The Final Communiqué From The Red Army Faction (RAF)
Red Army Faction
March 1998
Almost 28 years ago, on May 14, 1970, the RAF was born from an act of
liberation [1]: Today we are ending
this
project. The urban guerrilla in the form of the RAF is now history.
We, that is all of us who were organized in the RAF until the end, are
taking this step jointly. From now on, we, like all others from this
association, are former RAF militants.
We stand by our history. The RAF was the revolutionary attempt by a
minority of people to resist the tendencies in this society and
contribute to the overthrow of capitalist conditions. We are proud to
have been part of this attempt.
The end of this project shows that we were not able to succeed on this
path. But this does not speak against the necessity and legitimacy of
revolt. The RAF was our decision to stand on the side of those people
struggling against domination and for liberation all across the world.
For us, this was the right decision to make.
Hundreds of years in prison terms for RAF prisoners were not able to
wipe us out, nor could all the attempts to eradicate the guerrilla. We
wanted a confrontation with the ruling powers. We acted as subjects
when we decided upon the RAF 27 years ago. We remain subjects today, as
we consign ourselves to history.
The results are critical of us. But the RAF - like all of the left
until now - was nothing more than a phase of transition on the path to
liberation.
After fascism and war, the RAF brought something new into the society:
The moment of a break with the system and the historic flash of
decisive opposition to the conditions which structurally subject and
exploit people and which brought about a society in which the people
are forced to fight against one another. The struggle in the social
cracks, which marked our opposition, pushed a genuine social liberation
forward; this break with the system, a system in which profit is the
subject and people are the objects, and the desire for a life without
the lies and weight of this distorted society. Fed up with stooping
down, functioning, kicking, and being kicked. From rejection to attack,
to liberation.
The RAF Arose From The Hope For Liberation
Backed by the courage which emanated from the guerrillas from the South
to the rich nations of the North, the RAF came about in the early 1970s
in solidarity with liberation movements in order to take up a common
struggle. Millions of people saw in the struggles of resistance and
liberation around the globe a chance for themselves as well. The armed
struggle was a hope
for liberation in many parts of the world. In Germany, too, tens of
thousands of people were in solidarity with the struggles of the
militant organizations Second of June Movement [2], the Revolutionary Cells (RZ) [3], the RAF, and later Rote Zora [4]. The RAF came about as a result of the discussions
of thousands of people in Germany who began to think about armed
struggle as a means to liberation in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The RAF took up the struggle against the state, a state which had never
broken with its national-socialist past following the liberation from
Nazi
fascism.
The armed struggle was a rebellion against an authoritarian form of
society, against alienation and competition. It was a rebellion for a
new social and cultural reality. In the euphoria of the global attempts
at liberation, the time was right for a decisive struggle which
seriously aimed at overturning and no longer accepting the
pseudo-natural legitimacy of the system.
1975-77
With the 1975 occupation of the German embassy in Stockholm [5], the RAF launched a phase during which it did
everything possible to liberate its prisoners from jail.
First came the "1977 Offensive", during which the RAF kidnapped
Schleyer [6]. The RAF posed the
question of power. This began a radical and decisive attempt to push
through an offensive position for the revolutionary left against the
state power. It was exactly this which the state wanted to prevent. The
explosive escalation of the conflict, however, also came against the
background of German history: The continuity of Nazism in the West
German state, which the RAF attacked with its offensive.
Schleyer, a member of the SS during the Nazi regime, was, like many
Nazis in all levels of society, back in office with all his honor
intact. Nazis built careers in the West German state in government
positions, the courts, the police apparatus, the armed forces, the
media, and in major corporations. These anti-Semites, racists, and
genocidal murderers were often times the same people responsible for
crimes against humanity under the Nazis, and now they were back among
the powerful elite.
Schleyer worked towards the ends of the Nazis and the capitalists to
create a European economic region under German dominance. The Nazis had
wanted a Europe in which there were neither struggles between
industrial workers and capital nor any resistance whatsoever to their
system. They wanted to end the class struggle by utilizing German
workers or workers who could "be
made like Germans" and incorporating them into their society. All
others were to be enslaved to forced labor or systematically destroyed
in concentration camps.
