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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

The view of Norman Davies on Anti-fascism: Irreconcilably different anti-fascists

With this edit I have tried to make the point that Anti-fascism is not actually a coherent political ideology and that various anti-fascists are irreconcilably different.

To illustrate that this view is notable and deserves mentioning, I made this edit.

The point of that second edit is that contemporary German antifascists, that oppose the post-reunification rise in far-right extremism would be seriously offended by being lumped together with the SED of the former GDR.

Any editor that takes issues with these edits is welcome to discuss them here. Happy editing, Lklundin (talk) 11:20, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

There is a D is BRD, which means you discuss before reinserting the content. You can highlight the term used by the SED, but to conclude that this is evidence of irreconcilable difference in ideology by contemporary Antifa is original research and in breach of WP:SYNTHESIS. -Saint458 (talk) 11:33, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
You cannot have it both ways. So if you berate me for not following the optional WP:BRD then you consequently have to justify your revert of this edit by arguing against its edit summary. Feel free to self-revert while you do so. Lklundin (talk) 12:29, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
Already stated my concern which is the undue weight given to a singular source for the purpose of POV pushing. -Saint458 (talk) 10:40, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
@Saint458: Firstly, there is no problem in citing a single reliable source for a given paragraph. Secondly, considering that Norman Davies is a highly regarded historian quoted hundreds and hundreds of times here on the English Wikipedia, I believe it is only fair to ask that you please detail exactly how the suggested text is in conflict with the WP:UNDUE and the more general WP:POV policy that you refer to. Lklundin (talk) 12:16, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
@Saint458: In the absence of feed-back to my request for details on how exactly my proposed edit conflicts with Wikipedia policy I will have to assume that you no longer have any objections to my edit. Lklundin (talk) 07:02, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

My work and real life commitments take priority so I'm not always able to edit on a daily basis. Regarding the source - can we establish that this is view is held within the broader literature? Being a reputable historian doesn't mean that the views expressed is necessarily representative. Also on closer inspection your version requires additional clarification as it appears to refer to policies of a specific period and not necessarily the movement as a whole. Anti-fascist movements (broadly construed), predates these events. -Saint458 (talk) 10:32, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Right, finding sources to establish that the view of Davies is broadly held would allow us to dispense with the attribution (e.g. Davies argues this, Davies claims that). For now I will be content to leave it as proposed. I did think about how to best integrate Davies' view into the page. Since the lead is not inline sourced, I took the liberty to modify it, to fit in Davies' view there. This was rejected as editorialising. My second attempt is a separate paragraph with its own header, i.e. a new subsection. You are welcome to suggest a modification that allows the paragraph to be appended to the intro, or a modification of the suggested subsection to clarify that Anti-fascist movements (broadly construed) predates the events based on Davies. Unless the text of the suggested modification is self-evident, a reliable source would be in order. Example: "Although the term anti-fascism was used in year 1927,(ref)Insert source for example year 1927 here(/ref) Davies claims that...". A separate section titled 'Origin' with the relevant views would be preferable in my mind. The events described by Davies took place on the order of 80 years ago, so I see no urgency in the discussion here. Lklundin (talk) 07:06, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
It was editorialising. Not only that, it was also redundant as you were basically repeating the notion that anti-fascists are opposed to fascism. I'm not opposed to the inclusion of Norman Davies' views, we just need it to establish its relevance within the broader literature and to clarify on the precise nature of his statement. Undue weight is given to his views as its presented as a indictment on the movement as a whole when he was specifically referring to a given period within a particular political context. I'm still in the process of looking at additional sources (both journal and books). -Saint458 (talk) 11:02, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
It has been 9 days now, since I asked you to please detail your accusation that the edit you reverted was POV pushing. As already established Davies is a highly regarded historian and with the clear attribution of the statements to him, it is not necessary to further establish the relevance of his view. The suggested paragraph heading with the word 'Origin' clearly does not indict the movement as a whole. It is fine that you look for ways to improve the article, but in the meantime we need to reinstate the edit you reverted, for apparent lack of justification of its revert. I will give you a couple of days to show your good faith, or do so myself. Lklundin (talk) 07:40, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
And I believe I've answered your questions already. How about we work towards a compromise. Perhaps get a third opinion from an admin?. -Saint458 (talk) 14:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Note: POV pushing is clearly evident in your attempt to synthesise sources in order to show what you believe is a "truly evil" term [1]. The lack of context and clarification, plus reliance on a single source, is enough justification for a revert. -Saint458 (talk) 14:39, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
@Saint458: OK, I have brought the contested edit up at Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#POV_pushing_at_Anti-fascism. Lklundin (talk) 11:00, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

@Intermittentgardener: Although the new heading 'Origins' is a NPOV word I am unsure if it is suitable with the subsection in its current form. The word 'Antifascism' appears to be in use already in 1927 to describe (potential) resistance specifically within the only existing fascist regime at the time, namely that of Mussolini. This usage thus predates the Soviet (ab)use (as claimed by Davies), which appears in the 1930'es as an all encompassing term. So the current heading can give the incorrect impression that the Soviet use of the word is the original use of the word, as opposed to a broadening of its definition. One solution could be to extend the 'Origins' subsection to specify that 'Antifascism' was used from 1927 by Mussolini to describe his "Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism", or else to rename the subsection to try and hint at the Soviet usage. Lklundin (talk) 18:10, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

PS. The current section text is a bare bones summary of Davies. My first edit to this article tried to include my above point but the extra, introductory text was rejected as 'editoralising' and interestingly also as 'redundant' (in the above discussion). Lklundin (talk)

I came here from a notice board, it is my opinion that since the edit is contested that wp:undue states t "if a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia, regardless of whether it is true or you can prove it, except perhaps in some ancillary article." I would also look at the quality of the book. If it is a great source then it should have something to back it. Here are some links about it from high quality sources: nytimes theguardian.com. With a brief search I did find it hard to find further information supporting the claim. Jadeslair (talk) 06:21, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

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Pronunciation of "antifa"?

I'm not sure precisely where this would go in the article, since usually only the title itself gets an IPA transcription, but without a separate article on antifa it would be good to have a pronunciation listed here. -- Phyzome is Tim McCormack 03:11, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

More importantly, where is it defined or acknowledged as an alternate term for antifascists? the ONLY use i have seen for this term is on this page, in captions for 2 images on WP, and at the 4chan site /pol, which is a gathering spot for self proclaimed fascists. I believe the term may be used to insult or demean anti fascists. if so, it should not be used as an NPOV term for them. I think its a neologism.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 19:05, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
here's evidence that its a disparaging term used by fascists: [2]Mercurywoodrose (talk) 19:14, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
Here's evidence that it was originally a narrowly used term for communist groups pretending to be adhoc anti fascists, but historic in occupied germany after ww2, not current. this may be true today, but its not proven. [3]Mercurywoodrose (talk) 19:14, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry User:Mercurywoodrose but that is not the truth. Facebook is not a reliable source. See this reliable source, it's a neutral term http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-39004753 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anarcho-authoritarian (talk • contribs) 12:38, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
German antifascists use Antifa to describe themselves ([4], [5]). Our German version of this article cites several sources using Antifa. In German is not uncommon to shorten words in an informal setting (e.g. Trabi) and I would guess that in German use of Antifa signals familiarity with and probably also approval of the concept. The pronunciation in German is with both a something like in Arnhem. Lklundin (talk) 21:57, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Moved from my talkpage

My edits


Dr. K.,

While you may not appreciate the edits that I have made to this page, the source that I cited is by a well-respected author who is writing o the very beginnings of the Nazi movement in 1933. This is neither a "novel synthesis" of information, and I am using a more than credible source to provide my information. While your opinion of what is occurring in America today and mine might differ, one cannot deny that many of the tactics of those who are protesting Trump and his actions are doing the very things I listed - almost verbatim, actually.

Please help me understand how this violates the policy of editing a Wikipedia page.

KancerBrain (talk) 02:37, 27 February 2017 (UTC) KB

Can you please provide a quote from the source you provided that says:

Many of the tactics used by anti-fascists today eerily mirror those of the Fascists in Nazi Germany.

Thanks. Dr. K. 02:47, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
This is a simple comparison of recent events used by anti-government movements that mirror those of the Nazis in Germany, followed by specific examples of exact tactics used by these groups in recent months. While the particular statement you have raised may objectionable, I woudl prefer constructive criticism on how to rewrite it such that we can relates the specific behaviors used today that mirror those behaviors used in 1933 KancerBrain (talk) 03:11, 27 February 2017 (UTC)KB
Yeah. A commonly made mistake. "Simple comparisons" = WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH. Unless you find a WP:RELIABLESOURCE making that not-so-simple comparison, your edit stays out of this article, or any other. Sorry to sound so forbidding but that's what the local policies here demand. Dr. K. 03:18, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


This article is remarkably lenient on domestic terrorism

ANTIFA in particular is basically just a terrorist organization. At the VERY LEAST, there needs to be a criticisms section on this article. These so-called anti-fascists who behave like fascists themselves have been roundly condemned by millions of individuals for DECADES. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.69.1.119 (talk) 13:37, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

"ANTIFA ... is ... a[n] ... organization." Is Antifa an organization? You may want to learn about the topic before suggesting emotionally charged edits.

United States: 2016 to Current -- vote on whether to include section on Trump protestors and/or present-day antifa in US

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Summary:- The article shall contain brief material about the current (2016–2017) political situation in the United States.

Rationale:--It is a fact the argument that several Western democracies at the moment, are seeing protests and violence that define themselves as "anti-fascist". That they are covered in multiple WP:RS carves a strong point for inclusion---esp. given that the article desists from any opinion on the accuracy of that self-definition . While on the other side,WP:RECENTISM seems a good argument---it fails to counter the impetus of the previous point.Some reasonings on both the sides are set in vague territories of synthesis and original research.

As a side-note,I have completely discounted all votes from single purpose accounts.Winged Blades Godric 16:33, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Backstory for voting: When I got to the "United States" section of this wiki and the discussion of post-WW2 events, it talked exclusively about violent masked rioters going crazy at Berkeley because of a Milo event. No context at all. I started to beef up the section to portray the massive political happenings in the US (Trump etc). Soon there were many vandals attacking this section. Additionally, legitimate wiki editors raised the point that since Trump is not conclusively a fascist proper, discussions about his protestors may not be relevant Mjleone (talk) 19:09, 3 April 2017 (UTC):

  • Per my recent edit summary, the sub-section on 2016 was not encyclopedic, helplessly prone to WP:POV, subject to WP:BLP abuse, and violated WP:NOTNEWS. Article focus is on the historical, not hysterical aspects of antifasicm. WP cannot be used to imply that Trump and Trumpism is fascist, either by saying "he is!" or "he isn't". History, not current punditry, will tell. If there are quality sources which discuss Trump et al., they should be in accordance with WP:HISTRS. – S. Rich (talk) 23:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't have the energy to keep fighting edits because I have been fighting them for more than a week (again -- the section was originally about anarchists screaming in the streets without any mention of trump which was crazy weird dontyathink). But let me just say that at no point did I write that Trump was or was not fascist. There were however a diverse array of sources supporting that the fact that many people BELIEVE him to be very fascist (and they have expressed their anti-fascism by disapproving of him, voting against him, and protesting against him by the millions). This widespread antifascism will be an enduring memory in american history and deserves to be on the wiki page. Hopefully someone will fix what you've done (but I also get where you're coming from)

Mjleone (talk) 23:57, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I am not totally sure about the recent deletion of the "2016" section, in theory. These events are fairly important. But as I've pointed out, it's hard to determine what "anti-fascism" or "fascism" in the US even means. There is "anti-fascist" sentiment in the wake of Trump, but there is no cohesive "anti-fascist" or "fascist" movement. So it's hard to know who really is an "anti-fascist". Add to that the politicization of the topic, and you have a recipe for disaster. @Srich32977: I think this section could work, but only if IP's and new users are blocked from editing. Otherwise trolls will make a mess. Guccisamsclub (talk) 00:10, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. I strongly urge that we look at the topic from an historical perspective, and avoid WP:RECENTISM. Those who want to criticise Trump as a fascist (or otherwise) can best do so in articles with his name in the title. That way we can steer clear of BLP problems, and the fairly important events of his election and presidency will remain balanced. – S. Rich (talk) 01:48, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I just edited the first paragraph of this section. I honestly don't know how much of this really belongs in this article, but whatever does deserves clarity, so I did my best to revise it. The last sentence seems out of place and not very appropriate for the paragraph. However, I left it in place to avoid any edit wars.

