Arm The Spirit #16 - Fall 1993 (Part Four)

9) The Armed Strategy And The Legal Left-Wing: Current Evaluations
From Autonomous Revolutionaries - An Autonomous Anti-Imperialist
Connexion From Denmark
 
The Armed Resistance - Object Of General Concealment,
Disinformation And Speculation 

     After the Western secret services have gained access to the
Eastern European files, they have started analyzing and working out
material about the different guerrilla groups and movements, which
directly or indirectly were in contact with the Eastern countries.
(1) This is done to get more knowledge about the political
platform, contacts, ways of organization, logistics, etc. about the
armed groups. The reason for this is firstly to get a more
effective repression-machinery concerning the fight against the
resistance and secondly to continue an already started effort from
the rulers, with the help from the media, to establish a rewriting
of the subversive struggle's history and its current political
proceedings (with good help from the shrunken traditional
left-wing's press). In this way the armed and militant struggle is
going to be pointed out and classified as "agencies" for the
interests of the Eastern European secret services. As "corrupt
terrorists without political orientation, who, isolated, carried
out their actions". (2)
     Despite the ruler powers' false propaganda and suppression,
and the parliament-orientated left-wing's tragic/comic repression
and fear of contact with "illegal" militant and armed revolutionary
activities, this resistance was and is nevertheless a fact, which
in periods has shaken the imperialist rulers. The armed movements
have for decades carried out their activities in Western Europe and
have in our opinion had a constructive effect on the occurrence of
numerous social struggles in the society. The existence of the
armed movements disrupt the proclamation of the "social peace"
between the classes. It also compromises the so-called "democratic
state of affairs" in the NATO-countries, and it exposes it as being
nothing but a facade, an apparently untouchable power-structure, a
capitalist dictatorship. And untouchable is precisely how the
system wants to appear to the population. The armed resistance
directly confronts the capitalist and imperialist system with its
own contradictions and attacks all kinds of integration attempts.
Because of this, the radical militant resistance and the armed
struggle is a taboo.
     Through smear campaigns and criminalization, any real
discussion about militant and armed resistance is attempted to be
stopped. The existence of armed or militant resistance is in this
manner being concealed or demonized by almost all the media
including the media of the traditional system critical left wing. 
The Armed Struggles' Historical And Current Importance For An
Anti-Capitalist Revolutionary Process In Society - The Western
European Example

     Since the (re)emergence of the armed, anti-imperialist, and
social-revolutionary orientated resistance in Western Europe in the
beginning of the 70s, the situation has severely changed in many
society related areas. Exemplified by the anti-imperialist armed
resistance in Germany - first of all represented by RAF and the
internationalist connexion in Revolutionary Cells - the orientation
of this resistance was to break free from the frame of West German
policy and to regard it self as a concrete part of a long and
global front development. Its practical concept was to build up a
new front in the metropoles, in "the heart of the beast"
(definition from Che Guevara), closely connected to the
international anti-imperialist movements. The concept of the armed
struggle was to develop its own and independent mobilizing forces,
as a part of the resistance until the rise of social antagonistic
forces on mass level were able to overcome an actual revolution of
society. Most of the armed militant left wing groups and movements
regarded this as the most realistic possibility to develop the
liberation on a global level. When the US-imperialism and its
NATO-allies are being attacked from many sides at the same time, it
will result in a structural political and military weakening and a
phase of destabilisation, which in the end will result in a break
down of the frictionless inner order which is necessary for the
bourgeois democracy.
     In order to obtain an interaction between the liberation
struggles in countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the
class confrontations in the metropoles, the war should be
transferred to Western Europe and attacks should be made inside the
imperialist structures without compromise, starting with all the
NATO institutions and the leading economic and political structures
of the capital management and state apparatus.

The Strategic Difference Between The Guerrilla And The Left-Wing
Organizations

     Even though the more serious parts of the Western European
revolutionary left-wing, in the end of the 60s and in the beginning
of the 70s, had similar strategical political estimations, there
was a decisive difference in the attitude towards militant actions.
The clandestine action was mainly a tactical means amongst many
other forms of struggle and could thus be useful in a campaign with
a limited antagonism. For the urban guerilla, however, the militant
and armed actions meant the way forward in a revolutionary
direction, a practical test and demonstration of direct attacks
against "untouchable" power structures and their legitimation
(democratic veneer, bourgeois morals and legislation etc.)

The Objective Limitations In Western Europe In The 70s And 80s

     The battlefield of Western Europe, with the exception of
Euskadi and Northern Ireland, has not until today been comparable
with the historical mass-base of the guerrilla in Cuba, Vietnam,
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Palestine, the Philippines etc. Even the
similar anti-imperialist and social-revolutionary struggle
experiences that MLN (the Tupamaro movement in Uruguay) had in the
end of the 60s, were based on much better conditions than the
conditions of the armed connexions in Western Europe are
confronting. The guerrilla groups in the countries mentioned above
were able to base their struggle on a large support amongst the
population, even on an advanced level of the confrontation line.
Even though the EEC, besides the USA and Japan (and the so- called
Yen-area in Southeast Asia), is the most important bastion of the
capitalist world market and therefore an important starting point
for revolutionary changes - it is currently only a minor part of
the population that wants a radical change of society. It is
paradoxical to ascertain, that a part of the claims that people all
over the world and on all historical levels have been willing to
die for, to some extent, though in a deformed way, are carried out
in the EEC countries and the realization of the claims here is the
basis of the catastrophic economic and social conditions and
dictatorships in many  poor countries.

The Legal Left-Wing's Development Of An Opposition Loyal To The
System

     Despite the objective difficulties that the urban guerrilla
was (and are) confronted with here in Western Europe, there is also
the problem with the objective alliance partner: the legal
left-wing. The predominant part of the active basis was in no way
geared to the unavoidable confrontation with the state. Parts of
this left-wing escaped to institutional frames. They were
distancing themselves from the armed actions and demanded the
humiliating distancing-ritual from the rest of the legal left-wing.
When it did not succeed they immediately demanded isolation and
demarcation of those left-wing groups which refused to distance
themselves from the armed struggle.
     Very characteristic was (and is) the fact that some of the
most vocal critics of the armed fighting groups in fact did (do)
not have any knowledge about those whom they were criticizing.
Usually their knowledge about the guerilla is based on either
out-dated facts or an undigested reproduction of the disinformation
of the media. This is analogous to the state apparatus'
international coordinated strategy of counter-revolution.

The Critical But Allied Left-Wing

     Another (though smaller) part of the legal left-wing which
refused to take part in the denunciations and tried to make a
critical solidarity and at the same time kept out of the state
apparatus' criminalization, which as a reflex turned against any
uncontrollable left-wing opposition. A part of this part of the
left-wing was, because of the power balance from the mid-70s to the
beginning of the 80s, and the polarisation between the resistance
and the state, criminalized or pressed into dissolution. (3) Other
parts of this left-wing were constantly balancing on the edge of
criminalization. (4)

Repressed But Not Destroyed

     Because of the indifference or direct lack of solidarity of
the revolutionary left-wing, the guerilla in Western Europe was a
very narrow fighting area to act from. Though the state apparatus
in most of the Western European countries never succeeded in
destroying the urban guerilla (5), the armed resistance groups got
seriously blocked in the building up of a political and armed
anti-imperialist front in Europe. At times, the guerrilla was
pressed back to a level of armed propaganda. It was not able to
create an armed revolutionary alternative, which dialectically
would have been able to dissolve the line between the legal
struggle and the urban guerilla, though in some places looks like
things could have been developed in this direction. (6)

The Guerrilla, The Basic Democratic Resistance, And The Authentic
Processes Of Experience And Discussion

     The activities of the guerrilla has on vital points
contributed to spread base-democratic orientated movements -
especially in Germany and Euskadi, but also in Italy and the
Netherlands - which will not accept the morality and legislation of
the rulers. Firstly, this is autonomist and anti-imperialist
groups, anti-racist and anti-fascist movements, feminist and
lesbian connexions, radical ecological movements,
squatting-movements, where they still exists, etc. This is, of
course, also an interaction between the continuing existence of the
guerilla - though as a whole weakened - and the experiences of
autonomous resistance movements with the repression machineries.
The existence of the guerilla and the revolutionary prisoners in
the prisons of the NATO-countries is also playing a role concerning
the fact that the active, militant and legal resistance does not
just shut out direct and clandestine attacks on the
responsible/institutions of the system. In contradiction to the
rest of the almost totally integrated and passive traditional
left-wing, this base-democratic resistance is not willing to
transform its activities into the parliamentary frames of the
bourgeoisie. Practical, collective experiences with the state,
crystallized a straight political rejection of a prospective
non-confrontational transition to a basic democratic socialist
society. The history and experiences of the armed guerilla struggle
and the armed/militant mass rebellion does not give any illusions
of a voluntary resignation. A few times in the history of the
resistance, the rulers have been too weak to defend themselves. But
most times they have been ready to go to fascist or authoritarian
structures of ruling or to military interventions in order to save
the imperialist interests in every corner of the world. Everywhere
it was possible the respective repressive arrangements have
changed/are changing, but the imperialist mechanism of suppression
continues to be the same in its basic structures. Any resistance
with a revolutionary perspective will at some moment clash with the
system. This confrontation, the class war, is only possible to win
with the total defeat of the rulers. Thus, it is absolutely
necessary that the major practical experiences and
clarification-processes from the guerrilla movement become
integrated as part of any serious resistance project.

