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Class Clash: The Story of the British Union of Fascists and the Communist Party of Great Britain, in the 1930’s

As the Western world looked to the future with eyes full of uncertainty at an ostensibly bleak future mired in economic depression, the Fascist movement was conceived, and the Communists gained more influence than previously imagined. These two movements, though on the fringes of mainstream politics and hardly (or not at all) represented in parliament, would play a prominent part in the drama of the 1930’s. Yet, within this same environment, the two would come into direct conflict, often resulting in full scale riots and street brawls. Here I will examine the two groups’ ideas, how they compared to similar groups abroad, and finally, I will detail several occasions in which the two came into direct contact. The wealth of historical material on this period is much richer when it comes to the British Fascists, as it seems much has not been preserved of the Communist Party of Britain (CPGB) or little has filtered into the United States over the years, but adequate treatment will be provided to both groups. The situation with the CP is made all the more confusing by the fact that, since 1991, and in the case of other groups even earlier, several organizations function under the name of the Communist Party of Great Britain, which complicates research on the period since all such organizations tend to emphasize different historical aspects, personalities, and trends.
The British Union of Fascists (BUF) went through a strange and fluid history. If one follows the leader of the BUF alone, Sir Oswald Mosley (1896-1980), then one will observe formations called The New Party, the British Union of Fascists, the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists, and lastly, simply the British Union, not to mention countless front groups. For the purposes of this paper, and really in the vernacular of the time, BUF will be the acronym I use to describe Mosley’s party.
The BUF was born after the seeming collapse of the New Party after the 1931 elections. Mosley in his autobiography, My Life, states that the New Party was “Mobbed out of existence.” Indeed, Mosley had sacrificed a rather promising career; at first as a Conservative MP in 1918, and later a Labour MP (and joining the Labour government which only lasted several months), and later in and helping to form the 1929-1931 Labour government. He had also served as an aviator in the Great War and was of aristocratic origins. Mosley was made a minister without portfolio, but all of his proposals (now showing signs of his future ideas) were rejected. In 1930 Mosley, disgruntled with the lack of action taken by the Labour government in response to the economic crisis and the poor reception of the committee on unemployment’s work (which Mosley was a member of), resigned. His resignation speech was very well received.
Out of the ashes of the New Party rose the BUF. It was largely inspired by Mussolini’s fascism, and utilized the Italian fasces, fascisti salute, and black shirts as their symbols, although (even after adding National Socialism to the docket for the BUF) Mosley and others would claim that the BUF was unique to Britain. Various factors combined to create a situation ripe for some persons and strata to turn to fascism as a logical end for society. The first such factor was the international collapse of the capitalist economy. While the BUF blamed some strata of capital for the crisis and thereby stated that the doctrine of the free market was no longer true, they also believed that the economy wasn’t necessarily that big of a problem, but rather, as is stated in Mosley’s work “The Greater Britain” that more or less the state apparatus in Britain was outdated. Elected officials with little knowledge of affairs were in charge of running the country and were thereby running it into the ground. And, furthermore, whenever a party had a decent plan of action it was compromised to death in parliament. This lead to the idea that democracy of the 19th century type was now hindering society, and that a new more logically organized state should exist, though certainly not the collectivist democracy envisioned by Marxists. The BUF stated that this more logical state would be brought about via corporatism, while some British traditions (such as checks and balances, and especially the crown) would still exist, but within a corporatist context.
The economic policy of the BUF was well laid out and continually simplified. A quality unique to the BUF, at least when compared to the NSDAP and the Italian Fascists, was its programmatic and theoretical nature. It is said that few really ever understood what Mussolini intended to do in Italy, and, during the Molotov-Ribbentrop negotiations, Molotov would recall years later that he of ridiculed the Nazis for not even having a party program, rules, or a constitution! They also embraced corporatism and monopoly as a method of building their fascist economy. Essentially, they would establish a system whereby a single trust would own a whole segment of industry (for example a coal trust) and would be permitted to operate as a private entity, within the conditions of autarky, so long as it served the interests of the state. Mosley also believed that Britain could still export goods out of its empire while restricting all imports. Like many fascists, they believed that “Under Fascism private enterprise may serve, but not exploit.” In essence, massive private corporations would be allowed to exist, but because of popular anti-capitalist feelings resulting from the Great Depression, these entities could be regulated by the state when their activity was seen as sailing the boat into Failshire harbor.
