Stairs. Entry group. Materials. Doors. Locks. Design » Doors Anti-fascist struggle after a radical turning point in the war. Anti-fascist underground in Riga

Anti-fascist struggle after a radical turning point in the war. Anti-fascist underground in Riga

The predatory plans of the “new order” in Europe and the cruel occupation regime in the enslaved countries strengthened in the minds of the people the idea that German fascism is the main enemy of all freedom-loving humanity. The elements of a just war intensified, and from a bilateral imperialist war it gradually began to turn for the exhausted and oppressed peoples into an anti-fascist war of liberation.

In all the occupied countries by this time there had been a consolidation of the forces of the Resistance movement with the task of uniting various centers of leadership of the illegal struggle. Communist party organizations were the force driving the struggle against the fascist occupiers. The communist parties in their program documents indicated the direction and goal of this struggle and became its organizers. Some active actions against the occupiers were carried out as a call to fight and announced that the peoples had risen up against German imperialism. In the occupied Czechoslovak regions in September 4939, strikes and demonstrations against the war took place, and on October 18, the 21st anniversary of the founding of the Czechoslovak Republic, mass communist demonstrations were organized in Prague, Ostrava, Kladno, Pilsen and other cities. In a clash with the fascist occupiers, student Opletal was killed, and his funeral turned into a new mass demonstration in Prague.

In response to this, the fascist authorities closed all the highest educational establishments and arrested about 8,000 people in the fall of 1939. Until May 1941, the Gestapo, according to its own data, arrested 5,796 Czech and Slovak communists. Uniting resistance fighters in Poland turned out to be extremely difficult. The country was dismembered, the Communist Party was dissolved before the war, bourgeois circles in the party and in exile took anti-communist positions. By the end of 1939, the Nazis had killed about 100 thousand Poles. In the spring of 1940, a wave of physical destruction of the Polish intelligentsia by the Nazis followed - 3,500 people fell victim to it.

Nevertheless, Polish workers carried out actions of struggle and sabotage in factories, mining enterprises and transport. In the first year of the occupation, workers at the Stiebler cloth factory in Lodz destroyed a total of 240 thousand meters of product. The universities of Warsaw and Poznan, closed by the fascist authorities, began classes illegally. Partisan detachments were created in Kielce, Warsaw, Lublin and other voivodeships. In the northern countries, workers also took part in the struggle against fascism. According to Danish sources, between April 1940 and June 1941, 19 major raids were carried out on German military installations, as a result of which a large number of aircraft, tanks, railway cars, gas storage facilities and transformer substations. In Norway, Resistance actions ranged from boycotts of the Quisling press and German films to anti-fascist demonstrations with skirmishes and acts of sabotage. On the anniversary of the fascist attack - April 9, 1941 - at Norwegian enterprises, workers stopped work for half an hour in protest. At the end of 1940, about 12 thousand Norwegians languished in prison for speaking out against the occupation authorities.

The Communist Party of the Netherlands very soon managed to act as a leader in the Resistance movement. Since October 1940, the newspaper “De Warheid”, the central organ of the Communist Party, began to be published illegally with a circulation of 10 thousand copies. In October 1940, students at the University of Leiden and the Technical Institute in Delft went on strike for two days against the dismissal of Jewish teachers from higher education by the Nazi authorities. The most significant action of the Resistance was the general political strike in February 1941, in which 300 thousand patriots took part and which covered the most important cities and enterprises of the country. As a result, all attempts by the German occupation authorities to create a collaborationist government from the Dutch fascists failed.

Large strikes also took place in Belgium: in June 1940 in Lutikhe, in September of the same year in Borinage, where 10 thousand workers took part. In April and May, a new wave of strikes was supported by 20 thousand workers in the industrial city of Charleroi. On the anniversary of Nazi Germany's attack on Belgium - May 10, 1941 - the workers of the Lutich province protested against the fascist occupation. 100 thousand workers took part in the strike under the leadership of the famous communist Julien Lao. The occupation authorities and the collaborationist management of the concerns were forced to increase wages by 8%. However, with this small handout they could not weaken the resistance struggle of the Belgian people. The French Resistance movement was especially strong. The illegal Communist Party Committee managed to maintain leadership of party organizations in factories and residential areas and channel progressive forces within the Resistance movement. In 1939, 16 illegal issues of L'Humanité publications were published, in 1940 there were 79 with a total circulation of about 10 million copies. The people's committees created by the communists led many of the resistance actions, which took place under the slogan of fulfilling the demands of the workers. In December 1940, at the Renault plant, the administration was forced to order the dismantling of several hundred motorcycles, as they were rendered unusable by the workers.

Motors from the company "Gnome et Rone" could not be accepted at enterprises due to defects. On November 11, 1940, the day of the 1918 Armistice, a demonstration took place in Paris, in the organization of which the famous communist Daniel Kazakova took part. Fascist military units shot at demonstrators, killing 12 and wounding about 50 people. In April - May 1941, 100 thousand miners in the Pas-de-Calais department went on strike for three weeks. About 2 thousand workers were arrested, and 1,500 of them were sent to forced labor in Nazi Germany. In the fall of 1940, the first partisan detachments emerged. Patriots from other segments of the population also took part in the struggle. The Free French movement, which de Gaulle organized in London, gradually grew into a significant military organization. All these examples testify to the unshakable struggle of peoples against fascist rule, for national independence, for freedom.

Despite the great difficulties that arose for the German Resistance movement after the Wehrmacht invasion of Northern and Eastern Europe, it unwaveringly continued the fight against Nazism and soon joined a broad anti-fascist front that covered most nations. With the arrest of Willy Gall and the destruction of the party organization he led in Berlin at the beginning of 1940, efforts to create an operational leadership of the KPD in Germany were primarily hampered. But other representatives of the KKE Central Committee continued to solve this problem. Rudolf Hallmeyer, Heinrich Schmeer and Arthur Emmerlich acted in this direction in Berlin. Rudolf Hallmeyer, until his arrest in August 1940, actively worked in the Resistance organization led by Robert Urich. In August, the leadership of this organization, which worked illegally in 1936-1937, was formed. In addition to Robert Urich, it included communists Kurt Lehmann, Franz Mett and social democrat Leopold Tomszyk. This resistance organization had a strong connection with 22 Berlin enterprises, among them AEG, Osram, Siemens, Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken. Meetings were regularly held with activists at enterprises on methods of anti-fascist activity. They managed to unite the disparate members of the KKE into a single party organization. Its leadership worked according to the directives of the Central Committee and was its representative in Berlin. It also insisted on the unification of resistance organizations in other places in Germany, as well as on the intensification of the anti-fascist struggle of the Social Democrats. This resistance organization acted as the leadership of the Communist Party on a nationwide scale and existed until the defeat of the Gestapo in 1942.

Urich and his associates were closely associated with the Resistance group in Munich, led by retired captain Joseph Römer. From the spring of 1940 to the beginning of 1942, they published a joint illegal press organ, the Information Service, which helped Resistance movement activists with data on the situation in the anti-fascist struggle and setting specific tasks. This “Information Service” was also received, among many others, by Resistance organizations in the North Bohemian region, in which German and Czech anti-fascists fought together under the leadership of Wenzel Scholz and Josef Gruba. In October 1939, Gruby established contact with the Central Committee of the KKE through Resistance organizations in Prague. At the end of 1940, communists of various resistance organizations met in Krauzova Buda at a meeting where the issue of further ways of struggle was discussed.

