THE IMPERIALIST CHAIN OF STATES WILL NOT SUCCEED IN ITS ATTEMPT TO
BLOCK THE REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS. IT WILL FAIL IN ITS ATTEMPT TO
VIOLENTLY RESTORE ITS HEGEMONY ON A NEW LEVEL.
Today, with the Commando Ingrid Schubert [1],
we shot secret diplomat Braunmöhl, political director in the
Foreign Ministry and a central figure in the structuring of West
European politics within the imperialist total system.
Our attack was aimed at the aggressive FRG State apparatus in its
function as a core state for the political structuring of West Europe
within the
imperialist war strategy. Braunmöhl participated in an ongoing
review
of the situation and coordinated the (now institutionalized)
German-French
cooperation. He also met with the political directors of the American,
British
and French Foreign Ministries for regular “confidential four-way
consultations,”
with the goal of unifying and coordinating the politics of the
strongest
powers of the imperialist chain under the leadership of the USA, to
facilitate
action of the total system against the resistance that threatens their
common
interests and the rule of the system on all levels. He sat as a
representative
of the FRG on the political committee for “European Political
Cooperation”
(EPC), which has become the most important instrument for the political
shaping and control of the State structures in West Europe. Within the
“West
European Union” (WEU), he worked with government representatives from
France,
Italy, Great Britain, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg to strengthen the
lines of political security for the European pillars of NATO and the
politico-military power of West Europe and, as such, of NATO itself.
Through West European political, economic and military initiatives, in
coordination with the USA, the bourgeoisie hopes to prevent social
explosions
and any further escalation of the struggles on all the continents. It
hopes
to act as a total system in order to ward off the political
developments,
the very threat of which are increasingly breaking down US hegemony.
THE
WEST EUROPEAN POLITICAL LINE IN FAVOUR OF THE TOTAL SYSTEM, WHICH HAS
BEEN
PUSHED TO THE FORE, AND THE USE OF THE ECONOMIC MEANS AVAILABLE TO THE
WEST
EUROPEAN STATES AND MULTINATIONALS, ARE MEANT TO BLOCK THE
REVOLUTIONARY
PROCESS AND PREVENT FURTHER INROADS AGAINST IMPERIALIST POWER, UNTIL
THEY
HAVE THE ABILITY TO TAKE THE GLOBAL MILITARY OFFENSIVE.
The Pentagon and NATO broke the atomic pact concerning the stationing
of medium-range missiles and simultaneously took the offensive against
the
liberation movements, against the new national states and against the
international
resistance to their war plans… but this offensive has not succeeded.
International capital, under the leadership of the USA, could not bring
about the conditions necessary for its global reconstruction against
increasing resistance and revolutionary struggle. All plans and
projects for the political-economic stabilization of individual regions
and countries have broken down. The
result of this can be seen in the demonstrations and revolts in Latin
America,
South Korea, the Philippines, the Middle East, South Africa...; revolts
against the aggressive economic and military politics of the USA;
revolts
against the IMF and the US puppet regimes, which are responsible for
massive
misery and terror and for the destruction of the social structures and
cultures
of entire peoples. The contra wars, like those in Nicaragua [2] and Angola [3],
and the military aggression in Lebanon[4]
could not extinguish revolutionary struggle; on the contrary, they have
led
to the deepening and broadening of the contradictions and struggles
throughout these regions, hastening the collapse of US hegemony.
The changes in personnel among the US’s guard dogs and the maneuvers to
bring economic relief are meant to stabilize the political situation
against the pressure of the mass movements and the guerrilla - such is
the case in Haiti and the Philippines and with the “new democracies” in
Latin America. Yet this cannot fundamentally change the deep political
and economic crises of the system, its lack of perspective and the
collapse of US hegemony. At this point, they can only attempt to
prevent the breakdown from occurring.
All attempts to achieve political stability in the metropoles through
State control and the structuring of all social areas, integration
programmes,
sharpening of repression... all of these attempts have been destroyed.
They
cannot extinguish the resistance and the revolutionary struggles.
Imperialism has no solution. It now focuses on smashing the
international revolutionary struggle. This is a development in all of
the confrontations, it is a consequence of the role of the liberation
struggles throughout the entire phase of imperialist reconstruction
following Vietnam. Today, there is an entirely new political quality,
as the system’s substantial crises
and contradictions, which have reached a critical level, have made it
possible to put the system in check.