I linked the "Main Article" for the second paragraph. It is excessive in this article and I think should be eliminated entirely. A simple link indicating the existence of that protest would more than suffice. I will leave that to someone with more edit experience/authority than I. 108.202.198.41 (talk) 14:14, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

I concur with leaving the first paragraph in and removing the second paragraph, but also don't want to be the one to change it and have my edits reverted. Here's my rationale: everyone and their mother knows who Donald Trump is as well as the accusations of fascism surrounding his campaign and administration. But my mother definitely doesn't know who the f*** Milo Yiannopoulos is; most people don't really care except trolls. So clearly the first paragraph is more enduring and therefore relevant for this wiki page, while the Milo stuff is prone to recentism.

Mjleone (talk) 16:26, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Request for comment

Should the article contain material about the current (2016–2017) political situation in the United States? – S. Rich (talk) 16:20, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Survey

I feel I should respond to this. WP:RECENTISM - does not state an entry should be ignored because it is recent. it states that entries on recent subjects should be written in a way that it is relevant and understandable if read 10 years from now. It is not a reason to exclude an article, but a reason to rewrite one: Recentism is a phenomenon on Wikipedia where an article has an inflated or imbalanced focus on recent events. It is writing without an aim toward a long-term, historical view. WP:NOTNEWS - This describes: Original reporting, News Reports, 'Whos who', and diary usage. as per News Reports description: "For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information." -- non of this information is 'breaking' and can definately be written in the same fashion as other wiki articles... Finally WP:POV - Yes, this could be prone to a non-neutral POV, but that is not a reason to ignore this topic completely, it is a reason to simply ensure it is being written about neutrally. I would argue that ignoring a topic such as this and constantly deleting it (as has been happening) is the same as not having a neutral POV 75.172.100.10 (talk) 21:08, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
  • No: There's a lot of people calling other people fascists for no obvious reason, but no actual fascists and, hence. no anti-fascists. To date I see no evidence whatsoever that people being decried as fascist actually are. Name calling isn't anti-fascism and we shouldn't call it that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kleuske (talk • contribs) 16:29, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes: First, let's be clear that the statement directly above mine is just an opinion. Just as the statement "Trump IS fascist" is a current and widespread OPINION, so is the opinion that "Trump is NOT fascist". And you don't get to claim that your opinion is the true one just because it's yours. As for evidence, there is plenty of controversial legislation that many have called fascist (and many have called NOT fascist), and plenty of experts who have described Trump as similar to fascism, while others have described him as very far. The only fact here that is at the same time 1.) enduring (NOT recentism), 2.) incontrovertible (NOT opinion), and 3.) relevant (because it's literally anti-fascism), is the fact that millions of people have been actively protesting the Trump administration under the premise that his policies are fascist. So that's why I'm voting *yes* Mjleone (talk) 19:28, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment: The question is very vague, but looking at the discussion below, which appears to be about Trump/Trump opposition, the answer must be No, unless there are strong sources describing either DT, or the anti-DT as 'fascist', 'anti-fascist'. I've not heard of any and the suggestion that a few comparisons make DT=AH and consequently anti-DT anti-fascist involves several logical leaps of faith. And believe me I am truly saddened and puzzled as to why any sane country would choose him. Pincrete (talk) 16:39, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes: As the article intro states, anti-fascism can be against "fascist ideologies, groups and individuals" and can therefore take place in a country regardless of whether the ruling government is or is not fascist. We should look to reliable sources that tell us there are a growing number of groups specifically labeling various acts of resistance as anti-fascist, then summarize those sources. But also per WP:UNDUE, do it in proportion to the weight of recent movements in the broader history of anti-fascism. It gets at least a sentence or two. Address the WP:POV and WP:BLP issues as they come up, but don't use that to flat out not have a 2016-7 section. Staeiou (talk) 20:17, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
  • No. Wikipedia should not confuse Fascism with Fascist (insult).--Wikimedes (talk) 03:07, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes: Antifa today believes that Trump is literally fascist. They are wrong in my opinion, but Wikipedia isn't the place to correct them. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 05:30, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes. It isn't really a matter of debate that there has been a rise of groups claiming to be "anti-fascist" in both the USA and abroad.[6] I don't see why whether so-and-so is fascist or not has anything to do with it. I would advise against further debate on this as it is irrelevant to the RfC. There should definitely be reference to events from 2016-17 in this article. I would, however, urge that any new content also include references to antifa activities in other countries too, for example this activity in the UK from earlier this weekend [7]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NoGhost (talk • contribs) 06:50, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • No: per WP:COATROACK and WP:RECENTISM. Some sources have drawn hasty parallels, but the primary purpose of an encyclopedia is to discuss actual phenomena, not what these phenomena are similar to. Absent genuine and well-established fascist and anti-fascist movements, the discussion will be largely rhetorical. A similar thing is going in in Ukraine, where separatists have styled themselves as "anti-fascist" partisans, while the central government has tried to rehabilitate extreme Ukrainian nationalism and has gained the support of some neo-Nazi groups and individuals. But no matter how often they are drawn, WWII "parallels" don't suffice to make the Ukrainian conflict one of anti-fascism vs fascism. Some hastily assembled "antifa" groups have emerged in the US, but it's way too soon to discuss them here. It is not at all clear if most of these "antifa" people believe that Trump is an actual fascist, or just some of his supporters. To the extent that they believe the former, it is not clear how they are different from a few liberals who believe exactly the same thing but have no association with organized anti-fascism. Why is it unclear? Because the events are very recent and subject to rhetorical sleighs of hand: the RS have not caught up to the point where we can discuss any salient facts. Europe has traditions of anti-fascism and fascism, which allows us to discuss them here; the US has neither. Furthermore, any mention would be an open invitation to trolls and POV-pushers to constantly vandalize the article. This is exactly what was happening before the section on the "US in 2016" was deleted. So noooooo, let's be patient. Guccisamsclub (talk) 13:19, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
So basically, you don't want "fake anti-fascists" to make the "real anti-fascists" on the page look bad? How is that an excuse for excluding anti-fascists?173.77.253.207 (talk) 09:06, 25 April 2017 (UTC)— 173.77.253.207 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Question: Since I'm admittedly very guilty of over-posting, I'm removing one of my comments and replacing it with one that I think is more relevant to the discussion. If there is resistance to a specific aspect of ideology that is indeed what a "full" fascist would endorse (eg. an immigration policy), and that ideology is rightly labeled by protestors as coming out of the fascist's playbook, can the protests then legitimately be called "anti-fascism"? What they are protesting in that hypothetical case is truly fascist, even if the person endorsing those beliefs is not "fully" fascist. Mjleone (talk) 21:05, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
If there is resistance to a specific aspect of ideology that is indeed what a "full" fascist would endorse (eg. an immigration policy), and that ideology is rightly labeled by protestors as coming out of the fascist's playbook, can the protests then legitimately be called "anti-fascism"? If the body of RS call it "anti-fascist". WP:RS are not, as a whole, saying that the mass movements against Trump are "anti-fascist" in nature. This won't happen, until the mass movements themselves proclaim that their main goal is to defeat fascism (not racism, sexism, xenophobia, robber-baron capitalism, imperialism — FASCISM). At the time, stuff like this (Whitefish, Montana) is antifascism, quite explicitly. Theoretically, we could add this. But I'd prefer to wait, since it is not yet entirely clear how this fits into the broader trends.Guccisamsclub (talk) 21:27, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment. I'm very concerned by some of the discussion here regarding the legitimacy of current 'anti-fascist' activities. Please refer to the notice at the top of the talkpage (This is not a forum for general discussion about Anti-fascism). We shouldn't be debating this at all, and discussion in this direction is coming close to WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH. Instead, we need to look at valid contemporary sources (such as the BBC article I posted) and make a decision based on currently existing information. --NoGhost (talk) 19:36, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Just as a quick follow-up - I should point that I understand this is an emotional subject for Americans, but I strongly recommend considering a WP:WORLDVIEW and avoiding a US bias. --NoGhost (talk) 19:40, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
At the same time we shouldn't uncritically stuff mainly historical articles with news stories, per WP:RECENTISM and WP:DUE. The BBC blog was quoted here for one statement and one statement only: that anarchists are "arguably more extreme" than the alt-right (in tactics, but that qualification was omitted). OK, I guess that settles it: the American far right is more peaceful than the far left, despite being responsible for numerous hate crimes, murders, terrorist attacks etc. We are under no obligation to insert hot news and opinions (especially those about "fascism") into a mainly historical article. This is even before considering the fact that the news will be twisted beyond all recognition by advocacy trolls who are very hot-tempered on this issue. Just look at the history of this article. Last few months have been non-stop vandalism. Guccisamsclub (talk) 20:21, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
I refuse to be dragged into a debate about the legitimacy of "anti-fascism". We don't stop editors from "twisting" sources into opinions by ignoring a topic, we stop editors by rewording content to maintain a neutral point-of-view. Please, the only point of the linked article is to show that reputable non-American sources have recognized the rise of so-called "anti-fascist" groups in recent months. I'm worried that by refusing to acknowledge these groups, WP will appear biased one way or another by not giving due weighting to this notable phenomenon. And in my opinion, we're setting ourselves up for even more vandalism if we pretend this doesn't exist. There is absolutely no harm in recognizing that there has been a rise of self-proclaimed "anti-fascist" activities in the USA and Europe since 2016 (in two sentences or less), and any avoidance of the issue is a shirking of a WP:NPOV. --NoGhost (talk) 21:17, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Have you heard of WP:UNDUE? That's your BBC blog. Guccisamsclub (talk) 23:45, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. The BBC link was just used to provide context that groups claiming to be "anti-fascist" have been more active in the last year. Other unbiased sources could be used for the purpose of the article, if you are worried about misconstrued interpretations. Two sentences or less that mention significant notable events is not undue. --NoGhost (talk) 00:26, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
Please, no. Let's keep this out of the article. Camel's nose applies. – S. Rich (talk) 04:57, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
"OK, I guess that settles it: the American far right is more peaceful than the far left, despite being responsible for numerous hate crimes, murders, terrorist attacks etc" LOL, stop shilling. It isn't the far-right repeatedly committing organized acts of violence, within a period of several months.173.77.253.207 (talk) 09:09, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong No as has been decided time and time again, Trump is not a fascist, unless he has some Hitleresque master plan, which is doubtful. Because of this we can hardly say that there are anti-fascists, given that there are no fascists. We'd basically be forced to say "Yeah but they're wrong, because he literally isn't a fascist". -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 12:00, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes as there has clearly been an upsurge in organisations and affinity groups calling themselves anti-fascist BUT there is no reason in this article for more than a very short bullet, certainly no longer than the Swedish Antifascistisk Aktion bullet that would go before it.BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:45, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes: If written unbiased, many valuable items could be added to this section. It is important to have an unbiased section on the recent activities of groups who claim to be anti-fascist in the US. If written well this can be acceptable as per the Wikipedia Recentism guidelines. Unbiased details need to be added.99.185.4.21 (talk) 01:27, 6 April 2017 (UTC)— 99.185.4.21 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Strong Yes: Inlcusion of recent anti-fascist activity is an imporant thing to inlcude in this article. Wikipedia Recentism guidelines dont claim that we should wait 10 years until adding an entry about something, it simply states that articles on recent events should be written in a manner to be relevant and understandable 10 years later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.100.10 (talk) 20:56, 10 April 2017 (UTC) — 75.172.100.10 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • YES: Current anti fascist activities will help keep this article relevant. Purposefully ignoring current, relevant information in an encyclopedia entry because some people may or may not enjoy the current state of affairs goes against good taste. 2016 and 2017 American anti-fascist activities needs to be included in an unbiased manner and not censored as certain users have been attempting to do with this topic.Jamesreeves2015 (talk) 22:23, 11 April 2017 (UTC)— Jamesreeves2015 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • No, there is a lot of acrimony in politics right now. And while there some over the top people on the left/right who mention Hitler at the drop of the hat, we needn’t draw unwarranted attention to them. We should have cool heads and endeavor to stick to NPOV as much as possible. By sticking to NPOV as far as the content/tone and placement of material in our articles, we will mitigate the instances of having articles written by pundits rather than encyclopedists.Dean Esmay (talk) 21:09, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
  • No Srich32977 and Desmay. Everyone arguing for more recent material prefaces their comments with concerns about sourcing and neutrality, evincing the fact that including the material at all will be problematic. Just leave it out. Wikipedia does not have to be, nor should ever be, the only reference needed for any subject. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:50, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Absolutely Yes Very important and relevant. Include the article in such a way that it maintains neutral point of view and doesn't start ranting on things Donald Trump or Milo.— Preceding unsigned comment added by ZimZamTheFlimFlam (talk • contribs) — ZimZamTheFlimFlam (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Yes Why shouldnt it be added? NPOV and recentism are just guidelines on a standard which should be followed, not exclusionary rules — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.196.0.37 (talk) 00:04, 18 April 2017 (UTC) — 165.196.0.37 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • No. Does the Fascism article discuss any recent U.S. administration as Fascist? No; does not even mention it. If we do not have fascism in the U.S. today, then it should not be discussed under Anti-fascism. btw, here's what the Washington Post says: A crude, quick and flippant assessment is what he deserves. He is semi-fascist: more fascist than any successful American politician yet, and the most dangerous threat to pluralist democracy in this country in more than a century, but — thank our stars — an amateurish imitation of the real thing.https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/10/21/how-fascist-is-donald-trump-theres-actually-a-formula-for-that/ Peter K Burian (talk) 13:55, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes As Yale Professor Timothy Snyder said: “Without truth, we don’t have trust. Without trust, we don’t have the rule of law. Without the rule of law, we don’t have democracy”. Post-truth America is clearly fascist. Gouncbeatduke (talk) 00:10, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes I don't think any mention of Donald Trump is required, but the resistance against Antifa fascist violence is clearly an instance of anti-fascism. Rhoark (talk) 12:25, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes The antifa group believes they are fighting fascism just as Nlack Lives Matter believes they are fighting racism. We don't decide or report if they actually are protesting incidents of fascism or racism, just that they protested and the reasons they give. Antifa is so engrossed in their belief that they believe violence is justified and necessary. That is notable. --DHeyward (talk) 15:57, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes per DHeyward — there is a discussion around fascism and populism in several Western democracies at the moment, including protests and violence that define themselves as "anti-fascist". That this is the case merits a (brief) mention, without the article needing to form an opinion on whether that self-definition is accurate or not. (That view would be something that cannot be defined so close to the time, imho — again with the recentism.) — OwenBlacker (talk) 17:04, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes. I agree with most of the people above who say yes. Also, there doesn't have to be any biased content in the section at all. Zakawer (talk) 17:50, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes if the group calls themselves Antifa, and is reported as such, it should be included. --Tarage (talk) 21:36, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
  • No This page is mostly historical in scope. I would support creating a new page for the modern social movements and activist organizations. It is too soon to add Antifa to this page and it is WP:OR to connect today's antifa group with the historic movement in the 1930s - any ideological connection these movements may have has not yet been explored by scholars, we have only an organization that identifies itself as anti-fascist (much as neo-fascist groups are treated as a distinct ideology/movement, antifa should be as well) Seraphim System (talk) 23:11, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes, briefly on this page (per DHeyward), and create a separate article for the numerous "anti-fascist" groups which have become notable since Trump's election.LM2000 (talk) 07:43, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

