Physical Resistance: A Hundred Years of Anti-Fascism

310 Pages·2013·1.97 MB·English

by  Dave Hann

Physical Resistance
Or, A Hundred Years of Anti-Fascism

Dave Hann

Winchester, UK
Washington, USA
First published by Zero Books, 2013
Zero Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station
Approach, Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK
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Text copyright: Dave Hann 2012
ISBN: 978 1 78099 177 1
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no
part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written
permission from the publishers.
The rights of Dave Hann as author have been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design: Stuart Davies
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION by Louise Purbrick 1. The workers’ next step against
fascism: 1924 – 1934
2. A cause worth fighting for: 1935 – 1940
3. Hold Madrid for we are coming: 1936 – 1939
4. On Guard: 1940 –1953
5. You can’t beat fascism with fine carpets on the floor: 1953 – 1967
6. One, two, three and a bit, the National Front is a load of shit: 1966 – 1979
7. No Retreat: 1979-1990
8. Getting out of bed: 1990-2011
Postscript
Bibliography
In memory of Dave Hann, with respect and in solidarity. Dedicated to all the
people whose histories helped create this book and all those who stood alongside
them in their fight against fascism.
Introduction
by Louise Purbrick
Doesn’t a breath of air that pervaded earlier days caress us as well? In the
voices we hear, isn’t there an echo of the now silent ones?
Walter Benjamin
When Dave Hann died on 29 September 2009, he left £30 in the bank and a
manuscript of over 100,000 words. He had little money of his own because as a
jobbing builder, he would work for the cost of his materials plus a day rate then
hand over most of his earnings to me to put into our household budget. Dave’s
manuscript was, and is, a far more substantial inheritance than any amount of
money, large or small. It represents his commitment to the politics of anti-
fascism and his desire to tell the stories of people like him. Dave fought fascism
and his is an activist’s history of the anti-fascist struggle.
He started writing Physical Resistance, working under the tentative title A Cause
Worth Fighting For, in 2005. But, before he made the decision to start typing in
his opening sentences, he had, like many anti-fascist activists, acquired a great
deal of knowledge about the struggle in which he participated. Reading about
collective actions or individual lives in leaflets, pamphlets and books bought and
sold at anti-fascist meetings is part of a culture of activism. Anti-fascists have
produced their own literature recording its strategies and struggles, which are put
to use in discussions and debates. Past struggles inform present ones; they
provide a guide. Also, Dave liked books. Our shelves were always full of books
about anti-fascism.
Writing his book, this book, was part of the rhythm of our lives. We ran out of
space on our shelves for the multifarious materials he bought, usually through
second hand bookshops or internet dealers, to help his research. He was always
pleased get hold of another pamphlet written by a 1930s trade unionist, more
biographies of International Brigaders or a little known International Socialists
publication; I did not always hide my dismay about where we might put it all in
our tiny terraced house. Books and papers were stacked in piles in the corners of
our living room. If Dave had a break between building jobs, he would work on
his book. He would write in the hours between dropping and collecting our
his book. He would write in the hours between dropping and collecting our
children from school. When I returned from work, he might start again in order
to finish a paragraph, sitting at the same table where I sit now to write this. Dave
wrote paragraph by paragraph and produced a linear narrative that wove together
life histories and political actions in strict chronological order. Occasionally, he
would go back over a paragraph and add more details or amend a date but he did
not plan, produce drafts or edit his writing in the ways that academics, like
myself, have been schooled, cutting our cloth to suit our means. Dave Hann’s
practice of writing did not conform to the conventions of the textbook, academic
monograph, chapter in an edited collection or journal articles. It is, for example,
longer. The length of the manuscript straightforwardly reflected what Dave
believed had to be said rather than what it might be possible to include in the
race for a deadline or the completion of research within limits of funding.
Physical Resistance was not Dave’s first piece of writing. Under two
pseudonyms, Saboteur then Will Scarlet, he had been a punk poet and, when I
first met him in 1994, he was an editor and writer for Red Attitude, the
Manchester United Anti-Fascists fanzine. In 2003 he, and his friend Steve Tilzey,
put together their biographies as anti-fascists in No Retreat. Spanning the late
1970s to the mid-1990s and their experiences of Anti-Nazi League and Anti-
Fascist Action, it is both a celebration of fight against fascism and a
contemporary tale of comradeship and friendship between people thrown