With the liberation from Nazi fascism came the end of the industrial
destruction of people by the Nazis, but there was no liberation from
capitalism. After 1945, Schleyer worked towards the same economic goals
- in a more modernized form. The push towards modernization came with
the social democratic model of the 1970s. As the chief of industry,
Schleyer was continually building up a system to contain social
resistance to the conditions of capital - for example, by locking out
workers - and to integrate workers into the system by means of
negotiated contracts for social security. This integration was meant to
incorporate the German portion of the society most of all, meanwhile
capital increasingly exploited immigrant workers and, at the global
level, dominated and exploited the people of the southern hemisphere,
which resulted in massive destruction from hunger. The continuity of
the system which Schleyer embodied - in the 1970s during the period of
the social democratic model
- was a crucial moment in the building and development of the Federal
Republic of Germany.
The Absolute Necessity To Approve Of All Measures Enacted By The
Crisis Staff And The Repression Of All Critical Voices, Going So Far As
To Try And Eliminate The Political Prisoners - These Were The Same
Reactionary Techniques Utilized By The Nazis
The actions of the 1977 offensive made it clear that there were
elements in the society which would in no way be integrated into or
controlled by the system. After the Nazis had eliminated the
resistance, the actions of the urban guerrilla groups after 1968 marked
a return to a moment of class struggle, no longer integrated to the
ruling powers, in post-fascist West Germany. The abduction of Schleyer
heightened this aspect even more. The state
did not by any means react with panic, as has often been said. The
state
reacted by suppressing all forms of expression which did not support
the
state of emergency measures. The state ordered all media to follow the
line
of the Crisis Staff, which most willingly did. All who refused risked a
confrontation
with the system. Intellectuals, who everyone knew did not sympathize
with
the RAF, but who nonetheless contradicted the state of emergency, were
no
longer safe from smear campaigns and repression. The members of the
government's
Crisis Staff, some of whom had military backgrounds, reacted with the
same
means in 1977 as the Nazis had done - although the Nazis, of course,
went
to a far greater degree of barbarity - to prevent and wipe out
anti-capitalist
and anti-fascist struggles. Under Nazi fascism, and in 1977, the
state's
policies were aimed at eliminating any space between total loyalty to
the
state in an emergency situation on the one side and repression on the
other.
When it became more clear that the state was prepared to abandon
Schleyer, the RAF gave its approval for a civilian airliner to be
hijacked in a guerrilla action as part of its own offensive, and this
made it appear as though the RAF no longer differentiated between the
top and bottom sectors of the society. Although the attempt to free the
prisoners from torture was justified, the social-revolutionary
dimension of the struggle was now no longer visible. From the break
with the system and the rejection of the conditions in the society -
the preconditions for any revolutionary movement - had come a break
with the society as a whole.
From The 1970s To The 1980s
The RAF had gambled everything and suffered a huge defeat. In the
process of struggle until the end of the 1970s, it became clear that
the RAF was left with just a few people from the period of the 1968
upheavals. Many people from the '68 movement had given up on movement
politics and used their chances to build careers. The RAF, as part of
the global anti-imperialist struggle, had taken up the war of
liberation within West Germany. The year 1977 had shown, however, that
the RAF had neither the political nor the military strength to direct
the situation after the subsequent reaction, the domestic war.
It was right to make use of the historical situation at the beginning
of
the 1970s and open a new and previously unknown chapter of struggle in
the
metropoles in the fight between imperialism and liberation. The
experiences of the defeat of 1977 revealed the limitations of the old
urban guerrilla concept of the RAF. There needed to be a new concept of
liberation.
The front concept [7] of the 1980s
was an attempt to achieve this. The RAF wanted new ties and a basis for
a joint struggle with radical segments of the resistance movements
which had arisen in the late 1970s. But the front concept held on to
many of the basic notions of the old project from the 1970s. Armed
actions remained the central focus and the decisive moment of the
revolutionary process, which was seen as a war of liberation.
The Anti-Imperialist Front Of The 1980s
In the early 1980s, there were several struggles directed against
inhumane projects of the system, but which were also expressions of the
search for free forms of living. A social revolt which sought a new
social reality, now.
Thousands of people from these new movements went onto the streets in
the 1980s to protest the same thing which the RAF sought to attack
since
1979: The militarization policies of the NATO states, which would
enable
the West to wage "one and a half" wars simultaneously, the war against
the
Soviet Union and, at the same time, warlike interventions against
liberation
movements and revolutions, like in Nicaragua [8], where the first step towards liberation from
Western
dictatorship had been taken.
The RAF assumed that they would not be alone during this new phase. The
concept was fueled by the hope that militant sectors of various
movements would join a common front. But this concept failed to
recognize that, in
the given social situation, only very few people saw any purpose in a
liberation struggle on the level of a war. The liberation struggle,
whose central moment is that of war, only makes sense when there is a
possibility that there
are forces in the society who are willing to take it up and expand it -
at the very least, the radical elements of the movements.
