Margaret talks with James Stout about how Britain's Union of Fascists was destroyed in a storm of fists and rotten vegetables in 1936.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Cool People. Did Cool Stuff your
weekly reminder that you should throw things at bad people sometimes.
I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and my guest today there's James.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
James, Hi, Margaret. I'm so excited to hear what we're
throwing today.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Oh you're not even You're not like, who is it
being thrown at? Or by? You're much more interested.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
In No, I throw it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
I mean, for a while, I got to be the
Molotov cocktail guy on the internal, so I'm excited to
know what projectiles were using.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Well, there's no molotovs in today's story, I'm sorry to say,
there's almost everything else you could imagine throwing at a
bad person.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Okay, cool, are we doing throwing stars?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Ah? Well, I haven't told you what we're doing yet. Okay,
Sophie's here too. Sophie's the producer.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hi, Sophie, Hi, I'm here.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Oh James is a last name too? Out?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, yeah I do. Otherwise you might think it was
like James Blunt or something. It would be tragic is
that a person doesn't know doesn't know? Yeah? Okay, so
that's a that's a pop culture reference.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Making a drug reference. It's okay, it's okay, Magpie, you're
still beautiful. You didn't get reference.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I sorry, Sophie magnificent.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, that's really fun.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, you can have that Google afterwards. That can be
your evening Google.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I'm so excited.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
One of the best accounts on Twitter. I will say,
very very free. Okay, unfortunate Cockney rhyming slang.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
But you both have drug last names stout. It's an alcohol.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, it's a drug. Yeah yeah yeah, fair all right.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So oh and our our audio engineers Ian Hi Ian.
Everyone wants to say hi Ian and our The music
was written for us by un woman. Today we're going
to talk about a place. And when I described this place, James,
You're going to think it's imaginary. But it's a real place.
I double checked with a bunch of people. It's a
(02:08):
dreary place, a land that has cursed, one might say,
trapped beneath a perpetual layer of fog and mis class.
It's a kingdom, ancient monarch fuck with more lore written
about this kingdom than even Tolkien could have imagined. Oow okay,
and in this kingdom there's a city. It was kind
(02:30):
of like an on the nose steampunk place for a
while in the nineteenth century, kind of embarrassingly. So, James,
you ever heard of London?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I'm familiar. Yeah, yeah I have once or twice it
was actually England. Yeah yeah, yeah, a magical place.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I want some I don't know if I've said this
on the show before or not. I once interviewed Alan
Moore about a bunch of stuff about like anarchism and fiction,
and he was like being annoyed about the v for
Vendeta movie and he was like, look, when Americans set
something in England, they're just setting it in a fantasy place. Yes,
It's like they think we still have giants. And I
(03:12):
thought to myself, I wonder if England has giants.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, there are things that we do that are more
bizarre than having giants. But yeah, this parochial vision of
Englishness is annoying sometimes.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, And so that's what I'm playing into, hopefully as
a successful joke. Today. We are going to talk about
the East End of London in particular. Okay, We're going
to talk about a time when a little group of
one hundred to five hundred thousand people came together to
be like, wouldn't those fascists look better if we threw
(03:44):
little potatoes.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Oh shit, I love it. Yes, one of my favorites
personal high point in British history. One might say, it
really is, this is like yeah, no, genuinely fucking we
should be super proud of this shit, like, yeah, it's
phenomenally based.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah for everyone else. We were talking about the Battle
of Cable Street and when and this is an over simplification,
but when the working class of London smashed British fascism
for good.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah, no, very much. So. Yeah, it's one of my
favorite things in British history. It was something that someone
who's British and anti fascist, we drew on a lot,
and I wish more people kind of were proud of
it instead of whatever the fuck our politics is now.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, no, that's fair. And this is gonna be an
interesting one because I like, I was like, I wanted
you as the guest for this, but I figured you
probably knew a fair amount about this.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah, it's well, it's like the context in which I've
explored most is the direct parallel to the Spanish Civil War, Right,
Like they had banners saying no passive ban at Cable
Street and people who were part of that, were like hell, yeah,
like let's go. Then they went to Spain and we're like, well,
we've done it once, we'll fucking do it again. Yeah,
things were different there.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
It didn't go as well that time.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, marbles didn't work out for them. A quarter of
them died, yes, but yeah, but no it Oh we're
going to get to the marbles. This is going to
be such a fun episode. I'm so excited about it.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like it's like high jinks and japes
but also like destroying fascism. It's great. It could only
happen in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
That's true. That is absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Other shit was happening in the nineteen thirties, which was
in a dated it which was less JP.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, and we'll talk a little bit about that, but
mostly this will be I think a fun one. Yeah,
I will say at the top of it, and I'm
going to get into the context, but at first I
want to do the teaser, which is they tried to
do it the right way. They signed a petition. One
hundred thousand people who's lived in the neighborhood of Gable
Streets signed a petition and all the local mayors of
(05:58):
East London boroughs because London a lot of mares, which
is totally a thing that makes sense. They all signed
the petition. It wasn't enough. When petitions fail, possibly apocryphal
potatoes with razor blades sticking out of them will stop
a fascist or the cops protecting the fascists in this case.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yep, that's not an actionable piece of advice.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
No, it's also not well. We'll talk about potatoes with
razors and it's stuck blade stuck in them later, but
first let's go back in time. Cable Street is a
street in London, in the East End of London. It
gets its name from when people made ropes and ships.
Ropes were called cables by laying them out in the street,
(06:46):
a big, old long street. It's in the least end
of London, which is a part of London that grew
in the Middle Ages outside of the walls, from when
Rome ran London a long ass time before it really
grew more in the nineteenth century extund of London, and
it is not historically the fancy part of town fasctatement.
(07:06):
I when I went to London, I like I hadn't
read any Londonish history yet so I like, I don't know.
I like kept being like told like and this is
this really important thing, and I'm like, I have no
context for this yet, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yeah, there's a lot of history in London. So you
have to pick your I bet I'm pretty sure there's
a good walking store of table Cable Street you can
do now that would rule I want to. Yeah, it's
got a good website. It's got a really good website.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, the bad guy in the story also still has
a current website. We'll talk about pretty Yeah. Some people
who are really into Oswald Mosley who will yeah, yeah,
no run Oswald Moseley dot. I think that fuck them.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Like if yeah, someone do the thing where you find
out the address that's paying for the website and throw
potatoes at them. Yeah that's yeah, not raise a potatoes. No,
no legal, but yeah, the legal I don't know, fucking
the met could probably have you if you had a potato,
if you are like carrying it with malicious intent knowing
(08:08):
the cops in London.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Does England have mutual combat laws?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I don't know. I've been involved in a lot of
mutual combat in England and like to my knowledge, it's
never been criminalized. Like I think you can assault someone
and like you but like in practice, like it's it's
fairly regular to like to have fights. I think less
(08:35):
so now because it's more and more like folks are
concerned about NFE crime, but still much more regular than
it is here. And like I've not really seen people
arrested for it unless it went But also you can
get arrested for obscenely little and I've had friends who've
had that, so I probably we'd probably don't have some
kind of mutual combat exemptions. Just we defunded the cops
when we defunded everything else because the Tories are like
(08:58):
so committed to austerity that they they are ironically the
only people who defended the police.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So have many cops.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
It's very funny. It's great we don't have as many
cops as the America is.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Okay, well, then I can't make specific challenges at this point. Okay,
so we have jeweling laws. There are definitely some jeweling laws,
so you could do that. Oh okay, good, that totally
is going to go great for me. I'll bring us
a beer. Is not the fancy part of town. East
end of London it is often the first landing spot
for different migrants throughout history. First it was the French Huguenots,
(09:34):
which were Calvinists from France who were fleeing religious intolerance
at the hands of the Catholics. And it gets in
beyond that into the stuff that feels like you're reading
Game of Thrones about who's fighting whom, about what. And
then that was in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Then
you get the Irish who came across, also fleeing religious intolerance,
but in a kind of opposite way, where they ran
(09:54):
into Anglican England, fleeing the poverty that have been caused
by Anglican England. Yes, then in the late nineteenth century
it was Jews fleeing pograms in Eastern Europe and Russia
who came over in the mid twentieth century. Later, actually
it was more of a Bengali's coming from India, and we'll
(10:15):
get back to them a little bit kind of after
the story. But most of our story today focuses around
the Jews and to a lesser extent, the Irish Catholics.
And then even more than the already poor East End,
you've got Stepney, a district which is even more known
for overcrowding, in poverty and not being a nice place
(10:36):
to live in a lot of ways. And of course
now the Hoyre is being gentrified.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah yeah, great.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, people fleeing a different kind of intolerance.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah, people aren't intolerant of their seven dollar coffees.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Birds on things.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
We're going to talk about the nineteenth in the East End,
and there's a bunch of different districts in the East End.
Stepney is majority Jewish. At the time, there was sixty
thousand Jews living there in nineteen thirty six. This wasn't
the majority. They weren't the majority population of the East End,
but they were sort of the political heart of the
East End according to everything I read, because when Jews
(11:19):
came from Eastern Europe and stuff, they brought a lot
of ideas like anarchism and communism. And when you've got
disaffected people and one group is like, hey, I've got
some ideas about what we can do about this disaffection
that we're all equally suffering, people tend to listen. So
the Jews and Stepney were not all leftists or whatever, right,
(11:40):
but they were disproportionately communist and anarchist. Immediately south, you've
got Cable Street and the docks, and this was primarily
Irish Catholic and the dockers who because Cable Street was
for making ships ropes, so the docs are right there,
they were also political and solidarity had been building and
(12:02):
occasionally falling apart for generations at this point. And this
is actually one of my favorite parts of the story.
Have you heard about how this solidarity built between the
two groups. I didn't think too oh, this is like, yeah,
this is this Maybe I like this part because it's
the only part that is anarchist in it. But this
part's so good, so I'm excited. In eighteen eighty nine,
(12:25):
Jewish tailors went on strike and the Irish Dockers Union
Strike Fund paid for them cool. In nineteen twelve, there
were a ton of strikes all across Britain, and specifically
I think it started, or at least a lot of
how it ties into what we're talking about right now,
started when miners stopped production for about a month and
the East End docks, where Irish dockers were, they ran idle.