  • @Mjleone: Unless you have sources stating Trump is a fascist, he's not. Per WP:BLP they had better be pretty good sources, too. Simply stating "there is plenty of controversial legislation that many have called fascist" w/o even a shred of evidence simply does not cut it and does not rise above simple name-calling. Controversial does not equal fascist. If you want to rely on "plenty of experts" who describe Trump as "similar to fascism", please name them and cite the articles. The sum total of evidence you bring for "enduring, incontrovertible and relevant" is... well... none, nada, zilch, nothing. "Proof by assertion" would be the technical term, I think. Kleuske (talk) 20:28, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Yale historian Tom Snyder

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/watch-a-yale-historian-explains-to-maher-how-trump-resembles-1930s-fascists-and-makes-the-russia-connection/ professor of history at Columbia University Simon Schama http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/10/simon-schama-defends-comparing-donald-trumps-election-win-to-th/ VOlker Ulrich, Hitler historian and journalist, and Simon Schama again https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/01/comparing-fascism-donald-trump-historians-trumpism NYU historian specializing in Italian Studies and Fascism in Italy, Guggenheim Fellow Ruth Ben-Ghiat http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/a-scholar-of-fascism-sees-a-lot-thats-familiar-with-trump Robert Paxton, journalist and European historian http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2016/02/is_donald_trump_a_fascist_an_expert_on_fascism_weighs_in.html Richard Evans, WW2 historian http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/02/historian_richard_evans_says_trump_s_america_isn_t_exactly_like_the_third.html Mjleone (talk) 19:05, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

" The sum total of evidence you bring for "enduring, incontrovertible and relevant" is... well... none, nada, zilch, nothing. "

For the record, what I called enduring, incontrovertible, and relevant was NOT that Trump is a fascist, but that millions of Americans are up-in-arms protesting him and specifically to oppose what they perceive to be fascism.

Mjleone (talk) 22:04, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
The author of Rise and Fall was William L. Shirer. – S. Rich (talk) 22:12, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh yeah sorry he wrote a different book. Also sorry to everyone if I seem like a jerk, I kind of am but also I honestly believe this should be in the article and I'm not trying to waste people's time. But I'll let it go too I swear :D Mjleone (talk) 22:16, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you indent. And puhlease cut out the "literally". It does not lend any weight to your statements.
  • Tom Snyder Trump resembles fascists because propaganda-slogan and people who worked for the Russians. I note 'X resembles Y' does not mean 'X is Y'. There's a difference.
  • Simon Schama: "has defended his concerns over Donald Trump’s election win as he spoke about the “cataclysmic moment” America is facing." and tells the audience "The 71-year-old, who teaches at Columbia University in New York, received criticism after he compared the Republican's win to the rise of Hitler, stating that “democracy often brings fascists to power, it did in Germany in the 1930s”." The evidence: Trumnp retweeted something by an (alledged) neonazi. A reductio ad hitlerum is rather less than what I expect from this man. Nowhere in the article, however, does Schama call trump a fascist.
  • Richard Evans:Excellent points, I said sarcastically. To sum it up: Trump didn't mention the Jews, and worse... Trump sees extremist Jihadi's as an existential threat like Hitler saw Jews. The obvious difference being that while Jews didn't actually threaten anyone in Germany, extremist Jihadis do. A singularly moronic statement by a respected scholar in a very left-leaning magazine. He hears "echoes", but stops well short of calling Trump a fascist or, worse, a Nazi.
  • The last source states flat out "Trump is not a fascist".
The claim that "millions of Americans are up-in-arms protesting him and specifically to oppose what they perceive to be fascism" is no more than that. A unsubstantiated claim and namecalling by proxy.
So you googled for a few minutes and came up with smart people saying dumb stuff.
However, that's not the point. If you want to prove the Berkeley rioters and Trump protesters are "anti-fascists", instead of millennial reincarnations of Rick, you have to show Trump is an actual fascist. Otherwise it's nothing more than namecalling. Kleuske (talk) 23:04, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
"If you want to rely on "plenty of experts" who describe Trump as "similar to fascism", please name them and cite the articles."
I believe that I've addressed this concern you raised, by citing interviews from 6 well-regarded historians on the subject. Your bullet points are just your own personal disagreements with what these scholars have stated. Please provide sources if you think there is reason to discredit these sources.
Mjleone (talk) 01:13, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Well... Yes, you cited sources. But the sources you cited weren't all that good and did not unequivocally state "he's simular to a fascist". The best I've read is "there are some simularities, but then again, there's differences. The gist of those sources is "he's not a fascist". Besides, pointing out that some of these sources say pretty dumb stuff (the Jihadis/Jews, comparison for one) is not a matter of just my personal opinion, it;s about "reliable sources".
The main points are "X resembles Y" does not equate "X is Y" and to call rioters "anti-fascists" you need to show Trump is a fascist. You didn't and neither did your sources. One of your sources did point out the term "fascist" is highly contentious comparing it to "child-molester". Therefore you need damn good sources, that flat-out call POTUS a fascist. These don't suffice. Kleuske (talk) 01:41, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
You have to provide evidence that these sources aren't reliable. 5 of them are professors of history at major universities. You can't just say you don't feel they're reliable. Why can they be discredited?
Your other concern is more interesting: "X resembles Y" does not equate "X is Y". I think it's up for debate whether it's enough for Trump to resemble fascism for his anti-fascist protestors to belong in this article. I think so, but I'll leave it up to others to decide. I won't be reverting the edits, so we'll see what happens Mjleone (talk) 01:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
RS:That's what I did and you brushed it aside as "personal disagreement". Moreover I have pointed out (this is the third time) that your sources do not say he's a fascist and for such a contentious label some superficial simularities (WP:BLP) do not cut it. "His anti-fascist protestors" is just more namecalling. Kleuske (talk) 02:04, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

The BEST these sources say, is that Trump/Trump's US is like 30's Germany/shares similarities with AH. That may be true, since most populist leaders share common traits and almost inevitably get compared to AH etc., that's 100 miles from saying anybody is/is not a fascist. Pincrete (talk) 16:28, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Indeed – Godwin's law is at play in many of the discussions about Trump. Also, the fact that professors of history are providing political commentary does not make their opinions WP:NOTEWORTHY for this article. When they write their books about Trump, then (perhaps) their works can be used following WP:HISTRS. – S. Rich (talk) 16:35, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
I see where you are coming from and the tribe has spoken. I'm just of the personal opinion that the burden of evidence to be in an article titled "fascism" is different than an article titled "anti-fascism", since the focus of the latter is on the act of resisting fascist rule and ideology. Many years from now, there will have been massive protests (and violence) against what was perceived as fascism (regardless of the verdict when the dust settles). And these protestors were not motivated by disinformation as much as actual similarities between the Trump campaign/presidency and fascist leaders. It's also notable that the labeling of Trump as fascist-like is unprecedented in american presidential history, at least at this scale. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjleone (talk • contribs) 18:20, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

If you are to resist fascist rule and ideology, having a fascist rule and ideology to resist in the first place, is a prerequisite. It's nice to know you can look into the future, and report the opinions of future historians, but us mere mortals want sources. It's true (to my knowledge) that Trump is the first to be labelled "fascist-like" but that says more about the labelers than it does about the labeled. The rest is WP:NOTFORUM. Kleuske (talk) 18:36, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Meh. Every Republican president in the last 50 years has been called a fascist. Likewise, every Democrat president and presidential candidate has been called a communist. It's really little more than a more sophisticated way of calling someone "poophead".--Wikimedes (talk) 19:57, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • The main objections to the content is that it's WP:RECENT and WP:COATRACKING. Recent because the Trump presidency is very young and in great flux; coat-racking because nobody who's serious thinks Trump and his opponents can be accurately described in terms of (anti)fascism. Certain parallels have been drawn in opinion pieces and half of American's see "fascist undertones", but this does not justify inclusion. The parallels may be convincing: hard-right ethno-nationalist agenda with pseudo-left noises, a rejection of "free markets" in favor of naked crony capitalism, xenophobia, an unabashed cult of personality, advanced capitalism and middle class / declasse malaise as the backdrop. But you are still missing a disciplined dictatorship that ruthlessly crushes labor militancy, which is sort of the fundamental feature of fascism. If explicitly anti-fascist movements in the US develop further, to a point where they get more careful scrutiny from RS, they could be covered here. But we are very far from that point. Are a bunch of self-styled "antifa" activists any more "anti-fascist" than the SPLC? We have no idea, because we don't have a coherent body of literature to guide us, just some hastily drawn parallels. Guccisamsclub (talk) 22:44, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
I don't see how anybody who's serious can accurately describe themselves as anything but anti-fascists. They call themselves anti-fascists, they wear anti-fascist clothing, they recite anti-fascist slogans and rhetoric, and articles identify them as anti-fascists. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck. You seem to be implying that anti-fascists should only be included in the article if the person they're against is actually a fascist, but that means you're trying to cover up incidents when the anti-fascists overshoot or get things wrong.173.77.253.207 (talk) 09:16, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
  • The Fascism template lists 17 varieties of fascism. So, were there 17 varieties of anti-fascism? And which of these varieties of fascism/anti-fascism pertain to Trump? See the point – once someone says "I'm anti-fascist and the main target/opponent of my anti-fascism is Trump", we are using WP's voice to advance that person's political agenda. The only way to avoid such POV-pushing is to insist that the article be limited to historical fascism and historical anti-fascist movements. – S. Rich (talk) 23:06, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • @User:Mark Schierbecker, User:NoGhost: Because "fascist" is so frequently used as an epithet to describe anyone whose politics differ from one's own, I don't think that "self-declared antifascist" is a useful criterion for inclusion in the anti-fascism article. Not only would it make the article extremely long, but anyone who got news coverage for having called someone a fascist would have a good case for inclusion in the article, and endless resources would be wasted trying to sort out what should be included.--Wikimedes (talk) 22:01, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Oh, wow. Antifa shills here are suggesting we can't include antifa violence in the antifa article because it'll be a BLP violation against Trump. That's some interesting mental gymnastics.173.77.253.207 (talk) 09:03, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Tarage actually makes a good point – in favor of keeping the anti-Trump material out. That is, if we now have WP:Notable groups/organizations that call themselves modern anti-fascists, then such notable groups might be appropriate for the article. Secondary sources would be needed to verify the description. (Also, inclusion of such articles might best be limited to the See also section.) – S. Rich (talk) 22:53, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
You misunderstand me. It doesn't matter if THEY call themselves Antifa, it matters if they are reported as such. A simple google search brings up numerous stories. That's the reliable sources I mean. --Tarage (talk) 23:33, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

