the following text was translated
by Anthony Murphy
and is available in pamphlet form from Kersplebedeb
“A clear dividing line must be drawn
between ourselves and the enemy.” (Mao)
The Urban Guerilla Concept
It is actually good when the enemy fights us – not bad: In my opinion,
whether as individuals, political parties, soldiers, or as students it is
a bad sign if the enemy has not already formed a front against us. It shows
that we are hidden under the same cover as them. There is nothing wrong when
the enemy attacks us, it is proof that a clear distinction has been made
between ourselves and the enemy. It is much better having an enemy that confronts
us, devalues us or attempts to paint us in the darkest possible colours.
It is proof that a clear dividing line has been drawn with the enemy – in
fact it shows that our struggle is scoring splendid results already.
-- Mao Tse Tung, May 26th 1939
I. Concrete Answers to Concrete Questions
“I would emphasise the point that anyone who is not prepared to conduct a
proper investigation loses any right to discuss the matter.” (Mao)
Some comrades have made up their minds about us already. Their false and
denunciatory use of the term ‘anarchism’ shows that they are no different
than the Springer press [0]. We are not
going to be dragged down to this miserable level of discussion with anyone.
Many comrades want to know what we’re up to. The letter to 883 [1] from May ’70 was too vague. The tapes
from Michele Ray [2] were not authentic,
they were just some private discussions that were taken out of context. Ray
used the tapes in order to write her own article – in the process, she either
tricked us or we simply over-estimated her. If our political practice was
in any way as hasty and rash as she describes – the cops would have got us
by now. Der Spiegel [3] paid Ray
a fee of $1000.
Virtually all the stuff written about us in the newspapers are lies – that’s
clear. Apparent plans to kidnap Willy Brandt [4] make us look like political buffoons, underhand methods
are used to try and connect us with planning a child-kidnapping. Printing
these lies even extends to Konkret [5]
where the so-called ‘reliable details’ about us turned out to be just trivial
anecdotes, pasted together for the purpose of publishing anything. Claims
that we have ‘officers and soldiers’, or ‘a strict hierarchy’, that we talk
of someone being ‘liquidated’, that comrades have been ‘threatened’, that
we have forced entry into flats or obtained passports at gunpoint, or that
we are in the grip of some kind of ‘group terror’ – this is all a load of
crap.
Whoever imagines that the organisation of an illegal armed resistance can
be based on medieval forms of justice like the Volunteer Corps or right-wing
militias, is intent on initiating their own pogrom. The psychological mechanisms
that produce these sort of subjective projections and their connection to
fascism were analysed by Adorno in The Authoritarian Personality and
by Reich in The Mass Psychology of Fascism. The very notion of a revolutionary
possessing a ‘compulsive personality’ is a contradicto in adjecto
– a contradiction in terms. In the current, or for that matter any circumstances,
engaging in revolutionary activities must involve the permanent integration
of an individual’s character with his own political motivation – this
is political identity. All those Marxist critiques, self-criticisms
etc. have little to do with ‘self-liberation’ – whereas revolutionary
discipline does. It certainly wasn't some ‘left-wing groups’ who
were trying to ‘grab the headlines’, but Konkret itself, whose editor
is currently promoting himself as some sort of Eduard Zimmermann [6] in the hope that his rag can profit from
some market niche. Many other comrades are spreading lies about us that we
stayed overnight with them, or that they were involved in the organisation
of our trip to the Middle East [7], some
think they have ‘inside’ contacts, they claim to have done things for us
– even though they did nothing. A few comrades want to try and portray themselves
as being ‘in’. Just like Günter Voigt, who claimed to Dürrenmatt [8] that he was involved in the operation
to free Baader [9]. He probably regretted
doing this when the cops came after him and his subsequent attempt to issue
a denial did not prove very straightforward. With all this kind of stuff,
they want to portray us as being stupid, untrustworthy, clumsy, or even crazy.
They are attempting to set others up against us. They are just a bunch of
hangers-on. We want nothing to do with these wind-bags for whom the anti-imperialist
struggle only takes place in coffee houses. There are many others who feel
differently – like those not engaged in such political chit-chat; those who
actually know the meaning of resistance; those for whom the system stinks
enough already and who are willing to give us a chance. The basis for their
support is that the whole crap around us just isn’t worth living a life of
subservience to the system.
They didn’t find out about the safe-house at 89 Knesebeck Street (Mahler’s
arrest [10]) due to any shoddiness on
our part, that was betrayal – the informer came from one of us. The nature
of our activities means that there’s no protection from that sort. By contrast,
other comrades are being beaten up by the cops for not putting up with the
terror of the system anymore, they put up a fight. The pigs themselves wouldn’t
be so powerful if it wasn’t for the resources made available to them by the
State.
Some have fallen into an insufferable trap of self-justification. They are
intent on distorting the truth in order to avoid entering into a political
debate with us, a debate that would force them to examine their own political
activism and compare it to ours. For example – it has been claimed that Baader
had just a few months remaining of his sentence when we managed to free him.
The facts state otherwise and are freely available: he had three years for
arson, a six month suspended sentence still outstanding, another six months
for forging documents, and another trial was also in the offing. From the
overall total of 48 months, Andreas Baader had sat only 14 months, in ten
different jails, getting nine transfers for ‘bad behaviour’ i.e. organising
prison revolts and resistance. The circulation of deliberately wrong calculations
which reduced his outstanding sentence to three, nine or twelve months was
done in order to weaken the moral justification for launching the operation
on May 14th. This is an example of how some comrades attempt to rationalise
away the fears they have for the personal consequences of entering into political
argument with us.
The question of whether Andreas’s escape operation would have gone ahead
if we had known already that Linke [11]
was going to get shot – and it has been asked of us often enough – we can
only answer with a ‘no’. However the question ‘what would have happened if’
is too ambiguous – it is pacifist, platonic, moralistic and politically neutral.
Anyone with serious intentions of carrying out an operation like that doesn’t
ask such questions – they look instead for answers. Comrades
who are posing this type of question are wondering if we are as ‘brutalised’
as the tabloids are saying, our whole ‘creed’ is being brought into question.
They try to circumvent the issue of revolutionary violence by lumping revolutionary
violence and bourgeois morals together – which is impossible.
All possible outcomes were considered when we planned Andreas’s escape. There
was no reason to expect that a civilian could, or would, get himself in the
way. As for the idea of not using weapons when executing such a prison escape,
that’s just suicidal.
The cops fired the first shots on May 14th, just as they previously did in
Frankfurt, when two of us managed to escape arrest. The cops always shoot
first and ask questions later. We hadn’t shot anyone until now – neither
in Berlin nor in Nürnberg nor in Frankfurt. This can be proven by anyone.
