The series unveils uncomfortable truths about youth alienation and online radicalisation — but the real crisis lies in austerity and the absence of class consciousness in addressing young people’s disillusionment, says teacher ROBERT POOLE
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Understanding the defeat of fascism
NICK WRIGHT examines the British ruling class's complex relationship with fascism before, during and after the second world war
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MY MUM told me how, as an 18-year-old worker in a Dunstable aircraft factory, she traced every advance of the Red Army on a map, illustrated with the image of Uncle Joe, on her bedroom wall.
For her the threat of fascism was real. Throughout the war my grandparents housed a Dutch family, refugees from the Nazi invasion. My father, as a 21-year-old factory worker, was prepared by the Communist Party for clandestine work and was given a false identity in anticipation of a Nazi occupation. The party even bought up a local newspaper in preparation for the suppression of the Daily Worker.
In the working class there was tremendous opposition to war but a great fear of a Nazi invasion combined with a real sense that the ruling class was preparing to do a deal with the Nazis.
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