The Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, 100 years later
In 1925, the Italian intellectual Benedetto Croce wrote the first Manifesto of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, knowing that he had the right to speak and the duty to respond to the rise of Fascism in Italy.
A century later, intellectuals from around the world are raising the alarm and speaking out against the return of Fascism, and ask all democratic citizens to join them.
The 2025 letter has been signed by over 7500 citizens, 400 academics, including 31 Nobel Prize winners.
The 2025 letter has been signed by over 400 academics, including 31 Nobel Prize winners. We call upon all democratic citizens to join them in defending democracy by signing the letter.
What our signatories say:
The launch of the letter has been covered in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, France, India, Italy, Germany, Turkey, UK and USA.
Our goal
The letter is a collective denunciation of the mounting threats to academia and free thought posed by authoritarian and authoritarian-leaning regimes. In moments like these, strength lies not in isolated gestures, but in standing together with clarity and courage.
Why now?
Across the world, authoritarianism is spreading fast. In country after country, the academic community faces rising threats: first mocked as “elitist” or “ideological”, and then actively suppressed. We are witnessing a coordinated pattern: censorship of research, punishment of dissent, defunding of entire disciplines, and a chilling presence of surveillance and repression on campuses.
This is not theoretical.
Faculty members are being dismissed for their political views, students are harassed or criminalized for protest, and the intellectual space for critique is shrinking fast.
In pivotal moments like the one we are living in, silence is never neutral.
It is interpreted as consent by those in power, and as betrayal by those being targeted.
If we do not raise our voices now, we may soon find we have lost the ability to speak at all.
The open letter stands in the tradition of Benedetto Croce’s 1925 Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, published not when fascism was emerging, but when it had already seized power. Croce and his fellow signatories were not agitators. They were the moral core of Italian scholarly life, and yet they spoke out against the system. Today, we are at a very similar crossroads.
The Renewed Open Letter is more than a symbolic gesture. It is a collective refusal to be silenced.
Our next steps
After the letter will become public, we hope to reach 10,000 signatures of people condemning the rise of authoritarianism across the world.