Failure of Political Extremism in Interwar Britain
During the 1920s and early 1930s European governments were challenged by both enormous levels of unemployment and an international economic depression, which allowed opportunities for the rise of extremist groups on both the left and right. Russia was taken over by a communist uprising after 1917. In 1922 Italy became a fascist state and Germany came under Nazi rule in 1933. Poland, Spain, Portugal, Austria and Hungary among others saw governments moving away from democracy towards authoritarian regimes. Compared with the successes of extremism in the rest of Europe, Britain’s radical right and left were almost complete failures in the interwar period. This essay with examine the factors that had a hand in these failures. It will conclude that the relative mildness of the effects of the international depression experienced by Britain is probably the most useful factor in explaining the sharp contrast in political developments. It will also examine, however, important societal characteristics that created an especially difficult environment for extremism, tactical errors made by the communists and fascists that helped stymie their progress as well as effective steps taken by the existing moderate parties to quell extremist support.
Before a discussion of the failure of extremism it is important to clarify what is meant by “extremism” and what might be counted as the success of an extremist political party. Andrew Thorpe identifies three characteristics of an extremist doctrine. First, extremists reject parliamentary methods or use them only as a means in a broader struggle for power. Secondly, their aim is immediate radical change in political, economic and social structures. Finally, extremists are willing to use violence and unconstitutional methods to gain power, and to suppress opposition. (According to these criteria we can find excellent examples of extremism in the governments of Russia, Italy and Germany mentioned above.) Central then, to the idea of extremism is the opposition and overcoming of an existing parliamentary system by whatever means necessary. It follows that we might count the success of an extremist political party as amassing enough support necessary to pose a realistic and plausible threat of overcoming and seizing power from the existing political structure. Such an interpretation in a way delineates a political success from an ideological one. We could say that a communist political party was successful if it was able to organize the kind of mass working class support capable of threatening revolution. That a successful revolution never came about under these circumstances might be called a failure of Communism as an ideology. This essay will essay will understand the failure of extremism to be of the former, political variety, though it is clear that extremism in interwar Britain failed on both of these levels.
Now, before examining the social and political factors that lead to the specific failures of the both the communists and fascists in Britain, let us identify the important economic conditions that might have opened the door to extremist success, though, as I will argue were eventually key to its failure. Certainly during most of the interwar period Britain’s economic outlook was far from optimal. The stock market crash in the United States in 1929 had facilitated a global depression, the effects of which even relatively insulated Britain could not escape. One major manifestation of the depression, and probably the most important one politically, was unemployment. The country had been plagued by consistently high levels of unemployment and the problem was exasperated by the depression. The unemployed numbered over one million throughout the interwar period, comprising at least ten percent of the insured working population in the 1920s and over twenty percent in the early 1930s, and its solution fuelled the lion’s share of the important political debate.
Political debate revolved around three economic theories of how to remedy the situation, though it was usually dominated by the far left and centre. The traditional argument from the far left was that unequal wealth distribution and low wages cause the lower classes to lack purchasing power to create a demand sufficient to sustain industrial growth, producing periodic collapse and creating unemployment. The orthodox position (and the policy pursued during the period) was one of carefully encouraged deflation of incomes to bring the economy back down to the pre war gold standard, which would combat the problems caused by the disorganization of the international monetary system. Finally, the far right, most importantly that of Oswald Mosley, argued that deflation was harmful in that in reduced expectations of profit which decreased entrepreneurial activity, and that the health of the industrial sector should be paramount. Skidelsky argues that this economically driven political environment was deadlocked in the 1929 in a theoretical debate between the Labour party’s socialist position and the moderate and conservative adherence to laissez-faire capitalism, both of which were concerned more with intellectual consistency than solutions addressing immediate real world needs of the working class. “Hence the political situation was ‘frozen’ on the basis of mass unemployment.”
Obviously an environment of high unemployment produces certain opportunities for extremist groups, especially if the government is perceived to be failing to remedy the situation. Britain’s economic and political plight as Skidelsky portrays it certainly sheds some light on modest gains made by extremist groups. His analysis is most relevant to the creation by Mosley (an ex-Labour MP) of the British Union of Fascists in 1932 when employment was near its peak at 2.9 million. The BUF, by the very nature of offering a fascist solution, was able to capitalize on government inefficiencies. Additionally, it is undeniable that whatever success British communists enjoyed in the interwar period was hugely due to the economic factor of unemployment. This is evident in the character of its most successful venture, the National Unemployed Workers Movement (though whether this could be called an even modest success will be considered below).