Nor are we in the business of ‘recklessly using our weapons’. As for the
cop, living the contradiction of being a ‘little man’ and a capitalist slave,
he earns his low income for protecting monopoly capitalism. These guys don’t
have to obey orders. If we get shot at we’ll return fire – but we won’t shoot
at the cops that let us get away.
The claim that the huge manhunt for us that is currently being staged in
the Federal Republic and West Berlin [12]
is also being directed at the entire socialist left, is a correct one. Neither
the paltry sums of money, the few cars, nor the documents we are supposed
to have stolen, not even the attempted murder charge they are trying to pin
on us – none of this justifies such an elaborate circus.
The ruling establishment is rattled, it is in a state of shock. They made
the mistake of thinking that the State, with all its inherent contradictions,
was still firmly under their control. Intellectuals were reduced to writing
articles in journals, it looked like Marxist-Leninism had surrended, the
demoralisation of internationalism had taken place.
We believe that this is the right moment, that it is possible and that it
is justified to organise armed resistance groups in the Federal Republic
and West Berlin. We believe that the armed struggle as the “highest form
of Marxist-Leninism” (Mao) can commence, and that without it, no effective
anti-imperialist struggle can take place in the metropole.
We are not asserting that illegal groups of armed resistance are going to
replace the existing network of legal and active proletarian groups and other
independent examples of class struggle. Nor do we expect the armed struggle
to replace political mobilisation taking place in work places or elsewhere.
But we do maintain that a pre-requisite for progress and an eventual
victory of revolutionary forces is the armed struggle. We are neither
Blanquists [13] nor are we anarchists
– although we do consider Blanqui to have been a great revolutionary and
the personal heroism of many individual anarchists is something that we aspire
to.
We have been active now for under 12 months, much too short a time to start
speaking of ‘results’. However the huge attention being lavished on us by
Messrs. Genscher, Zimmermann & Co [14]
has given us the opportunity to mull a few things over, even at such an early
stage.
“If you want to know what communists are thinking – look at their hands,
not their mouths” – said Lenin.
II. The Federal Republic – The Metropole
The current systemic crisis has its origins in the nature of the system
itself, not just its mechanics. Resulting from the all-consuming goal of
profits, the capitalist system has become ever more parisitic and exploitative.
The disintegration of social life has accelerated due to entire sections
of society becoming disadvantaged and having needs that the State can no
longer cater for. It is only possible to stem the unquiet and dissent arising
from this situation by manipulating the media and imposing State repression
on a massive scale. The political crisis caused by the student rebellion
and the Black Power movement in America; the spreading unrest resulting from
student protests in Europe; the resurgence of a workers’ and peoples’ struggle
with a new and radical agenda – culminating in the explosion of May ’68 in
France; the deep crisis in Italian society and the resumption of discontent
in Germany – all this is indicative of the current situation.
IL Manifesto: The Necessity of Communism, from
Thesis 33
Our comrades from IL Manifesto [15] are
quite correct in describing the situation in Germany with the vague term,
‘discontent’. Six years ago Barzel [16] described the Federal Republic as an ‘economic
giant but a political dwarf’. Since then the economy has remained robust
but the Federal Republic is no longer a ‘political dwarf’, it is now both
externally and internally in a politically stronger position. The prospect
of a political crisis resulting from an imminent economic recession was pre-empted
by the formation of a Grand Coalition in 1966 [17]. The Emergency Laws [18], pushed through by this coalition,
proved a valuable tool in subsequent ‘crisis-management’ situations. These
laws arose out of an alliance between reactionary forces and all those liberals
who find it convenient to support ‘legal’ methods of repression. The coalition
was formed to absorb the ‘discontent’ simmering in the student movement and
the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition [19].
In the SDP [Social Democratic Party of Germany], the reformist line was re-packaged
as the alternative to communism, thereby taking the steam out of the anti-capitalist
camp within the party. The Federal Republic’s Ostpolitik [20] didn’t only open up some new capital
markets, it was also Germany’s contribution to the reconciliation and alliance
between U.S. imperialism and the Soviet Union. This geo-political strategy
was essential to the Americans in order to pursue their aggressive wars in
the Third World. The government here has also managed to split the Left by
separating the ‘New Left’ from old guard ‘anti-fascists’, thereby isolating
the New Left from the worker’s movement. The DKP [German Communist Party],
can put their re-instatement down to this new accomodation between U.S. imperialism
and Soviet revisionism. The DKP even organised demonstrations to support
the government’s Ostpolitik and Niemöller [21] a symbolic figure of anti-fascism, has already been
canvassing SPD support for the coming election.
Under a pretext of acting on behalf of ‘the common good’, the State and the
trade unions joined together and introduced a concerted policy of wage limits.
The September strikes [22] proved that
these policies had gone too far in serving the interests of profit. However
the exclusively economic content of the strikers’ aims still shows how firmly
the State can keep things under control.
The strength of today’s system is evident in how workers can be disciplined
and terrorised by holding up the spectre of cheap foreign labour, the threat
of unemployment and the constant fear of recession. All this happens without
the necessity of resorting to the right-wing militias of the past and reduces
the prospect of any further radicalisation of the masses.
The Federal Republic’s indirect financial and military support of American
wars of aggression enable it to profit from the exploitation of the Third
World without taking any direct responsibility for these war crimes. It also
helps in taking on a detached role when dealing with its own internal opposition
to war.
The political opportunities that are open to imperialism, whether of the
reformist or fascist variety, have not yet been exhausted. Capitalism has
not lost the ability to repress or integrate its own self-generated contradictions.
The Red Army Faction’s Urban Guerilla Concept is not based on an optimistic
view of the prevailing circumstances in the Federal Republic and West Berlin.
III. Student Revolt
By recognising the globalised nature of the ruling capitalist system,
it is now impossible to separate the potential for revolution in the ‘strongholds
of capitalism’ in the West and its viability in the more ‘backward regions’.
Without the rekindling of revolutionary forces in the West, imperialism (which
has its own logical system of violence) will be forced to find its way by
means of a catastrophic war or else the superpowers will enforce an overwhelming
system of repression.
IL Manifesto from Thesis 52
To dismiss the student movement as just some kind of petit-bourgeois revolt
is to reduce it to the self-exaggerated slogans that have accompanied it.
It means a denial of the fact that the movement originated in the already
existing contradictions inherent in bourgeois society and ideology. To just
focus on the shortcomings of the student movement is to ignore the theoretical
level that has already been achieved in its anti-capitalist critique.
There was undoubtedly some element of pathos when students identified themselves
with the exploited people in Latin America, Africa and Asia just after becoming
aware of the psychologically damaging conditions in academic institutions.
