ship positions in a number of major trade But the SWP campaign for united labour action against the fascist menace corresponded to the interests and feelings of the masses of workers. Two days after the 20 February action of 50,000 in New York, 5,000 people turned out on one day's notice against a mecting of the German-American Bund in Los Angeles. As in New York, the demonstration was boycotted by the CP. In this case, however, the SW was successful in gaining the endorsement of the International Ladies" Garment Workers' Union and the United Electrical and Radio Workers Union for the action. Many rank-and-file CP members attended these demonstrations, and the Stalinist leaderslip began to be put into the position of arguing against actions that its membership saw as reasonable and necessary.
WORKERS DEFENCE GUARDS Appeals to the political organisations of the working class, however, although necessary, were not sufficient. The big majority of the working class was not in any workers party. It was the trade unions, themselves threatened by the growth of a fascist movement, that had to serve as the arena for organising the working class against fascism.
In keeping with Trotsky's insistence it The Thruirionai Progrumme that the struggle agaiast fascism does not start in the liberal editotial offioe but ut the factory, the SWP advocated the formation of workers defence guards by the trade unions as the way that the working class could defend atself The resolution on the workers defence guard adopted by the SWP convention held in July 1939 emphasised that it was the job of the workers defence guard to defend the rights of the labour movement as a whole, and indeed of all groups, individuais, organisations, racial шалопаса, ета reatene or atacrca Dy tae fascists, vigilantes or other reactionaties,? ACTION AND EXAMPLE Of course the 5WP was not in favour of passively waiting for the unions to bulld such workers defence guards. Part of the job of campnigning for the unions to take action against the fascists was demonstrations such as those held in New Yurk and Los Angeles.
In localities where it is at present impossible to enlist the established unions in the task of building the Guard, the 5WP resolution continued, it is now necessary, in addition to constant agilation for union initiative, to take concrete steps in the formation of the Guard with what forces are available. Where such forces are meagre it would be an error to regard that group that can be formed as a Workers Defence Guard in the full sense: rather, since the genuine Guard can be built only by enlisting the masses, are such groups skeletons ar embryos of the Guard. They cannot substitute their action for that of the masses but must aim to win the masses especially in the trade unions to the task of building the Guard, by adding on however a modest scale, the lesson of action and example to that of agitation.
The SWP mored to implement the ideas in this resolution in a number of ways. It carried our an extensive educational campaign in the pages ot the Soculin Appeai to explain the need for workers defence guards and to agitate for their formation. It produced a pamphlet explaiting the nature of the Coughlin mosement and its dappor to workers, Jews, Blacks, and others. SWP members in New York sold 4,500 of these painphlats during a sales campaien of only three weeks in the sunimer of 1939. In addition, the SWP held numerous street meelings to promote is campaign against the Fascists, while continuing to call for united. front demonstrations at fascist meetings, These street meetings and demonstrations were resolutely defended against fascist goons, This was no mean feat in view of the fact that in June 1939, a meeting of 18,000 Jehosh's Witnesses was broken up by the fascists in New York A CRAZY IDEA'7 Finally, the SWP campaigned within the trade union movement for the formation of workers defence guards The effect of this campaign is indicated by the tact that in July of 1939 Coughlin used an entire radio broadcast to attack a member of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union for having proposed that the union form a workers defence guard. Two days later, David Dubinsky, the head of the ILGWU, rushed into print to disavow any intention of forming such a defonce guard, Lenouncing it us a 'crazy idea.
But the best example of the effect of the SWP's campaign and the validity of its programme for fighting the fascist menace came in August 1939 Or 9 August the Coughlinite organisations in New York called for a fascist nobilisation under che guise of an 'antiCommunist parade, They announced that on 19 August they would nurch from Colombus Circle to Untion Square, known as the centre of the American Inbour movement of that time. The SWP answered this provocation with a call Coughlin salesmen. Garden on 20 February. CITY ORDINANCES and necessary. for a united counter-demonstration. It ap pealed to the CP, the SP, and major Jewish organisations, as well as other groups, to join in the action. In the meantime, 200,000 caflets were printed and street meetings and rallies were organised throughout the city in order to build the counter-demonstration NO RELIANCE ON GOVERNMENT The SWP's call for a counter-demonstration, along with the rest of its activity against the Tascists, was based on the concept that only the workers themselves, relying on their own organisations and their own strength. could defeat the fascist threat. In Its appeal to the CP to join in a united front against the fascists, the SWP argued, "We cannor depend on Mayor LaGuardia to protect the laber movement from Coughlin's storm troop "Christian Front."* LaGuardia's cops are themselves symputhetic to Coughlin. They arrest salcamen of anti-Coughlin literature. They assist Coughlin Himself boasted that 5,000 New York cops were members of his movement. Nevertheless, Instead of joining together to nobilise the workers in taer own defetice, the for the counter-demonstration met with such a CP appealed to LaGuandia to bur the fascist demonstration. An editorial in the 15 August, 1939. Sociat Appeai poinled out thar these delegations (to LaCuardia) are repeating the experience of similar delegations which attempled to get Mayor LaGuardia to prevent LOD. the fascist mobilisation at Madison Square "Far from stopping the fascists, LaGuardia provided them on 20 February with the protection of the largest police concentration in the history of the city. In the name of civil liberties, LaGuardia's police spent the nighr burenucracy plunging their horses into the 50,000 antifascist pickets in the neighbourhood?