The Current Debate About The Armed Struggle's New Orientation

     The restructuring process of the economical and social
fundamentals in Western and Eastern Europe needs to destroy or
integrate all militant base-orientated structures and structures of
armed resistance. Only the elimination of all real opposition
creates the possibility for the imperialist fusion of Europe. Under
the leadership of the West German-dominated capital, the political
foundation is created on a parliamentarian centred "free and
democratic" legitimated basis without any revolutionary opposition.
This development, because of competition-related reasons, will be
followed up by a common and newly-defined aggressive imperialist
policy, under the leadership of an enlarged and harmonized EEC.

New Times, New Struggles

     Today, we are in the middle of an explosive process full of
contradictions. Besides diffuse, ethnic and ideological related
wars as e.g. in the former Yugoslavia and in big parts of the
former Soviet Union, the existence of extreme poverty and
declassification in the heart of the imperialist countries will
mean new cycles of class war all over Europe. Especially in the
Eastern European countries, that right now are being built up as
the low wage production area of the EEC, resulting in big
economical and social declassification. 50% of the population no
longer have jobs or housing as a result of this decline. No doubt
this will result in collective forms of resistance.

A Weakened, But Not Destroyed Guerrilla Starts A New Political
Phase Of Struggles

     The history of counter-revolution has until today very clearly
shown that the EEC imperialist rulers have not succeeded in
destroying the armed and militant revolutionary struggle in Western
Europe. Despite of the increased coordinated repression machinery
and the constant undermining of even the most conventional rights,
it will also in the future not be possible for them to eliminate
the resistance. Although leading EEC politicians make a point of
saying that the establishing of the inner market and the
realization of the Schengen Agreement (7) means that armed and
militant groups will no more exist, and despite the RAF's current
cease-fire and Brigate Rosse's and Action Directe's stopping of
armed actions, the militant radius of actions on an European level
is still intact. The guerrilla in Turkey/Kurdistan, Greece,
Euskadi, Northern Ireland etc., is still intact. The armed groups
in Germany - RAF and the different wings of the Revolutionary Cells
- are, together with autonomist, anti-fascist and anti-imperialist
groups and other movements, starting together to find the ways to
a new anti-capitalist offensive. This happens through the open and
joint criticism of former experiences, closely connected to the
discussion about perspectives for a new resistance movement.

Venceremos! - Autonomous Revolutionaries, Denmark

Notes:

1. Were supported by or had diplomatic contact with these
countries, or their respective Communist parties, that are loyal to
the state, gave information to the secret services of Eastern
Europe, for instance by informers.

2. For us as autonomists it is important to communicate authentic
material from the armed and clandestine left-wing groups, in order
to contribute to the creation of an authentic history and
experience.

3. Potere Operaia, Lotta Continua, Autonomia Operaia in Italy,
Proletarische Linke, Revolutionare Kampf, Iranian and Palestinian
connexions in Germany, Rote Jugend in The Netherlands, Gauche
Proletariene in France...

4. E.g., the many autonomous connexions such as the Kommunistischen
Bund in West Germany, Herri Batasuna in Euskadi, Sinn Fein in
Northern Ireland, etc.

5. With the exception of Portugal: The Revolutionary Party of the
Proletariat (PRP), Belgium: the Fighting Communist Cells (Cellules
Communistes Combattantes - CCC), and to some extent France: Action
Directe and Italy: the different fractions of the Red Brigades etc.

6. E.g., in Italy, during the years '77 to '80. The Red Brigades,
which was the biggest guerrilla organization among more than 100
armed groups in Italy, showed itself as a rudimentary tail of the
creation of a rising revolutionary revolt strongly rooted in the
population. This was expressed in a broad and multitudinous
spectrum of methods of action and with a great ability to mobilize,
and the resistance was able to set the agenda for the politically
unstable Italian society.

7. A common refugee- and asylum-policy for all the EEC countries,
with the purpose of selecting refugees and immigrants according to
the needs of the market and profitability. 

10) Red Army Fraction Communique - Statement Concerning The Attack
On Weiterstadt Prison

     Nothing has changed since the step we took in our history, a
step which we needed and wanted to take. We are busy with a new
process in which a social counter-power from below can develop, and
from which can come new proposals for a revolutionary process of
change. This requires a discussion in which various people can find
new foundations and common criteria for this process. This is about
building up a social counter-power which can be a relevant force in
a new international struggle for changing the destructive
relationships of capitalism. Thus, we have to fully understand both
the international situation as well as the changed reality within
our own society, and this process must also "brush off all the old
ideas (of the left)...", because only through a very deep
discussion can we come upon a proposal for how to change the ruling
relationships in a revolutionary manner. Only out of this process
can the questions regarding what forms of struggle and concrete
organizing are necessary be answered.
     For us, this process, now as before, has the highest priority.
The necessity is obvious to us each moment as we observe the
continuing destructive development of the capitalist system before
our eyes. This system, for a long time now, has been responsible
for marginalization, for the material and social misery and death
of millions of people in the Three Continents. Today, the
fundamental crisis within this system has reached a point where the
destruction of living conditions within the metropoles can no
longer be avoided, and material and social misery has become a
reality for more and more people here, and many people realize that
this system's perspective can only mean hopelessness for them.
Given this situation, the lack of any decent alternative as a
social power has had catastrophic consequences. While the state
protects and advances the expansion and escalation of fascist and
racist mobilizations within the society and, for example, continues
its hate-campaign against refugees, a great number of now-visible
contradictions have been channelled in a reactionary direction
because our side has been hampered by isolation and
disorganization.
     Last August, we wrote a paper in which we reflected upon our
history and at the same time sketched out criteria and interests
for the future; thoughts which had developed out of our discussions
from the past few years. These thoughts are the starting-points for
the discussion we'd like to initiate. Naturally, new questions and
interests have arisen. Although our paper did not create much
resonance, we would like to develop the discussion both wider and
deeper.
     Parts of the women's movement criticized us for not involving
ourselves more in their discussions, and the same applies to the
discussion of racism. And also from certain monumental events, for
example those in Rostock, it has become crucial for us to carry out
this discussion more diligently. Although even before the
sharpening of living conditions here and before the failure of the
left as a political force and the lack of perspective in so many
people, the road was left open for the rise of the fascists, on the
other hand it's also clear that the roots lie deeper as to why,
even here in the metropoles, in the new Great Germany,
disappointment has gotten channelled to such a degree against
foreigners. Everyone needs to examine this closely. As one man from
Mozambique said: "In our country, people are poor, but that doesn't
mean they turn around and hit the people lower than themselves."
The discussion of racism has to be a significant part of the
build-up of the counter-power from below, and it's something which
can't stay stuck in a ghetto or as something to be pushed off onto
others, but rather it has to be a question of personal
consciousness, of how each individual views and wants social
change.
     The Autonome-L.U.P.U.S. group has critiqued the mistakes made
in the past in their book "The History of Racism and the Boat". The
write: "so obvious, and yet it seems today that the revolutionary
left of the last 20 years overlooked these obvious racisms, the
striving for 'specific German' characteristics... That which has
become impossible in leftist discussions of patriarchal conditions
seems to be no big deal when it comes to the question of
German-ness: we don't have anything to do with it."
     The chances are great to do something different today and to
discover something new: the question of the building of a
counter-power from below is not exclusively a question for white,
German leftists, but rather a question of how people living here
can organize in common. And the population here is comprised of
people of different nationalities and skin colours.

