[The following article was written in the Spring of 1994 for an
issue of our magazine that never appeared. - Arm The Spirit]
A Brief History Of The Red Army Fraction
In April 1992, the Red Army Fraction (RAF) took the step of
unilaterally calling off its campaign of assassinations of key
members of the political and economic apparatus as a first step
towards a negotiated settlement with the state, a settlement
which they insisted must include the release of prisoners,
particularly those, such as Bernd Roessner and Ali Jansen, who
were in poor health and those who were amongst the longest held,
such as Irmgard Moeller, who after 21 years had spent close to
half of her life in prison, as well as an agreement which would
allow those who were underground to surface. The reactions both
amongst the prisoners and within the broader anti-imperialist and
autonomist movement was predictable. All hell broke loose. To
some, if not most, the decision was treason. The decision was
portrayed as a betrayal of 23 years of history. And in the spirit
of the German left, a hot and heavy debate, much of which was
immortalized on paper, has followed. Since we, Arm The Spirit,
have translated a number of different documents concerning the
RAF and the situation of political prisoners in Germany, we feel
that some background is in order to help our readers understand
the parameters of this debate. What follows, as such, is a brief
examination of the history of the RAF.
The RAF was not the first expression of armed action on the
part of the New Left in West Germany in the 60s and 70s. It was,
however, the first organization to give armed struggle a
consistent and structured form within the context of the
international anti-imperialist movement of the day. The RAF, as
such, can be said to have been formed on May 14, 1970, when
Ulrike Meinhof led an armed unit in freeing Andreas Baader, then
serving a prison sentence in connection with 2 firebombings
carried out in April 1968. In it's first Manifesto, The Concept
Of The Urban Guerilla, a document steeped in the Marxism-Leninism
of the day, the RAF stated, "We affirm that the organization of
armed resistance groups in West Germany and West Berlin is
correct, possible, and justified. We further state that it is
correct, possible, and justified to conduct urban guerilla war
now. (...) It can and must be started now, and without it there
will never be an anti-imperialist struggle in the metropoles."
Further on they added, "The concept of the urban guerilla comes
from Latin America. It can only be here, as it is there, the
method of revolutionary intervention of generally weak
revolutionary forces." The RAF closed this document by placing
itself within the international context. "To carry out urban
guerilla warfare means to lead the anti-imperialist struggle
offensively. The Red Army Fraction creates the connection between
legal and illegal struggle, between national struggle and
international struggle, between political struggle and armed
struggle, between the strategical and tactical position of
the international communist movement."
In May 1972, the RAF carried out a series of bombings. The
first, on May 11, against the U.S. 5th Army Corps stationed in
Germany, was in solidarity with the Vietnamese liberation
struggle. The following day they detonated 3 bombs at the
Augsburg police headquarters in retaliation for the police
killing of RAF member Thomas Weisbecker. On May 15, the RAF
deployed a car-bomb against Karlsruhe federal court judge
Buddenberg in retaliation for the mistreatment of arrested RAF
members. May 19 saw the bombing of the Springer building in
Hamburg in response to the ongoing campaign of anti-left
propaganda conducted by the Springer Press. Finally, on May 24,
the Heidelberg headquarters of American Armed Forces in Europe
was bombed in response to the U.S. mine blockade and
carpet-bombing of Vietnam. Although people were injured or
killed in most of these bombings, with the exception of the
Buddenberg bombing, they differ from later RAF attacks in not
being directed against specific individuals, a point that should
be kept in mind when examining the RAF's history.
Between June 1 and June 15, 1972, virtually all leading
members of the RAF were arrested, bringing to an end what might
be seen as the first phase of the RAF's struggle. Although two
other guerilla groups, the 2nd of June Movement (which would
dissolve and partially integrate into the RAF in June 1980) and
the Revolutionary Cells (currently engaged in its own debate
about the future of armed struggle in Germany), continued to
carry out armed attacks, the RAF was not to carry out another
military action until April 1975.
