St. Petersburg, Florida:

“Antifa” is an abbreviation of “anti-fascism” or “anti-fascist.”  It is a global movement of people from all walks of life, united in their opposition to fascism and their intention to combat fascism.

If you would like to know more, we recommend reading these to start with:

There’s a couple of things you could do:

1) Reach out to your local antifa.  Here’s our guide to finding them or starting your own crew.  

2) Take action!  Here’s a list of 30 antifa actions we think pretty much anyone could pull off.  

Let us know what you get up to!

Your wording is fine, Anon!  Tbh, a huge number of us started doing antifa work when we were teenagers, so you’re in good company!

Here’s a list of 30 antifa actions we think just about anyone could handle, especially with a couple of friends in the mix.  Have a look and see if there is anything there that inspires you.

Assuming you’re in school, you might want to think about starting a student club - here are some thoughts about doing that. 

Anyone else want to make some suggestions for our young Anon friend?

Anon: whatever you wind up doing, let us know what you get up to!

Hoo boy Anon, we don’t think you were paying a lot of attention in history class. 
You might want to find someone to sit down and help you understand what we’re about to lay on you:

1) “Militarized communism” or “radical communism” aren’t things.  No one uses those terms because they don’t really describe anything (well, to be fair, the former described the economic & political system in Soviet Russia from 1918-1921, but we’ve a feeling that’s not what you meant) .  We think that maybe you were looking for the term “authoritarian communism.”  The textbook example of authoritarian communism?  Stalin’s regime.

2) Is “authoritarian communism” the “definition of fascism?”  A lot of haters like yourself seem to think they know what the definition of fascism is but do they, really?

One person that might have a better sense of the definition of fascism would be Columbia University history professor Robert O. Paxton, who’s written a book on the subject.  Guess what’s missing from his definition, Anon?  Any mention of communism! 

But wait, there’s more!  Paxton has something to say about authoritarian communism/Stalinism and whether or not it’s fascism:

“No doubt Nazi and communist mechanisms of control had many similarities” but “Stalin’s regime differed profoundly from Hitler’s in social dynamics as well as in aims.  Stalin ruled a civil society that had been radically simplified by the Bolshevik Revolution, and thus he did not have to concern himself with autonomous concentrations of inherited social and economic power.  Hitler (totally unlike Stalin) came into power with the assent and even assistance of traditional elites, and governed in strained but effective association with them.”  “Hitlerism and Stalinism also differed profoundly in their declared ultimate aims - for one, the supremacy of a master race; for the other, universal equality…Focusing upon central authority, the totalitarian paradigm overlooks the murderous frenzy that boiled below in fascism.”

“Treating Hitler and Stalin together as totalitarians often becomes an exercise in in comparative moral judgement: Which monster was more monstrous?…Stalin killed in grossly arbitrary fashion whomever his paranoid mind decided were ‘class enemies’ (a condition one can change), in a way that struck mostly adult males among the dictator’s fellow citizens.  Hitler, by contrast, killed ‘race enemies,’ an irremediable condition that condemns even newborns.  He wanted to  liquidate entire peoples, including their tombstones and cultural artifacts.”  (The Anatomy of Fascism, pp. 212-213). 

So no, Anon, communism - even militant/radicalized/authoritarian communism, isn’t fascism.  

3) Is antifa militant/radicalized/authoritarian communism?  Even if you weren’t wrong about “communism = fascism,” (which, contrary to what you may have gathered from a McBain movie, you are wrong about), are anti-fascists communists?

Certainly most, if not all, communists are anti-fascist.  But that doesn’t mean that all anti-fascists are communists.  Anti-fascism is a big tent compromised of people with all sorts of political perspectives (or none at all), who come together in their mutual opposition to fascism.  But the fact that some anti-fascists are communists doesn’t mean that all anti-fascists (or even the majority) are, even if all communists are anti-fascist.  You’re making what’s known as an association fallacy here.