"...the dialogue with black women need not take place in some
far-off land, but rather would be much easier and more intense if
carried out with women who live here in Germany. The history of
migrants and their knowledge from their nations of origin is just
as important for the understanding of internationalist associations
as their political opinions and their experiences with the racism
and sexism which they experience here are important for the
understanding of German society..."
                    (from "Basta", Woman Against Colonialism)

"...it was the 68-movement which took back that which fascism had
chased down and destroyed in Judaism and brought the left and its
culture, worth, and continuity back to life and justified these in
West Germany. And if today there is a revival of fascism, then it
will spread itself in the political-cultural vacuum which the left
has abandoned through its retreat from social responsibility and
the new proposal of values and attitudes."
                         (Lutz Taufer, imprisoned RAF member)

     It is one duty of the left to find new value and life in its
praxis, despite the fact that what continually comes out in the
society is that which 500 years of colonialism have implanted in
the metropolitan consciousness: racist ideology. White supremacist
consciousness has led to the colonialist and imperialist
exploitation of the people of the Three Continents for the past 500
years. This is still present in the white metropolitan
consciousness, and the state and capital often mobilize this during
times of crisis.
     Racism means categorizing people as "different" or "more-" and
"less-valuable". This is how people who are no longer needed or who
will be still more exploited are categorized by the capitalist
production system.
     The collapse of the social element among people has led to the
advance of racism. This collapse means a 24-hour per day struggle
among people for competition and the push to achieve, according to
the dictates of the capitalist system; people are robbed of their
own criteria for worth, only to have them replaced by capitalism's
functional standards - most effectively in the metropoles. This
means, for example, a connection between achievement and labour as
the defining standards for the worth of a human being: without a
job, you're nothing...That is today's standard, and most people
have become accustomed to living their entire lives according to an
entirely pre-destined rhythm, lives in which there is no place for
creativity and a desire for living.
     This shows how, under this system, most things are valued
according to their relationship to physical matters, which
naturally means that it is most often women that are forced to view
their bodies as wares to be either consumed by men or turned
down...
     It is and always has been the practice of the ruling
capitalist system to divide people with such criteria and with 1000
different divisions: the division between those that are more- and
less-valuable; between those that are able to work and those that
are "shy of work"; between black and white; between men and women;
between young and old; between the sick, the weak, and the disabled
and the strong and healthy; between the clever and the "dumb".
     This destructive process has today reached a dimension in
which the society has been undergoing an internal conversion.
     A racist consciousness, and its destructive process in the
society, can only be combatted and reversed by means of struggles
in which social conditions and values are put forward and
transformed. A perspective of revolutionary change can only be
realized in such processes. Either the left - and by that we mean
all those who are searching for ways of putting forward a humane
way of living both here and worldwide - must make a new beginning,
which has a relevance in the society - or the initiative will
remain on the right, with the fascists.
     Either our side will develop a base-movement from below, which
is directed by solidarity and justice, and by the struggle against
this cold society and against poverty and a lack of perspective, or
the explosive contradictions will remain destructive and the
violence will escalate, each person against the other.
     There are leftists who don't want to discuss these questions
of social development - the questions which we and others are
posing - because they see them as reformist. Such false discussions
of revolutionary versus reformist are useless when it comes to the
re-orientation of revolutionary politics; and also holding onto
timeless truths won't give anyone any answers to the new questions
of today. At the same time, the notion that the revolution has to
be international is also banal - it's of no use to anyone, not even
the peoples of the east and the south.
     The real questions start by asking how our own social
counter-power can be developed here, and how our experiences and
progress can be concretely transformed into a relevant force in the
international struggle and discussion. In this sense, we can no
longer look for a re-orientation as part of an international
grouping, because both in terms of content and superficiality, this
is absurd.
     Getting stuck on orienting on others to see how to tear things
apart (or to see if it's better to hold onto things) is an old
manner of behaviour of the German left. What was positive about the
discussions since 10.4 of last year was that within the
radical-left, a lot of old garbage - like competitive or limiting
thinking, or the obstinate retention of old manners of behaviour -
was scrutinized, and now, since things are so open, they can
finally be turned around.
     The advantage of the re-orientation of revolutionary politics
is that now people are getting together, organizing and acting,
people that actually want to learn new thoughts from one another
and develop themselves.
     Since we halted the escalation from our side nearly one year
ago, the state has heightened its pressure on progressive
individuals and the political opponents of this system; attempts to
search for a new way from out of the few struggled-after spaces
have been beaten back like never before. One prime example was the
counter-congress to the G-7 summit in Munich, which was hindered
before it started, making an international discussion impossible,
and also the demonstration there which was encircled by the police.
     Anti-fascist organizations are being criminalized and anti-
fascist demonstrations, like the one last summer in Mannheim, are
beaten down.
     Of course, there has to be a connection between the hindering
of self-determined proposals, the pursuit and jailing of
anti-fascists, and the rising strength of the fascist mobilization.
     The ruling powers know that all measures which the present
crisis forces them to take will only sharpen the contradictions:
societal collapse, rising housing shortages, rising unemployment,
crisis in the steel industry, crisis in the automobile industry...
- Reuter, the head of Daimler-Benz, talks of 30-50 years of crisis
- all of this will fall on the shoulders of the people. At the same
time, the state needs to get a big mobilization for Great Germany
behind it. When, for example, federal troops go into military
action, like in the war in Iraq and also against the Kurdish people
- then the Great German state takes a different perspective and
tries to get a big acceptance here for Germany's role as a military
power - there's little difference between this and the racist,
white mobilization of the "German citizens" on their boat,
something which this society might one day manage in the interest
of the ruling capitalists.
     While on the one hand they have drilled the notion into
people's minds that the foreigners and the refugees and the
scrapping of the constitutional asylum clause are all part of "the
Germans' problem", and they thereby call the fascist mobilization
into the plan, on the other hand there has been the ruling powers'
fake side, like the demonstration against racial hatred held in
Berlin at the end of last year. Also in this way, the state seeks
to channel the many people who are opposed to the fascist attacks
and murders. To insure that this movement does not develop into a
movement of international solidarity of the oppressed against the
ruling powers and their fascists attackers, a weeks-long media
campaign was initiated: talk of violence, violence from the left
being equated with violence from the right. Although last year
alone there were attacks on foreign, disabled, and homeless people
which left 17 people dead, Kohl talk of the need to struggle
against violence from both the right and the left.
     The jubilation of the ruling powers upon the collapse of the
state-socialist systems and the "big victory" of the capitalist
system has been silent for some time now - this development has
placed the capitalist system in its greatest crisis. The ruling
powers have no answers to this crisis - but this doesn't mean that
they won't continue with their inhumane plans and measures in an
attempt to regulate the situation, which is something they cannot
do.
     It seems that the only line which they have perfected is their
struggle against the left. They feel that all those involved in an
anti-fascist and anti-racist mobilization from below against the
ruling interests need to be defeated. They want to prevent all
initiatives in which people attempt to organize solutions to their
problems by means of solidarity from below.
     As a part of this, the state has been taking revenge on old
communists and anti-fascists, and the trial and imprisonment of
Gerhard Boegelein is exemplary of this process, namely that all
resistance experiences from this century need to be wiped out. And
another part of this posture is revealed in the state's treatment
of our imprisoned comrades.
     We have often been criticized because in our communique last
April we linked our decision to halt our actions to the situation
of the prisoners, particularly to the state's destructive stance.
     We have always maintained that the step in our history which
we took was grounded in the necessity of developing new
foundations, and we stated that this necessity was independent of
the state's conduct. But from the beginning, it was unclear how the
state would react to the decrease in pressure from our side, and
that's why we left the option open of intervening, if necessary, in
order to place limits on the state's conduct. In August '92 we
wrote:

     "We will then decide on armed intervention as a moment of
pushing back and not as a further strategy. We won't simply be made
to revert to our old ways. This escalation is not in our interest.
But the state has to realize that when it leaves no other option,
we have the means, the experience, and the determination to make
them take responsibility."

     It's ridiculous to say that we were making the question of the
re-development of revolutionary politics dependent on the
prisoners. But the fact is, our step forced the state to show its
real intentions concerning freedom for the political prisoners.
This whole situation is a contradiction; we have to deal with this
and act within this. After all, we don't live in a vacuum.
     After we removed the pressure from our side, the state once
again decided on an escalation against the prisoners - the
prosecution against Christian Klar and the new wave of trials will
put people away for their entire lives; the decision to not release
Bernd Roessner early; and the refusal of prisoners based on the
offer of release after submission to psychiatric tests, whereby
they would be forced to claim that their struggle, their
initiatives, their entire opposition was simple insanity.
     The prisoners are not going to be regrouped, because this
would allow them to take part in discussion processes and social
processes - and there's even less chance of them being released.
Just as before, they are to be destroyed, and their experiences in
the struggle are to be kept distant from others. It has become
clear to us that a political decision demands that the state turn
away from its destructive stance and adopt a political attitude
with regard to the prisoner question - the state justice system has
shown that it does not have the political will to make this
decision. Of course, there are thousands of questions still on the
table, and as for a discussion of solidarity, in which our
struggles and experiences of the past 25 years can be learned from,
decisions for the future can be made, and from which common
criteria for new proposals for a process of change can be made,
this discussion has hardly begun. But there are fundamentals and
things that are self-understood that need not be questioned, and
from which we proceed: for example, the relationship between our
prisoners and the reality that the state has tortured political
prisoners in isolation for 22 years - we are fighting for the
freedom of these prisoners.
     We will not say that we have been looking for a new strategy
while what happens to them in the meantime does not fit in our
concept. We can't start a new beginning or develop new proposals
separately from the question of how the freedom of our comrades who
have been imprisoned during the 22 years of our struggle can be
won. They have been in isolation cells and small groups for 18...22
years! There is no question: THEY MUST ALL BE FREE!
     The question of whether the freedom for all political
prisoners can be pushed through with a common effort by all
left-wing and progressive people also, according to us, has the
significance of whether, in this phase of re-orientation, a strong
and self-conscious force, which will be a counter-power to the
ruling relationships, can be built up. Anyone today that accepts
powerlessness and is seeking cover, because they think that our
side is too weak - how can they then think that we will be able to
build up a force that can change the common relationships?
     With the Commando Katharina Hammerschmidt, we attacked the
prison in Weiterstadt and thereby delayed the detention of people
there by several years. With this action, we sought to insert some
political pressure against the firm stance against our imprisoned
comrades and to force the state to deal with this question. But the
pushing through of the demand for their freedom requires various
initiatives from many people. Over the last year, we have sought,
despite the absence of pressure from us, to keep this question
urgent. Sadly, those things that could have been put into action
and pushed to their limits were not taken up by the comrades of the
left-radical spectrum.
     With our action, we have once again increased this pressure
and made the urgency real. We think that this can be utilized.

