On this day

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 4th June 1976 an 18 year-old Sikh schoolboy, Gurdip Singh Chaggarwas, was fatally stabbed in a racist attack outside the Dominion theatre in Southall, London. When one passerby asked a police officer who had been killed, he responded "just an Asian".

His murder triggered riots in the area, and prompted local Asian and Black youths to form the Southall Youth Movement, which took the fight to racists in the streets. Black and Asian young people formed similar groups up and down the country at the time.




Pictured: the Southall riots

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 4th June 1950, the 43 Group of militant anti-fascist Jewish ex-servicemen and women voted to disband itself at an extraordinary general meeting in London, England. The group had been formed four years prior by Jewish people who had fought in the British Army against the Nazis in World War II, who had seen the horrors of the concentration camps, and who returned home to see fascists organising openly on UK streets. They resolved to continue their fight against fascism, racism and antisemitism by any means necessary.

The group included people like decorated war hero Gerry Flamberg, apprentice hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, gay former officer Harry Bidney and women like Doris Kaye, who infiltrated fascist groups, and Julie Sloggan, who was one of its most ardent street fighters. They disrupted and broke up fascist meetings, usually after breaking through the fascists' police guard, and harassed fascist aristocrat Oswald Mosley and his followers in towns and cities up and down the country. Eventually Mosley went into exile, and fascist organising dwindled to such a level that the 43 Group dissolved itself. Although veterans of the group would throw themselves back into the movement when Mosley attempted a comeback in the 1960s.





Pictured: Members of the group Gerry Flamberg (front left) and Jonny Wimborne (front right) standing outside the court house after the acquittal on an attempted murder charge against a fascist. The smiling man between them is Len Rolnick.

 

[flypanam]

James Connolly was born on this day 1868.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 7th June 2020, Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol, UK, pulled down a statue of enslaver Edward Colston and threw it into Bristol Harbour.

Colston was a wealthy trader of enslaved people, whose company transported more than 100,000 people who were abducted from West Africa and enslaved in the 17th century. Those kidnapped were branded with the initials of Colston's company, RAC.
Four people, Sage Willoughby, Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford and Jake Skuse, were subsequently arrested and charged with criminal damage for their role in the removal of the statue. In the dock, Willoughby argued that having a statue honouring Colston would be like "having a Hitler statue in front of a Holocaust survivor".

All four defendants were acquitted by the jury. Willoughby subsequently responded to those who argue that removing statues is trying to change history, stating: "We didn't change history, we rectified it".

 

[Sasaferrato]

On this day Roger Nutbeem, Scouse Farrell and Kenny Preston died on the Galahad. R.I.P.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day Roger Nutbeem, Scouse Farrell and Kenny Preston died on the Galahad. R.I.P.

Nutbeem hehehe

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 14th June 1381, during the peasants’ revolt in England, Wat Tyler’s rebel army of some 50,000 to 100,000 people captured London Bridge and the Tower of London. There they killed the chancellor, Archbishop Simon of Sudbury, and the treasurer, Sir Robert Hales.

The rebellion had broken out in May in protest at the imposition of a poll tax on everyone aged fifteen and over, which exacerbated the economic hardship of workers and the poor. People were also enraged by the brutality of tax inspectors, who measured people’s pubic hair to determine their age, which was seen as state-sanctioned sexual assault, particularly in the case of girls and women. The rebellion soon developed into a deep and sophisticated social movement demanding radical changes to feudal society and peaked with the taking of the Tower.

On June 15th, Wat Tyler attended a parley with the king Richard II, where he was murdered. Realising his weak position, Richard promised the rebels that he would implement many of their demands, including the abolition of the tax, and even the abolition of forced labor and serfdom, but, while the poll tax was ended, once the rebels had dispersed and returned home, they were no longer a threat, so Richard reneged on all of his other pledges and hanged 1,500 of them. It was a brutal but important lesson not to trust the promises of the powerful.




Pictured: revolting peasants killing the Chancellor and treasurer.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day in 1953, in what became an uprising of more than one million people, 300 East German construction workers protested at government buildings, demanding the reversal of a 10% increase in work quotas.

 

[Pickman's model]

On this day, 14th June 1381, during the peasants’ revolt in England, Wat Tyler’s rebel army of some 50,000 to 100,000 people captured London Bridge and the Tower of London. There they killed the chancellor, Archbishop Simon of Sudbury, and the treasurer, Sir Robert Hales.