It was also a gross over-simplification to compare the mass circulation of
the Bild Zeitung [23] with the
mass bombardment of North Vietnam. It was arrogant to compare the armed struggle
going on over there with ideological criticism of the system over here. And
the belief that students are the sort of revolutionary force as propagated
by Marcuse [24] proved a philistine one
when you take the actual relations of production in bourgeois society into
account.
Nevertheless, the student movement in the Federal Republic and West Berlin
can be credited with the street fights, the arson attacks, the counter-violence,
its own pathos, even the exaggerations or naivety. In short, it should
be acknowledged for its practice. At least the students managed to
plant the political theories of Marxist-Leninism back into the minds of the
intelligensia – the most important theory being that without taking political,
economic and ideological factors into consideration one will not have an
adequate description of the internal and external contradictions within capitalist
society.
Students have had direct experience of the contradictions between the ideal
of academic freedom and the reality of monopoly capitalism’s grip on universities.
As a result their initiation into political activism was not only an ideological
process, in fact the movement didn’t lose momentum until (at least theoretically)
a connection was made between the crisis in the universities and the systemic
crisis caused by capitalism. It became clear to the students and their public
that our ‘democracy’ is not about ‘equality, freedom and fraternity’, nor
human rights; nor about the United Nations Charter. It is what the exploited
peoples of Latin America, Africa and Asia know already – imperialism and
colonialism. For the oppressed, for those who take sides, for those who resist,
for those who take part in the anti-imperialist struggle – they will suffer
a State-imposed system of discipline, subordination and brutality.
Almost all aspects and manifestations of this imperialist oppression were
captured in the ideological criticisms made by the student movement and in
their political activism. It was evident in the Springer campaign
[25], in the demonstrations against the
war in Vietnam, in the campaigns against class injustice, in the campaign
against the re-militarisation of the German Army, the fight against the Emergency
Laws, and in the mobilisation of students in schools and colleges... Expropriate
Springer! Smash NATO! Fight Consumer Terror! Fight Authoritarianism! Fight
For Tenants Rights! – all these slogans were correct. They were aimed at
the self-generated contradictions of contemporary capitalism latent in the
consciousness of all oppressed people. On the one side are the new material
needs and the new means of fulfilling those needs, while on the other side
is the irrational subordination expected of every individual within the capitalist
class system.
The self-confidence of the student movement did not come from the class struggle
but from the realisation of being part of an international movement in which
we are being confronted with exactly the same enemy here as the Vietcong
confronts over there – the same paper tigers, the same pigs....
The student movement has also managed to distance itself from the provincial
isolationism of the Old Left’s ‘People’s Front’ strategy, which included
such things as the Easter marches [26];
the German Peace Union; the Old Left’s media organ, the Deutsche Zeitung
[27], which raised false hopes of a landslide
victory in the 1970 election; the Old Left’s fixation on parliamentarians
like Strauß [28] on one side and
Heinemann [29] on the other; their vacillation
over the GDR [East German] question; their isolation, resignation and moral
hypocricy. In short, their willingness to sacrifice their principles and
their inept political practice. Despite a few theoretical shortcomings, the
student movement has gained confidence with the correct assertion that: “The
revolutionary initiative now taking place in the West is derived from new
forms of resistance that are reaching maturity in many countries – resulting
from a crisis in the world system.” (IL Manifesto, Thesis 55) Students adapted
their political agitation to the new political circumstances in Germany –
that any national struggle has to take on an international perspective; that
stability can only be attained by linking national and international agendas;
and that conventional forms of struggle must be connected to the newly forming
international revolutionary initiatives. The student movement turned their
own weaknesses into strengths, by realising that only this strategy could
prevent trudging down the Old Left’s familiar road of renewed resignation,
provincial isolationism and reformism – which was the reality of socialist
politics in the Federal Republic both before and after Nazism.
By the 1960s, the New Left was aware that it was right to combine mobilisation
in the workplace with the tactic of disrupting circulation of the Bild
Zeitung; that it was right to hand out leaflets to GIs calling on them
to desert in the face of the horrific U.S. bombing campaign in North Vietnam;
that it was right to combine the campaign against re-militarisation with
attacks on NATO bases; that it was right to condemn class justice while bombing
prison walls; that it was right to criticise Springer Verlag as well
as disarming their gang of security guards; it was also right to set up a
radio stations, to demoralise the police, to accomodate deserters in safe
houses, to forge documents for foreign workers and to sabotage those companies
involved in the production of napalm.
It was wrong, however, to make the production of Leftist propaganda
dependent on commercial factors such as having no newspapers that workers
could not properly finance; no car seemed to be unaffordable to the ‘movement’;
every progressive radio station needed the ‘proper’ liscense; sabotage was
deemed a waste of time because capitalism wasn’t collapsing quickly enough!
The student movement began to disintegrate when a typically student type
of bourgeois structure – the “anti-authoritarian camp” – proved a thoroughly
unsuitable vehicle for developing theoretical aims into feasible political
practice. The spontaneous nature of this camp was thoroughly inappropriate
for the factory floor, for socialist mass-organisations or for the development
of an Urban Guerilla group. Disintegration came about because unlike in Italy
or France, the German student movement did not act as a spark that would
then ignite broader class conflict. It was only able to formulate an agenda
of anti-imperialist struggle but couldn’t accomplish the next task of transforming
itself into a revolutionary force.
The Red Army Faction, in contrast to the so-called ‘proletarian groups’
of the New Left, is not in denial of its own roots in the student movement.
It has moved on and reconstructed Marxist-Leninism in an international context
– as a weapon in support of the revolutionary struggle in the metropole.
IV. The Primacy of Political Practice
If you want to know a certain thing or a certain class of things directly,
you must personally participate in the practical struggle to change reality,
to change that thing or class of things, for only thus can you come into
contact with them as phenomena; only through personal participation in the
practical struggle to change reality can you uncover the essence of that
thing or class of things and comprehend them.
Marxism emphasizes the importance of theory precisely and only because it
can guide action. If we have a correct theory but merely prate about it,
pigeonhole it and do not put it into practice, then that theory, however
good, is of no significance.
Mao Tse Tung: On Practice
While still authority figures within the student movement some radicals turned
towards a more academic study of socialism, coming to the conclusion that
any critique of the political economy entailed a self-criticism of the student
movement itself – this coincided with students retreating from the streets
and returning to the safety of their classrooms. Judging by these ‘scholarly’
works – with their organisational models and complicated declarations – you
are led to believe that these revolutionary ‘leaders’ are in the midst of
a tumultuous class struggle, it is as if 1967-68 was for the Left in Germany
like 1905 was in Russia. When Lenin wrote What Is To Be Done? in 1903,
he gave prominence to some theoretical requirements for Russian workers,
spelling out the necessity of class analysis, organisation and propaganda
to both anarchist and social revolutionaries. For Lenin, the class struggle
amongst the masses had already started: “The working classes are shaken by
the wretchedness of life in Russia. What we have not figured out, as yet,
is a way of collecting every drop and trickle of this resentment and concentrate
this huge resource of Russian society into what we believe and visualize,
then unite it, and turn it into a massive torrent.” (Lenin: What Is To
Be Done?)