"We demand the closure of the Weiterstadt prison! Weiterstadt was
conceived as a deportation prison and constructed accordingly..."
(from a discussion paper by prisoners in Stuttgart-Stammheim, Sept.
'91)

     The Weiterstadt prison is exemplary of how the state deals
with the splintering and broadening contradictions: more and more
people are faced with prison, prison, prison - and this prison was
also supposed to act as a deportation prison as a part of the
racist state refugee policy.
     In its technological perfection of isolation and
differentiation of imprisoned people, it was to be a model for the
rest of Europe.
     Weiterstadt, after Berlin-Ploetzenzee, was to be the second
fully-conceived maximum-security prison for women, and it was being
billed as "the most humane prison" in Germany. But behind this
notion is hidden its scientifically further-developed concept of
the isolation, differentiation, and total control of prisoners. It
is the principle of reward and punishment in a high-tech form that
forces prisoners to be disciplined and subordinate and which forces
them, even if it means breaking them, to give their "cooperation".
     The electronic surveillance system was the most expensive and
highly-developed in all of Europe, with which all aspects of the
prison could be controlled and utilized for the psychological
program of destroying all attempts at solidarity, friendship, and
self-determined organization.

"Before the prisoners are divided into their various living groups,
they undergo a selection process. Here, a psychiatrist can monitor
their willingness to adapt or their level of resistance. On the
basis of these results, the exact division of the prisoners into
their living groups is decided upon. The living groups are set up
hierarchically. They range from the uncooperative and unbreakable
ones to those that can adapt. The goal: to have the prisoners go
through a 'carrier' from the lowest levels (ie, unadapted) to the
highest (ie, conformist) living groups."
               (from the info-paper "Bunte Hilfe", Darmstadt)

     Some women from Ploetze, who went on hunger-strike to call for
the abolition of the living group plan, wrote the following: 
"This situation is characterized by a level of control and
repression whose totality can hardly be imagined. Ploetze has been
conceptualized in this way, both architecturally and in terms of
personnel, so as to prevent contact between women or at least that
everything be recorded in detail. The women will be dispersed in
forced groupings separated from one another, and then it will be
observed how well they adapt and how they best can be made ready.
Each isolated cell has a two-way intercom, so that the women can be
acoustically monitored at all times. All of the hallways are
monitored by cameras, and the common areas, where the prisoners
spend their free time, have glass walls - in short, the perfect
surveillance over all living areas..."
     With the lie of a "humane prison", the Justice Department was
hoping to get prisoners in other prisons used to the idea of their
transfer to Weiterstadt. For years, they have ignored the demands
of prisoners in Frankfurt-Preungsheim, announcing instead that
Weiterstadt would be open in '93. What does the demand to dismantle
the brutal cement display in Preungsheim have to do with
Weiterstadt? It's not merely the claim that the prisoners'
conditions would be changed in Weiterstadt (where there transfer
was already planned) that is contradicted by reality. It has proved
that their answer to developments in the society is to build more
and more prisons (because Preungsheim was not going to be closed
down, just renovated) and more places of detention to jail more and
more people.
     The construction of prisons is no solution for the
(Preungsheim) prisoners. Their demands must be fulfilled - prisons
must be torn down.

Freedom For All Political Prisoners!
Free All HIV+ Prisoners!
Close All Isolation Units!
We Greet All Those Who Are Struggling In The Prisons For Their
Human Rights - In Preungsheim, Santa Fu, Ploetzensee, Rheinbach,
Stammheim, Straubing...
Solidarity With The International Prisons Struggle!
The Path To Liberation Is Part Of A Social Change Process, Which
Must Be Part Of A New International Struggle For Change!
Fight Against The Racism Of The State And The Nazis!
Remove The Racist Consciousness In The Society Through The Struggle
For The Social Element Among People - Also For This Do We Need A
Base-Movement From Below, Which Is Directed By Solidarity And
Justice And The Struggle Against The Cold Society, Poverty, And The
Lack Of Perspective!
For A Society Without Prisons!

Commando Katharina Hammerschmidt
Red Army Fraction
30.03.1993

ps: The notion that we protected the lives of the guards and the
low-level justice officials only out of "tactical concerns" or that
they could thank Kinkel for their lives is, of course, a lie. The
RAF has no interest in wounding or killing such people. This lie is
also in line with the fact that the BAW [federal prosecutor's
office - trans.] forgot to mention the warning notices which we
painted all over the prison's outer perimeter - although they
usually like to parade every piece of evidence they have.

11) "We Must Search For Something New" - Part Two Of Red Army
Fraction Discussion Paper - August 1992

     Since the publication of Part One of "We Must Search For
Something New" in Arm The Spirit 14/15, several events have taken
place which have dramatically altered the path that the Red Army
Fraction has been taking since they announced a "cease-fire" in
their communique of April 10, 1992.
     On March 27, 1993, the Katharina Hammerschmidt Commando of the
RAF bombed a newly constructed high-tech prison in Weiterstadt
causing millions of dollars in damage and completely destroying it.
This action did not technically break the cease-fire as they had
only stopped their attacks on representatives of state and capital.
On June 27, 1993, the GSG-9 ("anti-terrorist" unit) ambushed two
RAF members in Bad Kleinen in eastern Germany. Wolfgang Grams was
assassinated as he lay wounded on the ground by a GSG-9 officer and
his comrade, Birgit Hogefeld, was captured. Due to the "ineptitude"
of the security forces it was revealed that the RAF had been
infiltrated by a state agent, Klaus Steinmetz, who had been part of
a failed operation to capture the entire membership of the RAF.
This revelation, along with the cold-blooded execution of Grams,
caused a scandal which led to the resignation of Interior Minster
Rudolf Seiters and chief federal prosecutor Alexander von Stahl.
     The most recent event and perhaps the one that may spell the
end of the RAF is the public revelation that there is a "split"
between a number of RAF prisoners and the guerrilla. A letter
written by RAF prisoner Brigitte Mohnhaupt on behalf of ten other
RAF prisoners accuses the RAF and 4 other RAF prisoners of
negotiating with the state for the release of the political
prisoners in exchange for the end of armed struggle by the RAF. The
RAF released a communique which criticized Mohnhaupt's letter and
refuted many of its allegations (while not addressing others). At
the time of this writing the RAF's future is unclear. Meanwhile,
the RAF communique and Mohnhaupt's letter have been published in
the 4th issue of our Info Bulletin. Write us for this and other
info concerning the RAF.