The rebellion had broken out in May in protest at the imposition of a poll tax on everyone aged fifteen and over, which exacerbated the economic hardship of workers and the poor. People were also enraged by the brutality of tax inspectors, who measured people’s pubic hair to determine their age, which was seen as state-sanctioned sexual assault, particularly in the case of girls and women. The rebellion soon developed into a deep and sophisticated social movement demanding radical changes to feudal society and peaked with the taking of the Tower.

On June 15th, Wat Tyler attended a parley with the king Richard II, where he was murdered. Realising his weak position, Richard promised the rebels that he would implement many of their demands, including the abolition of the tax, and even the abolition of forced labor and serfdom, but, while the poll tax was ended, once the rebels had dispersed and returned home, they were no longer a threat, so Richard reneged on all of his other pledges and hanged 1,500 of them. It was a brutal but important lesson not to trust the promises of the powerful.


View attachment 327280

Pictured: revolting peasants killing the Chancellor and treasurer.

I like the way the swordsmen look so happy

 

[A380]

18th June 1815 an alliance of European armies defeat the army of Napoleon at Waterloo finally ending the second global war.

 

[The39thStep]

On this day, 4th June 1950, the 43 Group of militant anti-fascist Jewish ex-servicemen and women voted to disband itself at an extraordinary general meeting in London, England. The group had been formed four years prior by Jewish people who had fought in the British Army against the Nazis in World War II, who had seen the horrors of the concentration camps, and who returned home to see fascists organising openly on UK streets. They resolved to continue their fight against fascism, racism and antisemitism by any means necessary.

The group included people like decorated war hero Gerry Flamberg, apprentice hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, gay former officer Harry Bidney and women like Doris Kaye, who infiltrated fascist groups, and Julie Sloggan, who was one of its most ardent street fighters. They disrupted and broke up fascist meetings, usually after breaking through the fascists' police guard, and harassed fascist aristocrat Oswald Mosley and his followers in towns and cities up and down the country. Eventually Mosley went into exile, and fascist organising dwindled to such a level that the 43 Group dissolved itself. Although veterans of the group would throw themselves back into the movement when Mosley attempted a comeback in the 1960s.


View attachment 325549


Pictured: Members of the group Gerry Flamberg (front left) and Jonny Wimborne (front right) standing outside the court house after the acquittal on an attempted murder charge against a fascist. The smiling man between them is Len Rolnick.

Len Rolnick was the leader of the Communist Party cell in the 43 Group

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 19th June 1843, a crowd of over 2000 Rebecca rioters gathered and attacked the Carmarthen workhouse in Wales, and set about destroying it. It took the arrival of a unit of the British army to disperse them.

Rebecca rioters blackened their faces and dressed as women to disguise themselves, and waged war against excessive road tolls which had been implemented by landowners in Wales. The movement, dubbed "Rebecca and her daughters" was possibly a reference to the Biblical figure who had spoken of the need to “possess the gates of those who hate them”.

Over a four-year period, Rebecca rioters would approach toll gates en masse and dismantle them. One newspaper reported on a typical case: “pickaxes, hatchets, crowbars, and saws were set in operation and the gate was entirely demolished.” Tollhouse keepers were also attacked or intimidated.

Eventually, the government decided to take action and force the tolls to be reduced.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 27th June 1936, the Soviet Union reversed the 1920 Bolshevik "decree on the protection of women's health" which legalised abortion and granted women numerous reproductive rights. The new law forbade all abortions, apart from cases where the life of the mother was at risk, or where there was a serious hereditary disease. Both doctors and women seeking abortions were criminalised by the new law.

While arguing that the decision to legalise abortions was right, the Communist Party claimed that "only under conditions of socialism… where woman is an equal member of society… is it possible seriously to organise the struggle against abortions by prohibitive laws as well as by other means." Following famines, the government was keen to increase population growth, and the Party had begun to place more emphasis on the importance of the family unit. The ban remained in place until after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.

 

[platinumsage]

William P. Dean was accused of, on this day in 1842, levying war against the state of Rhode Island, presumably as part of the Dorr Rebellion. I can't find anything about him other than this primary source. Anyone?

