the situation threatens war, is an enlarged “National Government” in which Trade Union leaders and Mosley work happily together defending British capitalism. 

What is more important to remember about Fascism here and abroad is that the eventual failure of the Fascist movements is as certain as the failure of Labour Governments which helped them to rise. Fascism is incapable of making capitalism work satisfactorily. It is an impossible task. Capitalism goes on producing discontent under the surface. The future of Fascism is forecast in the growing activity of anti-Fascists in Italy and Austria. Sooner or later all the Fascist facades of capitalism will fall away, leaving the main problem still to be tackled. The workers will still have to be won over to Socialism. That is the task for Socialists, whether under Dictatorship or Democracy.

Edgar Hardcastle

The way to deal with Fascism (1974)

From the August 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Get it right. Fascism is not an economic and social system different from capitalism. It is a political faction possessed, as they all are, with the idea of a method which will make capitalism run to order. Its policies are both absurd and detestable, but are far from unique and are variously shared with the other pro-capitalist parties.

Don’t be misled either by the persistence of “fascist” as a political swear word. Any opponent or inconvenience to the Left is a “fascist”: fascist thug, fascist reactionary, fascist warmonger etc. — the alleged thuggery, reaction and militarism thereby being made a special and more fearsome kind. This is part of the verbal hallucination in which left-wing organizations live. It is interesting that the other great condemnatory term, “Trotskyist”, has now dropped from the Communists’ vocabulary. Why? Because the Communists now collaborate with the Trotskyists in industrial agitation (and, of course, in anti-fascism).

Attacking (and therefore publicizing) fascism has been good business for the Communist Party. Unable to get anywhere by industrial militancy, its membership hung round 4,000 until campaigns against fascism — by fighting Mosley’s party in the streets, by making a crusade of the Spanish Civil War, and finally by supporting the Allies in the 1939-45 war — raised it to several times that number. Its successors, likewise unable to make much impression by other kinds of agitation, have obviously taken note.

Pre-War and Now

The term was the name of Mussolini’s movement started in Italy in 1919 — the Fasci di Combatti- mento, which took power as the National Fascist Party in 1922. By 1936 imitative governments existed in Austria, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Greece and Japan. In 1939 Franco’s Falangists took power in Spain; and there was, of course, Germany. It survived World War II only in Spain and Argentina, where a group which included Juan Peron became the heads of government in 1943.

The pre-war fascist movement in Britain was Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, formed in 1932 as an amalgam of several small groups. Its membership was never large, and had a high proportion of adolescents; it published a paper called Action, and its main activity was the staging of marches and rallies. In 1940, soon after the outbreak of war, Mosley and the other leaders were imprisoned and the BUF’s existence ended. The rank-and-file members, so far from defending or acting for Germany and Italy, joined the forces and fought in the war professedly against fascism.

Mosley attempted a revival, the Union Movement, in 1948, and other neo-Nazi or racist groups had patchy existences before the formation of the National Front in the late nineteen-sixties. In the General Election this year the National Front put up 53 candidates who averaged 1,436 votes (as against the Communist Party’s average of 780, WRP’s 466, IMG’s 238, and the Marxist-Leninist Communists’ 237). This support, small as it is, is almost entirely for the National Front’s racist propaganda. Fascist organizations’ policies have always been to exploit working-class and petty-capitalist misconceptions of their grievances. In the ’thirties the scapegoats were Jews, Freemasons, Catholics, the trade unions (linked with “communism”), bureaucracy, and the big corporations. The list is not very different today except that the black immigrant population has taken the chief position.

Vicious attitudes joined to a promise of repressive government naturally rouse indignation and the determination to oppose them. The demonstration of 15th June produced numerous letters to newspapers insisting that fascism be suppressed for fear the horrors of the last generation be repeated: or alternatively, that left-wing activity be suppressed because that is what drives people to support fascist movements. In both cases the argument is of “the lesser evil”, and it ignores the cause and the answer to fascism.

Causes & Compulsions

The single cause of the rise of fascism in the nineteen-twenties and thirties was the inability of reformist governments to cope with capitalism’s problems. In the preceding years, parliamentary representation and the franchise had spread to practically all the developed countries, and Liberal or Labour parties had been in power with extensive reform programmes. They had, inevitably, failed; there had been crises, mass unemployment and extreme poverty instead of the promised benefits.

