The Guerilla, the Resistance and the Anti-Imperialist Front
May 1982
RED ARMY FACTION Strategy Paper
We are going to discuss what we have learned in recent years, and what
we want to do as a result. This is strongly limited to general
considerations.
We believe that it is now possible and necessary to develop a new stage
in the revolutionary strategy in the metropoles.
As a preamble, we will outline some of the terrain on which this can
occur. Then we will examine some of the tentative discussions and real
advances
that have occurred, one following the other, over the last two or three
years. An idea, a conception, has been established from which we can
develop. The concrete beginnings show the possibility and the primitive
structure of:
THE GUERRILLA AND THE RESISTANCE. A SINGLE FRONT.
This is our starting point: to bring all those from different regions
who recognize this reality in the political scene, often in a diffuse
fashion and with only a vague idea, to another level of struggle; that
is to say, to make them effective and give them a sense of strategy. If
this is not
done now, all the new, productive and open developments that have
sprung
from this, the possibility of developments unknown until now, risk
being
diluted and lost.
WE DETERMINED 77 TO BE THE TRANSITION POINT BETWEEN THE FIRST STAGE OF
THE GUERRILLA STRUGGLE AND THE NEXT STEP.
The struggle between the guerrilla and the State in 77 led to a
reversal of the political situation here. Within the dialectic of
attack and reaction the conditions of struggle have been transformed.
So, in these new conditions the forms of struggle could and should
change. After 77, nothing could be like it was before; not the State,
not the left, not the role of West Germany in international politics,
not the role of armed struggle in the international class struggle. We
committed errors in 77 and the offensive was turned into our most
serious setback. We will return to this later in detail.
The offensive of 77 ended the struggle we had been waging since 70 and
introduced a new stage. The entire period of struggles that gave birth
to
the RAF and allowed it to grow was concentrated on the question of
power:
will its prisoners be liberated, those people who symbolize the RAF,
and
whom the State uses to justify its own existence? In the same way, the
struggle
to impose the concept of urban guerrilla warfare poses the first
fundamental
question of power: is it realistic to implement the politics of armed
struggle
in West Germany in order to open up revolutionary possibilities? That
is
the question at the heart of all the actions and battles, all the
police
searches and media campaigns that have gone on for all these years.
That
is why the government has pronounced us dead a hundred times.
That is why most of the left has stated loud and clear that armed
struggle "has no future". The isolation, the high security wings[1], the Stammheim show trial [2]… all to mystify what was going on. And finally,
there was 77.
Today, there is no doubt that they decided that Schleyer should die,
that they decided to risk blowing up a hundred people at Mogadishu, and
that
they decided to liquidate the Stammheim prisoners, because they really
hoped
and believed that they could be finished with it once and for all, or
at
least for the foreseeable future.
The dialectic of development that makes everything different now shows
exactly what the guerrilla movement is and what the State is, and how
the
struggle unfolds.
It almost worked - but the irony is that it helped us in a way, for it
has created a situation where we can continue the struggle in changed,
in
fact better, conditions.
The extreme and unrestrained offensive in 77 hit them in the throat
like no previous action; they were forced to become a strong State, to
destroy all critical tendencies, to oppose society even in its most
subtle manifestations, like an object that cannot be altered. This
meant that in the autumn of
77 all opposition was presented with a new situation and new living
conditions - both in actual reality and regarding perspectives for
future struggle
- that forced everyone to fundamentally redefine their relationship
with
power or else renounce their identity.
This qualitative leap is the personal, living moment within real people
at which conditions of struggle here changed: IN FAVOR OF DEVELOPING A
REVOLUTIONARY FRONT IN THE METROPOLE.
There has been an attempt over the past seven years to bring the spirit
and morale, the practice and political orientation of an irreversible
break, to bring about the destruction of the system, to bring it into
this political desert where everything is a facade, merchandise,
conditioning, lies and
falsehood. The guerrilla has tried to establish links with the
struggles
in South-East Asia, in Africa and in Latin America, and it identifies
with
these struggles. The guerrilla has tried to implant itself here and
cause
violent disruption – this is what Che called the stage of survival and
implantation,
the stage when the movement plants the concept of urban guerilla
warfare,
which makes headway and is taken up, even if at a given movement the
existing
illegal armed groups are destroyed. At the same time, it is a concept
that
is imposed by force, from any point of view and in an isolated way, not
only
against a repressive apparatus without historical precedent, but also
against
the conceptions of people we would rather deal with otherwise. In this
scenario of one-dimensional lifelessness, which has existed for
generations, the
idea of liberation has difficulty breaking through thick layers of
corruption, alienation and mental and emotional deformation.
At this point, the question of whether to struggle and whether to
struggle with arms in West Germany and West Europe has been resolved.