In time, their movement even came to encompass many ideas that seem foreign to fascism on the domestic front, and served to distinguish the BUF from the NSDAP and the Fascisti. Through their corporate state it was believed that Britain could abolish all class conflict. This is because the state would be expected to intercede on behalf of the wronged party and thereby create an equitable distribution of the proceeds of industry. Virulent anti-communism and anti-unionism were also exhibited (though it’s stated that labor unions would make up a component of the conception of the corporate state – it is plainly stated by Mosley that labor holding up vital enterprises would not be tolerated). In the prime, the question is presented in “The Greater Britain” as the Communists desiring to carry class conflict to the extreme (destroying all classes except one and those which vacillate around it and then organizing the economy to benefit this one class and its allies) whereas fascism would create a classless society by abolishing class conflict through the state apparatus, but not classes themselves. Mosley also presents (with the context of the 1930’s) this statement “Either Fascism or Communism emerges victorious; if it be the latter, the story of Britain is told.”
In the domestic sphere, another key difference from other forms of fascism, was that the BUF was not, at least at first, anti-Semitic. However, this changed in time, especially after 1933; some are willing to say because Jewish groups began to become much more militant to the BUF and because so many high ranking Communists tended to be Jewish (especially the Bolsheviks). Though, this is not to say that anti-Semitism didn’t rear it’s head in the later days of the BUF in 1936 Mosley said to a packed house that the Jews were “a force which dominates the press and the cinema, a force which commands the Red army, and uses international communism and international finance, a force with Fascism alone dares to challenge.” This shows clearly that Hitler’s formula that all Jews are Communists and most Communists are Jews had found its way to Britain. The British fascists also made total support of the crown a centerpiece of their doctrine. Particularly in support of Edward VIII who they chalked walls and sidewalks all over England in support of .
In regards to foreign policy the BUF struggled for peace with the fascist powers of Italy, Germany, et al. But at the same time did not particularly agitate for war against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This is one of the most peculiar national characteristics of British fascism. In “The Greater Britain” an opinion quite different from Mussolini’s “Blood drives the wheels of history” or the French fascist saying “War is my Fatherland” is presented. Not only does Sir Oswald Mosley state that the League of Nations ought to be preserved and used to promote world peace, but that the British state ought to be noninterventionist outside of its own empire, and begin to agitate for universal disarmament!
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was born in a different time, and never coalesced around a charismatic leader like Sir Oswald Mosley. The CP was born by a Comintern directive which encouraged a “united front” policy; mainly that varied Communist and Socialist parties ought to form singular national parties. These wide varieties of parties were born primarily out of dissatisfaction with the Labour party and popular interest in the 1917 October Revolution and Marxian ideas that were swirling in many of the poorest working class districts, such as London’s east end, Manchester, and Leeds. So, the Communist Unity Convention was held in 1920, and came to take on the policies recommended by V.I. Lenin in his interviews and correspondence with the new party .
The CP would go on to follow the international communist movement in lockstep for a long period of time, faithfully accepting the decisions of the Comintern, and when in conflict with this body, accepting of the discipline that came their way. In general the CPGB was a Marxist-Leninist organization which continued to support the Comintern and its directives after the death of Lenin in 1924, such as pushing out “left and right deviations” supporting the labor movement, petitioning the Labour party for fraternal relations as well as heavily criticizing it at times. They also loosely obeyed the ideas of Lenin regarding the proper place of strategy and tactics, and the interpretations of these handed down by the various Comintern congresses .
I will give the most perfunctory explanation of Marxist-Leninist principles as they would have been understood at the time . First and foremost, society is comprised of various classes which either form loose coalitions or conflict, sometimes openly, sometimes clandestinely. From one’s class not only springs one’s perception of the world and ideas, but also the state. The state is required, by the ruling class (via the oppressor and oppressed formula) to maintain the state of affairs which allows it to rule. This in turn will lead, in modern capitalist society, to the proletariat (working class) to form itself into a united body, and with the aid of a vanguard party, comprised of the most dedicated revolutionaries, activists, militants, and theoreticians, overthrow the bourgeoisie (capitalists – owners of the means of production; the relation to which, causes one’s class origin). This will only be the beginning of the revolution though, where a socialist stage will be established, under the auspices of a proletarian dictatorship, which will become weaker and more and more superfluous as classes are abolished and socialism begins to blur into communism, a society based upon the maxim “from each according to ability, to each according to need.” Another key to this understanding would have been the place of the Russian proletariat, and ultimately the United Soviet Socialist Republics, as the leading source of progress and change in the world. The defense of the Soviet Union was pivotal to the policy of the CP. In fact, one of the earliest actions of the Harry Pollitt, who was to become General Secretary (essentially leader of the CP) of the CP, was to encourage workers to not coal a ship laden with arms bound for anti-Soviet forces in Russia . I should also point out that Marxian economics also posits as explained in Marx’s Das Kapital that capitalism will inevitably fail (because it is posited that workers produce all value and are thus not given their fair share in wages – thus they are unable to buy all the products they produce, thus causing gluts which result in crisis), and after each failure, capital will centralize, thus causing the next crash to be even harder to correct than the previous one. These ideas in particular, along with that of class conflict would prove especially appealing in the context of the 1930’s.
