Today, we recognize that the shooting of the GI, in the concrete
situation in the summer, was a mistake that blocked the effectiveness
of the attack against the Air Base[1]
and the debate about the politico-military purpose of the action, as
well as the overall offensive. It is clear that the shooting of the GI
represented an escalation that, in and of itself, had a strategic
quality, for it meant intensifying the war against US imperialism, in
the sense that, for us, all things connected to the US forces are
everywhere and at all times legitimate targets for military attack. This
step cannot be politically justified as a "practical
necessity", but must be based on a strategic quality. However, it does
not correspond to the subjective development of the resistance and the
objective situation that exists here today.
The attack against the Air Base had a specific goal, which was to
attack the centers, the bases of the US war machine, as well as those
troops who participate directly in the war between revolution and
imperialism; meaning the intervention troops and special forces that
prepare and carry out open and clandestine military operations against
the liberation struggles in the Third World, the soldiers who carry out
massacres in the Third World.
The contradiction regarding the objectives, which can only function as
a barrier to discussion, blurred the meaning of the action. And,
naturally - and this was exacerbated because we sent the ID card
without comment - we
supplied State Security and a bunch of arseholes on the left with
ammunition for their attempt to alienate the resistance movement from
the shooting. Our mistake was used against the unity of the
revolutionary front, towards which both the resistance and ourselves
had made a decisive step during the winter [2].
That this barrier has been addressed and the offensive has led to
important discussions geared towards further development indicates how
deep the process of unity already is, as well as how necessary a common
political exchange is, an area in which we ourselves must do a better
job.
We want to use this opportunity to talk about the action against the
Air Base and, in this connection, also about the attack against the
SHAPE School in Oberammergua [3].
We developed these actions around the resistance here, so as to advance
the West European struggle against US-NATO military strategy, for which
West Europe serves as a strategic centre for blitzkrieg and atomic war
preparations. Our basis was the continuity and further development of
attacks against the military strategy given the qualitative and
quantitative evolution of resistance in the FRG and West Europe. The
resistance has become aware that military force is the most extreme
policy option available to the imperialist chain of states, to which
all political, economic and social means are suited. The resistance has
also become aware that this determines social
developments in the NATO countries and is the violent constraint which
establishes
the parameters of the State apparatus, of the structure of the world
market and, in this connection, also determines the solution to the
crises here, and assures the success of the imperialist formation. In
short, the general crisis of imperialism is to be resolved in an
offensive to re-establish their global domination.
Against this, the resistance all across West Europe, and above all in
the FRG, has increased in strength in its militant political campaigns
and
in its common work around the attacks of the guerrilla, and we have
taken
the first step towards the unity of the anti-imperialist struggle in
West
Europe. With these strengths as the subjective political
basis
for the leap forward, we will continue to escalate our attacks. The
imperialist
formation has a highly developed military strategy. What they want is a
flexible military commando, so as to be able to wage war on all fronts
simultaneously.
The NATO officers at the SHAPE School are trained for that purpose, and
the
attack should be viewed in this light.
The struggle against the imperialist war strategy is our direct
material contribution and an option available to us in the
international war of liberation. THE REVOLUTIONARY FRONT IN WEST EUROPE
CAN HAMPER THE MACHINE, WHICH WANTS TO INCREASE AND ESTABLISH ITS POWER
WITHIN AND OUTSIDE OF THE CENTERS, AND CREATE, IN THIS STRUGGLE,
CONSCIOUSNESS AND A NEW RESISTANCE TO THE SYSTEM, A SYSTEM THAT HAS AS
ITS VERY NATURE ANNIHILATION.
We based the attack against the Air Base on the concrete balance of
forces, as revealed by the reaction of the imperialist chain to the
winter offensive.
IT WAS THE REACTION OF THE UNIFIED SYSTEM TO THE APPEARANCE OF THE
REVOLUTIONARY FRONT IN WEST EUROPE.
On the basis of the dialectic of struggle, the strategic breakthrough
of the West European guerrilla in connection with and as one
result of the new point of departure of the resistance here; the unity
of
the resistance, the prisoners and the guerrilla; the leap forward in
the
struggle in the NATO states in the West Europe; and because they are
politically
incapable of halting the development in the metropolitan societies of
conditions
suitable to their overthrow… Because of all this, they were forced to
expose
themselves and to react as a unified system, to act together with the
goal
of liquidating the revolutionary resistance, following a militarily
conceived
line.