When can 2016-2017 Antifa be included on the page?

With increased Antifa presence after the recent Berkeley rallies and other college campuses and anti-Trump protests, I am curious how long it takes until the previous vote can turn into inclusion on the page. It is a very odd omission to leave out antifa from the page considering it is becoming more and more common within the US, and there are many sources that will say so. https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=antifa#q=antifa&hl=en&tbm=nws 173.77.253.240 (talk) 16:22, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

As soon as you wanna' start hackin' on it is as good a time as any, Mineolan. WP:BOLD -- dsprc [talk] 16:23, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Is there consensus for inclusion? It's hard for me to see a consensus either way in the above RfC. To avoid edit warring over the content, it's probably worth while to get a somewhat official word on the matter by posting a request for closure at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Requests_for_closure.--Wikimedes (talk) 17:42, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Seems there is. All no !votes are: "Trump is not a fascist" – which is beside the point and matters need not be limited to that aspect in any event – conflation, or prior-restraint of what others may potentially do in the future. We've a broad spectrum of sources to pull from here; if well-written and properly condensed so it is terse enough not to bump against WP:DUE and with an eye on that WP:NPV prize, we're good to go. If upstream sources make note of it as broadly as they have, we've a duty to our readers to make note as well. How we include it is the $64,000 Question and debate which should be taking place. If "…edit warring over the content…" is a concern (I certainly share it), we can draft it: Anti-fascism/draft. Waiting around for "official" janitors to mop-up isn't a requirement, however. -- dsprc [talk] 19:19, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Well said. Nearly all the "no" arguments seem to be because the user disagrees with contemporary self-proclaimed "anti-fascist" groups. This conversation is concerning and as I've said before, has no place on this talkpage. WP don't censor information because we don't like it, we gauge whether there is sufficient notability to justify inclusion. I see no issue with going ahead and mentioning worldwide self-proclaimed "anti-fascist" activity c2016-present as reported in the numerous sources discussed above. It might be wise, however, to refrain from specific mention of the USA until the RfC above is closed. --NoGhost (talk) 19:24, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
Am a glutton for punishment and conventional wisdom isn't in my $PATH; if given rough scaffolding of section-headers, I'm ready to run with it. Figuring out scope of sections is task at hand; we've a multi-year gap to fill within "§Since the Second World War" before even approaching c.2016 or faux Trumpian outrage cycle. -- dsprc [talk] 04:32, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
@Dsprc: Now that the RfC has closed, I would think that you can go ahead and start working on these sections if you have the time! I would myself, but this topic is outside my area of expertise and I wouldn't be able to contribute in any meaningful way. Best of luck. --NoGhost (talk) 06:06, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
I absolutley agree that Antifa should be included here and I also think that a new page about it should be created. Regardless of your opinion on Antifa or Trump, there should be an objective page of it. The fact that a reader on wikipedia can't find any information on such a well known and prominent group is a problem that should be remidied. Parzival1919 (talk) 16:04, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
As the person who started this discussion, I also agree is it disappointing not to see this topic covered. However, see "domestic terrorism" discussion below. Allowing a section like this would open the flood gates to absurd edits. I'd also like to add that when I first visited this wiki page, there was a full section that discussed "violent antifa berkely rioters" with absolutely no mention of political context. So having no section at all, while not ideal, is an improvement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.183.13.4 (talk) 19:10 (UTC), 6 June 2017‎

(←)  NoGhost: Time is a precious commodity I'm lacking as of late. There are many gaps to fill; if you (or anyone else) could help with ideas on sections (title, scope, etc.) that would very much be a meaningful contribution. Bootstrapping isn't my strong point, so any guidance on how to incorporate is most helpful in filling these potholes

@Parzival1919: What would a new page look like and consist of which makes the subject unsuitable for inclusion within this particular article? Personally see no need to fork but, I'm open and receptive. Even if we decided to fork, some shim paragraph would still need to be present in this article with a {{main}} anchor atop respective section. Let us work toward crafting that shim and expanding till its weight necessitates forking.

@IP contributor 132.xxx: That and some previous revisions are problematic. Fear no potential flood; If there are problems we can resolve as they arise without fear-mongering or prior restraint. Agreed that omission is currently preferable to some particular proposals... It does help shine a light however; we need to bridge those gaps. If you were to author that section, what presentation of political context is required to deem appropriate? (striving for middle-ground here) -- dsprc [talk] 17:27, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

It seems like more experienced wikipedians are interested in this which is great. In my opinion, the section NEEDS to be clear on the origin of the recent anti-fascism trend, and discuss the Trump administration (and as discussed, the article obviously needs to be clear on the difference between fears of fascism versus a verified fascist regime). Specifically the Muslim-country travel ban, building of the US-Mexico wall, violence at Trump rallies, the Portland double murder, the endorsement of Trump by white supremacist groups, as well as the uniquely Trumpian volume of (verified) misinformation tactics and war on the media from the White House, are examples that should be described. As for the nature of the anti-fascist protests themselves, this is the area where ALL of the vandalism has been and why I originally started editing this page. The internet trolls decided that antifa = millennials in masks throwing bricks, and there is certainly that side to it (Berkley should be mentioned in a fair article). However, non-violent protest activity is gigantic in the US in part because of anti-fascist sentiment, and examples of that should also be described (the women's march on DC, Pride festivals have been converted into resistance rallies, the march for science, etc). These protests are filled with anti-fascist signs and there is data to back up that lots of Americans as well as some historians associate the Trump presidency with fascism at this time. To be unbiased and informative, this section probably needs to be voluminous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.183.56.7 (talk) 15:34, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

So it looks like their was no movement on this, but I think it's important. Wobbly99 (talk) 06:28, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Recent events

Why isn't their a section covering the recent conflicts between antifa groups and "alt right" orgs like proud boys and Traditionalist Workers Party? Wobbly99 (talk) 00:44, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Because it will open the flood gates to vandalism and other absurd edits (see "domestic terrorism" discussion above) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.183.13.4 (talk) 19:08, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
@Wobbly99: Absent simply because you haven't written it yet. -- dsprc [talk] 17:32, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

So the fact that it will require work to prevent vandalism should preclude making this article accurate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wobbly99 (talk • contribs) 02:23, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added a short section regarding recent events in Europe and US, as supported by the RfC outcome from two months ago. I invite anyone with knowledge or interest to please edit and keep this section strongly sourced and neutral. Thanks! --NoGhost (talk) 06:48, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

They also engage in violence against the general moderate population, and "alt-right" is an ill defined buzzword label that have been used to cover everything right of and including 'Liberal.' It makes sense to avoid this because you are going to two hundreds extremists from both sides using information warfare on the article forever.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.84.135.248 (talk)

"This article is remarkably lenient on domestic terrorism" -- deliberate omission of Charlottesville terror attack at far right rally involving 20 counterprotestors

I think there should be mention of the 8/12/17 terror attack in Charlottesville on this page, in the U.S. anti-fascist section. This was a prominent attack with 19 injured and 1 dead. All of the victims were counter-protesting a far right rally, and were specifically targeted for doing so. My edits have been completely removed, which is an extreme response to the inclusion of such a prominent event with clear relevance to anti-fascism. I will not revert the reverts, but hoping someone will refine the language so that it can be properly included. I provided one source, but every major newspaper and network in the US covered this so plenty to choose from. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjleone (talk • contribs) 02:07, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

All of the victims were counter-protesting a far right rally, and were specifically targeted for doing so that is the exact reason why it does not belong here, on the Anti-Fascism article. Although there were anti-fascists among the victims, it wasn't an attack on anti-fascists, but rather an attack on counter-protesters in general. A list of terror attacks, a list of right-wing murderers, a list of hate crimes, an article of its own, an article about politics in the USA in 2017, an article about protests in the USA... There is a lot of places in which this is relevant. It is not so much here. Saturnalia0 (talk) 02:19, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
Your argument seems to be one of two things. Either you think 1) it was the act of counterprotest itself that made them targets, and you think that somehow makes the context of the event irrelevant, or 2) you might think nature of the rally is relevant, but you somehow think the counterprotest cannot be defined as antifascist. The first possibility is impossible to respond to because it makes no sense. They were clearly targeted for counterprotesting against a specific thing. If it's the second possibility, it seems to be that you are taking it upon yourself to decide the standard of when to call a group antifascist. What's your standard for being an antifascist group? This was a Unite the Right Rally, under Nazi flags. There were Hitler t-shirts and Nazi salutes. They were united in chanting anti-Jewish phrases. The entire group chanted 'blood and soil', a Nazi phrase. Does the group need to explicitly call itself Fascist in order for the counterprotest group to be considered antifascist? I'd like to know a scenario where we can finally call a group Fascist. And actually call the group of a counterprotestors an antifascist group, and in what scenario it would be clear that they would have been targeted as such. Remember, you're not proposing to refine my contribution, you want a full omission of a terrorist attack. I think it would be fairer for you to provide a more developed argument than you have already. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjleone (talk • contribs) 02:45, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
I'm the one using my own definition of when to call a group anti-fascist? You're the one calling them that - not your source, which says counterprotestors, among which anti-fascists. Saturnalia0 (talk) 02:57, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
Ok thanks for the feedback. Reposting with more precise source: One dead and dozens hurt as white supremacists clash with anti-fascist campaigners in Virginia Independent UK — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjleone (talk • contribs) 03:00, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, though The Independent is a horrible source. Let's see if editors can find a better one. I'm still unsure of how relevant this is for this article, specially since the event just happened and we don't know the full scope it will take, but given the current ref describing it as a confrontation with anti-fascists I won't oppose it since at the very least it concerns the subject of the article and received mainstream attention. Saturnalia0 (talk) 03:13, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

"On August 12, 2017, at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a man rammed his vehicle into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters, killing one and injuring 19.[58][59]" This is completely incorrect information. The terrorist premeditated this action. He was seen getting help from other terrorists who were trying to get him out of the area after committing the act. They targeted and hit peaceful protesters (as the referenced article even says) That had nothing to do with ANTIFA and that wasn't their intended target to start with. He (they) planned to kill peaceful protesters. The woman murdered, Helen Heyer, was a paralegal who supported human rights. She was murdered while walking with peaceful protesters who were carrying LGBTQ and BLM signs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MMMailead (talk • contribs) 19:02, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