(12:49):
People there went on strike too. Then the West End
textile workers who were not Jewish went on strike, and
this de facto made the Jewish workers in East Stend
be perceived as scabs because they were continuing to work
right right until a German anarcho syndicalist named Rudolph Rocker
future friend of the show, showed up good name, I know,
(13:12):
and helped organize the Jewish tailors join the strike. That
he gave a huge talk, and this might be oversimplifying
his contribution. History likes to pick the one guy and
be like, and then this guy did it, but he
gave a huge talk. Like basically, the next day, thirteen
thousand Jewish textile workers went on strike and the bosses
(13:33):
were forced to concede because the entire working class was
united and it wasn't being divided along ethnic lines like
the bosses continue to try and make us be divided.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yes, some kind of lesson could be learned from that.
Maybe I wouldn't go that far. Yeah, no, yah, leave it.
You can't be done again.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, even though everything else about the story, you're going
to see all of these things that happened again and again.
We can't win, No never.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
I just to buy some stuff and that way goggles.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
So they the textile workers won. They won shorter hours,
they won no more piece work, which is a huge
fucking differences. Basically means instead of being paid by production rate,
they were paid hourly, which yeah, because when you're paid
by the production rate, you're basically forced to work faster
than is healthy. And they won more sanitary conditions. So
(14:29):
then the anarchists moved to starting to organize the two
East East End communities, the Irish dockers and the Jewish
textile workers to work together even more. And as the
dock strike wore on, which I believe the dock strike
lasted longer than the textile worker This part, I'm a
little bit I'm piecing together like six different sources to
be over this timeline, you know, because each one only
(14:50):
cares about one little part of it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Right, Yeah, yeah, these little niche leabor histories.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah, exactly. So the tech the dock workers strike went on,
so the Irish couldn't afford to feed their kids. And
so I've seen two hundred and I've seen three hundred,
but hundreds of Irish kids went to go live with
Jewish families to get fed since their strike had already
been resolved, and the only named people. I found organizing this,
(15:17):
like organizing childcare is revolutionary. This is how we get
cable Street. Two teenage Jewish anarchist girls, Nellie Polshankski and
Millie Sebolanski, they were teenagers and they were heavily involved
in organizing that childcare and getting Jewish textile workers to
provide clothing for free to the stocking the striking dockers.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Hell, yeah that's cool.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
And so like later when like spoiler alert, fascists are
going to try and convince the Irish and shit to
go be like antisemitic, Yeah, they're like, we literally grew
up in their houses.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It isn't good to work. Yeah, this kind of son
of diarity is super like it. I think I read
a really interesting thing about the influence of like Wobbly Sailors,
the IWW and building working class solidarity and docking districts specifically,
and like there's a theory that that's where the clenched
fist salute becomes like this international working class kind of
popular front symbol. Whoa, because yeah it's cool. So the
(16:16):
dock workers and then yeah, Jewish people exiled from per grants,
like they make up thirty percent of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. Right,
they've played this huge role in the nineteen thirties only
twenties radical left.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, that's fucking cool. I love yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I was just like smiling the whole time I was writing, yeah, yeah,
and just like writing one of my friends about all
of this stuff, like we're like and then.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
This other thing happened, and yeah, I don't know why
this isn't a film because it is the best story.
Like it's people being nice to each other and bashing fascists.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
I know, it's interesting. The history I'm going to talk
about a little at the end. The history of Cable
Street does are so interesting because a lot of people
are trying to claim it. But you know what you
can claim is discounts on stuff by buying them from advertisers.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Yeah, maybe maybe some free gambling chumba yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Or if that sounds horrible for two horrible, Yeah, we do.
We do have cooler Zone Media, the ad pre subscription
channel on Apple.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
So were you just like intentionally letting worse ads?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Imagine imagine imagine somebody actually having the time to do that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Where we transition to the Pat Robertson Rip Memorial coin adverts,
just as I'm glad you're dead. I'd like to remind
people that, like we get adverts from people who we
glory in their death, Like it's great that they pay
for our ship.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
I did never forget that when we first started Worst
Year Ever and we were discussing Bloomberg and he paid
for campaign ads on that episode where we were talking
about what a piece of fucking shit he was that
we said yes to.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Thanks Ronald Reagan gold for paying for laser hair removal
for a trans girl.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Shout out, Yeah, thanks Ronie.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And here's the ads, and we're back. And so we're
going to talk about how Solidarity literally defeated British fascism.
But first fascism. Let's talk about British fascism. Oh yeah, good,
(18:44):
it's the nineteen thirties. Well not right now, right now
as we record, it's twenty twenty. Well it's not not
the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Again, Margaret, Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Hey, we might be in the nineteen twenties right now. Yeah,
So let's see how on the nose all history gets.
Yeah knows, fascism was growing all over Europe. Italy and
Germany already had dictators, so did Portugal, but theirs was like,
I'm not a fascist, I don't like fascists. I'm just
the guy who's in charge of everything. Yeah, I'm sure
(19:16):
we'll talk about people who fought him at some point.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Oh yeah, yeah, they get missed out of the dictator box.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I know, I know. The only bright spots at this
point in nineteen thirty is the time that we are
currently recording, is that the Spanish Republic and the Popular
Front leftist governments in France exist right, and so you've
got like, you've got some like lefty stuff and you've
got some righty stuff in power in different places, and
(19:44):
within a few years both of those countries are going
to be under fascist control, as would Romania. They often
forgotten bastion of fascism in Europe. That's not what we're
going to talk about, but it's worth understanding because it's
really on. It was on people's minds that this really
could go either way. Right Britain could have become.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Fascist, oh yeah, very easily.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
And so this was on people's minds, especially Jewish people's minds,
because a lot of fascists were like, we're really into
popularist stuff and being nice to everyone I mean and
when I say everyone, I mean people, you know, and
so then the people that they preclude from that category. Anyway,
our main villain today is a man named Oswald Moseley.
(20:28):
He believed in England, making England a quote land fit
for heroes. He wanted to he had some like lefty
shit right. He wanted to nationalize a bunch of stuff
like transport and electricity. He wanted to protect in British
industry from competition. That's not specifically a right or left,
it's just a thing. He wrote a lot. He wrote
a line between conservative and labor for most of his
(20:49):
political career. He literally was on both sides at various points,
and he was famous for being the guy who get
both parties on his side and ends up very explicit
le a fascist. And yeah, it's like really annoying because
on the internet people are like, like right wing people
be like national socialism that means it's lefty right, and
(21:12):
you're like, I hate everything.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah, but you have to talk to those people. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
But the thing that is worth understanding Fascism is a
right wing ideology that borrows shit from the left in
order to appeal you know.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, Yeah, it's fundamentally like it's about running the state
for the people, but who it defines as the people
or vulk, it's relatively narrow group of people, and everyone
else becomes victims of genocide or expelled from your fatherland.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah. And even though they like often claim to do
sort of lefty as shit, it was always the left
that was immediately and violently their enemy. Is the other
thing worth understanding. Well, like the Centrists and the right
were like, all right, let's see what you got, you know.
So Oswald Mosley he was born in eighteen ninety eight
(22:06):
into some hereditary nonsense where his dad was Sir Oswald Mosley,
fifth Baronet. His grandfather was named Oswald Mosley.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Oh cool, it's one of those situations.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, And they don't even like go ahead.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Family trees like a fucking lamp post.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, and like I don't know, I don't know why
they don't go the third or whatever the fuck I
don't understand.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, No, maybe they just had too many they Yeah,
when you in breed to that level and you will
have the same name, you will exceed the numbers you
can count to.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah, especially in Roman numerals.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Yeah, Yeah, that's true. Yeah, maybe, Yeah, they just kind
of made it easier. Plus they probably didn't live that long,
you know, because they're probably all Actually, he did live
a disturbingly long time, that's true. Yeah, Yeah, unfortunate. It's
gonna certainly just die off before the next one can speak,
so it's not a problem.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
And I also don't know what a baronet is, and
I don't know why the hereditary title is the thing
you stick on the end of a gun and make
it into a spear, but whatever.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not entirely familiar with that one. It's
it's a person who's who like has ancestry and thus money,
and they were all the fucking same at that point,
isn't they.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, And so he can he can also trace his
in breeding into like third cousin of the father of
the queen.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, his dad sucked, so he was raised by his grandfather.
In college, he liked to go into town and jump
poor people for fun.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
No what, I didn't know what a bad end.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Like. It's like described as like he would go and
pick fights at the work in working class bars, and
then it's like sometimes the people didn't fight back or whatever.
He just beat up poor people. That was his fucking hobby.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Find a drunk guy and beat the shit out of him.
Yeah what a tssa.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah. Fortunately World War One pulled him off of beating
up poor people duty and into flying an airplane. He
got a sea, got poor people at range. Yeah, different, Yeah, totally.
He got a sexy war wound. Have you heard about
how he got his sexy war wound in his limb?
Speaker 3 (24:08):
No?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
No, well he crashed his plane while literally just trying
to show off for his mom.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Amazing, whoa there he is, fucking master race. Yeah, it's
they're always such fucking clowns.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I know.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, I mean there's probably some gender stuff to explore about,
like these unfulfilled men.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah. And so Oswald Mosley is a fascist fascist. He
coined the phrase socialistic imperialism in nineteen eighteen. This is
before he was a fascist. He was just a socialistic imperialist.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
That one could go either way. I could see that
one going east of the eurs as well.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
And so his particular branch of nationalism was this. And
it makes sense to me because if you're gonna be
a British nationalist, I guess you have to be an
imperialist right.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, yeah, that point in time. Already, at any point
in time, they still do it. And yeah, I'm sure no, yes,
and I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, but I
wonder if he was a racist, he was really really
fucking racist. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, and it we'll continue.