The NATO Crisis Committee was the center of the decision making
process. The intervention of Schultz [4]
in the West European governments, Spandolini's frantic trips as the
Chairman of the
Council of Europe during this time, the statements from the NATO
Ambassador and from Soares, Mitterand and Kohl [5]… these are the political proof that the West
European governments have been integrated into the American strategy of
prevention and retaliation against the international revolutionary
struggle. The conversion to this unified imperialist
logic here was based on the decision to murder the prisoners, so as to
deal
a heavy blow to the political victory of the front.
That was, for us, the subjective and objective situation, on the basis
of which we decided to carry out our next attack against the US
military strategy, against the core of its reactionary structure and of
its political expression, the standardized State policy of the
imperialist chain against the revolutionary struggle in West Europe and
the Third World.
BECAUSE IT IS THIS STRATEGY AND THIS UNIFORM POWER STRUGGLE THAT
CLASHES WITH THE RESISTANCE AND THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE HERE, AND IT
IS ON THIS THE LEVEL THAT THE CONFRONTATION PASSES THE POINT OF NO
RETURN.
Since the winter, the development of the counter-revolutionary war here
has exposed the psychological war being waged against the resistance -
"terror in the streets,” "two hundred legal RAF members," "the four
levels of the RAF," [6] "RAF on
Hafenstrasse," [7] etc. – and also
against the guerrilla - "criminal murderers-animals-the plague." It
aims to discredit the revolutionary resistance and separate it
politically from the people, thereby creating a climate in which the
State is given a free hand to carry out any and all repressive
measures. This is also why nothing appears in the media about the
motives and goals of the resistance, only about "terror and blood;"
nothing is said about the murder of Günther Sare [8], but instead the focus is on the "mob in the
streets" and the "new terrorism." Nor, if it actually gets to that
point, should anything be said about the massacre of the Palestinians
by the imperialists, but instead the focus should be on the
"bloodthirsty lunatics" if the combatants take the war back to where it
has been planned and received its political blessings, to those who
supply the weapons to the Zionist army. They want, through
psychological warfare, to establish an identification amongst the
people in the metropole, so that all those who struggle against
imperialism are outlawed and are turned over for "uncontrolled"
annihilation, to enforce the escalation of police terror against the
resistance - from deliberate attacks to murder - with
hundreds of preliminary hearings and mass arrests, to enforce the State
Security
project, through which permanent Kontaktsperre[9] will be imposed on the prisoners step by step, and
by which the identity and the struggle of the prisoners will be
criminalized - “RAF in prison,” “the hunger strike is a RAF action” -
and with it that of all those that struggle alongside them.
The totality of the terror is an example of the political agony of the
imperialist system in crisis. It is evidence that they have already
lost politically in their struggle against the revolution, so now all
they can do is try to use violence to prevent revolutionary politics
from spreading further. They know that if the front grows here in West
Europe, if it continues to develop its politico-military capacity to
act and succeeds in guiding the
confrontation between the resistance movement and the State, a crack
will
open in their project for the formation of West Europe, a crack that
could
create real friction and shake the West European center. Since the
winter,
they have acted on the basis of the possibility that the
political-practical process that the West European front has
established could, in the long term, strengthen and broaden the new
consciousness. This is the definitive point from which they act.
THE FRONT CAN ONLY HALT THE FASCIST ADVANCE OF THESE STATES IF IT
ATTACKS THEM ON ALL LEVELS AND IN ALL SECTORS, IN ORDER TO SHARPEN THE
CONFRONTATION AND MAKE IT MORE GENUINE.
Since the winter, this has been the issue for us: to grasp the core
of the experience, that the offensive has broken through, that the
unity
of resistance has become possible in the political conception and
practice of the revolutionary struggle, in the orientation
of revolutionary
politics. It is struggle itself that mobilizes and accelerates the
decisions,
that allows us to make these leaps forward and that points the way for
everyone, that achieves the beginning of resistance against the
individual projects of the states.