However, the RAF was far from inactive. Both in prison and
within the context of the trials, RAF members worked to clarify
their perspective and strategy for armed struggle. Some of this
is clarified in Ulrike Meinhof's September 13, 1974 statement
regarding the liberation of Andreas Baader. She states, "The
struggle against imperialism (...) has as its goal to annihilate,
to destroy, to smash the system of imperialist domination, on the
political, economic, and military planes; to smash the cultural
institutions by which imperialism gives a homogeneity to the
dominant elites; and to smash the communications systems which
assure them their ideological ascendancy." She adds, "Faced with
the transnational organization of capital, the military alliances
with which U.S. imperialism encompasses the world, the
cooperation of the police and secret services, the international
organization of the dominant elite within the sphere of power of
U.S. imperialism, the response from our side, the side of the
proletariat, is the struggle of the revolutionary classes, the
liberation movements of the Third World, and the urban guerilla
in the metropoles of imperialism. That is proletarian
internationalism." It is in a paper called Conduct The
Anti-Imperialist Struggle! that the RAF most clearly outlines how
it understands this anti-imperialism and internationalism. "If
the peoples of the Third World are the vanguard of the
anti-imperialist revolution, meaning that this revolution is
objectively the greatest hope of the people in the metropoles for
their own liberation, then it is our task to present the
connection between the liberation struggle of the peoples of the
Third World and the longing for liberation wherever it emerges in
the metropoles..." As to the practical implications of these
observations, in an interview with Le Monde Diplomatique, RAF
members stated, "If it was and is possible for the RAF to develop
an idea of the Federal Republic's role in West Europe, from which
resistance develops nationally and internationally (...) then
that means the RAF will reach its tactical aim, that is the
dialectic of anti-imperialist action and reaction, from which the
armed resistance of small social revolutionary groups becomes a
strategic possibility for proletarian internationalism."
When the RAF did act in an armed capacity again on April 24,
1975, it was to seize the German embassy in Stockholm, Sweden.
The commando had one simple purpose, to secure the release of 26
political prisoners, most, but not all, members of the RAF, in
exchange for the military and economic attaches being held
hostage. This action was doubtless modeled on the kidnapping
carried out by the 2nd of June Movement in February and March of
the same year. Peter Lorenz had been kidnapped and successfully
exchanged for 6 imprisoned members of the 2nd of June Movement.
In this case, however, rather than negotiate an exchange, the
police stormed the building, killing two members of the commando
and injuring five others. It is worth noting in passing that the
commando was made up entirely of former members of the SPK
(Socialist Patients Collective), a group of former psychiatric
patients involved in a radical anti-psychiatry project in
Heidelberg who had come under extreme police pressure for
corresponding with imprisoned RAF members.
On September 5, 1976, Ulrike Meinhof was murdered in her
prison cell. The remaining months of 1976 saw the arrest of all
of the key lawyers representing RAF prisoners as well as many
other supporters. In virtually all cases these people were
charged with support for a terrorist organization under paragraph
129a of the West German criminal code. 1976 also saw 2,956
demonstrations, the greatest number in one year in German
history. Against this backdrop, the RAF began a campaign that was
to culminate in the most significant political event in post-war
Germany, the so-called "German Autumn". On April 7, 1977, the RAF
executed Chief Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback, holding him
responsible for the deaths of Holger Meins (a leading RAF member
who died during a hungerstrike to end isolation in 1974) and
Siegfried Hausner (who died due to lack of medical treatment
while in prison following the police attack on the German embassy
in Stockholm).
This attack marked a shift to a strategy that would be
marked by an overwhelming focus on assassinations of key members
of the state apparatus and the business elite. Although this
might not have been recognized at the time, it was a shift to an
entirely new phase in the RAF's practice. On July 30, the RAF
struck again, this time executing Jurgen Ponto. Ponto, who served
on the boards of 30 banks and companies in Germany and was the
president of Germany's second largest bank, the Dresdner Bank,
was seen as one of the five most important German businessmen at
that time, playing a key role representing Germany both at NATO
and elsewhere in the international arena. It is possible that the
RAF intended to kidnap Ponto in the hope of releasing him in
exchange for prisoners. On September 3, the Federal Prosecutor's
Office was bombed as part of a pressure campaign to have
political prisoners, who were being held in isolation, placed
together in groups of fifteen.