THE IMPERIALIST BOURGEOISIE CAN NO LONGER REMOVE THE CAUSES OF THE
INTENSIFYING SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONTRADICTIONS, AND THE MISERY OF THE
MASSES ON ALL
CONTINENTS HAS BECOME SO INTENSE THAT THE CHOICE BETWEEN LIVING AS
HUMAN
BEINGS OR ACCEPTING THE ENDLESS CONTINUATION OF IMPERIALIST BARBARISM
HAS
TODAY BECOME A SOURCE OF ANTAGONISM IN ALL CONFRONTATIONS, A SOURCE OF
DIRECT
POLITICAL RESISTANCE AGAINST THE IMPERIALIST SYSTEM.
The depth of the contradiction and the process of politicization are
similar in all of the struggles that are tied to the experiences and
strategy of
the revolutionary guerrilla, which has become a politico-military force
against imperialism internationally.
It is on the basis of this development - the crisis of US hegemony, the
destabilization of imperialist power on all continents, the deep
economic crisis and the destruction wrought through the concept of war
on many fronts - that Western Europe’s increasing importance in the
global counter-revolutionary project is to be understood. IT IS THE
INITIAL EXPRESSION OF THE POLITICO-MILITARY POWER OF WEST EUROPE WITHIN
THE CONTEXT OF TOTAL IMPERIALIST DOMINATION
IN LIGHT OF THE CRISIS FACING THE SYSTEM. IT IS THE
BEGINNING
OF THE COMBINING OF ITS POWER FOR PURPOSES OF AGGRESSION.
This is the political heart of the violence with which the State here
creates the political, economic and military conditions necessary for
the bourgeoisie’s international attack. THIS PROCESS HINGES DECISIVELY
ON THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE IN WEST EUROPE, WHICH WILL DETERMINE
WHETHER THE BOURGEOISIE CAN MAINTAIN THE CURRENT RELATIONSHIP OF POWER
AND, THEREBY, THEIR INTERNATIONAL RULE. A RULE WHICH MEANS GENOCIDE
THROUGH BOMBS, DOLLARS, STARVATION AND
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE HUMAN ESSENCE, ELIMINATING THE NEED FOR A “GREAT
WAR,” OR WHETHER A BREAKTHROUGH IN THE CENTER IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
REVOLUTIONARY FRONT AND THE UNIFICATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL
REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLES WILL DEVELOP INTO A POLITICO-MII.ITARY STRATEGY
FOR PROLETARIAN LIBERATION.
As we have said, BECAUSE THE STRATEGIC CRISIS OF IMPERIALISM, THE
CRISIS OF THE CAPITALIST INITIATIVE, SHOULD NOT AND MUST NOT
ECONOMICALLY AND POLITICALLY PREPARE THE WAY FOR A
BREAKDOWN WHOSE CATASTROPHIC DIMENSION IS UNFATHOMABLE, IT MUST BECOME
A MOMENT OF INTENSE SUBJECTIVE EFFORT FOR THE ORGANIZATION TO
ARTICULATE, THROUGH ITS ATTACKS, THE FACT THAT THE PROLETAR IAN
ALTERNATIVE AND THE POSSIBILITY OF PROLETARIAN OPPOSITIONAL POWER HERE
HAVE A STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE.
Within the total system the West European states aim at the political
encirclement and surgical elimination of revolutionaries on all
continents. They hope
to unite the social democratic and bourgeois-reactionary forces in the
context of their fascist pacification project. This is to be done
politically by
establishing a unified line within the terrorist American strategy
against
the struggles for self-determination and liberation. This is to be done
operationally
by establishing an effective secret service and politico-military
cooperation, and through warfare. This is to be carried out
economically as a maneuver to prop up bankrupt regimes, so as to keep a
lid on the social crises that threaten the stability of all the
countries in the Third World.
The overall contradictory quality of this development was clear in the
American military attack against Libya[5],
with its propagandistic preparation and execution, conducted with the
logistical
support of NATO and with the European Community politically covering
the
USA’s back.
THE AMERICAN MILITARY ATTACK IS AN INSTRUMENT IN THE STRATEGY OF THE
TOTAL SYSTEM AGAINST THE INTERNATIONAL ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE, JUST
AS IS THE CASE WITH THE MANEUVERING OF THE WEST EUROPEAN STATES FOR A
“NEW PEACE PROCESS” WITH THE EAST. THEY HAVE THE COMMON GOAL OF THE
POLITICAL ISOLATION AND
ELIMINATION OF THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLES, IN COOPERATION WITH THE
REACTIONARY
ARAB REGIMES/FACTIONS.