Even after he stopped technically being a fascist, he pretty
much moved to just like racism. Yeah yeah, yeah, for
(25:22):
decades he gets popping up doing racisms. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah. He won his first seat when he was twenty
two because he came back like a war hero, right,
and he actually he did like fight in some battles.
He didn't just crash a plane. But he won his
first seat at twenty two on Parliament because also there
was this thing after World War One where basically there
was like I don't quite understand, but they kind of
like sent around a list that was like here are
the war hero people on the ballot, and so they
(25:48):
were the only people got voted for.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
I mean, yeah, Britain was also the just population was decimated.
I guess, so you had relatively fewer people, yeah, people
of privileged yeah, people of like young wealthy men did
die a lot in World War One. Okay, like because
they they were junior officers, and junior offices tended to
last like a few days in certain battles. So then
(26:14):
you get like the people who are like both like
coming back from the war didn't totally fucking embarrass themselves
and are presumably aligned with the Tories or whatever party
like that becomes a smaller constituency and then.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, yeah, he did start the conservative parties of the Tories, right, yes, yeah, yeah,
he started off as a Tory and no, and that
all makes sense, and honestly, possibly the reason he survived
the war is after he got his sexy war wound limp,
he ended up like with a desk job like helping
ammunitions move around. But again, he has fought in more
wars than battles than I have. I wish he had
(26:48):
been killed in them, but whatever.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
So then he married a more important lady and then
immediately cheated on her with her sister and her stepmother.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Woh, yeah, yeah, I forget about this, but he's just
so gross. Yeah I've forgotten completely about that.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah yeah, and he had like married up, right, he
had like fucking yeah, maybe I coudn't soft paranet or whatever.
The I don't know, but he switched to Labor in
nineteen twenty four, and actually, interestingly he switched to Labor
I believe because he supported Irish independence, and I didn't
do a deeper research into this, and basically he also
(27:29):
switched because he figured they were going to do better electorally.
Is the cynical version I've read, And there's nothing that
I've read that has made me think that cynicism isn't
the right way to approach his beliefs. He declared himself
a man of the people, and there was a big
general strike in the UK and in nineteen twenty six,
and he paid striking miners out of pocket to be like,
(27:49):
I'm a man of the people or whatever. I'll use
my end. When I say out of pocket, I mean
with the money that had been extracted from the working
class over the course of centuries through the system of
British nobility, and the way he was planning to support
all of these good working conditions he'd push forward home
was literally I mean, it was like a stated plan
as we just get that by exploiting the colonies, that's
what the colonies are for.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
That's your socialistic IMPERATIVESM is it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, great cool.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
In nineteen thirty one, the Great Depression was raging, he
resigned from the Labor Party. Slash was kicked out at
the same time, and he formed the quote New Party.
And the New Party had one particular thing about it,
which is that no one wanted to vote for it,
so it never went strategy. Yeah, and it also split
(28:36):
the Labor vote and like led to a conservative government
or whatever, which whatever. He's as close to that as
he has to anything else, you know. Yeah. Yeah, he
visited Mussolini and he was like, oh, this rules, this
is the fucking way to go. So in October nineteen
thirty two, he launched yet another political party, the British
Union of Fascists the BUFF. I promised at the top
(28:59):
of this I think before we had record, that I
was going to include because we're talking about buffs, the hiking.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
FDA.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, the thing you wear on your neck.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Yeah, a snood is a word I think, Oh that
also makes sense. Yeah, I might be wrong on that one.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah. So he forms the Snood and the nude is
heavily funded by Mussolini, at least according to one source.
I actually had trouble sourcing that part of it. It
is also heavily funded by his richness of being nobility,
that one is easier to prove. I mean, the thing
(29:37):
I read was like it wasn't like this is contentious,
It just was like, this is how it was funded.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I also read that the Nazi Party was fundiness later,
so I don't fuck know. He was getting money from
not from fascists. And the important thing to hear is
to understand how bad do you have to fuck up
to name your fascist party something that sounds dumb buff Yeah, like, okay, Nazis.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
It's a union of fascists too, Like like he brought
together all the fascists from different tendencies, Yeah, to come
together for the great good of fascism.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
That was kind of his vibe. That was what he
was trying to do. Yeah, yeah, the greater good of
making him the dictator. But like Nazis and the Falange Right,
those are evil groups with evil sounding names, but they're
like catchy evil in the sounding names. Like imagine making
a video game where the baddies were called the buff
(30:35):
But to be fair, he had supporters called the black Shirts,
which is a good enough name for a video game.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Battie.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Yeah, officially this was the Fascist Defense Force, but no
one called them that. Everyone called them the black Shirts
because they wore uniforms of black shirts. It was very literal.
So he's a fascist now. He's got real simple quotes
like fascism can and will win Britain. He gave speeches
and he especially like to quote enemy of the Pod
Oliver Cromwell, the guy who did a genocide on Ireland
(31:04):
a while back.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, least least cool person ever to kill a monarch.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
I know everybody's listens this know that I'm mad. I
get about the fact that England overthrew a king and
it was bad. How bad?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Yeah, I know as an English person that did the like,
did the instincts to like include a picture of Charles King,
Charles being executed, like, but then the counterbalanced by the
fact that what came after, which was equally fucking bad.
It's yeah, it's very challenging for me. Yeah, it makes
Twitter difficult. I just flipped the flipped the profile picture
(31:40):
upside down. It works every time.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, no, it makes sense. Yeah yeah, so in obvious Again,
it seems obvious in retrospect that this guy lost because
Fascism didn't take England, but there was no reason that
that was the way it was going to work out,
except of course, that immigrants and the their children had
(32:01):
been beating the shit out of his fanboys, working with
a solidarity that they had built from generations of self
organized class struggle. That is my argument about why fascism
did not take England.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Yeah, it happens true.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Moseley had his fans. There's a newspaper called The Daily Mail.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, which luckily no longer exists and has since stopped
doing fascist shit entirely.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah, totally is the largest, the most subscribed newspaper in
the United Kingdom, I believe.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Yeah, credible dogship population.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
They really liked him. It was owned by a guy
named Lord Rothermere, because the UK is a silly place.
Edward the Eighth, the future very short tenure King of England,
also really liked him and was like, man, you'd be
such a good Prime minister. Moseley wound up with fifty
thousand supporters members by nineteen thirty four and his star
(32:55):
was on the rise. But well, fascist was growing all
over Europe, so it was anti fascism. Anti fascism had
always been tied into larger social struggle beyond just anti fascism, right,
because it's all one thing. And in the East End,
it was cheap to live there, but it was not
cheap enough for the destitute immigrant families in the Great Depression,
(33:18):
So there was this there's a lot of evictions. So
there was this really vibrant activist scene that did aviction defense,
and I believe it was centered around the local branch
of the growing Communist Party, which was also seen as
star Rise at the same time, kind of countering mostly
and the Communist Party is going to come up a
bunch of different ways, both kind of not good and
(33:38):
bad but good and like, eh, why'd you do that?
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Chucking?
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Yeah, must pay, yeah exactly. And they did a lot
of eviction defense, and they actually even once defended a
fascist sympathizing family from eviction. Their argument was, look, we
hate them as Fascis sympathizers, but that's our problem to
deal with as the working class. You fucking cops, stay
the fun out of it.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Yeah, nice.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And I actually think it was largely that kind of attitude,
even though it's like real messy that particular action, it
was largely that attitude that kept fascism from taking hold
of the East End, like mostly spent years trying to
do right. And I don't have a clever transition here
from talking about anti fascism to having people advertise things
(34:24):
to you, the listener.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
So anti fascism makes when you buy stuff, That's what
I've learned.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Well, there is that weird, complicated thing where like a
lot of fascists hate capitalism too, and a lot of
capitalists hate fascists, and it's just a weird three way fight.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah, yeah, that's a situation which he's red ofvant today.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, even though capitalism creates the fascism, the conditions under
which fascism thrives. So here's a indication of the fact
that capitalism is currently the dominant social structure. And we're back.
(35:04):
So in nineteen thirty four, the Black Shirts and the
buff not in the buff they are always wearing their uniforms.
They decided to hold their big that's the hopefully that's
the only time I make naked fascist jokes. A little
bit embarrassed. They were going to hold their biggest rally
ever at a place called Olympia. And I'm curious about
(35:24):
this the way that it's never like Olympia Hall, or
like Olympia yeah whatever, yeah, And I'm like, I don't know,
it's a big convention center or whatever the fuck that.
And people in England think it only needs to name Olympia,
while to me, of course, the word Olympia conjures up
a curse city nestled on the west coast of the
(35:45):
US where it rains all the time, and people were
mean to me once. But Mosley Ran has his rally
at the other Olympia, which also clearly is a fascism problem,
because ten thousand fascists came to see their man give
a talk. Only it was actually nine thousand, five hundred fascists,
(36:05):
because five hundred of them were undercover anti fascists. And
this is gonna be a lose the battle to win
the war moment. One of the undercover anti fascists was
occasional cameo of the pod Alvis Huxley, author Brave New
World in Ireland.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Yep, Georgia was English teacher.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Oh that makes a lot of sense. I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
That makes so much sense. So five hundred anti fascists
are at this rally and they just take turns interrupting him,
so he wasn't able to talk. And in the short
term this worked out really badly for the anti fascists.
Dozens of them were beat to unconsciousness. But this trashed
(36:50):
the buff The violence turned people away from the fascists
and the anti fascists. This had been their goal all along.
It was like, we're going to interrupt it, but we're
also going to basically.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Like, yeah, well you show the violence of the thing, right.
People don't seem to understand that fucking rehetoric is violent. Yeah.
When you punched so many in the face, it's easier
for them to get it into the old skull.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah. And so the image of women being carried out,
bloody and unconscious did and play well for the cameras
the BBC band Moseley. Newspapers were like, we don't know
this guy. One journalist was like, quote, it was like
quote seeing the beast unchained. Let's check in with what
the Daily Mail had to say about it. Quote. If
(37:37):
the Black Shirts movement had any need of justification, the
Red Hooligans savagely and systematically tried to wreck Sir Oswald.
