{"id":14899,"date":"2026-06-10T14:24:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T18:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/?p=14899"},"modified":"2026-06-21T12:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T16:00:11","slug":"the-cultural-movement-that-once-defeated-neo-nazism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2026\/06\/the-cultural-movement-that-once-defeated-neo-nazism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cultural Movement that Once Defeated Neo-Nazism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>n the fall of 1978, the National Front (NF), a growing neo-Nazi organization in Britain, was prepared to stand 318 candidates for Parliament. In local London elections, it had received 119,000 votes out of 2.2 million in May. The NF had gained a reputation of challenging immigrants and minorities in street battles and organizing mass marches through minority neighborhoods. There was a very real danger that the NF was on the verge of legitimacy.<\/p>\n

Not since Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists clashed with\u00a0 over 100,000 counterdemonstrators in the 1930s in what became known as \u201cThe Battle of Cable Street,\u201d had Britain been threatened by such an aggressive ultra-right organization. With street confrontations growing and electoral challenges growing increasingly threatening, the need to unite an opposition was paramount. To answer that need, the Anti Nazi League (ANL), in alliance with movement organizations, trade unions, neighborhood coalitions, churches, and thousands of individuals, was formed to challenge the NF. Geoff Brown\u2019s timely book, A People\u2019s History of the Anti Nazi<\/em> League<\/em>,\u00a0 offers a wealth of first-hand accounts from those who came together to stop the NF before it achieved a foothold within the power structure of Britain.<\/p>\n

A decade before the NF rose to prominence, Enoch Powell, a Conservative member of Parliament, delivered an alarming speech about the dangers of immigration, which he saw as a madness leading to \u201cthe white population\u2026made strangers in their own country.\u201d In what became known as the \u201crivers of blood speech,\u201d Powell incited a subsequent period of racial violence and reactionary mobilizations, including strikes. Powell\u2019s legacy is often the starting point for today\u2019s racists, such as Tommy Robinson. Robinson recently led a massive anti-immigrant march in London that echoed many far-right themes of the past.<\/p>\n

U.S. history is littered with racist marches and antisemitic attacks by Nazis and co-racists like the Ku Klux Klan. Spurred by Trump\u2019s anti-immigrant policies, we are again facing reactionary mobilizations. In 2017, Nazis appeared in Charlottesville, North Carolina, in their largest numbers since World War II. Nazis, together with the KKK, neo-Confederates, and Far-Right militias gathered in an action billed as \u201cUnite the Right\u201d to \u201cprotect a Confederate statue.\u201d They paraded with torches, shouted antisemitic slogans, and gave the Nazi salute. A woman was killed when a Nazi drove his car into the counter-protesters.<\/p>\n

As the World War II generation disappears and the history of that period becomes less compelling, Nazis are showing signs of growth in several countries. Unbound by the history of their Nazi heroes, they are more confident in demonstrating their hatred. A recent Trump nominee for U.S. attorney was forced to withdraw his nomination when boastful Nazi praises were found in his text messages. Perhaps more alarming was the revelation of a recent group chat of young Republicans that was filled with racist, sexist, and anti-gay rhetoric, and included one participant championing his hero, Hitler. These \u201cleaks\u201d indicate a less circumspect extreme Right willing to embrace Nazism with all that it implies, including Holocaust denial. According to yearly reports from both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, there has been a 60 percent growth in active neo-Nazi clubs since 2023, from 49 to 78 clubs. The number of violent attacks initiated by these clubs in that period has also grown. Some of their members are believed to have taken jobs in ICE and Border Patrol. These signs of far-right growth cannot be ignored. As Brown\u2019s work makes clear, building a militant and wide-ranging resistance to Nazis and other racist formations is essential if they are to be stopped.<\/p>\n

In August 1977, 500 members of the NF attempted to march through Lewisham, a mostly Black district of London, guarded by 4,000 police officers. They were met by a counter-demonstration of nearly 5,000, representing a coalition of 23 organizations, including unions, neighborhood groups, and Left parties, such as Brown\u2019s own Socialist Workers Party (SWP).<\/p>\n

Before the ANL, the Anti-Racist, Anti-Fascist Coordinating Committee struggled to build an anti-racist coalition.\u00a0 Representatives of the coalition held many debates. Some wanted to remove \u201cfascism\u201d from the targeted racists and organize an event away from where the Nazis were to march:<\/p>\n

Believing that there was no possibility of persuading people to confront the Nazis, the Communist Party proposed some kind of music event on the other side of the borough: music, poetry, cultural events, and prayers. At this a vicar leapt to his feet to say, \u2018Oh for goodness sakes, what\u2019s the point of that?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the end, the coalition endorsed confronting the NF, and while the numbers were different (5,000 vs. 100,000 in 1936), the participants had no doubt that they had succeeded in halting the NF\u2019s ability to march through the district.<\/p>\n

While Lewisham was a success, it was not the end of the NF. Intending to stand 300-plus candidates in the next general election, the NF upped its vicious attacks on minorities and boasted that they could not be stopped. Something more was needed, a broad-based national organization that could provide leadership in standing up to the NF. However, it would not be easy to put together such an organization. Even in the wake of the Lewisham success, the Left was still divided on how to stop the Nazis. Nevertheless, the SWP which\u00a0 had gained credibility in helping to organize the confrontation in Lewisham, believed that nothing less than a nationwide united front of organizations and individuals committed to exposing and stopping the growing NF threat was paramount. Brown summarizes, \u201cThe new initiative had to include both identifying the fascists as Nazis\u2014that they came from the same tradition that led to the Holocaust\u2014and mobilizing the largest possible number in opposition to the fascists in whatever ways was necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim Nichol, the SWP national secretary,branded the proposed national formation with the name \u201cthe Anti Nazi League.\u201d Nichol was tasked with \u201cselling\u201d the new organization to a broad number of prominent individuals and organizations, from religious groups to the Far Left. The main goal was to stop the NF. Church officials, leaders of minority communities, a prominent journalist, Mary Holland, of the Observer, as well as \u201ca hardline\u201d CP member and solicitor for the ANC, Michael Seifert, were all asked to take part. Nichol was able to convince them to come on board and helped establish a legitimacy for the proposed ANL. The battle of Lewisham had propelled anti-fascism to the front pages.<\/p>\n

After many one-on-one discussions with key activists and organizational heads, it was time to launch the ANL. As its founding document made clear:<\/p>\n

For the first time since Mosly in the thirties, there is the worrying prospect of a Nazi party gaining significant support in Britain…Like Hitler with the Jews the British Nazis seek to make scapegoats of black people. …If their evil propaganda takes root we will be facing an alarming development in Britain, which affects every one of us. \u2026In every town, in every factory, in every school, on every housing estate, whenever the Nazis attempt to organise, they must be countered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ANL\u2019s program was an all-out campaign, including distributing millions of leaflets to mass gatherings to stop NF marches. From pulpits to street corners, from factory floors to union halls, from schools to housing estates, ANL activists took the fight to as broad a constituency as possible. This was to be a \u201cunited front\u201d of all organizations and individuals who saw the danger posed by the NF. Inspired by Trotsky\u2019s writings on how to stop the Nazis in the thirties, the comrades in the SWP saw the need to expand beyond the labor movement and include all who had an interest in stopping the rise of Nazism. The unifying slogan and sole agreement to join the ANL was, \u201cThey shall not pass.\u201d<\/p>\n