Antifascist Action Book

581 Pages - Bernd Langer
In Spanish
Publication by: Sare Antifaxista

Starting from the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia in 1917 and the rise of Italian fascism, this book addresses the rise of fascism and anti-fascism all the way to today's anti-fascist movements.
The focus is on developments in Germany. Here, the defense against Kapp's Coup in 1920 marked the first appearance of a united front against the radical right.
However, this success was not continued, not least because the KPD regarded fascism as a mere form of capitalist rule. Finally, the Communist International (Comintern) adopted the fatal line with the thesis of social-fascism, which contributed decisively to the fact that the anti-fascist forces were unprepared and disunited in 1933. The book contains a precise description of the political actors and their strategies up to World War II. After the war, anti-fascism was understood differently in the GDR (socialist) and the FRG (capitalist).
The book deals mainly with the non-dogmatic and militant anti-fascism that emerged in West Germany in the 1970s. In the 1980s, an extra-parliamentary and revolutionary Anti-Fascist Movement emerged from the new Autonomous Movement. However, it was only with the rise of fascist forces from 1989 (German reunification) that anti-fascism became the dominant issue on the radical left, and the Autonomous Movement was largely absorbed into the organized Antifa Movement. All those who continue to search for the causes of fascism in the capitalist system, who understand anti-fascism as a struggle for the whole and who cling to the idea of a different society, gather under the symbol of Anti-Fascist Action.
The history of this movement, together with the development of right-wing radicalism and state measures, is presented until 2022, after the pandemic. Today, the double flags of Antifascist Action (Antifaschistische Aktion) are the most widely used symbol of the left-wing scene. Antifa is also a term that everyone can recognize. Equating Antifa with the black bloc, at least that's how the media misrepresents it. However, the history of this movement goes back a long way and cannot be reduced to the Autonomous Movement at all.
In West Germany, communist groups took up the dual flag in the 1970s. Later adopted and redesigned by the self-employed, it became the symbol of today's Antifa Action. Non-dogmatic, radical and critical of the system, anti-fascism has always been much more than a fight against the Nazis. This book offers the first overview of this evolution of Antifa, reaching into the present and thus also documenting the most recent history.