• THE Daily Worker of June 19 1935 ran a story on Glasgow’s “flag day for fascism’s victims.”

Flag days, now hardly heard of, especially after Blair’s public order acts, started during the first world war and for much of the 20th century were the predominant means of raising funds for any good cause. A small donation in a tin elicited a printed paper square attached to a pin for the lapel, extolling the virtues of the cause.

With large numbers of informal refugees now arriving from nazi Germany and surrounding countries, at this stage largely due to official hostility to anyone on the left, many needed first clothing and then housing since they were allowed to bring nothing with them.

This flag day provided, the paper’s editorial said, “a splendid opportunity for Glasgow to do two things, namely, carry out an inspiring demonstration manifesting its mass opposition to fascism and render practical solidarity with the workers of Germany against Hitler terror by contributing financial aid on an imposing scale to the dependants of those fighters whom the Nazis are so brutally persecuting.”

The news from Germany was that communist Theodor Bottlander had received a prison sentence for the temerity of collecting evidence about the Reichstag fire for use at an independent inquiry held in London.

But mass resistance continued. Posters secretly put up across Saar announced: “Under Goebbels and Goering we cannot even afford to buy herrings.”

• You can read digitised pages from the Daily Worker (1930-45) and Morning Star (2000-present), as they appeared in print, at http://tinyurl.com/DWMSarchive. Ten days’ access costs just £5.99 and a whole year is £72.