Moseley is huge and magnificently successful meeting at Olympia last
night would have supplied it. They got what they deserved.
Olympia has been the scene of many assemblies and many
great fights, but never had it offered to the spectacle
of so many fights mixed up with a meeting.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
Yeah, I love to get my us from the Daily Mail,
a website with no bias.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah, exactly. So of the fucking Buffs membership dropped out.
It was too intense, it was too violent. It wasn't
just that the public popular support was gone, but all
of the like, oh, I don't know, let's see what
these fascists have to say. People were like, oh, what
the fuck, right, because we look at it now and
(38:25):
like the word fascist is like, oh, Nazis, Holocaust, et cetera. Right, Yeah,
whereast the time, it was like Nazis the Holocaust is
an obvious thing that will happen as a result of
the things that they say, but you don't have the proof.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Right, And like capitalism is like on its ass in
the nineteen thirties, right, Like people can't feed themselves, but
they're fucking living in Hooverville's in America, you know, Like
it's not like and capitalism in America is segregated and
black people are being lynched, and so like, it's easy
to see why people were like, oh what else is
(39:02):
there available?
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, totally, And so most people left. But what was
left was a hardcore, violent base who was more there
for the hate right instead of like there to be
like maybe this will fix Britain. It was like, yeah,
let's fuck some people up. We hate everyone. So he
(39:25):
decided to start pandering to the base. He got more
and more anti semitic. He was never pro semitic. I
don't know, maybe that's not the right word to use.
He was never not anti semitic. But this is where
he goes like all out and he just starts publishing
all kinds of vile shit, very Britain for the British,
never mind actual history about how Britain was formed. And
(39:48):
so now is this hardened base. His new thing is
hate crimes and the advocacy thereof. So he'd figure he'd
go to the immigrant neighborhood and build his base of
power there, not just because that's where the enemy is,
but because that's where he thinks he can find people
to like say, hey, these people of the reason you're poor,
you know, yeah, he got a bit of a foothold
(40:08):
in the East End by going on about how Jews
are taking your jobs or whatever. Literally nothing changes except
names and locations. But even there he wasn't doing that
well because of three main forces that have a lot
of Venn diagram stuff going on, because all of these
forces overlap with each other, and this is the larger
picture of British in go ahead.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I love a diagram in a podcast.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, just it. Yeah, it's easy. First and foremost,
there's the Jewish People's Council against Fascism and Anti Semitism
the JPC, and this is a collection of eighty six
different organizations and they're organizers shit, and they are going
to do most of the work of everything that we're
going to talk about today. Then there's the Communist Party,
which in Stepney is mostly Jewish and it does unite
(40:52):
a lot of different parts of the working class across
the country. And then there's the broader just working class
organized but kind of culturally and subculturally, right. And you've
got a few different independent labor movements, and you've got
like the Independent Labor Party, which I think, and you've
(41:13):
got a couple other things going on, right, And it's
hard to really piece these out because later the Communist
Party is just going to take credit for everything that happened.
But those are the three groups. Two groups in a
non group. The fascists tried to recruit using their classic method,
lie about who is hurting poor white people, then recruit
(41:34):
people to do violence to minorities. They wanted to control
the streets and therefore the culture, and they'll figure out
the political part later. So the black Shirts start roaming
around the East End, jumping anyone who looked Jewish, and
people start organizing against them rather successfully. There's a story
told by a veteran of Cable Street, Bill Fishman. He
(41:57):
was in some kind of group for young leftists and
time before Cable Street. He was walking with an Irish
Catholic boxer who could be mistaken for Jewish. Some black
Shirts called out jew bastard, because they're very clever, you know. Yeah,
So the boxer walked up to the leader, didn't say anything,
just broke the guy's nose, blood port everywhere, and the
(42:20):
black Shirts all fled.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Yeah. So that's how you debate a fascist.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yeah, and it worked, you know. Yeah, Like, let's all
run away because one guy punched our leader in the nose,
you know, yeah, yeah, it is an ideology book for cowards. Yes,
groups of Irish dockers started organizing alongside the Jewish community
to defense synagogues in this part fucking rules, and like
(42:48):
I just I love everything about it. I mean, I
don't love the fucking fascists, right, but I love watching
people take them down. Black Shirts were waiting outside synagogues
to jump Jewish people, so their allies would show up
and wait outside and guard. And the Communist Party was
no slouches when it came to fighting fascists. In nineteen
thirty three, at the Battle of Stockton, the Communist Party
(43:09):
and the National Unemployed Workers Movement outnumbered and beat the
hell out of some buff guys. Maybe they weren't so
buff after all. And there's my second buff joke.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Yeah, keep them cuming, all right.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
And in this particular battle, an anti fascist grandmother bit
a CoP's hand down to the bone. Oh what a hero,
I know.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Yeah. Why do we put the queen out of money
when we have options like this?
Speaker 1 (43:34):
I know? And this the Battle of Stockton slashed the
grandmother biting a cop down to the bone, ended BUFF
organizing in Stockton. One of his commanders quit and took
a lot of people with him and joined like a
center right party, I believe, and the buff literally skipped town,
moved their regional headquarters to a different town. And because
(43:55):
nothing ever changes, by and large, the fascists actually bust
in their members around from a the country to each
of these things, whereas the anti fascists, who outnumbered and
beat them up, just drew from the local population each time.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah, because noble one says shit in that neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah. In Worthing in nineteen thirty four, two thousand anti
fascists fought nine hundred fascists at the fascist rally, and
anti fascists sang the song John Brown's Body, which is
a union song against slavery from the American Civil War
that's come up in a couple different episodes as an
anthem of different parts of the anti racist working class.
(44:32):
Mosley himself threw down in that fight and got arrested.
The fascists were run out of town, and then there
were suddenly no more fascist rallies in Worthing. Later, some
fascists tried to have a fascist rally in worthing and
one of them was literally thrown into the sea.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Amazing, that's how you get it.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Yeah, in London, Mosley needed the East End. It wasn't
just I want to go antagonize Jewish people there. It
was I need to stir up the fear against the other.
And that's the only place in England that I can
effectively do that, right, that is like the main place
that migrant communities are coming in. So he fought like
hell to try and take it. He's gonna lose. He
(45:15):
decided what he needed was a big, spectacular march, a
big show of power. He needed to like physically take
the East End. So he organized a march. He spent
nine months planning it, leaflitting the area, putting up graffiti
that said Parish Judah basically kill the Jews. Yeah, and
then all of the graffiti, I'm going to talk about
(45:37):
all the slogans. It's actually like an era before spray paint,
so it's whitewash. Everyone's going around with like buckets and
fucking dollars and shit and in this case beating people up.
The political elite are like, well, we better just let
him hold his march.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Yeah, Freedom of speech is very important. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
The labor part is spineless in this, and they're like,
don't go counter protest. That would be bad. And so
does the assimilationist part of the Jewish community, who skewed wealthier,
longer established, and less radical. Yeah. The paper of the
Jewish Chronicles said, quote, Jews are urgently warned to keep
away from the root of the black Shirt march and
from their meetings. Jews who, however, innocently become involved in
(46:22):
any possible disorders will be actively helping anti semitism and
jew baiting, unless you want to help the jew baiters
keep away new Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't work out that way, no, fortunately,
Oh and so and assimilations Jews were in particular, they're
interested in keeping Jewish women away because there was respectability politics,
(46:44):
tours to politic and in Victorian anti semitism, it associated
immigrant Jews with prostitution. So there's warnings against women hanging
out at night or dyeing their hair or going to meetings.
But no one wanted to listen to the political elite,
so people got ready to fight instead, which we'll hear
(47:06):
about in part two. Yeah, and what else people can
hear about sooner than that. It's you, James Stout, they
can yeah, lucky them.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
So yeah, me, I know, I did a series about
the Border, which is something I care about very greatly
because it is a bad thing, and that was on
the it Could Happen Here podcast last week when we're
talking so people can hear it there. Yeah. I have
a book about the Popular Front and anti fascism in
the nineteen thirties. It's called Playing It If the World
(47:43):
was Watching, and you can get it by going to
a library and asking them to order a copy.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
It's because it's academic book and it's not really available.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Yeah, I know, it's fucking well. You can buy it
if you really want to, but I don't know, Like
you know, you earn your money, you spend how you want.
It's a lot of money, and you know, if it
was me, I will go to the lib Yeah maybe
maybe you know, share it with your friends if you
do buy it or whatever. But yeah, if it's in
the library, then other people will see it and then
maybe one day a new generation for the anti fascists
will be chucking potatoes, the new generation of fascists, which
(48:15):
is inevitably on the way. Yeah, yeah, I see you know,
libraries are cool the prisons where the books live. Actually
they're not. They're not cool as a kiss.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
I like libraries. Yeah, Sophie, what do you got?
Speaker 2 (48:31):
I'm sorry to tell you that you can now listen
to cool People did Cool Stuff, plus all other Cool
Zone Media shows one ad free through Cooler Zone Media subscription,
available exclusively on Apple Podcasts Android users have not forgotten you.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
More on that hopefully very very very soon. Yay, I
smiled mag pie.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Here.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Well, I'm currently kickstarting a tabletop role playing game. If
you want to imagine throwing bombs at fascists in a
safe and legal setting, you can do so by playing
the fantasy role playing game Number City, which you can
back on Kickstarter by googling the Number City Kickstarter. Honestly,
(49:16):
it's probably the top result no matter how you google it.
And we've already we've already successfully reached our main goal
and two of our stretch goals. So if you back
the book, you get not only like the book, but
you also get a whole other book digitally for free.
That's an adventure like campaign book, And if enough people
back at you're going to get a whole other extra
(49:37):
book for free, which will be a book that I
have to write, which will be a novella said in
this world that'll probably have people throwing potatoes with razors
in them, and you can hear about the potatoes razors
on Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us
out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Hello, and welcome to Cool People. Did Cool Stuff your
weekly reminder that you should throw things at bad people sometimes.
