Fascism and Communism in Britain in the 1930’s

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All five sources have a different view about the event of October 4th.

Sources A and B suggest that Mosley’s fascists were the main

responsibility for the disturbances, sources C and E don’t really give

a preference as to who’s to blame just what happened and source D is

justifying why it happened and how it wasn’t Mosley’s fault.

Source A is by Harold Smith who gave an account in 1996,which was over

60 years after the event and was an office worker at the time. He says

how he knew something was going to happen due to the build up with

Mosley and Fascism. He thinks that Cable Street ‘marked the beginning

of the decline’ of fascism. He gives the ‘sitting on the fence’ view

but is hinting that it was the fascist’s fault. Although Smith gives

the view that because nothing much happened and that’s what made it so

memorable. Source B is from a communist paper so it obviously going to

be at least slightly bias. The face the extract is from a paper also

means it will be more than likely to be played up. Compared to source

A it is a violent account of what happened even though the blame was

pointed towards the fascists in both sources. They’re almost two

different extremes, maybe this reflects the two different extremes of

hatred towards fascism. Source C is again another violent report but

written in a different style, it doesn’t seem to have a certain

preference to who was to blame. This source seems to be reporting more

on what happened rather than why it did, so it could in a sense put

across that the fascists were to blame even if its not re-enforced

like that. Compared to the other sources its not as ‘in your face’ as

to who was responsible when it cam down to it.

Source D is a statement from the fascist party and they are justifying

reasons for not going ahead with the march. The only problem with this

is despite it being a statement it will more than likely be slightly

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