Antifascist Strategy Today: Lineages of Anticommunism and “Militant Democracy” in Eastern Europe

Abstract

Liberal groups currently organized to “defend” democracy against right-wing authoritarianism often invoke the terms of the interwar legal-political doctrine of “militant democracy.” This liberal narrative uses the interwar period as a transhistorical moral tale against the “dangers” of fascism and communism, which it typically conflates with each other under the term “totalitarianism.” The liberal defense of democracy, using this moral-political imaginary, not only misses the historical specificity of the current moment, it is also ineffective, not least because it depends on a defense of the capitalist status quo that nourishes right-wing populist and fascist groups. Instead, my chapter, based on research in Poland and Eastern Europe, suggests that for a more effective, popular antifascist strategy, the historical lineages of anticommunism and the security logic underlying both right-wing authoritarianism and the liberal defense of democracy need to be examined more critically and dynamically, with a focus on the shifting conjunctures of social and class struggle and the material constellations of legal and political-economic institutions of power. Analyzing different forms of anticommunism is an important part of this task, not just for a better understanding of neoliberal, liberal, and right-wing formations of power, but also for reckoning with the limitations anticommunism imposes on our political imagination and praxis.