ABSTRACT
The combined anti-fascist campaign was the largest mass movement in Britain since the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Between 1977 and 1979, around nine million Anti-Nazi League leaflets were distributed and 750,000 badges sold. One of the reasons why anti-fascism has been a much narrower tradition since 1982 lies in part in the diminished importance of fascism within the broader camp of British racism. The campaign of the 1970s occurred in a particular moment in British history. What Rock Against Racism and other anti-fascists showed was that the phenomenon of anti-migrant hostility would not continue indefinitely but was a decreasing force, especially among the integrated generation of Britain’s youth. In 1976-1982, an anti-fascist campaign of unprecedented popularity won a temporary victory over the gathering forces of both popular and state racism. A marker was put down that the struggles against racism and fascism are causes capable of moving hundreds of thousands of people.