It's obvious. That does not mean that the guerrilla’s future is
guaranteed; that is never the case, but the existence of a guerrilla
politic now constitutes the basis from which the struggle can be
developed.
IN THE INTERNATIONAL CLASS WAR, THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AUTHENTIC
REVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY IN THE IMPERIALIST CENTER IS A REALITY.
Around the world, the struggle for liberation, which is part of the
guerrilla project, has become a concrete reality that everyone is
discussing. It is now necessary to become totally implicated in the
situation here and to
proceed in an inverse movement taking resistance in the metropole to
the
front line of international class warfare.
It is a strategy that has its roots here in the totality of the
imperialist center, in the necessity of resistance here. A STRATEGY
THAT MAKES THE REVOLUTIONARY FRONT IN THE METROPOLE THE STAUNCHEST ALLY
OF THE STRUGGLES IN ASIA, AFRICA AND LATIN AMERICA.
This means that from the moment one sides with the guerrilla and the
liberation movements, there is a radical point of departure in the
development of the anti-imperialist struggle.
This means to struggle with a strategically open conception, where each
person based on the gravity of their own situation, based on their own
history and subjective process, can arrive at the common goal of the
destruction of
the imperialist system and the revolutionary overthrow of society, and
can
enter into the concrete struggle in the context of guerrilla politics
and
become part of the revolutionary front here. This means that from the
first
instant their objective, like ours, is to develop the front in the
metropole
and to determine its direction. That is what we mean by “struggling
together,
one front.”
Our line of action up until 77 was different from our current line, in
that prior to 77 what was important was that which built the armed
struggle
or prepared its path, whereas what is now important is to regroup the
guerrilla movement and the militant political struggles in an
integrated whole as
part of a strategy of development in the metropole.
We say: even if the illegal armed organization is the core of this
strategy, it will not be strong enough until armed politics, militant
attacks, the
struggles that result from all forms of oppression and alienation, as
well
as the political struggle, are all united to determine the process of
carrying
out a conscious attack against the weak points in the imperialist
center.
For us the subjective side of the developments since the dialectic of
77 - the possibility of a front in the metropole - is essential. This
is still the case. It is decisive if the struggle is to develop in the
imperialist centers, which do not normally give rise to revolutionary
conditions, but are destructive and rotten due to the objective
conditions, the way the
crisis in managed and all social developments are turned into
instruments
of domination.
Obviously, nobody climbs to a higher level alone. The qualitatively
different situation that exists now is born of the objective
development of the international class struggle and can only be
understood in that context.
The long history of wars of liberation in the colonized continents was
crystallized in the struggle of the Vietnamese liberation front, and
their
victory gave rise to a new historical stage of anti-colonial national
liberation
struggles of peoples subjected to imperialism.
The effects of this historic process: the new strength of the new
national States on the international political terrain - the
generalized economic, political and social crises of countries in the
imperialist center - the
rise, parallel to the liberation struggles, of the Soviet Union as a
superpower equal to the USA – all of this has destabilized the global
balance of power between North and South, between East and West and
between the State and
society in the imperialist centers, and has thus destabilized the
equilibrium
between imperialism and liberation. In other words, the instability of
the
imperialist system produces, everywhere in the world, a situation
within
which imperialism, from the moment it suffers defeat at any point in
the
world system and loses one of its positions of strength in some domain
-
whether a strategic military position (Southern Africa or the Middle
East)
or an economic component (such as Central America of the Persian Gulf)
-
could slide into the final crisis of the system.
The struggle since Vietnam has become a situation of confrontation:
moving to a point where due to overlapping interests or its individual
importance in the global system, any sector - in the center of the
liberation war,
front line or otherwise, around the world - could spark a war of
liberation.
The imperialist system is obliged - to put it in concrete terms - to
reduce its power to a concentrated form: the State, the unified
structure of the chain of States that are dependant on the USA, the
reconstruction of the
capacity for military, economic, and political action and of its
instruments
of domination. In an effort to regain control of global developments,
they
will attack everywhere; in the existing struggles in Asia, Africa and
Latin
America, in the new national States, in the opposition between East and
West,
in West Europe… always with the objective of using this general
offensive
to re-establish their hegemonic position.
For the anti-imperialist struggle this means that it is necessary,
faced with the unity of imperialist reaction, to carry out parallel
struggles
on all fronts. For they are all different sectors of a single front and
struggles that are carried out side by side. No sector – and this
includes
the European sector - will become a front capable of shaking
imperialism
except by its own strength, its own specific development and its actual
conditions and specific history.
The leap in the dialectic of confrontation in 77, which led to
qualitatively new subjective conditions of struggle here, and the
coming together at the base of the process of contradiction within the
center, is completely integrated in the necessity and the possibility
of international class struggle. It
has arrived just on time.