Red Army Fraction - "We Must Search For Something New" - Part 2

     Now we'd like to make clear why it is we think that we've
reached our limits. In line with this, we'd like to comment on some
of our past few actions, when we realized the problem wasn't that
we had become emotionally estranged from many people. Guys like
Herrhausen and Rohwedder were regarded by many people as the cause
of suffering here at home as well as millions of deaths abroad.
Many people were pleased by these actions.
     From 1989, we operated under the assumption that Great Germany
was developing into a major world power. And naturally, the break
in the international balance of power meant global changes and
sharpening in conditions for revolutionary movements. Against this
background, it was essential to come to a new unity in the
struggle, so as to find a new orientation together with 
others.
     But this was only one side of the story. At the same time, we
found many of the developments within the resistance itself to be
very positive. Even though the Front-process had reached its
limits, there had been new experiences and new mobilizations. Just
to name a few: Wackersdorf in 86, the defence of the Hafenstrasse
in 87, the mass-mobilization against the IMF in 88, and the
hungerstrike campaign in 89. From our experiences and from these
struggles, there was plenty of material to forge new developments.
     We were convinced that it was possible for us - or anyone
involved in revolutionary developments - to make some real advances
based on these recent struggles and to advance and redevelop these
experiences. Out of the discussions around the IMF actions in
Berlin came the slogan "Attack the IMF!". There could have been a
struggle for concrete demands like debt cancellation and an
equitable distribution of resources, which would have to be pushed
through against the wishes of international capital, so as to give
oppressed people some room to carry out their own developments.
That is just one example of how the discussions could have
progressed so as to be able to decide on goals.
     Out of the experiences around the Hafenstrasse and the
hungerstrike campaign, we found that the concept "Struggle
Together!" could and should have gone on to other things, if it had
been used before, for example, to see who uses similar concepts.
Who is also talking about revolution and change? Who is for and who
is against revolutionary politics? Through this, we could have seen
which people we could share concrete goals with and thereby acquire
a variety of experiences out of a diverse unity of people.
     These struggles showed us that notions like "revolutionary"
versus "reformist", "single-issue movement", etc., need to be re-
examined, since they all stand for a certain ordering of
initiatives and ideas, and they produced certain relationships
among one another and created tensions. Diversity can create strong
movement when no one seeks to put down or dominate someone else. In
a process wherein everyone is coming from different experiences, if
a common goal for everyone can be found, then a whole wealth of
initiatives and a living impulse can exist - people can learn from
one another. We think that an important criteria for a new starting
point here is to take these experiences and transform them into new
struggles.
     Despite the world-wide sharpening of conditions, and although
we find ourselves standing before a mountain, those things from our
past and about ourselves which we wanted to change so as to find
out new things we have started on with great confidence. We view
this as a period of change, out of which, as we have said, should
come a revolutionary movement which has developed into a
counter-power from below.
     For ourselves, we saw it as important that we, in the future,
see ourselves as part of a common struggle and a common discussion,
in which various different initiatives all have their significance.
We, as the guerrilla, wanted from the beginning to be seen as a
part of this, and that our praxis should give the possibility for
the development of a counter-power with some relevance. From the
beginning, we didn't want the discussion, which is significant now,
of choosing between armed struggle or political organizing, and we
wanted some common organizing to develop from the consciousness of
this, something which we need at this time; an organizing of common
discussion and struggle - ranging from us in illegality to those in
the neighbourhoods - and the development of coming more and more to
take common steps forward.
     We completely underestimated the feelings of resignation and
powerlessness which large numbers of people involved in the
struggle back in 1989 were feeling, and which led to a collapse of
resistance structures and lots of confusion. Of course we saw that
many people we knocked down by all the concentrated power, which
was very real, and by the continuous cries of the "final victory of
the capitalist system". So for this entire period, we held onto the
hope that our actions could break through this spreading
powerlessness. We also wanted to say: You see, their power can be
touched; and also that it's up to us to fight back and to get to
the point to develop and push through our own proposals.
     Already with our attack on Neusel, we realized that our
initiatives would not be able to break through this powerlessness:
We had, until that time, taken for granted that the hard posture
and continued push from the state apparatus at the West European
level could be hit back at. For us, it was a conscious decision and
a new step to intervene in a struggle which had a concrete demand
(with our attack on Neusel, we were supporting the hungerstrike of
the GRAPO/PCE(r) prisoners in Spain).
     We say: a new step - because in the years after 1977, our
actions were never concerned with concrete demands, but rather with
setting boundaries for imperialist politics and with organizing
along strategic lines. Of course, we never had the illusion that
this attack would answer all of the questions on the table.
Nonetheless, we made the assessment that we were in a given
situation, after the murder of Jose Sevillano, to be able to make
room for new initiatives, after everything which had been going on
in this country had been put down.
     With our attack on Neusel, we aimed ourselves at the apparatus
which was responsible for setting the guidelines for defeating the
West European revolutionary movements. Their goal, in the wake of
the collapse of state socialism, was to put an end to all forms of
resistance in Western Europe. In our communique, we stated that the
struggle of the Spanish prisoners for their regroupment was a
turning point in the confrontation between imperialism and
liberation. But the reality was, not much was attacked, and the
previously-dominant feelings returned: If we weren't able to
succeed during the 1989 hungerstrike here, then how can we possibly
make any breakthroughs for Spanish comrades?
     Others wanted to explain to us why the struggle for
regroupment did not become a primary theme for them. But we never
intended for people to put aside their continuing struggles and
confrontations and to make the struggle of the Spanish prisoners
central. What we meant by a "turning point" was that it had some
meaning for everyone - no matter where they are - whether or not we
could push back the ruling powers on this point. That's why we set
about to raise consciousness about this and to develop initiatives
from it - from our own praxis and special situation.
     From this experience of the struggle to push through a
concrete goal along with others came a much more careful look at
our common situation and we decided to make a priority of linking
up with more comrades. Those with whom we had been discussing
things were, by themselves, already to find a common discussion and
organization in their regions and to push past the boundaries where
people begin to feel powerless and hardly do anything. We came to
see this process more and more as a long-term development.
Nonetheless, we still wanted to practically hinder the march of
Great Germany. Even though we were pretty much alone and on a
different process, we still had the hope that other people would
soon awaken from their depression. Of course, there were various
initiatives in different places. But these were all unconnected and
did not seek a perspective; rather, they came from a way of life:
people have to do something.
     In 1990, reactionary nationalist and racist mobilizations
became more intense and led to many beaten refugees lying dead in
the streets. 1990, the year of Great Germany's big party (and even
though we have nothing against soccer, Germany's victory in the
World Cup led to celebrations of "Germany, a people united in
victory").
     On October 3 came the unity fest and a new day for
celebrations. In the communique after the attack on Rohwedder, the
head of the Treuhand, we stated: "We see our action as an attack
against one of the architects of the new Great Germany as an attack
which hit this reactionary development at its roots. It's obvious,
as German history through the Third Reich has shown, that poverty,
social decline, and massive unemployment do not, by themselves,
lead to a mobilization for human causes against the rulers of the
State."
     We consciously planned that action against one of those
responsible, not only at the political level for the development of
Great Germany, but also someone who was directly responsible for
orienting all of life's necessities to capitalist criteria and for
the destruction of the structures of life and existence for the
people of the former-DDR. We did not have the sort of ties to
people there that many West German intellectuals had, who said,
"They wanted capitalism, so it's their own fault, they got what
they wanted." Although it did greatly affect us, as people who have
been struggling here for years against this system, just how people
suddenly embraced this system with open arms. But that's not the
point. Most of them didn't realize what they were getting into.
Intellectuals who are used to living with computers and CD players
can hardly be outraged at the fact that people were seeking
consumerism.
     We saw it as a task for the revolutionary left in Germany to
hinder this march which was rolling over people. Since we, here,
knew what it meant, and the people there were beginning to get
their first experiences of life under this system.
     For us, the discussions of the new situation didn't just have
to do with the collapse of the state socialist system, but rather
that Germany had become an entirely different country. There were
now 18 million extra people, with histories and experiences that
were strange to us. We nonetheless tried to reach the people there
with our action, but we oriented ourselves from our position,
rather than from the developed relationship to the struggles or
demands there. Still, the Monday Demonstrations continued for some
time, something which we found good.
     The attack on Rohwedder was our penultimate action. It was
then that we realized that the process which is so necessary here
could not be brought about at this time through our actions, even
if they targeted those responsible for the world-wide suffering of
millions of people. But many people in the former-DDR were pleased
with our action. But it didn't expand us in any way, and it doesn't
have the perspective of revolutionary politics if next to nothing
results from it.
     Concretely, we confronted those people in the former-DDR, who
were organizing for a different form of change than that being
pressed upon them by the West German state and capital, with a
level of struggle which they did not know from their experience.
For them, it's as if we pushed our way into their experience from
the outside.
     In different groups in West Germany, the action has the effect
of propping up an old relationship which we no longer wanted: We
noticed after the action that various people wanted to do something
against the Treuhand; for example, some wanted to blockade a
Treuhand firm and demand the regroupment of the prisoners. But
these comrades never came upon the idea of beginning a discussion
with people who are concretely affected by Treuhand policies and to
thereby develop concrete demands. They didn't attempt to try and
find any common ground or a foundation to build further common
actions upon. But we would have liked to have seen this happen. One
goal of the action was to launch a political discussion to arrive
at an understanding with people from the former-DDR.
     This contradiction made it clear to us that a lot is lacking,
even in the understanding between us and those who identify with
us, because they interpreted our action based on an old frame of
mind and wanted, above all, to attack the same target. They had
entirely different criteria than those which we had developed over
the past few years. That is only one example which made it clear to
us later on that we needed a break and  deep-reaching discussion
and communication.
     As for our action against the US Embassy during the Gulf War:
some people criticized our action as merely being symbolic. This
was an action which we decided upon in a very short period of time.
We wanted to renew the ties with all those people around the world
who were struggling against this destructive war. We felt it was
important to aim at those political responsible for this genocide.
Of course we realized that this action would not materially affect
the war in any way. By means of the Gulf War, imperialism, in the
era after the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe, showed
in a bloody manner just the "One World" of capital was to mean for
people: the determination to militarily suppress any government or
people that does not apply itself to the rules of the "New World
Order".
     We had to decide on things based on our specific situation:
Either do nothing at all - something we couldn't even imagine - or
organize an action relatively quickly. Our aim with the action was
to strengthen the political relationship against imperialism. Of
course just a single action, and even the broader mobilization, was
not in any way going to stop this genocide. But everyone surely
knows that Ruehe and Kinkel would have been eager to send German
air force units around the globe if this mobilization had not taken
place.
     Even though the German state took great steps towards this and
kept on with this development - it is a problem of these leftists,
many intellectuals and many who call themselves revolutionary, that
so little remains after such a mobilization, very little is put
forward and nothing is linked to it and no new strengths arise.
Even so, leftist intellectuals aren't so dumb as to start big
discussions as to whether it's reprehensible when a movement
against the war is partially driven by the fact that people have
fear that war could also get waged from this country thus making
them directly involved. We don't think this is bad, because from
such a fear can come a deep solidarity with those people against
whom the war is being waged, rather than from a purely intellectual
view which knows everything and is above human feelings and from
which nothing comes.
     For us, the broad mobilization against the Gulf War meant
something entirely different. We were surprised and astonished that
after two years of German parties and jubilees, a broad movement
against imperialist war could arise. It was a sign to the ruling
powers that hundreds of thousands of people were not willing to
accept future German military intervention policies. We also think
it's important not to lose sight of this fact: on the other side,
there was a reactionary development and the fascists grew stronger.
     Various things became clear to us from the reactions to the
embassy action. Of course there were reactions from people who, we
could tell, had understood us; these were often people who were
doing as much as they could against the war. But then there others
that said we should have acted against Germany's role in the war.
To act against the USA, they said, was a false orientation - a
counter-action, even. The action, they said, was not effective, so
it couldn't have come from us - it must have been carried out by
the state. It was impossible that the RAF could have oriented
themselves towards people carrying out blockades against the war or
conscientious objectors, instead of exclusively revolutionaries and
anti-imperialists. And the action, some said, endangered those
people blockading the US embassy (even though we made it quite
clear in the communique that we made sure that the action ruled out
all chance of danger).
     The relative ease with which some people get behind our
actions and approve of them, without even "wasting" any thought on
how they themselves can act on what they demand from us, especially
struck us. For example, those people who stated that we should have
focused more on Germany's role in the war - we never heard of any
initiatives from them in this area.
     But what we want to say doesn't only concern those people who
don't do anything, but nevertheless criticize the initiatives of
others. Many people who are close to us were disappointed by this
action, because they had hoped for something more effective. This
was a point that was becoming clearer to us, namely that we had
become a sort of institution. We agree with what Lutz Taufer said
in his letter to "Konkret" in August: The RAF has become a
projection surface. With our action against the embassy, we
disappointed many people who had hoped that someone would do
something effective.
     At the end of 1989, when we entered a new phase, our
starting-point was that all those who were to come to the decision
to struggle with us should be prepared to get involved in a
situation where many open questions remain. Continuity for the RAF
could no longer mean an orientation to years-old politics, but
rather to speak to changing global conditions and changes in
society and to develop something new based on the boundaries which
our politics from the last few years had reached. And even though
we are still at a boundary today, during the three years when we
carried out a parallel process of re- orientation and intervention,
for us and for those with us, we have had significant experiences
which now constitute our foundation.
     We aren't bothered by the opinion which one comrade expressed
in "Interim" when he/she stated that our actions have achieved
nothing. They have, of course, set boundaries to the state's march,
and they have also led to a situation where it's possible to force
the state into a discussion concerning freedom for political
prisoners. But the actions have not achieved everything which we
find necessary for the general situation. They stand alongside the
processes underway in the society. Given the current situation,
actions from us would bring a level of confrontation which would
hinder rather than help a fundamental common search for new
orientations.
     It's also important that this relationship, which we wrote of
after the embassy action, and which could also be used to describe
any number of other confrontations, could not be broken through. By
the relationship we mean the fact that many comrades delegate to us
the responsibility to struggle at a certain point in the
confrontation, since we are prepared to, or, as we recently heard
again, because we can show the "concrete attackable goals for the
future". They fail to see much of their own responsibility, and
also that this has to be a common process. It is this very
relationship which some prisoners have written about recently: A
false division of labour which has developed over the past few
years, and a false relationship, which many have developed with
regards to us and which we also helped create, that there's always
a guerrilla and those who find the actions either good or bad.
     We know that there are people in different areas who, from
their own responsibilities, have built things up. But there are few
people who, along with us, are asking the question of how we can
build a counter-power from below and who want to start on this
process along with us.
     For us, it wasn't easy to come to the decision that we needed
to take a step which would entail us letting go of some things.
Although over the last few years we worked on the assumption that
with every action we had some answer to offer for the situation,
this left us ever more on our own, so with this step we decided to
embark on a very new direction. Some of our imprisoned comrades put
it this way: The RAF has also abandoned its responsibility to the
left. For us, that means a trust and admission to all those who we
are now reaching out to, to learn from their strengths and
weaknesses so as to derive some use for the future. And to all
those who arisen in the new conditions over the last few years, and
to those who have started new things. A trust that our step would
be seen as part of a necessary process of searching for new
foundations to expand the struggle. We need a movement that is in
a position to come to a common decision, based on shared
foundations and understandings, concerning short-term and long-term
goals and to decide how the struggle should proceed.
     Our step of April 10 is the most decisive step we have taken
in the last three years in the process which we seek to develop at
this time. On April 10, we stated: We are now making room for this
process. This has meaning in two directions. Because we have
lessened the level of confrontation with the state from our side,
the determination of the level of confrontation is no longer to be
attributed to us alone. It is to be attributed to all those who
seek to determine how a human existence can be achieved both here
and world-wide. We also made room for fresh air for thought, for us
and for everyone seeking to develop a new orientation, and to no
longer repeat old things without reflection and to leave all
questions and discussions unanswered.