It has also been proven that there were direct connections between Robert Urich's Resistance organization and other organizations that existed at that time in Berlin and other Resistance centers in Germany. These include organizations led by Ion Sieg, Anton Zefkov, Wilhelm Guddorff and Otto Grabowski. In Leipzig, the anti-fascist struggle was continued by Resistance organizations grouped around Georg Schumann, Otto Engert and Kurt Kresse, in Thuringia - around Theodor Neubauer, in Hamburg - around Robert Abshagen, Bernard Bestlein and Franz Jakob.

Stuttgart anti-fascists prepared a leaflet “Voice of the People”. In Ulm, Wiesbaden and other places, posters and slogans against the fascist war were hung. The resumption of publication of the newspaper Rote Fahne was of great importance for the anti-fascist struggle. In a special instruction to the authorized representative of the KKE Central Committee, Arthur Emmerlich, the Central Committee proposed to re-publish this party organ in Berlin with the help of party organizations and Resistance organizations. Arthur Emmerlich led party organizations in the Berlin districts of Moabit and Reinickendorf, as well as in other parts of the city. He had a strong connection with the Teachers' Resistance group led by Kurt Steffelbauer. With the help of all these organizations, he managed to resume the publication of Rote Fahne. In January 1941 its first issue was published. In March - double number 2-3 and in May - number 4-5. The newspaper was printed on a typewriter and contained political articles and information compiled from materials from Moscow radio.

She directed the practical work of illegal resistance fighters. Thus, the editorial number 2-3 said: “The struggle against the imperialist war means: in enterprises, train workers in various forms of resistance against exploitation. The fight against the imperialist war means: to oppose, if possible, all anti-people measures of the regime. The fight against imperialist war means: denying the regime the means to wage war.” The arrest on May 24, 1941 of Arthur Emmerlich in Hamburg, from where he wanted to go to the foreign leadership in Sweden, and Kurt Steffelbauer, as well as a number of other communists on May 28, disrupted their active publishing activities and the unification of members of the Resistance movement.

From the operational reports of the fascist police apparatus, it was established that the anti-fascist struggle intensified in the first period of the war. A message dated December 1, 1939, from the Berlin plant of Siemens and Halske states: “The number of listeners to enemy radio broadcasts seems to continue to increase... Organized forms are becoming noticeable here and there in this direction.” The Gestapo in Berlin alone seized about 1,100 proclamations in the first 13 months of the war. The Post Office tracked down about 1,800 proclamations and 1,500 illegal leaflets, which was only a small portion of the materials published and distributed. In the spring and October 1940, Gestapo authorities reported from Western and Southern Germany about “raids on members of fascist youth organizations.” This led to the arrest of many young people between the ages of 16 and 24. In one of the operational reports dated January 1, 1941, the leaders of the German Hitler Youth claimed the existence of a youth group that leads to the “political decay of youth.” “The groups are partly modeled on former Marxist youth groups. They are either a continuation of them, or act in the same spirit. These groups pose a significant danger to the education of workers from the Hitler Youth and, with their combined efforts, can stubbornly fight the police. Therefore, it is necessary to take decisive action and demand the creation of youth work camps for the incorrigible.”

In Stuttgart, an illegal anti-fascist organization regularly listened to Moscow radio broadcasts and then distributed them among workers. In Dresden, the Resistance organization, whose active leaders were Fritz Schulze and Karl Steip, organized and carried out anti-fascist work until the arrest of most of its members in the spring of 1942. The organization created strongholds in Dresden enterprises and maintained contacts with Resistance organizations in Leipzig, Berlin and the authorized Central Committee Arthur Emmerlich.

In the autumn of 1939, the resistance groups created in the pre-war period by Arvid Harnack and Harro Schulze-Boysen united. This extensive anti-fascist organization had strongholds in Berlin and many other German cities, as well as connections abroad. Members of this organization, playwright Wilhelm Schiermann-Horster, a member of the KPD since 1923, and 23-year-old communist Hans Komm, worked among artists in Berlin. In the court case of the fascist court about this organization it is said: “Shirman was a typical qualified communist leader, he had spiritual dominance over his listeners, delved into communist theory and prepared them for the practical activities of the conspirators.”

The Resistance organization in Berlin, whose leadership included Hans Günther, published the anti-fascist proclamations “Das Freie Wort” in a circulation of 300 copies. They were posted in various parts of the city. The proclamations emphasized: “Hitler’s victory is an eternal war! Every fascist victory brings a new war!” At the Neptune Werft in Rostock in October-November 1940, anti-war slogans were hung, one of which read: “Down with Hitler and his rabble of murderers!” The Gestapo in its reports noted the increasing resistance of workers in the coastal areas. Each report stated that shipbuilding workers were reluctant to work overtime and that unreliable elements were showing a tendency to associate with shirkers. At the Heinkel factories in Rostock in October-November 1940, workers forced the payment of a bonus, which the management of the concern wanted to invest in weapons at that time, and promised the workers to build a “dormitory” with this amount after the war.

At the zinc smelters in Magdeburg, workers sabotaged the production of weapons. They threw out the slogan “Down with war!” at the plant. At the Leipzig plant "Hazag" an illegal factory group of the Communist Party published leaflets with the motto "Solidarity with our Polish class brothers." According to research to date, in Mecklenburg alone there were 76 political trials between September 1939 and the end of 1940. After the arrests at the end of 1940 and the beginning of 1941 in Teplice, where Czech, Slovak and German anti-fascists fought together, 300 opponents of Nazism were put on trial. Nazi justice handed down 36 death sentences. Many courageous actions of anti-fascists indicate that the most devoted and class-conscious forces of the German people in the first two years of the Second World War continued their struggle against fascism. At the same time she acquired various shapes: listening to Moscow radio, printing and distributing leaflets, writing anti-fascist slogans, material support for prisoners of war, as well as arrested resistance fighters and deported workers, carrying out acts of sabotage in enterprises and explaining to the masses the main political issues. At the same time, during this period there was a strengthening of the Resistance organizations that acted in the subsequent years of the war, and the strengthening, under the leadership of the Central Committee of the KKE, of the constant operational leadership of the illegal struggle of the party in Germany.

In exile, German anti-fascists made efforts to support the struggle against the fascist “new order”, against the further expansion of the war and for the defeat of Nazi Germany. In various countries they worked closely with national movement Resistance and took part in some struggles. In the unoccupied part of France, in Toulouse, in August 1940, an illegal governing body of the KKE in France was formed, which, together with French Resistance fighters, carried out anti-fascist explanatory work among Wehrmacht military personnel. In the spring of 1941, an illegal governing body of the KKE was created in Paris in the occupied part of France.

The various actions of communist, social democratic and other opponents of German fascism and their selfless, courageous performances, however, were not able to persuade the masses to greater anti-fascist activity and overthrow the fascist regime from within. The most important prerequisite for this - the unity of action of the working class - was absent due to the anti-communist attitudes of the right-wing Social Democratic leaders.

