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London Jews and British Communism 1935-45
Henry Felix Srebrnik, London Jews and British Communism 1935-45, 272 pp., Vallentine Mitchell, 1995, £35 (hb), £17.50 (pb)
This book is a detailed exposition of the rise, decline and fall of the Communist Party in Stepney, East London. With ninety-four pages of notes and bibliography out of a total of 258 pages it must be acknowledged that the author has done his homework.
He describes the work of the Communists in the East End and recognises the failure of any other political organisation to help the people with their many and acute problems. In this he goes into great detail: the slum housing, the rapacious landlords, the backroom and backyard workshops, the rise of fascist activity, the intense concern as the Hitler menace grew, the campaign to aid democratic Spain and the opposition to this from the catholic hierarchy of the Stepney Labour Party and borough council. On all these issues the Communist Party led the campaigns and won significant victories - quite unique in the history of the people's struggle.
Before World War Two there were nearly a quarter of a million people in Stepney, of which there were estimated to be 80,000 Jews. Overwhelmingly they were engaged in the traditional trades clothing, furniture, small shopkeepers, with many employed in the small backyard workshops of which there were literally hundreds. Just like many of today's immigrant groups they were bitterly exploited, by employers and by landlords, and very few knew what rights they had (where they existed) and how to use them.
After the First World War, many joined trades unions. There was a Jewish Furniture Workers Union which conducted its business in Yiddish. It had its own banner inscribed with Hebrew letters. This union later amalgamated with the National Furniture Trades Association and became known as the No 15 branch, renowned for its militancy during the whole of the 1930s and after. The there was a Jewish Bakers' Union and I can remember the loaves from Kossoff's bakery which carried a little label 'Baked by Union Labour'.
Jewish people were mainly concentrated in three areas of Stepney — Whitechapel, Spitalfields and Mile End, with a little overspill into Bethnal Green and Bow. There was little movement into other areas and I hardly ever during my ten years' residence in Stepney, ventured into Wapping or Shadwell or Limehouse, and I was typical.
I cannot understand why the author refers in a number of places to 'Jewish-Irish antagonisms'. I never noticed these and I lived in Stepney. And it was never the subject of conversation. I think he is really referring to the antagonism between Jewish and Catholic groups on the local Stepney Council and Labour Party where 'Tammany Hall' politics were rife and the leaders were power brokers who used every trick in the trade to keep control. But the mass of the Jewish people knew little of this and were largely uninvolved on the political scene until Communist activity changed all that.
The author recognises this, but I was irritated at the way he kept referring to 'the Irish'. Many councillors were of Irish descent whose grandfathers and great grandfathers came to help build the great docks in Victorian times and stayed to live and work there. Hence they were to be found mainly in Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse, the riverside areas. But after two or three generations it is surely wrong to describe them as 'Irish'. He wouldn't describe me as Lithuanian because my mother was born there!
Chapter Four deals with the opposition to fascism and anti-semitism. Srebrnik writes 'In Stepney, the Jewish communists stood for opposition to fascism and all forms of racial prejudice. As Solly Kaye has since recalled, "The Stepney party was the leadership of the Stepney people, it led the agitation, led the propaganda, led the campaigning' against fascist incursions such as those of Mosley's BUF."' This calls for a correction. Although the Stepney party had a majority of Jews in its membership, all members played their part, Jews and non-Jews. Names? Ted Dickens, Joe Cowley, Pat Coleman and Ted Kirby were a few of the docker comrades who played a leading role in the fight to stop the fascist march through the East End on 4 October 1936, the Battle of Cable Street.
On the other hand, the author also writes that: 'Labour politicians, in contrast, were strangely quiescent concerning these matters...' Bearing all this in mind, one wonders why the author says: 'One important reason for Jewish attraction to the Communist Party in Britain was the CP's self-appointed role as a steadfast opponent to all manifestations of domestic fascism ...'
Henry Srebrnik also describes the work of the Communists in organising and leading the struggle against slum landlords, which at one stage involved ten thousand tenants in a borough-wide rent strike, many non-Jews as well as Jews, and broke down some of the isolation. The strike was successful and with the movement expanding into Bethnal Green and Poplar, the whole political character of the East End was changing.
The same kind of leadership was provided in the pre-war campaigns for deep-bomb-proof shelters, and the early part of the war for improvements in the primitive conditions in shelters like the vast 'Tilbury' off Commercial Road. And it was action by Stepney people that forced the government to agree to the use of underground stations as shelters for the people of London.
By 1945 the population of Stepney had dropped to 79,000. But the pre-war experiences and experience of the war itself reflected in the support given to communists in the first post-war elections. Phil Piratin was elected as MP for Mile End. Twelve communists were elected to the borough council and two, Ted Bramley and Jack Gaster, to the London County Council.
But the population change was relentless. The massive bombing, the slum clearance, the improved economic position of the children of former immigrants, led to many moving away from Stepney, often to the suburbs and beyond, resulting in lost support. And the new residents lacked the experience of the old. By 1948, with developments in the Soviet Union and the establishment of the State of Israel, sympathy for the Communist Party eroded. Many Jews believed that Israel would now provide them with the security they were seeking.
It is clear that in writing the book, the author's objective is to prove that what he calls 'ethnicity' prevails over all other influences. It is true that events since the dissolution of the Soviet Union have shown that the grip of ethnic and religious ideas are far stronger than we thought. It reinforces the Marxist maxim that 'ideas live longer than the material conditions that gave rise to them'.
The book is interesting, a good read and a good record of how the Communist Party won the leadership of a large proportion of the people of Stepney.
I am not so sure about its conclusions!