I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and my guest today there's James.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
James, Hi, Margaret. I'm so excited to hear what we're
throwing today.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Oh you're not even You're not like, who is it
being thrown at? Or by? You're much more interested.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
In No, I throw it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
I mean, for a while, I got to be the
Molotov cocktail guy on the internal, so I'm excited to
know what projectiles were using.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Well, there's no molotovs in today's story, I'm sorry to say,
there's almost everything else you could imagine throwing at a
bad person.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Okay, cool, are we doing throwing stars?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Ah? Well, I haven't told you what we're doing yet. Okay,
Sophie's here too. Sophie's the producer.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hi, Sophie, Hi, I'm here.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Oh James is a last name too? Out?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, yeah I do. Otherwise you might think it was
like James Blunt or something. It would be tragic is
that a person doesn't know doesn't know? Yeah? Okay, so
that's a that's a pop culture reference.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Making a drug reference. It's okay, it's okay, Magpie, you're
still beautiful. You didn't get reference.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I sorry, Sophie magnificent.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, that's really fun.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, you can have that Google afterwards. That can be
your evening Google.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I'm so excited.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
One of the best accounts on Twitter. I will say,
very very free. Okay, unfortunate Cockney rhyming slang.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
But you both have drug last names stout. It's an alcohol.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, it's a drug. Yeah yeah yeah, fair all right.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So oh and our our audio engineers Ian Hi Ian.
Everyone wants to say hi Ian and our The music
was written for us by un woman. Today we're going
to talk about a place. And when I described this place, James,
You're going to think it's imaginary. But it's a real place.
I double checked with a bunch of people. It's a
(02:08):
dreary place, a land that has cursed, one might say,
trapped beneath a perpetual layer of fog and mis class.
It's a kingdom, ancient monarch fuck with more lore written
about this kingdom than even Tolkien could have imagined. Oow okay,
and in this kingdom there's a city. It was kind
(02:30):
of like an on the nose steampunk place for a
while in the nineteenth century, kind of embarrassingly. So, James,
you ever heard of London?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I'm familiar. Yeah, yeah I have once or twice it
was actually England. Yeah yeah, yeah, a magical place.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I want some I don't know if I've said this
on the show before or not. I once interviewed Alan
Moore about a bunch of stuff about like anarchism and fiction,
and he was like being annoyed about the v for
Vendeta movie and he was like, look, when Americans set
something in England, they're just setting it in a fantasy place. Yes,
It's like they think we still have giants. And I
(03:12):
thought to myself, I wonder if England has giants.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, there are things that we do that are more
bizarre than having giants. But yeah, this parochial vision of
Englishness is annoying sometimes.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, And so that's what I'm playing into, hopefully as
a successful joke. Today. We are going to talk about
the East End of London in particular. Okay, We're going
to talk about a time when a little group of
one hundred to five hundred thousand people came together to
be like, wouldn't those fascists look better if we threw
(03:44):
little potatoes.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Oh shit, I love it. Yes, one of my favorites
personal high point in British history. One might say, it
really is, this is like yeah, no, genuinely fucking we
should be super proud of this shit, like, yeah, it's
phenomenally based.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah for everyone else. We were talking about the Battle
of Cable Street and when and this is an over simplification,
but when the working class of London smashed British fascism
for good.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah, no, very much. So. Yeah, it's one of my
favorite things in British history. It was something that someone
who's British and anti fascist, we drew on a lot,
and I wish more people kind of were proud of
it instead of whatever the fuck our politics is now.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, no, that's fair. And this is gonna be an
interesting one because I like, I was like, I wanted
you as the guest for this, but I figured you
probably knew a fair amount about this.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah, it's well, it's like the context in which I've
explored most is the direct parallel to the Spanish Civil War, Right,
Like they had banners saying no passive ban at Cable
Street and people who were part of that, were like hell, yeah,
like let's go. Then they went to Spain and we're like, well,
we've done it once, we'll fucking do it again. Yeah,
things were different there.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
It didn't go as well that time.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, marbles didn't work out for them. A quarter of
them died, yes, but yeah, but no it Oh we're
going to get to the marbles. This is going to
be such a fun episode. I'm so excited about it.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like it's like high jinks and japes
but also like destroying fascism. It's great. It could only
happen in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
That's true. That is absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Other shit was happening in the nineteen thirties, which was
in a dated it which was less JP.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yeah, and we'll talk a little bit about that, but
mostly this will be I think a fun one. Yeah,
I will say at the top of it, and I'm
going to get into the context, but at first I
want to do the teaser, which is they tried to
do it the right way. They signed a petition. One
hundred thousand people who's lived in the neighborhood of Gable
Streets signed a petition and all the local mayors of
(05:58):
East London boroughs because London a lot of mares, which
is totally a thing that makes sense. They all signed
the petition. It wasn't enough. When petitions fail, possibly apocryphal
potatoes with razor blades sticking out of them will stop
a fascist or the cops protecting the fascists in this case.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yep, that's not an actionable piece of advice.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
No, it's also not well. We'll talk about potatoes with
razors and it's stuck blade stuck in them later, but
first let's go back in time. Cable Street is a
street in London, in the East End of London. It
gets its name from when people made ropes and ships.
Ropes were called cables by laying them out in the street,
(06:46):
a big, old long street. It's in the least end
of London, which is a part of London that grew
in the Middle Ages outside of the walls, from when
Rome ran London a long ass time before it really
grew more in the nineteenth century extund of London, and
it is not historically the fancy part of town fasctatement.
(07:06):
I when I went to London, I like I hadn't
read any Londonish history yet so I like, I don't know.
I like kept being like told like and this is
this really important thing, and I'm like, I have no
context for this yet, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yeah, there's a lot of history in London. So you
have to pick your I bet I'm pretty sure there's
a good walking store of table Cable Street you can
do now that would rule I want to. Yeah, it's
got a good website. It's got a really good website.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, the bad guy in the story also still has
a current website. We'll talk about pretty Yeah. Some people
who are really into Oswald Mosley who will yeah, yeah,
no run Oswald Moseley dot. I think that fuck them.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Like if yeah, someone do the thing where you find
out the address that's paying for the website and throw
potatoes at them. Yeah that's yeah, not raise a potatoes. No,
no legal, but yeah, the legal I don't know, fucking
the met could probably have you if you had a potato,
if you are like carrying it with malicious intent knowing
(08:08):
the cops in London.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Does England have mutual combat laws?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I don't know. I've been involved in a lot of
mutual combat in England and like to my knowledge, it's
never been criminalized. Like I think you can assault someone
and like you but like in practice, like it's it's
fairly regular to like to have fights. I think less
(08:35):
so now because it's more and more like folks are
concerned about NFE crime, but still much more regular than
it is here. And like I've not really seen people
arrested for it unless it went But also you can
get arrested for obscenely little and I've had friends who've
had that, so I probably we'd probably don't have some
kind of mutual combat exemptions. Just we defunded the cops
when we defunded everything else because the Tories are like
(08:58):
so committed to austerity that they they are ironically the
only people who defended the police.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So have many cops.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
It's very funny. It's great we don't have as many
cops as the America is.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Okay, well, then I can't make specific challenges at this point. Okay,
so we have jeweling laws. There are definitely some jeweling laws,
so you could do that. Oh okay, good, that totally
is going to go great for me. I'll bring us
a beer. Is not the fancy part of town. East
end of London it is often the first landing spot
for different migrants throughout history. First it was the French Huguenots,
(09:34):
which were Calvinists from France who were fleeing religious intolerance
at the hands of the Catholics. And it gets in
beyond that into the stuff that feels like you're reading
Game of Thrones about who's fighting whom, about what. And
then that was in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Then
you get the Irish who came across, also fleeing religious intolerance,
but in a kind of opposite way, where they ran
(09:54):
into Anglican England, fleeing the poverty that have been caused
by Anglican England. Yes, then in the late nineteenth century
it was Jews fleeing pograms in Eastern Europe and Russia
who came over in the mid twentieth century. Later, actually
it was more of a Bengali's coming from India, and we'll
(10:15):
get back to them a little bit kind of after
the story. But most of our story today focuses around
the Jews and to a lesser extent, the Irish Catholics.
And then even more than the already poor East End,
you've got Stepney, a district which is even more known
for overcrowding, in poverty and not being a nice place
(10:36):
to live in a lot of ways. And of course
now the Hoyre is being gentrified.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah yeah, great.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, people fleeing a different kind of intolerance.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah, people aren't intolerant of their seven dollar coffees.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Birds on things.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
We're going to talk about the nineteenth in the East End,
and there's a bunch of different districts in the East End.
Stepney is majority Jewish. At the time, there was sixty
thousand Jews living there in nineteen thirty six. This wasn't
the majority. They weren't the majority population of the East End,
but they were sort of the political heart of the
East End according to everything I read, because when Jews
(11:19):
came from Eastern Europe and stuff, they brought a lot
of ideas like anarchism and communism. And when you've got
disaffected people and one group is like, hey, I've got
some ideas about what we can do about this disaffection
that we're all equally suffering, people tend to listen. So
the Jews and Stepney were not all leftists or whatever, right,
(11:40):
but they were disproportionately communist and anarchist. Immediately south, you've
got Cable Street and the docks, and this was primarily
Irish Catholic and the dockers who because Cable Street was
for making ships ropes, so the docs are right there,
they were also political and solidarity had been building and
(12:02):
occasionally falling apart for generations at this point. And this
is actually one of my favorite parts of the story.
Have you heard about how this solidarity built between the
two groups. I didn't think too oh, this is like, yeah,
this is this Maybe I like this part because it's
the only part that is anarchist in it. But this
part's so good, so I'm excited. In eighteen eighty nine,
(12:25):
Jewish tailors went on strike and the Irish Dockers Union
Strike Fund paid for them cool. In nineteen twelve, there
were a ton of strikes all across Britain, and specifically
I think it started, or at least a lot of
how it ties into what we're talking about right now,
started when miners stopped production for about a month and
the East End docks, where Irish dockers were, they ran idle.
