The fastest method for antifascists to identify and neutralize dangerous fascists

Eight years ago I explained here the moment and purpose of the birth of so-called antifascism in the 1930s.

20 historical facts that deny the idea of communism as the great enemy of fascism
'Antifascism': the dark origin of a crude disguise for far-left thuggery

Basically, the Soviet communist dictator Stalin used antifascism to demonize the social democrats, who at the time were major rivals of the communists in interwar Germany. Stalin labeled the Social Democrats "social fascists," unleashing a campaign of hatred and violence against them that contributed to destabilizing the Weimar Republic and facilitated the rise to power of National Socialism. The similarity between the two totalitarian movements was so great that many German communists ended up joining the Nazi Party. Finally, to make clear the similarities between both anti-democratic movements, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR ended up allying themselves to invade Poland in 1939, demonstrating what truly united them: hatred of democracy.

During the Cold War, communism used "antifascism" to demonize free countries, portraying them as heirs of fascism simply for refusing to submit to communist dictatorships. This explains one of the greatest acts of cynicism of this totalitarian ideology: the christening of the Berlin Wall, built to prevent people from fleeing a brutal dictatorship —the one established by the USSR in East Germany— as the "Antifascist Protection Wall." Between 1961 and 1989, some 140 people were murdered in the name of this "antifascism" when they tried to cross the wall to reach freedom.

Fascism is today a purely marginal phenomenon, thankfully. That's why the far-left invents fascists and points them out where they don't exist. The left doesn't care whether the target of its hatred is a genuine fascist or not. In fact, the vast majority of people attacked by so-called "antifascists" are not fascists in the slightest. Many of them are simply people who have done something as legitimate in a democracy as disagreeing with any of the left's ideological dogmas.

Thus, "antifascism" is actually a disguise for the extreme left to violently exercise its intolerance toward differing opinions, an intolerance that often turns with particular ferocity against certain leftists. Let us recall, for example, the brutal repression against the Trotskyist communists of the POUM by the Stalinist communists of the PCE during the Spanish Civil War, which included the murder of the POUM leader, Andreu Nin, using a brutal method already employed by the Cheka, the bloodthirsty political police of communist Russia: skinning the prisoner in strips.

The technique is very simple, with the kind of simplicity typical of totalitarian regimes: If you disagree with the most fanatical left on something, you are labeled a "fascist," and then you become a potential target for aggression or assassination. It doesn't matter if you detest fascism and its methods (violent methods, by the way, identical to those of the extreme left). Being gratuitously labeled a "fascist" makes you someone who, in the eyes of the left, deserves a beating. It's a way of preventing debate that is unacceptable in a democracy. In fact, with this way of demonizing and coercing those who disagree, the left behaves exactly like the fascists it claims to hate.

This way of censoring all kinds of dissent is reaching extremes typical of the most paranoid dictatorships. The reasons for being labeled a "fascist" by the left have expanded so much and in such an absurd way that many people have had enough and have lost their fear of these extremists who accuse others of "hate" and "intolerance" when that is precisely what they themselves profess.

However, the paranoia and intolerance of antifascists can be channeled toward a beneficial end for all of society. In fact, and with that purpose in mind, I have been moved to write this article. I take it for granted that no kind of reasoning or moral, ethical, or historical argument is of any use with someone who holds an irrational and violent thesis according to which the left (or a part of it, since not all of the left says the same thing) is right about everything, and anyone who disagrees deserves a punch, a kick, or something much worse.

Así pues, me animo a sugerir un método más rápido para que los antifascistas puedan identificar y neutralizar a peligrosos fascistas: compren un espejo, mírense en él y podrán ver al fascista que tienen más cerca, que son ellos mismos. Si después de eso tienen ganas de agredir a ese fascista del espejo, siempre pueden hacerlo dándose cabezados contra una pared. Háganlo intentando no molestar a los vecinos, que no tienen la culpa de vivir al lado de unos tarados mentales.

Therefore, I am encouraged to suggest a quicker method for antifascists to identify and neutralize dangerous fascists: buy a mirror, look at yourselves in it, and you will see the fascist closest to you, which is yourselves. If after that you feel like attacking that fascist in the mirror, you can always do so by banging your head against a wall. Do this trying not to disturb the neighbors, who are not to blame for living next to a bunch of lunatics.

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Image: Grok.