And in the winter, it also became clear how fed up the resistance was
with reformism. Wherever revolutionary resistance is the decisive
orientation, all reformism is shattered and shows itself for what it
is: crisis management against radical change, a factor in all
confrontations between the resistance and the State here. The
reformists have nothing more to say
to those who take their protest and resistance seriously. The
alternatives,
whether green, red-green [10] or
the
morass of left alternatives, become increasingly insignificant with
every
confrontation and crumble more and more with every clash between the
resistance
and the State. So, the reformists will be recognized more and more
clearly
for what they always were: functionaries who support the ruling system,
advance
outposts of the State within the mass movement. All they do is
reintegrate
the resistance into the State and reinforce the people’s sense of
powerlessness,
so that nothing can be done against the fascist State, against the
system’s
claim to total power. In response to questions that go to the heart of
the
State's power, they give the standard State rationalizations, because
they
no longer have political explanations. No more room to maneuver and no
more
fuel for the flames of "increased democracy and participation,
increased
quality of life," etc.; only cops, BGS [11],
water cannons, surveillance, arrests, truncheons and controls. This was
the
experience of many people in the resistance movement during the
confrontations
of the last few years; and on the basis of this experience, the
possibility
for the further development of revolutionary politics grew.
That is the political basis which gave rise to the dialectic of the
guerrilla, the resistance and mass antagonism in the metropoles, and
from which new possibilities for the further anchoring of revolutionary
politics were opened up.
THE PROCESS OF RADICAL CHANGE WILL CONTINUE TO GROW AS A RESULT OF
FURTHER ATTACKS – OR IT WILL NOT GROW AT ALL.
After the winter, we wanted to advance the practical process of the
front on the basis of the altered subjective and objective conditions,
that is to say, on the basis of what the front here and in West Europe
had won and the reaction of the imperialist bourgeoisie to that
victory; on the basis of the new starting point acquired for the
struggle, which is the basis for the politico-military offensive. To
start to develop an awareness of individual strengths, together with
those who also desire this on the basis of their own subjective
experience, and, having achieved that, to consolidate and develop it
further, and with this to begin to carry on the discussion about the
process of a common strategy and to arrive at a new quality in the
politico-military organization of the front; to initiate revolutionary
practice here by determining the contents and goals of the
revolutionary struggle; to take a step forward by constructing the
autonomous collective structures necessary for the struggle; and, as
such, to break through the endless cycle of fucked-up resignation,
confusion, isolation and all the rest of it.
Certainly, the offensive remained a weak one and we made mistakes. But
it nevertheless contained new qualities from which we can continue to
develop a practical connection with the militant resistance. We are not
saying that the offensive has clearly answered all the questions which
exist for the resistance, and that, naturally, also exist for us.
That is never the case.
However, the revolutionary process here can be developed. We will not
succeed except through the attack itself, through the destruction of
imperialist power and the construction of revolutionary counter-force,
that is to say: our political determination, our concrete structures
and our struggle.
And always through the subjective leap forward in the struggles.
RESISTANCE, AS WE UNDERSTAND IT, IS ABOUT SMASHING THE SYSTEM.
It aims at the practical overthrow of the existing social structure, a
radical change in the situation in the metropole. It offers radical
change now, restoring full human dimensions to the
combatants’ relationships.
This is the revolutionary goal of every initiative, and
only
as such can they be deemed genuine. Only in struggle is there a radical
break with everything that repeatedly drives the people back into the
deadly
garbage heap of the system. This is achieved by showing that it is
possible
to push the system into crisis and by showing how to do so, and in this
way exposing the break in the consensus and destroying
its
political base, the last fragment of legitimate appeal of a decaying
system,
destroying the basis upon which it means to reproduce itself
internationally. This is how revolutionary politics can be achieved
here.
The practical development of the resistance makes it absolutely clear
that the next step that must occur is intensive, concentrated
discussion
between those who have arrived at a conscious decision to struggle in
the
front – in any event, those considering it – about how the struggle
here
can be further developed, organized and made effective. And on this
basis,
they themselves must determine the conditions and the concrete practice
necessary to create the politico-military offensive. That is the
immediate
goal. At the same time, the necessary precondition for this is that
increasing
numbers of people who struggle against individual State projects have
begun
to see a place for these individual struggles and for themselves within
the
revolutionary struggle. In this way, a political, practical-critical
quality develops in each person who, regardless of the context, begins
to
lend support to the resistance. That is different than the concept of
teaching
"the masses" from above, which always means making people into objects,
instead
of making oneself into a subject, which is to say, into an antagonist
of
the system who through individual struggle sets a political process in
motion.
