Dimitrov and the “Antifa”
“I admit that my tone is hard and grim. The struggle of my life has always been hard and grim. My tone is frank and open. I am used to calling a spade a spade. I am no lawyer appearing before this court in the mere way of his profession. I am defending myself, an accused communist. I am defending my political honor, my honor as a revolutionary. I am defending my communist ideology, my ideals. I am defending the content and significance of my whole life. For these reasons every word which I say in this court is a part of me, each phrase is the expression of my deep indignation against the unjust accusation, against the putting of this anti-Communist crime, the burning of the Reichstag, to the account of the Communists.”
-Georgi Dimitrov
I still remember the days when I started reading the Spanish version of Dimitrov’s letters. A compilation that I found in a free interchange of books within the corridors of my University in Mexico, around 8 years ago. I was quickly captivated by the sense of auto-defense, courage and communicative skills of that character, by that moment I had never asked myself whether he was only an invented character, whether its life was real. The important for me was his principles being strong enough for him to stand for his ideals and defend them until he reached the Leipzig Trial.
I never asked myself what happened afterwards to him, did he continue with his sense for justice? I should ask a Bulgarian about that and not only look the Wikipedia.
Today something reminded me of him, namely the whole discussion that is starting around the world due to the murder of George Floyd that went viral and gained momentum in the last days. I’m not starting a discussion about the complicated situation of racism in one of the supposed most prosperous first-world countries, since I assume that it is clear that real political action is needed to reverse decades of simulated equality in human rights in most of the corners around the world.
Anyhow, today the Heiko Maas, the Foreign Minister in Germany, stated publicly that he urged the government of the United States to guarantee the safety not only of the German journalists but of the international ones; even more important to respect the rights for manifestation. This comes in a very complicated situation, since the protests are being run in all different flavors, some of them radicals some others peaceful — was there any peaceful? — .
On the other hand, Trump has urged the heads of local government to strength the measures against the protesters that are bringing looting and violence to american soil, while listing the group of people that represent a threaten the most, one in the list: “Antifa”.
Since this space is for personal reflections, I would like to state that I came to know the Antifa concept in Germany, specifically in Hamburg. There used to be a “alternative” Cafe on the TUHH* where beer, tees and talks were given by only “Spende” — any cent that one considered worth — . The only thing that I can share, solid enough, is that they were very friendly and “left” minded people —I promise, in the following times to avoid the rather generic “left” word — . In summary, they were people that seemed to be very open until someone dare to put a capitalist idea on the table. — I would react similarly to be honest — . I used to go to that place mainly for the good music in the background, the sofas that you could use without having “bought” anything, and the overall vibes of the place. There I slept sometimes, had a beer, did homework or all in a row. Back in that moment there was symbol of Antifa and another from the YPG — Kurd movement that I did not know either on that time — . After those past days, I started realizing how common was the Antifa logo in Hamburg, wide spread in streets, windows, walls, even bathrooms. I don’t want to extent more in this personal experience, but important is that as soon as I heard Trump saying that he was on the path to classify Antifa as Terror Organization I got very surprised. Does Antifa have an structure? Leaders? Administrators? Of course not.
How does this relate to Georgi Dimitrov? It turns out that, as I was looking for some information after reading Heiko’s announcement, I found a tweet from a member of the AfD — German political party with far-right people — , who was exposing another politician — from the SPD — who in a previous tweet published days, even months before all these happenings, declared herself being Antifa. Then I searched jump to that open statement and she was talking about how the German government use to neglect the existence of neo-nazi networks within Germany, and how all the last “terror attacks” in the last years have been always designated as product of an “Einzeltäter”, which is the German version to say that those criminal acted and organized everything alone. So she gave a comparison of one of the 2019 attacks with the ones related to the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann — Group that I did not know that was involved in a terror attack in Frankfurt and other interesting stuff during the 90s — . Apparently, that SPD politician was actually informing something that is very important to have in mind, mostly for people, including me, that are not related with the local happenings of relatively recent years, also the general younger generation that is more focused on the now and not on the past.
Still, I have not reached the link with Dimitrov. After reading that, I went back to the original post from the AfD politician, who in a further post even made public a so-called mitglieder-der-antifa link, a list with names of supposed members of Antifa , the so-called terror group that for sure will get popular int he following days.
I was still skeptical about the existence of an “organization” so I just duckduckwent* Antifa and one of the articles mentioned that one of the definitions was the following: designation as a whole of the movements and ideologies that are aligned against fascism and national-socialism — from its German version in Duden — . In fact this is the most “formal” definition, since tons of articles about anti fascist movements are well documented (for instance, the classical in Germany but also the one in Spain). And here is where my old and wise Dimitri comes to play; as in various of those articles, that I really invite to enjoy, is frequently mentioned the story of Dimitrov’s trial, personally speaking, one of the best example of a person defending himself in a foreign country with a foreign language from an authoritarian regime as he realizes the trap that would have been to follow the ways of that “top-class” German justice — if any one out there wants to share another example, please share — .
To conclude this text that was intended to be personal but I felt like sharing, if the same values and ideas that were presented at the beginning of this Medium post lead Dimitrov to that moment, and made it be a frequent example quoted by “members” of Antifa, then I don’t know any reason why my name should not appear in one of the many Antifa lists. In fact, not only mine but everyone’s whose sense of respect and justice is solid enough to have own criteria.
“There is only one brave man in Germany, and he is a Bulgarian.”
A popular saying spread across Europe in those times.
The Links:
https://twitter.com/eskensaskia/status/1267350240904036354
https://archive.org/details/mitglieder-der-antifa-4/page/391/mode/2up
https://www.facebook.com/AfDNDS/posts/1750660781743651
https://www.duden.de/suchen/dudenonline/Antifa