We are questioning, in the present circumstances, whether it is going to
be feasible to develop a strategy for unifying the working class in the Federal
Republic and West Berlin. We question whether an organisational form is possible
that can both express and initiate the necessary steps towards this unification
process. We question whether the goal of welding the socialist
intelligensia to the working class can be achieved simply by making programmatic
statements with a supposed intention of mobilising the proletariat to revolution.
In fact, the only group up to now that has succeeded in collecting “every
drop and trickle” of the wretchedness of life in Germany has been the Springer
Corporation. They then managed to compound this misery even more.
We are maintaining that without a revolutionary initiative; without the practical
revolutionary intervention of the vanguard; without a coalition of workers
and intellectuals; without any real anti-imperialist struggle – that the
unification of revolutionary forces will prove impossible. All this can only
be achieved through the collective action of workers and intellectuals –
both participating in the mass struggle together.
When reading the texts of various left-wing organisations, we discovered
that their activism is in reality a trivial competition between intellectuals,
judged by an imaginary jury, which by definition contains no ordinary workers
on it because of the complicated jargon they use. The winner is whoever manages
the smartest interpretation of Karl Marx. For such people the embarrassment
of being caught out quoting Marx incorrectly is far worse than the hypocrisy
of their own political activism. Their page footnotes are more accurate than
the membership numbers they give for their organisations. They fear the charge
of ‘revolutionary impatience’ much more than being corrupted through the
nature of their bourgeois jobs. They devote time to do a long thesis on Lukacz
[30], but are wary of being inspired
too quickly into activism by Blanqui. Their internationalism consists of
point-scoring various Palestinian commando groups. Acting as the advocates
of ‘true’ Marxism – they beg money from rich friends in the name of the Black
Panthers. The money they get is used to ease their guilty consciences, this
being more on their minds than any “Victory in the People’s War” – this
is not a revolutionary intervention.
Mao’s Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society (1926) sets out the
parameters of the revolutionary struggle and the counter-revolutionary fight:
“the red banner of revolution [is] held aloft by the Third International
as the rallying point for all the oppressed classes of the world, the other
is the white banner of counterrevolution held aloft by the League of Nations
as the rallying point for all the counter-revolutionaries of the world.”
Mao does not restrict himself here to just a purely economic class analysis
of Chinese society, he differentiates between classes also according to which
banner they are flying to bring the revolution forward. The crucial aspect
of this analysis is the attitude of different classes to the
revolution itself.
Marxist-Leninists will have no leading role in the class struggle if the
vanguard does not fly high the banner of proletarian internationalism. The
vanguard must answer some questions: How to establish the dictatorship of
the proletariat? How political power for the proletariat can be achieved?
And how can the political power of the bourgeoisie be broken? The vanguard
cannot answer these questions due to its lack of political practice. The
class analysis that we need is impossible without revolutionary practice,
without a revolutionary initiative.
Workers’ groups up and down the country have formulated their “revolutionary
interim demands” – such as fighting exploitation; getting shorter working
hours; no more wasting public funds; equal pay for men, women and foreign
workers; the campaign against piece-work laws etc. These demands remain nothing
but narrow economic trade unionism as long as the obstacles preventing their
fulfilment are not properly dealt with – the main obstacle being the unresolved
question of how to dismantle the military, political and propaganda power
structures. Such ‘revolutionary interim demands’ are rubbish if they remain
as just economic demands. No victorious revolutionary struggle is worth attempting
without the belief that: “Victory means to accept the principle that life
itself is the greatest thing for a revolutionary.” (Debray [31]) These workers’ demands are only a trade unionist intervention:
“The trade unionist politics of the working class is, in fact, the bourgeois
politics of the working class.” (Lenin) They are not a method of revolutionary
intervention.
These so-called workers’ organisations were conveniently silent on the question
of using armed resistance as a response to the Emergency Laws; the re-militarisation
of the army; the actions of the border police and riot police; Springer Press
lies etc. Only the DKP [German Communist Party] was once different in this
respect, when it was less institutionalized, had more radical slogans and
a substantial theoretical basis. On a practical level, these workers’ groups
are more like civil rights campaigners – seeking popularity at any price
and deluding themselves with the bourgeois illusion that you can build a
fair system through parliamentary democracy. It is barbaric of them to encourage
a workers’ struggle in the face of an overwhelming and violent State security
apparatus. Debray wrote about Latin American communists: “All these Marxist-Leninist
parties or factions are asking the same technical questions about how they
are being ruled by the bourgeoise. By doing this they encourage the bourgeoise
to hold on to power even more.”
For the first time in their lives, thousands of young people at work, or
elsewhere, challenged exploitation in the work place after they became politicised
by the student movement. These people are not being offered anything with
the proposal that they must first adapt to capitalist exploitation.
The effect of radical groups accepting the system is that they themselves
become like prison governors on the subject of youth crime; or like judges
on the subject of prison sentencing; or like social workers when talk turns
to underground resistance.
Without political practice, Marx’s Kapital is just another bourgeois
text. Without political practice, making programmatic statements is just
twaddle. Without political practice, proletarian internationalism remains
just bragging. Accepting the theoretical basis for the proletarian revolution
means accepting its practice.
The Red Army Faction is about the primacy of political practice. Whether
it is right to organize armed resistance at this moment is dependent on whether
it is possible – and it can only be made possible by actually doing it.
V. The Urban Guerilla
Imperialism and all reactionaries, looked at in essence, from a long-term
point of view, from a strategic point of view, must be seen for what they
are — paper tigers. On this we should build our strategic thinking.
Mao Tse Tung 1.12.58
If the paper tiger of American imperialism can eventually be defeated. If
the tactics of the Chinese Communists are correct that the victory over American
imperialism will be achieved through fighting imperialist forces everywhere,
splitting them up, and then defeating these forces separately. If these assertions
are correct, then there is absolutely no reason to rule out or disregard
any region or country from the anti-imperialist struggle. This is also the
case when revolutionary forces are particularly weak or the reactionary forces
are particularly strong in those regions or countries.
It is mistaken to discourage revolutionary forces by underestimating them.
