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Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideology, organization, or government, on all levels. It has been historically associated with the anarchism movement, although many individuals who do not belong to this movement share anti-fascism ideas. However, the active struggle against fascism and many antifascist organizations are related to the socialist and anarchist movement. In the anarchist movement, anti-fascism always includes antimilitarism, since the two are considered intimately related. In a broader sense of the term, anti-fascism as shared by many left-wing people also includes opposing homophobia, sexism, racism and the restriction of civil liberties, for example during state of emergency. In the most broader sense, an anti-fascist is anyone who opposes fascism, and/or engages in anti-fascist direct action. The term antifa is a commonly used word for anti-fascist action. Many major resistance movements during World War II may claim they were anti-fascist, although others will argue that anti-fascism is a specificity of the socialist movement: for example, quite a few people who joined the French Resistance against the Vichy regime came from far right nationalist and royalist background, which certainly didn't make them "antifascist" (e.g. Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie, who may even have taken a part, before the war, in the fascist La Cagoule terrorist group, but joined the Resistance anyhow, by patriotism — however, his brother, Emmanuel d'Astier de la Vigerie, also part of the Action Française in the 1930s but who became progressively left-wing, also engaged himself and the Resistance and wasn't a fascist). However, they abandonned the Vichy regime and started fighting against the Germans' when they saw that Philippe Pétain was totally bending over to the Nazis and had no intent to stop collaboration. But they didn't fight nazism for antifascism reasons, but because of patriotism. Thus, antifascism as a distinct theory and practice is historically limited to the socialist movement, although with the emergence of new, alternative political movements (the Greens being only one of them), the antifascism tradition of the socialist movement may expands itself to other left-wing people. Although many moderate right-wing people are anti-racist and oppose fascism, they are not considered "antifascists" as they do not organize themselves in specific groups dedicated to the antifascist struggle.

While violent or militant anti-fascism does occur, the movement may also be non-violent; being an anti-fascist is not necessarily to "fight" fascism with violence, although violence did play an important role in the 1920s and the 1930s, when antifascists were confronted to aggressive far right leagues, such as the Action Française royalist movement in France, which dominated the Quartier latin students' neighborhood (although royalist, the Action Française counted members such as Georges Valois who would later found the Faisceau fascist movement, created on the model of the Italian Fascio). In Italy in the 1920s, antifascists had to struggle against the violent squadristi, while in Germany they were confronted to the Freikorps. The squadristi broke the general strikes using violence, and the only way for the workers' movement to defend itself was physically. Thus, pre-World War II history explains why anti-fascism has been associated with violence.

However, many antifa activists consider today that violence is not justified, since fascists don't represent, in most countries, a massive physical threat. They argue that they should be fought intellectually. However, others disagree, and point out that skinheads pose a real threat in some neighborhoods, and have sometimes killed people. These antifascists claim that self-defense is necessary, because they observe that the state doesn't defends equally the population of specific neighborhoods. In Russia, some neo-nazis have recently committed various hate crimes against foreigners. Some antifascists groups are: Anti-Racist Action, a US group created in the 1990s; the UK Anti-Nazi League, set up in 1977, and which merged in 2002 with Unite Against Fascism, whose chairman is London's mayor Ken Livingstone; the UK Anti-Fascist Action, which fights the National Front and the British National Party (BNP); Anarcho-skinheads (one must recall that the original skinhead movement was antifascist, and only latter became in majority neonazi).


Anti-fascists

Anti-fascist organisations

Pre-World War II

World War II

Main article: Resistance during World War II


Post-World War II

Anti-fascist songs

Anti-fascist bands

Anti-fascist books

See also

External links

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