"And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do further present: That the said William P. Dean, being an inhabitant of and residing within the said State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and being under the protection of the laws of the said State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and owing allegiance and fidelity to the said State, not weighing the duty of his said allegiance, and wickedly and traitorously devising and intending the peace of the said State to disturb, and to stir up, move, and excite insurrection, rebellion, and war against the said State, on the twenty seventh day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eighteen hundred and forty two, at Glocester aforesaid, in the aforesaid country of Providence, with force and arms, unlawfully, falsely, maliciously, and traitoriously did conspire, compass, imagine, and intend to raise and levy public par, insurrection, and rebellion against the said State; and in order to perfect, fulfil, and bring to effect the said compassings, imaginations, and intents of him, the said William P. Dean, he, the said William P. Dean, afterwards, to wit, on the said twenty-seventh day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, at Glocester aforesaid, in the aforesaid county of Providence, with a great multitude of other persons, whose names are at present to the jurors aforesaid unknown, to a great number, to wit, to the number of five hundred other persons, and upward; armed and arrayed in a warlike manner, that is to say, with guns, muskets, swords; pistols, dirks, and other warlike weapons, as well offensive as defensive, being then and there unlawfully, maliciously, and traitorously assembled and gathered together, did falsely and traitorously assemble and gather themselves together against the said State, and then and there, with force and arms, did falsely and traitorously, and in a warlike and hostile manner, array and dispose themselves against the said State; and then and there, that is to say, on the day and year last aforesaid, at Glocester aforesaid, in the aforesaid county of Providence, in pursuance of their traitorous intentions and purposes aforesaid, he, the said William P. Dean, with the said other persons so as aforesaid traitorously assembled, and armed and arrayed in manner aforesaid, most wickedly, maliciously, and traitorously did ordain, prepare, and levy public war against the said State, contrary to the duty of the allegiance of the said William P. Dean, against the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the State."

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 4th July 1981 was the heaviest night of rioting in Toxteth, Liverpool, which began when police tried to arrest a young Black man, who was subsequently rescued by a crowd. Both white and Black people had then begun to fight back against the police. Martin Kettle and Lucy Hodges described what happened in their book, Uprising!: "Rioters commandeered milk floats, a stolen fire engine and a cement mixer and drove them straight into police lines. They were armed with every conceivable weapon, including lengths of scaffolding which they thrust at the riot shields like medieval knights... At one point they managed to seize a fire hose which the police had been using on them and turn it on the officers. Faced with this attack, the police had no alternative but to retreat, leaving behind them a no-go area open to a crowd of jubilant looters".

Several buildings were burned down, including a bank and a private members' club, and there was widespread looting. The Guardian newspaper reported that middle-aged women, white and Black queued up with shopping trolleys to expropriate goods from supermarkets. Police resorted to the use of CS gas for the first time in mainland Britain, firing door-piercing rounds at protesters, which seriously injured at least two people.
That summer, rioting occurred in cities across England, largely provoked by police aggression, particular against young Black people.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 6th July 1921, the Arditi del Popolo, an early militant anti-fascist organisation, had its first official public rally in the botanical garden in Rome, Italy. The police reported that 15,000 people were in attendance, and that "there were numerous red and black flags", whereas the press reported between 30,000 and 70,000 attendees.

Arditi was the name of the Italian army special forces unit in World War I, so the name "Arditi del Popolo" meant "People's Arditi". On July 6th they formed themselves into three battalions of 1000 fighters each, with the purpose of defending workers from violent attacks by the fascist blackshirts of Benito Mussolini.

After the rally there were some clashes and shootouts between the Arditi, fascist squads and the police, during which 10 people were wounded and some Arditi members were arrested for weapons possession. The group brought revolutionary trade unionists, anarchists, communists, and socialists together, and within its first year it had grown to include over 100 offices and 20,000 members.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 14th July 1896, legendary Spanish anarchist and civil war fighter Buenaventura Durruti was born. At the age of 14 he left school and began training as a mechanic in a railway yard. In 1917 he took part in a strike which was crushed by the army who killed 70 workers, injured over 500 and imprisoned 2000.

He later joined the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) union, fought against the dictatorship of Miguel Primo do Rivera and was forced into exile, where he travelled to Latin America, where he undertook bank robberies in Chile and Argentina to fund the workers' movement.

Durruti later returned to Spain, and with the right-wing military rising of general Francisco Franco, he joined the fighting in Barcelona, during which the coup attempt was crushed and CNT workers took over the city. In an interview Durruti told a journalist that the working class "are going to inherit the earth. There is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie may blast and burn its own world before it finally leaves the stage of history. We are not afraid of ruins. We who ploughed the prairies and built the cities can build again, only better next time. We carry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is growing this minute."

Durruti headed a column of 3000 revolutionary militia members and travelled to the Saragossa front to fight the nationalists. He and his column later came to Madrid to defend the city which was under attack, during which he was killed. His body was transported back to Barcelona where half a million workers took to the streets to attend his funeral.

 

[platinumsage]

Also the "Priestly" riots in Birmingham, where people destroyed four churches and thirty other buildings in protest against the purchase of certain library books (amongst other issues ).

