 | |
| Author | Mark Bray |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Keith Szarabajka |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Social movements |
| Publisher | Melville House |
Publication date | August 2017 |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 978-1-61219-703-6 |
Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook is a 2017 book written by historian Mark Bray and published by Melville House Publishing, which explores the history of anti-fascist movements since the 1920s and 1930s and their contemporary resurgence.
Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook details the emergence of anti-fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, and offers an analysis of contemporary anti-fascist movements, particularly antifa in the United States and Europe. Bray argues in his book that militant anti-fascism is a reasonable and legitimate political tradition, and describes his book as "an unabashedly partisan call to arms that aims to equip a new generation of anti-fascists with the history and theory necessary to defeat the resurgent far-right". Historical examples referred to in the book include the 43 Group, Rock Against Racism, the Red Warriors, and the Autonomen who popularized black bloc tactics. [1] [2] [3] It also details key events in the history of anti-fascist movements, such as the Battle of Cable Street. [4]
In addition to describing the history of anti-fascist movements, the book dedicates a chapter to "Five Historical Lessons for Anti-Fascists". [5] [1] It discusses the subject of antifa as it relates to deplatforming and freedom of speech. [6] [7] [1] Interviews that Bray conducted with antifa activists are included in the book. [8] [9] [10] Bray conducted 61 such interviews across 17 different countries. [5] [4] Bray uses the definition of fascism provided by Robert Paxton. [3] [11] He defines antifa as "illiberal politics of social revolutionism applied to fighting the Far Right, not only literal fascists" and as a "pan-left radical politics uniting communists, socialists, anarchists and various different radical leftists together for the shared purpose of combating the far right." [11] [12] [13]
The San Francisco Chronicle praised the book's writing, calling Bray's analysis "methodical and informative" and his arguments "incisive and cohesive". [5] [14]
Carlos Lozada of The Washington Post commented that "the book's most enlightening contribution is on the history of anti-fascist efforts over the past century, but its most relevant for today is its justification for stifling speech and clobbering white supremacists". [3]
In the Los Angeles Review of Books , Luca Provenzano said that the book was "written from a commendable place of engagement and provides a serviceable genealogy for militant anti-fascism in the present", but was also critical of the book, saying that a "closer, more critical look at modern antifa's inception in the 1960s and '70s reveals some of the pitfalls of militant organizing, and a truly credible analysis of anti-fascist protest tactics would need to pay much closer attention to this period." [15]
Fred Shaw, writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , called the book "pointed with concise analysis provided by an insider’s perspective", but also said it was "not a page-turner". [11]
In Brazil, Bray's book featured in what Bray described as "a little bit of a controversy" on Twitter in 2021, when a member of the self-described "Anti-Fascism Police Movement" tweeted a photo of himself holding the book, to which the author replied that if he was really anti-fascist he should quit his job. [10]
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sentiment, as well as opposition to liberal democracy, social democracy, parliamentarianism, liberalism, Marxism, neoliberalism, communism, and socialism. As with classical fascism, it proposes a Third Position as an alternative to market capitalism.
Antifa may refer to:
The 62 Group, originally the 62 Committee, was a militant broad-based coalition of anti-fascists in London, headed by Harry Bidney. Based on the earlier 43 Group, it was formed in 1962 largely in response to the resurgence of fascism in Britain at the time, and particularly Colin Jordan's National Socialist Movement (NSM). It used violence against the remnants of Oswald Mosley's Union Movement, the original British National Party, and the emerging National Front, as well as the NSM. The group was financed in part by the Jewish Aid Committee of Britain (JACOB).
The March on Rome was an organized mass demonstration and a coup d'état in October 1922 which resulted in Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party (PNF) ascending to power in the Kingdom of Italy. In late October 1922, Fascist Party leaders planned an insurrection to take place by marching on the capital. On 28 October, the fascist demonstrators and Blackshirt paramilitaries approached Rome; Prime Minister Luigi Facta wished to declare a state of siege, but this was overruled by King Victor Emmanuel III, who, fearing bloodshed, persuaded Facta to resign by threatening to abdicate. On 30 October 1922, the King appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister, thereby transferring political power to the fascists without armed conflict. On 31 October the fascist Blackshirts paraded in Rome, while Mussolini formed his coalition government.
Anti-Racist Action (ARA), also known as the Anti-Racist Action Network, is a decentralized network of militant far-left political cells in the United States and Canada. The ARA network originated in the late 1980s to engage in direct action and doxxing against rival political organizations on the hard right to dissuade them from further involvement in political activities. Anti-Racist Action described such groups as racist or fascist, or both. Most ARA members have been anarchists, but some have been Trotskyists and Maoists.
Squadism was the practice of physical, anti-fascist direct action. The term, often used pejoratively by liberal anti-fascists eschewing violence, originated in the Anti-Nazi League, an anti-fascist campaigning organisation dominated by the heterodox Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The SWP formed "squads", fighting units, in 1977, initially to defend and steward meetings against violent attacks from the fascist National Front. However, other anti-fascist squads emerged separately from the SWP, such as the Sari Squad.