     "...We need to struggle anew for the social concerns of
people. This is not a question of power. From there, there can be
no reversal in society. Only from their relationship to our self-
organization can it be determined whether that which the RAF has
sought after has any relevance: To establish a level of
confrontation outside of war and to again become part of the social
process of discovery. If, on the other hand, things remain as they
always have been, then these leftists will either have to find a
way around this powerlessness or attack the exploitative
relationship..." (Karl-Heinz Dellwo)

     When we said on 10.4 that the Kinkel-proposal "has shown that
there are fractions in the State apparatus that don't believe that
the social contradictions and resistance can be kept under control
with police/military means alone", we didn't intend to mistake a
truism for a new development. Many people misunderstood us and
said: It has always been the case that the State, alongside its
police and military answers, has sought to integrate contradictions
and to take things on in this manner. And they are right to say
this.
     Of course we never attributed human motives to either Kinkel
or to the "Group for the Coordinated Fight Against Terrorism". We
see things just as the prisoners in Celle, who said the following
in "Konkret": "...as for the prisoners, there are fractions in the
apparatus who we don't over-estimate, because they... have the same
goal. But Kinkel's utterances are - as ever - a political
expression of this contradiction which has been around for a while.
So it's very worthy of note that this is an apparatus which is
capable of great inertia: the state security complex with its roots
in fascism, and a relative degree of independence, and which, along
with the media, has built up an image of self- legitimation. Even
though it's been evident for some time now that they would not be
able to break either the RAF or its prisoners, they have pressed on
for years..." (towards the military defeat both outside and on the
inside through torture).
     As far as this was unclear in our text, we need to clear
things up. Nonetheless, we think that many other people besides
ourselves must be conscious of the fact that in the whole situation
there is a certain politically explosive force that we can utilize
to our side's benefit. It won't get us anywhere to communicate at
the same time the fact that the state's goals do not mesh with our
own. It's extremely important to see that the state, at a certain
point in the confrontation, understood that it had to do something
which it had been trying for years to achieve through destruction.
In the confrontation between the prisoners of the
guerrilla/resistance and the state, the state never opted for
integration, because just as with the confrontation with the
guerrilla, antagonism has been the point of reference.
     Today, everyone who has been involved in the struggle against
torture and for the regroupment and lives of the political
prisoners, can self-consciously approach this situation knowing
that it is the result of this years-long process. This was
important to us and led us to the question of how we could use this
situation to benefit our side.
     While the state's goal is to eliminate the politics of the
RAF, at the moment one of our fundamental goals is to push back the
state from its obliteration mind-set which it has in regard to all
those struggling for a self-determined life, who won't be pressed
down by the power of money, and those who formulate, change, and
press through their own interests against the profit motives of
capital. It all depends on whether the possibility offered to our
side in this situation is taken advantage of by many people or not.
Of course there's no automatic connection between the retreat of
this state from its destructive position with regards to the
political prisoners and to its retreating from its obliteration
mind-set with regards to the fundamental opposition.
     As has become increasingly clear in the last few weeks, the
state wants to protract and depoliticize this process, and the
question to all those who want freedom for the political prisoners
and who want to struggle from below for developments here in
Germany is not to let go of this.
     In the struggle for the freedom of the political prisoners,
the political confrontation which the state has sought to break
with states of emergency and torture over the last 22 years must
remain central. And the fact must remain central in this
confrontation that there are prisoners from the guerrilla and the
resistance for the following reason: because the German state never
relaxed its posture of annihilation against the revolutionary
resistance from the days of fascism. Armed struggle has always been
necessary to get past this posture of annihilation - when nothing
else is allowed to live outside of the reality dictated by capital,
then the existence and possibility of development of a
revolutionary resistance must be pushed through. That is the reason
why comrades have joined and developed the guerrilla for the past
22 years. And why other comrades have withdrawn from the guerrilla.
     Into this comes the explosive force which the situation since
10.4 has brought about for the state and for our side. We made
certain statements on 10.4:

1. That we see it as a priority that there be room for political
discussion and the organizing of a counter-power from below, and

2. That we have no interest in an escalation of the confrontation
with the state, because an action from us today, which would
heighten the confrontation, would not advance the political process
for our side.

