Over the last few years we have seen the far right taking more public space, in the news, and in the streets in the US. Obviously there is a need to organize against it and increasingly more people are seeing antifascist action as a way to do that.

To make our organizing more effective we should take into account experiences from other contexts. This presentation will be a critical introduction into the history of antifascism mostly in Russia, but also Belarus and Ukraine spanning the last few decades. The talk will ask some critical questions and reflect on comrades’ experiences in Eastern Europe. What tactics, strategies, and organizing have been most useful?

How do antifascist actions influence the anarchist movement, and does this collision with fascists change our collectives? How can we avoid antifascism becoming just another youth subculture and not a broader political movement? In Russia, how was it possible that antifascism became an essential part of state ideology, with clear conservative connotations? What actually is antifascism, and how can anarchists relate to such an ambiguous concept?

Questions will be raised and discussion moderated by an anarchist comrade from Russia.