Three Way Fight is a project that promotes revolutionary anti-fascist analysis, strategy, and activism. Unlike liberal anti-fascists, we believe that “defending democracy” is an illusion, as long as that “democracy” is based on a socio-economic order that exploits and oppresses human beings. Global capitalism and the related structures of patriarchy, heterosexism, racial and national oppression represent the main source of violence and human suffering in the world today. Far right supremacism and terrorism grow out of this system and cannot be eradicated as long as it remains in place.
At the same time, unlike many on the revolutionary left, we believe that fascists and other far rightists aren’t simply tools of the ruling class. They can also form an autonomous political force that clashes with the established order in real ways, or even seeks to overthrow global capitalism and replace it with a radically different oppressive system. We believe that in this period fascism poses several different kinds of threats: fomenting physical attacks on oppressed communities, bolstering supremacist and authoritarian tendencies among mainstream conservatives and liberals, and—a threat often overlooked—exploiting popular grievances and mis-directing anti-elite, anti-system anger away from liberatory politics.
Leftists need to confront both the established capitalist order and an insurgent or even revolutionary right, while recognizing that these opponents are also in conflict with each other. The phrase “three way fight” is short hand for this idea (although in concrete terms there are more than three contending forces). Our work confronts complexities in the dynamics between these three poles that are often glossed over. We point out, for example, that repression isn’t necessarily fascist — anti-fascism itself can be a tool of ruling-class repression (as was the case during World War II, when anti-fascism was used to justify strike-breaking and the mass imprisonment of Japanese Americans, among other measures). And we warn against far-right efforts to build alliances with leftists as well as fascistic tendencies within the left (as when leftists promote conspiracy theories rooted in anti-Jewish scapegoating).