Those who want to struggle must separate themselves from everything
that
will hold them back (reformists, opportunists, windbags).
That the process of the front will not unfold without interruption or
on a massive scale is clear. However, understanding itself to be a
united
front, it has already mobilized its capacities and its power and
carried
them to their political conclusion in the concrete confrontation with
the
State. It has done so through practical initiatives, in which it is
clear
to everyone that the break with the ruling system leads
to
a struggle for liberation.
THE SUBSTANCE AND THE FORM OF REVOLUTIONARY POWER DEVELOP IN THE
PROCESS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE
Self-understanding and collectivity don't exist outside of the
struggle. Only within the struggle can they be established and can the
barriers between people be torn down. Such is the process for
constructing proletarian
counter-power. The opposite of socially organized power, the
unhindered
repression of capital, is that which develops freedom within the
existing
conditions by establishing objectives and interventions that allow it
to
develop continuity and power.
This process is only possible and only exists as a result of each
individual’s decision and efforts, directed towards a common goal: the
destruction of the system and revolutionary change, molded by the total
interrelatedness of whole human beings in the context of the front.
THIS SUBJECTIVE LEAP FORWARD IS THE DECISIVE FACTOR THAT WILL DETERMINE
HOW THE FRONT WILL DEVELOP HERE.
At the same time, it is the basis upon which those who have arrived at
a political understanding and a practical conception will come together
and construct the conditions necessary for action. It is the basis upon
which they will develop their illegal consciousness, upon which they
will learn
to organize the struggle and to understand themselves, in
everything they think and do, as a part of the whole - the front - and
act accordingly.
Organization for struggle, as we understand it, is the open process of
those who struggle, their subjective development, their leaps forward
and the decisions by which they continuously advance. Self-awareness
and the complete accountability of each individual are essential at
every level of
the struggle from the outset.
It is absolutely senseless, from the perspective of
struggle,
to expect a giant strategic plan at this point. We do not, in any case,
wish to get into this or to philosophize about a Soviet Republic and
morals.
This only leads to one losing the basic ground under one’s feet, from
which
one must learn to work.
IT ALWAYS COMES FROM SUBJECTIVE ACTION, FROM WILLPOWER, FROM
POLITICIZATION, FROM CONSCIOUS DECISIONS – FROM POLITICS.
What we hoped for from the action [12]
in the summer was that everyone would clarify their own circumstances,
that the break would be deepened, that they would understand themselves
to be in a war and would sharpen their consciousness for the
confrontation. And this is exactly what has occurred.
It was clear to us that our decision about the escalation in the
summer,
via the action against the Air Base, would not be understood
immediately
by everyone in the resistance as the correct and necessary step for the
front.
We knew that we would spark a discussion, that comrades would have to
decide
one way or another where they stood in this war and that all of the
contradictions
and all of the different ideas about the development of the front would
clash.
But we were certain that the subjective development had gone far enough
to
make our leap forward possible; not to mention that it
was
damned necessary based on the entire objective situation here and
internationally,
and not to mention that it was a positive step at this point to raise
the
entire question of "what the front wants" and how to proceed following
the
winter.
Naturally, as a result of our errors, not making the basis for the
attack politically clearer and our silence about the GI, which created
uncertainty as to whether it was a counter-action, we have made the
discussion very difficult and triggered debates that are not, in
and of themselves,
relevant.
At first we didn't understand the problem. Above all, we hadn't
reckoned on the neutralizing factors in the resistance still being so
solidly established that the State could reinforce them through their
counter-campaigns, especially after 1982 [13], when powerful militant actions occurred
throughout the FRG.
"One cannot attack random GIs." What is going to stop them then, and
why do so many people go so far as to subject the US troops to a class
analysis? To this we reply that the international struggling
proletariat answered this question long ago; in Latin America, in South
East Asia, in the Middle East… and here as well. Many people expected
an absolute self-criticism from us and this enraged us. We didn't want
to believe that these
were real questions. The interview [14]
is an example; in the given situation, nothing else was possible. If
people
do not connect, do not talk together, a clarification is impossible.
