Introduction: Towards a global history of anti-fascism

On 7 October 1934, a major street battle between fascists and anti-fascists took place in the centre of Sao Paulo. It became a landmark for Brazilian anti-fascism and is commonly remembered as the ‘See Square Battle’. This chapter initiates a critical discussion on the varieties of global anti-fascism and explores the cultural, political and practical articulations of anti-fascism around the world. It seeks to explore the historical and intellectual implications of bringing together cases and examples from Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Scandinavia, Spain, the Middle East, Ethiopia, South Africa, India and Australia. All too often anti-fascism is understood as a monolith, mainly connected to Stalinism or Soviet communism, which grossly misrepresents the varieties of anti-fascist resistance. Most international histories of anti-fascism are based on European thinkers and activists, and partly as a result a serious analysis of the intersections and commonalities between fascism and colonialism are all too seldom