On September 5, 1977, the RAF undertook what was certainly
its largest action, kidnapping Hans Martin Schleyer, who, as the
president of the Federal Association of German Industries and the
president of the Federal Employers Association, was probably
Germany's most important and influential capitalist. They
demanded the release of eleven leading RAF prisoners in exchange
for Schleyer. This kidnapping elicited a state of emergency and
widespread draconian police activity. A stalemate punctuated by
police actions against perceived RAF supporters continued until
October 13 when a Palestinian commando calling itself "Commando
Martyr Halimeh" of the Struggle Against World Imperialism
Organization (SAWIO) hijacked a Lufthansa airliner en route from
Palma de Majorca to Frankfurt, Germany. They demanded the release
of the eleven aforementioned RAF prisoners, as well as two
members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP) being held in Istanbul. The RAF also issued a communique
supporting this action and reiterating the demands.
Following 5 days of tense negotiations, negotiations which
saw Secretary of State Hans-Jurgen Wischnewski visit Algeria,
Libya, Yemen, and Iraq seeking a country willing to accept the
prisoners, and during which the prisoners were put in complete
isolation and even denied access to their lawyers and any form of
media ('Kontaktsperre'), the hijacked jetliner was stormed in
Mogadishu, Somalia by Germany's crack anti-terrorist unit the
GSG-9. Three of the four hijackers were killed and the fourth was
severely injured. On the same night Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl
Raspe, and Andreas Baader died in prison. Although the state
claimed the deaths were the result of a suicide pact, evidence,
including medical evidence, contradicts the suicide thesis at
virtually every point. Only Irmgard Moeller, who was stabbed,
survived this attack.
In retaliation for the killings of the Commando Martyr
Halimeh and the prisoners, the RAF executed Schleyer, leaving his
body in the trunk of a car in the French border town of
Mullhausen.
On November 12, Ingrid Schubert, one of the 11 prisoners
whose release had been demanded in exchange for Schleyer was
found hanging in her cell.
With Meins, Meinhof, Ensslin, Raspe, Baader, and Schubert
dead, virtually the entire leadership of the RAF had been
eradicated.
The RAF was not heard from again until June 25, 1979, when
they attempted to assassinate the Commander-in-Chief of NATO,
U.S. General Alexander Haig. This failed assassination attempt
was followed by another lengthy silence, broken on August 31,
1981 with a bomb attack on the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force
in Europe in Ramstein, followed 2 weeks later by a failed attempt
to assassinate Frederick Kroesen, Commanding General of the U.S.
Army and of the NATO Middle East Section. These actions, although
unsuccessful from a material point-of-view, established that the
RAF was not entirely defeated and allowed them the opportunity to
put forward their analysis of the political situation faced by
the German and the West European left in the 80s. The Haig
communique contained the first hint of a significant change in
perception that would subsequently harden into a strategic shift.
In clarifying their perception of the international balance of
power in the post-Vietnam era, it stated:
"The people of the world are confronted with a new American
offensive, which, at the same time, marks a qualitative leap
forward in the development of the relative strength between the
forces of revolution and the forces of counter-revolution; or, as
we have already said, the worldwide revolutionary process is the
encirclement of the metropole by the people of the hinterland.
"With the victorious liberation of Southeast Asia and
Africa, the front is moving nearer the centre, it is coming
closer to the metropoles and makes the tactical and strategic
retreat of U.S. imperialism inevitable. In other words, the
so-called 'displacement of the strategic crucial points' is
towards West Europe."
In the Ramstein communique they further developed this theme:
"The imperialist war of destruction is now returning from
the Third World to Europe, from whence it began. The people of
Europe, of the FRG, are realizing that this development will mean
their destruction if it cannot be stopped. They are now getting a
direct, physically close concept of what has been reality for
people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America for hundreds of years:
imperialism, when you yourself are in the position of the
oppressed."
And again and more clearly in the Kroesen communique:
"West Europe is no longer the hinterland from where
imperialism is waging the war. Now, with the victories of the
wars of liberation in the Third World, with the development of
the guerilla in West Europe, now that the whole of imperialism is
suffering crises, West Europe has become part of the worldwide
front line. It is the part where they possess everything. But it
is also the part that has become vital for the process of
liberation for the entire worldwide front line."