But even those who were in solidarity - and they were by no means few
in number - did not take up the struggle with this in mind. A guerrilla
war requires a perspective for expansion to a level of struggle. This
is
necessary for the existential development of the guerrilla, and we were
not
able to achieve this.
The RAF's notion of armed action at the focal point of the struggle
placed less importance on the political and cultural processes outside
of the political-military struggle. Overcoming this strategic
direction, which had come from the fundamental structure of the concept
in the 1970s, should have been a precondition for any new revolutionary
project. The front could not become this new liberation project to
remove the distinctions between the movements and the guerrilla.
In the 1980s, the RAF operated under the assumption that a
social-revolutionary approach lay in the attacks on the central power
structures of imperialism. With this approach, the RAF's politics
became increasingly abstract. This led to a split of what should be
united: anti-imperialism and social revolution. The social
revolutionary outlook disappeared from the theory and praxis of the
RAF. The orientation became reduced to the anti-imperialist line, and
the result of this was the anti-imperialist front. The RAF was not a
factor in social questions. This was a fundamental mistake.
Subsuming all social and political content under the anti-imperialist
attack against the "entire system" produced false divisions instead of
a
process of unity; and it led to a lack of identity on concrete
questions
and the content of the struggle.
The resonance within the society remained limited, because the proposal
to create consciousness in the society and to break the consensus
between the state and the society - a central moment of any
revolutionary process - disappeared. Instead, the RAF sought to destroy
the state's dominance
of control by increasing the intensity of its attacks. The priority
shifted
to the military dimension. This emphasis remained throughout the 1980s
and
it defined our struggle.
We carried out attacks against NATO projects as well as the
military-industrial complex of capital, together with other guerrilla
groups in Western Europe; an attempt was made to forge a West European
Guerrilla Front comprised of the RAF, Action Directe in France, and the
Red Brigades/PCC in Italy.
The RAF concentrated - as far as its strength allowed - on attacking
NATO projects and, after 1984, the formation of a new power bloc by
West European states. The focus remained on our own limited forces and
those militants who closely identified with the RAF. The attempt to
form a front with other groups from the resistance movement did not
broaden into reality. For this reason, the front collapsed, because too
much energy was spent on trying to
adhere to the "correct" line. This narrow focus prevented any political
dynamic
from being created. Instead of a new horizon, which seemed possible
given
the variety of resistance in the early 1980s, the rigidness and
narrowness of the politics increased as the decade wore on.
There was a great discrepancy between the willingness of RAF militants
to give everything in the confrontation and the ability, at the same
time, to seek new ideas for the process of liberation. In this respect,
very little was risked.
During this time - the concept of the 1980s was by then a few years old
already - there was also development on our side, which was
characterized by demonstratively coldly driven politics, which was
little more than "making politics", and which was far removed from
anything having to do with liberation.
But this was also a time when the RAF and its prisoners, despite all
the difficulties and defeats, showed with their determination that they
had remained uncorrupted by the course of history and remained
committed to changing
the conditions against the will of the ruling powers. This gave others
hope
as well and drew in people who wanted to struggle for collectivity and
togetherness and against isolation and loneliness in the society. The
struggle by the
prisoners against isolation detention and for their regroupment, their
struggle
for dignity and freedom, which other people longed for as well, was
something many people could identify with. The determination and lack
of compromise by the RAF and the prisoners against the ruling powers
stood in the face
of all attempts by the authorities to suppress all struggles for
another
way of living.
We, Most Of Whom Became Organized In The RAF Very Late...
...joined in the hope that our struggle could contribute new impulses
for global revolt in the changed conditions. We sought changes for the
liberation struggle, for a new path on which we could join ourselves
with others. And we wanted to give something back to those who had
taken up the struggle before us, and who had died or been sent to
prison. The struggle in illegality had a very attractive affect on us.
We wanted to break though our borders and be free of everything which
confined us within the system.
Armed struggle in illegality was, for us, nothing more than the only
possible and necessary way for the liberation process. But also,
especially considering the crisis of the left all around the world, we
wanted to further develop the urban guerrilla as a possibility and keep
illegality as a terrain for the liberation process. But we recognized
then that that alone would not be enough. The guerrilla, too, would
have to change.
Our hope was to create new ties between the guerrilla and other sectors
of the resistance in the society. To do this, we sought a new proposal,
in which all struggles from the city neighborhoods to the guerrilla
could
stand together.