What was conveyed therefore to large numbers of people all over Europe was that democracy was a washout, and they were ready to listen to demagogues who affirmed this and would attack the alleged scapegoats. The dictatorship regimes are usually said to have “seized power”, a phrase which obscures the fact that they were supported and elected by the majority of workers in their countries. Of course they were supported by sections of the capitalist class too, who have no fastidiousness in backing the best agents for their interests. But the poison was laid by the Labour and other parties who misled the working class with their policies of trying to reform capitalism instead of abolishing it; and they, of course, are still at it.

Undoubtedly some will say that, whatever the cause of fascism, it threatens those it singles out. Jews and black people in particular are likely to think they must oppose it as a matter of self-preservation. However, it is not so simple. Many Jews supported the Communist Party for its anti-fascism in the ’thirties — only to find that Jews were (and are) persecuted in Russia as well as by fascism. The modern history of the United States shows that you do not have to live under a dictatorship to be victimized or killed for a belief or a skin-colour.

Capitalist governments and parties will oppose fascist ones — but only when it suits them. For all the propagandist talk, the last war was not fought over ideas by either side: the compulsion was commercial rivalry in world markets. The horrific discovery of the German concentration camps provided an apparent justification in retrospect, but in fact the camps’ existence and what was happening to Jews in Germany were known in Britain in the nineteen-thirties and largely discounted. Hitler and Mussolini were praised by ruling-class politicians, including Churchill. And the trigger for the outbreak of war was the German attack on Poland — a country which itself had a dictatorship.

Changing Policies

Fascist parties are no more able than social-democratic or liberal ones to deal with the problems and resist the pressures: they are themselves reformists. Of the Mussolini government, H. Kohn tells us in the Encyclopaedia Britannica:

The standard of living and the real wages of the Italian workers and farmers remained extremely low in comparison with other European countries throughout the 20 years of the Fascist regime. Nevertheless, the Fascist leadership did not cease painting a picture of coming Italian grandeur for the benefit of the Italian masses.

The Nazi régime was more fortunate in that it could claim a substantial reduction in unemployment, because its establishment came immediately before a period of capitalist expansion following the 1929 depression. But Peron’s downfall in 1955 came at a time of severe economic difficulties in Argentina and a sharp rise in the cost of living.

The classic question put to Socialists, what would we do if fascism arrived here, has to be seen in this light. Under the pressures of capitalism, fascist policies are no more certain than any others. Before achieving power Mussolini completely abandoned the anti-monarchist and anti-Catholic programme on which his movement had been built up. The Italian and Japanese régimes had no racist policies, and anti-Semitism was described as “an absurdity” by Italian fascist leaders until 1938 when the German racial theory was adopted, for obvious reasons. On the other hand, the Nazis after their pact with Russia in 1939 cancelled attacks on Communism, which until then was declared their arch-enemy; diatribes against “Jewish communism” gave way overnight to ones against “Jewish capitalism”.

In that connection, Mosley never declared his or his organizations’ position to be specifically anti- Jewish, clearly seeking to keep the options open. The programmes of the British Union of Fascists and the Union Movement were a rag-bag of reforms gathered from Mosley’s earlier days in the Labour Party, the ILP and the New Party, and the National Front’s programme apart from “Keep Britain White” is a repetition of the same rubbish. It is worth noting too that Mosley pinned his hopes, as most left-wing organizations do, on the “collapse of capitalism”. His postwar book The Alternative named 1948 or 1949 as the year, and further predictions of the “inevitable” catastrophic crisis continued until the early ’sixties.

The element which has remained constant in all fascist governments and programmes is the one-party state. It is not a prospect which Socialists would welcome, to say the least, but some observations about it are important. First, the monopoly in it is held not by fascism but by what is called communism in Russia, China, Cuba and the east-European countries. Second, dictatorships like other governments are dependent on the assent of the ruled. Third, physical suppression has never prevented the formation and circulation of ideas. After the Austrian social-democratic paper Arbeiter Zeitung was banned and severe penalties for possessing it were imposed in 1934, it was produced in Czecho-Slovakia and then in Paris, and two years later had a bigger circulation in Austria — over 60,000 — than any legal newspaper. We ourselves have experience in two world wars of carrying on under prohibitive conditions, with members in prison and Socialist literature under restraint.