It is true that in 77 the State also acted in this context. Towards the
end of the first stage of the formation of the US chain of States, our
defeat permitted them to pose as a superpower, seemingly without
limits, not on
the level of the national State, but on the level of the global
counter-revolutionary project. As the primary European power, which, in
keeping with its function within the system of States dependent on the
USA, will stand as the political force within West Europe against all
forms of resistance, carrying out the attack on the international
level. But by doing this they have helped the guerrilla strategy to
develop in two decisive ways: by the West European
States developing a politically unified struggle against the guerrilla
the
concept of a West European guerrilla front has become a reality, and by
its
very depth the current situation has provoked the sharpest polarization
and
the most profound rejection of the State, its logic and its laws in the
history of West Germany – all of which makes the revolutionary front
possible.
Right now there is no point in making any detailed analysis of the
internal changes here. The lifestyle of people who have been struggling
for some
time indicates that they have already internalized the new situation
and
accept it as a point of departure. We simply note that the real
opposition
has broken with the system as never before. Cold, without illusions,
now
beyond the reach of the State, they no longer attempt to "change the
system"
or to build “alternative models” within the State. All of that has
become
completely grotesque. It is finished, completely finished - and it’s
only
by finishing with the system that a perspective for life is conceivable.
Imperialism doesn't offer any positive future; there is nothing left
except destruction. This is an essential part of the experience that
roots militancy in all domains of life.
This reality is experienced at the economic base of life, in the arms
race and the preparations for nuclear war, in the natural and social
conditions of life and also on a personal level within each individual,
a level at
which alienation and oppression express themselves by massive
deformation
and the destruction of any depth of individual thought, of sensitivity,
of the personality structure itself. The majority have lost all hope.
Imperialism
in the urban centers has perfected and systematized its domination to
the
point where people no longer feel themselves able to resist. The
suicide
rate has skyrocketed. People lose themselves in sickness, alcohol,
tranquilizers
and drugs. This is the reaction to the long history of defeats,
hardship
and suffering and depoliticization, so that now external violence is no
longer seen to be the cause of all this.
From this misery comes the existing depth of the struggle and of hatred
too. It is no longer a matter of brief spontaneous explosions of rage.
This hatred has been developing for years. This is the terrain upon
which the revolutionary
front in the metropole now develops. So if the development of the
system
is seen, in the final analysis, as bordering on destruction and
extermination,
the resistance carries within itself – whether consciously or not - the
element
that means it now gives everything to have everything, and against
everything,
within concrete isolated struggles, struggles which the resistance
surpasses.
The unity of the revolutionary struggle becomes possible and necessary.
That
is, for all who want to carry out this struggle, a plan of action
within
which the break with the State, the revolt and the militant struggles
can
converge everywhere into one politic - a strategy of attack against the
imperialist
center. A plan of action that, by its practice, forcefully ends in this
convergence.
The Anti-Imperialist Front
Over the past two years there have been a large number of tracts and
actions having as their objective "a front with the RAF," and we know
the need and the desire to achieve this cuts across all politicized
domains. But there is still an enormous distance between the front that
could potentially exist - given this need, this desire, and the
beginnings we have - and its realization in the process of development
as an organization or movement.
The front will not automatically come into being by juxtaposing the
struggles with this proclamation. This proclamation will weaken and the
mobilization to bring it into being will fade if the concept is not
taken up as a practical question, in order to determine how it can be
made a reality. And not only by us.
The front will not come into being unless absolutely everybody does
their own practical research into the elements and the forms of unity
of the armed struggle on the illegal front and militant political
struggle on the legal front. That is to say, the means, the tactics and
the structure; meaning: their field of action, which is itself illegal
and consciously attempts
to make progress in this strategic process.
THE FRONT IS THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRACTICAL AND POLITICAL LINES IN THE
ATTACK ON THE IMPERIALIST POWER - OR IT IS NOTHING.
Over the past two years, since we first conceived of the core of this
new guerrilla structure, we have experimented to determine to what
point this link will develop spontaneously, to what point it is strong
- subjectively and objectively, materially as a possibility of attack -
and to what point, on the other hand, it is difficult to start a
strategic process that goes beyond isolated political initiatives and
actions and the limited practical context.
It does not require morale, zeal or activity. It requires, from the
point of deciding to carry out this struggle, that one begins to
contemplate,
in all aspects of the struggle, how to destroy the system here, and
that
one situates oneself in function of this.
We have gone through this experience ourselves and we will outline what
we know: the decisive moment for the attack now depends on which option
is taken up, and on the struggle of those who have adopted this concept
or who wish to do so;, meaning those who have begun to see themselves
as subjects of the anti-imperialist front, those who have started to
anticipate this within
themselves and for themselves and determine all political initiative
and
action from this perspective and towards this end, who think of
everything one undertakes within this perspective of the combat front.
Since the first discussions about the unity of the anti-imperialist
struggle in 79, there have always been the same obstacles within and
between groups, which have prevented that which could long since have
existed: an active
front .
