On the 31st of May 2020 President Donald Trump tweeted that he planned to
formally designate Antifa as a terrorist group. This tweet was among
repeated threats and accusations from the president condemning this movement
but is it reasonable to describe people who say they want to fight fascism and
racism as terrorists? Antifa is short the anti-fascist. It's a leaderless
decentralized movement comprised of myriad groups whose roots lie leftist
ideologies such as communism, anarchism and socialism as well as anti racism.
The movement's profile has come back into the public eye since Trump's entry into
politics in 2015. While not all Antifa groups use violence many are
characterized by their militant and deliberately disruptive actions.
But where do Antifa come from and what link do they have with the anti-fascist
protests of the past? Fascism is a political ideology that originated under
Mussolini in Italy and swept through Europe between 1919 and 1945 and beyond
The broad characteristics of fascism include dictatorial rule, nationalism
elitism, racism and oppression. In fascist Italy any
perceived threat to national unity was violently suppressed. Meanwhile in
Germany groups to oppose fascist ideology were also growing. In 1932,
Antifaschistische Aktion was formed by the Communist Party of Germany. It's from
this group that modern-day antifa adopted their name and logo. From 1933
General Franco pushed for a nationalist military uprising in Spain to overthrow
the government sparking the Spanish Civil War that was to last until 1939.
Up to a million lives were lost in the conflict and Franco served as dictator
of Spain until 1975. The Spanish Civil War is sometimes seen as lying in the
heart of the anti-fascist movement. Groups across Spain with diverse
interests opposed Franco's fascism. They were also joined by the
International Brigades and other overseas volunteer groups. While the
exact numbers are unknow,n an estimated 40,000 foreign volunteers from 55
countries are thought to have fought in Spain. The response from international
volunteers was huge; many felt that preventing a fascistic
dictatorship in Spain would bring about the collapse of fascism in Italy in Germany
and prevent its spread across the world. The British Union of Fascists was
founded in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. The party was directly inspired by
Mussolini's Italy founded after Mosley's returned from the country. Mosley's
political stance was strongly anti-communist nationalistic
protectionist and anti-Semitic. His movement gained momentum, at first even
garnering support from the Mirror and the Daily Mail who published an article
in 1934 headlined Hurrah for the Blackshirts. However the party increasingly
espoused more extremist views alienating a lot of its early supporters. Mosley's
views were explicitly anti-Semitic and in support of Nazism. His second wedding
in 1936 took place in the home of Joseph Goebbels and Hitler as the guest of
honour. One of the factors that turned the tide against the British fascists was
the violent clashes of their rallies. The most famous of these was a protest that
has come to be known as the Battle of Cable Street. The British Union of
Fascists organised a march in 1936 through a neighbourhood in London with a
high Jewish population. It was the challenge to London people and an insult
to the people of the East End which was a Jewish quarter, and so all
political parties - Labour Party, Communist Party, Liberals, Socialists -
this would be one of the biggest anti-fascist turnouts in history and I would possibly
say from the thousands was one of the largest demonstrations ever seen in that
London and its call was to stop the Mosley march. Some 20,000 anti-fascist
protesters turned out to disrupt the March. The day resulted in violent
clashes between the police, the fascists and the anti-fascist protesters. Clashes
such as these contributed to the decline in popularity of the British Union of
Fascists. In 1940, the party was banned outright by the government.
After the defeat of the Axis powers at the end of the war, communism became thought of as
the principal threat to the West. Where communists had formed the base of many
anti-fascist organizations, these militant groups were now considered
dangerous and subversive. However many anti-fascist groups continued to combat
extremist movements. Most notable in the United States were groups that
violently disrupted Ku Klux Klan rallies in the 1970s and 80s. In Germany an strong
anti-fascist left-wing movement grew in the 1960s and 70s; it was this group that
first adopted the motifs of Antifaschistische Aktion: the colours of red and
black and the double flags. In the UK in the 1970s, as the National Front grew in
popularity, anti-fascists formed into a number of opposition groups such as the
Anti-Nazi League and the Campaign Against Racism and Fascism. While there
has never been a centralised Antifa group in Britain, the US or elsewhere,
hundreds of groups are known to exist today, from the Black Bloc groups who
mask their faces to violently combat white supremacy rallies, to online Antifa
groups who seek to uncover the identity of Neo-Nazis. Since the early
20th centur,y anti-fascist movements have never long been out of the public eye in
their fight against fascist and racist ideologies. What do you think the history
of anti-fascist protests can tell us about the demonstrations we see today?
Do you think violent tactics are ever justified? Is labeling Antifa as one
group useful or unhelpful? Let us know what you think in the comments below.