 

[BCBlues]

Also the "Priestly" riots in Birmingham, where people destroyed four churches and thirty other buildings in protest against the purchase of certain library books (amongst other issues ).

Meantime, up the road a bit, on 14th July 1712, the Newcomen Engine, the world’s first steam engine, was invented in the Black Country. Hence, today is Black Country Day.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

Also the "Priestly" riots in Birmingham, where people destroyed four churches and thirty other buildings in protest against the purchase of certain library books (amongst other issues ).

Priestley Riots - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 17th July 1936, a Spanish military uprising began in Morocco as right wing generals declared war on the new Republican government. The rising had been due to begin at 5 AM on July 18, but the plot in Melilla, Spanish Morocco, had been uncovered, and so a local military officer decided to initiate the coup attempt a day early.

The rebel officers arrested loyal officers, seized all the public buildings in the city, as well as the aerodrome, and made lists of union members, left-wing activists, Republicans and Freemasons, and arrested them all..
Some residents in working class districts attempted to resist, but they had no arms, and so were quickly overcome. Anyone who resisted was summarily shot, including the mayor and the loyal local general. Rebels in Melilla then telephoned plotters in Ceuta and Tetuán, who then initiated their rising as well, arresting or executing anyone who resisted.

The following day, workers across Spain began to go on strike and requisition weapons to defend themselves and the Republic, even though the Republican government would refuse to give them arms.
These events marked the beginning of the Spanish civil war. In the coming days, full-scale social revolution would break out which would set the Spanish working class, and volunteers from across the world, against the combined might of the bulk of the Spanish military backed up by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.

 

[spitfire]

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 18th July 1969, Black Panthers held a conference in Oakland alongside the white anti-racist Young Patriots Organisation and Puerto Rican street gang-turned-radical group the Young Lords.

The Young Patriots were a group of poor, mostly Appalachian migrants in Chicago. Although they opposed racism, they originally wore Confederate flags, which they believed were a symbol of rebellion. As they worked more with communities of colour, they abandoned the flag as an irredeemable symbol of white supremacy.

Leading Panther Fred Hampton played a key role in building links with them and other white working class youth, until he was assassinated by police.

In his speech, William "Preacherman" Fesperman of the Young Patriots, argued for armed self-defence against police brutality: "A gun on the side of a pig means two things: it means racism and it means capitalism and the gun on the side of a revolutionary, on the side of the people, means solidarity and socialism."

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 19th July 1936, in response to a right-wing coup by general Francisco Franco, workers across Spain took up arms and launched one of the most far-reaching social revolutions in history. The ensuing civil war pitted the working class against the Spanish capitalists, who were backed by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. In the revolutionary areas, anarchist and socialist workers and peasants took over workplaces and land and began to run them collectively.

Thousands of mostly working class people came from all over the world to aid the workers of Spain. One of them was British socialist author George Orwell, who described the scene in Barcelona: "It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties… Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivised… Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señor’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’".

Western democracies, including Britain and France, abandoned the republic and enforced a blockade on Spain which stopped the flow of aid and weapons to the anti-fascists. Meanwhile, Italy and Germany openly flouted the ban, and the US oil giant Texaco supplied the nationalists with oil and other supplies without even demanding payment, while stopping any supplies to the republic.

Ultimately, after nearly three years of bitter and bloody warfare, the nationalists with their superior weaponry and equipment, were victorious.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 20th July 1943, two Jewish members of the Waldkommando work unit at the Sobibor concentration camp attacked their Ukrainian guard and encouraged other members of the unit to escape. The Waldkommando was composed of 20 Polish and 20 Dutch Jews, and it supplied wood for the crematorium by cutting down trees and digging out the stumps. Szlomo Podchlebnik and Josef Kopf initiated the breakout with a knife Podchlebnik had in his boot. Several Polish prisoners – Podchlebnik, Kopf, Zyndel Honigman, Chaim Korenfeld, Abram Wang, and Aron – were able to successfully escape. Kopf and Licht were murdered by Polish antisemites in separate incidents after their escape. The others survived the duration of the war. After the breakout, only Dutch Jews who were unable to speak Polish and did not know the countryside were allocated to the Waldkommando at the camp.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On 22nd July 1936 the Ritz Hotel in Barcelona, named El Palace, was taken over by its workers and socialised during the revolutionary events after the outbreak of the Spanish civil war.

The hotel was seized by workers' committees of the CNT and UGT unions as part of the socialisation of the hotel industry. The workers eliminated ostentation, renamed the hotel Hotel Gastronómico No 1, provided meals for local working class families, converted the hotel rooms into hospital rooms and repurposed the basement as a bomb shelter.

Later on, as the Republican government consolidated power and gradually put an end to workers' self-management, the state took control of the hotel in 1937, and used it to host official visitors and for government meetings.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 11th August 1964, 18-year-old Scottish anarchist Stuart Christie was arrested in Madrid while carrying explosives to blow up Spain’s right-wing dictator general Francisco Franco.

Christie was working with the underground anarchist resistance to the regime, which began after Franco's victory in the Spanish civil war in 1939. However, unbeknownst to Christie at the time, the resistance group had been infiltrated and its plan betrayed.
When Christie went to an American Express office in Madrid, he noticed a member of staff alerting undercover police, and promptly left.

He later recounted to the Guardian newspaper: "I felt curiously detached as I took a deep breath and walked out of the office, trying to keep my face expressionless. Mustering all the confidence I could, I paused at the doorway to look at the group of five men now standing to one side of the entrance. Until I appeared at the doorway they had been deep in conversation. They stopped briefly, exchanging knowing looks with one another, and carried on. An empty taxi pulled in to the pavement beside me. But when the driver appeared to invite me to get in, I knew it was an undercover police car. I was being hemmed in. By this time I had reached the corner of the busy calle Cedaceros. As I steeled myself to make a dash through the crowds I was suddenly grabbed by both arms from behind, my face pushed to the wall and a gun barrel thrust into the small of my back. I tried to turn my head but I was handcuffed before I fully realised what had happened. It was all over in a matter of moments."

When arrested Christie was wearing a kilt, which confused the Spanish press in to describing him as "a Scottish transvestite." He was sentenced to 20 years in prison but after an international campaign in his support he was released in 1968.

Christie remained active supporting and helping record the history of the Spanish resistance movement until the end of his life in August 2020.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 12th August 1911, a strike of working women and girls in south London began which rapidly spread into a mass walkout. Amidst a wave of strikes of mostly male transport and dockworkers across Britain, a group of mostly non-union women and girls working in factories walked out and began parading through the streets, calling on other workers to join them. Custard, jam, biscuit, tool and tent-making factories were among those shut down, with around 14,000 women from over 20 different employers on strike within a few days.

Employers complained of a "reign of terror" by the workers, and the government responded by ordering troops to be stationed in nearby Southwark Park. The strikers got assistance from the National Federation of Women Workers, who raised money and helped the women formulate concrete demands to make of employers. Companies rapidly began to cave in, abolishing piecework and increasing pay in most of the struck enterprises over the next month. While many male unionists had dismissed women workers, like Labour MP and union leader Will Thorne who claimed that women "do not make good trade unionists", thousands of women joined unions during the dispute and organised themselves.

 

[Dystopiary]

On this day in 2020, Aliaksandr Vikhor, aged 25, died after being beaten by police in Minsk.

On the evening of 9th of August, the rigged Belarusian election results were announced immediately after the polling stations closed. It was claimed that Alyaksandr Lukashenka (Alexander Lukashenko) had received an unfeasible 80%+ of the votes. The majority had voted for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who had stood in place of her husband Sergei after he was detained and refused candidacy.

People came out en masse throughout Belarus to protest the rigged election results. Law enforcement repressed the demonstrators using police batons, rubber bullets, grenades with lead balls, water cannons, tear gas and stun grenades. Many people were injured.

Aliaksandr Vikhor, known as Sasha, was on the way to see a date when he was detained in Homel. Despite him telling them he felt ill, the police beat the young man. Other detainees asked for help but they were ignored. The police filmed him and mocked him as he lay on the concrete floor having seizures.

The authorities have refused to open an investigation into Mr Vikhor's death. He was the second person to be killed following the protests. The first, Alexander Taraikovsky, died after being shot on August 10 2020.

May the killers and their enablers be brought to justice.

 

[AmateurAgitator]

On this day, 17th August 1909, Indian revolutionary Madan Lal Dhingra was executed by the British for his assassination of Sir Curzon Wyllie, an army officer and head of the secret police, who was trying to uncover and defeat anti-colonial activists. While Dhingra was supported by anarchist Guy Aldred, who was sentenced to 12-months' hard labour for publishing a sympathetic article about him, Mohandas Gandhi condemned him. On trial, he refused to acknowledge the authority of the court, and stated "I hold the English people responsible for the murder of eighty millions of Indian people in the last fifty years, and they are also responsible for taking away ₤100,000,000 every year from India to this country."





A shame he blamed 'the English people' rather than the British ruling class. Good on him for taking out the officer though. And bloody Gandhi again - what a right shit he was.