Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

Start by assessing your local situation and figuring out what you want to accomplish. Develop a blueprint. There are many factors you need to keep in mind too

many to hst here. Your local situation is unique, and your plans will need to reflect this. Does the situation call for an organized community response, such as exposing a fascist running for office, or in office.? Or does it make sense to have a tight-knit affinity group carry out its own plans, such as permanently shutting down a Nazi maflorder business with an unannounced/tre sale.? Try to put yourselves in the fascists' shoes and imagine what would hurt them most. Also, consider the consequences of your actions. Will they prompt an outraged fascist counterattack? Are you prepared to fight back.?

It will help to look at existing antifascist organizing models and see how others have carried out this work. Groups like Anti-Racist Action (US and Canada), Antifascist Action (UK), and the German Antifa movement have employed a vride variety of tactics and learned many lessons. These models will not work in every situation, but they may provide some ideas.

One word of warning: be careful of who you work with. Many "antifascist" groups out there have extremely sketchy politics and are no more your allies than the fascists are.

Planning

Antifascist Action 39

The Jewish Defense League, for example, is virulently Zionist, as is the Anti-Defamation League, who have also been known to collect intelligence on radicals and sell it to police and Israeli spies. Both the A.D.L. and the Southern Poverty Law Center go out of their way to convince people to ignore fascist activity and have denounced radical antifascists in the press as violent and worse than the Nazis, and the various communist antifascist front groups have unsavory agendas of their own.

Action

Antifascist Action 40

The choice is yours whether to take public community action or clandestine direct action. Tips for both can be found elsewhere in this volume, but there is one aspect of antifascist action that must be covered here: direct confrontation.

Wherever fascists go, they should be confronted. Pick your battles: don't start a confrontation that is unnecessarily dangerous (say, in which the Nazis have guns at hand), that you will lose (in which you are outnumbered or less willing to fight), or that is better avoided (in which you would suffer serious arrests, or miss the opportunity to score some crucial intelligence by just watching instead). Most confrontations will start off verbally, but can easily escalate to something more physical. Keep the upper hand and set the tone of the confrontation. Have a plan, stay cool, and don't let them off the hook! Confrontation is a psychological battle: you want to intimidate, humiliate, and make them uncomfortable, while simultaneously raising confidence among antifascists. A verbal rout can be just as demoralizing to fascists as a physical beat-down?^both have their place.

On the other hand, don't make a spectacle of yourself for its own sake. If you start something that you can't finish, people will not take you seriously. Don't be afraid to back down if safety calls for it.

Sometimes fascists may bring the confrontation to you. Winning fights isn't always about being the biggest bruisers or having the most numbers, it's about having the will

to win (sounds like fascist propaganda, but it has an element of truth). Likewise, losing a battle doesn't always mean losing the war. You might not come out on top, but the way you fight can gain you respect and support.

If you're expecting a physical confrontation, be sure everyone is prepared for it Keep tight and watch each other's backs. If you can get away with it, carry weapons or if there's a chance you might get searched by police, carry items that can be used as weapons m a pmch?hefty flagpoles, thick placard sticks, batteries, Mag-Lites, bike locks Have medics on hand, and know where the nearest hospitals are. If anyone gets hurt use a cover story at the hospital to avoid police investigation. Know what everyone's hmitations are, and have a plan to hit hard and get out fast. Be bold, and if you see an opportunity, take it! And don't forget your masks-see Blocs, Black and Otherwise (pg 127) for mformation about how to act with the benefit of shared anonymity.

The mainstream media is never going to be friendly toward militant antifascists. At best. Antifascists and youll be viev^ed as violent vigilantes, or just an opposing gang. Liberal groups will do the Corporate Media their best to denounce your tactics.