We haven't done anything except have abstract debates about the myth of
"militant action" or about "links with the masses." All efforts to have
people associate with us or, on the contrary, to gain by these
discussions the slightest links with us, are superfluous. We desire no
other result but that the next steps be taken.
The front signifies more than actions. The front, that is the struggles
that by their common objectives will become one single battle, and
which, from that point, will become practically and politically united,
lives in the West European center in many forms. Actually, the
anti-imperialist front in West Germany – that is militant attacks,
militant projects coordinated in a united fashion that attempt to
counteract the imperialist strategy,
the political initiatives that clarify the politics, that intervene in
the
actual resistance - must take the form of a structured, organized
struggle
in order to have an effect. This is the practical goal of every
development
and all discussions around strategy.
The front signifies more than building a legal structure around the
guerrilla. We have said that there is no "legal arm of the RAF" and we
do not want
to have one. Sure, we have some contacts with people in all areas, and
this
is also part of the concrete politics of the guerrilla, but it is only
by
autonomous and specific development in this area and by having common
objectives
that the anti-imperialist resistance can become part of the
anti-imperialist
front, and it is only in this way that the struggle on this level can
heat
up politically and achieve continuity and force - and in a general way
complete
autonomy and accountability in each milieu of revolutionary political
struggle
in West Europe are essential to this.
The discussions that always remain at the same level, in which isolated
points of view oppose professions of faith, the narrow spirit of
isolated groups, the incapacity to take initiative… all of that
disappears the moment one understands and internalizes the reality of
the situation: that the anti-imperialist front is an urgent necessity,
and even though it is underdeveloped, it could be strong in West
Europe, creating enormous possibilities on the level of an
international war of liberation.
THE SIGNIFICANT COMBAT FRONT AGAINST THE IMPERIALIST STRATEGY HAS TO BE
THE NEXT IMMEDIATE GOAL.
Judging by the vast number of articles on the subject and the
determination and heat of militant actions, people know a lot about
imperialism and its plan – but this is useless if the two elements
don't result in a decisive link that will permit us to evolve together
in this struggle.
STARTING WITH WHAT NOW EXISTS, WITH THAT WHICH EXISTS IN THE ACTUAL
RESISTANCE AND THE CONDITIONS OF STRUGGLE IN THE METROPOLE, THE
PRACTICAL, STRUCTURAL AND POLITICAL ELEMENTS AND THE LINES OF ATTACK
AGAINST THE CORE OF IMPERIALIST POWER HERE THE WEST GERMAN STATE AND
NATO, MUST BE CLEARLY UNDERSTOOD, SO AS TO CONTINUE TO DEVELOP THE
OFFENSIVE AGAINST THEM.
The anti-imperialist struggle is in retreat in the face of the,
certainly contradictory but unified, imperialist machine. There was no
new anti-imperialist mobilization against the post-Vietnam imperialist
reconstruction and the
beginnings of the crisis, nor against the preparations and the
beginnings
of their offensive. In this stage the resistance was paralyzed by the
failure
of the left following 68. In fact the anti-imperialist mobilization
only
formed recently, so the reactionary attacks have had a long time to
develop
on all levels. Their offensive is developed. The spontaneous resistance
is
large, but is not decisively guided by anti-imperialist politics. In
the
future, anti-imperialism must be present as a significant factor and
develop
initiatives in the discussions about and against the imperialist
projects
that now determine the course of history: the American war strategy in
Europe
- the reactionary offensive of the home State - the reactionary
strategy
of the chain of States for rolling back the liberation movements and
the
new national States, as well as against the Socialist States.
At this point in history, the future is not guaranteed. American
imperialism – in its historic crisis, where for the first time in forty
years its existence is threatened - has recourse to the most extreme
means, and, unless somebody prevents it, it will use them if the system
slides into an uncontrollable crisis.
Given the possibility of nuclear destruction, this certainly takes on a
catastrophic perspective, but those of us who are the exploited and
oppressed of the entire world have no reason to fear. Because if it
means the end of imperialism then it serves our needs. Faced with the
possibility of nuclear destruction, our attitude is, firstly, that we
do not fear it and, secondly, that we can prevent it, but only by
revolutionary war. The gravity of the situation resides less in the
possibility of nuclear war than in the fact that American imperialism
is engaged in a general offensive on all fronts with which it intends
to restore its hegemony, something that is not possible except on a
scale greater than the current breadth of its domination. But it is
possible to intervene against this offensive, and whether the attempt
to do so ends in their favour or whether the outcome is a qualitative
leap on the world level of the struggle for liberation (and thus
against them) depends decisively on the anti-imperialist struggle in
West Europe. On a scale
much larger than its domination, this means that what is at stake is
the
production of destruction in daily life, in the conditions of life, in
manipulation
and repression - the death and destruction of human subsistence for
millions
of people for a long time (which does not necessarily mean the big war).