Characteristic of the concept of the leading Social Democrats was the desire to unite Hitler’s opponents, but without the communists and even against them. This desire was masked by the wording: it is desirable to conclude an alliance of all “opponents of totalitarian force.” At the same time, these Social Democrats were in direct agreement with the anti-communist bourgeois forces. Thus, Theo Hespers in the Kameradschaft magazine, published by Catholic youth leaders in London, condemning the communists, wrote that he did not think that “the German people want to exchange one dictatorship for another.”

The lack of unity of action of all opponents of fascism and, as a consequence of this, a small number of mass actions against the war made it easier for German fascism to further expand the state-monopoly system to oppress the people, the arms race and the preparation of new crimes against other peoples, and above all against the Soviet Union.

Anti-fascism: On the history of the concept

Illustration from the anti-fascist comic strip "Kur-Fascist". Artist Erdil Yasaroglu

Author - Anson Rabinbach, professor of modern European history at Princeton University, one of the founders and authors of the journal New German Critique, as well as the author of numerous publications, including books In the shadow of disaster. German intellectuals between Apocalypse and Enlightenment (1996, in English) And Motor Man. Energy, fatigue and the origins of modernity (2001, in German)

Anti-fascism.

Epochs in the development of one point of view

The vitriol with which the legacy of anti-fascism is currently debated stems in large part from the lack of agreement regarding its historical role as a political and cultural movement. In contrast to Italian fascism and German National Socialism, which were considered militarily defeated and politically discredited after 1945, the reputation of anti-fascism increased enormously, as it was surrounded by the halo of the victorious Resistance movement and Soviet triumph. Communist parties and regimes of the post-war era, and to a very particular extent in the GDR, saw their legitimation in the sacrifices made by heroes and martyrs - those whose names stood at the center of state-sanctioned myths and rituals until 1989. While some historians have identified anti-fascism with the defense of Western culture and democracy and given it positive connotations, others - due to its association with communism - have considered it to be a manifestation of extreme corruption.

An example of this contradiction is provided by the positions of two prominent historians. Both are veterans of the anti-fascist movement. British historian Eric Hobsbawm E. Hobsbawm. The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century (1914-1991). M., 2004. talks about the triumph of anti-fascism in the 30s: the left said goodbye to its utopias, recovered from heavy defeats, opposed the cowardly and dishonest policy of “appeasement” and in many places created a broad coalition against fascism, in which included conservatives, liberals, socialists and communists. On the contrary, the French historian Francois Furet Furet F. The History of an Illusion. M., 1998. sees nothing more in anti-fascism than the new face of Stalinism - a mask with the help of which European communists, as they say, were able to transform overnight from zealous Bolsheviks into respected freedom fighters, filled with hatred of Hitler and united under the banner of humanism and democracy.

None of these approaches will be able to grasp the concept of anti-fascism in the full breadth of its spectrum, nor rise to the occasion of the diversity of possibilities for interpreting this phenomenon. The collective concept of anti-fascism was supposed to include both official statements of the Communist International (Comintern), which explained fascism as the “overflow of the banks” of monopoly capital, and the journalistic activity of prominent representatives of the intelligentsia, for example, Romain Rolland or Heinrich Mann, motivated by moral considerations. At the highest point of its popularity, in the 30s, anti-fascism was the slogan of the left. It represented a compromise formula and a common denominator for the joint struggle against National Socialism. On the one hand, the anti-fascist movement in many places achieved significant support among the population. On the other hand, however, it created a fatal blinding force that clouded the decision-making ability of many Western intellectuals. Ultimately, many of these active participants in the anti-fascist struggle drifted into a “double life”, determined by the secret service of the Stalinist regime.

It is therefore necessary both to engage with non-communist anti-fascism on a broader basis and to look beyond parties and organizations to look at a variety of ideas, the work of a variety of intellectuals, multi-vocal journalism, religiously motivated activism, and daily life. However, such a broad approach in no way excludes the understanding of anti-fascism as an inclusion-oriented worldview that, despite all its various forms and motivations, found its minimum common denominator in a fundamentally hostile position towards fascist ideology. It is therefore advisable to distinguish between the official anti-fascism of the Comintern, the anti-fascism of local initiatives, emigrant intellectuals and non-communist Resistance groups. Indeed, behind the concept of “anti-fascism” there is undoubtedly a diverse phenomenon, covering a wide range of beliefs, hopes and emotions. The history of this moral and political point of view, characterized by an extreme degree of variability, can be outlined in three phases.

Anti-fascism before Hitler's "seizure of power" (1920-1933)

The brutal violence against Italian socialists and communists, which the fascists resorted to even before Benito Mussolini's seizure of power in October 1922, did not initially cause much concern in the ranks of the Communist Party of Italy (CPI). The founder and leader of the party, Amadeo Bordiga, could not recognize the fundamental difference between bourgeois democracy and fascist dictatorship. Convinced of the impending collapse of capitalism, he considered the greater danger to be the establishment of a social democratic government after the overthrow of the dictatorship. In 1922 in the form Alleanza del Lavoro ("Union of Labor".– It., approx. lane ) Probably the first anti-fascist organization was founded, based on a more or less spontaneous coalition of socialists, republicans, trade unionists and communists.

This early anti-fascism was clearly diverse, both in terms of its ideological motivations and political goals. The parliamentary opposition was led, until his death in 1926 by beating, by Giovanni Amendola, a brilliant journalist who protested against the ban on opposition parties and coined the term “totalitarian” to describe Mussolini’s system. Catholic, socialist and communist opponents of the dictatorship, who left parliament in 1924 after the assassination of the reformist socialist Giacomo Matteoti, founded Aventine Secession Named so in memory of the protest of Gaius Gracchus in Ancient Rome. ("Aventine Block".– It., approx. lane ).

In the following years, anti-fascists were blackmailed, arrested, forced into emigration and killed. Philosopher Benedetto Croce, the voice of Italian liberalism, abandoned his initial support for Mussolini and published on May 1, 1925 his landmark Manifesto of the Liberal Intelligentsia, which demanded “a deeper and clearer understanding of the virtues of the liberal position and law.” Originally published in Il Mondo , 1.5.1925. . After 1926, the PCI, led by Antonio Gramsci, who was arrested on Mussolini's orders in 1926, and the party leader in exile, Palmiro Togliatti, took a more critical position towards the Italian dictatorship. Both leaders, however, took the position that fascism, at least in its early years, was a truly revolutionary movement.

No other Italian resistance movement had such influx and support as the underground communist organization. At the same time, the communists in exile weakened the Italian Resistance, since they did not participate in it. Under the leadership of socialist Pietro Nenni, an association was created in Paris in 1927 « concentration Antifascista» ("Anti-fascist concentration."– It., approx. lane). The largest anti-fascist organization in emigration was „ Jiustizia e Liberta“ ("Justice and Freedom."– It., approx. lane). Its founder, Carlo Rosselli, advocated liberal socialism as an alternative to the rubble left behind by divisions on the European left. Many of Italy's leading anti-fascist writers played a prominent role in the Parisian exile community, such as Carlo Levi, Cesare Pavese and Ignazio Silone. But after the murder of brothers Carlo and Roberto Rosselli in 1932, Italian anti-fascist emigrants increasingly lost influence on the situation in their homeland.