W bile the CP participated in delegations asking La Guardia to han the fascist action, its candilate for the New York city council from the Bronx proposed his solution in Lhe 13 August, 1939, Daip Worker: 'A ciry ordinance forbidding the sprend of anti-Senitic propaganda and outlawing alti-Semic organisations is possible What good are city ordinances against fascist hooligans and clubs, knives and blackjacks? responded the Socialist Appeal of 18 August. 'There is only one way to fight the fascists, That is to ORGANISE the anti-fascists into WORKERS DEFENCE GUARDS, ready and trained to defend union balls and unionists, Jewish and Gentile anti-fascists, apainst the fascist gungsters.
In practice, laws ostensibly directed against the fascist gangs are more often than not used against the working class and its organisations.
This was the experience in the US with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) supporters of which originally argued that it would be used against the fascists. In France, the law that was used to han the Communist League was supposedly directed against the fascist groups that grew up there in the 1930s.
INDEPENDENT STRUGGLE The whole experience of the workers move. ment shows that the struggle against fasciam can only be carried out independenly of the capitalist government. Requests for the banning of fascist groups or meetings only cut across the mobilisation of the workers, giving them the illusion that action on their part 1s unnecessary, while giving the povernment a handie to use against tho left.
In the case of the Coughtnite march, the refusal of the SWP to rely on LaGuardia lo deal with the tascists soon paid off. Preparations powerful response that Coughlin was forced to back down. Les than two days before the scheduled fascist march, Corghlin made a Jongdistance phone call to cancel the demonstraOnly one month after this incident, World War I began in flope. As Roosevelt stepped up preparations for US entry into the war, the capitalists found they were able to line up the trade union movement behind their war policies with little problem, thanks to the union In this situation, the continued activity of fascist groups known for their sympathy with Hiller and hussalini could only be a souree of embacrassment for the government, Farthermore, the war resulted in the disappearance of the unempioyment that the fascist movement had fod upon. Togetber, these factors caused a rapid decline in the fascise movement. But the forces that produced the crisis of the 1930k continue to operate, as is indicated by the growing political and ccononic problems of American capitalisin. The methods of struggle against fascism worked out and sor forth by Leon Trotsky, which the SWP applied in the late 1930s, in 1946, and again in 1960, can serve to fight fascism whenezer and wherever it appears.
Dave Frankel Red Weekly 28 September 1973 Page 5
black british The strike committee of Mansfield Hosiery Mills, pietured ot the Racism & The Trode Unions Conference held earher this year, In their recent struggle for parity with white workers in that mill, they collided with the deeply entrenched racism which infects the British labour moment. Their trade union ledership actuolly sided with the monagement Black and White. by James Walvin (Allen Lane, E3-95p)
Black British, White British, Steve Conen Perhaps one of the last major growth points under capitalism s the production of books on racism. The vast majority are purely factual studies of racist ideas, their effects and growth, with little analysis of how and why such ideas devclapea or tic econonnc and social reasons for the racist consciousness of the British working-class. However much of the factual information they provide is useful for the development of a ciss analysis of racism. Walvin's book is the tote important because of its scope, He attempts a history of black people in Britain From 1555 to 1945 and the racist ideology which was developed as a justification for their brutal ill-treatment under conditions of slavery. He destroys the commonly held belief, even on the left, that racism developed only with the flowering of "high" imperialism at the end of the 19th century Scientific treatises were published ubout the sexual super-chilities of black men and women, almost before the slaves had touched our shores; and re patriation is not a new concept either - Elizabeth i issued a decree for this in 1596, on the grounds that the country was over-populated! RACIST IDEAS It was, however, in the 17th and 18th centuries that many of the mystifying ideas of racism were developed by the ruling-class, colonial plantations. But of course they rebounded equally savagely onto those blacks (slaves, escaped slaves and Tree men Living In the beartland of England itself. One "positive argument used for slavery was the natural laziness" of blacks and another in an citempt to defeat the strike to divide the working-class, with dockers at "WHITE LABOUR CANT BE FREE WHILE BLACK LABOUR IS IN CHAINS"
STOCKHOLM (PHOTO: Chris Davies, Report)