However, closer analysis shows two characteristics of interwar Britain that suggest that even if the economy gave the extremist parties the opportunity to surface, it was also a main contribution to their eventual failure to gain the kind of mass support that they did elsewhere in Europe. First, the economic deterioration of Britain was simply less extreme than in other places in Europe, and thus the political results it gave rise to were less extreme. “Compared with most of continental Europe, Britain’s experience was undramatic.” While many Germans were trying to come to grips with the fact that wild inflation had wiped out their entire life savings Britain was actually experiencing deflation, which was government pursued and greatly less destabilizing. Even during what many called the “Hungry Thirties,” food shortages were never as severe as they were in some parts of Russia where “economic activity all but ceased and cannibalism had to be practised to support life.” Also, the shock of a depression was less harsh in Britain because it didn’t contrast sharply with an economic boom as it did in the United States and some parts of Europe, but signalled merely the increasing seriousness of an existing problem.
Secondly, the economic factors actively hurt political extremist parties in the mid 1930s when Britain experienced an economic growth rate of 4 percent and a plummeting unemployment rate starting in 1934. Economic recovery meant decreased support for both extremes. The number of unemployed fell by more than half, greatly diminishing any radical sentiment that might have been exploited in the populous. It also restored some faith in the National Government’s ability to improve economic conditions, undermining radical, especially fascist attempts, to portray revolution as the only way forward. This development seemed to prove most damning for the Fascists. Martin Walker argues that it “put the BUF into a decline from which it never really recovered,” and Pugh writes that “the underlying reason for the BUF’s decline almost certainly lay in the modest economic revival in 1934.”
But economic factors are, of course, not the complete story for the failure of interwar extremism. Let us now examine the communist and fascist parties each in isolation to determine the effects played by entrenched societal characteristics, tactical and strategic errors made by extremist political parties, and steps taken by the existing moderate parties to quell extremist support.
The failure of the British Communists most importantly represented by the NUWM had important roots in existing social structure of the British working class. Ross McKibbin convincingly observes four major social realities in Britain that prevented massive working class support for revolutionary communism. While McKibbin applies these arguments specifically to the aversion to the far left, many could be similarly applicable to the fascist right. First, no collective solidarity existed among the working class. He argues that this was the result of a number of factors, not the least of which was the small scale of industrial organization. The average factory in interwar Britain employed less than 30 workers. This meant that even workers among the same industry were largely isolated from one another, a problem exacerbated by the fact that unions never claimed more than half of the working class, and often much less than that. It additionally meant that workers were not as alienated from their employers as they would have been in the larger factories in other countries.
Secondly Britain was home to a rich working class associational culture. The working class were able to pursue interests outside of their work. Social identification could be found in sports, hobbies and religion. The working class enjoyed real wages that allowed them some real autonomy in the pursuit of various social activities. “The result was that any working class party had to compete with a working class culture which was stable and relatively sophisticated.”
Thirdly, British workers were relatively integrated into state institutions by means of an amorphous, inherited worldview. They were intricately tied to traditions like the Monarchy, which now provided a sort of emotionally pleasing and politically uncontentious link with the upper classes. The parliamentary structure, as well as the crown, held an “ideological hegemony which, if anything, increased throughout the century.”
Finally, the working class had rallied behind a group of leaders who were insufficiently radical to adopt revolutionary stance. By the 1920s Labour had established itself as the party of the working class, and was lead by a group known as the big five which included Ramsy MacDonald, Arthur Henderson, Phillip Snowdon, J.H. Thomas and J.R. Clynes. All five were prone to disagreements on a number of issues, but were all aligned on several basic points of consensus. “Nowhere was this more true than on the rejection of political extremism and unconstitutional action.”