In May 1982, the RAF released a strategy paper entitled The
Guerrilla, The Resistance, And The Anti-Imperialist Front. This
paper, which came to be known simply as "The May Paper", marked a
major re-evaluation and reorientation of RAF strategy, both
analytically and practically. Building on statements made in the
communiques accompanying the post-77 actions, they stated that
"it is now possible and necessary to develop a new phase in the
revolutionary strategy in the metropoles." The basis for this new
strategy was to be "The Guerrilla And The Resistance...A Single
Front." For the RAF, the period up until '77 was distinguished by
"that which built the armed struggle or prepared its path." What
was important, however, from their point of view by '82 was "to
regroup the guerilla movement and the militant political
struggles into an integrated whole from the perspective of a
strategy of development in the metropole." For the RAF this front
was more than a possibility, it was a necessity. "The
anti-imperialist front is urgently needed and even though it is
underdeveloped, it could be strong in West Europe, creating
enormous possibilities on the level of the international war of
liberation."
As had been suggested in the communiques from '79 and '81,
the RAF saw a special significance for resistance in Western
Europe. "On the level of the entire imperialist system, their
global project of restructuring can only function if the plan of
development in the interior of the imperialist centres unfolds in
a relatively easy fashion without serious or profound friction.
This project could not withstand the rupture caused by an
anti-imperialist struggle here..." And finally, in this vein,
they state, "The Revolution In West Europe Has Become The
Cornerstone Of The Worldwide Confrontation." And vis-a-vis West
Germany in particular, "The offensive within and from West
Europe, supporting itself on the central state, i.e., West
Germany, is essential for imperialist strategy to assure itself
in a new round both its domination as a functioning system on the
world scale and the reproduction of capital. From our side, in
the face of this offensive, the frontal development in the
metropole is asserted as simply and vitally necessary, as a
necessary condition to break the present tendency of the global
process of liberation from stagnating in the East-West opposition
and, for the countries where there has been national liberation,
from the fact of their obligations for the development of their
state." Quite plainly this line of reasoning pointed to a
substantial shift in the RAF's perception of its role.
Up until '77, there is no indication that they saw themselves a
anything more than the armed expression of an anti-imperialist
movement lending rearguard support from within the metropole to
national liberation struggles in the Third World. "The May Paper"
indicated that they now saw their role as key to international
liberation. Such a shift was no small issue and it didn't sit
well with many of those who had supported the RAF's earlier
anti-imperialist strategy.
"The May Paper" was destined to be the hotly debated, with
various segments of the anti-imperialist movement and the
far-left in general taking pro and con positions. Some felt that
the RAF was using its front strategy to gain hegemony over the
growing, but largely unstructured, new young left of the early
80s. Others felt that the front strategy would leave segments of
the legal movement open to prosecution under the paragraph 129a
of the criminal code, a paragraph which was open to a broad
interpretation in criminalizing activities deemed to constitute
"support for a terrorist organization". Still others sensed a
betrayal of fundamental principles of anti-imperialist theory and
practice. This latter is perhaps the most important criticism. In
July 1984, Antiimperialistischer Kampf (Anti-Imperialist
Struggle) issued its critique, perhaps the most systematic and
thorough, which juxtaposed the early RAF position with that of
"The May Paper". In reference to the first generation of the RAF,
they stated, "They consciously placed the anti-imperialist
struggle in the West German metropole under the hegemony of the
national liberation struggles of the peoples and nations of the
Third World whom imperialism oppressed." In this regard, they
stated, "The RAF's 1982 May Paper (...) indicates a complete
revision of the line that formed the basis of the RAF's struggle
in the 70s..." This rift continued to divide the anti-imperialist
movement until the end of the 80s and to some degree it marked
the beginning of the process that led to the cease-fire of April
1992.
The RAF carried out their first action after the release of
"The May Paper" on December 18, 1984. A commando placed a car
bomb at the SHAPE School for NATO officers in Oberammergau. The
bomb was discovered and defused.
Several days after, RAF prisoners began a hungerstrike for
the end of isolation and free association in large groups. This
hungerstrike allowed for the first concrete expression of the
front strategy in practice. For the remainder of December and
throughout the month of January 1985, RAF supporters carried out
hundreds of small and medium level bombings in support of the
prisoners' demands. These actions culminated in the RAF
assassination of arms industrialist Ernst Zimmerman. The
prisoners subsequently called off their hungerstrike the same
day. This campaign, impressive as it was, was to prove to be the
glory days of the West German anti-imperialist front.