At the same time, the Soviet foreign policy 20s could not have been more controversial. The USSR maintained friendly relations with Musolili and sought with all its might, especially after the conclusion of the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922, the favor of the nationalist right-wing forces in Germany. In 1924, Stalin proclaimed the new policy of the Comintern: “Social democracy is the objectively moderate wing of fascism... These organizations do not deny, but complement each other. These are not antipodes, but twins” Stalin I.V. Essays. T. 6, M., 1947, p. 282. . For tactical reasons, the communists and national socialists in 1931 and 1932. At times they even concluded real alliances, as, for example, during the course of In accordance with this International Congress against fascism and war, held a few months earlier, failed to achieve a principled condemnation of the fascist movements in Germany and Italy.

Anti-fascism in the era of Hitler and Stalin

Until 1934, Italian socialists in exile formed, together with Austrian and German social democrats, the spearhead of the opposition movement directed against Mussolini and Hitler. After the Reichstag fire on February 28, 1933, about 5 thousand communists were arrested. Somewhat later came the ban and destruction of the Communist Party of Germany with its 100 million members and almost 6 million voters. However, even before January 1934, the Red Army maintained friendly relations with the German Reichswehr. In addition, the USSR concluded a trade agreement with Germany. Leading Soviet politicians, however, began to ponder at the same time whether an alliance with France and Great Britain might not have been more advisable than efforts to preserve deteriorating German-Russian relations. Finally, in May 1935 Soviet Union signed secret mutual assistance treaties with France and Czechoslovakia, signaling a turn in foreign policy.

Meanwhile, events in France contributed to the fact that the anti-fascist movement gained growing support among the population. The revolt of the nationalist "leagues" on February 6, 1934 led to powerful left-wing counter-demonstrations on February 12, the same day that the Social Democratic uprising against the government led by Chancellor Dollfuss broke out in Vienna. In addition, a joint anti-fascist statement was signed by representatives of the intelligentsia who held different political views, including the surrealists Andre Breton, René Crevel and Paul Eluard, the writer Andre Malraux and the radical philosopher Emile Chartier.

At the congress in June 1934, the communist Maurice Thorez told his supporters that the choice was not between communism and fascism, but between fascism and democracy Wed. Denis Peschanski. Et pourtant ils tournent. Vocabulaire et stratégie du PCF, 1934-1936, Paris, 1988. In 1930 there were only about two hundred active communists in the Loire department; in 1935 their number increased to 5 thousand in 77 local anti-fascist committees. The communist idea reached not only the working-class neighborhoods of Orleans, but also rural areas where the left had traditionally hardly had any influence. It remains unclear to what extent this pressure from below prompted the French Parti communiste(Communist Party - French, trans.) to the turn that took place on July 27, 1934 - the day when it signed a statement of unity with the socialists.

This pact anticipated, without a doubt, the strategy of the “broad anti-fascist Popular Front” proclaimed on July 25, 1935 at the VII Congress of the Comintern. The leader of the Comintern was Georgy Dimitrov, who had the status of a hero from the moment the charges were brought against him during the Leipzig (1933) trial of the Reichstag fire. Dimitrov’s Comintern formula, named after him, henceforth defined fascism as “an open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, the most chauvinistic, the most imperialistic elements of finance capital” Resolution of the VII World Congress of the Communist International, [M.], 1935, p. 10. .

This alliance of the left was cemented as a result of the creation, following the parliamentary elections in May 1936, of the Popular Front government led by socialist Prime Minister Leon Blum. The number of communist deputies increased sevenfold, and the socialists received 146 mandates (instead of the previous 97). During the strike wave of 1936, however, tensions arose within the Blum government. The predominance of communists in anti-fascist organizations in France, in turn, alienated them from anti-fascists at the local level and was reflected in the rapid loss of votes at the grassroots.

The German Social Democrats and communists in exile failed to organize joint resistance, even if in both groups there were individuals like the communist Willy Münzenberg or the social democrat Rudolf Breitscheid who tried to establish such a link between the two parties. Münzenberg and his “lieutenant” Otto Katz directed campaigns, congresses and committees for the release of Ernst Thälmann, which attracted widespread attention. But anti-fascist activity was not at all under the dominant influence of the communists. If we compare the number of publications by German communist and non-communist emigrants, it turns out that bourgeois-liberal authors published three times more than communist ones. Thus, the anti-fascist culture of the 30s. was characterized by social openness, political flexibility and, not least of all, a lack of ideological precision, which could be seen with particular clarity in the example of the concepts “fascism” or “fascists”.

Popular Front organizations supported anti-fascists in every possible way, from helping intellectuals such as Romain Rolland, André Gide and Heinrich Mann, to organizing performances by Soviet artists, readings with the Archbishop of Canterbury and tea parties in support of the Spanish Republicans. This activity, which gave the impression of something rather harmless, often hid an uncritical admiration for the events taking place in the Soviet Union, and its subjects often even turned a blind eye to the crimes committed in this country. At the climax of the Spanish Civil War and the Great Terror in the Soviet Union, the pro-Soviet position did not imply, however, either support for communism or rejection of liberalism. “The anti-fascist movement,” recalled, for example, historian George L. Moss, “had a big impact on us in the 1930s. independent political and cultural value; he could be credited with admiration for the solitary resistance of the Soviet Union to the policy of appeasement, as well as a materialistic perception of history, but at the same time, a rejection of communism and Bolshevism as a system” George L. Mosse. Aus großem Hause. Erinnerungen eines deutsch-jüdischen Historikers. München, 2003, S. 176. .

Consequently, anti-fascism was a complex mixture of ideas, images and symbols, which ultimately divided the world into two warring camps, each political assessment subject to Manichaean logic. In the vortex between "fascism" and its enemies, in a world divided between the forces of progress and reaction, the friends and enemies of culture and civilization, there was no room for a middle position or a neutral point of view of someone who had not participated in the struggle. Historian Richard Cobb, who lived in the 30s. in Paris, describes in his memoirs how France experienced a kind of mental, moral war, during which a decision had to be made in favor of fascism or communism Cf. Richard Cobb. A Second Identity. Essays on France and French History. London, 1969. .

According to this “logic of enemy and friend,” the anti-fascist myth of masculine innocence was projected especially towards male heroes. “It is better to be the widow of a hero than the wife of a coward,” was an oft-quoted saying of the time. The core of this myth of heroic innocence was formed by the book published in 1933 in Paris. "The Brown Book about the Reichstag Fire and Hitler's Terror", one of the best-selling books of international communism and also the "bible of the anti-fascist crusade" by Arthur Koestler. Autobiographische Schriften. Bd. I: Frühe Empörung. Frankfurt am Main, 1993, S. 416. . She painted an image of National Socialism that, at the moment of its triumph, not only masked the defeat of communism, but also quite accurately illustrated the essence of National Socialism: the image of a regime that lacked popular support, that relied on terror, conspiracy and extortion, and that was ruled by “feminized "homosexual degenerates, drug addicts, sadists and corrupt officials.