In fact the rejection of extremism by the leaders of Labour led to outright political battle between the Labour party and the communists seeking to gain acceptance in its ranks. The activities of the Labour party to undermine communism in Britain can be counted among one of the chief reasons for communist failure to enlist massive working class support. In 1921 the NUWM was founded when British communists set out on a mission to mobilize the support of the unemployed. Two years later that organization attempted to align itself with the Trade Union Council, the country’s most powerful union organization and financial backer of the Labour party, but was rejected on the grounds of its extremism. After several other attempts to align itself with the more moderate left organizations in the 1920s (and after Labour began to fear being drawn in comparisons with Russian Bolsheviks) communists were banned from Labour’s ranks in 1924, and banned from TUC membership in 1928. They were perhaps most devastatingly rebuffed when in 1933 they called for a “united front” against fascism on the European continent. After several years of decrying Labour as fascists they then ask for their help to oppose the fascists, only to be denied, making them appear all at once incoherent, powerless and unimportant. The Secretary of the TUC at the time predicted that “one of the most amusing spectacles which contemporary history will reveal will be the frenzied attempts that are being made by the Communist movement to ingratiate itself with organized labour.”
Other important tactical errors were made on the part of the communist leadership as well that helped to doom it to the relatively meagre support it commanded throughout the period. One of the most devastating political missteps of the communist party was to make the recruitment of the unemployed the cornerstone of its revolutionary strategy. The NUWM hoped to organize the consistently high number of unemployed people into a force that could push for greater unemployment benefits, reasoning that this would have two effects. First they hoped it would decrease the lower classes willingness to work, weakening industry. They also thought it would ensure that workers were less afraid to mobilize against capital because they would not fear being fired. The organization did attract fairly large numbers of the unemployed: 50,000 members joined in 1926 and the depression began in 1929 the ranks swelled further. These members were not, however revolutionaries. They were simply unemployed men and woman happy to accept any benefits the NUWM could win for them. The organization was a temporary solution until its members could find work, and therefore while it is true that the communist-affiliated organization could claim to be increasing in size, there was little perceivable increase in its political influence or activity. In 1935 when the organization actually enjoyed a small victory in successfully rallying to have unemployment cuts restored the victory could hardly be counted as one of communist influence. Ultimately any “victories” of the NUWM were paradoxically damaging to the greater communist movement:
“Only the benefits system gave the NUWM a reason for existence in the eyes of its members; but the continuation of benefits prevented unemployment from becoming the destabilising factor the Communists sought … the political irony for the Communist party was the less it spoke of revolution the more sympathy it aroused.”
The Fascist movement (here mainly the BUF) faced a similar set of predicaments in interwar Britain. It was inherently at odds with several deeply entrenched social structures, lacked a strong internal organizational structure, was often politically inept, and faced opposition from existing political structure. I will now treat each of these factors in turn.
Perhaps the most important factor that led to the failure of fascism in Britain is the fact that many of its tenants were largely alien to the British Political culture. The BUF’s appeals to the population’s baser instincts of chauvinism and distrust of immigrants and minorities, as well as its heavy support in east London, a reputation for street corner politics, thuggery and corruption caused the party’s association for “low politics.” Whether or not these charges were accurate “public opinion viewed the BUF in an increasingly negative light in the 1930s, and came to blame the BUF for the major share in the public order problems which resulted from its activities.” As a result their political endeavours were taken by most in the public to be the radical and impracticable cries of those on the political fringe.
The BUF also suffered from association with German and Italian Fascisms, the excesses’ of which were becoming increasingly well known. The party’s propaganda claiming that its Black Shirt Uniforms (banned by the Public Order Act in 1936) were ancient British symbols was not widely accepted. As political violence grew abroad with the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 and Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia in 19
35 the fascists took more heat at home. This distrust was strengthened by the fact that Mosley, the party’s leader and driving force, failed to come out against the sinister behaviour of foreign fascists, and seemed almost to purposefully turn a blind eye to it, illustrated by the “Mind Britain’s Business’” campaign of 1935. The BUF was also associated (and rightly so) with the alien political tradition of anti-Semitism. Although this tactic was capable of gaining support where it had something of a history, in places like the East End of London, it was enormously counter productive across the far more proliferate moderate areas of the country.
The contentious political traditions subscribed to by the BUF can partly exp
lain its internal weakness and disorganization. For one, the party was highly fragmented, largely based in the East End of London and South East England, with only a few bastions of support in southern Wales and Scotland. Another more important source of disorganization was Oswald Mosley, the party’s enigmatic founder and leader. Mosley’s was a strong personality, and in his day an unrivalled public orator. While these characteristics were key to the successful recruitment of many of the party’s supporters, Mosley’s uncompromising nature was an important factor in the weakness of the party’s platform. Mosley “appeared unable to accept the criticism of his ideas and had to operate in an autocratic fashion … This lack of criticism led to an increasingly unrealistic fascist doctrine based on utopian assumptions.” As with the case of his massively unpopular economic plans for the Empire, he often ignored political realities.