If I pretend that the sentence reads 'ANTIFA' rather than 'anti-fascist protestors', I 10% see your point. I'd see even more of your point if I pretended to have written that the act wasn't premedidated, or that the victims were not peaceful. I would see even more of your point if I had written that the crowd did not support LGBT rights, or did not support BLM. If I do a lot of pretending, I'm just as angry as you are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjleone (talk • contribs) 22:48, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
I have removed the BBC ref, because it does not support the statement that the crowd was of anti-fascists. In fact, it supports what I have argued above: The crowd was of counter-protestors, merely: Slowly the chaos and violence of earlier gave way to reflection and to tragedy. A 32-year-old woman had been killed, run over by a man who ploughed into peaceful counter-protesters on the street near Emancipation Park, and who was later arrested and charged with murder. In fact the only thing the BBC ref says about anti-fascists is that they were not peaceful (although the crowd of anti-protestors may have been): Daryl Vaughan, 24, who came from Newcastle, Virginia to join the white nationalists, got caught alone, surrounded by anti-fascist protesters who beat him, kicking him in the face and chest as he lay on the ground.. Is there any source that says that anti-fascists were the target, i.e. for being anti-fascists? Because if counter-protestors were the target, and among them were anti-fascists, who happened to be victims also, then I'm again inclined for removal. Saturnalia0 (talk) 00:40, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
Holding off on the BBC for a second, I think it needs to be discussed that there is a fundamental misunderstanding about the definition of anti-fascism which has pervaded the 'Twenty first century' section of this page for months, and is happening here again today. Anti-fascism is absolutely not defined by membership in a collective, club, or facebook group. Anti-fascism is fully and precisely defined as a form of action. The word-for-word definition of this very page: "Anti-fascism is opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals." We are quibbling right now about whether or not people who deliberately showed up to, and remained at, a Neo-Nazi rally in counter-protest are anti-fascist. Just by being there, the counter-protestors were opposing fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Every time you refer to them as 'counterprotesters,' you are fully agreeing that they are antifascist. That's the definition. If you are going to make the incredibly bold claim that some of the protestors didn't oppose fascism, having arrived specifically to protest a literal Nazi rally, you should have to provide your own sources and walk us through how that's actually possible.
As for the BBC article, you seem to not have read the entire article because there were other uses of 'anti-fascist counterprotestors', such as : "In a column they [the protestors] surged into the park, using sticks and their fists to shove aside anti-fascist counter-protesters. " I also don't understand your confusion over the adjective 'peaceful.' The BBC editor(s) thought the adjective was an important emphasis, probably out of respect for the victims and to accurately tell the story. Use of adjectives besides 'antifascist' to describe the counterprotestors certainly doesn't imply that the counterprotestors aren't antifascist. It just means they had other characteristics besides being antifascist. You can have brown eyes and be antifascist. For example, some, including the ones hit by the car, were peaceful. Since anti-fascism is defined as opposition, which could certainly take a nonviolent form, there are no issues here. Anyhow, my other sources make the explicit designation that the victims were antifascist. Mjleone (talk) 15:40, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
That's not how it works, it's not for us to say what the group was, but for WP:RSs. Saturnalia0 (talk) 11:24, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
All sources establish the rally as Neo-Nazi, and the victims as protestors who opposed the rally. I worry that if this page weren't so littered with inaccurate portrayals of what anti-fascism means, that would be enough. Since there is disagreement nonetheless, I respect your point about fully relying on sources, so I will only use ones that make the obvious connection for us. However, phrases like 'affiliated with ANTIFA' are not the criteria for anti-fascism, and are not the types of sources that should be looked for. Those types of phrases establish membership in a particular group, which is not the claim here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjleone (talk • contribs) 12:01, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Mjleone: I see you re-inserted the sentence about the Charlottesville attack with another source. I think this source does a better job of tying the counter-protesters with self-proclaimed anti-fascist groups than the previous ones you provided. That being said, I still don't believe the event carries enough weight to warrant mention in this article about anti-fascism. We are, of course, all blinded by WP:RECENTISM so we cannot predict if this will turn out to be a notably significant event for anti-fascism. I will refrain from removing the sentence again, but editors may want to consider if it is not better suited for the page Antifa (U.S.) than here. Thanks --NoGhost (talk) 06:17, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi @NoGhost: thank you for engaging via the talk page and for acknowledging my changes. "Tying the counter-protesters with self-proclaimed anti-fascist groups" -- again, this isn't about group membership, antifascism is defined by oppositional action and doesn't require affiliation with an official group. This was a Nazi event and victims were there to counterprotest (and they had apparent ties to anti-fascist groups, which is beside the point) Mjleone (talk) 15:40, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Split of post-WWII section

Hello @E.M.Gregory: you recently boldly split the post-WWII section into a new page. As you may or may not know, this page was recently subject to a RfC that concluded the mention of 21st century activities is appropriate for this page. While I believe that this page definitely needs some reorganization and clarification from someone who is an expert on the topic, the splitting into two pages is completely inappropriate. I strongly urge you to replace the removed material and then put any potential split to discussion. Your new page seems to conflate contemporary antifa activities with late 20th century anti-fascist movements in Europe and has no place as a standalone topic. --NoGhost (talk) 18:21, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Only "Sin" was not anchoring section header with {{Main}} for other article; this has been rectified. Inclined toward supporting split as contemporary Antifa is related but rather distinct from subject of this article. Plus, it makes expansion easier since not as constrained by paragraph length in more narrowly-focused and specialised articles. All are, of course, still free to feed blurbs from parent article into this one, and expand upon both as deemed necessary -- please _do_ attempt to keep them in sync, however. Should one take issue with material or scope of upstream articles: discussion should proceed on those talk pages. -- dsprc [talk] 10:45, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
There are now 4 pages covering overlapping subjects (post ww2, pre ww2, US, and AA) and that's not including the disambiguation pages. My fear is that this is extremely confusing for WP readers. Unless someone is going to coordinate all these WP:CFORKS to address overlap, consistency, and disambiguation, I strongly recommend merging. Currently, no one is coordinating and there is far too much overlap and redundancy to be considered necessary.
In my view (and I know this doesn't relate to WP policy), I think we should be making a effort to specifically address these pages ASAP since the topics are receiving increased coverage in the media and [views] have spiked. For better or for worse, these pages are being used as a source of information right now and Wikipedia is making a poor impression on casual visitors.--NoGhost (talk) 17:26, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't understand the need for a separate page on post-war anti-fascism and think that material should come back to this article, with a Antifa (United States) article existing too if there's too much of that. If the post-WWII article remains separate, it needs to be summarised here. The section header with {{Main}} for the post-WWII article is currently "United States, circa World War II", which is very different from post-WWII anti-fascism. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:26, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
(Please properly indent replies.) Do we merge them back in, or provide proper summaries for split article (and re-target {{main}} to contemporary Antifa U.S.)?? -- dsprc [talk] 04:20, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
This is really bewildering, see below. There seems to be over-coverage on the many different "Antifas". (Note that you guys even missed Anti-Fascist Action (UK).) If it were up to me and I had a magic wand, I would have the following articles: Anti-fascism (general summarising all types of anti-fascism), Antifaschistische Aktion (purely dedicated the 1930's germany one), Antifa (US), and then other dedicated articles on whichever other Antifas are notable enough to warrant their own article. --Nanite (talk) 05:15, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
That's exactly what we had after an extensive RfC a couple months ago until user:E.M.Gregory split the post-WW2 section with no discussion and no reasonable explanation. I believe he's conflating Antifa (United States) with post-WW2 anti-fascism but there's no way to tell. If no one other than him objects, I will attempt to move the material back. --NoGhost (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
That sounds like a splendid idea. Depending on how E.M.Gregory is feeling you may be in for a big argument, though (check his contribs). ^_^ --Nanite (talk) 08:03, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Militant and liberal anti-fascism

Maybe the above issues need to be resolved first, but there used to be pages for liberal anti-fascism[8] and militant anti-fascism[9] that were long ago deleted. I preserved them in sandbox, although they needed work, and wonder if there is any support for their re-creation? BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:02, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm reminded of an an archived discussion from 2009 I saw, that mentioned the liberal / militant nomenclature is not supported by literature. Is there any development on this? It's very important (as Doug Weller points out above) that we base the overall article structure on what good secondary sources are saying. --Nanite (talk) 18:09, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
There weren't too many participants in that 2009 discussion and I got out-voted, but I think a cursory look at Google scholar makes it clear "liberal anti-fascism" is a thing: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=%22liberal+anti-fascism%22 and ditto "militant anti-fascism": https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=%22militant+anti-fascism%22&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5 and that it is a key divide withing the movement: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=%22militant+anti-fascism%22+%22liberal+anti-fascism%22&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5 (e.g. "The argument over the relative legitimacy and efficacy of 'liberal anti-fascism' and 'militant anti-fascism' (Olechnowicz 2005)"[10] or " linear traditions of anti-fascism emerge and, as we shall see, the overarching feature in this regard has been the historic divide between radical or militant anti-fascism with its emphasis on physical confrontation, and 'legal' forms of anti-fascism"[11] BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:25, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Possible editing guidelines help

I just came across Wikipedia:Anarchism referencing guidelines. Since this article may be getting into the typical hallmarks of left-wing politics, this guideline could come in handy when figuring out viewpoint disputes between the "Judean People's Front" and the "People's Front of Judea". --Nanite (talk) 00:13, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

American Anti-fascism - distinct from European

I've found a publication available on MUSE that covers this. Haunted by Hitler:Liberals, the Left, and the Fight against Fascism in the United States Christopher Vials 2014 University of Massachusetts Press.[12] - a few titbits:"Though the variants of American antifascism are many, it generally posits fascism as a force slumbering in the very bones of all modern nations, a menace that arises as reactionary social movements create vast public spaces for those who overidentify with the dominant hierarchies. Though originating in the 1930s, it has changed shape over time to meet new historical conditions and has resisted full incorporation into the celebratory narratives of the Greatest Generation and the American way." It also mentions briefly the attempt by groups such as the Teaparty to label the left as fascist or George Bush conflating Sadam with Hitler. More relevant here is "The fundamental novelty of recent rightist meldings of Hitler and Obama is their place in the cultural field: they are heard more loudly because left-wing antifascism has diminished in volume as the social movements that produced and sustained it recede from memory." He discusses the American antifascism (as opposed to Communist antifascism) of Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here (" His use of antifascism as a frame to interpret populist, right-wing nationalism"). He writes that "Antifascism in the sense I use the term does not refer to just any aversion to Nazis, Blackshirts, and their perceived American equivalents. The antifascism I trace is a more specific modality, more familiar to Europeans than to North Americans, marked off from other rejections of fascism by its intensity and historicity. By intensity I mean it is not a reflex aversion, nor does it use fascist as a casual slur. For antifascists, fascism is not one problem among many but a force so menacing and so present that it requires concentrated effort to check. It is an urgency that inspires the creation of serious, detailed cultural work aimed at revealing its social bases and possible sites of emergence in civil society. And what I call antifascism possesses historicity in the sense that it comes within range of accurately identifying its target." (note the comment that fascism isn't used as a casual slur). Anyway, anyone seriously interested in any of this as a source please email me. Doug Weller talk 14:01, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Too me, this - and especially that last quote - is very helpful in clarifying what anti-fascism means, and why it is a distinct (if heterogeneous) movement, as distinct from a vague "opposition to fascism" on the one hand and on the other hand the overly narrow idea that anti-fascism is a Communist invention. A very similar argument is made by historian Dan Stone in his chapter "Anti-Fascist Europe Comes to Britain: Theorising Fascism as a Contribution to Defeating It" in Varieties of Anti-Fascism where he talks about (mostly non-Communist) European exiles helping to shape a distinctive anti-fascism in Britain and by historian Enzo Traverso in his chapter in Garcia's Rethinking Antifascism: History, Memory and Politics, 1922 to the Present, which discusses the idea of a distinctive anti-fascist culture, forged by liberals and non-aligned socialists before the Communists became involved. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:44, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Very confusing!

I am trying to reconcile a few points I'm seeing here:

  1. We start out defining anti-fascism as an umbrella term for all opposition to fascism.
  2. The next sentence describes a 'movement'.
  3. The hatnote says "This article is about pre-World War II anti-fascism. For post-World War II groups, see Antifa movements.".
  4. The article then seems to say anti-fascism sprouted from the left. (Nobody else was opposed to fascism at that time?) Likemwise there is little coverage of liberal opposition to fascism, and as far as I can tell, no coverage of rightist or conservative opposition to fascism.