Everything is alien. We allowed this to occur. Then it became clear to
us that we wanted nothing to do with these conditions. At that time, we
had briefly lost sight of the fact that there were many who had been
waiting for something like this
in order to rant and rave or else legitimize their personal retreat. We
had
lost sight of the fact that absolutely nothing could be achieved with
these
people, but only with those comrades who wish to struggle here. It is
in
order to strengthen our unity with these comrades that we will clarify
our
differences and respond to the questions they have asked.
We are often asked why we've taken this particular step - attacking the
soldiers on the Air Base. What is the perspective and desired effect of
this action?
This is a practical question about how the revolutionary resistance
here can stop imperialism, and American imperialism as its most
aggressive example, from planning and carrying out their strategy of
annihilation from here in peace. That is to say, how can we put so much
political pressure on them that their plans are blocked before they can
carry them out?
West Europe is at the center of imperialism's capacity to carry out
war. Further, the fact is that it is here that one finds the commando
headquarters and logistical bases for atomic and conventional warfare
against the liberation movements in Asia, Africa and the Middle East
and against the socialist States. The revolutionary resistance must
therefore assume that some of the troops, which could at any time
intervene in the Middle East, in South East Asia
or in Africa, are stationed here. Following changes in
the
Pentagon's plan of action, some of the US troops stationed in West
Europe
have a dual function; they are no longer only troops for raids against
the
East, but are, at the same time, the "Central Command" which directs
the
interventions of the RDF and the
"Eucom" [15] in the
Third World, as well as reinforcements for the US military
machine, through the "European NATO Column". The fusion of the West
German
and French forces as the condition for the withdrawal of US troops from
West Europe, so that they can be established in the Third World, is the
- military - basis for the urgency to bring the military strategy to
the
level necessary for carrying out the war in a united way
on
all fronts.
Troop transports from Ramstein Air Base have so far included four
hundred soldiers, the Air Force and the Delta Force in Sicily, the
standby forces for the elimination of the Arab liberation struggle,
Special Forces in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Ramstein, Berlin, and Bad Tolz
for actions in the Third World and against the resistance here, part of
the RDF in Berlin (from the same unit which is stationed in the Middle
East, a part of which met its deserved end in Newfoundland [16]), etc.
The ability to wage war is hardly a technical issue. They have the means,
and, as such, the desire, to always and until the end be superior to us
and all liberation movements. A war of liberation is not a material
struggle. For us it is focused on the political effect that the
military attack develops against them, from which new
struggle is generated.
We have said (May 82 [17]): THE
CONFLICT, AFTER VIETNAM, HAS SHIFTED FROM THE CENTRAL CONFRONTATIONAL
POSITION OF THE WAR OF LIBERATION, FROM THE FRONT AND HINTERLAND, TO A
LINE WHICH GOES CROSSWAYS THROUGH EVERY SECTION, EVERY CONTINENT, EVERY
COUNTRY, BECAUSE EVERY SECTION IN THE UNIFIED SYSTEM CAN TRIGGER THE
COLLAPSE OF THE BALANCE OF POWER AND, AS SUCH, BECOME A FRONT IN THE
WAR OF LIBERATION.
That is the process by which imperialist power will be shattered,
through a tendency towards unity in struggle across all areas, a united
effect that has already been achieved at this point, and the
realization that freedom from imperialism is only possible through the
combined activity of the revolutionary struggles throughout the world.
When the front attacks here, it upsets the unified system's capacity to
act, shattering its power and, in the dialectic of the development of
the
struggle, its military strength as well. Here in the
imperialist
center, from where the political power, the economic strength and the
military
predominance necessary for their global offensive must be drawn.
Smashing
them at this point means intervening against the main planks of their
strategic
economic and military plan, so as to prevent it from being achieved; it
means destroying them politically and preventing the centralization and
accumulation of their economic and military power.
It is simply a question of how far forward we go or how far forward
they go.
The front here can hinder them from constructing the political and
military prerequisites for carrying out the war on all fronts.