Another of weakness of Mosley’s, and therefore of the party, was his delegation of organizational and administrative responsibility. The party’s activity and organization was reminiscent of Mosley’s focus on speaking over political manoeuvring. The party focused on assembling Black Shirts in uniform to march through London and incite passion, instead of building the party from the ground up with the dissemination of platforms, information and arguments. By 1936 J.F.C. Fuller would reorganize the movement “along military lines” to some sort of functioning political machine, the change came after the economic recovery of 1934 that dealt the party a blow from which it would not recover. The party was in decline and the reorganization came too late.
The opposition of the government in power was also an important factor in the BUF’s decline. First, Fascist parties tend to approach criticism of the sitting governments along nationalistic lines, and the British Fascists were no exception. However, there were several factors that made this difficult in the 1930s. First, it was hard to talk of a realistic “British decline” after the peace treaties after World War one had seen Britain come out as a stunning victor (unlike, for instance, Italy, who felt disenfranchised by the results). Secondly, as mentioned above, 1934 saw the beginning of economic recovery in Britain. Finally, the BUF claimed its goal to be the overthrow of sectarian loyalties, rooted in class, which would “give way to a rallying of ‘patriotic’ Britons behind a non-class, non-sectarian movement.” This call could not have come at a worse time for the BUF. The current government was a National Coalition, headed by the hugely popular Labour minister Ramsay MacDonald, largely composed of a group of moderate conservatives with the support of a good number of Liberal MPs and a handful of Labour candidates. Surely if the people wanted national unity they were better with the current government than with a fringe party with no firm base of support.
In conclusion, the comparative mildness of the effects of the international depression on inter-war Britain, coupled with modest economic recoveries of the mid 1930s probably played the most devastating role in the frustration of the British extremist political parties. It simply showed that there was no compelling reason to abandon the heavily entrenched parliamentary system, which the British were perhaps already less likely to cast off than a number of the nations that did fall to extremism in the 1920s and 30s. Reality, however, cannot be condensed to the absolute primacy of one factor over another. The truth, as always, lies in some combination of all of the factors, the absolute importance of which it may be impossible to say. We can say, however, that the social and political structures in place in the 1930s were of great importance to the way events developed.
Sorry, haven't entered the footnotes in from the original.
Before a discussion of the failure of extremism it is important to clarify what is meant by “extremism” and what might be counted as the success of an extremist political party. Andrew Thorpe identifies three characteristics of an extremist doctrine. First, extremists reject parliamentary methods or use them only as a means in a broader struggle for power. Secondly, their aim is immediate radical change in political, economic and social structures. Finally, extremists are willing to use violence and unconstitutional methods to gain power, and to suppress opposition. (According to these criteria we can find excellent examples of extremism in the governments of Russia, Italy and Germany mentioned above.) Central then, to the idea of extremism is the opposition and overcoming of an existing parliamentary system by whatever means necessary. It follows that we might count the success of an extremist political party as amassing enough support necessary to pose a realistic and plausible threat of overcoming and seizing power from the existing political structure. Such an interpretation in a way delineates a political success from an ideological one. We could say that a communist political party was successful if it was able to organize the kind of mass working class support capable of threatening revolution. That a successful revolution never came about under these circumstances might be called a failure of Communism as an ideology. This essay will essay will understand the failure of extremism to be of the former, political variety, though it is clear that extremism in interwar Britain failed on both of these levels.
Now, before examining the social and political factors that lead to the specific failures of the both the communists and fascists in Britain, let us identify the important economic conditions that might have opened the door to extremist success, though, as I will argue were eventually key to its failure. Certainly during most of the interwar period Britain’s economic outlook was far from optimal. The stock market crash in the United States in 1929 had facilitated a global depression, the effects of which even relatively insulated Britain could not escape. One major manifestation of the depression, and probably the most important one politically, was unemployment. The country had been plagued by consistently high levels of unemployment and the problem was exasperated by the depression. The unemployed numbered over one million throughout the interwar period, comprising at least ten percent of the insured working population in the 1920s and over twenty percent in the early 1930s, and its solution fuelled the lion’s share of the important political debate.