First I want to point out that a category (#1) and a movement (#2) are usually not the same thing, so the article is sending a mixed message right from the get go. AFAIK the opposition to fascism came from many distinct movements and groups. Anyway, the remainder of the article seems to be not about #1 or #2, but is actually about #3. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Regarding #4, around 8 years or so ago, there were discussions (see Talk:Anti-fascism/Archive_1) regarding the merging in of 'liberal anti-fascism' and the notion of liberals opposing fascism. The article has apparently evolved greatly since then. Perhaps there was just too little opposition from liberals and conservatives to mention, but I am suspicious -- if there are any fascism experts around, I am just wondering if there is undue weight here placed on the leftist anti-fascist movements?

It seems overall like this article --- titled "anti-fascism" --- could benefit from inspiration from the Anti-communism article (which naturally one would hope should be complementary to this one) which I believe would lend it towards following point #1 above. Perhaps the present article should be renamed to "pre-World War II anti-fascism" because that's what it's about, and a new, more general, article could be started.

Cheers, --Nanite (talk) 01:41, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

The Berlin Wall (officially the "Anti-Fascist Wall"), an example of what the USSR and its satellite states meant by "anti-fascism"
The term "anti-fascism" was primarily associated with USSR propaganda, but it didn't mean "opposition to fascism" as most people today understand the word fascism. Rather, the Soviet Union used the word "fascism" to mean everyone who wasn't a communist, and particularly to defame social democrats, liberals and so on as "fascists". This usage goes all the way back to 1924, when Stalin declared social democracy to be a form of fascism (indeed, the most dangerous form of fascism). In the postwar era, after the real fascists had all disappeared, "fascism" in Soviet usage simply meant everything western. The Soviet Union (or its puppet regime) for example used the term "anti-fascism" in the official name of their Berlin Wall from the 1960s, the "Anti-Fascist Wall," which "protected" the communist countries against the "fascist" westerners, the US in particular. The word was used particularly frequently to describe the United States and Israel. Due to its ideological usage by the USSR, and due to being primarily associated with Soviet propaganda, the term "anti-fascism" was largely avoided in the west (except by the far-left/communist parties).
  1. In my opinion the current article "Anti-fascism" should be retitled "opposition to fascism" if its topic is to remain opposition to (actual) fascism, rather than "opposition to imaginary fascism," i.e. the usage of the term by the Soviet Union, which is "opposition to everyone we, the USSR, call fascists, including social democrats, liberals and western countries in general." The term "Anti-fascism" is severely tainted by its long-time ideological usage by the USSR and has taken on a very distinct meaning which has nothing to do with opposition to actual fascism.
  2. We should have a separate article on usage of the term anti-fascism by the Soviet Union (the title might need more work)
  3. We should retain a separate article on the Antifa movements, a distinct phenomenon. --Tataral (talk) 18:33, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
Okay, that's an interesting take. (@Dsprc:@NoGhost:@E.M.Gregory: above, you guys might want to chime in.) In other words you're saying that "Anti-fascism" is a politically loaded term that only really communists use (unlike Anti-communism which is neutral-loaded?). So an article called "anti-fascism" should start out with something like "Anti-fascism is a term used by commies to oppose all non-leftist politics. Anti-fascism opposes liberalism, conservatism, and capitalism, in addition to opposing fascism. See article Opposition to fascism for the more general sense." ... something along those lines? From my (admittedly biased) point of view, Antifa movements also seem to follow that trend. --Nanite (talk) 20:12, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Not-exactly. What I would say is that, at least in the U.S., in recent decades "fascist" has become a leftist )further-left-than-center-left, further left than mainstream Democratic Party,) insult hurled with a remarkable and growing lack of precision. And that "anti-fascist" is a self-descriptio used by leftists against people they JUSTDONTLIKE, including newo-Nazi fascist wannabes, but also including mainstream politicians and intellectuals. I think (though I don't listen as often to such folks, and am not as clear on this) that some people on the far right also use "fascist" to label leftists.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:29, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
Good point -- I've seen various people say "Antifa are the real fascists" so presumably if those people band together to fight Antifa, they would also be "fighting fascism" in their minds as well. Certainly when we build articles, we will need to make the distinction between opposition to actual fascism, and people who paint all opponents as facsists. --Nanite (talk) 20:46, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
  • However, Post WW II anti-fascist movements were split into a separate article - by me - because "fascism" a fairly coherent topic for a political movement, became in the late 20th century an ill-defined slur in Western countries. We do have articles on the movements in Hungary, Greece.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:36, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
@E.M.Gregory:What do you want to see as the overall constellation of articles, after the dust is settled? Other editors (including me) were surprised by your boldness (see also previous Talk section) and they don't see where you're going with these changes. If you can let us know what the final goal is, that would help build consensus and you might get people helping you towards your goal. --Nanite (talk) 20:46, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
@E.M.Gregory: I have no comment on whether I agree or disagree with your assessment, but your interpretation shouldn't lead to a unilateral decision to split the article. Your course of action should be to (first) put it to discussion here on the talk page, and (second) provide sources to back up your interpretation of the distinction between eras of anti-fascism. Please see WP:PROSPLIT on how to carry out a split for potentially contentious articles. This article's content should be obvious enough in its potential to be contentious, and if not take a look at the RfC discussion from earlier this year. --NoGhost (talk) 21:03, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
A quick look at scholarly works on Fascism in the early 20th century doesn't back the USSR claim at all. I don't agree with Gregory's analysis. We need to follow what reliable sources say, and I don't think I've ever seen so many editors not understanding that as I have in the last fortnight over a range of articles, probably because recent events have brought in a lot of new editors. Doug Weller talk 21:11, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
Works on fascism (in the sense of the actual right-wing ideology/ies) are not relevant to this discussion since the USSR's use of the word fascism has nothing to do with fascism as it's understood by western scholars. There is a huge literature that addresses the use of the terms "fascism" and "anti-fascism" by the USSR; this is pretty well known stuff, and most people have heard of the Berlin Wall, officially called the Anti-Fascist Wall. Marcel Van Herpen for example notes (Putinism: The Slow Rise of a Radical Right Regime in Russia, p. 141, Springer, 2013) that "the term 'fascist' was indiscriminately used to indicate enemies of the Soviet Union. Stalin had no interest in differentiating between democrats and fascists. He even went so far as to refer to Western social democrats—with whom the communists shared a common ideological and historical background—as 'social fascists' with whom it was forbidden for communists to co-operate. The meaning of 'anti-fascism' in Soviet Russia was, therefore, indistinct from the very beginning. [...] 'Fascism' for Stalin's regime was not a generic term that included German Nazism and Italian Fascism, nor did it refer to the political system of Nazi Germany. 'Fascism' became just another name for the opponent. In the 1930s this was the capitalist world, including the social democrats. [...] 'Anti-fascism' became virtually synonymous with Soviet Russia. The epithet 'anti-fascist' merged with the word 'Russia' to become almost one and the same."
See my notes below. I should have said "anti-fascism". Which has plenty of reliable sources discussing it in a non-Soviet context .Doug Weller talk 09:36, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
Opposition to fascism is entirely unrelated to the predominant usage of the term "anti-fascism" (mainly in Soviet usage and in the Antifa movements). That doesn't mean that the term "anti-fascist" wasn't historically in the 1930s also used by some in the sense of opposition to fascism. But it doesn't generally mean opposition to fascism today, after almost a century of ideological usage, including during the entire Cold War. People who use it uncritically are not aware of the term's history, including the term's history as an insult hurled at social democrats in the 20s and 30s, and its use as an insult against western countries in general from 1945 to ca. 1989. --Tataral (talk) 10:28, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
So the term "anti-fascism" does not have clear meaning in itself; it's entirely dependent on the speaker, and what the speaker actually means by "fascism". The term was primarily used in the Soviet Union and it did not mean "opposition to fascism", the right-wing ideology, at all, it meant "opposition to enemies of us—the stalinists—whoever they are". In the west usage of the word "anti-fascist" in the postwar era has been limited mostly to Antifa movements; and by "fascist" they typically mean the United States and other western countries, based on its meaning in Soviet usage. --Tataral (talk) 08:16, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
  • The copy-paste, no content removed split was along a stark line dividing pre WWII fascist governing parties and the long half-century during which fascism was a discredited ideology. The single-article model gives the claim of continuity made by some contemporary European anti-fascist groups. Such claims are a commonplace propaganda technique, used by many causes - the oldest I can recall at the moment was the dynastic claim of Sargon II. I think that, like the phenomenon of "fascism" itself, the pre WWII and contemporary movements ought to be in separate articles. However by all means, hold a discussion. What I do urge is that some of the people with time to spend on this issue consider expanding the arrticle(s) - both the pre-WWII anti-fascism page and the post-War page are paltry, and both ignore the need to define "facism." But the post-war page is especially egregious in ignoring mainstream opposition in countries like Hungary with actual, neo-fascist movements. I may or may not return to this topic.E.M.Gregory (talk) 01:10, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
    • A single article on everything that has been called "anti-fascist" by people using that term would indeed be propaganda in the Soviet tradition. Because, as I've pointed out above, "anti-fascism" was a term primarily used in Soviet propaganda (and not so much in the west), and by "fascism" they primarily meant the United States and the west in general in the postwar era, and all people/ideologies/countries they considered enemies before that, with a particular focus on the social democrats in the 1920s/30s. "Anti-fascism" is primarily a controversial term which took on a distinct meaning in the 20th century. It doesn't really mean just "opposition to fascism" as people unfamiliar with history might expect. --Tataral (talk) 08:38, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
      • @Tataral: please stop this business about the Soviet Union. This is not what the academic books I've seen suggest. Rethinking Antifascism: History, Memory and Politics, 1922 to the Present[13] explores the non-Communist forms of anti-fascism. Referring to the 1930s (in a book covering the period up to the present day): "Indeed, antifascism appears as the ideal type of a transnational movement. Its main advocates - socialists, Communists, anarchists,liberals, Catholics, freemasons - belonged to long-standing international organisations which possessed solid communication channels and social networks. Many were part of, or closely connected to, the 'antifascist diaspora' of political refugees from countries under fascist or authoritarian rule: antifascism was, to a large extent, 'a culture of exile' built in large cities such as Paris, Moscow, Barcelona, London, New York and Buenos Aires.30 Its activists viewed politics from a cosmopolitan perspective and felt morally obliged to engage in distant conflicts, whether in Spain orChina; they shared a culture that blended concepts and symbols from all over the world and recognised one another as part of a 'common humanity'." There are quite a few other journal articles and books that make it clear that anti-fascism isn't simply some sort of Communist movement. Doug Weller talk 09:33, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
      • No, I'm not going to "stop this business about the Soviet Union". Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, and an article about "anti-fascism" needs to cover the term in a nuanced and historically accurate way. It has been clearly demonstrated (and numerous more sources can easily be found) that "anti-fascism" has a particular meaning in Soviet usage (and the Soviet tradition), and that the term was most commonly associated with Soviet (incl satellite states) propaganda, while largely avoided in the west in the postwar era for that reason (e.g. Der missbrauchte Antifaschismus, KAS, 2002, ed. by Eckhard Jesse and others). The Soviet Union is front and centre of any discussion of the term "anti-fascism" from the historical point of view; the term was used in the USSR and satellites just about as frequently as the term "American" is used in the United States for the better part of a century, and it meant something quite different from "opposition to fascism". "Anti-fascism" as a term is indeed frequently more or less synonymous with the Soviet Union, as the source I cited above pointed out. It is also associated with far-left political groups in western countries which use the term according to the "Soviet tradition"; the German federal government for example writes this about "Antifascism": "the field of "Antifascism" has for years been a central focus of the political work of far-left extremists, especially from the violence-oriented spectrum". This is what contemporary "anti-fascism" is generally taken to mean today, as seen in organisations such as Antifa (United States) and its inspirations in Europe.
      • As I said above, we should have one article about opposition to fascism (i.e. opposition to the actual ideology of fascism in the historical sense), and a different article about Soviet usage of the particular Soviet/communist term anti-fascism (where "fascism" doesn't refer to fascism, and the entire purpose of the term is to slander non-fascists [more specifically everyone who aren't communists] as "fascists"), because the two phenomena are distinct. --Tataral (talk) 10:25, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
Fine. Explain why I can find so many academic sources discussing anti-fascism and not suggesting it's basically a Soviet term, and please show us the academic sources that say "the entire purpose of the term is to slander non-fascists [more specifically everyone who aren't communists] as "fascists")". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 12:53, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