     For us, this was an offensive step, because we entered this
phase conscious of the fact that the entire situation is presently
at a break-point, and nothing can remain the same as it was before
- not even for us, the RAF. Rather, we are struggling within this
process in Germany to make room for the development of a
counter-power from below, and for the organization of a fundamental
opposition and base-movements, and if the state should not retreat,
then the necessary and historically logical answer would be the
resumption of armed struggle, but not simply as our own decision as
the RAF to resume actions, but rather as the decision of many
people presently involved in the process. When many people
consciously enter the discussions and ask the question, and not
just to us, of what the answer must be should the state not relax
its destructive stance, then we will truly have a strong political
weapon that we can take in hand against the state.
     It doesn't get us anywhere to say: Look, they are beating down
anti-fascists in Mannheim who were demanding protection for
refugees from fascist attacks; or, Look, in Munich they sought to
disrupt discussion meetings for the G-7 counter-congress. We have
seen those things, and many others besides. We also see that they
are bringing new charges against Christian Klar, Ingrid
Jakobsmeier, Sieglinde Hoffman, and Rolf-Clemens Wagner on the
basis of crown-witnesses' statements, thus they are clearly still
seeking destruction - just as they heightened some prisoners'
isolation conditions after 10.4. They are protracting the process
of winning freedom for the prisoners, since they have not yet
released Bernd Roessner. And they continue to exert pressure on the
prisoners and on us, thus denying themselves and history. If the
state continues on in this way, then it must bear the
responsibility for if the level of confrontation is against
heightened.
     On the other side, there's the question of what our side has
been doing. A total of 2000 people went to the demo in Bonn
demanding freedom for political prisoners. There have been
discussion papers criticizing the notion that conditions for the
entire fundamental opposition can be improved by winning freedom
for the political prisoners. In actual fact, freedom for the
prisoners and improved conditions can only be achieved if people
from various struggles take part in these initiatives.
     After the police attacks in Munich, it could be heard on the
TV that: This relationship between the police and the resistance is
the reason that groups like the RAF exist in Germany. It would
bring more political sharpness into open discussions if many
comrades would look at why this state, which is on its way to
becoming a super-power, acts this way in response to the
resistance. If things stay as they are now, it will be impossible
to ask how we push the state to retreat. Thus the resistance will
remain trapped in the logic of the ruling powers, since we won't
have any goals which can be struggle after outside of this logic.
Of course we can understand that many comrades have this stance,
since it's not unknown to us, but we criticize it because it
doesn't lead to anything and it doesn't pose the question of what
we can actually achieve.
     Another position which we can only criticize came up in the
interview which Thomas Ebermann and Hermann Gremliza did with the
prisoners in Celle, namely advising both the prisoners and us to
speak of defeat and hopelessness in order that the prisoners might
have a chance of getting out. This just reduces the struggle for
the prisoners' freedom to a matter of a deal between the state on
the one hand and the RAF on the other.
     Quite the contrary: We think that it's of great importance
that both the demand for freedom for the prisoners as well as the
broader political dimension that is coupled with our question of
whether or not the state will retreat, and that this question not
just be asked in the scene ghettoes" (or, for that matter, only in
state security offices), but rather that a broad social
mobilization for their freedom be brought about. It must be made
clear to the government, to the business leaders, and to all
fractions of the state apparatus that the consequences for this
state, if it sticks to its destructive posture, will be the most
serious it has faced, had we not taken the step we took in our
history on 10.4.
     We have stated that we can not be held responsible if the
state seeks to smash the process that we have initiated. We don't
think that it's always the right answer for us to escalate a
situation with armed actions every time the state intervenes
heavily against people and attempts to stop certain processes. Our
orientation today, first and foremost, is to develop a social
process in which the counter-power from below is organized which
can set boundaries to the state's march and force it back.
     If it appears that the state will not allow any space for such
a thing to be organized, since, for example, it has already crushed
previously struggle-after spaces, then it will be necessary to
fight back against this state. Our decision to intervene at a
certain point would be made as a result of the discussions in this
process. It would depend upon whether it would be useful or
necessary for this process. We would, then, use an armed
intervention as a moment of forcing the state into retreat and not
as a broader strategy. So we wouldn't just be going back to our old
ways. This escalation is not in our interest. But the state needs
to know that if it allows for no other means, then it is
responsible for the means we have available from our experience and
determination. They can't erase our experiences from 22 years of
armed struggle.
     What the ruling powers today call the triumph of capitalism
has, in actual fact, become a global crisis. The linking of the
southern hemisphere to the global market has brought explosive
debts to the peoples of the Three Continents, the exploitation of
natural resources, mass poverty, and millions facing starvation.
After imperialism has sought for centuries to prevent and destroy
the self-development of the Three Continents and to bleed the
people dry, now entire populations are deemed worthless by the
world market. Since 1991, more than 50,000 Somalis have died of
hunger, "and a further 1.5 million Somalis have practically been
sentenced to die of hunger" (U.N.); then there are the street
children being murdered in Brazil; then there are the millions of
homeless people, many of whom are even forced out of slums; and
today, diseases associated with poverty, such as cholera, are
spreading once more. Against this background, corporations such as
Volkswagen respond to a strike by simply firing 15,000 employees,
as recently happened in Mexico.
     Under the dictates of imperialism, entire populations have
little other choice but to lay down and die. Now the people of
Eastern Europe are also faced with this "perspective". This crisis
also long-ago took root in the primary states. The number of people
in the metropoles who are no longer needed by capitalism has never
been so explosively high, and the gap between rich and poor has
never been so wide. Today we can see a "Third World in the First
World".
     The seeming triumph the capitalist market system and the
global rule of money is irreversibly coupled with its
all-encompassing crisis of unprecedented extent. It is impossible
to solve the contradiction between competing economies, the logic
of the capitalist system, global poverty, and the world-wide
destruction of the environment. The destruction of food supplies
and price stabilization in the EC while at the same time millions
of people in the South go hungry and living conditions worsen in
Eastern Europe - this situation speaks for itself. Even if it
wanted to, the capitalist system could not solve these problems -
solutions are only possible outside the framework of capitalist
logic. 
     Of course the proposal that the people in the South and the
East just lie down and die won't be realized, because the starving
and marginalized peoples won't abide by the laws of global market
strategies which have written their death sentences. All around the
world, struggles of oppressed and dispossessed are being waged to
win back their own self-determination in life. The global movement
of refugees, which capital can scarcely control, is increasingly
directing itself towards the metropoles.
     Even if could say today that the general development of
capitalism could even lead to collapse of its primary states, this
still would not imply any progress for humanity. The ruling powers
are not in a position to maintain the old functioning of the
imperialist system, whereby the peaceful metropoles lay at a great
distance from the war and plundering in the Three Continents. This
is particularly evident by the inability to integrate whole
populations, something especially evident in the USA, but also in
the former-DDR, France, and Britain. The rebellions in the city
ghettoes in Los Angeles, Paris, and various cities throughout
Britain are the first signs of what could become a reality tomorrow
in the metropoles. Even here, we haven't seen so many strikes,
demonstrations, and work-site occupations in opposition to the
roll-back of previously fought- for social rights and gains as we
have in the past two years (rapidly increasing rents in the
former-DDR, plant closures, welfare cuts, the public transport
strike, etc.). But these struggles are only one side of the story.
The explosion of violence and person-to-person brutality and the
self-collapse of the society is the other.
     The war has come home to Europe. In Yugoslavia, the struggle
over the division of resources and the chance to join up with the
capitalist world market has escalated into a bloody nationalist
war. The human suffering is beyond measure. A solution within the
categories of the existing system is not possible. The policies of
neither the EC nor NATO no longer have the ability to cope with
such a crisis. For the ruling powers, the main question is to get
things in control so that a dynamic does not develop which takes
things out of their hands. The overriding interest of the German
state is to have justification for the use of its military forces,
and to get legitimation here at home for such intervention, as well
to start bringing about a concrete agreement on an international
division of labour. They are using the suffering of the Yugoslavian
people to further develop and solidify what was begun during the
Gulf War. What's at issue is the "U.N.'s monopoly on violence"
(Engholm), since the U.N. is controlled by the rich capitalist
nations.
     In Germany, we are confronted with a situation in which
technological advances put ever more people out of work and which
makes conditions unbearable for those still needed to work. While
the permanent rise in productivity guarantees high profit rates for
the elite, pressure on workers has increased. They are not only
slaves to people and computers. There is also an increased pressure
towards performance and flexibility - that means the willingness to
subordinate the rest of one's life to functioning well at one's job
- and in the former-DDR, it has led to women being forced to become
sterilized in order to take on work.
     There is also the pressure to longer get sick, so that one
doesn't get booted out. Thus many people have become worn out and
ill. Here, the reaches of the service sectors, which at best have
little to do with peoples' necessities of life, are forever being
expanded. This and the useless increase in consumer production
serve the interests of profit while destroying the ecological basis
of life as well as persons themselves.
     Although Germany is one of the wealthiest nations in the
world, even here there is an increasing demand for housing, rents
eat up an ever-higher portion of one's pay, and there are about one
million homeless people. Ever-more people depend on welfare, and
even the state has admitted the problem of poverty among the
elderly. Even in the metropoles, ever-fewer people are able to join
the "crazy competition of people amongst themselves" - this is how
Fidel Castro described consumerism. In ever-more walks of life, the
contradictions between people and the logic dictated by profit
motives are breaking into view.
     Particularly in the former-DDR, living conditions have become
increasingly sharpened. "We doubt that there has ever been a time,
except for during and just after the war, when so many people in
such a short period of time ave been thrust into distress,
helplessness, and need."; the author of this in the former-DDR
rated 5000 letters. Three were positive. One survey there showed
that 60 percent of the population of the former-DDR believed that
socialism provided for fundamental social justice. The vast
majority, if given the option, would opt for a different type of
social development which is neither the DDR-system nor capitalism.
One youth said in a TV interview: "The people in the DDR were less
preoccupied by the ideology of the SED and the Stasi than the
people in the West are by money."
     In total, the number of people who expect the state to find a
solution for the problems has fallen dramatically. But the
worsening of the contradictions does not automatically lead to
solidarity and organizing, but rather alienation, loneliness, and
competition - the collapse of the social relations between people
- become the norm in the society which the system has inflicted.
Capitalism has replaced social worth with the search for profit and
money. Everything should be marketable, every problem should be
solved with money, and every need should be able to be fulfilled by
some product. That is the ideology of capitalism and is the
foundation for the continued existence of this system. Its
relationship to those who break out of this and want to organize
for a different reality is clear: beat down, lock up, and
eradicate.
     Today, when so many people have fears about their existence,
the collapse of the social relations in society has taken on a new
dimension: the explosion of self-destruction and person-on-person
violence. Out of mangled hopes and the lack of any proposal of how
to bring about positive change, many people are fleeing to alcohol
and drugs, and even the suicide rate is increasing. The
frustration, fear, and aggression gets directed back at the people
themselves or against others who are even lower on the social
hierarchy. Thus the Nazis are against those of another skin colour,
nationality, against gays and lesbians, and there is an increase in
violence against women, children, and elderly persons. The media's
hate-campaign against refugees and the beating down of
anti-fascists in the streets shows clearly that it's in the
interest of state and capital to channel the rising dissatisfaction
into a racist and reactionary mobilization. Against this, the
possibility to organize relationships of solidarity and
self-determined associations from below - that is, from the
day-to-day reality of peoples' lives - to develop and push through
worthwhile and just solutions, is barely visible.
     Nonetheless, we today can assume that the struggles of the
past 25 years, which ever-more people have taken up and which were
organized in leftist circles, have left definite traces in
society's conscience. For example, the unwillingness to accept
technology which threatens both people and nature, such as gene
technology and atomic energy, the support given to squatting
movements in various cities, support for people who refuse to do 
military service, the broad mobilization against the IMF in 1988,
the hundreds of thousands of people who demonstrated against the
Gulf War, or the 25,000 people at the demo against the G-7. These
traces and the fact that we have been able to carry out attacks
against the state for 22 years stands in direct opposition to all
attempts by the state to exclude all who struggle for another way
of life, and these are foundations on which to build something new.
     We are concerned with a process in which its possible to build
a genuine counter-power. The global situation, both in its
development in the German state and in the society, is seeking for
a strength to halt the process of self-destruction and to push
through worthwhile solutions. It's about a social process that
encompasses different walks of life and that struggles after spaces
in which to nurture "the new" - searching for radical solutions for
life and common concrete questions - and which exists as an
alternative to the system. This can only be a process which
involves different forms of organizing the various splintered
forces are searching in different places for a way to push through
a humane way of life and which makes possible cooperation and which
assumes a position of power in relation to the ruling powers.
Solutions which orient themselves towards people and nature, and
not to profit, won't be offered by the ruling powers. This is a
process in which the ruling powers are pushed back and forced to
allow solutions from below.
     Today, it's often the case that people who, at a certain
point, find their situation in life unbearable, collide with the
reality that its the entire organization of the capitalist system
which makes their own situation unbearable. For example, when
people oppose the increase in traffic, like on the
Stresemannstrasse in Hamburg, they realize that capitalist
organization, with its focus on profit, leave no space left over
for them. Then the question is at hand, whose interests does an
immense increase in transportation traffic serve? The interests of
capital stand in opposition to the interests of people who seek an
environment where children aren't threatened by huge trucks outside
their front door. And the foolishness of the increase in consumer
production requires the foolishness of an increase in transport
traffic.
     Another example: Recently there was a racist mobilization
against refugees in Mannheim, before which the situation was such
that in the part of the city where the refugees were coming and
being attacked, youths had earlier demanded a space be allotted to
them, but the city refused. This building was to be used to house
the refugees. If there had been earlier discussions in the
neighbourhood, then the youths could have organized with antifas in
the region to help protect the refugees, then they would have had
support and something in common, and then the arrival of the
refugees could have started something new. Because in those areas
where the refugees came, there could quickly have arisen a
discussion of why they had to flee here and why they could no
longer live in their country; then, the same system that is
responsible for world-wide suffering also doesn't allow youths here
space to live. Then there could have been a discussion of how to
struggle together for a space to live.
     Of course we think that organizing for the protection of
refugees and for the beating back of fascists is absolutely
necessary. But this example also shows that the process we need now
can't take place within the safe-have of the "scene ghettoes".
     The collapse of social relations is one fundamental cause of
the power and longevity of the capitalist system. A counter-power
from below can only come about if there are alternatives to the
ruling norms in this society under this system. That means: To
organize an opposition to the collapse of social relations and the
all-against-all alienation and to struggle to create space in which
there is real solidarity and from which springs the responsibility
to take social developments in hand - we call this a process of
winning over the society. From this will come the ability to win
people over, for the struggle for social relations among people
must provide an alternative to the alienation of the system, the
despair of self-destruction, and the fascists. This will be a
foundation for an internationalist consciousness, a foundation on
which international solidarity can be fostered.
     In these processes, the question of international solidarity
comes up immediately at the start, because the population here is
comprised of people of various different nationalities. The one
without the other, the development of worthwhile solutions without
the development of ties of solidarity amongst one another - this is
inconceivable. The priority of the counter-power from below and of
the revolutionary development is above all a consciousness that
makes it possible for ever-more people to come into common action.
     In this process which is now so necessary, it will be shown
whether Great Germany can develop a counter-power from below in a
new international process of change, or if nothing here will happen
except that the collapse will progress. Thus, the situation
escalates: It will go in one or the other direction, nothing will
stay as it is now. The crisis of capital and the crisis of the
proletariat brought fascism to power in the past. It's important to
see the dangers in the present sharpened situation. But it's just
as important to understand the possibilities in this situation. The
shrinking of thought to the general and specific crisis of many
leftists has led to stagnation in the past few years and pushed
each person's responsibility to the background. For many, what was
said over the past few years came to pass, for others, who sought
change via various initiatives, there is the position of "that
nothing can make change now" - even though most of them are doing
poorly - and withdrawal to the position of observer.
     When we talk of the left's responsibility, we mean everyone's
responsibility and initiative in this process. There is no program,
no concept, not from us or from anyone else. This is not possible.
This is a process of self-discovery and new foundations and
discussions. The discussion that we now seek is about finding new
thoughts for the process of change.
     We want to find and struggle together for a social alternative
rather than allow the reactionary side of this society to
strengthen itself once more. Reactionary and racist mobilizations,
in which peoples' social element is killed, are a means for the
German state - in the competitive struggle of international capital
for control of the world - to advance its destructive politics
against people and to further escalate it. It is the precursor to
the world-wide deployment of German troops, which they are now
heading towards. It is our responsibility, and the responsibility
of all leftists in this country, to build up a counter-power which
is in a position to prevent this. 
     The path to liberation is a part of the process of winning
over society, which is a part of the new international struggle for
change.