The difference between Rue, Genscher, Wischnewski[6] and the US government is the difference between the
F-111 bombers which attacked against the Libyan people and the GSG-9
which works with Arab states to liquidate revolutionary groups, i.e.,
IT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI AND MOGADISHU IN 1977[7].
The differences lie in the fact that the US government never ceases to
demonstrate its military might and to pressure the European governments
in ways that are partially against their own interests, while
simultaneously,
as never before, being dependent on their political support and
cooperation.
It also lies in the fact that the West European governments are fully
aware
that the openly military course only exposes the political weakness of
the
chain of states; they can destroy things, but they cannot bring about
change.
So the political structure is, for them, a lonely tightrope walk
between
their inability to restore stability to the world system, to master
competitive
war and the deep economic crisis, and, on the other hand, the political
fact
that the military option only feeds the anti-imperialist resistance and
can
only lead to an incalculable escalation of hostilities.
THE GOAL OF THE ATTACK ON LIBYA WAS TO BREAK THROUGH A POLITICAL
LIMITATION AND TO BRING THE CONFRONTATION WITH THE INTERNATIONAL
LIBERATION STRUGGLE TO AN OPENLY MILITARY LEVEL FROM THIS POINT ON.
It also cleared the way for all of the West European States (including
Great Britain), driven forward in the EC by Genscher and
Braunmöhl,
to embrace the initiative politically and militarily, while still
“remaining
clean,” in order to push forward the imperialist strategy of
elimination
at a political level.
THAT IS THE SUBSTANCE OF THE “EUROPEAN-ARAB DIALOGUE,” WHICH IS NOT A
POLITICAL ALTERNATIVE TO THE USA, BUT IS DIRECTED AT PLANNING AND
PREPARING THE LIQUIDATION OF THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE AND IS AN
ATTEMPT TO PREVENT A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EXPLOSION IN THE MIDDLE EAST,
WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK
OF THE BOURGEOISIE’S GLOBAL MILITARY STRATEGY; MILITARY ACTION AND
EUROPEAN-ARAB
DIALOGUE ARE INSTRUMENTS, FUNCTIONS OF A SINGLE STRATEGY, POLITICAL
EXPRESSIONS
OF THE TOTAL SYSTEM, THAT, WHILE CONTRADICTORY, ARE IN ESSENCE UNIFIED.
IT
IS THE WAR OF THE METROPOLE AGAINST THE INTERNATIONAL
REVOLUTIONARY
STRUGGLE.
The “Working Group on the Middle East” in the EPZ [8], which was created at the instigation of the FRG,
is
supposed to ensure continued action on the part of the EC against the
Arab
revolutionary movements. That is the purpose of trips by Genscher and
his
secret diplomats to Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, the Gulf States... his
grand
appearance as the “European partner” and the “civilian alternative”...
by
which (among other things) they hope to use economic pressure to
achieve
a political front against the Palestinian revolutionaries and the
States
that support them. It is Zimmerman, who works side by side with the
BKA,
the GSG-9 and secret agents, who reorganized the police and military
forces
in the region along the same lines as the FRG, and who demands their
cooperation.
It’s Warnke and Bangemann, who with the means and the “know-how” of the
FRG
multinationals and the money of the large German banks, are working to
achieve
politico-economic stabilization. [9]
The other side of this development is that the bourgeoisie in West
Europe, with their amalgamated political command structure and their
unified power structure, position themselves against the resistance
here as a unified
power that will implement its overall imperialist interests without
there
being any consensus in the individual countries.
The EPZ is the political lever by which the strategic political,
economic and military plans and projects of the imperialist bourgeoisie
are to be
implemented in West Europe. The political objectives and conditions for
capital’s
restructuring offensive in West Europe have been implemented there, and
not
in the national parliaments, taking form in projects like Esprit,
Eureka
and the creation of a European market, driving forward
industrial/technological
concentration and the centralization of capital, securing the
conditions
necessary for its use and strengthening its position on the world
market.
The EPZ is the political body creating the European pillars of NATO. It
is
there that in recent years the plans were drawn up for the political
and
material build-up of military power in West Europe. It is there that
Western
Europe’s security policy was formulated, creating the potential for
aggression
on the part of the European State and integrating it into the global
war
strategy of the imperialist bourgeoisie. Currently, the EPZ is becoming
a
political-operative center for the coordination of the total
imperialist
strategy in West Europe against the international revolutionary
struggle,
for its criminalization and elimination in the Third World and in the
metropoles.