It is also mistaken to fuel disputes between them that could eventually lead
to their destruction. There is an undoubted tension between the Red Army
Faction and some of our sincere comrades (we’ll leave out the windbags for
now) who are currently active in political organisations. On the one hand
we are accusing you of discouraging revolutionary forces – on the other hand
you are accusing us of needlessly whipping them up. There is a tendency for
factionalism in work-places and communities to have gone too far between
some active comrades and the Red Army Faction. Dogmatism and adventurism
are characteristic deviations in the weaker phases of the revolution. As
for the anarchist reproach that we are ‘opportunists’ – that’s old hat –
they have always criticised ‘opportunism’, it is nothing new.
The Urban Guerilla Concept comes from Latin America. The situation there
is the same as here – a revolutionary intervention coming from relatively
weak revolutionary forces.
The Urban Guerilla is not waiting for the Prussian-type marching orders that
some so-called revolutionaries are holding out for in order to lead the people’s
struggle. When the time comes, the Urban Guerilla is completely ready for
the armed struggle. He [32] assumes that
in a country like the Federal Republic, with a weak revolutionary tradition
and massive potential for State violence, that revolutionary intervention
is a necessity. The Urban Guerilla assumes that the conditions
for revolution have never been better than at present – due to the economic
and political circumstances prevalent in late-capitalism.
In this context the Urban Guerilla can be seen as a logical consequence of
the long tradition of the negation of parliamentary democracy by its own
representatives. The Urban Guerilla is the unavoidable response to the emergency
and hand-grenade laws [33]; to the readiness
of the system to use all means necessary to liquidate its adversaries. The
Urban Guerilla Concept is based on an acknowledgement of these facts rather
than trying to apologise for them.
The student movement had at least a partial experience already of Guerilla
tactics when they translated some of the Left’s usual tactics – agitation
and propaganda – into more concrete forms. This could be seen in the Springer
campaign or by the Carbora-Bassa campaign carried out by Heidelberg students†.
It was also evident in campaigning against the military aid given to the
comprador [34] regimes by the Federal
Republic. Guerilla tactics were also used in respect to exposing the court
system, fighting class justice and achieving justice on the factory floor
and other work-places. The Urban Guerilla turns all the talk about internationalism
into the practical procurement of money and weapons. He renders the State
tactic of banning communists irrelevant by organising an underground that
is impossible for the police to penetrate. The Urban Guerilla is a weapon
of the class struggle.
The Urban Guerilla Concept should be seen as an armed struggle taking place
in the light of police shoot-to-kill methods and the class justice that managed
to free Kurras [35]. The system would
bury our comrades alive if we didn’t stop it. We will not be demoralised
by the violence of the system.
The Red Army Faction intends to temporarily put specific parts of the State’s
government and security apparatus out of action. This will destroy the myth
of the overwhelming nature and invincibility of the system.
The Urban Guerilla Concept entails setting up an illegal organisation – involving
safe houses, weapons, ammunition, cars, documents etc. Marighella’s Minimanual
of the Urban Guerilla [36] already
sets out what needs to be done. We will provide additional information to
anyone who needs it for the armed struggle. We might not know everything
– but we have learnt some lessons already.
Before embarking on armed struggle it is important to gather appropriate
political experience. If your attachment to the revolutionary Left has been
of a more fashionable nature – then your involvement should only extend to
a point where you can still turn back.
The Red Army Faction, by fusing the faction with political
practice, have drawn a clear dividing line with the enemy. As a result, we
will be the ones who will be most fiercely opposed by the State. This already
assumes the attainment of political identity and also the fact that we have
learnt some important lessons already.
Our original organisational concept involved linking the Red Army Faction
with existing grassroots activists. We envisaged participating in existing
socialist groups – we would work with them, influence debates, gather experience,
learn some lessons. However, it soon became obvious that this wouldn’t work.
Infiltration by the security services and their knowledge of meetings, agendas
and plans, had reached a point that you were prevented from talking freely.
You cannot combine legal political activism with an illegal political practice.
Being an Urban Guerilla requires a clear set of motives: You have to make
sure that you are unaffected by the tabloid attacks. That whole “anti-semitic/criminal/low-life/murderers/arsonists”
syndrome which is used to attack revolutionaries, all that shit must not
affect you operating as an Urban Guerilla.
The system will be prepared to use any means, however scandalous, in order
to restrict our terrain and show its determination to oppose us.
No areas of public life are left which don’t have, in some way or another,
the main goal of serving the interests of capital. This also holds true for
the Left, whose activities do not extend beyond their subscribers, their
supporters, their internal organisation or their cadre. These activities
play themselves out in the context of mostly private, coincidental, personal
and bourgeois forms of communication. No publications escape the control
of vested financial interests – through advertising; through ambitious journalists
trying to make a name for themselves; through TV and radio; and through the
concentration of media ownership. In the public domain a powerful elite has
the dominant role. They divide and spread themselves around the market-place,
filling in market gaps and distributing ideological content for specific
audiences. The media’s message in a nutshell is... Sell. Anything
that can’t sell is considered pukeworthy: News and information become commodities
for consumption and the most popular publications become commercially saturated.
A ratings war ensues on television. All this is an attempt to avoid contradictions
and antagonisms latent in public audiences, those contradictions that are
highlighted are never of any real consequence. In order to achieve any position
in the market you must attach yourself to huge media corporations, for example
the dependency of smaller entities on the Springer Corporation grows in proportion
to Springer’s expansion – it has now started swallowing up local newspapers.
An Urban Guerilla can expect absolutely nothing but bitter hostility from
these institutions. An Urban Guerilla can only orient himself by means of
self-criticism and Marxist critique – nothing else: “Whoever is not afraid
of execution dares to tear the king down from his horse.” (Mao)
Formulating long-term strategies or just getting on with smaller tasks etc.
are only applicable to the Urban Guerilla in the sense that he doesn’t only
talk about them – he takes action. This takes place without
any possibility of a return to some bourgeois career. There is no return
to making the revolution by pinning stuff on the notice-boards of terraced
houses. There must be a desire, even with its inherent pathos, of what Blanqui
formulated: “The duty of all revolutionaries is to fight, to carry on fighting,
to fight to the death”. There were never any revolutionary struggles where
this principle has not applied – Russia, China, Cuba, Algeria, Palestine,
Vietnam.
Some people think that not all the possibilities have been exhausted for
political work in the form of propaganda, mobilisation and agitation. They
maintain that only when all these avenues are closed should we resort to
armed struggle. Our reply: It is never going to be possible
to fully exploit these political opportunities because the armed struggle
is an integral part of the politicisation process. The strategic identification
that reactionaries are just paper tigers results from the tactical identification
of them for what they they really are: criminals, exploiters and murderers.
