The term, often used pejoratively by liberal anti-fascists eschewing physical violence, originated in the Anti-Nazi League, a broad-based anti-fascist campaigning organisation dominated by the heterodox Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
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In Italy, for example, the Arditi del Popolo (people's squads) pursued a similar policy in the 1920s and were suppressed by the Communist Party of Italy.