Twin Victims of Judicial Murder

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The commitlee which decided Sacco and Vanzetli had had a lalr trial-painting by Den Shahn of capitalism, but to leave unhampered the activities of the working class, the enemies of capitalism, must appear ridiculous ... to anyone who recognises the existence of the class war instead of talking only about democracy."

Nowadays the Communist Party presents the crucial battle in which the workers defended themselves in Cable Street in 1936 as if it was entirely the Party's idea. This is an unconvincing falsification. Such a position would have been totally out of keeping with the policy of Stalin and the Comintern to "fight" fascism through class collaboration in "democratic" fronts with the "progressive" bourgeoisie. It was the Stalinists' refusal to see the fight against fascism as a class question which throughout the 1930s strengthened the hand of the fascists.

SHARPNESS

There is other more concrete evidence available on the role of the Communist Party in Cable Street, a role initially very like that of CP leaders in Lewisham on August 13, of avoiding the sharpness of the fight in the interests of class collaboration.

The following letter was sent to a CP member in the East End by the East London organiser of the CP.

28.9.36 Dear Joe, Arrangements re Mosley's march. A party meeting at Salmon and Ball and another at Poplar, i.e. near to each end of the march. ther side. Red Flag over a barricade in Bermondsey. Meetings to be kept orderly. Avoid clashes, keep order: no excuse for government to say we, like BUF, are hooligans. If Mosley decides to march, let him. Don't attempt disorder (time too short to get a "they shall not pass" policy across). It would only be a harmful stunt. Best see there is a strong meeting at each end of the march. Our biggest trouble will be to keep order and discipline. * The party line changed only 3 days before the march after it was evident that the decision to stop Mosley had already been made by the workers of East London despite the line of the CP.

The Mosleyites, with their usual police protectors, planned this provocative march on October 5, 1936, through London's poorest with its high proportion of Jews, as a gesture of intimidation.

The fascists were held out of the East End at Gardners Corner by 100 ,000 anti-fascists; and in the barricade battle at Cable Street some of the police surrendered to the anti-fascists.

This enormous physical show of strength was a decisive turning point for Mosley-the march was unable to continue and the Mosleyites were unable to display that action and control essential to a fascist movement.

DECLINE

From that moment the BUF went into a sharp decline. It was the action of the working class on the streets which halted the advance of fascism, rather than gestures like the Public Order Act of 1936 forbidding the wearing of uniforms.

Mosley's movement, not called upon by the ruling class, was smashed by working class awareness of the fascist danger; a danger which was understood in a political sense not only for its racism but as a deadly menace to the whole workers' movement.

There could be no clearer lesson for today of the need to build workers' defence organisations. The fight against the British Union of Fascists then, like that against the National Front today, is not just a battle against racialism; it is the defence of the independence and material conditions of the whole working class. The most important weapon in this fight is the Transitional Programme of the Fourth International.

*For opposing lis line und similar positions, the recipient Joe Jacobs wastfinally expelled from the CP and spent the remaining 40 years of his life, first in the Trotskyist movement and later in the anarchist movement. He died carlier this ycar The letter Joc Jacohs published by kind permission of Solidarity.

Fifty years ago this month two anarchists, Niccola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti became the victims of judicial murder by the state government of Massachusetts, It was seven years from the time of their arrest on trumped up charges of robbery and murder until their execution. During that time a campaign for their release mobilized support throughout the world.

Niccola Sacco had been active in a shoe workers strike in 1918. Bartolomeo Vanzetti led a long strike in a rope mill for which he was blacklisted, and at the time of his arrest was living as a fish peddler.

In the immediate post-war period the American radical movement was subjected to vicious attacks. In May 1920 Sacco and Vanzetti organised a meeting to protest the killing, in a Department of Justice prison in New York, of Andree Salredo an Italian printer "suspected of radicalism" • They were arrested in Brookton, Massachusetts, and framed for payroll robbery and murder.

INNOCENT

It is now accepted that they were innocent of the crime although they have yet to receive a pardon. The Massachusetts state government was reported in the Times (20.7.77) to be about to announce that Sacco and Vanzetti were not given a fair trial. As this article is written it is reported that the Massachusetts State Senate has voted • 21-14 to condemn Governor Michael Dukaki's proclaimation which declared August 23rd "Sacco and Vanzetti Day"

While the Liberal and Conservative wings of the American ruling class battle over the memory of two of our most famous class warriors we should direct ourselves to the lessons of the Sacco and Vanzetti case.

It should be a source of great pride to the present day Trotskyist movement that one of the chief founders of our movement, James P.Cannon, played a central role in the campaign to save Sacco and Vanzetti from the clutches of their would-be murderers.

At that time Cannon was one of the leaders of the American Communist Party and Secretary of an organisation set up to defend class war prisoners-International Labour Defence (ILD).

MASSES

Cannon correctly stresses the necessity to depend first and foremost on the workers movement.

"There is a higher count than that of the solemn reprobates who decreed the death of Sacco and Vanzetti. The labouring masses of America and the world have faith in Sacco and Vanzetti. It is time now to appeal finally to the masses. It is time for workers to say their word."