It Was Important For Us, Following The Collapse Of East Germany, To
Bring Our Struggle In Tune With The New Existing Social Situation
We wanted to take steps to relate to all those people whose dreams had
ended with the collapse of the GDR [9]
and its annexation into West Germany. Some had realized that "real
existing socialism" was not liberation after all. Others, who were part
of the opposition to real existing socialism in East Germany, had
dreamed of something different from either capitalism or real existing
socialism. Most people who had lived in the GDR and who had demanded
reunification with West Germany began to examine
the new, depressing social situation which had come about, with social
security
measures having been drastically done away with. We wanted to relate to
all
those people, during this historical situation which was unknown to
everyone,
who had struggled for liberation in confrontation with the West German
state
and also those who were fed up with the racist and completely
reactionary
developments unfolding in the now non-existent East Germany. We did not
want
to abandon these people to resignation, or to the right-wing.
Later on we saw that the dimension of this change could only result in
a new and internationalist liberation project if the new reality in
both East and West were dealt with. The RAF, with its roots in the
history of resistance in the old West Germany, could not achieve this.
The Attempt To Anchor The RAF In The 1990s Was An Unrealistic
Proposal
We wanted to transform a concept which had arisen from the 1968
movement into a new, social revolutionary and internationalist concept
in tune with the 1990s. This was a time when we sought for something
new, but - weighed down by the dogmas of the past years - we did not go
radically enough beyond the old concept. So we made the same mistakes
which all of us made after 1977: We overestimated the support for this
continuity of our conception of
struggle. Fundamentally, the danger exists of discrediting armed
struggle when it is maintained without explaining how it concretely
advances the revolutionary process and leads to a strengthening of the
liberation struggle. It is important to deal with this issue in a
responsible manner, because otherwise the armed struggle becomes
discredited - even for another situation, in which it is needed again.
The crisis, when the left reached its limits in the 1980s and began
partially to disband, made our attempt to link the RAF into some new
project an unrealistic proposal. We were much too late - even to
transform the RAF after a period of reflection. Criticism and
self-criticism do not aim at ending something, rather at further
developing it. In short, the end of the RAF is not the result of our
process of (self-)criticism and reflection, rather because it
is necessary, because the concept of the RAF does not contain the
necessary elements from which something new can arise.
When we examine this segment of our history today in light of the
historical process in general, the attempt to bring the RAF back into a
strong political process was more than anything just the prolongation
of something which had long since had the perspective of a project at
its end. We needed to realize that the form of struggle, above all
else, was what had remained from the old concept. There was no new
meaning, something which could offer a perspective of an alternative to
the labor society and its inhumane, profit-oriented economy, something
which could serve as the foundation for the liberation struggles of the
future and bring many people together.
Following our defeat in 1993, we knew that we couldn't just keep going
on as we had since we began the break with our struggle in 1992. We
were sure that we had set the correct goals for ourselves, but that we
had made some serious tactical mistakes. We wanted to think things over
one more time
with those who were in prison, and take a new step together.
But in the end, the very hurtful split of one group of the prisoners
from us, who declared us to be enemies, completely erased the very
conditions which had given rise to the RAF in the first place -
solidarity and the struggle for collectivity [10].
The Process Of Our Own Liberation...
...was important to us, and yet we always seemed to become stagnant. We
desired collectivity just as we desired the joint overcoming of all
forms of alienation. But the contradiction between war and liberation
often got pushed off or talked away by us. Revolutionary war also
produces alienation and structures of authority, which is in
contradiction to liberation. Dealing with that, so that it does not
become established as a structure, is only possible if there is
consciousness about it. Otherwise it goes without saying that new
structures of authority will arise, as well as a hardening in both
politics and relationships. That fact showed itself during the often
changing hierarchical structures of the front in the 1980s and the
authoritarian
tendencies during the split in 1993. And it showed itself during the
relapse
into mainstream analysis and thought, which, in the history of the RAF,
led to many people who struggled here no longer being able to see a
justification
for total revolt any longer.
It Was A Strategic Mistake Not To Build Up A Political-Social
Organization Alongside The Illegal, Armed Organization
In no phase of our history was an outreaching, political organization
realized in addition to the political-military struggle. The concept of
the RAF knew only the armed struggle, with a focus on the
political-military
attack.
In the formative communiqués of the RAF up to the mid 1970s,
this important question was never even posed, nor could it have been.
