Anti-fascist protest | Dresden blockade a model for protest against AfD youth

"Young, democratic, anti-fascist" – this was the slogan used on posters at this year's "Marx is Must" congress promoting an anti-fascist action. Since the location and date have not yet been determined, the call for a blockade remains general for now: "Resist Yourself/Autumn 2025." Kaja Schwab and Luigi Wolf explained the background to this initiative at an event at the Marxism Congress.

Activists are planning a nationwide mass blockade to prevent the establishment of a new AfD youth organization planned for fall 2025. At its federal party conference in Riesa (January 2025), the AfD decided to separate from the former Junge Alternative (JA) and establish a new organization. Two strategic considerations lie behind this: First, the party wants to exercise more control over its youth organization—unlike the JA, only AfD members will be admitted. Second, many party members fear a ban by the authorities on the JA, which is classified as "certainly right-wing extremist."

However, anti-fascist groups see the danger that the new youth organization could continue the radical policies of the JA. Therefore, they began mobilizing early on to create a broad social alliance extending into the middle class. The successful large-scale blockades against Nazi marches in Dresden (2010 to 2012) serve as a model, as Schwab explained. "The police could have cleared the blockades, but so many people demonstrated that an eviction was no longer politically feasible," Wolf explained in retrospect.

The organizers want to appeal to those who demonstrated in large numbers in early 2024 following the "Correctiv" revelations about the Potsdam meeting of AfD representatives, Values ​​Union members, and business representatives. Wolf attributes the rapid end of this movement to the lack of socialist perspectives that could have provided longer-term guidance.

Wolf and Schwab also pointed to little-known successes of the anti-fascist movement of the past 50 years: In 1969, a massive protest movement prevented the right-wing extremist NPD from entering the Bundestag. At the end of the 1970s, "Rock Against the Right" prevented veteran and neo-Nazis from marching through Frankfurt's city center on June 17. They also considered the blockade of the AfD party conference in Riesa (January 2024) a success—especially because of the strong mobilization on a winter day in Saxony.

They intend to surpass this mobilization at the upcoming founding of the AfD youth association. This time, the goal is not just to delay the event for hours, but to prevent it from taking place.