Histories Of Fascism And Anti Fascism In Australia

Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia provides a history of fascist movements and anti-fascist resistance in Australia over the past century. In recent years, the far right has become a resurgent force across the globe, resulting in populist parties securing electoral victories, social movements organising on the streets, and acts of right-wing terrorism. Australia has not been immune to this. However, this is not merely a recent phenomenon; it has a long history of fascist and far-right groups and individuals. These groups have attempted to situate themselves within the wider settler colonial political landscape, often portraying themselves as the inheritors of a violent and exclusionary colonial past. Concurrently, these groups have linked into globalised anti-communist and white supremacist networks. At the same time, Australia has often seen resistance to fascism and the far right, from the political centre to the far left. Covering the period from the 1920s to the present day, and featuring insights from historians, sociologists, and political scientists, this book provides the most detailed account of this fascinating and important topic. This book will be of interest to students and activists with an interest in the extreme right and anti-fascism as well as Australian history, politics, and society.

Fascists in Exile tells the extraordinary story of the war criminals, collaborators and fascist ultranationalists who were resettled in Australia by the International Refugee Organisation between 1947 and 1952. It explores the far-right backgrounds and continuing political activism of these displaced persons in Australia, adding to our knowledge of the development of Australian anti-communism in the 1950s. These individuals argued that they had been caught between National Socialism and Soviet communism. What might that have meant for their migration and resettlement trajectories? Beyond ‘Nazi-hunting,’ what can this tell us about the challenge they posed to international and national forms, both in Europe and in Australia? This book demonstrates that fascist ideation could not only survive the war’s end but that it continued to be transnational and transcultural. At the same time, anti-fascist protests and then the war crimes investigations of the late 1980s exposed problematic pasts, a legacy with which Australia is still reckoning. The text will appeal to those with an interest in the far right, Australian migration and refugee issues.

This book takes a timely look at histories of radical Jewish movements, their modes of Holocaust memorialisation, and their relationships with broader anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles. Its primary focus is Australia, where Jewish antifascism was a major political and cultural force in Jewish communities in the 1940s and early 1950s. This cultural and intellectual history of Jewish antifascism utilises a transnational lens to provide an exploration of a Jewish antifascist ideology that took hold in the middle of the twentieth century across Jewish communities worldwide. It argues that Jewish antifascism offered an alternate path for Jewish politics that was foreclosed by mutually reinforcing ideologies of settler colonialism, both in Palestine and Australia.

Case study of the International Peace Campaign, a pacifist organisation which came to believe in the 30s that fascism was a greater threat to the world than war. Includes a bibliography. Number 15 in the 'Melbourne University History Monographs Series'.

This book is the first to outline the history of the tactic of ‘no platforming’ at British universities since the 1970s, looking at more than four decades of student protest against racist and fascist figures on campus. The tactic of ‘no platforming’ has been used at British universities and colleges since the National Union of Students adopted the policy in the mid-1970s. The author traces the origins of the tactic from the militant anti-fascism of the 1930s–1940s and looks at how it has developed since the 1970s, being applied to various targets over the last 40 years, including sexists, homophobes, right-wing politicians and Islamic fundamentalists. This book provides a historical intervention in the current debates over the alleged free speech ‘crisis’ perceived to be plaguing universities in Britain, as well as North America and Australasia. No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech is for academics and students, as well as the general reader, interested in modern British history, politics and higher education. Readers interested in contemporary debates over freedom of speech and academic freedom will also have much to discover in this book.

Bringing together leading scholars from a range of nations, Rethinking Antifascism provides a fascinating exploration of one of the most vibrant sub-disciplines within recent historiography. Through case studies that exemplify the field’s breadth and sophistication, it examines antifascism in two distinct realms: after surveying the movement’s remarkable diversity across nations and political cultures up to 1945, the volume assesses its postwar political and ideological salience, from its incorporation into Soviet state doctrine to its radical questioning by historians and politicians. Avoiding both heroic narratives and reflexive revisionism, these contributions offer nuanced perspectives on a movement that helped to shape the postwar world.

Anarchists have never hung back in the fight against fascism. This pamphlet covers the physical and ideological battles that anarchists have waged against fascism and its authoritarian dream. It starts with the Arditi del Popolo (Peoples Commandos) against Mussolini's Blackshirts, goes via German anarcho-syndicalists to the Spanish Revolution of 1936. This much can be found (usually well buried!) in the history books. But this pamphlet also uncovers the history of anarchist anti-fascism in fighting against the National Front in Britain in the seventies and the 'No Platform' activities of Anti-Fascist Action & Anti-Racist Action in the eighties, nineties and beyond. Documents from Russia and Australia and an interview with current activists from Britain and North America fill out a comprehensive look at the ideas and practice of anarchist anti-fascism. Read it and you'll know we don't fight fascism out of loyalty to the current set-up: we want a world without bosses! This reader will give you an insight into the anarchist critique of fascist ideas - and our history of practical opposition to them. Includes contributions from Errico Malatesta, Rudolf Rocker, Buenaventura Durruti, Fighting Talk and Anti-Racist Action plus an interview on 'Anti-fascism now' and suggestions for further reading.

Despite the Second World War and the Holocaust, post-war Britain was not immune to fascism. By 1948, a large and confident fascist movement had been established, with a strong network of local organizers and public speakers, and an audience of thousands. However, within two years the fascists had collapsed under the pressure of a successful anti-fascist campaign. This book explains how it was that fascism could grow so fast, and how it then went into decline.