In the metropoles in general, and especially in Germany, there was no
previous experience
with an urban guerrilla. Many things had be discovered and learned
along
the way, and shown to be true or false in practice. Nevertheless, there
was never an orientation to the decisive question, whether the project
of
liberation can be fulfilled by an illegal organization and the armed
struggle - or if the building up of the guerrilla should go hand in
hand with the expansion
of political structures which can grow in the base processes. In
January
1976, our imprisoned comrades wrote about this, stating that only an
armed
struggle from illegality could be a practical-critical opposition to
imperialism.
The concept in the May 1982 paper [11]
also maintained this position, despite all the contradictions and
despite
the fact that it was an attempt to find a new political association
together
with other people. Because this concept, too, did not break with the
notion
that the armed struggle should be central in the metropoles. The
political
activities which arose from the front process got bogged down in
communicating
the attacks within the structures of the radical left.
The lack of a political organization for more than 20 years resulted in
the continual weakening of the political process. The over-estimation
of
the political-military actions in the metropoles of the last few
decades
was the precondition for this concept. The RAF based its strategy on
armed
struggle, in different ways during different phases, but at no point
did
it arrive at the point where militant actions aim at: The tactical
option
of a comprehensive liberation strategy. This weakness also led to the
fact
that our organization could not transform itself after two decades. The
preconditions
for placing the focus of the struggle on the political level - which is
what
we wanted to do in 1992 - were not at hand. But, in the end, that was
simply
the result of fundamental strategic mistakes. The lack of a
political-social
organization was a decisive mistake by the RAF. It wasn't the only
mistake,
but it's one important reason why the RAF could not become a stronger
liberation
project, and in the end the necessary preconditions were lacking to
build
up a fighting counter-movement searching for liberation, one which
could
have a strong influence on social developments. The mistakes inherent
in
the concept, such as these, which accompanied the RAF throughout its
entire
history show that the concept of the RAF can no longer be relevant in
the
liberation processes of the future.
The End Of The RAF Comes At A Time When The Whole World Is Confronted
With The Effects Of Neo-Liberalism - The International Struggle Against
Displacement, Alienation, And For A Just And Fundamentally Different
Social
Reality Is In Opposition To The Entire Development Of Capitalism
Global and inner-societal relations are becoming heightened in the
turbulence of the historical developments following the end of real
existing socialism. Nevertheless, it is not a contradiction for us to
end our project while still recognizing the necessity that everything
which is useful and possible must be done so that a world without
capitalism can come about, one in which the emancipation of humanity
can be realized. Considering the devastating effects of the collapse of
real existing socialism world wide, and the mass poverty of millions of
people in the former Soviet Union, it's not enough to talk today of the
chances which have been brought about by the end of real existing
socialism. Nevertheless, we recognize that true liberation was not
possible under the model of real existing socialism. It is possible to
draw consequences from the anti-emancipatory experiences with the
authoritarian and state
bureaucratic concepts of real existing socialism and to recognize
future
paths to liberation.
With the collapse of real existing socialism, the competition between
systems ended, meaning that the proponents of the capitalist system no
longer
feel the need to make their system appear to be "better". In the
absence
of an ideological check on capital, a process of global unleashing of
capital has resulted: All of humanity are to be subjected to the needs
of capital. Neo-liberalism is the ideological and economic foundation
for a world wide push towards optimization and the evaluation of people
and nature according to the demands of capital. Representatives of the
system call this "reform" or "modernization".
It is more than clear that the present stage of the development of the
system will bring an overwhelming majority of humanity further social
and existential difficulty. For the majority of the people in the
world, neo-liberalism adds a new dimension to the threats on their
lives.
In the struggle for political hegemony and economic power, only those
economies survive which increasingly orient their capacities towards
the
blank profits of the corporations and an ever smaller segment of the
society.
The side effects of this system lead to deep changes within societies.
Furthermore, increasing poverty and the increasing brutalization of a
further unleashing of wars and barbarity. If their own economic and
political interests are at
stake, the rich nations will intervene in these conflicts with their
own wars,
in order to secure "unlimited access to raw materials" in the earth and
to
enhance their positions of power. They will never concern themselves
with
actually solving the problems of people, rather they wish to control
the
destruction which their system sets into motion so as to squeeze out
profits
for the few.
It is not a contradiction, rather it is a part of the logic of the
system that transnational corporations are more powerful than ever,
with larger profits than ever, in this phase of political systems in
crisis all around the world, the breaking apart of societies, and the
impoverishment of wider sectors of the metropolitan masses who had
previously been spared from material problems.
