From fights with Nazis to a Split due to the War: The story of Antifa in Russia

from thefreeonline on 11 June 2023 by Редакция at Avtonom.org/ / News/updates-Russian-anti-war-direct-actions-and-anti-war-prisoners /

The antifascist movement emerged in Russia in the late 1990s – early 2000s as a response to neo-Nazis’ violence: back then, the far-right was attacking migrants, homeless people, punks and anyone they didn’t like almost daily.

On the title photo – action in memory of murdered antifascists in Moscow, 2015.

Over the past couple of decades, the movement has changed significantly, having gone through murders of its participants, numerous criminal cases and now a split due to the war. Radio Svoboda (RS) recounts the story of Russian antifa. Author: Yana Sakhipova

“Glory to Russia” – says a man in military uniform and raises a bottle of beer, while the band Klowns performs on stage under the flags of the so-called “DPR” and “LPR”. The musicians came to Donetsk in January of 2023 – as they claim, to do “a good deed” for the people that “have lived in cultural isolation” for the past nine years.

A significant part of the visitors are military men.

Klowns was one of the first and most popular antifascist bands in Russia. Now, only Sergei is left from the original lineup. And he doesn’t count himself as a member of antifa anymore. “I want Russia to be integral, so that Maidan wouldn’t be repeated here” – he says.

In three months and a hundred kilometers from Donetsk, in Bakhmut, the Russian antifascist and anarchist Dmitri Petrov will die while fighting on the Ukrainian side. “As an anarchist, revolutionary and Russian, I felt it necessary to take part in the armed resistance of Ukrainians against Putin’s occupants” – Petrov wrote in a letter he commanded to be published after his death. “I did it for the sake of justice, protection of Ukrainian society and of liberation of my own country – Russia- from oppression. For the sake of all the people, whom a heinous, totalitarian system, formed in Russia and Belarus, deprives of dignity and opportunity to breath freely”.

Even before February 2022, it would be difficult to call the Russian antifascist movement unitary. The full-scale war in Ukraine though literally scattered antifascists on different sides of the front. But it started very differently.

The 2000s

In 2002, the 13-year-old Inessa Dymnich went to a concert for the first time – the band was “Tarakany!”. At that time, Inessa was not interested in politics – she just liked punk rock. Before one of the following concerts, bottles flew against Inessa and people walking next to her, smashing against a wall above their heads. Back then this was becoming commonplace: concerts were regularly attacked by fascists.

Under the threat of an attack were performances of bands of various genres – from punk and hardcore to reggae and rap. An antifascist movement as such didn’t exist yet and the concerts often didn’t have a political orientation: the far-right simply didn’t like punks and representatives of other subcultures. Attacks were occurring not only in the clubs but also on the way to them.

“While on the bus, heading to the concert, you had to be constantly on the watch for what’s going on, if there are any individuals dressed like the far-right. You could be attacked on your way out of the bus, at any passage.

You were going out with a feeling that you’re waking into a fighting pit. You never knew what could be thrown at you on the way – a bottle, a stone, a fist. A part of people found themselves in antifascism because they were simply fed up constantly getting jumped on at concerts” – recounts Inessa.

People had to walk from the metro in groups, while we were learning about the concerts by word of mouth: public announcements were too dangerous.

This was not saving us from regular attacks and concert goers had to defend themselves by engaging in clashes with the Nazis – that way, gradually, a subcultural antifascist movement started to form.

With time, antifascists started organizing the security of events.

“We used to gather people near the metro station with our security group. Those who had traumatic pistols were surrounding this crowd and were leading them to the club. If someone walked away alone to the bathroom or to a shop, he could be killed” – says Shura, an antifascist who was involved in the security of concerts.

“Back then, when someone was coming to a concert without a gun everyone was looking at him in bewilderment: are you immortal?”

After a while Inessa also got involved in the security of concerts. She started getting interested in the ideological component of antifascism, as well – she found unacceptable the fact that some distinguish people on the basis of their nationality and looks, while the attacks on migrants and homeless were happening almost daily.

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(Photo) Neo-Nazis at the rally “in defense of Russians rights”, 2004

The concept of antifascist resistance emerged at the beginning of 20th century in Italy and Germany, that back then were rapidly moving towards fascism and Nazism.

In 1970-1980s, when in the post-war world the far-right started gaining power again, the antifascist movement was also reborn. Similarly, to the far-right, the new antifascist were not only a political movement but also a subculture, closely related to music and style – yet based on certain ideological principles.

In that form the antifascist movement, or antifa, arrived in Russia about 30 years later.

In high school Inessa was writing slogans of the sort “Liberty, equality and fraternity”, “Against sexism and homophobia”, “Animal rights” on the margins of her notebook.