The Antifascist Circle is a logo designed by Sergei Tschachotin - former assistant to the physiologist Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field....

 - in 1931 for the 1930s German anti-fascist

Anti-fascism

Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...

 organization Iron Front

Iron Front

The Iron Front was an anti-Nazi, anti-monarchist, and anti-Stalinist paramilitary organization formed in Germany on 16 December 1931 by the Social Democratic Party with the Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, the Reichsbanner and workers' sport clubs originally to counter the right-wing...

. The logo was designed to be able to easily cover up Nazi

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 swastika

Swastika

The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...

s. The meaning of the three arrows have been interpreted differently. One position is that they stood for the opponents of democracy: Stalinism

Stalinism

Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...

, Nazism

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 and reactionary

Reactionary

The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...

 forces.. Another claim is that they stand for the three columns of the German workers' movement: a party, a trade union and the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold

Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold

The Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold was a Social Democratic paramilitary force formed during the Weimar Republic in 1924....

.