Anti-fascism: Difference between revisions

Seidman argues that despite the differences between these two strands of anti-fascism, there were similarities. They would both come to regard violent expansion as intrinsic to the fascist project. They both rejected any claim that the [[Treaty of Versailles|Versailles Treaty]] was responsible for the rise of Nazism and instead viewed fascist dynamism as the cause of conflict. Unlike fascism, these two types of anti-fascism did not promise a quick victory but an extended struggle against a powerful enemy. During World War II, both anti-fascisms responded to fascist aggression by creating a cult of heroism which relegated victims to a secondary position.<ref name="Seidman 2017">Seidman, Michael. Transatlantic Antifascisms: From the Spanish Civil War to the End of World War II. Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp.1-81–8</ref> However, after the war, conflict arose between the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary anti-fascisms; the victory of the Western Allies allowed them to restore the old regimes of liberal democracy in Western Europe, while Soviet victory in Eastern Europe allowed for the establishment of new revolutionary anti-fascist regimes there.<ref>Seidman, Michael. ''Transatlantic Antifascisms: From the Spanish Civil War to the End of World War II''. Cambridge University Press, 2017, p. 252 {{ISBN?}}</ref>

Anti-fascist movements emerged first in Italy during the rise of [[Benito Mussolini]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/17283245.pdf |title=Working Class Defence Organization, Anti-Fascist Resistance and the Arditi Del Popolo in Turin, 1919-221919–22 |access-date=23 September 2021 |archive-date=19 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319044401/https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/17283245.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> but they soon spread to other European countries and then globally. In the early period, Communist, socialist, anarchist and Christian workers and intellectuals were involved. Until 1928, the period of the [[United front]], there was significant collaboration between the Communists and non-Communist anti-fascists.

In Italy, Mussolini's [[Italian Fascism|Fascist]] regime used the term ''anti-fascist'' to describe its opponents. Mussolini's [[secret police]] was officially known as the [[Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism]]. During the 1920s in the [[Kingdom of Italy]], anti-fascists, many of them from the [[labor movement]], fought against the violent [[Blackshirts]] and against the rise of the fascist leader Benito Mussolini. After the [[Italian Socialist Party]] (PSI) signed a [[Pact of Pacification|pacification pact]] with Mussolini and his [[Fasci Italiani di Combattimento|Fasces of Combat]] on 3 August 1921,<ref>Charles F. Delzell, edit., ''Mediterranean Fascism 1919-19451919–1945'', New York, NY, Walker and Company, 1971, p. 26</ref> and trade unions adopted a legalist and pacified strategy, members of the workers' movement who disagreed with this strategy formed ''[[Arditi del Popolo]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/17283245.pdf |title=Working Class Defence Organization, Anti-Fascist Resistance and the Arditi Del Popolo in Turin, 1919-221919–22 |access-date=23 September 2021 |archive-date=19 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319044401/https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/17283245.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[Italian General Confederation of Labour]] (CGL) and the PSI refused to officially recognize the anti-fascist militia and maintained a non-violent, legalist strategy, while the [[Communist Party of Italy]] (PCd'I) ordered its members to quit the organization. The PCd'I organized some militant groups, but their actions were relatively minor.<ref>[https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/17283245.pdf Working Class Defence Organization, Anti-Fascist Resistance and the Arditi Del Popolo in Turin, 1919-221919–22] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319044401/https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/17283245.pdf |date=19 March 2022 }}, Antonio Sonnessa, in the ''[[European History Quarterly]]'', Vol. 33, No. 2, 183-218183–218 (2003)</ref> The Italian anarchist [[Severino Di Giovanni]], who exiled himself to Argentina following the 1922 [[March on Rome]], organized several bombings against the Italian fascist community.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://anarchist_century.tripod.com/timeline.html |title=Anarchist Century |publisher=Anarchist_century.tripod.com |access-date=7 April 2014}}</ref> The Italian liberal anti-fascist [[Benedetto Croce]] wrote his ''[[Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals]]'', which was published in 1925.<ref>David Ward ''Antifascisms: Cultural Politics in Italy, 1943–1946''</ref>{{page needed|date=June 2020}} Other notable Italian liberal anti-fascists around that time were [[Piero Gobetti]] and [[Carlo Rosselli]].<ref>James Martin, 'Piero Gobetti's Agonistic Liberalism', ''History of European Ideas'', '''32''', (2006), pp. 205–222.</ref>