In the context of the skinhead subculture, a redskin is a Marxist skinhead, who often also subscribe to anarchist views. The term combines the word red, with the word skin, which is short for skinhead. Redskins take a militant anti-fascist and pro-working class stance.
Antifaschistische Aktion was a militant anti-fascist organisation in the Weimar Republic started by members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) that existed from 1932 to 1933. It was primarily active as a KPD campaign during the July 1932 German federal election and the November 1932 German federal election and was described by the KPD as a "red united front under the leadership of the only anti-fascist party, the KPD."
Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) was a militant anti-fascist organisation, founded in the UK in 1985 by a wide range of anti-racist and anti-fascist organisations.
Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were opposed by many countries forming the Allies of World War II and dozens of resistance movements worldwide. Anti-fascism has been an element of movements across the political spectrum and holding many different political positions such as anarchism, communism, pacifism, republicanism, social democracy, socialism and syndicalism as well as centrist, conservative, liberal and nationalist viewpoints.
Redneck Revolt is an American far-left socialist political group that organizes predominantly among white working-class people. The group supports gun rights and members often openly carry firearms. Its political positions are anti-capitalist, anti-racist and anti-fascist. Founded in Kansas in 2009, members were present at several protests against Donald Trump and against the far-right in 2017.
Antifa is a left-wing anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement in the United States. It consists of a highly decentralized array of autonomous groups that use nonviolent direct action, incivility, and violence to achieve their aims. Most antifa political activism is nonviolent, involving poster and flyer campaigns, mutual aid, speeches, protest marches, and community organizing. However, some who identify as antifa also use tactics involving digital activism, doxing, harassment, physical violence, and property damage. Members of antifa aim to combat far-right extremists, including neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Post–World War II anti-fascism, including antifa groups, anti-fascist movements and anti-fascist action networks, saw the development of political movements describing themselves as anti-fascist and in opposition to fascism. Those movements have been active in several countries in the aftermath of World War II during the second half of the 20th and early 21st century.
Refuse Fascism is a U.S.-based anti-fascist coalition organization, led by the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. Until the 2020 United States presidential election, it was characterized by its call for the removal of the Trump administration by non-violent street protests. Since the election, it has counter-demonstrated at a series of pro-Trump events.
Rose City Antifa (RCA) is an antifascist group founded in 2007 in Portland, Oregon. A leftist group, it is the oldest known active antifa group in the United States. While anti-fascist activism in the United States dates back to the 1980s, Rose City Antifa is the first to adopt the abbreviated moniker antifa. Since 2016, Rose City Antifa has been one of the nine chapters of the Torch Network coalition.
The Antifascist United Front (FUA) – [Portuguese: Frente Única Antifascista] was a political organization founded on June 25, 1933 in the city of São Paulo to oppose fascism, represented in Brazil by the Brazilian Integralist Action (AIB). FUA was created on the initiative of Communist League (LC), Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), Italian anti-Fascist immigrants and other leftist minority organizations. Two important segments of São Paulo's left at the time, the anarchists and militants of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCB), did not formally participate in the FUA, but they maintained contacts and articulated themselves with the Antifascist front on some occasions.
Antifa is a political movement in Germany composed of multiple far-left, autonomous, militant groups and individuals who describe themselves as anti-fascist. According to the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the use of the epithet fascist against opponents and the view of capitalism as a form of fascism are central to the movement. The antifa movement has existed in different eras and incarnations, dating back to Antifaschistische Aktion, from which the moniker antifa came. It was set up by the then-Stalinist Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during the late history of the Weimar Republic. After the forced dissolution in the wake of Machtergreifung in 1933, the movement went underground. In the postwar era, Antifaschistische Aktion inspired a variety of different movements, groups and individuals in Germany as well as other countries which widely adopted variants of its aesthetics and some of its tactics. Known as the wider antifa movement, the contemporary antifa groups have no direct organisational connection to Antifaschistische Aktion.
The Secret Protocol for the International War on Anarchism, also known as the St. Petersburg Protocol, was an international agreement made on 1904 that arranged national policies for the rendition of anarchists to their origin countries and the exchange of surveilled information on anarchists. The United States was not signatory.
Fantifa is an umbrella term for anti-fascism movements centering on women as a branch of the feminist movement. The term mostly refers to a formal movement of feminist anti-fascist groups that emerged from German-speaking countries in 1985 but also encompasses historical German groups such as the 1925 Rote Frauen und Mädelbund and broader European groups such as the 1930s Spanish anarcha-feminist group Mujeres Libres, the 1934 French women's branch of the World Committee Against War and Fascism, and the 1942 Yugoslavian partisan group Women's Antifascist Front of Yugoslavia. The main fantifa movement holds an anarcho-communist philosophy and is specifically an anti-fascist variant of anarcha-feminism, as is sometimes represented in the use of a purple and black flag with a symbol derivative of that of the men's antifa group Antifaschistische Aktion.
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