As far as CP policy going into this period, the CP is, as I mentioned, tied into Comintern policy. Prior to the 7th world congress, which would represent a shift in policy, the Comintern had decided to pursue a policy that, in general, fascism and the pseudo-left (like social-democrats or the Labour party) were firmly in the pockets of the ruling classes; thus “Firstly, to wage an unceasing struggle against Social-Democratism in all spheres -- in the economic and in the political sphere, including in the latter the exposure of bourgeois pacifism with the task of winning the majority of the working class for communism.” This was the talk in 1928 at the 6th Comintern. After the great crash of 1929, and 1933, Hitler’s rise to power, and the subsequent death and imprisonment of the German Communists the Comintern would change policies. Georgi Dimtrov, who had been tried for the Reichstag fire, as head of the Comintern would now present the new set up in 1935. This would be the period of the popular front. In essence, the popular front policy dictated that it didn’t necessarily matter who the Communists worked with, but that defeating fascism through a broad people’s coalition was primary. Within this context, these two groups and ideologies would meet – violently. The Communists would attempt to smash fascism wherever it attempted to assemble and the fascists would rave about the threat of violent Communist revolution and the use of red terror. The first major incident is the 1934 Olympia incident. Oswald Mosley had managed to procure the support of Lord Rothermere’s newspapers most famously the Daily Mail. Mosley planned to use this new publicity to stoke up rallies all over London. After a large rally passed without incident came Olympia, which was to be the second of 3 such rallies. Over 100 members of parliament attended the rally and witnessed hecklers (and a large communist organized rally outside the venue) mercilessly beaten by black shirts. This brought instant condemnation of the BUF (which had been on a meteoric rise prior to this) in parliament and brought into the common thought of the time that the BUF stood for violence. But the simple fact that over 100 MPs were at a fascist rally shows just how incredibly popular the fascist movement was at this time. This would be the rallying call to the anti-fascist, and would cause most of the Mosley’s most prominent supporters to quietly slip away, including lord Rothermere .
A description of the events at Olympia are provided in the summary to British microfilms on the subject of anti-fascism “Altogether 10,000 anti-fascists demonstrated outside Olympia,, where they were attacked by 760 mounted police. Several hundred anti-fascists forged tickets, or sent letters, and got in. There, they heckled Mosley and disrupted his speech. As the anti-fascists shouted, Mosley stopped, and the organisers of the meeting shone spotlights on the hecklers so that they could be identified and removed. The hecklers were then physically attacked by stewards and dozens of anti-fascists and others were badly beaten up.” The anti-fascists would get the last laugh as a rally later in the same year when the fascists were “drowned in a sea of working class activity” by around 150,000 demonstrators.
The fascists would have trouble coming back, but utilizing anti-Semitism, particularly in the east end of London, detailed in graphic detail in the memoirs of Joe Jacobs “Out of the Ghetto” who was a Jewish Communist living in the east end. These memoirs detail countless attacks on Jews by fascists and non-Jews in response to Mosley’s whipping up of anti-Semitism.
This led to the biggest showdown of countless anti-fascist activities. In 1936, Sir Oswald planned a march through the east end, specifically to incite anti-Semitism. His black shirts, well protected by police, would not only be stopped from demonstrating, but would be hounded by a huge, surging throng. This confrontation came to be known as the battle of Cable Street. The march was cancelled by the government – and according to a cable sent to the New York Times “…the procession was banned just in time…if the Mosley forces had been permitted to march… there would have been rioting on a scale London has seldom known.” Many were injured and arrested, but as Joe Jacobs describes when it was learned that the Fascists were leaving royal mint street and would not get into the east end “The air was full of sound. People shouting slogans: “They did not pass’; ‘they shall not pass.” The Communists were awash in their victory declaring it “…the most humiliating defeat ever suffered by any figure in British politics.” The Communists would go on to organize and grow, but the fascists would be forever forced to rally indoors in special locations.
The end of the conflict came with the true death of the BUF (who had managed to just barely stay alive – this time on an anti-war platform) with the 1939 Emergency Powers Act, which essentially made it a crime to be openly anti-Semitic or a fascist in general. Mosley would spend years in prison, the man who had once been thought of as a possible Prime Minister, and who brought Britain much closer to fascism than anybody would like to think, was stopped cold by the actions of an outraged public, with the Communist Party of Great Britain, their arch-nemesis, playing a leading role.

Very Excellent Comrade. When did you write this?