The front page of the Daily Worker of Monday 5 October is now iconic. 

“MOSLEY DID NOT PASS: EAST LONDON ROUTS THE FASCISTS.” The headline echoed around the world. But what of the days leading up to the battle? Here we review the build-up through the pages of the worker’s daily.

On Friday 2 October, the headline read: “East End rallies against fascism,” with a subheading pointing out that four mayors, representing Stepney, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Hackney and Poplar had visited the Home Office to seek a ban on the march.

There’s a trend among quick-quip liberal historians to state, without any evidence, that the Communist Party only blocked Mosley reluctantly or because it came under pressure from its London district.

The heading of the main article of the day tells a quite different story. Under the announcement “Youth Meet Transferred” an article points to the “militarist nature” of the fascist operations. The fascist command HQ would be at 222a Bethnal Green Road under the command of Sir George Duckworth King.

Through the paper, the CP called on “all Londoners” to demonstrate and promised speakers such as the legendary Tom Mann and Isabel Brown, Dave Springhall and Willie Cohen. There is also an announcement that the Saturday edition in London, will carry an extra anti-fascist supplement — “the right stuff to rally the masses against fascist provocation.”

Tension was already high as Mosley announced his squads would march in military formation and uniform. They would be inspected by the “Leader” at the assembly point in Royal Mint Street.

But in the surrounding streets, hundreds of youth were already knocking door to door to canvass for a petition launched by the Jewish Peoples Council calling for a ban. The London communists warned Mosley was trying to provoke civil war.

On Saturday 3 October the Daily Worker carried the front-page news that the Jewish Peoples Council petition had reached the 100,000 signature mark in just 48 hours.

A delegation of local MPs, priests and London Trades Council officers visited the Home Office to restate the case for a ban. 

A leader of the local council said “the population in East London, consisting of different races and creeds, had lived together in peace and harmony for generations until the organised fascist provocation of race against race.” 

On the same day — “left” historians note — the ILP issued its only leaflet calling on workers to join the counter demonstration. By then the Communists had established spies in Mosley’s camp, had medical units formed, agreed with local builders to let them use materials as barricades, met with its members driving trams, one of whom later left his vehicle to block the path to the fascists and allocated different vantage points to its London branches. Mosley was not coming through.

The Daily Worker’s graphic artists had also been at work, and the 3 October supplement carried a detailed map for those who didn’t know the area. 

The paper declared: “No liberty for the assassins of liberty,” adding: “Let Gentiles and Jews unite in defence of freedom.” 

The cosmopolitan nature of the East End allowed communists to draw many parallels between the situation on local streets and events abroad. They took the opportunity to hammer home the links between Mosley and Hitler’s concentration camps, the destruction of Badajoz and Irun in Spain and the gassing of innocents in Abyssinia.

Little did they know then that Mosley would fly straight after the rout to Germany to be married in the home of Goebbels, with Hitler, the bestial dictator in person, among the guests.

Many defenders of east London’s streets took such parallels literally and adopted the same slogan as the defenders of Madrid: “They shall not pass.” According to one article, this was chalked on every pavement in east London. 

The centre pages were filled with a telling montage of photos proving the headline: “Fascism brings war, misery, death — democracy asks for peace, life.” Overleaf it carried an expose of the “men, money and menace” behind Mosley. 

The Daily Worker deserves much respect for the campaign it waged against anti-semites in this decade. In the Saturday edition it explained, “fascism attacks the Jews in order to conceal its real aims — the attack on the workers, on socialism, on trade unions, on every democratic liberty, on peace.” 

It quoted fascist spokesman William Joyce, later executed as a traitor: “We make no apology for saying we intend to destroy democracy and to obliterate the word from our vocabulary.”  He was hanged but his boss was to escape the noose.

The Young Communist League announced it would march from Stepney at 11am on the Sunday, with the aim to “bar the way to fascism.” The YCL’s original plan for the Sunday was a march on Trafalgar Square, donned in blue overalls (a kind of worker’s uniform used by Republicans in Spain) to protest against Franco. Instead it would march in the East End. The call to wear blue overalls remained in place. 

The slogan for the march would be: “Spain’s youth bar the way to Franco’s troops — East London youth bar the way to fascism.”

The Ex-Servicemen’s National Movement Against Fascism took out an advert: “Stand side by side as in 1914-1918, with old comrades against Mosley.” 

The Worker also encouraged readers to buy a new book by Georgi Dimitrov, leader of the Communist International, The Working Class Against War & Fascism.

The scene was now set for the biggest political confrontation of the 20th century and the people, guided and largely organised by the Communist Party, won.

On the streets of the East End in the week that followed, sales of the Daily Worker had never been higher.

Phil Katz is CP centenary project officer.