Numerous volunteers from different countries, at the highest point of the anti-fascist movement during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), who went to this country, really felt that they did not belong to any nation or class, party or movement, represent the doctrine or metaphysics, but defend a united humanity, all of whose supporters spoke the same Spartan language, made equal sacrifices and fought together for the unification of the world. Writer Milton Wolf joined the so-called “Lincoln Brigade” in 1937 (actually the Lincoln Battalion. – Note lane), consisting of 3 thousand American volunteers. He later wrote about his experiences in the third person in The Spanish Lesson: “In 1936 he went to Spain because he was an anti-fascist. He thought, although he was not entirely sure, that fascism would sweep the whole world if it was not stopped in Spain. Arriving in Spain, at first he did not know what he should do. He certainly knew nothing about fighting, killing or dying. But he was a volunteer. In Spain he met people for whom anti-fascism was their life, sleep and food, who worked tirelessly for this goal." Milton Wolff. Spanish Lesson. – Alvah Cecil Bessie (Hrsg.) Heart of Spain. Anthology of Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry. New York, 1952, pp. 451-453. . This rhetoric of innocence and the innocence of anti-fascist rhetoric might explain why anti-fascism appeared so “pure” in the eyes of its veterans. In his classic work "My Catalonia"(1938) George Orwell argues that this illusion was in fact the correct "anti-fascist position", spread systematically and carefully to disguise the true nature of the civil war in George Orwell's Civil War. Mein Katalonien. Bericht über den Spanischen Bürgerkrieg. Zürich, 1975. .

A real slap in the face for Hitler’s opponents was the non-aggression pact signed on August 23, 1939 by Foreign Ministers V.M. Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Although Stalin had already begun to distance himself from the Spanish conflict, although information about a possible rapprochement with Hitler had been circulating since 1937, and although the Anglo-French alliance never became a fact, no one considered possible what seemed impossible. While most communists quickly capitulated and abandoned the anti-fascist position in favor of a pro-Soviet one, a minority of intellectual dissidents - Willi Münzenberg, Manes Sperber, Arthur Koestler, Gustav Regler, Ignazio Silone and Hans Saal - broke with the Stalinist belief system in order to remain anti-fascist so How They understood this position. Forced to choose between loyalty to communism and opposition to Hitler, these writers realized that the forces of Machiavellianism, as described by Mannès Sperber, had united in the totalitarian union of Mannès Sperber. Bis man mir Scherben auf die Augen legt. Erinnerungen. Wien, 1977, S. 224 ff. . Then, during the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the word “fascism” completely disappeared from the communist lexicon.

If the Hitler-Stalin Pact destroyed the hope of European anti-fascists for a speedy end to fascism, the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 partly strengthened it. However, it would be a mistake to believe that the wartime policies of the Comintern, which were again abandoned in May 1943, would have been able to revive the broad anti-fascist consensus of the Popular Front era. Stalin opposed the idea of promoting the war between National Socialism and the Soviet Union as a fundamentally "anti-fascist war" and demanded instead the creation of a broad "national front" of all patriotic forces intending to fight against the Germans. "Great Patriotic War“became a national symbol and national myth in the Soviet Union, continuing to live after the collapse of communism.

Anti-fascism after fascism

After the Second World War, anti-fascism turned into a myth associated with the creation of new “people's republics” throughout Eastern Europe. The expansion of the sphere of Soviet domination was celebrated as a victory over fascism, the abolition of private property was justified as a “precautionary measure” against the revival of “imperialism” and “militarism.” During cold war West Germany and the United States were considered symbols of this supposed revival. The GDR, anti-fascist and post-fascist according to relevant statements, was based on a complex "alloy" of myths that legitimized themselves, but above all on the assertion that the KPD led a significant movement of Resistance to National Socialism, and it was the victorious history of this movement that ultimately culminated in the creation "the first socialist state" on German soil. The anti-fascist myth lived on primarily through its stereotypical exaggeration of the heroes of the Resistance, the solemn glorification of the sacrifices made by the Soviet Union and the “lives of the saints” that served as the basis for texts in textbooks, monuments and rituals. The former KPD leader Ernst Thälmann, arrested in 1933 and murdered at the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944, was made the central figure in this official veneration of saints, with countless poems, books and songs dedicated to him.

This supposedly anti-fascist German state granted significant amnesty to a mass of former NSDAP members and supporters. The anti-fascist narrative made it possible to hide the widespread support of the NSDAP and Hitler by the population and indiscriminately free it from any association with the only recently defeated National Socialist regime. Collective memory in the GDR was manipulated, ritualized and censored to such an extent that it existed and had the right to exist only one authorized version of the history of anti-fascism. Especially in the 50s. The KPD was presented as the only leading and effective force of the anti-fascist Resistance in Germany. In eight large volumes, official from the point of view of the party "History of the German labor movement" Autorenkollektiv. Walter Ulbricht et al. Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung. 8 Bde., hrsg. v. Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK der SED, Berlin (Ost), 1966. There was no mention of such key figures of the German anti-fascist movement as the disgraced Willy Münzenberg, and it goes without saying that she avoided mentioning the approximately 3 thousand emigrants who died victims of the “Great Terror” in the USSR.

Under Stalinism, one’s own biography was clean water a matter of chance. Formulating a biography, and then changing it so that it contained the “correct” anti-fascist past and wrote down the correct points about the author, was conditio sine qua non(an indispensable condition. – Lat., approx. translation.) ascending into the ranks of the party elite. The state-sanctioned myths of the anti-fascist Resistance often collided with the real life experiences of individuals and groups who, as just described, actually lived through the events elevated to the level of stylized memory. Among them were, for example, veterans of the Spanish Civil War, who, although objects of worship in the pantheon of heroes, were often perceived as a danger to official memory. Their experience with Spanish military police, with repression by anarchists and the “Trotskyist” POUM (an abbreviation of the Spanish name POUM - Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, Workers' Party of Marxist Unification. - Note lane), as well as their knowledge of what the writer Bodo Uze called "the arrest there" (in the Soviet Union) fueled deep distrust of them on the part of party cadres.

In 1953, the OLPN (Association of Persons Persecuted under Nazism) was suddenly dissolved in the GDR, as there were constant tensions between the members of the association and the regime. Some members of another highly respected group - communist functionaries imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp - were later found to have become involved in extremely dubious events as "red capos" (camp policemen). However, the experience of imprisonment or emigration in the Soviet Union led among party members not to, say, b O greater doubts, but on the contrary, strengthened loyalty to the cause and distrust of comrades who could abuse this loyalty.

From the very beginning, active "fighters against fascism" occupied a higher position in the official hierarchy of memory than Holocaust survivors or Jehovah's Witnesses, who were only hesitantly recognized as "victims of fascism." Communists who survived the war in Western emigration were put under surveillance because - and partly not without reason - their adherence to ideology was questionable. Until the beginning of the 60s. most left-wing intellectuals are of Jewish origin, including the philosopher Ernst Bloch, literary critic Hans Mayer or the publicist Alfred Kantorovich, who settled in the Soviet occupation zone after 1945 and then in the GDR, moved to the West.

In 1948, the Soviet Union began a campaign against prominent representatives of the Jewish people, which began with the murder of actor Solomon Mikhoels, a world-famous activist of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee ( CM. Mikhoels was the chairman of the JAC from the moment of its creation in 1941; he was killed on January 13, 1949, after the liquidation of the committee in November 1948 and the subsequent arrests of a number of future defendants and victims.– Approx. lane). In August 1952, 15 were secretly accused and executed Soviet Jews, including five famous writers.