4) If anti-fascists = fascist; and you’re against anti-fascists, who are fascists;  then that makes you an anti-fascist by definition. Which, in your muddled ouroboros logic, also makes you a fascist!  Which means you are your own worst enemy.  

At last we arrive at the truth of the matter!



 

We get our colors from the first people to organize against fascists - communists, socialists & anarchists in Germany & Italy in the 1920s.  Red was the color of the communists and socialists & black has always been the color of the anarchists.  So we use those colors in tribute to the antifa that came before us.  

Your question should actually be “where did the nazi regime get their colors?” The answer to that is that they stole the colors from their anarchist, communist, & socialist opponents because they were jealous of the huge growth of those movements in the 1920s and wanted to steal some of their fire & recruits.  That’s also why they named themselves “national socialists,” even though everything they did in power went completely against the tenets of socialism and even though their first opponents & victims were communists, socialists & anarchists.

We’d strongly recommend reading Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook for a historic overview of antifascism and Robert O. Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism for a clear explanation of how diametrically opposed fascism is to socialism.

No there is not.  There is also no “official antifa.”  Antifa is a movement opposed to fascism, not a singular organization.

If you find a website purporting to be “official antifa” that you can “join,” run away.

Now that said, there are hundreds and hundreds of anti-fascist organizations out there.  Here is our guide to finding one near you or starting your own.

It’s really not.  Think of it like the environmental movement or the feminist movement.  There’s no “official” environmental organization.  It’s a movement.

Movements consist of lots and lots of individuals united by their belief in the cause.  Some (but not all) of those people will organize themselves into groups and orgs, but not all of them will and none of them will carry the authority to speak for the entirety of the movement.

Oh, here we go with the LATEST ANTIFA OUTRAGE INFURIATING THE NATION!!!  This time it was a sweet elderly racist couple in Hamilton, Canada trying to get into a white supremacist event organized by that country’s most bigoted political party.  AND THEY GOT YELLED AT AND CALLED NAMES!  THE FUCKING HORROR OF IT ALL!!!

How did the antifa there know they were racists, though?  One clue was that they had tickets to a racist event being held by a racist organization with more links to neo-nazis and far-right bigots than we can list here.  Which they were trying to get into.  If it goose steps like a nazi and seig heils like a nazis, it’s probably a nazi, Anon.

And FFS, the old “you’re oppressing racists so you’re a fascist too,” routine is a logical fallacy called cherry-picking the data (aka “the texas sharpshooter”), where you ignore everything that contradicts your assertion (like the fact that antifa aren’t ultranationalists, don’t have a cult-like leader they follow, fight against racism and other forms of bigotry, do not fetishize violence, aren’t into crony capitalism, are against misogyny, and don’t call for the dehumanization, vilification, debasement, and murder of people because of their ethnicity, race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, migration status, or disability) & instead claim that the one thing you think they have in common with fascists (the suppression-by-force of their opponents - something we’d debate as well but will leave that for another time) defines them as fascists.

By that logic, you must think that dogs are elephants, since both have four legs, which is a defining characteristic of elephants.  Or that shopping trolleys are cars, because they both share one of the defining characteristics of cars - four wheels.

First off, we’re Antifa International - a small antifa social media collective.  We ourselves have no funds whatsoever.  We think you’re confusing us with The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund, which is an antifascist support project that we set up & administer.  That fund was specifically set up to support anti-fascists who run into trouble as a direct result of their antifa work.  Quoting directly from the “about” page: “We saw a need for a standing fund that could be used to provide immediate support to anti-fascists and anti-racists anywhere in the world, whenever they found themselves in a difficult situation as a result of their stand against hate.” 

So if someone needs help for trouble they’ve run into that’s not a direct result of antifa work, the Defence Fund is unlikely to consider the request for support.  But there are other funds out there that have started up after being inspired by the work of the Defence Fund; check out the Solidarity & Defence Fund or the International Anarchist Defence Fund for two examples.