When we speak of military interventions in the Third World, we are
referring to the imperialist financed and trained Contra gangs in
Nicaragua [18], Angola [19], Mozambique [20]... the attacks against the Palestinian and the
Lebanese resistance, the bombing of the camps, the deployment of
Special Forces terror commandos against the guerrilla around the world,
the dirty war this beast wages against the struggling peoples, the
bombs dropped on civilian populations, the massacres in Kurdistan[21], which the Turkish State
organized with NATO. As such, war is the reality today, even when it is
conducted
without large-scale interventions; it is a reality to which they cling
as
a constant option. The revolutionary struggles and the resistance in
the
Third World and the metropoles have no politico-military border.
It is not possible for us here today to militarily
obstruct
imperialism’s power. Given the fact that the revolutionary resistance
here
is still weak and NATO is powerful, that would be a ridiculous idea.
Militant attacks against the US-NATO infrastructure are, nonetheless,
effective and sound, as they destroy the material security of
imperialism,
which its machine requires if it is to act freely, which is what
imperialism
needs. And if they feel their military institutions are besieged,
because
they are under attack everywhere, that is good. That
makes
the soldiers themselves, as well as the overall strategy of war, key
targets.
The capacity to plan and evaluate their actions is, for their war
plans,
simply indispensable, as are “motivated soldiers.” Therefore, attacks
along
these lines have a strategic quality beyond the resistance’s limited
capacity
to destroy their technical means.
The FMLN [22] says, “IF WE TALK
ABOUT HAVING AN EFFECT ON U.S. IMPERIALISM, THEN WE ARE TALKING ABOUT
THEIR PEOPLE NOT ABOUT THEIR MACHINERY AND NOT ABOUT THEIR TECHNOLOGY.
IT IS THEIR PEOPLE, THEIR MORALE AND THE THINGS WHICH THEY DEFEND THAT
WILL BE DECISIVE AS TO WHETHER THEY WIN OR LOSE THE WAR.”
Our objective is that every guerrilla and the entire struggling front,
regardless of location or specific local conditions, struggles against
US imperialism.
So the goal of our action was not and could not have been to force them
to withdraw from here. The US military would take control here if the
FRG State was so shaken that it was no longer capable of acting.
The fact is that they must be confronted with anti-imperialist politics
and revolutionary struggle here, because that is what
builds
uncertainty in the united military apparatus and demoralizes the
soldiers.
They must know that they are no longer safe anywhere in the world from
the
attacks of the revolutionary guerrilla, that there is no longer
anywhere
for them to withdraw to, nowhere to rest and prepare their
interventions.
It is an illusion, a very silly one, to believe that soldiers do not
understand
their own function. The fact that they do what they do hoping that it
will
not be them, but their colleagues, who will have to carry out the
intervention
is their problem. The fact is that they might have to
do it
at any time, given the fact, as should already be clear, that there is
a
war going on and that they stand on the side of the deadly enemy of
humanity.
They must desert.
The other thing is that it obviously puts enormous pressure on the US
government and their military policy, because the people in the USA see
even more clearly that US imperialism carries on a worldwide war, and
does so openly, and for that reason will be attacked. So
attacks
against US forces always also target the contradictions within the USA
itself;
there is also a resistance against war policy there. With each attack
the
propaganda is damaged, the propaganda with which every US government
legitimizes
every war and every arms build-up, the
propaganda
that “Vietnam, Grenada, Central America, the Middle East, West Europe
must
be saved from the Russians.” It becomes clear that the interests being
served
are never those of the people, but those of US capital.
It
becomes clear that US imperialism is the main enemy of all peoples in
their
struggles for self-determination and liberation.
At the same time, the reaction of the FRG state to the attacks against
US power here made their interests clear and has also exposed one of
the FRG’s central functions since ’45: securing the ruling class in the
center in the interests of US capital. The US military presence here is
a condition for the political power interests of each FRG government
since 1945. The “usefulness” of each regime is primarily to mystify how
it is the opposite of what it claims to be, how it can secure the
establishment and the smooth functioning of the US strategy here and in
West Europe.
The determining factor for the summer offensive was the political and
practical orientation of the front along this line of attack, the step
forward
in the attack against the military strategy; DEMORALIZE THE ENEMY,
SHAKE
THE APPARATUS, IMPEDE AND SABOTAGE IT - REMOVE IT FROM ACTION.
