Antifa and the Emerging Far-Left Threat
On the 5th of March 2023, a police training facility under construction near Atlanta was stormed by 150 masked attackers armed with Molotov cocktails, fireworks and rocks. A violent clash ensued in which vehicles were set on fire, police officers were attacked with fireworks and property was damaged. Once back-up had arrived, the attackers were pursued into the forest surrounding the site and 35 individuals were apprehended, of which 23 have now been charged with domestic terrorism related offences. The governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, stated “We will not rest until those who use violence and intimidation for an extremist end are brought to full justice.”
This attack was the latest in a string of recent violent incidents that have been connected to the far-left. In this case, a rag-tag coalition of Antifa, eco-terrorists and anarchists who oppose the police in their pursuit of a dystopian future in which the workers police themselves. This is not the first time the police have been targeted either, a few weeks prior to the storming of the police facility in Atlanta, a state trooper was shot and injured by an Antifa activist. In April 2021 an Antifa-led mob attacked the Portland Police Union building. In July 2019, Willem Van Spronsen, a self-proclaimed Antifa supporter, attacked a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and attempted to ignite a 500-gallon propane tank. The attack was unsuccessful, and he was killed by police.
In the eyes of many groups like Antifa are little more than anti-racism activists or, as the name suggests, merely anti-fascists. In the eyes of others they are just an idea, as Biden famously proclaimed, and not a real movement or organisation. As such, they are viewed as a response to a social ill rather than a group with a proactive agenda for radical social and political transformation. This is very much how many viewed al-Qaeda in the early days, as being nothing more than a response to western imperialism, with the Independent newspaper even publishing a glowing review of Bin Laden in 1993.
In truth, Antifa stands for much more than anti-fascism. Whilst encompassing a range of far-left actors, it is best characterised as being representative of a form of revolutionary anarchism. Through direct action, violence, intimidation and threats Antifa seeks to undermine and dismantle the state and its institutions, especially the enforcers of the state - the police. They view the state as inherently corrupt, exploitative and incapable of meaningful reform, thus, participating in democracy merely prolongs the life of a broken system that really needs to be bought down and replaced. Like al-Qaeda, Antifa is also highly decentralised with largely autonomous groups being inspired by the core message yet planning their own activities and strategies depending on the political context they find themselves in.
Previous incarnations of such movements, who brand themselves as anti-fascist whilst harbouring a revolutionary anarchist or Marxist agenda, have resorted to terrorist attacks once their message failed to galvanise the masses. This is the standard trajectory of many extremist organisations, in that they resort to terrorism once the struggle begins to falter. When the revolutionary fervour reaches fever pitch they can justify almost any means. This normally happens during a period of economic downturn that is accompanied by acceleration events, as was the case in the 1970s when a period of economic turmoil coincided with the Vietnam War.
The Baider-Meinhoff Gang in Germany (also known as the Red-Army Faction) emerged as a violent terrorist group involved in multiple deadly attacks across West Germany in the mid-70s that left 34 people dead. They resorted to terror tactics and kidnappings after a period of anti-police and anti-Vietnam war activism in the late-1960s. The Red Brigades in Italy carried out a campaign of terror in the name of far-left ideology in the 1970s leaving around 50 people dead. Their most high-profile victim was former Italian president Aldo Moro who they kidnapped and murdered in 1978. Greece’s Revolutionary Organisation 17 November (17N) also conducted a similar campaign from the mid-1970s onwards that involved 250 attacks leaving 23 people dead.
It is fair to argue that we are once again experiencing an economic downturn with high inflation, stagnant economies and industrial strife. The Donald Trump presidency and the death of George Floyd at police hands proved to be the acceleration events needed for a far-left galvanisation. This, in my view, partially explains why we are witnessing an uptick in Antifa and far-left activity now. When capitalism appears to be failing, and there are events that can be used to show that the system is prejudiced against certain groups, the far-left senses fertile terrain and starts to re-assert itself.
Historically far-left terror attacks tended not to be directed at civilian targets, rather they were focused on the organs of the state and, as such, were more surgical. The far-right and jihadists view civilian populations as being supportive of and integrated into the state and, thus, a viable target for attack. The far-left view the state as aloof, disconnected and exploitative of the civilian masses, thus most civilians are victims of the evil capitalist state and need to be awoken from their apathetic slumber to reach a form of anti-capitalist consciousness. Therefore, the state needs to be targeted in a manner that is focused and selective.
The modern far-left would also add individuals who are deemed to be perpetuating state oppression to its list of targets, and that would include anyone deemed racist or fascist. This reflects a broader trend on the left in recent years whereby we are witnessing a pivot away from class warfare and towards race and racism. Rather than being viewed as a social ill born out of ignorance and hatred, racism is now construed as a central pillar of the capitalist system. The aim being to recast capitalism as inherently racist and, therefore, intrinsically evil. Similarly, climate change is recast as a by-product of the capitalist global order and, thus, can only be addressed by challenging the economic status quo.
We still live in a post-World War 2 and post-911 cultural milieu in which fascism and jihadism are the only forms of extremism we are highly alert to. As such, the growing extremist threat the far-left represents is all too often neglected in favour of other forms of extremism that we more readily recognise. Whilst they have not resorted to the type of terror attacks associated with the far-right and jihadist extremists, the far-left is certainly become more emboldened and, if history is anything to go by, that should alarm us all.