In January 1985, the RAF and the French guerilla group
Action Directe (AD) issued a common statement calling for the
construction of a West European anti-imperialist front. This
paper set the stage for an action that would ultimately prove to
be the RAF's most controversial and divisive. On August 8, 1985,
the RAF and Action Directe claimed responsibility for the bombing
of the U.S. Air Base in Frankfurt. The action, which succeeded
only in killing two passers-by, would probably only have been
seen as significant in anti-imperialist circles because it was
the first (and ultimately only) common action of the RAF and
Action Directe were it not for the fact that the RAF kidnapped
and executed GI Edward Pimental so as to use his ID card to gain
access to the Air Base. Even to many of the RAF's supporters this
killing seemed unnecessary. Some commented on the irony that
while the RAF prisoners were demanding to be treated as
prisoners-of-war, the RAF had executed a prisoner to acquire an
ID card which they could have acquired without killing him.
Criticisms within the anti-imperialist movement and amongst even
the RAF's closest supporters were so intense that the RAF took
the extraordinary step of answering criticisms in a September
1985 interview carried out by supporters:
Q: You know that there has been and still is a very controversial
discussion about the Air Base action and the shooting of GI
Pimental. Most important, you gave the cops a chance to construct
their propaganda against the action.
A: It was certainly a mistake not to send the second communique
and the ID card together. We presumed that those who understood
the action would make the connection.
(...)
Q. But there is still a difference between the two deaths on the
Air Base and the GI. The determination of the action as you have
outlined it doesn't explain the case of the GI. Isn't this a
contradiction?
A: No. Basically the relationship between us and them is war. We
needed his card, otherwise we could not have accomplished the
attack. Of course, we wouldn't say we should now shoot every GI
who comes around the corner or that other comrades should do so.
One can clarify this only by considering the actual situation,
the political-practical determination of the attack, i.e., it is
a tactical question.
These responses failed to satisfy many of the critics and
the RAF was forced to issue a "self-criticism" of sorts in
January of 1986. This paper, entitled To Those Who Struggle With
Us, which was largely a reiteration of the RAF's front strategy,
dealt with the Pimental killing at several points. The opening
paragraph read:
"Today, we say that the shooting of the GI in the concrete
situation in the summer was a mistake which blocked the effect of
the attack against the Air Base and the debate about the
political-military purpose of the action, as was the case with
the offensive overall. [The RAF referred to their 1986 actions as
the 1986 offensive - trans.] It is clear that shooting the GI was
a degree of escalation which, in itself, had a strategic quality,
because it means sharpening the war against U.S. imperialism, in
the sense that, for all of us, all things connected to the U.S.
forces are everywhere and at all times targets for military
attacks. To justify this step as a 'practical necessity' is
politically impossible, because it can only develop from a
strategic quality. However, this does not correspond to the
subjective development of the resistance and the objective
situation which exists here today."
Later on, the same text states:
"Naturally, we have, as a result of our mistake, that is not
making it politically clearer how we understood the attack and
our silence about the GI, which prevented people from knowing if
it was a counter-action, made the discussion very difficult and
triggered debates that were not, in themselves, relevant."
Although this statement purported to be a self-criticism of
errors, it was perceived by many people in the anti-imperialist
movement and in the left at large as a critique of the movement.
The RAF presented any errors on their part as merely technical
oversights. The real problem apparently was a lack of maturation
and clarity on the part of the West German left, a lack of
maturity and clarity which led them to engage in "debates that
were not, in themselves, relevant." If this statement was meant
to defuse the growing critique, it backfired seriously, offending
the sensibilities of many critics who felt that there were real
political and human issues which needed to be discussed. In many
cases divisions within the anti-imperialist movement hardened as
a result of this statement. Such divisions left the
anti-imperialist movement in a weak position and open to attack,
and such an attack was not far off.