The further development of the front along this line is central, but it
is not everything. Attacks against US-NATO military strategy and
against
the imperialist State are two operative lines of a single
anti-imperialist,
internationalist strategy in the metropole, towards which the struggles
here
must be further developed. “The system” can only be broken if the front
smashes
the concrete, existing projects of imperialism. One cannot think of the
system
as an unmovable block, which is the way that each person here
experiences
it, as an eternal, tormenting reality for his or her entire lifetime.
Rather
one must think of it in terms of the movement’s necessary political and
strategic
development
With AD, we named the Commando after George Jackson, because he is a
role model for us and for everyone else who struggles in the
metropoles. As a young man he received a sentence of “indefinite
duration” for a gas station robbery, and in total isolation in prison,
on the basis of the total defensive, in a situation where the State
wanted to force everyone to accept their claim to absolute power, he
refused and he became politicized. The cracks in the metropole, the
powerful resistance against the war in Vietnam, played an important
role in this process. Tenaciously, unwavering, determined to engage in
a life or death struggle, he won his revolutionary identity and
defended it in the face of permanent police terror. He was a cadre of
the Black Panthers [23] and an
example for the anti-imperialist resistance in the USA and West Europe.
He embodied the break with the metropole, the struggle “in the heart of
the beast” and the unity of the revolutionary resistance in the
metropoles.
We have said that proletarian internationalism is the fundamental
consciousness for the revolutionary struggle in the metropoles. It is
the identification with the exploited and oppressed in the worldwide
struggle against the rule of capital. It is the knowledge that the
complete destruction of the imperialist system will only be possible if
this perspective is also planted in the center of their power. That
means we must confront the bourgeoisie here with the
goals of revolution, sharpen the politico-military attacks against
their power structure and destroy the basis upon which they hope to
build the united ruling system, using wars, capitalist restructuring
and repression to solve their sweeping crisis.
Through its attacks the West European guerrilla develops the strategy
in which the select and partial struggles around life in the
imperialist
system become a part of the struggle for liberation, in which the mass
antagonism within the political conception and practice of the
revolutionary struggle becomes the standard and, on the basis of that,
CONSTRUCTS THE FRONT OF THE WAR OF NATIONAL LIBERATION HERE.
Everyone who struggles here experiences, or can experience, the fact
that life here in the metropole is structured to standardize the
movement of the capital for the international monopolies, the
standardized strategy of the imperialist bourgeoisie for addressing the
global political, economic and social crisis of the system. In a system
that produces annihilation, exploitation and impoverishment, power
- and war - on a world
scale, that provides only one option – the vote – for all resistance
and
every struggle for humane living and working conditions, for
self-determination
and against imperialist war. The concept of imperialism as a united
system
must be broken by unity in the revolutionary struggle, or we might as
well
give up.
We understand our attack on the basis of the development of the
resistance, the break here and the movement for
international class war;
we understand it on the basis of the global relationship of power
between
revolution and imperialism. That is what we mean by proletarian
identity
and strategy: to think and to act as the international proletariat
right
from the beginning, defining ourselves within and for the international
class war, in other words, the reconstruction of the class in the
metropole
as part of the world proletariat, the class which will overthrow
imperialism.
We understand revolutionary war as the means by which we will bring the
imperialist system to collapse, and, therefore, we carry on the social
revolution
as a world revolution. The revolutionary front in West
Europe
develops itself as part, section and function of the international
struggles,
by whose combined efforts alone can we reach our goal.
ENGAGE IN REVOLUTIONARY WAR, STRUGGLE MEANS LIFE.
Red Army Faction
January 86
Footnotes
N.B. All footnotes in this document were
added by the translator and editor. None are originally from the RAF.
[1] Refers to the August 8th, 1985 bombing of the
Rhein-Main Air Base by a joint Action Directe-RAF Commando. The RAF
subsequently claimed responsibility for the killing of the American GI,
Edward Pimental, whose ID card they used to gain access to the Air
Base. An intense debate followed this action. [return to
text]
[2] Refers to the December 84 - January 85 hunger
strike by political prisoners. This hunger strike provoked several
hundred solidarity actions, and was generally seen as a leap forward
towards the anti-imperialist front in West Germany. [return
to text]
[3] Refers to an attempted bombing by a RAF
Commando against the SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters of Allied Powers in
Europe) School in Oberammeragua, in January 85. The SHAPE School is a
special
school for high level NATO Officers. [return to text]
[4] George Schultz - US Secretary of State at the
time. [return to text]
[5] Soares - Portuguese President.