Effective Action

In 1937, when calls were made for a “Popular Front” of anti-fascist organizations, we said:

  Fascism can only be fought successfully by Socialists. Labourites cannot fight it because the Fascist social reform programmes are largely made up of points from the Labour programme. Communists cannot fight it because they are tarred with the same brush of dictatorship. Open defenders of capitalism cannot fight it because the workers are sick of naked capitalism.
  Only Socialists — themselves consistent critics of capitalism, reformism and dictatorship — can combat Fascism.

(Socialist Standard, December 1937)

The safeguard against fascism is Socialist understanding. The working man or woman who has it cannot be taken in by nationalism, racism or reformism — or by anti-fascism, which is the same thing with another name. The present-day fascists are hoping that, like their predecessors, they will thrive by others taking their bait: partly in publicity, partly through attacks on them heightening concern about disorder and causing a reaction in their favour.

It is a mess, and an ugly one. But there is a solution — Socialism.

Robert Barltrop

Editorial: Postscript on Mosley (1944)

Editorial from the January 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

As a demonstration that working-class sentiment is against Fascism, the outcry over the release of Mosley is welcome—but sentiment alone never won any permanent achievements for the working class, and the socialist movement, and the linking up of the agitation with acceptance of the Defence Regulations which give the Home Secretary power to arrest without trial is a dangerous feature. No ruling class has ever been deeply attached to democratic and constitutional methods for their, own sake, and if a time comes when our rulers want to use Regulation 18b to incarcerate without trial men and women active in the working-class movement, some of those who want Mosley sent back under powers given by that Regulation may see their mistake.

Though we are opposed to that and similar regulations and restrictions, we have no tears to shed over Mosley, whose British Union of Fascists was in favour of suppressing the propaganda of its opponents, though this aim was phrased in the contradictory declaration that "free speech" should be “regulated and controlled."—("Fascist Week," January 5—11, 1934.)

Mosley the Fascist denounces Parliamentary Government, and years before, when he was in the I.L.P. and Labour Party, he was advocating the use of Emergency Powers in order to get speedy action free from parliamentary "obstruction." In 1926 the Labour Party at first declined to endorse his candidature at Smethwick where he was put forward by the I.L.P., and the "New Leader" (December 3, 1926) said that one of the rumoured objections to Mosley was that at the I.L.P. Summer School he had “advocated the socialist use of the Emergency Powers Act.” It is ironical that Mosley owed his detention in 1940 to the Government's use of the kind of emergency powers he himself had advocated, and that he now owes his release to the fact that Parliament, which he despises, endorsed the action of the Home Secretary. It is interesting to recall that Sir Stafford Cripps, as well as many other members of the Labour Party and I.L.P., used also to advocate the use of emergency powers. Sir Stafford Cripps wrote in 1933: "The first measure to come before Parliament under a Labour Government should be the Enabling Act to deal with the emergency by Orders in Council." ("Where Stands Socialism To-day?" p. 39.)

On the other hand, many of those who for years denounced the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, and demanded its repeal (among them the Communists), and who opposed Regulation 18b when it was introduced in 1939, have completely changed their attitude. Yet the E.P. Act was a far less powerful weapon in the hands of the ruling class than are the present war-time Acts and Regulations. In particular that earlier Act excluded "any form of compulsory military service or industrial conscription"—but now its erstwhile opponents are favouring both the latter measures.

Much more important than the question whether Mosley should be in or out is the question how such people as Mosley come to be a force in politics at all. Among those who now oppose him are many who rapturously supported him when he left the Tory Party, flirted with the Liberals, joined the labour Party and I.L.P. (1924), went on to form the New Party (1931) and became Fascist (1932). Yet Mosley and the ideas he stood for were always a danger to the workers not merely when he donned a black shirt. Mosley was the flamboyant, rich and ambitious demagogue who offered to lead the workers to the promised land while carving out for himself a career in politics. He would never have amounted to anything if there had not been sycophantic hangers-on in the Labour Party and I.L.P. who helped to build him up so that at one time he was spoken of as the future leader of the Labour Party. He had hardly joined that party five minutes before it was reported that he had been offered the choice of 80 seats as Labour candidate. That such a thing could happen was due to the attitude of mind of the working class; not understanding Socialism they could then, and do now, believe in the dangerous illusion that leaders can bring them emancipation.