The specific term anti-fascism was primarily used{{citation needed|date=June 2020}} by the [[Communist Party of Germany]] (KPD), which held the view that it was the only anti-fascist party in Germany. The KPD formed several explicitly anti-fascist groups such as ''[[Roter Frontkämpferbund]]'' (formed in 1924 and banned by the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|Social Democrats]] in 1929) and ''Kampfbund gegen den Faschismus'' (a ''de facto'' successor to the latter).<ref>Eve Rosenhaft, ''Beating the Fascists?: The German Communists and Political Violence 1929-19331929–1933'', Cambridge University Press, 25 Aug 1983, pp. 3–4</ref><ref>Heinrich August Winkler: ''Der Weg in die Katastrophe. Arbeiter und Arbeiterbewegung in der Weimarer Republik 1930–1933''. Bonn 1990, {{ISBN|3-8012-0095-7}}.</ref>{{Request quotation|date=May 2020}}<ref>Hoppe, Bert (2011). ''In Stalins Gefolgschaft: Moskau und die KPD 1928–1933''. Oldenbourg Verlag. {{ISBN|9783486711738}}.</ref>{{Request quotation|date=May 2020}} At its height, ''Roter Frontkämpferbund'' had over 100,000 members. In 1932, the KPD established the [[Antifaschistische Aktion]] as a "red united front under the leadership of the only anti-fascist party, the KPD".<ref name="Pieroth">{{cite book |last= Stephan|first= Pieroth|year= 1994 |title=Parteien und Presse in Rheinland-Pfalz 1945–1971: ein Beitrag zur Mediengeschichte unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Mainzer SPD-Zeitung 'Die Freiheit' |publisher= v. Hase & Koehler Verlag |page= 96 |isbn= 9783775813266 }}</ref> Under the leadership of the committed [[Stalinist]] [[Ernst Thälmann]], the KPD primarily viewed fascism as the final stage of [[capitalism]] rather than as a specific movement or group, and therefore applied the term broadly to its opponents, and in the name of anti-fascism the KPD focused in large part on attacking its main adversary, the centre-left [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]], whom they referred to as [[social fascism|social fascists]] and regarded as the "main pillar of the dictatorship of Capital."<ref>Braunthal, Julius (1963). ''Geschichte der Internationale: 1914–1943''. Vol. 2, p. 414. Dietz.</ref>

The Anti-Fascist Bloc was an organization of [[Polish Jews]] formed in the March 1942 in the [[Warsaw Ghetto]]. It was created after an alliance between [[Left Zionism|leftist-Zionist]], communist and socialist Jewish parties was agreed upon. The initiators of the bloc were [[Mordechai Anielewicz]], [[Józef Lewartowski]] (Aron Finkelstein) from the [[Polish Workers' Party]], [[Josef Kaplan]] from [[Hashomer Hatzair]], [[Szachno Sagan]] from [[Poale Zion]]-Left, [[Jozef Sak]] as a representative of socialist-Zionists and [[Izaak Cukierman]] with his wife [[Cywia Lubetkin]] from [[Habonim Dror|Dror]]. The [[General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland|Jewish Bund]] did not join the bloc though they were represented at its first conference by [[Abraham Blum]] and [[Maurycy Orzech]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gutman |first1=Yisrael |title=The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-19431939–1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt |year=1989 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-20511-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4U_OcvXvhF4C&pg=PA171 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kassow |first1=Samuel D. |author-link=Samuel Kassow |title=Who Will Write Our History?: Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive |year= 2007 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-00003-3 |page=294 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zJ3IzEy8sB0C&pg=PA294 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopaedia Judaica |date=1972 |publisher=Keter Publishing House |page=349 |volume=16 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Zuckerman |first1=Yitzhak |author-link1=Yitzhak Zuckerman |editor1-last=Harshav |editor1-first=Barbara |title=A Surplus of Memory: Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising |date=1993 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-91259-5 |page=183 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CVGI15EjM2IC&pg=PA183 |language=en}}</ref>

Today's [[Italian constitution]] is the result of the work of the [[Constituent Assembly of Italy|Constituent Assembly]], which was formed by the representatives of all the anti-fascist forces that contributed to the defeat of Nazi and Fascist forces during the [[Italian Civil War]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McGaw Smyth |first1=Howard |title=Italy: From Fascism to the Republic (1943-19461943–1946) |journal=The Western Political Quarterly |date=September 1948 |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=205–222 |doi=10.2307/442274|jstor=442274 }}</ref>

''[[Bella ciao]]'' ({{IPA-it|ˈbɛlla ˈtʃaːo}}; "Goodbye beautiful") is an [[Italian folk music|Italian folk song]] modified and adopted as an anthem of the [[Italian resistance movement]] by the partisans who opposed [[nazism]] and [[fascism]], and fought against the occupying forces of [[Nazi Germany]], who were allied with the fascist and collaborationist [[Italian Social Republic]] between 1943 and 1945 during the [[Italian Civil War]]. Versions of this Italian anti-fascist song continue to be sung worldwide as a hymn of freedom and resistance.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://notizie.virgilio.it/bella-ciao-significato-e-testo-perche-la-canzone-della-resistenza-non-appartiene-solo-ai-comunisti-1541819|title=Bella ciao, significato e testo: perché la canzone della Resistenza non appartiene (solo) ai comunisti|date=13 September 2022 |access-date=21 October 2022|language=it}}</ref> As an internationally known hymn of freedom, it was intoned at many historic and revolutionary events. The song originally aligned itself with Italian partisans fighting against Nazi German occupation troops, but has since become to merely stand for the inherent rights of all people to be liberated from tyranny.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://pstream.lastampa.it.dl1.ipercast.net/lastampa/2015/01/23/d37A1QUG.mp4 |title=ATENE – Comizio di chiusura di Alexis Tsipras |access-date=23 January 2015 |archive-date=20 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200420023001/http://pstream.lastampa.it.dl1.ipercast.net/lastampa/2015/01/23/d37A1QUG.mp4 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://video.corriere.it/bella-ciao-tutte-lingue-mondo-cosi-canto-partigiani-diventato-global/24c02342-a38b-11e4-808e-442fa7f91611 |title=Non solo Tsipras: "Bella ciao" cantata in tutte le lingue del mondo Guarda il video – Corriere TV |language=it |trans-title=Not only Tsipras: "Bella ciao" sung in all languages of the world Watch the video -– Corriere TV |website=video.corriere.it}}</ref>