THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: july/august 2024 :: RMTnews 12 They say the past never goes away and is still with us. That couldn’t be more true of the rise of fascism in the last century. Everyone hoped this evil creed had been stamped out for good with the defeat of the Nazi war machine in 1945. But the fascist beast and its toxic ideology of race-hate, militarism and hostility to organised labour has not gone away. Sadly, this makes a new booklet jointly published by RMT and the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT), ‘They Shall Not Pass’, all the more relevant and important today. It tells the story of the railway workers and seafarers who in the 1930s resisted fascism at home and, in the case of the Spanish Civil War, took up arms to stop Hitler, Mussolini and General Franco crushing the elected government of Spain. What stands out is that these workers recognised the true threat of fascism well before their political masters did. It was ordinary people who stopped the British Union of Fascists (BUF) from marching through our towns and cities. And it was ordinary people, including over 100 members of the NUR and NUS rail and seafaring unions, who joined the International Brigades to fight the fascists in Spain. There’s a plaque dedicated to them proudly on display at RMT’s head office. Within the British establishment there was considerable sympathy for the way Europe’s fascist dictators banned trade unions and violently suppressed political parties of the left. BUF leader Sir Oswald Mosley was an aristocratic former cabinet minister with rich and powerful friends. As ‘They Shall Not Pass’ reveals, Britain’s would-be führer came unstuck when he sued NUR general secretary John Marchbank for slander. The BUF leader won a technical victory but was awarded a laughable farthing (a quarter of a penny) in damages. Mosley’s High Court humiliation came in 1936. Things got worse in October of that year at the Battle of Cable Street. This was when ANTI-FASCIST: NUR general secretary John Marchbank humiliated fascist leader Mosley in court in 1936 THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS Jim Jump welcomes the new RMT booklet about the seafarers and rail workers who fought fascism ANTI-FASCIST: International Brigade members during the defence of Madrid