This book is not just another local history, or the autobiography of a working man, although it is both of these things. It is one man’s highly individual view of a period of major political change. The great depression, the rise of Fascism and the approach to the Second World War all colour this story. The British Communist Party at grass roots level is the book’s major feature. This is a controversial story. It was meant to be.

Joe Jacobs was born in 1913, the son of Eastern European, Jewish immigrants in Whitechapel in the heart of London’s East End. This book describes the grinding poverty of ghetto life, its heartbreak, but also its humour and its cultural richness. It describes the gradual integration of Jew and Gentile, adolescence and first love in the early ’30s, unemployment and the struggle to survive. It describes the seamier side of life, the gambling and the criminal world, the world of sport and of play, but above all it describes those young people around Joe and his friends attracted to the Communist Party of Great Britain. Joe’s early years as a militant in the local Stepney Branch of the CP are parallelled with his personal life and those of his friends and increasingly with national and international events. The first part of the book charts the turn of the World Communist Parties from the building of International movements to support for United Front Policies and deep entry into Social Democratic institutions. The gradual run down of the Communist International from 1934 onwards features prominently here. At the time Joe did not understand fully what was happening, but it is from this date that puzzlement and unease with the Party first began.

The first half of this story also deals with local industries and especially with the tailoring trade in which Joe and his friends and relations mostly worked. Features stressed are the ‘sweat shops’, the seasonal nature of the work and the highly individual nature of its organisation and that of the local clothing Trade Unions. More is explained about this in the second half of the story. More is also told of the personal life of Joe’s family and friends, but increasingly militant activity takes over as the main story. This is because of two things. Firstly there was the Spanish Civil War which broke out in 1936 and secondly and more immediately the increasing menace of Oswald Mosley’s Fascist Blackshirts and their threatening behaviour especially in London’s Jewish district in Stepney. This reached its zenith in the same year of 1936.

Throughout the second half of the book constant reference is made to events in Spain. The implication in this carefully documented account is that much more of the volunteer movement which led to the setting up of the International Brigade of foreign fighters to aid the anti-Franco forces than is commonly assumed, was due to private initiative rather than conscious sponsoring by the CP. Spain, however, is the background story. The main story is that of the activities of the British Union of Fascists, Mosley’s Blackshirts and the fight of Joe’s East End against them, for it was in 1936 when Joe was Secretary of the Stepney CP and this is the year of the famous ‘Battle of Cable Street’. On October 4th, 1936, 250,000 East Enders stopped the Blackshirts marching through the Jewish part of Stepney. Joe tells of resistance to the British Fascists in the first half of the book from 1933 onwards. In the second half the pressure mounts and the circumstances surrounding the ‘Battle of Cable Street’ are fully described. He tells of Fascist terror raids and of growing arguments at a local level as to how the Fascists should be dealt with. Increasingly Joe claimed the British CP adopted a more and more passive attitude to the question of Fascism and he and his friends did not agree with this. Unfortunately Joe Jacob’s untimely death in March 1977 has deprived us of his own detailed account of the consequences of this difference of opinion, but I have attempted at least to reconstruct the sequence of events from 1937 to the end of 1939, using as I shall explain in the text, the copious correspondence between Joe and various CP officials at local and national level and also using Joe’s own rough notes. These documents chart the widening gap between Joe Jacobs and the CP leadership.

The story ends with Joe’s expulsion from the Party in 1938, his appeals against expulsion, his marriage and mobilisation into the wartime Army in 1940. It is a story full of passion and sympathy for the people with whom Joe grew up, and for the people in the rank and file of the CP with whom Joe fought. It is a story highly critical of the CP Organisation which it eventually indicts for the sabotaging of the revolutionary movement, but the point should not be laboured. For Joe the painting of an epoch and the description of everyday life was as important if not more so than the making of political points. He trusted people to draw their own conclusions. He hoped that the minute and detailed painting of what was going on from day to day in ‘his’ East End as well as in the CP would be sufficient to put the record straight. He didn’t require that his readers share his precise political interpretations of his experiences. Not all of them were made at the time. Some are the result of hindsight. I remember him telling me that he had tried to exclude as much hindsight comment as possible, but inevitably it is there. As Joe would have said, ‘You will have to decide for yourselves’.

It is necessary, however, to mention that Joe’s disagreement with the CP did not turn him away from militancy. He was prominent in clothing strikes - in the 1950s (including a temporary re-uniting with the CP, which was, however, very shortlived) and in various political groups. Later in the 1960s as a postman, he participated in action by the postal workers. Later still, despite ill health, he was actively discussing, probing, questioning and following with interest the younger, newer movements in all spheres of life. He had begun writing about some of these. It is hoped eventually that some of Joe’s writing about his experiences in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s will be published. They show that Joe did not live in the past. It is also clear, however, that the story published here is not without relevance for today, either.

This book is published because it was its author’s fervent wish that it should reach a wider audience. It has also been the wish of his family and friends that this desire should come to fruition. We also believe, however, that the book will make an important contribution to history. The text has been revised and notes added and the last two chapters are the editor’s own extrapolation from documents. Any mistakes in the notes and explanations are my responsibility alone. It must be added, however, that virtually nothing of the substance of the original text has been changed. This is Joe Jacobs’ book and not that of its editor. The words used are his own. It is for this reason that nothing has been censored from the text. Incidents are quoted and names are named except where Joe himself thought it prudent not to do so. Some of those still alive, mentioned in this story, may not like what is said about them. As all who knew Joe would testify, he was not a person to mince his words. But I must remind them that most of them have already had a chance to explain themselves in their own version of history. I refer readers to their books for other versions of the events described in the following pages1 . I cannot posthumously censure because of the risk of offending people. Anyone is free to reply on any point. I feel sure that those who read this story will recognise the innate humanity and compassion of the writer and know that cruelty or lack of consideration were not part of his nature. These were passionate and difficult times when, as Joe said himself, it was necessary to take sides2 .

Finally I would like to thank all those who helped me in the preparation of this book. I hope I will be forgiven if I leave some people out, but special thanks are due to Mr Gerald Nurse of the Tower Hamlets Central Library, Bankroft Road, Stepney, for his invaluable assistance3 . Thanks also to David Brown, Graham Jimpson, David Levy, Helen Maclenan, Ian Robinson and especially to Henri Simon.

Janet Jacobs Simon
London, February 1978.

• 1James Kluggman, The History of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
• 2See Robert Benewick, Political Violence and Public Order, especially useful are chapters 8, 10 and 11. Phil Piratin, Our Flag Stays Red.
• 3People wishing to consult their valuable local History collection should telephone the Library in advance.