For us, given our relative weakness in the face of the power that
controls almost everything here, the situation is such - to a given
point this is
certain - and for a certain time yet - as to prevent the construction
of
a front that is able to threaten their power here. To resolve the
generalized
crisis at the social, socio-political and politico-military level, they
are
forced to appropriate power in an aggressive fashion and to violate the
political limits of the metropole, the "tolerable limits" - democracy,
well-being,
internal peace - and they can't do this forever if they are constantly
confronted
with anti-imperialist struggle and constantly unmasked in open
confrontation,
for this will lead to a break in the fine ideological thread between
the
State and society. These political limits have become historically
legitimized
for the imperialist centers in West Europe. They are established
pillars
of the system against the workers’ movement and the wars of liberation,
and
they can no longer be destroyed without totally destroying society.
This
is where the relative weakness of the anti-imperialist struggle in the
metropoles
of West Europe could be transformed into a source of strength in the
internal struggle. On the level of the entire imperialist system, their
global project of restructuring can only succeed if their plans within
the imperialist
centers unfold in a relatively easy and rapid fashion without serious
resistance. Their project could not survive the break caused by an
anti-imperialist
struggle here, given the international contradictions. They would have
to
impose solutions internally, as is the case abroad, by exercising the
totality
of their power, at the risk of the international class war being
unified
at a higher level, that is to say, at the risk of fueling the struggle
to
dismantle the imperialist system.
This is the starting point from which we fight. And it is only this
awareness of our opportunity, of our power, of the chance that we have,
especially
here - and, of course, also the awareness of our responsibility - that
mobilizes us to create and develop the anti-imperialist front.
THE REVOLUTION IN WEST EUROPE HAS BECOME THE CORNERSTONE OF THE
WORLDWIDE CONFRONTATION.
The offensive, both within and spreading out from West Europe, based on
the central State (i.e. West Germany), is essential for imperialist
strategy to be able to ensure both its global domination as a
functioning system
and the reproduction of capital in a new cycle. In the face of this
offensive, for us the development of the Front in the metropole is a
vital necessity. It is necessary in order to be able to counter the
present tendency of the global process of liberation to get bogged down
in the opposition between East and West and to allow countries that
have achieved national liberation to break with present obligations
necessitated by their State development.
Amongst the centers, West Europe is the point where the East-West and
North-South frontlines meet; this is both the starting point and the
base for their
restructuring project, specifically the division between State and
society
here. It is here that they must try to develop the necessary military
power
to put pressure on the socialist States and to counter the struggles
for
national liberation, it is from here they must attempt to integrate the
new developing States into their system, and - as a condition for all
of
this – it is here that they must forcefully impose a policy of internal
conformity…
if not consensus, then at least a sort of internal peace. It is in this
sense that they are brought back to the centers. They must use all
their
might to aggressively impose the global reactionary plan at all levels
in
the centers.
Medium-range missiles, neutron bombs, conventional weaponry,
concentration and centralization of capital, rationalization, massive
planned unemployment, turning humans into simple extensions of the
machine, overdevelopment of
the indispensable energy policy for them too because of its importance
as
a way of waging war on the world market, destruction of social
structures
according to the interests of the police and of money - exploitation in
the
race for the necessities of life, professional training conceived of as
a
factory, police, justice, prison, etc.. This is what their offensive is
all
about; conceived in military fashion it is the iron vice squeezing all
distinct
sub-sectors of urban society, which long ago made the choice for us as
to
whether we want the front in the urban center or not - the war has
already
begun. The only question today is whether there will be a revolutionary
front
to oppose the reactionary offensive.
The anti-imperialist front is born against this horizon in the centers.
Its significance is not just measured by whether or not it is able to
stop this or that imperialist project right now. That which it hopes
for, which it always hopes for as a fighting section within and on
behalf of the international front, is that, with the beginning of the
total confrontation between imperialism and liberation, a balance of
forces can be created that will make the social revolution possible
here.
OUR DEFINITION OF GUERRILLA ACTION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANTI-
IMPERIALIST FRONT MEANS RESISTANCE AGAINST THE IMPERIALIST MACHINE,
WHICH IS GETTING
READY TO ATTACK HERE, ANDMEANS THE ATTACK AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
REVOLUTIONARY FRONT IN THE METROPOLE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WORLD
STRUGGLE.
The attack, which the whole situation demands, must come from here. On
the world stage, the two blocs stand face to face, petrified by their
potential for destruction and congealed in their weaponry. Liberation
movements have become States, and those not yet States act, in their
struggle to become
one, virtually as if they were. International policy and international
relations constitute the principle terrain for these liberation
movements and new
States. This consists of the opposition between East and West (which
reproduces
itself in these countries), the world market in which and in opposition
to which they are forced to develop themselves and the new political
power
of the liberated States on the world stage, which allows them some room
to
maneuver. It is a logical development. It is both the expression of the
power
attained by the struggle for national liberation and of the weakness
that
oblige them to continue to function in the State system which
imperialism
has created.
