Skip to main content
Regional secretary with the National Education Union
Communists were central to the Battle of Cable Street
You can’t write the CP out of history, says MARY DAVIS

Remarkably, the roles of the Communist Party and the Jewish community has been wilfully unremarked upon by sections of the left in their clamour to claim Cable Street as an anti-racist victory spearheaded by undefined socialists. History teaches us otherwise.

Alone in the labour movement, the Communist Party was at the forefront of the fight against fascism in Britain. 

Anti-semitism was the essential feature of 20th-century fascism: a fact readily understood by communists and Jews. Mainly centred in London’s East End, the Party’s membership among Jews was out of all proportion to the size of the Britain’s Jewish community, accounting for around a tenth of total CP membership.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
A woman showing signs of depression (picture posed by a mode
International Women's Day 2025 / 8 March 2025
8 March 2025
Women’s hard-fought-for rights are facing sustained and serious ideological attack. Let this International Women’s Day be a call to arms, says Professor MARY DAVIS
Memorial candles are lit during a Holocaust Memorial Day com
Holocaust Memorial Day 2025 / 27 January 2025
27 January 2025
The proponents and enablers of Holocaust distortion and anti-communism now have increasing political power and influence in a number of European countries, obstructing an understanding of the reality of fascism’s crimes, warns MARY DAVIS
A cartoon in the satirical magazine Punch after the letter w
Features / 29 October 2024
29 October 2024
The infamous forged missive exposed how the Establishment worked to discredit Labour despite its loudly declared anti-communist stance, writes MARY DAVIS, analysing the 1924 government’s destruction
Protesters during a Million Women Rise march from Oxford Str
International Women's Day 2024 / 8 March 2024
8 March 2024
Despite some steps forward for women’s rights, the tasks ahead remain daunting as in many parts of the world these rights are being eroded and the clock is being turned back, argues MARY DAVIS
Similar stories
THEY SHALL NOT PASS! Blue Plaque unveiling for Battle of Hol
Features / 28 February 2025
28 February 2025
An attempt to give the church credit for the mobilisation of 30,000 anti-fascists in Leeds in 1936 is an insult to the communists and socialists who fought the fascists, writes SAM KIRK
A mural depicting the Battle of Cable Street
Features / 4 October 2024
4 October 2024
DAVID ROSENBERG assesses the far-right threat in the wake of the summer's Islamophobic pogroms and asks what lessons we can learn from the 1930s
NO PASARAN: The crowd at Holbeck Moor with police cavalry
Features / 30 September 2024
30 September 2024
The mobilisation in 1936 of 30,000 anti-fascists to drive Sir Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts out of Leeds has been commemorated in the city, reports PETER LAZENBY
A youth aims a fence post towards police during an anti-immi
Opinion / 9 August 2024
9 August 2024
While far-right elements must be identified, isolated and opposed, a law and order response won't address the social conditions fuelling the unrest in Britain's forgotten communities, writes JACK MORRISS