The fact that you can find some sources (typically from people who aren't specialists in Russian/Soviet, Central and Eastern European history or related fields) which use "anti-fascism" in a literal (and often uncritical) sense, doesn't invalidate other sources, from people who are specialists in Central and Eastern European history, or who focus specifically on the history/use of the term anti-fascism. It just demonstrates that people are talking about wildly different things when using the term "anti-fascism" and underlines the need for two separate articles, 1) an article about opposition to fascism, and 2) Soviet ideological usage of the term from the 1920s to 1989 (as discussed e.g. by Van Herpen) which is distinct from opposition to fascism in the historical sense. --Tataral (talk) 13:29, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
There is a significant body of serious academic scholarship from across Western Europe about the history of anti-fascist movements and groups which seems to me to strongly warrant an article on anti-fascism itself. Anti-fascism is a movement with a clear genealogy, which the old article traced reasonably well. It is not a homogeneous movement: it has had liberal and militant wings, for example. But it is not so heterogeneous as to not be a thing. I think there should be one page on this movement. "Antifa" is one variant of the militant wing of this movement, and perhaps deserves a sub-page of its own due to notability thanks to current debates. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:11, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
Examples of the scholarly literature: Copsey Anti-Fascism in Britain, Copsey et al Varieties of Anti-Fascism, García et al Rethinking Anti-Fascism, Pugliese Fascism, Anti-fascism, and the Resistance in Italy and Italian Fascism and Anti-Fascism: A Critical Anthology, several chapters Evan Smith's Against the Grain, several books by Ward on liberal and militant anti-fascism in Italy e.g. Antifascisms, Volume 25, Part 4 of Contemporary European history, on transnational anti-fascism. And from the non-academic literature: M Testa Militant Anti-Fascism: A Hundred Years of Resistance, Hamerquist et al Confronting Fascism: Discussion Documents for a Militant Movement. There's loads and loads more. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:19, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
The problem here is that it isn't clear what "anti-fascism itself" is supposed to mean. "Anti-fascism" isn't anything in particular in "itself," its meaning depends on what the speaker means by "fascism." When the USSR (and its supporters in western countries) since the 1920 used the word "fascism" to refer to social democrats, liberals and generally anyone who weren't communists, and the term "anti-fascism" as "synonymous with Soviet Russia" as Van Herpen notes (per above), it's meaningless to argue that this is the same "thing" as liberal opposition to fascism. How can liberals be both fascists and anti-fascists at the same time? How is it meaningful to consider social democrats to be fascists? Or the US government, or all western countries, as seen in the name of the Anti-Fascist Wall?
A lot of people are opposed to fascism as they are opposed to any totalitarian ideology, but they aren't "anti-fascists". Most people from Central and Eastern Europe (outside Russia) would never call themselves "anti-fascists", unless they were supporters of the former communist regimes, but that doesn't mean that they don't despise fascism. It's just that "anti-fascism" is a term that was hijacked by the Soviet Union a long time ago and used as an insult against people who clearly weren't and aren't fascists, and that people who lived in Central and Eastern Europe were bombarded with this term in such a perverted and false sense for decades which made the term tainted and useless for democratically-minded people. Political scientist Antonia Grunenberg (a noted expert on Hannah Arendt) for example considers "anti-fascism" to be a meaningless term that doesn't differentiate between totalitarians and democrats, and thus it's a term that serves to obfuscate the boundaries between democracy and dictatorship (Antifaschismus, ein deutscher Mythos, 1993), a common critique voiced by many (liberal and other non-communist) political scientists and others against the term. --Tataral (talk) 22:03, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't know much about anti-fascism in post-Stalinist societies (although I do know that there are plenty of Eastern and Central European activists who call themselves anti-fascist while being rigorously anti-Stalinist, e.g. anarchists[14]) but in Western Europe and North America it is utterly incontrovertible that there is - and has been since the 1930s - a real and significant, if heterogeneous, movement called anti-fascism. Of course - as with socialism, liberalism, feminism or any other ism - it isn't always clear (and is often contentious) what the term anti-fascism "is supposed to mean", and of course - as with other isms - there are normative critiques of the movement or its direction or its use of language, as with the Grunenberg example. But that should not stop us from being able to put together a coherent concise account of the movement and its key divisions, based on sources such as the academic sources I listed above. If there needs to be a section on the Soviet co-optation of the movement and term (and this can be written based on reliable sources), that's fine too. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:58, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
That's correct. At least in America and the UK and most Western countries today fascism does not mean what it did under the Soviet Union and clearly differentiates between democratic and totalitarin regimes. It's not solely a far-left or even solely a left-wing phenomena. Conservatives can be anti-Fascist. See this article, quoting a UK Conservative party MP saying "“I am glad Unite Against Fascism organised a counter-demonstration that better reflects the views of our community." Doug Weller talk 09:40, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
Quick question: should "Antifascism" only cover the English-language usage of this term (not "Antifaschismus") or am I just being silly to even ask this? --Nanite (talk) 23:39, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
As I said previously, we should have one article which deals with opposition to fascism, viz. the historical Italian and German ideologies. I believe it should be titled opposition to fascism which is purely descriptive without any ideological connotations or confusion over its meaning, but the lead can indicate that it is also known as anti-fascism, while also pointing out the difference between this and the Soviet usage of the term anti-fascism. In addition, we should have an article on Soviet usage of the term anti-fascism where most material about the particular meaning of anti-fascism in the USSR and the rest of the eastern bloc would belong.
There is no doubt that the word fascism itself only refers to Italian fascism and German nazism in western sources, both now and in the past. However, the specific word anti-fascism is much much more closely associated with its extensive usage in the eastern bloc, also in western languages. The word was also, especially historically, used in the sense of opposition to (actual) fascism in western sources, and sometimes people who aren't familiar with central and eastern Europe and the history of the term use the term in such a literal way even today, but in that case they mean something entirely different from what the USSR meant by anti-fascism. --Tataral (talk) 10:20, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
@Tataral, are there any secondary sources you could share that support the position you are asserting here? In the West, the word "fascism", as the Wikipedia article fascism makes clear (which has a section on post-WW2 fascism) does not refer only to the classic Italian/German forms but is used far more broadly, but I am not sure of the relevance of that question to the question of what "anti-fascism" means or whether an English-language encyclopedia should have an article on anti-fascism. In general, I think that "opposition to" type Wikipedia articles are hard to make into coherent, concise, encyclopedic articles and become platforms for original research, coatracking and POV-pushing, whereas articles on movements (such as anti-fascism) are generally easier to keep coherent and to source from the secondary literature. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:06, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
Seriously, The book I quoted from about American fascism and anti-fascism is worthless? You are using too narrow a definition of anti-fascism. I also would prefer an article about a movement to one about "opposition to". Doug Weller talk 12:08, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I didn't express myself clearly enough. My intention was not to dispute that the term fascism can also refer to post WWII far-right ideologies similar to or inspired by traditional fascism (although they tend to be vastly less influential than the fascism of the period before 1945). My point was merely that the specific Eastern Bloc usage of the term (as discussed above) should have its own article and not be included in an article about opposition to (actual) far-right ideologies. --Tataral (talk) 15:17, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't have any objection to the Eastern Bloc usage getting its own article. That seems compatible with any of the title options proposed for this article (and for the post-war one, if it remains separate).
  • "The term "anti-fascism" was primarily associated with USSR propaganda" -- I call bullshit. Next timesink, please. Drmies (talk) 14:01, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
    • Do you have any sources supporting your claim? "Anti-fascism" is defined by Geoffrey Roberts and Patricia Hogwood in The Politics Today Companion to West European Politics in the following way: A general term denoting opposition to fascism, including nazism. More particularly, it has been employed as a legitimising principle and integrative idea by communist organisations and regimes [...] This is also quite clear from the fact that the term is most often associated with the Antifa movements today, which are communist in origin. See discussion above (e.g. Van Herpen) of what was actually meant by "fascism" and "anti-fascism" by "anti-fascists" in the Soviet tradition. --Tataral (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
      • The "More particularly..." phrase in no way means "associated with USSR propaganda. What the Soviets wanted to mean is neither here nor there. Drmies (talk) 11:59, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
      • @Tataral: That source doesn't do any in-depth analysis of anti-fascism, it basically encapsulates it in two paragraphs. Not really very convincing. Do you have any reliable sources showing Antifa in the US is communist in origin?
That source adds some weight to @Tataral:'s position. Here, though, are some similar reference works that say something rather different:
Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media “The Anti–Fascist movement in Italy included socialists, communists, liberals, Catholics, union members, factory workers, students' and women's organizations, anarchists, and intellectuals. Despite ideological divisions, they were able to form a unified front to fight ...”
Encyclopedia.com: “ The ideology of antifascism varied greatly from the Comintern's official declarations linking fascism and monopoly capitalism to more diffuse moral pronouncements by intellectuals like novelists Romain Rolland or Heinrich Mann, the German exile writer. At its height in the mid-1930s, antifascism was the rallying cry of the Left, but given the abiding hostility of communists and socialists, it was also a "pragmatic compromise" cobbled together to meet the emergency of Hitler's rise to power. Antifascism mobilized genuine popular support for democratic currents while at the same time it caused a fatal blindness that allowed many Western intellectuals to sacrifice their judgment and lead "double lives" guided by a secret Stalinist apparat…. During 1922 the Alleanza del Lavoro, probably the first antifascist organization, emerged, a more or less spontaneous coalition of socialists, republicans, trade unionists, communists, and anarchists. Early antifascism was politically and philosophically diverse.
The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest “The term “anti-fascism” today generally refers to those movements and ideological stances opposed to fascism intended as a political position and method. Yet its origins are to be found in the years following World War I in Italy, where it grew as a direct response to the fascist party's increasing influence. Anti-fascism in Italy indicates both the social movements that were born to prevent the affirmation of Mussolini's dictatorship, the so-called resistenza (resistance), as well as an ideological stance. It may be considered as the last example in European history of a fusion of bourgeoisie and the subaltern and as the historical event signaling the passage from the age of fascism and Nazism to the Cold War ( Paggi 1996 ). While growing steadily during the Fascist Ventennio (the years of Mussolini rule) it was only towards the end of the 1930s and 1940s (with the declaration of racial laws in 1938 and Mussolini's Social Republic in 1943) that anti-fascism actually became a proper cross-class movement, endorsing and bringing to a successful end the struggle for national liberation. Comprising combatants as well as intellectuals, the anti-fascist resistance was a heterogeneous movement composed of a large number of smaller organizations, dominated by two political groupings, the Communists and the Catholics.”
BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:30, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
The titles of the Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media and the International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest kind of give away a rather left-wing stance; at least the editor of the latter is a former labour union activist who turned to Marxism in later years. But that's ok; the point here is that anti-fascism is defined in very different ways depending on the position of the speaker, and what they have in mind when they are talking abouts fascists, and also whether they are talking about it in a historical sense or in a contemporary one. When the Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media is discussing the "Anti–Fascist movement in Italy" it's really discussing something much more narrow than "anti-fascism" in a broad (especially postwar) sense (much like fascism for the purposes of this article is defined much more broadly than just the original Italian Fascism). There is nothing actually wrong with that definition, it's just that it doesn't have much to do with the most common use of the term "anti-fascism" in later periods (during the Cold War in particular) (except perhaps in a historical sense, but e.g. the name of the Berlin Wall wasn't about history, but about the "fascists of the day", i.e. NATO). --Tataral (talk) 19:45, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
why is confusing? I don't agree with that.Bolzanobozen (talk) 11:10, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Terrorism

You are invited to participate in Talk:Antifa (United States)#RfC: antifa and terrorism, a discussion about whether to include that activities by American anti-fascists were labeled as domestic terrorism by the Trump administration. R2 (bleep) 22:18, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Contradiction of what Antifaschistische Aktion was