In December of the same year, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Rudolf Slansky, and 13 other defendants (including 11 Jews) were found guilty of espionage in Prague. Finally, in 1951, preparations began in the GDR for a trial against “cosmopolitans” (an anti-Semitic euphemism). The target of the trial was Paul Merker, a member of the SED Central Committee who lived in Mexico during World War II. Although after Stalin's death the trial against Merker did not take place as planned, Merker was accused as an agent of the "imperialist intelligentsia" and a "Zionist" because he advocated compensation for the Jews for the suffering inflicted on them by the Germans. The trial created a milestone in the memory of the Holocaust in East Germany. With a few exceptions, such as the novel by Jurek Bekker "Jacob the Liar"(1969), the topic of the murder of European Jews remained taboo in the GDR until the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.

Official anti-fascism was nothing more than a cult around state-sanctioned nostalgia and an image of history imbued with attempts at legitimation. This cult culminated, both metaphorically and in realpolitik, with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, which was even called the “anti-fascist defensive rampart.” The institutionalized memory of anti-fascism transformed the mass murder of Jews into something marginal, since this mass murder was a solid scheme that fell outside the realm of the “eternal struggle” between communism and fascism and therefore threatened to destabilize the official master narrative.

The efforts of well-meaning scholars and intellectuals after 1989 to separate the “authentic” anti-fascist testament or “feeling of life” from the official rituals of state politics of remembrance could not, in retrospect, separate from each other what had previously been inseparably linked. This is probably a painful realization for adherents of widely interpreted anti-fascism. Although not all anti-fascists were involved in communism and its crimes, anti-fascism as an ideology and state-sanctioned remembrance can never be seen in complete isolation from its heritage.

The radical turning point in the war, which resulted from the victories of the Soviet Army at Stalingrad and Kursk, also marked the beginning of the third period of the anti-fascist liberation struggle (1943 - early 1944). As one of the organizers of the Resistance movement in Touraine (Western France) writes. P. Delan, the response to the Stalingrad victory of the Soviet Army “was enormous. The German army is no longer invincible. More and more broad sections of the people in enslaved countries are imbued with confidence that liberation is imminent. The characteristic features of this stage were the further expansion and intensification of the struggle, especially the armed one, the formation of liberation armies, the final formation of national fronts and the development of their political and economic platforms.

A great stimulus for the development of the Resistance in France was the landing of the British American troops in North Africa, carried out in early November 1942. The liberation of Algeria and Morocco by the allied armies made it “possible to create a center for the leadership and organization of all French forces in order to wage a national liberation war and contribute to the defeat of Nazi Germany.”

Events terrible for fascism occurred in Italy, where the anti-fascist Resistance was steadily gaining strength. In March 1943, under the direct influence of the defeat of fascist troops at Stalingrad, the first mass uprising of the Italian proletariat in two decades of fascist rule took place: a general strike of workers in Northern Italy, organized by the communists. The strike turned into an important test of strength, which clearly showed, on the one hand, the political maturity of the proletariat, its readiness to fight, and on the other, the growing confusion of the ruling circles, the inability of the fascist regime to restrain the growing indignation of the masses.

The brewing revolutionary situation in the country prompted the right wing of the anti-fascist Resistance to change tactics out of fear that otherwise the leadership of the anti-fascist uprising would fall entirely into the hands of left-wing organizations. In June, the first committees of national liberation (CNL) were formed in Milan and Rome, which, on the initiative of the communists and socialists, decided to prepare an uprising. Its goal was declared by the Milan CCW to be a break with Nazi Germany, punishment of the perpetrators of the war, restoration of democratic rights and freedoms.

The consolidation of the Resistance was greatly facilitated by the organizational strengthening of the Communist Party and the formation in August 1943 of the Committee for the Restoration of the Socialist Party. The petty-bourgeois Action Party, formed in the summer of 1942 on the basis of the Justice and Freedom movement, which advocated revolutionary methods of fighting fascism, also began to play a noticeable role in the Resistance.

The “palace coup” prepared and carried out at the top on July 25, 1943, which resulted in the overthrow of Mussolini’s government, did not completely resolve the deep political crisis in which Italy found itself in the grip. The next day, massive anti-fascist unrest broke out in the country. Anti-fascist organizations formed the Anti-Fascist Opposition Committee in Milan, which united, along with leftist parties, also representatives of the Christian Democratic Party and some other conservative organizations. The committee demanded that the government immediately withdraw from the war, take harsh measures against the fascist elite, and implement the most important democratic reforms. Under the pressure of the masses, whose aspirations and hopes were expressed by the anti-fascist opposition, the government was forced to ban the fascist party. At the same time, it delayed fulfilling other demands of the people and pursued a policy of maneuvering and waiting.

The situation in the country changed in the fall of 1943 due to the landing of British and American troops in Southern Italy. On September 3, an armistice agreement was concluded between the command of the Allied forces and the Badoglio government - an act that entailed the occupation of the entire Northern and Central Italy, including Rome.

The initiator of the organization of resistance to the invaders was the Communist Party, whose leadership already on August 31 presented to the Committee of the Anti-Fascist Opposition “A Memorandum on the urgent need to organize national defense against the occupation and the threat of attack from the Germans.” The note was an important program document that formed the basis for the subsequent activities of the PCI to launch a national anti-fascist war of the Italian people.

On September 9, anti-fascist parties formed in Rome the Committee of National Liberation (CNL) - the body of political leadership in the struggle for the expulsion of the occupiers, in order to “restore Italy to the place that rightfully belongs to it in the community of free nations.”

The formation of the KNO did not eliminate the contradictions between the movements opposing fascism. This concerned primarily the political prospects of the movement. If the left wing of the anti-fascist opposition proclaimed as its goal the establishment of a system of people's democracy and, in the long term, the transition to socialism, the right wing did not go further in its plans to restore the bourgeois-democratic order.

At this stage of the struggle, the unifying points - the interest in expelling the invaders and eliminating fascism - outweighed the differences. However, in order to preserve the union, the left parties, especially the Communist Party, were required to show maximum political flexibility and not give up the search for political formulas and tactics acceptable to the entire anti-fascist opposition.

In the autumn of 1943, the Communist Party began organizing Garibaldi partisan detachments to conduct an armed struggle against the fascists and to prepare a national anti-fascist uprising. Such a task was clearly ripe, as evidenced by the spontaneous uprisings of the masses against Hitler’s invading army, in particular the four-day September uprising in Naples. These speeches demonstrated the readiness of large sections of the population, especially the working people, to defend independence and freedom with arms in hand.

With the creation of partisan detachments, the anti-fascist struggle began to develop into a nationwide war against Nazism and fascism. The actions of the detachments formed by various parties were coordinated by the national liberation committees led by the KNO of Northern Italy, which served as the headquarters of the armed forces of the Resistance movement:

Defeat Nazi troops The Battle of the Volga caused a deepening of the internal political crisis also in Germany. Under these conditions, clarifying the political prospects of the anti-fascist movement became important. Back in December 1942, the Central Committee of the KKE adopted an appeal to the German people - the Peace Manifesto, which contained an assessment of the military-political situation in Germany. The leadership of the Communist Party stated that continuing the war would lead the country to disaster. The only way out that the German people still had was to put an end to the Hitler regime on their own.