Writing years afterwards, “Reynold's News" had this to say about him:—

    “It should not be forgotten . . . that the Democratic movement 'spoiled' Sir Oswald on his 'conversion’ from Toryism. Its leaders feted and flattered him. Even the I.L.P., archapostle of discipline, broke its constitution to endorse his candidature in a Smethwick by-election."—(“Reynold's [News]," July 26, 1931.)

Mosley, on his entry to the Labour Party, quickly mastered the oratory of the Labour leaders and learned how to win votes by giving the workers the soothing phrases they wanted to hear. A typical oratorical effort was the following, delivered after the defeat of the General Strike:—

      " . . . Without exerting anything approaching the full power of Labour, they had beaten the boss class. With one hand behind their backs they had whipped the Government. They were there to celebrate one of the greatest events in the history of the world. . . . They had shown that with industrial power alone they could beat the boss class. . . . Let them not forget this was a great workers' victory.—("Birmingham Post," May 17,1926.)

Though in April, 1931, "The Labour Magazine," organ of the T.U.C. and Labour Party, could publish an article saying that nobody "could have doubted the genuineness of Mosley's Socialism at that time" (i.e., 1929), the truth is that Mosley was never at any time a socialist—but neither were those who supported him. What they called Socialism was merely the advocacy of planning, State control, a "living wage," investment boards, etc., and this accounts for the fact that Mosley was able to take over many of the planks in the I.L.P. and Labour Programme into his new party. The “New Leader" wrote (November 7, 1930), "in the ideas of the I.L.P. group and the smaller Mosley group there is a good deal in common."

Mosley’s wealth and title, his friendship with MacDonald, his influential friends, and his fiery oratory all helped to give him a following in the Labour movement, though finally his arrogance and impatience robbed him of leadership when it appeared to be within his grasp. He quarrelled with the Labour Government in 1930 because it rejected his schemes for dealing with unemployment, and broke away with n considerable group of Labour M.P.s, most of whom, however, left him before he formed the New Party in 1931, or soon afterwards. Among those who in 1931 helped to draft Mosley’s manifesto, “A National Policy," were Aneurin Bevan, M.P., W. J. Brown, M.P., and John Strachey. Among his admirers at that period was the late Ben Tillett, who, according to A. J. Cummings ("News Chronicle," March 10, 1934), had declared that Mosley would one day become "the Solomon of a great philosophy of statesmanship." Earlier the communists had been among his admirers, and at the General Elections of 1923 and 1924 the Communist Party backed all the Labour candidates including, of course, MacDonald. J. H. Thomas, and Mosley. (The Communist Party has not changed in, that respect and doubtless a year or two ahead they will be denouncing as " fascist" the Tory M.P.s they have been backing in elections during the past two years.)

After Mosley, had been built up by his Labour admirers and had then gone Fascist he found new supporters who thought that he might be useful as a tool for anti-working-class measures. He claimed ("News Chronicle, October 19, 1936) that a number of industrialists in the North of England had been giving him secret support and the late Lord Rothermere backed him openly in the "Daily Mail." It was one of Rothermere's star journalists. Mr. G. Ward Price, who declared ("Daily Mail," April 23, 1934) that Mosley had proved himself at his Albert Hall demonstration to be "the paramount political personality in Britain."

Mr. Ward Price wrote this about a Fascist rally at Birmingham:—

    "The hold which Blackshirt ideas have upon the best elements of British life was manifested by the rapt attention with which each step of the technical argumentation was followed" (Italics ours.) — ("Daily Mail." January 22. 1934.)

The demand has been made that Mosley should be brought to trial, though on what precise charge is not stated. (It would be funny if the Communists wanted Mosley to be charged with sedition, for at one time they were campaigning for the abolition of the Sedition Laws "Workers' Weekly," October 10, 1924). If he were brought to trial it can be imagined that he would cause a good deal of embarrassment in very distinguished quarters by naming the men who backed him or who, like him, professed their admiration for Hitler and Mussolini before the present war.

One rather nauseating feature of Labour denunciation of Mosley now is the charge that he used his wealth to further his political aims.

A case in point is an article, "The Mosley Moneybags" by Mr. Will Nally, in "Reynold's News" (November 28, 1943). Mosley's Labour admirers never talked like that when he was in the Labour Party. Mosley declared, And it was never contradicted, that in those days he and other rich men were privately appealed to by the Labour Party for donations to their secret funds. ("Manchester Guardian" April 28, 1931.)

The moral of Mosley’s career is that the working-class movement should concern itself with the spread of socialist knowledge and with principles, not personalities. If the workers continue to put their trust in leaders and cherish the ever-renewed hope that at last they have found the inspired political Moses, who will lead them out of the wilderness, they do so at their peril.

Letter: Fascists and Communists (1934)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the following letter criticising a statement contained in our July editorial: — 

Clapham, S.W.4. 

July 3rd, 1934.

Editorial Committee.

Dear Comrades,

            Re Editorial, July issue, 1934, referring to Blackshirt meeting at Olympia, I am astonished when you say that they, i.e., members of the audience, "only got what they asked for,” surely this should not be the considered expression of a Socialist organisation when referring to members of an audience who make slight interruptions. It is apparent from eye witnesses’ accounts (see Daily Herald, June 9th, 1034) that interruptors were brutally treated; you put it rather mildly when you say they were "roughly handled," for people to be knocked unconscious, then kicked.

Even, as you say, that "those who went to the Fascist meeting with the intention of creating disorder and making the meeting impossible," that is no justification for the excessive violence that was used in removing interruptors, and for you to say (I cannot help repeating) that they "got what they asked for" is beyond my comprehension. What an amazing expression. I am sorry to see such expressions appearing in Socialist Standard. 

The remainder of article I am in perfect agreement. 

Yours faithfully, T. W. C.

Reply.

In the first place we think that our correspondent has misunderstood somewhat the meaning of the passage he criticises.

Among the audience at Mosley’s meeting at Olympia on June 7th there were a large number of people who went there simply to hear what Mosley had to say. Among this section of the audience there were some who did what is customary at public meetings, they made interruptions of the kind not usually objected to by public speakers. There were others at the meeting who quite obviously went there for the deliberate purpose of creating disorder and making the meeting impossible. It was of these latter and not the former that we said they "only got what they asked for, and have no reason to complain if they were roughly handled."

That does not mean, as our correspondent thinks, that we approve of the violence of the Fascisms who organised the meeting, or that we consider that the amount of violence they used was not excessive for the purpose of putting out the interrupters.

We strongly disapprove of all violence used in political discussion, because we know that, no matter from what quarter it comes, it is harmful to the working class and to Socialism. The capitalists use their control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, to suppress working class resistance. That that is contrary to working class interests needs no arguing. Fascists, under the usual pretence of promoting the welfare of "the public" or even the interests of the workers themselves, are prepared to use violence at their meetings, probably because they believe it has some value to them as an advertisement. That violence, wielded by an organisation which stands for capitalism, is every bit as harmful to working class interests as is the violence used by other defenders of capitalism.

Lastly, we have the Communists and others preaching civil war, advocating armed revolt and street fighting, and boasting of their activities in the direction of organised interference with public meetings of all kinds. Every one of these forms of violence is directly and unqualifiedly anti-working-class in its effects, even although those who are responsible for it believe that they are helping the workers thereby. Violence of this kind is harmful because it distracts the attention of the workers from the real problems of winning over the majority to Socialism and of capturing the machinery of government; because it gives the capitalists an excuse to suppress Socialist propaganda and to drive organisation underground; and because it prevents the workers from hearing and considering either the merits of the Socialist case or the hollowness of the Fascist case.

Those who organise or encourage such activity are to be condemned absolutely from the standpoint of working class interests and Socialism.

Editorial Committee

Editorial: Reason or Violence (1934)

Editorial from the July 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

The meeting held by the Fascists on June 7th at the Olympia, was the occasion of disorder that has prompted a shower of newspaper correspondence, questions in Parliament, and the suggestion that the police should have the right of entry into public meetings.