In the History section there is the following sentence: "In 1932, during the United Front period, Antifaschistische Aktion was formed as a broad-based alliance in which Social Democrats, Communists and others could fight legal repression and engage in self-defence against Nazi paramilitaries." However, when clicking through to the linked article on 'Antifaschistische Aktion', it is described as a front for the communist party that was strongly opposed to social democrats, to the extent that they called the social democrats, fascists. The sentence in question has a source, but I don't have a way of checking through it. SO I do not know what to do here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C6:6712:A900:1C0C:C24B:89C2:8AFE (talk) 13:16, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Citations in "Use of the term" section

We currently quote two texts in the "Use of the term" section: Tim Peters[15] and Michael Richter[16]. I have no question about the reliability of these sources (which has been raised on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard), but I am not sure of the logic of this choice. 1. Verification: Can someone who reads German better than me verify that they are talking about anti-fascism in general, and not about specific moments in post-war German history? 2. Weight: Are they the best two scholars to cite here? According to Google Scholar (which is not perfect, but a good indicator), Peters has 18 citations[17] and Richter has just one, an MA dissertation.[18] Are they the best representatives of the scholarly work on anti-fascism? 3. Balance: both seem to come from the same political tradition (see Antifa (Germany) talk page)- Peters is a CDU politician whose book was based on his PhD funded by the CDU, and his supervisor was Eckhard Jesse, doyen of "extremism studies", so frames anti-fascism as a form of "extremism", while Richter is a researcher at the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism, which also takes a view that communism and fascism are twin forms of extremism. I feel there are other scholarly traditions - in history, social movement studies, etc - which take a very different view, and so the section is rather unbalanced. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:34, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@BobFromBrockley: Eckhard Jesse is also used as a source here. The sources and content were added by Tataral, who also added similar sources and content here and in Post-World War II anti-fascism, I see that Simonm223 already opened a similar discussion Talk:Post-World War II anti-fascism#Germany, the same content was also added in the summary here. Rupert Loup (talk) 17:48, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
This article is very much underdeveloped for such an important topic, so it leaves very much to be desired. There is certainly room for discussing other perspectives than the perspectives of extremism studies (perspectives that are dominant in this field particularly in Germany and much of central and eastern Europe, in official and academic contexts).
In my view this article suffers from the confusion over what the term actually means; on one hand resistance against historical/literal fascism, and on the other a specifically anti-capitalist theoretical and political tradition that is based on a very broad understanding of fascism as largely synonymous with capitalist society, and that has at various times included the wider western world, the centre-left etc. in the understanding of fascism, and that views anti-fascism primarily as part of the class struggle. Ideally the article should be split into two, one on resistance against (historical) fascism, and one on anti-fascism (left-wing political current) or something like that that discusses the anti-fascist tradition that was dominant especially in the Soviet Union from the 1920s until around 1989. Anti-fascism can really mean two wildly different things that have little in common, but for those who don't remember or aren't that familiar with how the term was used used before 1989 in the Eastern bloc, it's confusing that anti-fascism in the Eastern bloc would refer to the struggle against NATO in general during the Cold War, or against social democrats in the 20s/30s.
Regarding Tim Peters, I mainly used him as a source because he neatly summarizes other, more established scholars (Grunenberg among them). Research on anti-fascism as a specific concept and left-wing theoretical tradition is also really a niche field (especially from a centrist perspective that is not "in-universe"), so it isn't unreasonable to mention Peters. But that discussion could be longer and mention other perspectives too. --Tataral (talk) 22:09, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
To be clear, I don't object to Peters' inclusion as such, just questioning (a) whether he is actually talking about anti-fascism in general or not, and (b) trying to get a sense of how representative he is. If he neatly summarises other scholars, that's a good argument for inclusion. Glad you agree about the need to balance with other perspectives.
I don't think this article suffers too much from confusion. It is clearly about resistance and opposition to historical/literal fascism, and most of it makes it clear that such resistance/opposition has been heterogeneous and has included both liberal and militant forms. The other sort of anti-fascism you're talking about seems to me to be not actually a political tradition or left-wing current, but rather simply very specific use of the word "anti-fascism" in Stalinist states,and would be better covered in articles about the DDR, SED, etc. (As you note, it's a very niche field.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:32, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
It's not that clear to me that the article is only about resistance and opposition to a western definition of fascism, which would exclude anti-fascism as understood in the Soviet Union from the 1920s until 1989. The use of the term anti-fascism there was based on a theoretical understanding of fascism itself as a stage of capitalist society. Anti-fascism as a term and distinct concept was pretty much invented in the Soviet Union, many years before WWII, and its use in the Soviet Union (and satellite states and Comintern affiliated parties in other countries) is a major part of its history. In the German example, we have an article on German resistance to Nazism, because that's what it's commonly called. Such a title is unambiguous in the same way that resistance to fascism would be. On the other hand anti-fascism is a term, and concept related to it, with a very complex history of its own that is not exclusively related to resistance against literal fascism. --Tataral (talk) 19:43, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
The issue you're raising is not about the definition of 'anti-fascism' but about the definition of 'fascism'. 'Anti-fascism' is not an ideology per se (like anti-communism), it's an 'anti-ideology' (i.e., a concept that wouldn't exist without with the opposed ideology). Alcaios (talk) 19:52, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Anti-fascism is clearly an ideology in its own right, although it has also been described as a strategy. As Dan Stone notes, "the instrumentalised ideology of anti-fascism as it informed the post-war communist republics was of course not experienced by the British people" (Varieties of Anti-Fascism pp. 183–201[19]). --Tataral (talk) 22:45, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
So what is the ideology of anti-fascism as defined by Dan Stone? It's not included in the excerpt you posted. I read the article (in fact I read the whole book a few years ago). Stone is using the term 'ideology' once, and as a synonym of 'project'. The introduction of the very same book you're using as a reference is way more prudent that "clearly, it's an ideology, believe me dude": (quote) "Nonetheless, this anti-fascist minimum does counsel us against elevating anti-fascism to the status of an ideology. If we understand ideology to be a distinctive configuration of thought and action, then anti-fascism is not an ideology." Alcaios (talk) 23:03, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
PS: sorry for the harshness of my answer, I'm just beginning to lose faith in the WP project for various other reasons at this point. Alcaios (talk) 23:22, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
Nigel Copsey, in that chapter in the book on Britain in the inter-war period, discusses mainly whether anti-fascism is an ideology based on the British experience. So he's not really discussing the anti-fascist ideology and tradition (within Communist parties) that's the issue here. Britain has never experienced fascist rule, nor a government that prominently used the term anti-fascism as synonymous with its governing ideology in the way USSR and East Germany did (or as a "state doctrine" as it's often called in the East German example), so Britain isn't that central in a discussion of this tradition. I mentioned the other chapter by Stone just because he points out that people in western countries didn't experience directly such usage. There are many, many other works, focused on Central and Eastern Europe, that discuss that tradition as an ideology or doctrine. I continue to believe that it causes confusion that the article covers two different things, and a term that means two different things to different people, and that the best solution would be to have a disambiguation page here that included links to an article on resistance against fascism (that could introduce its topic as "resistance against fascism, also called anti-fascism") and an article on anti-fascism (left-wing political tradition) (or something like that) that discussed how the concept was used in Communist states and parties around the world since the 1920s USSR based on the understanding of anti-fascism as fundamentally anti-capitalist. --Tataral (talk) 09:30, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
I am very glad we are referring to Copsey and Stone here. These are exactly the sort of authors the article should be citing. Copsey makes clear that he believes that a general picture of anti-fascism can be inferred from the British experience, and he explicitly calls the DDR experience an "anomalous example". Our article should reflect the general picture as a priority, and could also point to anomalies if significant, but it should not generalise from the anomalous example. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:53, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
I absolutely agree that the article should make use of sources such as this book, which is a useful source particularly regarding a British perspective on anti-fascism. It nicely complements a discussion based on the dominant (and government-backed) tradition of extremism research in Germany. On the other hand it isn't surprising that a British author in a book specifically about the British experience would be more interested in the British experience, and there are many other sources, particularly German sources, that discuss anti-fascism primarily from the perspective of those countries on the continent that experienced both fascist and "anti-fascist" rule directly, and who don't treat that tradition as an anomaly. Considering how the government-backed doctrine of "anti-fascism" permeated society in East Germany and other countries under communist rule, anomaly is not a word continental-based scholars would use to describe it; we are rather talking about a distinct phenomenon compared to "resistance against (literal) fascism". --Tataral (talk) 12:16, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
The key bit of what Stone writes is " instrumentalised ideology" - I have to admit I'm struggling with what this means, searching for "instrumentalism ideology" gives some clues but not enough for me to spend time on. The point is that he is not saying that anti-fascism is an ideology. It was a tool (ah, that's a clue) the Communists used. Doug Weller talk 13:29, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
You cannot exclude East Germany from an article about anti-fascism based on one scholar's quote while the majority of studies on on the subject refers to the DDR. Alcaios (talk) 01:05, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't think anyone has argued for the exclusion of East Germany. But I am not sure that it can be the case that the majority of studies of anti-fascism are about the DDR, unless I am misunderstanding.BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:15, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Conservative and Liberal Antifascism in the United States

As many editors have pointed out, there is a lack of coverage of liberal antifascism and conservative anti-fascism, in favor of an almost exclusive focus on revolutionary antifascism. Rule of Law is inherently opposed to rule of dictator by fiat, and American constitutionalism as check on executive power, intended by the framers of the constitution for that purpose, deserves mention. Even if editors disagree with this political ideology, or find America's hypocrisy disturbing by its frequent support of autocrats overseas, it is historically notable. I propose the following for inclusion:

Constitutional conservatives in the Republican majority Senate of the 117th United States Congress, joined unanimously by the democratic minority, rebuked the incumbent POTUS and 6 of its own members for claiming unconstitutional powers and extorting the legislature to delegitimize State certified electors and overturn a democratically held election, in an attempted auto-coup — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaredscribe (talk • contribs)

Jaredscribe - I support due weight to liberal and conservative anti-fascism in this article (although there are a fair number of references to liberal anti-fascism already, and a couple to conservative anti-fascism), but oppose this specific addition as (a) a lot of detail about a recent, US-specific incident for a general article covering whole global history, and (b) I think, especially at this moment when it is still very close, it is too controversial to discuss this incident in terms of fascism/anti-fascism/coup so this would be considered a very POV edit by many. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:52, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
Ok. Lets wait until more politicians and secondary sources come out of the closet calling this the neo-fascism that it is, IMHO. Many news outlets and commentators from the political class mislabeled it "anarchy". Jaredscribe (talk) 23:06, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Following the police Killing of George Floyd and summer of protests, the Rutherford Institute published an article denouncing no knock warrants and the granting of "qualified immunity" to police. Stating that, due to the Supreme Courts refusal to uphold the 4th ammendment and limit the police, we live in a "police state", and "freedom has become fascism", agreeing with criticisms leveled by Antifascist and Black Lives Matter activists.[1] Jaredscribe (talk) 23:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

@Jaredscribe: This would probably be better presented at Antifa (United States), not this general article on the global history of antifacism. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 23:41, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
Not sure as might not be specifically to do with Antifa as opposed to anti-fascism, but seems too much of a minor specific case to include in this general article or even the post-war one. If there is more secondary coverage showing it is significant to the story of anti-fascism we could consider it? BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:17, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

To what extent should Empire of Japan be included in this article?

Various sources suggested different definitions to Empire of Japan: some sources argued that Japan, at least had some elements of fascism.[2][3] If so, which of the followings should be included in this article? If not, how should we describe these things?

--ときさき くるみ not because they are easy, but because they are hard 05:52, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  1. ^ "Justice sleeps and We The People suffer, no the U.S. Supreme Court will not save us" (Press release). 21 September 2020.
  2. ^ Fletcher, William Miles, III (1982). The search for a new order : intellectuals and fascism in prewar Japan. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807896648.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ McCormack, Gavan (1982-06-01). "Nineteen-Thirties Japan: Fascism?". Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. 14 (2): 20–32. doi:10.1080/14672715.1982.10412645. ISSN 0007-4810.
  4. ^ David-West, Alzo (2012). "North Korea and the Opinion of Fascism: A Case of Mistaken Identity". North Korean Review. 8 (1): 105–116. ISSN 1551-2789. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
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