Paradoxically, the successful maximization of profits by capital and
the process of social collapse called forth by it seems to be pushing
capitalism to its limits. This development threatens, above all else,
to result in further outbreaks of barbarity: From the independent
dynamic of system development, this negative process will continue,
until such time as there is a proposal for liberation which can call
forth a new force to overturn the system. But today, there is not only
the defeat of the historic left and the violence of the global social
relations, there is also a wealth of rebel movements who can draw on
the experiences of the global history of resistance.
In this global development, capitalism, in the metropoles as well,
tries to buy social peace by means of "welfare systems". Instead,
however, increasingly large segments of the society become marginalized
when they are no longer needed in the production process. The "world
power" and the "welfare state" can no longer exist together under one
roof. In Europe, for example, the old "welfare states" are coming under
the political and economic hegemony of Germany, with Germany serving as
a racist frontline state in an entire continent which is turning into a
police state.
The police and military are deployed against those fleeing from
poverty, war, and oppression. A society full of prisons. Cops and
security forces tossing the homeless out of the consumer shopping
areas, as well as youths and anyone else who upsets the regular
customers and the bourgeoisie. The re-introduction of closed facilities
as prisons for kids. The attempt to exert
total control over refugees in the near future by means of computer
chip
cards, with other social groups coming later on. Police batons and
weapons against the foreseeable revolts by those pushed to the edges.
Exclusion, repression,
and displacement. Even the total perfection of humans by means of
genetic
engineering can no longer be considered unthinkable.
Exclusion and repression through a lack of social feeling within the
society as well is normal both here and elsewhere. Racism from below
threatens the lives of millions, which in Germany is the murderous mark
of the historical continuity which this society carries with it. The
exclusion of handicapped persons from above and aggression against them
from below are expressions of the day to day brutality of the society.
Only people who don't contradict the efficiency of the economic system
are desired, as well as anything which can be capitalized. Anything
else which is outside of the needs of the capitalist society are given
no place. The great many people who can no longer live here, or who no
longer want to - and there are many people who chose to end their lives
every day - speak of the emptiness of the system and the hardness in
the society.
The marketing of people and the violence in the home and on the
streets, these are the violence of suppression, the social coldness
against others, the violence against women - all of these are
expressions of patriarchal and racist conditions.
The RAF always stood in contradiction to the conscious mentality of a
large segment of this society. That is a necessary moment in the
process
of liberation, because it's not only the conditions which are
reactionary,
rather the conditions produce reactionary character in people, and this
continually suppresses their ability to become liberated. Without a
doubt,
it is a matter of existence to resist and fight against racism and all
forms
of oppression. Future outlines for liberation must be measured
according
to this, and they must find a key to unlocking the closed, reactionary
consciousness
and awakening the desire for emancipation and liberation.
The Reality Of The World Today Proves That It Would Have Been Better
If The Global Wave Of Revolt, Which The RAF Was A Part Of, Had Been
Successful
The global wave of revolt, which the RAF arose from as well, did not
succeed, which does not mean that the destructive and unjust
developments up until today can't still be turned around. The fact that
we still don't see sufficient answers to these developments weighs more
heavily upon us than the mistakes which we made. The RAF came from the
revolts of the last decades, which did not exactly foresee how the
system would develop, but which at least recognized the threat which it
posed. We knew that this system would allow fewer and fewer people
around the world to live their lives with dignity. And we also knew
that this system seeks total access to people, so that they subjugate
themselves to the values of the system and make them their own. Our
radicalism sprung from these realizations. For us, we had nothing to
lose with this
system. Our struggle - the violence with which we resisted these
relations
- had a difficult, a heavy side. The liberation war has its shadows,
too.
Attacking people in their capacity as functionaries for the state is a
contradiction to the thoughts and feelings of all revolutionaries in
the world - it contradicts their notion of liberation. Even when there
are phases in the liberation
process when this is viewed as necessary, because there are people who
desire
injustice and oppression and who seek to defend their own power or the
power
of others. Revolutionaries desire a world in which no one has the right
to
decide who may live and who may not. Nevertheless, our violence upset
some
people in an irrational way. The real terror is the normality of the
economic
system.