together through the act of political struggle. It was received by most of its
readers in something like these terms, but was also caught up in the sectarianism
that besets political organisations and the tendency to vilify character rather
than acknowledge political differences. There was only one criticism Dave took
seriously: he had written about himself. He was only one of many. That he knew.
He felt honoured just to stand in line. Most anti-fascists understand that
everything they do from writing, distributing or reading anti-fascist texts,
defending anti-fascist events, breaking up fascist meetings, halting fascist
marches, fighting them whenever necessary is a collective endeavour. This was
origin of Physical Resistance: to write the collective history of anti-fascism.
Letter from Howard ‘Andy’ Andrews
Such a history could not be written using books, not even the number piling high
on our floor. Dave sought out anti-fascists to interview. He sent letters to
International Brigaders. A page from Howard ‘Andy’ Andrews is typical of the
courtesy of their replies and they not only spoke about their experiences in the
Spanish Civil War but involvement in anti-fascism before they volun-teered and
after they returned.
Dave spoke to people he knew, or knew of, from his days of street activism.
When unable to locate participants in anti-fascist movements to which he had
read references, he advertised. On three successive days in June 2005, the
Morning Star ran the following request: ‘I would be particularly interested in
hearing from anyone involved in the V Corps, the 43 and 62 Groups and the
Yellow Star Movement.’ Of the people whose accounts of anti-fascism are
included in Physical Resistance, some are already, like Morris Beckman, heroes
of its history. Others, such as Betty Davis or Sheila Lahr, are not well known.
But all hold the history together. The lives of anti-fascists overlap. For example,
student activist Nick Mullen and former 43 Group member Monty Goldman
were both in Red Lion Square in 1974 when Kevin Gately was killed by a police
baton charge. They did not know each other or share a party affiliation. Anti-
fascists from different political organisations were located by Dave not in order
to judge them or weigh up the success or failure of their party’s line but to
ensure that person’s contribution to a collective history was recognised. Physical
Resistance is thus also a response to the sectarianism of left wing activism to
which Dave, and far too many others, have been subjected.
Instinctively, he adopted something approaching an oral history technique. He
was a quiet person and accustomed to letting people have their say. He would
return from interviewing to report: “That went well, I only really had to ask one
question.” However, Dave also prepared for interviews using knowledge
acquired from experience or research even when, as was the case with Mickey
O’Farrell, he and the person interviewed had once belonged to the same
organisation. Dave used a small unobtrusive Dictaphone then transcribed from
its micro cassette tapes. The words of anti-fascists are at the heart of the book.
The histories they contained were followed up through his reading of local
newspapers reproduced in the microfilm collections of regional archives or
reports in pamphlet collections, such as that deposited in London School of
Economics. Dave still continued to buy books, often small print run or out of
print publications only available through second hand internet or side street
markets, many having been de-accessioned from libraries to make way for
digital resources. He checked dates and accounts of actions; he tried to get the
facts right. Whilst I have a series of degrees to prove that I am historian, Dave
only ever asked my advice about practical institutional matters, such as how to
get a Reader ’s Ticket for the British Library. The academic practice of history,
which is often based on the assumption that the story has been told and all that is
left to do is interpret it, was regarded by Dave as almost irrelevant, interesting,
perhaps, but not especially useful. He was a self-taught historian. If I was a
romantic, I would be tempted to call Dave Hann one of the last of the
autodidacts.
Dave was diagnosed with cancer at the end of February 2009. He only worked
on his book two or three times during the short period of illness before his death
at the end of September. He conducted one interview in August that he did not
have the time to transcribe. He tried to write on a few occasions. Concentration
through the haze of chemotherapy and painkillers was never easy. I recall that he
asked me to remind him how to double space lines of text. At my reply (go to
Format and select Paragraph), he was irritated with himself that such a routine
piece of information had escaped him. Dave found his cancer diagnosis and the
physical weariness that treatment induces difficult to accept. “My body’s
strength is everything. It’s my work and my politics,” he said. We discussed how
he wanted to end his book and the interviews required to complete it. I argued
that as soon as he was well, rather than worrying about picking up building jobs,
he should work on his book until it was done. With some discomfort, I
remember joking that he better not die and leave it to me. We write in very