20 Facts About Alf Salisbury

Alf Salisbury was a British communist, Jewish activist, trade union leader, and anti-fascist.

Alf Salisbury was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, before becoming a founding member of its continuation, the Communist Party of Britain.

Alf Salisbury was born on 6 December 1909 in Stepney, England.

Alf Salisbury's family were Latvian Jewish refugees from Riga, who had fled to Britain to escape Czarist pogroms.

In 1902 the Alf Salisbury family arrived in Britain, making a home for themselves in London's east end, which was home to communities of Russian and Baltic Jewish communities.

At the age of 14, Alf Salisbury left school and soon afterwards joined the National Union of Seamen, then led by Havelock Wilson.

Alf Salisbury jumped ship in New York and spent three years working and travelling across the world, but mostly in America.

In 1929 Alf Salisbury briefly returned to Britain, was then arrested in Guatemala after being accused of spying, and joined the Communist Party of Great Britain.

In 1933 Alf Salisbury became one of a small number of CPGB activists working for Harry Pollitt that were tasked with being a clandestine courier supporting anti-nazi resistance belonging to the Communist Party of Germany.

Alf Salisbury then joined the National Unemployed Workers' Movement and became active as a community organiser.

Alf Salisbury became active in anti-fascist activism, and was a participant in the Battle of Cable Street.

Alf Salisbury was guided through France and into Spain by French communists, crossing the Pyrenees at night.

Alf Salisbury fought for 16 months in the Spanish Civil War before returning to Britain in 1038.

Once Alf Salisbury returned to Britain, he became the secretary of the Stepney branch of the NUWM.

Friends of Alf Salisbury believed he was rejected due to his former membership of the International Brigades.

Alf Salisbury lived in the same constituency as MP Norman Tebbit, and the two often attacked each other in newspapers and at meetings.

At some moment during the 1980s, Alf Salisbury was expelled from the Communist Party of Great Britain, an organisation he had been a member and supporter of since 1929.

Alf Salisbury lobbied the Press Council, which found in his favour.

Alf Salisbury's campaign was successful and both the BBC and ITN dropped the term "Mongols" when referring to people with Downs Syndrome.

Alf Salisbury died on the 5th November 2000, at the age of 91.