Authors

Ondrej Daniel¹;  ¹ Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

Discussion

The transformation of the Czech and Russian antifascist movements over what will soon be thirty years of its existence is tied to profound changes in the associated anarchist and radical leftist movements. Czech and Russian antifascism arose as an immediate response to far-right street violence. As well as targeting people from minorities, far-right skinheads directed their violence in the early 1990s at the members of youth subcultures. As a result, many participants in subcultural scenes took antifascist stands. These two aspects of antifascism – its activist and subcultural dimensions – must be considered when analyzing changes in the strategy, tactics and ideology of the both antifascist scenes. Drawing on testimonies in local punk fanzines, the anarchist press and edited anthologies as well as published interviews and related audio-visual material, I examine the intersections of subcultures with the antifascist movement. As part of a grassroots anti-authoritarian movement, Czech and Russian antifascist movements endorsed anti-totalitarianism, adopting positions that were not only anti-Bolshevik but more generally anti-Marxist and anti-communist. This radical rejection of 'Red fascism' and the 'authoritarian Left' can only be understood in the post-socialist context where the Left was severely discredited by its ties to state socialism. For younger people especially, the Left had lost all credibility, a problem that was not resolved entirely even during the post-2008 economic crises when the Far Right proved far more successful than the Far Left in reaching important segments of the population.