In this contradictory process, the bourgeoisie is failing to impose its
structure quickly enough to address the national and/or economic
contradictions of the individual States. The unification of the FRG,
France, Great Britain and Italy into the hardcore of the total system
in West Europe, in tight
coordination and cooperation with the USA, is becoming more and more
obvious.
Under the leadership of the FRG and France the total system is taking
form, with the EPZ determining the tempo and level of militarization
and restructuring throughout West Europe.
Because of their military and economic power, they are the ones who
compel all weaker States to fall in line or be denied any part in the
decision-making process, as well as access to techno-economic
developments… which no state can afford to be without. This is the
price that every government
in West Europe is prepared to pay to remain in power.
The EC is the political shell that gives weight to the politics of the
West European core States internationally, all the while disguising
their
aggression. It is the instrument for controlling State structures and
for
unifying the politics of West Europe within the total system, in the
framework
of the imperialist offensive against the international proletariat.
The revolutionary movement in West Europe must attack the strategic
plans of’ the imperialist bourgeoisie… plans with which they hope to
achieve world domination… plans based materially and politically on the
metropoles… plans that are expressed through their concrete and current
projects. This means we must politically obstruct and destroy these
initiatives here before they can be put into action, through attacks
against the central axis and driving force of imperialist power.
To organize the revolutionary front in West Europe means to lead the
fight in the metropole on a politico-military level with a strategic
orientation that puts the entire imperialist system completely in
question and initiates the process of the reconstruction of the
(working) class in West Europe
as an internationalist force. Today we must build the unity of the
communist guerrilla and the revolutionary movement through an offensive
that is collectively determined and organized, with the goal of
thwarting the imperialist strategy here, of determining the political
lines and elements of the revolutionary strategy and of developing
these practically. Organizing the revolutionary front means organizing
the attack. This is not an ideological category or a “model for
revolution”. We are talking about the material evidence of
revolutionary politics, meaning its effect on imperialist power and the
political and practical strength that it achieves here, in order to
deepen
the break in the metropole and make the qualitative leap forward in the
proletarian struggle.
ORGANIZE THE REVOLUTIONARY FRONT IN WEST EUROPE AS PART OF THE
INTERNATIONAL WAR OF LIBERATION!
SEIZE THE OFFENSIVE AND DEVELOP IT FURTHER!
Commando Ingrid Schubert
Red Army Faction
October 10, 1986
Footnotes
N.B. All footnotes in this document were
added by the translator and editor. None are originally from the RAF.
[1] Ingrid Schubert was one of the RAF militants
who freed Andreas Baader in 1970. Arrested in October 1970, Schubert
committed suicide (?) on November 13th 1977 – two weeks after Andreas
Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe were murdered in
Stammheim. [return to text]
[2] 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]
[3] 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]
[4] In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon in order to
attack guerilla organizations based amongst the 300,000 Palestinian
refugees
then living there. [return to text]
[5] On April 15th 1986, the Reagan regime carried
out air strikes against a number of ground targets in Libya. These were
claimed to be retaliation for a bombing in the West Berlin discotheque
on
April 5th which injured 200 people including 63 American soldiers (one
soldier
and one civilian were killed) – nevertheless, no hard evidence of
Libyan
involvement in the Berlin bombing was even produced. [return
to text]
[7] “Tripoli/Benghazi” is a reference to
targets attacked in a US air strike in April 1985 (see note #5),
“Mogadishu
in 1977” is a reference to the attack by West Germany’s crack GSG-9
commandos
on a Lufthansa airliner that had been hijacked by a Palestinian
commando
in a solidarity action with the RAF in October 1977. The phrase seems
meant
to compare more and less refined means of repression, while
underscoring
the equally lethal quality of each. [return to text]
[9]Zimmerman, Warnke and Bangemann were
members of Helmut Kohl’s cabinet at the time. Friedrich Zimmermann was
a member
of the Christian Social Union (CSU) and Minister of the Interior from
1982
to 1989. Jürgen Warnke was a member of the CSU and Minister for
Economic Cooperation from 1982 to 1987; Martin Bangemann was leader of
the rightw-ing Freie Demokratische Partei (Free Democratic Party – FDP)
from 1985 to 198, and Minister of Economics from 1984 to 1988. [return to text]