The Peace Manifesto proposed a nine-point program that called for the overthrow of the fascist regime and the formation of a national democratic government that would carry out fundamental democratic changes. “The goals and demands of the Manifesto represented ... a broad political platform on the basis of which Hitler’s opponents from the most diverse sections of the population, belonging to different political movements and religions, could unite and agree on a joint struggle.”

In 1943, the communist underground largely managed to overcome territorial disunity. A central operational leadership of the KKE was created, which included representatives of the largest anti-fascist organizations. In its work, the central leadership followed the political line determined by the Central Committee of the KKE. Underground cooperation between communists and social democrats also strengthened. Communist and social democratic groups operated together in factories, including military factories. The ties between German anti-fascists and foreign workers strengthened. All this spoke of the development of the process of uniting truly national patriotic forces.

In the same year, a bourgeois opposition took shape in Germany, which was also an obvious manifestation of the growing internal political crisis. She sought to bring the country out of the war at the “lowest price”, leaving intact the foundations of the rule of monopoly capital. At the same time, the question of guarantees against the revival of fascism was virtually ignored.

Realizing the limitations of the bourgeois anti-Hitler movement, the Communist Party, however, sought connections with it in order to make the base of the fight against the Nazi regime as broad as possible, reflecting the interests of the most diverse segments of the population, including part of the bourgeoisie. The steps taken by the communist underground in this direction did not meet with a response from the right wing of the bourgeois opposition. However, on its left wing there was a group (Colonel Staufenberg and others) that stood for cooperation with the communists.

Thus, by the end of the third period of the war in Germany, the conditions were ripe for the transition to a more coordinated and active fight against fascism.

A great contribution to the anti-Hitler Resistance was made by the Free Germany movement, which originated among German prisoners of war on the territory of the USSR. Arose on the initiative of the KKE, the movement absorbed elements opposed to the Hitler regime, belonging to various classes and segments of the population. The Free Germany movement, which pursued anti-fascist and anti-war goals, began to acquire a massive character under the influence of heavy defeats suffered Hitler's Germany near Stalingrad and Kursk. In the summer of 1943, at a conference of representatives of prisoners of war and German anti-fascist public figures, the governing body of the movement was elected - the National Committee of Free Germany (NKSG). His first political act was the release of a manifesto to the German army and the German people. The “Free Germany” movement, the document emphasized, aims to unite all German anti-fascists, regardless of their party affiliation, to fight for an end to the war, the liberation of the German people and Europe from the Hitlerite yoke, and the creation of a truly democratic Germany. The NKSG launched a large campaign and propaganda work to involve German prisoners of war in the movement against war and fascism. He also made a significant contribution to anti-fascist propaganda addressed to the German army. Combat groups of German anti-fascists - representatives of the Free Germany Committee - were active in a number of sectors of the front.

The Free Germany movement played a significant role not only in rallying anti-fascist and patriotic forces outside Germany, but also in intensifying the struggle against the Hitler regime within the country.

The anti-fascist Resistance movement in the occupied countries of Western Europe has made significant progress along the path of unity of forces and coordination of their actions.

In France, in May 1943, the National Council of the Resistance (NCR) began its activity, uniting both left-wing organizations (National Front, the General Confederation of Labor, restored in the same year, the communist and socialist parties) and the main bourgeois organizations associated with the committee " Fighting France".

The National Council of Resistance, whose powers extended to the entire country, did a lot of work to ensure the unity of the armed formations of various anti-fascist organizations. This task was largely solved with the creation of the Internal Resistance Forces (IRF) in February 1944. They included French franc-tireurs and partisans as an independent unit. At the head of the FFI, whose number reached 500 thousand people, was the Commission of Military Actions (COMAC), subordinate to the NSS, whose chairman was the communist Pierre Villon.

Education internal army made it possible to significantly expand the area of action against the invaders and the Vichy gendarmerie, to clear individual points and even areas of them.

On March 15, 1944, the National Council of the Resistance adopted a detailed program based on the project developed by the National Front. Considering the liberation of France as the primary task, a necessary condition for subsequent democratic transformations, the program at the same time put forward far-reaching socio-political demands: the nationalization of banks, major industries and transport; deep democratization of the entire life of the country; implementation of major social reforms in favor of workers. Among the most important of them were the right to work and rest, a solid minimum wages, guaranteeing a decent human existence, a broad social security system. A special point of the program proposed providing assistance to the working peasantry (establishing fair prices for agricultural products) and extending benefits under the social security system (paid vacations, pensions) to agricultural workers. Much attention was paid in the program to the punishment of war criminals and accomplices of the Nazi occupiers (confiscation of their property, profits, etc.).

“Thus,” the document concluded, “a new republic will be founded, which will sweep away the vile reactionary regime established by Vichy and give effectiveness to democratic and popular institutions... The unity of action of the representatives of the Resistance in the interests of the Motherland should, in the present and future, serve as an incentive for all French..."

In other words, the NSS, with its program, sought to consolidate and develop the gains of the anti-fascist Resistance movement, to make its implementation a guarantee against a relapse of fascism, the starting position not only for the restoration, but also for the deepening of democracy, its actual development into people's democracy.

The party underground was active behind enemy lines. From the first days of the war, under his leadership, militant anti-fascist Komsomol and youth underground organizations and groups were created in Baranovichi, Orsha, Grodno, Gomel, Bobruisk, Brest, Mogilev, Mozyr and many others populated areas. Some organizations were formed in advance, others - after the seizure of the territory by Wehrmacht troops.
At the end of June 1941, the first underground organizations were created in Minsk, led by the Minsk Underground City Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) under the leadership of the courageous patriot I. Kovalev. The anti-fascist underground united more than 9 thousand city residents of thirty nationalities, as well as representatives of nine European countries. During the years of occupation, underground fighters brought more than 10 thousand families of Minsk residents into partisan detachments, including about a thousand families of suicide bombers from the Minsk ghetto.
On June 30, 1941, the Central Committee of the CP(b)B adopted Directive No. 1 “On the transition to underground work of party organizations in areas occupied by the enemy.” It defined the tasks of the underground, forms of formation and communication, and emphasized the need to maintain the strictest secrecy.
The Minsk underground workers were the most active. They carried out explosions, arson and other sabotage on enemy communications, brought wounded soldiers and commanders of the Red Army out of encirclement, provided assistance to them, and distributed leaflets.
In the summer - autumn of 1941, underground anti-fascist groups began to operate in Grodno under the leadership of N. Volkov, K. Vasilyuk, N. Bogatyrev, V. Rozanov. Group members helped soldiers and commanders of the Red Army who found themselves in fascist captivity, recorded and distributed reports from the Sovinformburo.
During the battles near Moscow in December 1941, sabotage at the Minsk railway junction was reduced throughput its highways are almost 20 times. In Gomel, underground fighters blew up a restaurant with German officers there. K. Zaslonov’s group was active in the Orsha railway depot. With its help, several dozen locomotives were disabled and the station's work was repeatedly paralyzed.
The underground struggle was a difficult and at the same time responsible task. Difficult - due to its novelty, lack of personnel with experience in illegal activities; responsible - since the party underground was to become the direct organizer and leader of the people's struggle behind enemy lines.
The underground paid great attention to agitation and propaganda work among the population behind enemy lines. In January 1942, the publication of the periodical “Bulletin of the Motherland”, the newspaper “Patriot of the Motherland”, and leaflets was established in Minsk. By the end of the year, about 20 underground newspapers were published in Belarus. In May 1942, the newspaper “Zvyazda” (organ of the Minsk city underground committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks) was published. It was edited by V. Omelyanyuk (died on May 26, 1942). The newspaper “Savetskaya Belarus”, the propaganda poster “Let’s crush the fascist reptile!”, and the front-line newspaper “For Savetskaya Belarus” were delivered to Belarus in large quantities. On January 1, 1942, the radio station “ Soviet Belarus" On January 18, 1942, an anti-fascist rally of the Belarusian people was held in Moscow, which was broadcast on the radio. Writers M. Tank, K. Chorny, Secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee S. Pritytsky and others spoke at it.
The underground fighters were entrusted with great tasks: reconnaissance, distribution of leaflets, newspapers and proclamations, familiarizing the population with the calls of the party and government of the USSR, acts of sabotage at industrial enterprises and transport, organizing sabotage, and providing all possible assistance to the partisan movement.