In the January 1927 issue of Labour Defender (paper of the ILD) Cannon outlines two contrasting policies in the defence campaign.

"One policy is the policy of the class struggle. It puts the centre of gravity in the protest movement of workers of America and the world. It puts all faith in the power of the masses and no faith whatever in the justice of the courts. While favouring all possible legal proceedings, it calls for agitation, publicity, demonstrations -organised protest on a national and international scale.

"The other policy is one of "respectability, of the "soft-pedal" and of ridiculous illusions about "justice" from the courts of the enemy. It relies mainly on legal proceedings. It seeks to blur the issue of the class struggle. It shrinks from the "vulgar noisy" demonstrations of the militant workers KEITH and throws mud of sland: them."

Those who waited under the shadow of the executioner were quite clear as to which policy they favoured. In a letter to the ILD Vanzetti wrote: "l am one o f the old guard who appreciate and approve the solidarity and have been solidarity with all ... Only the revolutionary workers, the people, can give us life and freedom.

The campaign of solidarity caught the imagination of workers throught America and Europe.

In every large city in the USA protest meetings were held. In New York 18,000 people attended a meeting at Madison Square Garden. Resolutions poured into the office of Massachusetts Governor Fuller. Leaflets, posters, buttons and articles ran into thousands. Eugene Debs, the great American pioneer socialist issued a call to action which proved to be his final public act in support of the oppressed masses. An indication of the scale of the campaign can be seen by the fact that in one evening baton wielding police smashed up 20 protest meetings in Chicago alone At times the movement reached strike proportions.

Support came trom the labour movement in Britain, Germany, Italy, France and the USSR.

After the Mass. Supreme Court decision to reject a defence appeal for a new trial Sacco and Vanzetti were sentenced to die on July 10th.

Cannon wrote "Such slender legal resources as yet remain must be utilised ...But the real hope must now be placed in the protest movement of the workers" (LD May 1927).

In the last months the defence committee had to contend with a whole range of attacks. Militant action by the workers forced stays of execution- a tactical ploy on the part of the authorities to take the steam out of the protest movement.

A series of convenient bomb explosions allowed Governor Fuller to point to the "irresponsible nature" of the friends of the prisoners.

Police action, such as that described above, was stepped up.

Threats against all foreign-born workers fromCongressmen Johnson and Serger: = Gesigne: :: =: of the campaign Mcies star : =-.. step on liberai suffer::: *=. paign included the suppression series of sympathetic articles b' " the 'New York World' Cannon drew out the class nature of the campaign by the ruling class in a meeting held 13th in Chicago.

'We say to you, our friends and our chairman, before they turn on the switch, that the real aim is not only to burn Sacco and Vanzetti in the electric chair but to burn the labour movement of America."

We must always remember that the law does not stand above classes but is designed as an instrument of the ruling class. The methods used by the ILD in the Sacco and Vanzetti campaign serve as a basis for our fight today. Use the courts where you can but start from the mobilisation of the workers.

Agents of the ruling class within the labour movement will seek to divert the movement into compromise.

In the October 1927 issue of LD Cannon lashed the official leaders of the labour movement who had fought the militants and in the case of the AFL leader Green appealed to Fuller to give Sacco and Vanzetti who were innocent of any crime.

life sentences instead of execution!

As we know now the campaign to save Sacco and Vanzetti failed But if the Massachusetts State Gorernment thought they had silences Sacco and Vanzetti on August 23r2 1927 they were wrong. As James P Cannon wrote two days after ine execution " •.. their names will live forever, for the electric current that killed them has burned their names permanently into the hearts of the toilers of the world. Their miserable executioners will be buried in oblivion while the names and struggles of Sacco and Vanzetti still remain a stirring guide to the masses, an inspiration to the oppressed everywhere"

Cannon's words have stood the test of time. Whenever the of pressed face the violence of capitalist courts and "justice" the names Sacco and Vanzetti are evoked That is a testimony to the courage shown by the anarchists and the type of campaign waged in the::

defence.

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PRESS GANG Minority Ruke Nuclear power plai West Savage attacks on anti-nuclear Germany John The Press has stuch diligently but with increasing difficulty to its task of denigrating the working class upsurge over pay.

No sooner has one section of workers been caught in the withering fire of its editorials than two more jump up fully armed in its place.

It is not surprising therefore that Fleet Streel, radio and TV hailed the 'rebellion' at Longbridge as a liberating army.

In jubiliation the caution to the winds.

No more would the angry tramp of workers be heard outside the window. We were on the verge of a new dawn when the production lines run non-stop and the only Press threw shop steward. They their enemy was.

*When one remembers Mr. Robinson's 26-year-old affiliation to the Communist Party, and looks at the ambulating shambles to which a great British company has been reduced, one marvels at how much has been endured by such people"

The Sunday Telegruph described Hill as "the man who has become Britain's latest folk-hero" and found space on their front page for an interview with his wife, testifying to his principles, among which are apparently a lack of interest in "politics or unions" and a refusal to take on the role of shop steward Even in this piece of left bashing Mrs. Hill was unable to keep reality