Political debate revolved around three economic theories of how to remedy the situation, though it was usually dominated by the far left and centre. The traditional argument from the far left was that unequal wealth distribution and low wages cause the lower classes to lack purchasing power to create a demand sufficient to sustain industrial growth, producing periodic collapse and creating unemployment. The orthodox position (and the policy pursued during the period) was one of carefully encouraged deflation of incomes to bring the economy back down to the pre war gold standard, which would combat the problems caused by the disorganization of the international monetary system. Finally, the far right, most importantly that of Oswald Mosley, argued that deflation was harmful in that in reduced expectations of profit which decreased entrepreneurial activity, and that the health of the industrial sector should be paramount. Skidelsky argues that this economically driven political environment was deadlocked in the 1929 in a theoretical debate between the Labour party’s socialist position and the moderate and conservative adherence to laissez-faire capitalism, both of which were concerned more with intellectual consistency than solutions addressing immediate real world needs of the working class. “Hence the political situation was ‘frozen’ on the basis of mass unemployment.”
Obviously an environment of high unemployment produces certain opportunities for extremist groups, especially if the government is perceived to be failing to remedy the situation. Britain’s economic and political plight as Skidelsky portrays it certainly sheds some light on modest gains made by extremist groups. His analysis is most relevant to the creation by Mosley (an ex-Labour MP) of the British Union of Fascists in 1932 when employment was near its peak at 2.9 million. The BUF, by the very nature of offering a fascist solution, was able to capitalize on government inefficiencies. Additionally, it is undeniable that whatever success British communists enjoyed in the interwar period was hugely due to the economic factor of unemployment. This is evident in the character of its most successful venture, the National Unemployed Workers Movement (though whether this could be called an even modest success will be considered below).
However, closer analysis shows two characteristics of interwar Britain that suggest that even if the economy gave the extremist parties the opportunity to surface, it was also a main contribution to their eventual failure to gain the kind of mass support that they did elsewhere in Europe. First, the economic deterioration of Britain was simply less extreme than in other places in Europe, and thus the political results it gave rise to were less extreme. “Compared with most of continental Europe, Britain’s experience was undramatic.” While many Germans were trying to come to grips with the fact that wild inflation had wiped out their entire life savings Britain was actually experiencing deflation, which was government pursued and greatly less destabilizing. Even during what many called the “Hungry Thirties,” food shortages were never as severe as they were in some parts of Russia where “economic activity all but ceased and cannibalism had to be practised to support life.” Also, the shock of a depression was less harsh in Britain because it didn’t contrast sharply with an economic boom as it did in the United States and some parts of Europe, but signalled merely the increasing seriousness of an existing problem.
Secondly, the economic factors actively hurt political extremist parties in the mid 1930s when Britain experienced an economic growth rate of 4 percent and a plummeting unemployment rate starting in 1934. Economic recovery meant decreased support for both extremes. The number of unemployed fell by more than half, greatly diminishing any radical sentiment that might have been exploited in the populous. It also restored some faith in the National Government’s ability to improve economic conditions, undermining radical, especially fascist attempts, to portray revolution as the only way forward. This development seemed to prove most damning for the Fascists. Martin Walker argues that it “put the BUF into a decline from which it never really recovered,” and Pugh writes that “the underlying reason for the BUF’s decline almost certainly lay in the modest economic revival in 1934.”
But economic factors are, of course, not the complete story for the failure of interwar extremism. Let us now examine the communist and fascist parties each in isolation to determine the effects played by entrenched societal characteristics, tactical and strategic errors made by extremist political parties, and steps taken by the existing moderate parties to quell extremist support.
The failure of the British Communists most importantly represented by the NUWM had important roots in existing social structure of the British working class. Ross McKibbin convincingly observes four major social realities in Britain that prevented massive working class support for revolutionary communism. While McKibbin applies these arguments specifically to the aversion to the far left, many could be similarly applicable to the fascist right. First, no collective solidarity existed among the working class. He argues that this was the result of a number of factors, not the least of which was the small scale of industrial organization. The average factory in interwar Britain employed less than 30 workers. This meant that even workers among the same industry were largely isolated from one another, a problem exacerbated by the fact that unions never claimed more than half of the working class, and often much less than that. It additionally meant that workers were not as alienated from their employers as they would have been in the larger factories in other countries.