Red Army Fraction

August 1992

12) Info Bulletin

We are now publishing a 8 page bi-monthly info bulletin available
for $12 for 12 issues ($6 for 6 issues). It is a timely and up-to-
date source of information about revolutionary resistance movements
throughout the world. Back issues are available and include:

Number 1 - June 1993: Kurdish resistance, ARA, fascist violence in
Germany, Devrimci Sol "split", RAF prison bombing and more.

Number 2 - July/August 1993: RARA press statement, anti-G7 actions
in Japan, death of RAF guerrilla Wolfgang Grams, Kurdistan update,
European political prisoners, anti-cop riots in Paris and more.

Number 3 - September/October 1993: "The Fire Inside" by Ray
Levasseur, Puerto Rican P.O.W.'s, an interview with European PKK
representative, Kurdish news, letter from RAF prisoner, anti-
Olympic resistance and more.

     We are working on a number of projects including a sporadic
Kurdish newsletter, pamphlets on anti-fascism in Europe, "Three
Into One: The Triple Oppression Of Racism, Sexism And Class" by ex-
political prisoner (in Germany) Klaus Viehmann... As always we need
support, particularly money, to make these projects a reality.

13) Some Useful Information

Editor: Gabriel Dumont

Subscriptions: $10/year

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7  Canada

E-mail: ats@etext.info