As far as the information goes, there does not appear to be any doubt that organised groups went to the meeting with the deliberate intention of creating disorder. Why, then, is so much fuss being made over the fact that they were roughly ejected?

The outcry comes from such different quarters as Conservative, Liberal, Labour and Communist. The Conservatives have their own axe to grind, and are not anxious to assist the growth of Mosley’s following. The other groups appear to have the wind up.

What is exceedingly curious in the business, however, is the righteous indignation of the Communists—who have gloried in meeting-smashing for years, and promised to suppress all discordant voices if they got power.

In our view, those who went to the Fascist meeting with the intention of creating disorder and making the meeting impossible only got what they asked for, and have no reason to complain if they were roughly handled.

Violence is not a successful method of convincing people of the soundness of a case. In fact, it is usually an admission that the case is threadbare. A case is not destroyed by violent methods, though those who are putting it forward may have to tread cautiously for a while. Anyhow, the use of violence only provokes violence from the opposition.

One thing that stands out clearly, however, is the fact that these methods play right into Sir Oswald Mosley’s hands. He has shown his desire for the spectacular from the beginning, and the nature of the opposition he is receiving is giving him just the advertisement he needs.

The use of violent methods is an attempt to foist on to the majority of people views which they are unwilling or not ready to accept. It used to be a plank in the Syndicalist programme, and has since been the spearhead of the Communists, on the plea that the time for theory is past, and the time for action has come. It fosters the growth of secret movements, and the ubiquitous agent provocateur.

Behind the violent movement stalks the spirit of revenge, and passion instead of reason urges the combatants forward. It plays to the emotions and the worst elements in the population get a footing in the movement, or use the movement to cloak their own actions. This has been illustrated time after time in the history of the working-class movement, and it is therefore essential that those who are genuinely interested in pushing forward the workers’ struggle for emancipation should resist all incitements to violence.

The success of violent movements depends upon frightening people and not upon convincing them. It is as well to bear in mind that it is not the capitalist who is frightened, for he has the armed power at his command to crush out opposition when he desires to do so.

It may perhaps be of some use to point out to those who are following methods that kill free discussion, that they are following in the path of their predecessors in Italy and Germany, and provoking the ogre they fear. The starting-point of the Fascist career in Italy was the seizure of the Italian factories by the workers and the propaganda of violence by the Communists. Germany tells a similar tale. It may be added that the country that gave them the lesson was Russia, and one of the principal defenders of Russian violence —Trotzky—is now wandering about seeking an asylum—a victim of the methods he advocated.

It is only by free and open discussion that the workers can grasp the essentials of their present condition of servitude and the way to abolish it. Until they have this knowledge it matters little which of the capitalist parties they support.

While we are on the subject of “freedom of speech” we cannot help being surprised to find what curious, not to say, suspicious friends, this “freedom” has. We see among them the numerous organs of capitalism, which steadfastly decline to allow the publication in their columns of a statement of the Socialist case. We see the “Morning Post,” which published grossly inaccurate statements about the Austrian Social Democrats engaged in the fighting of February, and then would not publish a correction, although not denying that photographs published in its own pages a few weeks earlier proved the inaccuracy. We see "Forward" which charged us with misstatements about Keir Hardie a few years ago and then refused to let us give evidence to show that we were right. We see also Mr. Hamilton Fyfe, who, as Editor of the “Daily Herald" allowed correspondents to discuss our attitude towards religion, but would not let us intervene to explain our position. Maybe the threat presented by Sir Oswald Mosley's movement has induced a change of heart, but if so, there is a quite simple method by which the various political parties and papers can help to promote reasoned discussion, that is by copying the example set by the S.P.G.B., and by it alone, of allowing opponents to state their case in our columns and on our platform. At all of our propaganda meetings (although not at formal debates, where time forbids, or occasional commemoration meetings which do not lend themselves to questions), it is the standing practice of this party to allow questions and opposition, without any attempt to select or restrict. If our various opponents, Sir Oswald Mosley, the Liberals, Labourites, Tories and Communists believe that, they have a good case and can answer criticisms, we suggest that they could largely reduce the possibility of rowdy meetings and at the same time promote calm discussion by throwing open their platform to their opponents, as we do to ours.