The work of the underground was fraught with extreme dangers, since enemy garrisons, headquarters, intelligence and counterintelligence agencies were located in populated areas. Every wrong step could lead, and sometimes did lead, to the death of an underground member and even to the discovery of the entire organization. Therefore, it was necessary to act, observing the strictest secrecy, alone or in small groups, each of which specialized in one particular activity: either printing and distributing proclamations, or intelligence, or terrorist acts and sabotage.
The first war winter and spring of 1942 turned out to be the most difficult for the underground workers. Lack of experience and disregard for conspiracy led to the failure of many underground organizations. Serious violations in illegal work were committed by members underground organization"Military Council of the Partisan Movement", which worked closely with the Minsk City Party Committee. Contrary to all the rules of secrecy, its leadership core issued written orders and established duties at headquarters, which means that most members of the organization knew each other. All this made it possible for an enemy agent who had penetrated its ranks to identify many underground members. As a result, the Minsk underground suffered enormous damage: in March - April 1942, German special services arrested over 400 people, destroyed the printing house, and many safe houses. The losses in the leadership of the underground were irreparable. The Germans captured members of the city party committee S. Zaits and I. Kazinets, secretary G. Semenov. Until the beginning of May, the Nazis subjected those arrested to sophisticated torture. Soon the residents of Minsk saw a terrible picture: 28 executives underground. 251 underground workers were shot. Large failures were noted in other places.
Often, underground members, on instructions from underground party organizations or the partisan command, got jobs in the enemy’s military and administrative institutions and demonstrated ostentatious loyalty to the “new order.” This allowed them to find out secrets of a military nature, identify traitors to the Motherland, provocateurs and spies, warn the population about impending raids, and partisans - about punitive actions. The most terrible thing for the underground was not even the constant risk, but the knowledge that everyone around them considered them traitors. But for the sake of victory over the enemy, the patriots took such a step.
The first serious tests did not break the underground fighters. They increasingly adapted to extremely dangerous conditions, operating both alone and in small groups. According to the rules of secrecy, their members were no longer told the passwords and appearances of other groups. The underground began to receive tasks along a chain through a leader connected with an authorized representative from the center. The functional distribution of responsibilities within organizations was worked out. All this increased the combat capabilities of the underground and its stability.

Anti-fascists are an important subject on the Russian and world political field today. The emergence and active development of the anti-fascist movement in the conditions of a capitalist society and the inherent growth of xenophobia and nationalism, developing into outright Nazism and fascism, is a natural phenomenon.

Russia, with its strong anti-fascist traditions dating back to the victory over fascism in the 1940s, is no exception. Russian anti-fascists are making themselves known more and more loudly.

With a request to talk about the modern anti-fascist movement, its features, goals and prospects, the editors of the website “Communists of the Capital” turned to the activist of the ROT FRONT party, anti-fascist Sergei Miroshnichenko.

Komstol: What, in a nutshell, is the ideology of modern anti-fascists?

S. Miroshnichenko: In my opinion, it is impossible to single out any single antifa ideology other than anti-fascism. Among antifa in Russia, as well as in the world, there are people with various political views. There are communists, socialists, anarchists, liberals and even apolitical people.

Comstol: What is antifa culture?

S. Miroshnichenko: It is very diverse. If we talk about subcultures, then there are skinheads, punks, crackers, rappers and a bunch of other youth subcultures in this environment. The anti-fascist idea remains united for these people.

Komstol: Which organizations position themselves as anti-fascist? What is the size of the anti-fascist movement?

S. Miroshnichenko: Basically, the anti-fascist movement in Russia is represented by autonomous groups, but there are also organizations positioning themselves as anti-fascist: the Youth Human Rights Movement, the Network against Racism and Intolerance, and the International Memorial Society. The youth human rights movement is international. I know them very little and, to be honest, I can hardly say what they do. It’s easier for me to talk about affinity groups. They do everything: from working on the Internet and drawing graffiti to direct action. In general, those who have enough strength and imagination for something do it.

It is very difficult to estimate the size of the anti-fascist movement, because it is not a political party or a social movement. My opinion is that in Moscow there are several thousand people. Previously it was much less, but now this figure is growing.

Komstol: Where did the anti-fascist movement originate?

S. Miroshnichenko: AFA is the successor of anti-fascists from World War II. Even the symbol of the movement, the black and red flags, are taken from the Anti-Fascist Action movement ( component Front Roth in Germany).

Komstol: How do anti-fascists relate to communists?

S. Miroshnichenko: In general, anti-fascists have a positive attitude towards communists. However, as I already said, anti-fascists have different political views. The left side of the movement, anarchists and socialists, have a positive attitude towards communists. The liberal part considers communists to be the same fascists. This is due to their anti-Stalinist sentiments.

Komstol: Are there any websites or newspapers of anti-fascists?

S. Miroshnichenko: Yes, they do exist. There are sites like http://www.antifa.fm/ and many more. AFAs are widely represented in in social networks. Also, many anarchist sites sanctify their topic. A lot of samizdat magazines and newspapers are published. It’s probably not possible to list everything here.

In general, we communists need to work more closely with these youth. After all, in essence, people with ready-made political views are represented there. It is only necessary to help them, to direct them in the right direction, to explain that small autonomous groups cannot solve such a problem as the growth of nationalism and xenophobia. A political organization is needed to fight in the political sphere and not just in the streets. Such an organization could well be ROT FRONT. By the way, there are a lot of activists in Autonomous Action who joined them through AFA.

Let me take this opportunity to remind you that on May 18 a concert by the Nucleo Terco group will take place in Moscow. This is a group of Spanish communists, playing oi!, members of RASH-Madrid. This is their first time in Russia. They will be supported by such teams as Klowns (Kirov), Twentieth (Kirov) and Krasnaya Kontor (Moscow). For information about the concert, follow the group on VKontakte: https://vk.com/nucleo_terco

Stairs. Entry group. Materials. Doors. Locks. Design

Anti-fascist struggle after a radical turning point in the war. Anti-fascist underground in Riga

Anti-fascism: On the history of the concept

Other materials on the topic: