This is a film of the Peace Week marches in the week leading up to International Workers Day, or May Day, in Sheffield 1936, which had peace as its principle theme. The film, made by the Sheffield and District Workers Film Society, is clearly a propaganda film against any Government moves towards war.  Sheffield Peace March concentrates on the Women’s, Youth and May Day demonstrations held that week, where people came to support, and hear different speakers.   The Communist Party (CPGB) held...

This is a film of the Peace Week marches in the week leading up to International Workers Day, or May Day, in Sheffield 1936, which had peace as its principle theme. The film, made by the Sheffield and District Workers Film Society, is clearly a propaganda film against any Government moves towards war.  Sheffield Peace March concentrates on the Women’s, Youth and May Day demonstrations held that week, where people came to support, and hear different speakers.   The Communist Party (CPGB) held their Rally on the 1st March, and the Sheffield Trades and Labour Council on the 3rd March. 

At that time elements of the British left were already involved with various projects using film to put a working class perspective on events. In 1936 the Co-operative Movement agreed to establish itself in film and the National Co-operative Film Society was launched the following year. This was followed by the Workers’ Film Association founded in 1938. The importance of film as a means of propaganda was early recognised, with the Conservative Party in 1936 having over 100 travelling cinemas at its disposal. In line with the then general European movement of establishing People’s Fronts, the left were attempting to provide an alternative to the status quo (see References and Further Information for sources on these developments).

 

The idea for the Peace Week come from the Sheffield Peace Council, allied with the Sheffield University Peace Society. It was supported by the Sheffield Trades and Labour Council, the local Liberal Party, sections of the local Labour Party and with the tacit support of parts of the Council. Support also came from twenty one non-conformist ministers and the Woodcraft Folk who held their own demonstration on the Saturday when there was also a delegate conference (for a more detailed account of the Sheffield peace movement see Stevenson in Further Information).

 

May Day demonstrations and rallies against war and fascism, and in support of the Spanish Republic, were common from 1933 and through the 1930s.  Right up to the present, May Day rallies have focused on particular burning issues of the day, with peace often to the fore. In the lead up to the May Day Rally of 1936 German troops reoccupied the Rhineland on March 7th, in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Although the League of Nations censured Germany, neither they nor France took any further action. Germany was re-arming and there was great concern about where this would lead, and arguments about how to respond. Hence the headlines shown in the film. The British Government was planning to re-arm, and the possible significance of the movement for peace, at the centre of the armaments industry, must have been apparent to them.

 

The Women's Union in Sheffield, along with members of the Labour party and trade unions at this time, campaigned for peace and supported the view that Britain should not seek to increase its military capability.

Further to this, Mr Reeve, the President of the Hallam Labour Party Division in Sheffield, had a letter published in the local newspaper, the Sheffield Independent. The letter referred to the Government White Paper that proposed that Britain re-arm: 'It means signing a blank cheque for upwards of £300,000,000 . . . This policy will chiefly benefit the armament manufacturers . . . Labour will be diluted and health, education and social services must suffer . . . With this purpose we appeal for support of the Peace Week in Sheffield (26 April to 2 May)'. 

 

The women’s march took place on a Wednesday afternoon. Among them was Councillor Mrs Cummings. The Sheffield Independent Newspaper reported an excerpt from her speech that encapsulated the Women’s Peace Movement aims: 'This is one of the most important days since women suffered and died to get the vote . . . We demanded our rights as citizens then. Today we demand the rights of our children. We are out to protest against the war.'  The alliance for peace was broad but rather shaky, consisting of disparate elements from pacifists to the unilateralist W. W. Boulton, the Conservative MP for Sheffield Central. Needless to say, there was antagonism from many within the Labour Party towards the CPGB.

 

At the time Communist Parties throughout Europe were campaigning for peace, in line with Soviet Union foreign policy.  They were often heavily involved in organisations that were ostensibly politically independent, and some of these may be seen on the march. Furthermore, Sheffield has traditionally had a strong labour movement. This is reflected in the size of the marches, and in the wide range of organisations attending. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936 Sheffield contributed a number of volunteers to the International Brigade, who opposed General Franco, leader of the fascist Spanish Nationalists. Interestingly, Picasso – who captured so brilliantly the horrors of war in his painting of the German bombing of Guernica almost exactly a year later in April 1937, and which went on display in Leeds the following year – attended a peace conference in Sheffield in 1950. 

 

What is especially noticeable is the large number of women involved, reflecting the prominence of women in peace campaigns over the years. Indeed, women have been active campaigning for peace from at least the Quaker Peace Societies of the 1820s and the Olive Leaf Circles of the early Victorian period. Organisations like the Women’s International League for Peace, and Freedom and the Women’s Peace Crusade, were formed during World War One, and continued through to the Second World War.

 

The annual May Day marches go back to 1889 when the International Working Men's Association (the First International), meeting in Paris, declared May 1st an international working class holiday. This was to commemorate the Haymarket Martyrs: six people killed in Chicago by police during national strikes for the 8 hour day which begun in the U.S. on 1st May 1886.  This annual commemoration took a firm foothold, and in Britain large political protests were not uncommon in the 1930s. The previous year, on 6th February 1935, a protest organised by the Communist Party led National Workers Unemployment Movement resulted in 30,000 people protesting on the steps of Sheffield Town Hall against the new national scales of unemployment assistance.

 

References 

 

Alan Burton, The British Co-operative Movement and film 1890s-1960s, Manchester University Press. 2005

Ben Hogenkamp, Deadly Parrallels: Film and the Left in Britain 1929-39, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1986.

A list of related films, held by Educational & Television Films Ltd. (ETV), can be found at the Communist History Network Newsletter at Manchester University :

This was compiled by Bert Hogenkamp, Professor of Film Studies at the Netherlands Audiovisual Archive in Amsterdam and author of Deadly Parallels: Film and the Left in Britain, 1929-39, Lawrence and Wishart, 1986.

Martin Pugh, Women and the Women’s Movement in Britain 1914-1959, Macmillan, London, 1992.

Shapes of Time  has an interesting feature on Guernica.

 

Further Information

 

Ben Hogenkamp,‘Workers Newsreels in the 20s and ‘30s’, in Our History, 68, History Group of the Communist Party, 1977.

Racheal Low, Films of Comment and Persuasion of the 1930s, Allen and Unwin, London, 1979.

David Anthony Stevenson, The Sheffield peace movement 1934-1940 [THESIS], School of Cultural Studies, Sheffield. Hallam University, 2001