On July 9, 1986, the RAF assassinated Karl Heinz Beckurts,
the president of Siemens and a key figure in SDI (Star Wars)
production. Less than a month later, on August 2, 1986, RAF
member Eva Haule and supporters Luiti Hornstein and Chris Kluth,
both residents of the Kiefernstrasse squats in Dusseldorf, were
arrested in a Russelheim cafe. Less than two weeks later, on
August 13, two more supporters, Barbel Perau and Norbert
Hofmeier, were arrested in Duisburg. The following day there was
a third arrest in Duisburg. These were the first of a series of
arrests aimed at criminalizing supporters of the RAF who were
functioning in the legal left within the context of the front
strategy outlined by the RAF in 1982 in "The May Paper". The
state attack that many people had anticipated with the advent of
the front strategy was, in fact, beginning.
On October, 10, 1986, the RAF assassinated Gerold von
Braunmuhl, the political director of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and a key figure in the development of Europe's
imperialist strategy, particularly in relation to the Middle
East. The police responded with a raid of the Kiefernstrasse
squats on October 29.
On December 18, the Kiefernstrasse squats were again
targeted with the arrest of residents Andrea Sievering and Rico
Prauss. The attack against Kiefernstrasse continued with the
arrests of Thomas Klipper on September 8, 1988 and Rolf Hartung
on October 4.
On September 20, 1988, the RAF failed in their attempt to
assassinate Hans Tietmeyer, a German representative to the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
On February 1, 1989, RAF prisoners began a hungerstrike to
end isolation conditions and to gain recognition as political
prisoners with the right to associate with each other and with
people outside the prisons. The demand for humane treatment
garnered wide support on the left and amongst liberals. Although
the prisoners called off their strike without achieving their
goals, it was widely perceived that they had reached layers of
the population that had never before stood with the prisoners in
their demand for humane treatment. But a letter written by
Karl-Heinz Dellwo in May 1989 gave the first indication of what
was to come:
"By ending the hungerstrike we will be maintaining the
political level on which the struggle for association can and
will continue, after the confrontation was blocked politically
and practically.
"It would, at this point, only have been a qualitative
development. We have long been the antagonistic core, and our
comrades on the outside no longer need us as the motor for them
on their terrain. They themselves are it.
"This is a new political quality and we must all struggle to
give it content and depth. For our part, we want discussion with
everyone. In order for this to occur, we must find a common
political denominator. It can't be any other way.
"It is possible to find such a common denominator today
because the concept of a fundamental reversal doesn't only
emanate from the revolutionary core within society, but from
everyone. The concept, however strong or weak, is there, is
already ripe. It results from the experience that there isn't a
productive solution for anything in this system."
This letter indicated two developments within the RAF,
developments which set the stage for the April 1992 cease-fire
and the subsequent internal struggle. For the first time a key
political prisoner was suggesting that the prisoners were not at
the ideological core of the RAF, a role that the prisoners had
always de facto played since the first arrests in 1972. As well,
Dellwo was suggesting that the conditions existed for a
multi-party discussion with everyone. Later in the same letter,
he would suggest, in relation to ending the hungerstrike, that
such a discussion might even require a tempering of RAF actions.
"Because everyone must also be a subject in their own process of
awareness, we did not want to escalate the struggle to a level
which many people would have experienced as going beyond them and
which would have, as such, reproduced the same old divisions in a
new way."
Between Dellwo's May 1989 letter and the cease-fire
communique of April 1992, the RAF carried out two more actions.
On November 11, 1989, they assassinated Alfred Herrhausen,
president of the Deutsche Bank and Germany's most influential
capitalist. And on April 4, 1991, they assassinated Detlev
Korsten Rohwedder, president of the Treuhandanstalt, the body
responsible for integrating the East German economy into that of
West Germany.
In keeping with assurances offered in their April 1992
communique, the RAF has not carried out an armed attack aimed at
any representative of the German state apparatus or German
capital. Their one action, the March 1993 bombing of the new
high-tech prison in Weiterstadt, was meant to prevent this prison
from coming on line. Although this action was perceived favorably
throughout the world, it was not immune to criticism within the
ranks of the German anti-imperialist movement. In October 1993,
RAF political prisoner Eve Haule wrote, "We have seen where this
process of political self-dissolution has led. The story of the
'Verfassungsschutz' infiltrator and the subsequent events was
only the end-point. [This is a reference to the June 1993 ambush
and murder of RAF member Wolfgang Grams. RAF member Birgit
Hogefeld was arrested during this action.] And armed actions like
Weiterstadt further cement this process. Their only function is
to signal populism and retaliation - because the state hasn't
changed its policy towards the prisoners."