We’re not going to brag about the armed struggle – we will do it. Freeing
Andreas Baader was not done for publicity purposes – we wanted to get our
comrade out of prison. The bank robberies the cops are trying to pin on us
– we only did them to get a bit of money. The “splendid successes” mentioned
by Mao when “the enemy is painting you in the darkest possible colours” will
occur when we start scoring results of our own. We are indebted to our Latin
American comrades for our progress so far. They have already established
a clear dividing line with the enemy. The government is worried that the
same thing will happen over here as well. As a result they have stated that
they will ‘vigorously stand up to us’ – all this when all that has happened
is that we are suspected of a few bank robberies. The huge outcry about us
leaves the impression that the Red Army Faction has already become fully
operational!
VI. Legality and Illegality
The revolution in the West, the stronghold of capitalism, is of crucial
concern. No region of the world today can achieve the transition to stability
and democracy through peaceful means. The crisis is lurching towards its
climax. To cut yourself off in parochialism or to postpone the struggle means
being caught up in a vicious circle of ever-worsening decline.
IL Manifesto, from Thesis 55
The anarchist slogan: “Destroy What Has Destroyed You Already!” – is aimed
at grassroots mobilisation – like the young people in care homes or borstal,
in schools and colleges – it is directed at those worst off. It hopes for
an immediate response and resonance by being a direct call for resistance.
Stokely Carmichael’s [38] call to “Trust
your own experience” means what it says – it stems from the insight that
all the oppression, torture and tensions caused by capitalism have their
origins in the relations of production. Every oppressor, in whatever guise,
represents class and capital interests. In short, they are the class
enemy.
The anarchist slogan is right because it is proletarian and part of the class
struggle. However it is wrong in planting the wrong message in peoples’ heads
that you just have to lash out or smack people in the face. As a result,
organisation becomes of only secondary importance, discipline is perceived
as ‘bourgeois’ and class analysis becomes irrelevant. Those taking this slogan
at face value are left unprotected from the ferocious State response to their
actions. They are abandoned because of not having prepared a functioning
illegal and legal network. They get arrested. The words some communist groups
are spouting like “communists are not stupid enough to choose the path of
illegality” – just feed the jaws of class justice – no one else. The implication
they are making that the legal avenues such as agitation, propaganda, organisation
and political and economic struggle should not be discarded lightly is quite
correct – but that is not what they are actually saying. They
are saying that socialist politics only has room for manoeuvre within the
boundaries of the prevailing system of class politics and class justice.
They think that it is necessary to submit to the ever-increasing encroachment
of the State and retreat from any confrontation in order to stay within the
‘law’. In other words, it is legality at any price: Illegal arrests, draconian
sentences, police raids, oppression and intimidation from State prosecutors.
You either sink or swim.
This is just opportunism. It displays no solidarity. It writes off the comrades
in prison. It halts the mobilisation and politicisation of all those people
falling prey to criminality due to their upbringing and social environment
– the sub-proletariat, the underground, working class youths, guest workers
etc. It serves as a virtual criminalisation of those who don’t happen to
be members of various organisations. It is an alliance with class justice.
Legality is about power. The position of legality in relation to that of
illegality is determined by the contradiction between reformist and fascist
tendencies in government. The representatives in Bonn are currently a Social-Democratic/Liberal
coalition on the one side and Barzel/Strauß on the other. Their media
mouthpieces are the Suddeutsche Zeitung, the Stern, WDR3, SFB,
and the Frankfurter Rundschau on one side and the Sender Freies
Berlin, Springer Corporation, Zweite Deutsche Fernsehen and the
Bayerkurier [39] on the other.
Their police forces follow one line in Munich and another one in Berlin.
And finally there is the justice according to the Federal Administrative
Court on one side and that of the Federal Supreme Court on the other.
The reformist political line is taken in order to avoid conflict by a process
of institutionalisation; i.e. co-determination in the decision-making process.
This is done by making reform promises of better prison conditions; or through
clearing up historical baggage, like Brandt’s gesticulation in Poland; or
through avoiding provocation, like the ‘soft-line’ of the Munich police and
the Federal Administrative Court in Berlin; or through a verbal recognition
of failures in the system like the statements on the reformatory system in
Hessen and Berlin. Conflicts are also avoided by the reformist tactic of
moving both inside and ouside the boundaries of the law – they manage to
give the appearance of legitimisation by being armed with the Basic Law [40]. By the use of this prop they can
iron out the contradictions; left-wing crtitique just dries up; the Young
Socialists within the SPD can be kept in check. Without question, the reformist
line has been successful in securing the long-term stability of the capitalist
system – however there are strings attached. It is dependent on economic
prosperity, e.g. the soft-line of the Munich police force is far more expensive
than the hard-line tactics in Berlin. As the Munich police commissioner stated
recently: “Two men with machine guns can hold 100 people in check, 100 men
with truncheons can hold 100 people in check. Without any proper weaponry
you need 300-400 men.” The reformist line does not expect an organised anti-capitalist
opposition of the type that recently took place in Munich.
Disguised as political reformism, the monopolisation of State and corporate
power continues unabated. What Schiller [41]
is doing with his economic policies and what Strauß has already achieved
with his financial reforms is the intensification of exploitation through
the division of labour, labour-intensive production and long-term measures
of rationalisation in the administrative and service sectors.
We learned from the student movement and May ’68 in Paris that the accumulation
of power in the hands of a few works with less resistance when it is handled
noiselessly and when they avoid unnecessary provocations which can produce
instants of solidarity beyond their control. Therefore the Red Cells [42] are not yet forbidden, therefore the
KP [43] can exist as the DKP without
the ban on the KP being lifted, therefore there are still some liberal television
programs, and therefore some organizations can afford to think that they
are not as stupid as they are.
The legal leeway offered by reformism is the capitalist response to the attacks
from the APO and the student movement. As long as it is still possible to
use reformist measures to answer these challenges, they will be more effective
than brute force. By the Left relying on this ‘legal’ framework – by putting
trust in it, by craving for it, by underpinning it with statistical forecasts
and by constantly defending it – this entails repeating the failed strategy
of the ‘self-defence zones’ in Latin America. In other words, this defence
of the State means you have learnt nothing – it gives valuable time to the
forces of reaction to re-group and re-organise. Reactionaries don’t
need to ban the Left... they can smash it.
Willy Weyer [44] was hardly towing a
tolerant line when recently criticised by liberals for his policy of breathalyser
controls, making all car drivers potential criminals. His impudent reply
“we’ll carry on” displays the meaninglessness of the so-called liberal consensus.
Meanwhile, Eduard Zimmermann is trying to turn the whole population into
policemen. The Springer Corporation has taken on the role of controlling
the police leadership in Berlin. And the BZ [45]
journalist, Reer, is doing the job of writing arrest warrants for magistrates
in Berlin in his newspaper column. All the fascist-type mass mobilisation;
the draconian legislation; the calls for the death penalty; the brute force;
the readiness for oppressive action – this has all started taking place.
