COMMUNISTS AND FASCISTS CLASHING IN LONDON’S EAST END: ANTI-SEMITISM RAMPANT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 67, 21 March 1949, Page 5

COMMUNISTS AND FASCISTS CLASHING IN LONDON’S EAST END: ANTI-SEMITISM RAMPANT

Remote though these phenomena are from the postcard Britain of soft lanes, placid villages and sturdy political sanity, they are also, for the moment at least, in some way distinct from the fascism of A. Hitler, deceased, and the communism of J. Stalin, Esq. c/Kremlin, Moscow, C.l. The East End has given each of the creeds a twist which leads observers to doubt whether either could prosper so notably elsewhere in Britain. There would, of course, still be fascists and communists in assorted, shapes and forms. The essential factor is that the areas of'the East End, and to a lesser extent north London, where the two parties most sharply erupt, form probably the nearest approach to a ghetto in Britain. Anti-Semitism

Jews have never been segregated, but they have drawn together in these areas till they are predominant.

Whatever other aspects of

Hitler’s fascism Mosley might

like to espouse were they not so effectively discredited, the one he plugs most rowdily is anti-semitism. Anti-semitism is not a sentiment exclusive to the fascists. There have presumably always been traces of it in Britain, and is a surprising amount today. Britons of most neutral and faded political hue are liable to imply in perfectly- casual conversation that de luxe spivery and grand scale black marketing are occupations reserved for refugee Jews, a sentiment not notably dispelled by evidence before the Lynskey Tribunal, which made a greater impact in Britain than the coverage accorded it in New Zealand might have indicated.

Before and since the war Mosley fanned existing anti-semitism and sought to plant it where it had not been before. His pre-war technique consisted of marching uniformed bashers through the East End, and there, under their protection, giving inflammatory anti-semitic ad-1 dresses in the poorest streets, blaming the Jews for pretty nearly every lack in the inhabitants’ cheerless lives.

Uniform Ban a Setback In protecting the right of free speech the police often found themsblves standing off Jews incensed by these gatherings, and thus, in the prevalent bitterness, were accused of being more for the fasthan against them.

The b'an on political uniforms, by compelling his black 'shirted and big buckled thugs to march in their seedy everyday clothes, was Mosley’s biggest pre-war setback. , It showed his outfit up for the shabby thing it was, and lost him j the uniform-hypnotis-ed element with no more political philosophy than a knuckle duster. The whole affair rather began to lapse for want of a quorum. There were, however, many Jews who had seen such small seeds sprout in Europe. In the light of what the seeds had grown into, these Jews were not over impressed by arguments that the fundamental soundness of the British political heart would never allow such crackpot carryings-on to come to anything. Because Mosley appeared to them more a political circus than a vote getter, the larger parties virtually ignored. him. And so it was that only the Communists were forthrightly arrayed in opposition. A circumstance not without significance for Jews who knew pre-Hitler Berlin. Few Communists There were *not a great number of Communists in the East End at that time, but they were vigorous and indefatigable .in presenting themselves as the sole protectors of the apprehensive Jews. Eager to make common cause against Fascism as they saw it in their own streets, many Jews joined the party, many others supported it. The view that their adherence was basically only to combat anti-semitism, not to support the sum of inflexible Marxist doctrine, gains seme weight from the fact that so many of the Jews are small shopkeep-

(By Reece Smith, New Zealand Kemsley Empire Journalist). . London, February 12. Fascists, with convoys of police to kep the peace, are marching again through London.-In areas where the Fascists march, Communists get elected to the local councils in noteworthy numbers, and set about hamstringing council meetings with procedural fiddle faddle.

ers and traders, not callings historically sympathetic to Communism. However this may be, the support has proved lasting enough to return a substantial minority of Communists on one borough council, and a Communist M.P. at Westminster. The “Party Line” Whatever the peculiarities of local alignments which gained them election, the elected • Communists appear to have largely overlooked them in favour of streaking straight off down the party line. Alternatively, and this is not only a Communist tactic when in opposition, they have declined to take any responsible administrative office, and have then unreservedly assailed the administrators when some factor, say housing, is not dealt with as effectively as the poorly housed would like. Though, retaining housing as an example, the limited success of the local councils may be due to national shortages an delays well be- J yond its control, the Communists have not been unsuccessful in pinning the blame locally] This, together with the fact that the summer nights are expected to bring Mosley’s adherents down to their Jew baiting again, which will certainly give the Communists a fillip, is causing Labour leaders to ponder in this long-time Labour stronghold. Experience has suggested that the best answer to Mosley’s trouble making is to ignore it, but a certain group of Jewish ex-servicemen in particular appears at the moment to be in no temper to ignore it.