The RAF Was Not The Answer For Liberation - It Was One Aspect Of It
Although many questions remain open today, we are sure that from the
liberation ideas of the future the seed of free relations can arise, if
it truly does embrace the variety which is needed to overturn the
conditions. It is useless to speak of "the correct line", the aspect of
life outside of which everything else seems inefficient, just as it is
to seek a revolutionary subject. The project of liberation in the
future will know many subjects and a variety of aspects and content,
and this had nothing to do with being random. We need a new proposal in
which seemingly very different individuals or social groups can be
subjects, and yet still be together. In this sense, the liberation
project of the future will not contain the old concepts of the German
left since 1968, not those of the RAF or other groups. The joy of
building an encompassing, anti-authoritarian, and yet binding
organizing project of liberation lies before us still, sadly too little
attempted up until now. We see that there are people all over the world
who are trying this, to finds ways out of the vacuum.
We draw hope from the fact that everywhere, even in the most remote
corners of this country - where the cultural hegemony of the fascist
right is no longer a seldom thing - there are people who have the
courage to join together against racism and neo-nazism, to defend
themselves and others and to struggle.
It is necessary to recognize that we are at a dead end and we need to
find ways out. So it makes sense to abandon things which can only be
carried forward in a theoretical sense. Our decision to end something
is the expression of our search for new answers. We know that we are
joined with many other people around the world in this search.
There will be many future discussions until all the experiences have
been brought together and we have a realistic and reflective picture of
history.
We want to be part of a joint liberation. We want to make some of our
own processes recognizable, and we want to learn from others.
This excludes the notion of a vanguard which leads the struggle.
Although the concept of being the "vanguard" had been dropped from our
understanding of the struggle for years, the old concept of the RAF
would not allow this to be actually done away with. That's another
reason why we had to cut ourselves loose from this concept.
The Guerrillas In The Metropoles Brought The War Back Into The Belly
Of The Beast, To The Imperialist States Which Waged Their Wars Outside
Their Own Centers Of Power
Despite everything which we could have done better, it was
fundamentally correct to oppose the conditions in West Germany and to
seek to wage resistance to the continuity of German history. We wanted
to open up chances for revolutionary struggle in the metropoles as well.
The RAF took up its own social terrain of struggle and sought to
develop it for more than two decades, a terrain which historically knew
little resistance, lacked a movement against fascism, and which was
characterized by a population loyal to fascism and barbarism. Unlike in
other countries, in Germany, liberation from fascism had to come from
the outside. There was no self-determined break with fascism "from
below" here. There were very few people in this country who resisted
fascism; too few with any trace of humanity. Those who struggled in the
Jewish resistance, in the communist resistance - in whatever
anti-fascist resistance - were right to struggle. And they will always
be right. They
were the few glimmers of light in the history of this country since
1933,
when fascism began to kill off all that was social in this society.
In contrast to these people, the trend in this society was always more
or less to accept what those in power said; authority determined what
is legitimate. In the social destruction of this society, which was a
precondition for the genocide by the Nazis, the indifference to any
other essential moment remains today. The RAF broke with German
tradition after Nazi fascism and refused to grant it any legitimacy.
The RAF came from the revolt against it. It not only rejected this
national and social continuity, it waged an internationalist struggle
in place of this negation, a struggle whose praxis rejected the ruling
conditions in the German state and attacked the military structures of
its NATO allies. All over the world, this alliance, in whose hierarchy
the USA was the driving force and the unquestioned leader, sought to
defeat social rebellions and liberation movements by means of the
military and war. The guerrillas in the metropoles brought the war,
which the imperialists waged outside their centers of power, back into
the belly of the beast.
We answered the violent conditions with the violence of revolt.
It is not possible for us to look back on a smooth and perfect history.
But we tried to do something, and in doing so we overstepped many of
the
ruling powers' laws and the internalized boundaries of bourgeois
society.
The RAF was not able to point out the path to liberation. But it
contributed for two decades to the fact that there are still thoughts
about liberation today. Putting the system in question was and still is
legitimate, as long as there is dominance and oppression instead of
freedom, emancipation, and dignity for everyone in the world.
There are nine former militants from the struggle of the RAF still in
prison. Although the struggle for liberation is far from over, this
conflict
has become part of history. We support all efforts which seek to get
the
prisoners from this conflict out of prison upright.
At this time, we'd like to greet and thank all of those who offered us
solidarity on our path for the past 28 years, who supported us in
various ways, and who struggled together with us in the ways that they
could. The RAF was determined to contribute to the struggle for
liberation. This revolutionary intervention in this country and in this
history would never have taken place
if many people, not organized in the RAF themselves, hadn't given a
part
of themselves to this struggle. A common path lies behind all of us. We
hope
that we will all find ourselves together again on the unknown and
winding
paths of liberation.