The liberal “New Look” presented by the Brandt/Heinemann/Scheel Administration
in Bonn is just the facade for this fascist mobilisation.
Comrades are deluding themselves if they think that the cynical move by the
State of granting an amnesty [46] for
the student movement is a sign of progress. By decriminalising hundreds of
students these students have escaped with a ‘shock’; it is a preventive medicine
for further radicalism. They are forced to be reminded of the bourgeois privilege
of being a student (despite the miserable state of the universities) as being
a passport to a better social class. Barriers have been re-erected between
the proletariat and the students; between the privileged daily life of students
and that of the lower-paid. The underclass never got an ‘amnesty’ from the
same class enemy. This is evidence of the marked separation between theory
and practice. In short: Amnesty equals Pacification.
The recent initiative by some ‘reputable’ writers (not just the fucked up
Günter Grass [47]) in the election
campaign is being seen as an attempt to mobilise progressive and democratic
forces. It is supposed to be a defence against fascist tendencies and therefore
worthy of support. This is the mistaken reality of a few people in television,
radio and in publishing – broadcasting the views of a small elite of writers
who have not (as yet) fully capitulated to the system. However these writers
don’t have much to do with those on the receiving end of State repression,
those who are in prison; those victims of class justice; those who suffer
accidents at work; the deluded consumers; the oppressive school system; the
tabloid trash; the miserable council estates; the ghettos of foreigners.
These writers can only understand this reality aesthetically, not politically.
Legality is the ideology of parliamentarianism, the social partnership, the
plural society. Many of those attempting to challenge the system are ignoring
the fact that telephones are being legally bugged; that the post is being
scrutinized; that neighbours are being legally questioned; that informers
are being paid; and that all this State activity is legal. The organisation
of political work and activism – if you want to keep away from the eyes of
State scrutiny – has to take place on an illegal level, as well as the legal
one.
We refuse to rely on some spontaneous anti-fascist mobilisation in the face
of this kind of State terror and fascism. We also don’t believe that choosing
a path of legality necessarily leads to corruption. We are aware that our
political practice can deliver similiar pretexts for intolerance and oppression
such as the ‘alcohol’ issue for Willy Weyer; or the ‘growing crime figures’
issue for Strauß; or the Ostpolitik issue for Barzel; also for
the ranting of a Frankfurt taxi driver; or the collection of money for the
murderer of a car-thief in Berlin. Another excuse for intolerance towards
us is that we are communists. Any progressive change is dependent on the
organisation and struggle of communists. Therefore, whether terror and repression
just cause fear and resignation or provoke armed resistance, class hatred
and solidarity. Whether things will all go smoothly for the State imperialist
strategy or take a different course. All these things are dependent upon
whether communists are stupid enough to just lie down and let things happen
to them or whether they are willing to use the legal means available for
the purposes of organising the illegal struggle – as opposed to what they
are doing at the moment, which is to make out that the armed struggle is
just some sort of fetish or fad.
The fate of the Black Panthers and that of the Gauche Proletarienne [48] can be put down to a false assessment
of the inherent contradiction between the written constitution and the harsh
reality when faced with the challenge of organised resistance. They did not
realise the necessity of changing the conditions of legality when embarking
on the path of active resistance. ‘Active resistance’ means the use of legal
means for the political struggle while sim-ultaneously taking the opportunity
for underground organisation. It is wrong to grasp at illegality as some
sort of last resort – as some kind of desperate measure – it is too self-destructive.
The Red Army Faction is organising the illegal struggle as an offensive
position in a revolutionary intervention.
To be an urban guerilla means to launch an offensive against imperialism.
The Red Army Faction is striking the connection between the legal and illegal
resistance; between national and international resistance; between national
and international struggle; between the strategic and tactical requirements
of the international communist movement.
The Urban Guerilla Concept means that despite the weakness of the revolutionary
forces in the Federal Republic and West Berlin – we intend to make a revolutionary
intervention: Here And Now!
“Either you are part of the problem or part of the solution. There is nothing
in between. The whole shit has been researched and examined from all sides
already. I’m of the opinion that the majority of things in this country are
not in need of any more analysis or study.” (Cleaver*)
SUPPORT THE ARMED STRUGGLE!
VICTORY IN THE PEOPLE’S WAR!
The Red Army Faction
April 1971
Footnotes
N.B. Footnotes #29 and #37 appeared in
the original document, all other footnotes in this document were added
by the editor.
[0] Right-wing tabloids owned by Axel Springer which excelled
at demonizing the left. In 1968 New Left leader Rudi Dutschke had almost
been killed by a right-wing assassin and it was widely reported that the
would-be killer was an avid Springer reader. “Springer shot too!” became
a common slogan amongst radicals, as the tabloids - which had been targeting
Dutschke - were held responsible by the APO and the student movement for
incitement to violence (For more read Bringing the War Home: The Weather
Underground, the Red Army Faction and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties
and Seventies, by Jeremy Varon,University of California Press 2004,
pp. 38-41). On May 19th 1972 the RAF would bomb the Springer building in
Hamburg - despite three telephone warnings the building was not cleared and
seventeen people were hurt. [return to text]
[1] 883: A radical publication called Agit 883; an organ
of the ‘undogmatic/spontaneous’ faction of the ’68 protest movement, existing
from 1968 to 1973. In June 1970 the RAF had published a brief declaration
in the 883 explaining Baader’s rescue from jail and the intention of building
up the RAF.
[return to text]
[2] Michele Ray: A French journalist who conducted
interviews with RAF members in June 1970.
[return to text]
[3] Spiegel: The most important and
widely read mainstream German weekly news publication. [return to text]
[4] Brandt: Social Democratic Chancellor of Germany from
1969 to 1974. [return to text]
[5] Konkret: The weekly publication of the German
Left. Ulrike Meinhof, the main political theorist behind the RAF, had a weekly
column in the magazine before going underground. [return to
text]
[6] Eduard Zimmermann: TV moderator of the German equivalent
of ‘Crimewatch’ – the search for RAF members was given prominence in his
TV programme. [return to text]
[7] Middle East trip: The core members of the RAF
secretly visited Jordan in 1970 for collaborative training with the Palestine
Liberation Organization.
