REMEMBERING CABLE STREET

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2011 :: RMTnews 22 Over 1,000 anti-fascists took over the streets of east London earlier this month to mark 75 years since the historic victory over the blackshirts at Cable Street. Veterans and campaigners led a march and rally to the scene of the famous battle, fought by an alliance including the local Jewish community, the Communist Party and London workers against Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. Representatives from the local Jewish and Bengali communities were flanked by trade unionists from across the labour movement. Cable Street veteran Max Levitas emphasised the need for the trade union movement today to fight "modern fascism". "We know that they are not really modern, they are no different from 1936," he said. Mr Levitas urged marchers to "join a union" and campaign to bring down the coalition government whose cuts allow fascism to thrive. "We can only do it by campaigning and organisation," he told the Cable Street 75 rally. RMT general secretary Bob Crow warned the crowd that “fascists feed off scapegoats". "But if you create a society where everyone has a job and a house then you have a society where the fascists cannot live. "It's the ideological issues we have to beat them on," he said. He called for labour movement unity when many workers go on strike on November 30 over pensions. "We have to raise a movement that can beat fascism and help us build a socialist society," he said. The union also organised a packed book launch nearby for the London Classics reprint of the classic East End novel Jew boy written around the time of the battle of Cable Street. The book was written by Simon Blumenfeld inspired by his experiences growing up in Whitechapel amid appalling poverty, sweat shops and vicious capitalist competition (see page 24). REMEMBERING CABLE STREET