(12:49):
People there went on strike too. Then the West End
textile workers who were not Jewish went on strike, and
this de facto made the Jewish workers in East Stend
be perceived as scabs because they were continuing to work
right right until a German anarcho syndicalist named Rudolph Rocker
future friend of the show, showed up good name, I know,
(13:12):
and helped organize the Jewish tailors join the strike. That
he gave a huge talk, and this might be oversimplifying
his contribution. History likes to pick the one guy and
be like, and then this guy did it, but he
gave a huge talk. Like basically, the next day, thirteen
thousand Jewish textile workers went on strike and the bosses
(13:33):
were forced to concede because the entire working class was
united and it wasn't being divided along ethnic lines like
the bosses continue to try and make us be divided.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yes, some kind of lesson could be learned from that.
Maybe I wouldn't go that far. Yeah, no, yah, leave it.
You can't be done again.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, even though everything else about the story, you're going
to see all of these things that happened again and again.
We can't win, No never.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
I just to buy some stuff and that way goggles.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
So they the textile workers won. They won shorter hours,
they won no more piece work, which is a huge
fucking differences. Basically means instead of being paid by production rate,
they were paid hourly, which yeah, because when you're paid
by the production rate, you're basically forced to work faster
than is healthy. And they won more sanitary conditions. So
(14:29):
then the anarchists moved to starting to organize the two
East East End communities, the Irish dockers and the Jewish
textile workers to work together even more. And as the
dock strike wore on, which I believe the dock strike
lasted longer than the textile worker This part, I'm a
little bit I'm piecing together like six different sources to
be over this timeline, you know, because each one only
(14:50):
cares about one little part of it.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Right, Yeah, yeah, these little niche leabor histories.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Yeah, exactly. So the tech the dock workers strike went on,
so the Irish couldn't afford to feed their kids. And
so I've seen two hundred and I've seen three hundred,
but hundreds of Irish kids went to go live with
Jewish families to get fed since their strike had already
been resolved, and the only named people. I found organizing this,
(15:17):
like organizing childcare is revolutionary. This is how we get
cable Street. Two teenage Jewish anarchist girls, Nellie Polshankski and
Millie Sebolanski, they were teenagers and they were heavily involved
in organizing that childcare and getting Jewish textile workers to
provide clothing for free to the stocking the striking dockers.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Hell, yeah that's cool.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
And so like later when like spoiler alert, fascists are
going to try and convince the Irish and shit to
go be like antisemitic, Yeah, they're like, we literally grew
up in their houses.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It isn't good to work. Yeah, this kind of son
of diarity is super like it. I think I read
a really interesting thing about the influence of like Wobbly Sailors,
the IWW and building working class solidarity and docking districts specifically,
and like there's a theory that that's where the clenched
fist salute becomes like this international working class kind of
popular front symbol. Whoa, because yeah it's cool. So the
(16:16):
dock workers and then yeah, Jewish people exiled from per grants,
like they make up thirty percent of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. Right,
they've played this huge role in the nineteen thirties only
twenties radical left.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah, that's fucking cool. I love yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I was just like smiling the whole time I was writing, yeah, yeah,
and just like writing one of my friends about all
of this stuff, like we're like and then.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
This other thing happened, and yeah, I don't know why
this isn't a film because it is the best story.
Like it's people being nice to each other and bashing fascists.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
I know, it's interesting. The history I'm going to talk
about a little at the end. The history of Cable
Street does are so interesting because a lot of people
are trying to claim it. But you know what you
can claim is discounts on stuff by buying them from advertisers.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Yeah, maybe maybe some free gambling chumba yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Or if that sounds horrible for two horrible, Yeah, we do.
We do have cooler Zone Media, the ad pre subscription
channel on Apple.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
So were you just like intentionally letting worse ads?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Imagine imagine imagine somebody actually having the time to do that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Where we transition to the Pat Robertson Rip Memorial coin adverts,
just as I'm glad you're dead. I'd like to remind
people that, like we get adverts from people who we
glory in their death, Like it's great that they pay
for our ship.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
I did never forget that when we first started Worst
Year Ever and we were discussing Bloomberg and he paid
for campaign ads on that episode where we were talking
about what a piece of fucking shit he was that
we said yes to.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Thanks Ronald Reagan gold for paying for laser hair removal
for a trans girl.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Shout out, Yeah, thanks Ronie.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And here's the ads, and we're back. And so we're
going to talk about how Solidarity literally defeated British fascism.
But first fascism. Let's talk about British fascism. Oh yeah, good,
(18:44):
it's the nineteen thirties. Well not right now, right now
as we record, it's twenty twenty. Well it's not not
the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Again, Margaret, Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Hey, we might be in the nineteen twenties right now. Yeah,
So let's see how on the nose all history gets.
Yeah knows, fascism was growing all over Europe. Italy and
Germany already had dictators, so did Portugal, but theirs was like,
I'm not a fascist, I don't like fascists. I'm just
the guy who's in charge of everything. Yeah, I'm sure
(19:16):
we'll talk about people who fought him at some point.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Oh yeah, yeah, they get missed out of the dictator box.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I know, I know. The only bright spots at this
point in nineteen thirty is the time that we are
currently recording, is that the Spanish Republic and the Popular
Front leftist governments in France exist right, and so you've
got like, you've got some like lefty stuff and you've
got some righty stuff in power in different places, and
(19:44):
within a few years both of those countries are going
to be under fascist control, as would Romania. They often
forgotten bastion of fascism in Europe. That's not what we're
going to talk about, but it's worth understanding because it's
really on. It was on people's minds that this really
could go either way. Right Britain could have become.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Fascist, oh yeah, very easily.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
And so this was on people's minds, especially Jewish people's minds,
because a lot of fascists were like, we're really into
popularist stuff and being nice to everyone I mean and
when I say everyone, I mean people, you know, and
so then the people that they preclude from that category. Anyway,
our main villain today is a man named Oswald Moseley.
(20:28):
He believed in England, making England a quote land fit
for heroes. He wanted to he had some like lefty
shit right. He wanted to nationalize a bunch of stuff
like transport and electricity. He wanted to protect in British
industry from competition. That's not specifically a right or left,
it's just a thing. He wrote a lot. He wrote
a line between conservative and labor for most of his
(20:49):
political career. He literally was on both sides at various points,
and he was famous for being the guy who get
both parties on his side and ends up very explicit
le a fascist. And yeah, it's like really annoying because
on the internet people are like, like right wing people
be like national socialism that means it's lefty right, and
(21:12):
you're like, I hate everything.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah, but you have to talk to those people. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
But the thing that is worth understanding Fascism is a
right wing ideology that borrows shit from the left in
order to appeal you know.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, Yeah, it's fundamentally like it's about running the state
for the people, but who it defines as the people
or vulk, it's relatively narrow group of people, and everyone
else becomes victims of genocide or expelled from your fatherland.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Yeah. And even though they like often claim to do
sort of lefty as shit, it was always the left
that was immediately and violently their enemy. Is the other
thing worth understanding. Well, like the Centrists and the right
were like, all right, let's see what you got, you know.
So Oswald Mosley he was born in eighteen ninety eight
(22:06):
into some hereditary nonsense where his dad was Sir Oswald Mosley,
fifth Baronet. His grandfather was named Oswald Mosley.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Oh cool, it's one of those situations.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, And they don't even like go ahead.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Family trees like a fucking lamp post.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, and like I don't know, I don't know why
they don't go the third or whatever the fuck I
don't understand.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, No, maybe they just had too many they Yeah,
when you in breed to that level and you will
have the same name, you will exceed the numbers you
can count to.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Yeah, especially in Roman numerals.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Yeah, Yeah, that's true. Yeah, maybe, Yeah, they just kind
of made it easier. Plus they probably didn't live that long,
you know, because they're probably all Actually, he did live
a disturbingly long time, that's true. Yeah, Yeah, unfortunate. It's
gonna certainly just die off before the next one can speak,
so it's not a problem.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
And I also don't know what a baronet is, and
I don't know why the hereditary title is the thing
you stick on the end of a gun and make
it into a spear, but whatever.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not entirely familiar with that one. It's
it's a person who's who like has ancestry and thus money,
and they were all the fucking same at that point,
isn't they.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, And so he can he can also trace his
in breeding into like third cousin of the father of
the queen.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, his dad sucked, so he was raised by his grandfather.
In college, he liked to go into town and jump
poor people for fun.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
No what, I didn't know what a bad end.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Like. It's like described as like he would go and
pick fights at the work in working class bars, and
then it's like sometimes the people didn't fight back or whatever.
He just beat up poor people. That was his fucking hobby.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Find a drunk guy and beat the shit out of him.
Yeah what a tssa.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah. Fortunately World War One pulled him off of beating
up poor people duty and into flying an airplane. He
got a sea, got poor people at range. Yeah, different, Yeah, totally.
He got a sexy war wound. Have you heard about
how he got his sexy war wound in his limb?
Speaker 3 (24:08):
No?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
No, well he crashed his plane while literally just trying
to show off for his mom.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Amazing, whoa there he is, fucking master race. Yeah, it's
they're always such fucking clowns.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
I know.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
Yeah, I mean there's probably some gender stuff to explore about,
like these unfulfilled men.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah. And so Oswald Mosley is a fascist fascist. He
coined the phrase socialistic imperialism in nineteen eighteen. This is
before he was a fascist. He was just a socialistic imperialist.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
That one could go either way. I could see that
one going east of the eurs as well.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
And so his particular branch of nationalism was this. And
it makes sense to me because if you're gonna be
a British nationalist, I guess you have to be an
imperialist right.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, yeah, that point in time. Already, at any point
in time, they still do it. And yeah, I'm sure no, yes,
and I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, but I
wonder if he was a racist, he was really really
fucking racist. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, and it we'll continue.