[return to text]
[8] Günther Voigt: Arms dealer in Berlin – one of
the guns used in the rescue of Baader was traced to him. While in Switzerland,
Voigt called on Dürenmatt (an author) and claimed to have had an active
involvement in Baader’s rescue. [return to text]
[9] Freeing Baader: The first ‘operation’ of the
RAF on May 14th 1970 in which one of their most important members, Andreas
Baader, was freed from jail by armed RAF members while he was on an educational
visit to a library. [return to text]
[10] Mahler: Horst Mahler, an early member of the RAF
and their defence lawyer for arson attacks in 1968. Mahler was arrested on
8th October 1970 along with Monika Berberich, Brigitte Asdonk and Irene Georgens
in the mentioned apartment. He left the RAF after he was arrested and is
now a prominent figure for the extreme right in Germany. [return to text]
[11] Georg Linke: an elderly employee of the institute
library where the Baader rescue took place, who was seriously injured in
crossfire during the operation. [return to text]
[12] Manhunt: The manhunt for the RAF members as ‘Public
Enemy Number One’ was unprecedented in its scale. This was before they had
actually embarked on any significant guerilla operations. [return
to text]
[13] Louis August Blanqui: 19th century French revolutionary,
who advocated the armed seizure of power by a disciplined vanguard – Lenin
would later acknowledge his debt to Blanqui in this matter. Served a total
of 36 years in different jails. [return to text]
[14] Genscher: Hans-Dietrich Genscher, FDP (Free Democratic
Party) government minister from 1969 to 1974, went on to become foreign secretary.
Regarding Zimmerman see Note #6. [return to text]
[15] IL Manifesto: Expelled from the Italian Communist
Party in 1969, IL Manifesto was an influential group in the Italian autonomist
movement, having 6,000 members in 1972. They advocated council communism,
whereby decisions would be made by workers’ councils, not by a vanguard party
or State. [return to text]
[16] Barzel: Rainer Barzel, leading politician
of the main German conservative party, the CDU (German Christian Democratic
Union). [return to text]
[17] Grand Coalition: A coalition of the biggest political
parties, some analysts point to this development as being responsible for
a political vacuum in West German politics that encouraged extremist politics.
[return to text]
[18] Emergency Laws: Brought in by the coalition government
in the face of massive student protests, widely seen as being an over-reaction
that fuelled further discontent. [return to text]
[19] Extra-Parliamentary Opposition: the ‘APO’ – formed
by those on the Left who were disillusioned with mainstream politics (particularly
after the formation of the Grand Coalition). Became the main vehicle for
political radicalism in West Germany during the 1960s.
[return to text]
[20] Ostpolitik: A term referring to a new 1970 government
policy of rapprochement with Eastern Europe, in particular East Germany,
after the virulent anti-communism of the Adenauer years. [return to text]
[21] Martin Niemöller: A Lutheran pastor who criticised
church policy during the Nazi era and was in interned in various concentration
camps between 1938 and 1945. After the war he became a prominent pacifist
and campaigned against the re-militarisation of the Federal Republic.
[return to text]
[22] The ‘September strikes’ were a series of unofficial
‘wildcat’ strikes for higher wages in 1969. The strikes were an important
event for the New Left in West Germany. [return
to text]
[23] Bild Zeitung: The biggest selling tabloid paper
in Germany, one of the Springer chain which excelled at demonizing the New
Left.
[return to text]
[24] Herbert Marcuse: German Jewish sociologist who found
refuge in the United States during World War II. Associated with the Frankfurt
School and an exponent of ‘critical theory’, he was a major influence on
the APO in Germany. [return to text]
[25] Springer Campaign: A campaign against the Springer
Corporation, held responsible by the APO and the student movement for incitement
to violence and hysterical anti-Left reporting.
[return to text]
[26] Annual peace demonstrations held on Easter weekend
in Germany. [return to text]
[27] Deutsche Zeitung: Newspaper of the German
Communist Party.
[return to text]
[28] Franz Josef Strauß (Strauss): Christian Social
Union of Bavaria politician, the personification of reactionary politics
in post-war Germany. [return to text]
[29] Gustav W. Heinemann: SPD politician (formerly with
CDU) who was a prominent figure of mainstream anti-fascism. Became President
(a symbolic political role) of Germany in 1969. [return to text]
[30] Gyorgy Lukacz: Hungarian communist and philosopher
who was active in the Hungarian uprising of 1956. After this he came to the
West and influenced the New Left.
[return to text]
[31] Regis Debray: a French intellectual who saw guerilla
struggle as the precursor of mass rebellion. In later years he turned his
back on revolutionary politics and was a political advisor to French President
Mitterand. [return to text]
[32] The male pronoun is used to denote men and women,
as it was in the original German text. [return to
text]
[33] Hand-grenade law: In June 1970 the hand-grenade law
armed West Berlin police with hand-grenades and machine-guns – as well as
the normal handguns. [return to text]
[34] Carbora-Bassa campaign: a campaign to stop the building
of a massive dam in Mozambique, which was then a Portuguese colony. The right-wing
Portuguese government had plans to settle over one million European colonists
in the African country. [return to text]
[35] Comprador: The term Comprador Bourgeoisie is given
to native-born elites in colonies and former colonies who serve the interests
of western imperialism. [return to text]
[36] Kurras: The policeman responsible for killing Benno
Ohnesorg in a demonstration against the Shah of Iran on June 2nd, 1967. He
was found not guilty and later promoted. [return
to text]
[37] Marighella: The most important theorist for the South
American urban guerilla movement. His Minimanual dealt with strategy and
tactics for urban guerillas and was read around the world - the text can
be found on the internet at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marighella-carlos/1969/06/minimanual-urban-guerrilla
[return to text]
[38] Stokely Carmichael: Chairman of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee and Black Panther Party leader. A major militant figure
of the 1960s and a prominent advocate of Pan-Africanism. [return to text]
[39] This is a list of various West German newspapers,
television and radio stations. The RAF notes those leaning to the left or
the right. [return to text]
[40] Basic Law: This is the legal framework for the constitution
of the Federal Republic. [return to text]
[41] Karl Schiller: The SPD’s Minister for Economic Affairs.
[return to text]
[42] Red Cells: Radical left-wing group. [return to text]
[43] The KPD (the “Communist Party of Germany”) was banned
in 1956. It was allowed to re-emerge as the DKP (the “German Communist Party”)
in 1968. [return to text]
[44] Willy Weyer: A regional minister (SPD) for Nord Rhein
Westfallen who was a leading advocate of giving the police more weaponry
and powers. [return to text]
[45] BZ: The Berliner Zeitung regional newspaper.
[return to text]
[46] Amnesty: declared in May 1970 for demonstrators serving
sentences of less than eight months. An attempt to re-integrate many former
protesters back into society. [return to text]
[47] Günter Grass: Well known post-war German writer
and prominent SPD supporter. [return to text]
[48] The Black Panther Party was a leading Black revolutionary
organization in the United States, decimated by State repression. Gauche
Proletarienne was a Maoist organization of the French New Left – banned in
1970. [return to text]