It is a virtual certainty that the struggle currently being
waged both within the RAF itself and in the broader
anti-imperialist and autonomist left will spell the end to the
RAF. It is equally clear and has been argued that errors made by
the RAF since 1982 and particularly since 1986 contribute in no
small way to the current crisis. Some people have even argued
that the current crisis stems from the errors made in 1977. It is
beyond a doubt that a consistent argument can be raised to
support any and all of these positions. However, the decline of
the RAF must also be placed in the larger picture. The RAF has
certainly been adversely effected by its errors, but it has also
been effected the overall decline in armed struggle in Europe.
The 80s saw the definitive defeat of Action Directe in France,
the Red Brigades in Italy, the Fighting Communist Cells (CCC) in
Belgium, and GRAPO in Spain. The IRA and the Basque ETA have also
faced crises that throw their continuity into question. Within
Germany itself the Revolutionary Cells (RZ) is undergoing its own
process of re-evaluation and at least part of its structure has
publicly broken with armed struggle. Although little is known
about the internal debate within Rote Zora, the organization
itself has been effectively inactive for some years.
It is equally important to consider the impact of recent
developments in global geopolitics on the West German left. While
the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Eastern
Bloc has had a profound influence on politics throughout the
world, nowhere in the First World has the impact been greater
than in Germany. Overnight the German left found itself faced
with an entirely new constellation of social and political
issues. The former GDR was suddenly to be integrated into West
Germany and with it came an influx of former East Germans into
the west sector in search of employment as uncompetitive
industries in the east closed down. As the former Eastern Bloc
dissolved entirely, the influx of economic refugees swelled,
putting further pressure on Germany's declining economy. These
East European refugees joined Third World asylum seekers and
southern Europeans to exert enormous pressure on Germany's
employment and housing markets. The extreme right moved
quickly to capitalize on growing social discontent, forging an
neo-nazi movement that has gained international attention for its
extreme violence. On an official level the state moved to stem
the flow of refugees by drafting draconian laws meant to severely
limit the number of people who would be eligible for asylum.
The impact of these changes has been seen on guerrilla
groups throughout the world. Latin American guerrilla groups such
as the Tupamaros in Uruguay and the FMLN in El Salvador have
given up armed struggle to enter the electoral arena. The ANC and
the PLO find themselves forced to negotiate settlements within
the context of international capitalism. Even Sinn Fein, the
effective legal arm of the IRA, is showing an increasing desire
to achieve a settlement at the negotiating table. Talk of
socialism, when it arises at all, is more form than substance.
While Third World national liberation struggles are in retreat,
sectarian warfare is wracking both the former Eastern Bloc and
parts of Africa.
In this context the RAF cannot posit itself as a rearguard
of national liberation struggles as it did in the early and
mid-70s. Nor, however, can it realistically call for an
anti-imperialist front in Germany or a West European guerrilla
front as it did in the 80s. While Dellwo may talk about a
widespread sentiment within society in favor of "a fundamental
reversal" which favors a new open dialogue as the basis for a
renewed left, this is rhetoric at best and delusion at worst.
However, any call to stay the course is no less deluded. In fact,
the crisis facing the RAF, which is not realistically addressed
by either position which has arisen from within its own ranks, is
the same crisis which is the left faces everywhere in the world.
How are we to respond to western imperialism in a situation where
transnational capitalism has effectively deprived national
struggles of much of their revolutionary potential? How do we
rebuild an egalitarian option to global capitalism given the
virtual blanket defeat of the socialist option? How do we respond
to the permanent marginalization of growing numbers of people
resulting from the growth of technology as the central force in
production? The pertinency of the current debate within the RAF
and the anti-imperialist and autonomist left lies in its ability
to address these and other questions.
Arm The Spirit, Spring 1994
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Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide
variety of material, including political prisoners, national
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism,
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our
writings, research, and translation materials on our listserv
called ATS-L. For more information, contact:
Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada
E-mail: ats@etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/archives/ats-l
MRTA Solidarity Page: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/mrta.htm
ATS Archive: http://www.etext.org/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
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