Anti-fascism

A logo utilized by German anti-fascists.

Anti-fascism is opposition to fascism. Notable anti-fascists include Georgi Dimitrov, Vladimir Lenin, and Joseph Stalin, among others. The history of anti-fascism is a long one, and has existed as long as fascism has.

History of Anti-fascism

The term anti-fascism was first officially employed in Italy in 1920, during the rise of Benito Mussolini’s fascist dictatorship. Throughout the 1920s, the concept was taken up by the Comintern, which promoted it as part of the international struggle against reaction. By the early 1930s, anti-fascist politics had gained significant traction in the Weimar Republic, particularly in the context of the electoral battles against the growing Nazi movement.

In June 1930, the Communist Party of Germany formally established Antifaschistische Aktion at a congress of its Central Committee. Conceived as a revolutionary front, Anti-Fascist Action sought to mobilize the working class against the advance of Hitlerite fascism within Germany. It was led by workers and peasants, organized under the guidance of the Communist Party, and stood as a militant expression of proletarian unity in defense of socialism and democracy.

Anti-fascism during the Nazi-era

When the Nazis seized power in 1933, one of their first targets was the organized working class. Both Social Democrats and Communists were subjected to brutal repression. The Hitlerite regime unleashed a systematic crackdown on the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), arresting and persecuting countless militants and revolutionaries, including its leader Ernst Thälmann. Anti-Fascist Action, along with the KPD itself, was outlawed and driven underground.

By the 1940s, many of these anti-fascist militants carried their struggle beyond Germany’s borders. Veterans of Anti-Fascist Action joined international brigades fighting in Spain, most famously the Ernst Thälmann Battalion, which fought under the command of the Spanish Republicans. In this way, German communists continued the fight against fascism as part of the broader international struggle. The anti-fascists action was also involved in the Yugoslav Partisans, which was a armed resistance group that fought against the so-called Ustase regime which was lead by Ante Pavelic, a well known Croatian anti-communist, fascist.

In 1944, the Hitlerite regime seized Comrade Ernst Thälmann, the steadfast leader of the Communist Party of Germany, and imprisoned him in the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. For over a decade he had already endured Nazi captivity, yet even behind bars he remained a symbol of proletarian resistance. His transfer to Buchenwald marked the regime’s determination to silence one of the most uncompromising voices of German communism, a figure who embodied the unity of the working class against fascism.