François Mitterand - French President. Helmut Kohl - West German
Chancellor. [return to text]
[6] Four levels of the RAF - the State alleged that
there were four levels to the RAF; the commandos, the prisoners, the
support
movement and the lawyers and the relatives committee. [return
to text]
[7] Hafenstrasse - site of a large left-wing
squat in Hamburg. In an attempt to destroy it, the state claimed it was
a RAF base. [return to text]
[8] Gunther Sare - anti-fascist activist killed
when he was run over by a police water cannon at an anti-Nazi
demonstration in Frankfurt in October 85. [return to text]
[9] Kontaktsperre - a law which allows
West German authorities to hold political prisoners in 100% isolation,
without newspapers, radio, TV or visits, including family and lawyer’s
visits. [return to text]
[10] Refers to the two tendencies in the West
German Green Party. [return to text]
[11] BGS - Bundesgrenzshutz, the border police,
includes the international counterinsurgency unit, the GSG-9. [return to text]
[12] The Air Base action. (See note #1.) [return to text]
[13] Refers to large anti-military demonstrations and
a large demonstration against a visit from George Bush Sr. (who was at
the time US Vice-President), as well as a series of connected
clandestine armed actions. [return to text]
[14] In September 85, the RAF released an
interview in which they addressed concerns arising from the Air Base
action. (See note #1.) [return to text]
[15] RDF: Rapid Deployment Forces were established in
1979, largely as a response to the Iranian Revolution. The
concept was to develop an American military forces that could operate
independently,
with neither forward bases nor the facilities of friendly nations;
geographical areas cited as requiring such cover included Korea, the
Persian Gulf, and the Middle East. Eucom: The United States European
Command primary mission is to provide combat-ready forces for NATO
operations. [return to text]
[16] Reference to an airplane crash in Gander,
NEwfoundland in December 1985, where a plane full of RDF operatives, on
their
way home for Christmas, were killed. [return to
text]
[18] The people of Nicaragua were the victims of a
terror campaign waged by the Contras, a number of paramilitary groups
armed and financed by the United States and international right-wing
networks. Most
Contra attacks were directed at civilian targets such as people
involved with
coffee plantations and farming cooperatives .In November 1984, the
Nicaraguan government announced that since 1981 the contras had
assassinated 910 state officials and killed 8,000 civilians. (For more
see William Blum’s “Nicaragua 1981-1990 Destabilization in slow motion”
from his book Killing Hope, or at http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Nicaragua_KH.html)
[return to text]
[19] In Angola during the late 1970s and 1980s the
(initially Maoist) group UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi, received South
African and American financing and arms to wage war against the
Soviet-backed MPLA government (on occasion, troops from the Apartheid
State provided direct support during UNITA battles with the MPLA
forces). [return to text]
[20] In 1976 the racist government in “Rhodesia”
(later Zimbabwe) set up an anti-communist guerilla group, Renamo, in
Mozambique in the hopes of preventing that newly-independent country
from supporting the anti-colonial resistance in “Rhodesia”. Renamo
outlived the racist Rhodesian regime, becoming one of the most violent
and blood-drenched anti-communist guerilla armies in the world. In
their raids on towns and villages, Renamo sometimes engaged in
wholesale massacres of civilians, and by the late 1980s its war against
the pro-Soviet Mozambique State had claimed over 100,000 victims, and
caused 1,000,000 people to be displaced. [return
to text]
[21] The government of Turkey has waged a “dirty war”
against the people of Kurdistan for decades, as a result of which tens
of thousands of Kurds have been killed. Turkey has been supported by
the other NATO countries in this genocidal war, and in some cases
Western military
personnel have been known to have participated in killings. Turkish
military
and other personnel have also been trained in the United States,
including
in methods of torture and assassination. [return
to text]
[22] FMLN - Frente Farabundo Marti por Libertad
Nacional, Salvadoran guerrilla movement. [return
to text]
[23] The Black Panther Party - armed black
self-defense group in the US in the late 60s and the early 70s. [return to text]