Even after he stopped technically being a fascist, he pretty
much moved to just like racism. Yeah yeah, yeah, for
(25:22):
decades he gets popping up doing racisms. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Yeah. He won his first seat when he was twenty
two because he came back like a war hero, right,
and he actually he did like fight in some battles.
He didn't just crash a plane. But he won his
first seat at twenty two on Parliament because also there
was this thing after World War One where basically there
was like I don't quite understand, but they kind of
like sent around a list that was like here are
the war hero people on the ballot, and so they
(25:48):
were the only people got voted for.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
I mean, yeah, Britain was also the just population was decimated.
I guess, so you had relatively fewer people, yeah, people
of privileged yeah, people of like young wealthy men did
die a lot in World War One. Okay, like because
they they were junior officers, and junior offices tended to
last like a few days in certain battles. So then
(26:14):
you get like the people who are like both like
coming back from the war didn't totally fucking embarrass themselves
and are presumably aligned with the Tories or whatever party
like that becomes a smaller constituency and then.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, yeah, he did start the conservative parties of the Tories, right, yes, yeah, yeah,
he started off as a Tory and no, and that
all makes sense, and honestly, possibly the reason he survived
the war is after he got his sexy war wound limp,
he ended up like with a desk job like helping
ammunitions move around. But again, he has fought in more
wars than battles than I have. I wish he had
(26:48):
been killed in them, but whatever.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
So then he married a more important lady and then
immediately cheated on her with her sister and her stepmother.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Woh, yeah, yeah, I forget about this, but he's just
so gross. Yeah I've forgotten completely about that.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah yeah, and he had like married up, right, he
had like fucking yeah, maybe I coudn't soft paranet or whatever.
The I don't know, but he switched to Labor in
nineteen twenty four, and actually, interestingly he switched to Labor
I believe because he supported Irish independence, and I didn't
do a deeper research into this, and basically he also
(27:29):
switched because he figured they were going to do better electorally.
Is the cynical version I've read, And there's nothing that
I've read that has made me think that cynicism isn't
the right way to approach his beliefs. He declared himself
a man of the people, and there was a big
general strike in the UK and in nineteen twenty six,
and he paid striking miners out of pocket to be like,
(27:49):
I'm a man of the people or whatever. I'll use
my end. When I say out of pocket, I mean
with the money that had been extracted from the working
class over the course of centuries through the system of
British nobility, and the way he was planning to support
all of these good working conditions he'd push forward home
was literally I mean, it was like a stated plan
as we just get that by exploiting the colonies, that's
what the colonies are for.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
That's your socialistic IMPERATIVESM is it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, great cool.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
In nineteen thirty one, the Great Depression was raging, he
resigned from the Labor Party. Slash was kicked out at
the same time, and he formed the quote New Party.
And the New Party had one particular thing about it,
which is that no one wanted to vote for it,
so it never went strategy. Yeah, and it also split
(28:36):
the Labor vote and like led to a conservative government
or whatever, which whatever. He's as close to that as
he has to anything else, you know. Yeah. Yeah, he
visited Mussolini and he was like, oh, this rules, this
is the fucking way to go. So in October nineteen
thirty two, he launched yet another political party, the British
Union of Fascists the BUFF. I promised at the top
(28:59):
of this I think before we had record, that I
was going to include because we're talking about buffs, the hiking.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
FDA.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, the thing you wear on your neck.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Yeah, a snood is a word I think, Oh that
also makes sense. Yeah, I might be wrong on that one.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah. So he forms the Snood and the nude is
heavily funded by Mussolini, at least according to one source.
I actually had trouble sourcing that part of it. It
is also heavily funded by his richness of being nobility,
that one is easier to prove. I mean, the thing
(29:37):
I read was like it wasn't like this is contentious,
It just was like, this is how it was funded.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I also read that the Nazi Party was fundiness later,
so I don't fuck know. He was getting money from
not from fascists. And the important thing to hear is
to understand how bad do you have to fuck up
to name your fascist party something that sounds dumb buff Yeah, like, okay, Nazis.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
It's a union of fascists too, Like like he brought
together all the fascists from different tendencies, Yeah, to come
together for the great good of fascism.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
That was kind of his vibe. That was what he
was trying to do. Yeah, yeah, the greater good of
making him the dictator. But like Nazis and the Falange Right,
those are evil groups with evil sounding names, but they're
like catchy evil in the sounding names. Like imagine making
a video game where the baddies were called the buff
(30:35):
But to be fair, he had supporters called the black Shirts,
which is a good enough name for a video game.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Battie.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Yeah, officially this was the Fascist Defense Force, but no
one called them that. Everyone called them the black Shirts
because they wore uniforms of black shirts. It was very literal.
So he's a fascist now. He's got real simple quotes
like fascism can and will win Britain. He gave speeches
and he especially like to quote enemy of the Pod
Oliver Cromwell, the guy who did a genocide on Ireland
(31:04):
a while back.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
Yeah, least least cool person ever to kill a monarch.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
I know everybody's listens this know that I'm mad. I
get about the fact that England overthrew a king and
it was bad. How bad?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Yeah, I know as an English person that did the like,
did the instincts to like include a picture of Charles King,
Charles being executed, like, but then the counterbalanced by the
fact that what came after, which was equally fucking bad.
It's yeah, it's very challenging for me. Yeah, it makes
Twitter difficult. I just flipped the flipped the profile picture
(31:40):
upside down. It works every time.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Yeah, no, it makes sense. Yeah yeah, so in obvious Again,
it seems obvious in retrospect that this guy lost because
Fascism didn't take England, but there was no reason that
that was the way it was going to work out,
except of course, that immigrants and the their children had
(32:01):
been beating the shit out of his fanboys, working with
a solidarity that they had built from generations of self
organized class struggle. That is my argument about why fascism
did not take England.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Yeah, it happens true.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Moseley had his fans. There's a newspaper called The Daily Mail.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, which luckily no longer exists and has since stopped
doing fascist shit entirely.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah, totally is the largest, the most subscribed newspaper in
the United Kingdom, I believe.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Yeah, credible dogship population.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
They really liked him. It was owned by a guy
named Lord Rothermere, because the UK is a silly place.
Edward the Eighth, the future very short tenure King of England,
also really liked him and was like, man, you'd be
such a good Prime minister. Moseley wound up with fifty
thousand supporters members by nineteen thirty four and his star
(32:55):
was on the rise. But well, fascist was growing all
over Europe, so it was anti fascism. Anti fascism had
always been tied into larger social struggle beyond just anti fascism, right,
because it's all one thing. And in the East End,
it was cheap to live there, but it was not
cheap enough for the destitute immigrant families in the Great Depression,
(33:18):
So there was this there's a lot of evictions. So
there was this really vibrant activist scene that did aviction defense,
and I believe it was centered around the local branch
of the growing Communist Party, which was also seen as
star Rise at the same time, kind of countering mostly
and the Communist Party is going to come up a
bunch of different ways, both kind of not good and
(33:38):
bad but good and like, eh, why'd you do that?
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Chucking?
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Yeah, must pay, yeah exactly. And they did a lot
of eviction defense, and they actually even once defended a
fascist sympathizing family from eviction. Their argument was, look, we
hate them as Fascis sympathizers, but that's our problem to
deal with as the working class. You fucking cops, stay
the fun out of it.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Yeah, nice.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And I actually think it was largely that kind of attitude,
even though it's like real messy that particular action, it
was largely that attitude that kept fascism from taking hold
of the East End, like mostly spent years trying to
do right. And I don't have a clever transition here
from talking about anti fascism to having people advertise things
(34:24):
to you, the listener.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
So anti fascism makes when you buy stuff, That's what
I've learned.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Well, there is that weird, complicated thing where like a
lot of fascists hate capitalism too, and a lot of
capitalists hate fascists, and it's just a weird three way fight.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah, yeah, that's a situation which he's red ofvant today.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, even though capitalism creates the fascism, the conditions under
which fascism thrives. So here's a indication of the fact
that capitalism is currently the dominant social structure. And we're back.
(35:04):
So in nineteen thirty four, the Black Shirts and the
buff not in the buff they are always wearing their uniforms.
They decided to hold their big that's the hopefully that's
the only time I make naked fascist jokes. A little
bit embarrassed. They were going to hold their biggest rally
ever at a place called Olympia. And I'm curious about
(35:24):
this the way that it's never like Olympia Hall, or
like Olympia yeah whatever, yeah, And I'm like, I don't know,
it's a big convention center or whatever the fuck that.
And people in England think it only needs to name Olympia,
while to me, of course, the word Olympia conjures up
a curse city nestled on the west coast of the
(35:45):
US where it rains all the time, and people were
mean to me once. But Mosley Ran has his rally
at the other Olympia, which also clearly is a fascism problem,
because ten thousand fascists came to see their man give
a talk. Only it was actually nine thousand, five hundred fascists,
(36:05):
because five hundred of them were undercover anti fascists. And
this is gonna be a lose the battle to win
the war moment. One of the undercover anti fascists was
occasional cameo of the pod Alvis Huxley, author Brave New
World in Ireland.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Yep, Georgia was English teacher.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Oh that makes a lot of sense. I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
That makes so much sense. So five hundred anti fascists
are at this rally and they just take turns interrupting him,
so he wasn't able to talk. And in the short
term this worked out really badly for the anti fascists.
Dozens of them were beat to unconsciousness. But this trashed
(36:50):
the buff The violence turned people away from the fascists
and the anti fascists. This had been their goal all along.
It was like, we're going to interrupt it, but we're
also going to basically.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Like, yeah, well you show the violence of the thing, right.
People don't seem to understand that fucking rehetoric is violent. Yeah.
When you punched so many in the face, it's easier
for them to get it into the old skull.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah. And so the image of women being carried out,
bloody and unconscious did and play well for the cameras
the BBC band Moseley. Newspapers were like, we don't know
this guy. One journalist was like, quote, it was like
quote seeing the beast unchained. Let's check in with what
the Daily Mail had to say about it. Quote. If
(37:37):
the Black Shirts movement had any need of justification, the
Red Hooligans savagely and systematically tried to wreck Sir Oswald.