In this situation, the new States’ political orientation is faced with
two contradictory tendencies. On the one hand, increasing misery, mass
poverty and underdevelopment push them to adopt radical solutions. On
the other
hand, the inevitable nature of the struggle to obtain those resources
which
are almost only available from the imperialist States pushes them to
come
to terms with imperialism. So the new States are driven to accept
increasingly
contradictory obligations, with which comes the risk of catastrophic
splits
through civil wars, famine, hopelessness, repression and intervention.
But
they have not chosen these contradictions. They are above all the
result
of colonial history, from which imperialism still profits by exploiting
the
destruction it leaves behind after it is chased from the country.
The urban guerilla and the militant struggles today result from a
dynamic launched by the liberation movements - and if today, after 30
years, a movement has been able to develop here thanks to their
struggle, the situation there is actually and essentially a result of
the weakness of the struggle here.
There can be no perspective for the destruction of the imperialist
system as long as the perspective is not opened up in the centers of
power, of
consumption and of production. In other words, as long as the politics
have
not taken a material form, which, as a significant force in the
international
struggle, in its real movement, its goals and its continuity, shows a
willingness
and the prospect of be done with the system. It is only from this
moment
that a revolutionary leap in consciousness is conceivable.
Imperialism will not collapse by itself. Nor will it collapse by being
encircled and strangled from the outside. Unless the front develops
here,
the world will repeat the very experience that has been fatal to the
history
of class struggle in Europe and,. on the political level, to the
opposition
between East and West: trench warfare, bitter and bloody. Imperialism
is
militarily and politically aggressive, overdeveloped in technologies
and
the techniques of production and organization. Its goal is to once
again
be the sole world power, whether this means militarily defeating the
Soviets
and the socialist States, which wish to remain an equal power, or
whether
this means politically defeating the consciousness of the peoples of
Africa,
Latin America and Asia. It will surely fail, but it is politically,
militarily
and economically powerful enough to block those countries that have
realized
their national liberation by dictating to them the conditions of their
development.
It may also be powerful enough to impose an arms race, and to use the
world
market in order to unsettle the economy of the socialist countries. In
the
metropole, where the State never stops trying to carry imperialist
power
to hegemony by exploitation, police state tactics, and crisis
management,
it will stamp out a decaying society.
The Struggle For Liberation
If the resistance and the revolutionary offensive constitutes a
necessity due to our particular situation here, there is also, for us,
and for us
alone, the possibility of opening a perspective for the end of the
system
- a perspective, which, by destroying the growth of imperialism,
exceeds
its own function.
As the metropole matures, the productive social development has
begun to transform itself into destruction. The revolutionary struggle
here, with its goals and structured as a fighting front, allows us to
see a social
future beyond the historical limits of the system of existing States.
In
this historical stage of imperialism, derailed abroad and
disintegrating
at home in generalized crisis, the fact that the conditions are ripe
for
the destruction of the metropole also implies that the conditions are
ripe
for the radical struggle to reverse social conditions, in the sense of
the
communist goal whereby one does not imagine life as a mere step in
transition,
nor is the victory conceived of as taking State power, but instead as a
seamless
process of resistance that is a counter-force and liberatory
transformation.
THE REVOLUTIONARY POLICY IS THE STRATEGY WHICH IMAGINES THE WHOLE OF
THE RESISTANCE IN THE FRAMEWORK OF EVERYDAY REALITY HERE AS A PROCESS
OF STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM AND AS COMPRISING A PART, A SECTION AND A
FUNCTION WITHIN THE WORLD STRUGGLE, IN WHICH THE GOAL CAN ONLY BE
REACHED BY COMBINED ACTION.
This policy has nothing to do with a global theory. It does not
construct one of those ideological models which succeed one another and
which one
pretends will be realized later. It can only be a real process.
The construction of Utopia is a long-term and concrete strategy – one
could say a lifestyle - within which the strategic goal of destroying
imperialist power is tied to a real transformation right now. To the
degree that the
front has developed, this process liberates the political terrain and
the
individual from the State – it creates, by building a counter-force,
the
necessary conditions for the politico-military offensive. The
production
and material development of the Front includes re-establishing fully
human
development in the combatants’ relationships. Immediate transformation,
liberated
territory and revolution are fully integrated in the process of
resistance
- and it is only in this way that one finds the truth.
The revolutionary strategy here is very simply a strategy against their
strategy.
