by Dr. Martin Scott Catino
Flush with funds, new recruits, tactical experience, strategic success from street battles and resulting optimism, and a permissive environment created by a defanged police force, Antifa is postured to significantly escalate its violent and subversive activities. Well aware of their increased capabilities and opportunities, this “insurrectionary anarchist” movement is busily and boastfully developing their dark networks and structures, maintaining protracted violent pressure on the state, and phasing to a decentralized and guerrilla-warfare strategy aimed at overthrowing the government of the United States. Therefore, Antifa warns its supporters to “[K]eep in mind that beyond direct actions, building infrastructure like networks of care and mutual aid are just as important to winning this struggle over the long-term” (Puget Sound Anarchists, “Decentralized Action: A Brief History and Tactical Proposal,” 2020).
These radical networks emerge in Antifa’s covert players in politics, law, society, education, and industry, their platforms on campus, social media, and journalism, and their projects in our culture and communities masking their real agenda. Accordingly, after discussing its street fights of the recent past, an Antifa source asserts: “Despite this, the movement has continued to grow, thanks in part to emerging social movement infrastructure including collectives providing health and medical support, pro-bono legal assistance, bail funds, and other forms of solidarity. Anarchists have participated on the front lines of these efforts, leveraging longstanding infrastructure, and drawing on decades of experience” (Crimethinc, “This is Anarchy: Eight Ways the Black Lives Matter and Justice for George Floyd Uprisings Reflect Anarchist Ideas in Action,” 2020).
One Philadelphia Anarchist states the matter succinctly in a strategic document:
As the Seattle anarchists and others have pointed out, we can intentionally decentralize our attacks so as to make it harder for police to do their job. This can prolong riots and expand the scope of an uprising’s destructiveness, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that the most desirable outcome of this approach would be to ultimately make that job —policing — permanently impossible. In order to do so, we must again think not only about decentralizing our actions, but also what our actions target. What elements of the State might we be able to take out that, coordinated with a sustained crisis of policing, could take mass uprisings over the precipice of State collapse? [Philly Anti-Capitalist, “Toward Insurrection: Anarchist Strategy in an Era of Popular Revolt,” 2021]
In addition to these escalations of violent rhetoric, Antifa has indeed aligned its elevated objectives to higher value targets — increased focus and increased actions. After the above source praised anarchist attacks on the houses of the Mayor of Oakland, California (2020), U.S. Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, and U.S. House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco, and the ICE office in the city, the source states, “It remains to be seen if more of us will dare to emulate (and take much further) actions like these that directly target State institutions and the individuals in charge, especially in moments when the destabilizing context of mass protests might exponentially multiply such attacks’ effects.”
Portland anarchists indeed emulated the targeting when on April 28, 2021, they directly threatened Mayor Ted Wheeler by saying: “Ted, we are asking for the last time that you resign. If you ignore this message outright, the destruction to your precious way of life is going to escalate. Blood is already on your hands, Ted, but next time it may just be your own” (cited in Curren, 29 April 2021, “Antifa doxes, threatens to murder Portland mayor: ‘Blood is already on your hands, Ted. The next time, it may just be your own.’” Law Enforcement Today).
Echoing such escalating strategies, anarchists in Seattle and Portland have called for the continued targeting of critical infrastructure: police stations, oil pipelines, banks and ATMs, and public communication platforms such as event centers that host Conservative speakers. A Portland anarchist zine directly threatening Starbucks and Whole Foods corporations warns: “You protect the capitalists at the expense of our lives. One day, hopefully soon, we will dance amongst the soft glow of a burning empire, while you both drown in the stagnant pond of your pathetic, miserable lives. Good f*&%ing [sic] riddance. See you at the barricades, friends. Black liberation & against property, love, some anarchists” (Rose City Counter Info., 2021, “This Rose Has Thorns: A Year of Anarchist attacks in so-called Portland”).
Recently, two far-left activists from Washington State associated with Antifa were convicted in Federal court for a November 2020 attempt to derail trains. This event was no simple act of violence. The terrorist act was a well calculated escalation of strategy.
In the past, terrorist groups have simultaneously targeted infrastructure and civilians in order to create deniability for killing human life, or for probing and testing public and government reaction. The Weather Underground used this tactic and denied human targets were the major aim even though human fatalities occurred, an attempt to soften the reaction to terrorism and yet achieve the group’s objectives of creating fear and undermining public trust in the government’s ability to provide security. Although no one was killed in this railway attack by Antifa in November 2020, the attack was undoubtedly a probing action testing government and public reaction.
Another dangerous development in Antifa’s post-George Floyd insurrection strategy is its emphasis on repudiating and opposing left-wing reformist groups and leaders who do not conform to Antifa’s radical agenda or who cooperate with the state. Communist and other terrorist organizations escalating to more advanced phases have historically opposed and annihilated competing political movements that threaten primacy or allegiances of the support base. Not surprisingly, in order to preserve its influence, Antifa has recently emphasized opposition to “collaborationists” and “community-branded counterinsurgency,” the very groups seeking non-violent change within the existing political framework (Crimethinc, “George Floyd Square Autonomous Zone Survives an Eviction Attempt,” 2021).
Antifa’s strategic statements along with its recent violence indicate this darkly masked terrorist group is escalating violence and deliberately phasing to a more advanced lethal stage of operations while providing detailed tactical guidance on how to achieve these malign objectives. Consequently, the anarchist directives coming from their major platforms are urging simultaneous decentralized attacks and a guerrilla warfare strategy aimed at spreading police forces thinly, amplifying violence and destructiveness, and setting the conditions and positions for all-out guerrilla warfare against the state in order to hasten its alleged collapse. Thus the newer direction of Antifa is not merely episodic but strategic.
Flush with experience, exuberance, fresh recruits, and opportunities created by a vacillating government and public, Antifa is openly advancing its support structures and violent activities as terrorist organizations commonly practice as they exploit opportunities and security gaps. These anarchists are indeed calling for an escalation of violence and shift to a guerrilla war strategy so they can extinguish the very flame of liberty they cannot see through the raging fires of burning cities they have bombed and looted.
Antifa may not achieve its dream of destroying the state regardless of what the future holds. But unless counter-terrorism operations occur in earnest, these so-called anti-fascists may be in a highly advantageous position to create major escalations of violence and destruction. Given these developments, last year’s riots will seem like a mere announcement to a very dark and violent dystopian play about to be performed in street theatre across America.