Secondly Britain was home to a rich working class associational culture. The working class were able to pursue interests outside of their work. Social identification could be found in sports, hobbies and religion. The working class enjoyed real wages that allowed them some real autonomy in the pursuit of various social activities. “The result was that any working class party had to compete with a working class culture which was stable and relatively sophisticated.”
Thirdly, British workers were relatively integrated into state institutions by means of an amorphous, inherited worldview. They were intricately tied to traditions like the Monarchy, which now provided a sort of emotionally pleasing and politically uncontentious link with the upper classes. The parliamentary structure, as well as the crown, held an “ideological hegemony which, if anything, increased throughout the century.”
Finally, the working class had rallied behind a group of leaders who were insufficiently radical to adopt revolutionary stance. By the 1920s Labour had established itself as the party of the working class, and was lead by a group known as the big five which included Ramsy MacDonald, Arthur Henderson, Phillip Snowdon, J.H. Thomas and J.R. Clynes. All five were prone to disagreements on a number of issues, but were all aligned on several basic points of consensus. “Nowhere was this more true than on the rejection of political extremism and unconstitutional action.”
In fact the rejection of extremism by the leaders of Labour led to outright political battle between the Labour party and the communists seeking to gain acceptance in its ranks. The activities of the Labour party to undermine communism in Britain can be counted among one of the chief reasons for communist failure to enlist massive working class support. In 1921 the NUWM was founded when British communists set out on a mission to mobilize the support of the unemployed. Two years later that organization attempted to align itself with the Trade Union Council, the country’s most powerful union organization and financial backer of the Labour party, but was rejected on the grounds of its extremism. After several other attempts to align itself with the more moderate left organizations in the 1920s (and after Labour began to fear being drawn in comparisons with Russian Bolsheviks) communists were banned from Labour’s ranks in 1924, and banned from TUC membership in 1928. They were perhaps most devastatingly rebuffed when in 1933 they called for a “united front” against fascism on the European continent. After several years of decrying Labour as fascists they then ask for their help to oppose the fascists, only to be denied, making them appear all at once incoherent, powerless and unimportant. The Secretary of the TUC at the time predicted that “one of the most amusing spectacles which contemporary history will reveal will be the frenzied attempts that are being made by the Communist movement to ingratiate itself with organized labour.”
Other important tactical errors were made on the part of the communist leadership as well that helped to doom it to the relatively meagre support it commanded throughout the period. One of the most devastating political missteps of the communist party was to make the recruitment of the unemployed the cornerstone of its revolutionary strategy. The NUWM hoped to organize the consistently high number of unemployed people into a force that could push for greater unemployment benefits, reasoning that this would have two effects. First they hoped it would decrease the lower classes willingness to work, weakening industry. They also thought it would ensure that workers were less afraid to mobilize against capital because they would not fear being fired. The organization did attract fairly large numbers of the unemployed: 50,000 members joined in 1926 and the depression began in 1929 the ranks swelled further. These members were not, however revolutionaries. They were simply unemployed men and woman happy to accept any benefits the NUWM could win for them. The organization was a temporary solution until its members could find work, and therefore while it is true that the communist-affiliated organization could claim to be increasing in size, there was little perceivable increase in its political influence or activity. In 1935 when the organization actually enjoyed a small victory in successfully rallying to have unemployment cuts restored the victory could hardly be counted as one of communist influence. Ultimately any “victories” of the NUWM were paradoxically damaging to the greater communist movement:
“Only the benefits system gave the NUWM a reason for existence in the eyes of its members; but the continuation of benefits prevented unemployment from becoming the destabilising factor the Communists sought … the political irony for the Communist party was the less it spoke of revolution the more sympathy it aroused.”
The Fascist movement (here mainly the BUF) faced a similar set of predicaments in interwar Britain. It was inherently at odds with several deeply entrenched social structures, lacked a strong internal organizational structure, was often politically inept, and faced opposition from existing political structure. I will now treat each of these factors in turn.