WHOEVER ATTACKS THEIR STRATEGIC PLANS OR THEIR CONCRETE PROJECTS,
WHOEVER, BY MATERIAL ATTACK, POLITICALLY BREAKS THE IMPERIALIST
OFFENSIVE IN ITS
INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL ORIENTATION AND WHOEVER THUS BLOCKS THEIR PLANS
BEFORE
THEY CAN EXECUTE THEM, WHOEVER DOES SO CREATES THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT
BECOMES
THE NEW RESISTANCE AND THE PROCESS OF THE FRONT ON THE INTERNATIONAL
LEVEL,
WHOEVER, IN THE FORM OF A SIGNIFICANT COMBAT FRONT, CREATES BY MATERIAL
FORCE A BREAK IN THE CONSENSUS IN THE IMPERIALIST CENTER, AND WHOEVER,
BY
PROPAGATING THIS BREAK ON THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL, DEPRIVES THEM OF
THEIR
LEGITIMACY OR THEIR ATTRACTIVE QUALITIES, WHICH THEY NEED TO REPRODUCE
THEIR
FINANCIAL SYSTEM, THEIR SYSTEM OF MANIPULATION AND OF DESTRUCTION IN
THE
NEW STAGE, IN OTHER WORDS, THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE WORLD… AND WHOEVER, AS
A RESULT OF THE RADICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE METROPOLE, SHOWS THE
POSSIBILITY
OF THE END OF THE IMPERIALIST POWER AND OF ITS EXISTENCE AMONG HUMANS
THEREFORE
CONTRIBUTES TO BRINGING ABOUT A FREE SOCIETY.
Regarding 77
The problem which played against us during the kidnapping of Schleyer
was, as regards our concrete goal of liberating the prisoners, that we
did nothing to develop a political objective during the offensive, nor
did we elaborate on the apparent contradictions during the crisis. Even
though the action
touched a nerve for the State, we did not react, on the political
level,
to the challenge we were presented with.
In the summer of 77 the situation of the prisoners had reached a point
where we could no longer put off an action to liberate them. The
prisoners
were on a thirst strike and Gudrun was dying.
Since Stockholm[3] the question of
the prisoners had become central to the guerrilla offensive. We knew
that at
this time any attack could only be made from a position of relative
weakness,
but we chose to attack because the war is not a given between us and
them,
but exists only if one materially creates it in terms of the question
of
power. The prisoners constitute a central question within which two
elements,
beginning from the demand for their liberation, meet and crystallize:
the
relationship maintained between the guerrilla and their imprisoned
comrades,
the relationship between everyone who shares the struggle, and the
importance
of each to the whole - and also the power relations in general, because
the
guerilla materially and directly challenged State power, because the
attack
consciously aimed to create a political crisis in suppressing one of
the
pillars of their power, as with Schleyer (it is only here that the
possibility
exists), and thus exposed the internal structures of power by forcing
them
to react.
We hoped to confront the SPD with the decision of whether to exchange
these two individuals who embody the global power of FRG capital in a
way that
few others do.
Ponto for his international financial policy (revealing how all the
German banks, especially his own Dresdner Bank, work to support
reactionary regimes in developing countries and also the role of FRG
financial policy as a tool to control European integration) and
Schleyer for the national economic
policy (the big trusts, concerted action, the FRG as an international
model
of social peace).
They embodied the power within the State which the SPD must respect if
it wishes to stay in power.
Our action was meant to expose the contradiction that lies in the
tension between the strategy of American capital (which has determined
the SPD's
conception of the State and all of its reactionary maneuvering in
matters
of internal and external policy since 1945) and the banks and trusts,
or,
if you prefer, national capital. Certainly national capital cannot
formulate
a clear policy in the face of the hegemony of the American line - at
least
to take "as is" the limited provincial variations of a Kohl[4] or an Albrecht, etc., or Strauss’s [5] grand projects which he has been trying in vain to
carry out for 20 years. But the strength of this national capital,
which permits it to be competitive and to spread itself vertically
within the capitalist structure, naturally finds its expression in a
consensus and in the national elites' consciousness, such that Schmidt [6] is obliged to make the most of the
high and the low in the national and
international context.
The political escalation of the action was defused mainly by the fact
that Ponto[7] was not successfully
kidnapped and, as such, one of the two pillars of the tactical and
political conception was lacking But our most important error was to
have not completely reconsidered the action when the federal government
let the first ultimatum pass, when it became obvious that they had
abandoned Schleyer and were awaiting his
death [8], which would bring them
rapid
consolidation. As to Schleyer, in spite of all the communications back
and
forth, we can only conclude that his relationships and his influence
amounted
to nothing in the face of the growing homogeneous imperialist strategy.
They acted according to the tactics and psychology of the BKA:
avoid any official decision by the government, prolong the action by
pretending to negotiate, all in order to facilitate the police’s
objective, prevent
any public pressure by means of an information blackout and impose, by
Wishnewski’s trip to a so-called welcoming country, a "condemnation of
international
terrorism", with the focus in this case on the prisoners.