Our thoughts are with all those around the world who lost their lives
in the struggle against domination and for liberation. The goals which
they strived for are the goals of today and tomorrow - until all
relations have been overturned in which a person is but a lowly object,
a downcast, abandoned, and contemptuous being. It is sad that so many
gave their lives, but their deaths were not in vain. They live on in
the struggles and the future liberation.
We will never forget the comrades of the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who lost their lives in the fall of 1977
in an act of internationalist solidarity, seeking to liberate the
political prisoners. Today we would especially like to remember all
those who chose to give their all to the armed struggle here, and who
lost their lives.
Our memories and all our respect goes out to those whose names we do
not know, because we never knew them, and to
Petra Schelm
Georg von Rauch
Thomas Weissbecker
Holger Meins
Katharina Hammerschmidt
Ulrich Wessel
Siegfried Hausner
Werner Sauber
Brigitte Kuhlmann
Wilfried Bose
Ulrike Meinhof
Jan-Carl Raspe
Gudrun Ensslin
Andreas Baader
Ingrid Schubert
Willi-Peter Stoll
Michael Knoll
Elisabeth van Dyck
Juliane Plambeck
Wolfgang Beer
Sigurd Debus
Johannes Timme
Jurgen Peemoeller
Ina Siepmann
Gerd Albartus
Wolfgang Grams
The revolution says:
I was
I am
I will be again
Red Army Faction
March 1998
Footnotes
N.B. All footnotes in this document were
added by the translator and editor. None are originally from the RAF.
[1] On May 14th 1970 Andreas Baader was broken out of
prison by by armed RAF members while he was on an educational visit to
a library. It was the group's first claimed action. [return to text]
[2] The June 2nd Movement was a West Berlin guerilla
group influenced by anarchism, active in the 1970s. In the 1980s it
merged with the RAF. [return to text]
[3] The Revolutionary Cells were a decentralized
guerilla movement which sought to act as an armed auxiliary to the
autonomist left. [return to text]
[4] In the 1980s a feminist guerilla, Rote Zora,
emerged, carrying out attacks on sex traders, businesses implicated in
the exploitation of Third World women, and engaging in an extensive
bombing campaign against bio-tech research facilities. [return to
text]
[5] 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. (see
http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/documents/75-04-24.html)
[return to text]
[6] Hanns-Martin Schleyer, a leading industrialist
and former Nazi, was kidnapped by the RAF on September 5th 1977. His
release was offered in exchange for that of RAF prisoners being held by
the West German
State. The state opted for a repressive hard line, and the situation
escalated
further when a Palestinian Commando hijacked a Lufthansa Airliner in
support
of the RAF's demands (and also demanding the release of two Palestinian
political
prisoners held in Turkey). The Palestinian “Commando Martyr Halimeh”
flew
the airplane from Bahrain to Dubai to Aden (where the pilot was shot)
and
then finally – on October 17th – they landed in Mogidishu (Somalia).
The
next day, on October 18th, the conflict reached its climax, as a West
German
anti-terrorist unit stormed the hijacked plane, killing three of the
four
hijackers. Left-wing houses were raided across West Germany. Most
ominously, the State announced that four RAF prisoners – Andreas
Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe, Gudrun Ensslin and Irmgard Möller – had
been “found dead” or seriously injured in their cells. Only Möller
survived, and despite the fact
that to this day she has described having been attacked in her cell,
the
State maintains that the three committed “suicide”. [return
to text]
[7] In May 1982, the RAF released a paper which
called for the building of an anti-imperialist front in Europe with the
urban guerrilla as the vanguard. This paper can be viewed at
http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/documents/82_05.html. [return to text]
[8] Nicaragua – In 1979 a popular revolution in
Nicaragua brought the left-wing Frente Sandinista de Liberación
Nacional (or Sandinistas) to power, forcing the US-backed dictador
Anastasio Somoza to flee to Miami. Under the Reagan regime (1981-1989),
the United States worked hard to destabilize the Sandinista regime (and
this was one of the factors behind its defeat in 1990), arming and
supplying right-wing mercenary armies, mining the harbour of Managua,
and carrying out various covert operations. Nevertheless, the US never
dared to directly invade the country. [return to text]
[9] GDR, the German Democratic Republic; East Germany.
[return to text]
[10] In 1993 several prisoners from the RAF publicly
broke from the organization over the question of negotiations with the
State and the ceasfire.
See http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/documents/93_prisoners_split.html
[return to text]
[11] In May 1982, the RAF released a paper
which called for the building of an anti-imperialist front in Europe
with the
urban guerrilla as the vanguard. This paper can be viewed at
http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/documents/82_05.html. [return to text]