Moseley is huge and magnificently successful meeting at Olympia last
night would have supplied it. They got what they deserved.
Olympia has been the scene of many assemblies and many
great fights, but never had it offered to the spectacle
of so many fights mixed up with a meeting.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
Yeah, I love to get my us from the Daily Mail,
a website with no bias.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah, exactly. So of the fucking Buffs membership dropped out.
It was too intense, it was too violent. It wasn't
just that the public popular support was gone, but all
of the like, oh, I don't know, let's see what
these fascists have to say. People were like, oh, what
the fuck, right, because we look at it now and
(38:25):
like the word fascist is like, oh, Nazis, Holocaust, et cetera. Right, Yeah,
whereast the time, it was like Nazis the Holocaust is
an obvious thing that will happen as a result of
the things that they say, but you don't have the proof.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
Right, And like capitalism is like on its ass in
the nineteen thirties, right, Like people can't feed themselves, but
they're fucking living in Hooverville's in America, you know, Like
it's not like and capitalism in America is segregated and
black people are being lynched, and so like, it's easy
to see why people were like, oh what else is
(39:02):
there available?
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, totally, And so most people left. But what was
left was a hardcore, violent base who was more there
for the hate right instead of like there to be
like maybe this will fix Britain. It was like, yeah,
let's fuck some people up. We hate everyone. So he
(39:25):
decided to start pandering to the base. He got more
and more anti semitic. He was never pro semitic. I
don't know, maybe that's not the right word to use.
He was never not anti semitic. But this is where
he goes like all out and he just starts publishing
all kinds of vile shit, very Britain for the British,
never mind actual history about how Britain was formed. And
(39:48):
so now is this hardened base. His new thing is
hate crimes and the advocacy thereof. So he'd figure he'd
go to the immigrant neighborhood and build his base of
power there, not just because that's where the enemy is,
but because that's where he thinks he can find people
to like say, hey, these people of the reason you're poor,
you know, yeah, he got a bit of a foothold
(40:08):
in the East End by going on about how Jews
are taking your jobs or whatever. Literally nothing changes except
names and locations. But even there he wasn't doing that
well because of three main forces that have a lot
of Venn diagram stuff going on, because all of these
forces overlap with each other, and this is the larger
picture of British in go ahead.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I love a diagram in a podcast.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, just it. Yeah, it's easy. First and foremost,
there's the Jewish People's Council against Fascism and Anti Semitism
the JPC, and this is a collection of eighty six
different organizations and they're organizers shit, and they are going
to do most of the work of everything that we're
going to talk about today. Then there's the Communist Party,
which in Stepney is mostly Jewish and it does unite
(40:52):
a lot of different parts of the working class across
the country. And then there's the broader just working class
organized but kind of culturally and subculturally, right. And you've
got a few different independent labor movements, and you've got
like the Independent Labor Party, which I think, and you've
(41:13):
got a couple other things going on, right, And it's
hard to really piece these out because later the Communist
Party is just going to take credit for everything that happened.
But those are the three groups. Two groups in a
non group. The fascists tried to recruit using their classic method,
lie about who is hurting poor white people, then recruit
(41:34):
people to do violence to minorities. They wanted to control
the streets and therefore the culture, and they'll figure out
the political part later. So the black Shirts start roaming
around the East End, jumping anyone who looked Jewish, and
people start organizing against them rather successfully. There's a story
told by a veteran of Cable Street, Bill Fishman. He
(41:57):
was in some kind of group for young leftists and
time before Cable Street. He was walking with an Irish
Catholic boxer who could be mistaken for Jewish. Some black
Shirts called out jew bastard, because they're very clever, you know. Yeah,
So the boxer walked up to the leader, didn't say anything,
just broke the guy's nose, blood port everywhere, and the
(42:20):
black Shirts all fled.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Yeah. So that's how you debate a fascist.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yeah, and it worked, you know. Yeah, Like, let's all
run away because one guy punched our leader in the nose,
you know, yeah, yeah, it is an ideology book for cowards. Yes,
groups of Irish dockers started organizing alongside the Jewish community
to defense synagogues in this part fucking rules, and like
(42:48):
I just I love everything about it. I mean, I
don't love the fucking fascists, right, but I love watching
people take them down. Black Shirts were waiting outside synagogues
to jump Jewish people, so their allies would show up
and wait outside and guard. And the Communist Party was
no slouches when it came to fighting fascists. In nineteen
thirty three, at the Battle of Stockton, the Communist Party
(43:09):
and the National Unemployed Workers Movement outnumbered and beat the
hell out of some buff guys. Maybe they weren't so
buff after all. And there's my second buff joke.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Yeah, keep them cuming, all right.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
And in this particular battle, an anti fascist grandmother bit
a CoP's hand down to the bone. Oh what a hero,
I know.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
Yeah. Why do we put the queen out of money
when we have options like this?
Speaker 1 (43:34):
I know? And this the Battle of Stockton slashed the
grandmother biting a cop down to the bone, ended BUFF
organizing in Stockton. One of his commanders quit and took
a lot of people with him and joined like a
center right party, I believe, and the buff literally skipped town,
moved their regional headquarters to a different town. And because
(43:55):
nothing ever changes, by and large, the fascists actually bust
in their members around from a the country to each
of these things, whereas the anti fascists, who outnumbered and
beat them up, just drew from the local population each time.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Yeah, because noble one says shit in that neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah. In Worthing in nineteen thirty four, two thousand anti
fascists fought nine hundred fascists at the fascist rally, and
anti fascists sang the song John Brown's Body, which is
a union song against slavery from the American Civil War
that's come up in a couple different episodes as an
anthem of different parts of the anti racist working class.
(44:32):
Mosley himself threw down in that fight and got arrested.
The fascists were run out of town, and then there
were suddenly no more fascist rallies in Worthing. Later, some
fascists tried to have a fascist rally in worthing and
one of them was literally thrown into the sea.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Amazing, that's how you get it.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
Yeah, in London, Mosley needed the East End. It wasn't
just I want to go antagonize Jewish people there. It
was I need to stir up the fear against the other.
And that's the only place in England that I can
effectively do that, right, that is like the main place
that migrant communities are coming in. So he fought like
hell to try and take it. He's gonna lose. He
(45:15):
decided what he needed was a big, spectacular march, a
big show of power. He needed to like physically take
the East End. So he organized a march. He spent
nine months planning it, leaflitting the area, putting up graffiti
that said Parish Judah basically kill the Jews. Yeah, and
then all of the graffiti, I'm going to talk about
(45:37):
all the slogans. It's actually like an era before spray paint,
so it's whitewash. Everyone's going around with like buckets and
fucking dollars and shit and in this case beating people up.
The political elite are like, well, we better just let
him hold his march.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Yeah, Freedom of speech is very important. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
The labor part is spineless in this, and they're like,
don't go counter protest. That would be bad. And so
does the assimilationist part of the Jewish community, who skewed wealthier,
longer established, and less radical. Yeah. The paper of the
Jewish Chronicles said, quote, Jews are urgently warned to keep
away from the root of the black Shirt march and
from their meetings. Jews who, however, innocently become involved in
(46:22):
any possible disorders will be actively helping anti semitism and
jew baiting, unless you want to help the jew baiters
keep away new Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't work out that way, no, fortunately,
Oh and so and assimilations Jews were in particular, they're
interested in keeping Jewish women away because there was respectability politics,
(46:44):
tours to politic and in Victorian anti semitism, it associated
immigrant Jews with prostitution. So there's warnings against women hanging
out at night or dyeing their hair or going to meetings.
But no one wanted to listen to the political elite,
so people got ready to fight instead, which we'll hear
(47:06):
about in part two. Yeah, and what else people can
hear about sooner than that. It's you, James Stout, they
can yeah, lucky them.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
So yeah, me, I know, I did a series about
the Border, which is something I care about very greatly
because it is a bad thing, and that was on
the it Could Happen Here podcast last week when we're
talking so people can hear it there. Yeah. I have
a book about the Popular Front and anti fascism in
the nineteen thirties. It's called Playing It If the World
(47:43):
was Watching, and you can get it by going to
a library and asking them to order a copy.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
It's because it's academic book and it's not really available.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Yeah, I know, it's fucking well. You can buy it
if you really want to, but I don't know, Like
you know, you earn your money, you spend how you want.
It's a lot of money, and you know, if it
was me, I will go to the lib Yeah maybe
maybe you know, share it with your friends if you
do buy it or whatever. But yeah, if it's in
the library, then other people will see it and then
maybe one day a new generation for the anti fascists
will be chucking potatoes, the new generation of fascists, which
(48:15):
is inevitably on the way. Yeah, yeah, I see you know,
libraries are cool the prisons where the books live. Actually
they're not. They're not cool as a kiss.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
I like libraries. Yeah, Sophie, what do you got?
Speaker 2 (48:31):
I'm sorry to tell you that you can now listen
to cool People did Cool Stuff, plus all other Cool
Zone Media shows one ad free through Cooler Zone Media subscription,
available exclusively on Apple Podcasts Android users have not forgotten you.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
More on that hopefully very very very soon. Yay, I
smiled mag pie.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Here.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Well, I'm currently kickstarting a tabletop role playing game. If
you want to imagine throwing bombs at fascists in a
safe and legal setting, you can do so by playing
the fantasy role playing game Number City, which you can
back on Kickstarter by googling the Number City Kickstarter. Honestly,
(49:16):
it's probably the top result no matter how you google it.
And we've already we've already successfully reached our main goal
and two of our stretch goals. So if you back
the book, you get not only like the book, but
you also get a whole other book digitally for free.
That's an adventure like campaign book, And if enough people
back at you're going to get a whole other extra
(49:37):
book for free, which will be a book that I
have to write, which will be a novella said in
this world that'll probably have people throwing potatoes with razors
in them, and you can hear about the potatoes razors
on Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us
out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts.
Host
Margaret Killjoy
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