All of this objectively left us the time and the opportunity to exploit
this situation politically. For example, to immediately use Schleyer’s
conversations in order to aggravate the contradictions which were
disrupting the "unity of all democrats," contradictions which went as
far as the CSU’s attempt
to rid themselves of Schmidt by proposing the release of the prisoners,
to
be immediately followed by the declaration a state of emergency, which
would have signaled the end of any social-democratic policy, i.e., an
open recognition of the State crisis, which must then be stopped at any
price.
In this situation, characterized by an escalation in which our
defensive attitude became obvious, Commando Martyr Halimeh [9] decided to intervene, as it was possible for them
to
do so given the pressure.
It was the first time a commando from a liberation movement directly
intervened in the confrontation here and made the metropolitan struggle
their own.
We have frequently spoken about the tactical conceptions and incorrect
strategies regarding this action, which provided the State with the
opportunity to
go on the counter-offensive. We take full responsibility for these
errors.
It was an error on our part not to seek the resolution in the metropole
itself, but to carry the escalation into one of the new national
States. In
effect, because of the balance of power, such a decision could only be
addressed
here because it concerned prisoners who embodied the struggle here and
because
it was a question of the State isolating the RAF. The tactic of
hijacking
an airplane - tied to an action that originated in the metropole and
which
aimed to polarize and lead to a break between the people and the State
in
the metropole – could only neutralize the attack because the people in
the
plane found themselves in the same situation, treated as objects, as
the
imperialist State always and in all ways places people – and this
destroyed
the goal of a revolutionary action.
The incorrect conception of the action, which played against the
commando, was the weapon which the government used to corner them,
starting from the principle that the commando obviously attempted and
continued negotiations as long as it saw any hope of freeing the
prisoners in West Germany.
As for the SPD, it chose to solve matters by carrying out a massacre,
as it had in Stockholm. This is because it challenges all the people’s
preconceptions when American interests, the central form of domination
and consolidation, are attacked. At the time Schmidt said, "It was
impossible to know if it
would result in an acceptable conclusion".
The SPD opted for a military solution at a time when a guerrilla
victory in West Germany - the central country for the reactionary
integration of
West European States - would have meant a decisive setback for the
imperialist reconstruction plans.
West Germany took the lead in the reactionary counter-offensive to
consolidate the mechanisms of internal security in West Europe. But
with Stammheim and Mogadishu, a central element of the Social
Democratic policy was unmasked - the hidden war. The imperialist State
appeared brazenly and overtly reactionary; it no longer shied away from
comparisons with its Fascist past, but embraced them;. the ''desert
foxes" of Mogadishu as an example for German youth.
But this also exposed the weakness of the metropolitan States, with the
internal fragility of this structure becoming externally clear in a
fashion more obvious than ever before.
Red Army Faction -May 1982
Footnotes
N.B. All footnotes in
this document were added by the translator and editor. None are
originally from the RAF.
[1] High Security Wings - isolation units
reserved primarily for political prisoners. [return to text]
[2] Stammheim Show Trial - refers to the 1974
trial of the original RAF founders, Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof,
Jan-Carl Raspe, and Andreas Baader. Holger Meins, a fifth co-defendant
died
on hunger strike on Nov, 9, 1974. [return to text]
[3] Stockholm - reference to the April 25, 1975
seizure of the German Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, by the 6 member
Commando Holger Meins of the RAF. They demanded the release of 26
political prisoners, including the Stammheim prisoners. A police
assault on the Embassy resulted in an explosion, which killed one
guerrilla, Siegfried Hausner,
and one hostage. [return to text]
[4] Helmut Kohl - leader of the CDU, the
Christian Democratic Party. [return to text]
[5] Franz Josef Strauss - leader of the Bavarian
CSU, Christian Social Union, the extreme right equivalent of the CDU in
Bavaria. [return to text]
[6] Helmut Schmidt - leader of the SPD at the time of
the Stammheim events. The SPD was then the governing party and Schmidt
the Chancellor. [return to text]
[7] Ponto's kidnapping failed and he was executed
in his home by a RAF Commando on July 30, 1977. [return
to text]
[8] Schleyer's kidnapping occurred on Sept. 5,
1977. On Oct. 20, his body was found in the trunk of a car. He was
executed by
the RAF in retaliation for the murders of Ensslin, Raspe, and Baader in
Stammheim on Oct. 18. [return to text]
[9] Commando Martyr Halimeh - a Palestinian
commando that hijacked a Lufthansa airliner to Mogadishu on Oct. 18,
demanding the release of the imprisoned RAF guerrillas. All but one
were killed when the GSG-9, a special German police unit, stormed the
plane. Several hours later the "suicides" of Ensslin, Raspe, and
Baader, as well as the "attempted
suicide" of Irmgard Möller, were reported. [return
to text]