Perhaps the most important factor that led to the failure of fascism in Britain is the fact that many of its tenants were largely alien to the British Political culture. The BUF’s appeals to the population’s baser instincts of chauvinism and distrust of immigrants and minorities, as well as its heavy support in east London, a reputation for street corner politics, thuggery and corruption caused the party’s association for “low politics.” Whether or not these charges were accurate “public opinion viewed the BUF in an increasingly negative light in the 1930s, and came to blame the BUF for the major share in the public order problems which resulted from its activities.” As a result their political endeavours were taken by most in the public to be the radical and impracticable cries of those on the political fringe.
The BUF also suffered from association with German and Italian Fascisms, the excesses’ of which were becoming increasingly well known. The party’s propaganda claiming that its Black Shirt Uniforms (banned by the Public Order Act in 1936) were ancient British symbols was not widely accepted. As political violence grew abroad with the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 and Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia in 19
35 the fascists took more heat at home. This distrust was strengthened by the fact that Mosley, the party’s leader and driving force, failed to come out against the sinister behaviour of foreign fascists, and seemed almost to purposefully turn a blind eye to it, illustrated by the “Mind Britain’s Business’” campaign of 1935. The BUF was also associated (and rightly so) with the alien political tradition of anti-Semitism. Although this tactic was capable of gaining support where it had something of a history, in places like the East End of London, it was enormously counter productive across the far more proliferate moderate areas of the country.
The contentious political traditions subscribed to by the BUF can partly exp
lain its internal weakness and disorganization. For one, the party was highly fragmented, largely based in the East End of London and South East England, with only a few bastions of support in southern Wales and Scotland. Another more important source of disorganization was Oswald Mosley, the party’s enigmatic founder and leader. Mosley’s was a strong personality, and in his day an unrivalled public orator. While these characteristics were key to the successful recruitment of many of the party’s supporters, Mosley’s uncompromising nature was an important factor in the weakness of the party’s platform. Mosley “appeared unable to accept the criticism of his ideas and had to operate in an autocratic fashion … This lack of criticism led to an increasingly unrealistic fascist doctrine based on utopian assumptions.” As with the case of his massively unpopular economic plans for the Empire, he often ignored political realities.
Another of weakness of Mosley’s, and therefore of the party, was his delegation of organizational and administrative responsibility. The party’s activity and organization was reminiscent of Mosley’s focus on speaking over political manoeuvring. The party focused on assembling Black Shirts in uniform to march through London and incite passion, instead of building the party from the ground up with the dissemination of platforms, information and arguments. By 1936 J.F.C. Fuller would reorganize the movement “along military lines” to some sort of functioning political machine, the change came after the economic recovery of 1934 that dealt the party a blow from which it would not recover. The party was in decline and the reorganization came too late.
The opposition of the government in power was also an important factor in the BUF’s decline. First, Fascist parties tend to approach criticism of the sitting governments along nationalistic lines, and the British Fascists were no exception. However, there were several factors that made this difficult in the 1930s. First, it was hard to talk of a realistic “British decline” after the peace treaties after World War one had seen Britain come out as a stunning victor (unlike, for instance, Italy, who felt disenfranchised by the results). Secondly, as mentioned above, 1934 saw the beginning of economic recovery in Britain. Finally, the BUF claimed its goal to be the overthrow of sectarian loyalties, rooted in class, which would “give way to a rallying of ‘patriotic’ Britons behind a non-class, non-sectarian movement.” This call could not have come at a worse time for the BUF. The current government was a National Coalition, headed by the hugely popular Labour minister Ramsay MacDonald, largely composed of a group of moderate conservatives with the support of a good number of Liberal MPs and a handful of Labour candidates. Surely if the people wanted national unity they were better with the current government than with a fringe party with no firm base of support.
In conclusion, the comparative mildness of the effects of the international depression on inter-war Britain, coupled with modest economic recoveries of the mid 1930s probably played the most devastating role in the frustration of the British extremist political parties. It simply showed that there was no compelling reason to abandon the heavily entrenched parliamentary system, which the British were perhaps already less likely to cast off than a number of the nations that did fall to extremism in the 1920s and 30s. Reality, however, cannot be condensed to the absolute primacy of one factor over another. The truth, as always, lies in some combination of all of the factors, the absolute importance of which it may be impossible to say. We can say, however, that the social and political structures in place in the 1930s were of great importance to the way events developed.
Sorry, haven't entered the footnotes in from the original.
posted by John Powell at 11:00 AM
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