On April 27, 2009, in the Czech city of Brno there was a brutal attack against several members of the Union of Young Communists of Czechoslovakia (SMKČ), the successor organization of the Communist Youth Union (KSM), which was banned by the Czech government for their goal of replacing capitalism with socialism. Even if our ideas of socialism differ significantly from the “socialism” of the SMKČ, we see the legal dissolution of the KSM, accompanied by police harassment of its leaders, as an attack on the entire radical left because, of course, the goal of overcoming capitalism is shared by other groups and organizations.

The victims of the attack initially assumed that the attackers were neonazis. They attacked in the night, suddenly and from behind, and they used weapons (brass knuckles, a stick and a glass bottle). All of them were masked and dressed in black clothing. One of the victims (incidentally the father of two children) had to stay in the hospital; the other two “only” required a brief treatment. The shock occurred when a group called the “Autonomous Antifa of Moravia” (AAM) claimed responsibility for the attack and published a proud report of this abhorrent act on the web site of “Antifascist Action” (www.antifa.cz). In our view, this small group of Moravian elitists acting under the name Antifa completely undermine the struggle against fascism and neonazism, which they claim to support.

Violence against fascists is not an end unto itself (for a number of “Antifa” individuals in the Czech Republic this might be different). Violence against neonazis and fascists is one of the means to combat people who reject any discussion and compromise, people whose racist and fascist ideas promote violence against anyone they dislike. The victims can be ethnic minorities, homosexuals, Jews, alternative youth, trade unionists, antifascists etc. Neonazis use violence as a means of intimidation; antifascist violence is the extreme form of resistance against them. But attacks against individuals and groups, including leftists, just because they have a different view – these are fascist tactics, not antifascist ones. But precisely this is what happened in Brno. The Moravian Autonomous Antifa have, with their attack, publicly tarnished the idea of radical antifascism, presenting it as an ideology of violence against people who hold different views).

Some Czech anarchists like to call Marxists and communists “red fascists”. It should be recalled that the Antifascist Action was founded in 1930 by the Communist Party of Germany as a paramilitary defense organization in the fight against the Nazi movement. Today, the German Antifa is openly involved in leftist meetings and demonstrations such as the annual Luxemburg-Liebknecht-Lenin demonstration in January. Here they demonstrated together with the independent youth organization REVOLUTION, other revolutionary Marxist groups, and also Stalinist and Maoist organizations, mostly consisting of Kurdish or Turkish immigrants. We have seen the Swedish Antifa use the hammer and sickle, a symbol that in the West is not a hallmark of a Stalinist authoritarian state apparatus, but rather of working class resistance against the capitalist state.

In contrast, the Czech Antifa strictly rejects any cooperation with the non-anarchist radical left. Often, they even spread anticommunism amongst young people, advocating hatred against other leftists, Marxist and others. Maybe because of this, radical antifascist activity has been very weak recently. While neonazis organize more and more demonstrations and meetings with hundreds of participants, the response by antifascists has been less and less. Roma people have even begun to organize to defend themselves, but the support for their actions by antifascists has unfortunately been minimal. Criticism of this “impotence” is growing even within the anarchist scene (Magazine A-kontra 1/09). In this environment it is not possible to build an antifascist united front and effectively prevent the rise of fascism. In addition to objective causes like the economic crisis and the ongoing oppression in Roma ghettos, the subjective factor, i.e. the fragmentation of the Czech antifascist left, further facilitates the neonazis’ victory. Perhaps as a partial effort to compensate this impotence, the Moravian “antifascists” chose an easier target than the neonazis, a harmless group of three people. Will this “antifa” next time attack assemblies of the Social democrats, the Communist Party, or a trade union demonstration? All are in fact “authoritarian” organizations.

The “Autonomous Antifa of Moravia” have, with their attack, shown society that left-wing activists (who ironically were returning from a commemoration for victims of Nazi occupation!) can now expect attacks not only from nazis but also from some “antifascists”. It is clear that violent attacks within the Czech Left by Antifa activists, which happen from time to time, assist the capitalist system because it undermines the strength of its opponents as a whole, exhausting activists with fruitless fighting among ourselves that discredits all of us in the eyes of the public.

The independent youth organization REVOLUTION therefore, supporting the initiative of the Socialist Youth of Slovakia, clearly condemns this brutal and counterproductive attack against members of the SMKČ and calls on other individuals and groups on the left to condemn it as well. The existence of a group called “Autonomous Antifa Moravia” was not mentioned until this attack, so the anarchist scene needs to object to those who carried it out. In order to clear up suspicions about who was behind this brutal act, we call on all components of “Antifascist Action” to clearly express if the act was carried out by one of its groups and if this step was approved. If so, we appeal to Antifascist Action: don’t substitute the role of neonazis and anticommunist, but honor your name and fight alongside others against fascism!

Revo Czech Republic, www.revo.cz.tc