Red Army Faction Revisited

[Prometeo liberado]

Baader-Meinhoff, RAF call them what you will. Terrorist or as they would say, something between the moribund working class and the oppressive state. They brought Germany to a frenzied state never before seen since the end of WWII. Openly attacked the U.S. apparatus functioning as a killing machine against the Vietnamese and strove to not to start a revolution so much as to change the political/social thinking by showing that resistance is possible. Though the Stasi did greatly help finance them as well as certain Arab groups, thus making a group like this next to impossible today I have more positive reflections now more than ever of them. Thoughts?

[Sasha]

I prefer the RZ's and 2nd of June over the RAF, but a very interesting subject indeed.
Did you ever read "how it all began" by bommi Bauman? It's really good.

[blake 3:17]

How It All Began is great! Used to have a copy.

There's an excellent book, Bringing the War Home, on the Weather Underground and RAF by Jeremy Varon, which is very thorough and ends putting the Weather Underground in a fairly positive light while being rough on the RAF.

There were legitimate reasons to defend them at the time, but I don't think there's much to gain from their model.

[Prometeo liberado]

Haven't read "How it all began" but will look into it. I highly recommend the Baader-Meinhoff Complex movie. I was also impressed on what the RAF had to say about the Weather underground, "we don't ask what the weather is". They had an acute insight as to how moribund the working class was and had no illusions about starting a revolution.

[boiler]

Here are 2 books Iv read on the RAF. They are a very good read. They give the history of the RAF from their foundation to the mid 80's. It also has the history of the other urban guerilla groups and other political groups that were in Germany at the time. Not only is it the history of the RAF, it also has all the writings and statements that were released by the RAF in that time period.

Red Army Faction Volume 1: Projectiles for the People

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Army-Faction-Volume-Projectiles/dp/1604860294/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1380983526&sr=8-2&keywords=red+army+faction

The Red Army Faction, A Documentary History: 2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Army-Faction-Documentary-History/dp/1604860308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380983526&sr=8-1&keywords=red+army+faction

[Comrade Samuel]

To be honest I'm pretty ignorant about who the RAF were in real life and have no idea if their tactics were effective but...I did see the film 'The Baader-Meinhoff Complex' and that certainly made them look cool.

[boiler]

At that time there were revolutions and national liberation struggles going on all over the globe. And the RAF were a product of that time period. They were a part of a generation that were pissed off at their government for the part they were playing in the genocide of the people in Vietnam and the 3rd world. I think its hard not to like and support them, or even have not have a little bit of respect for them. I see them as true revolutionaries.

[Devrim]

I think its hard not to like and support them, or even have not have a little bit of respect for them. I see them as true revolutionaries.

It is not hard for me. I have no respect for them whatsoever, stupid middle class individualists who had nothing to do with the working class or it's struggle. If there is one thing worse than those sort of people, it is those who decades on still admire them.

Devrim

[Prometeo liberado]

At that time there were revolutions and national liberation struggles going on all over the globe. And the RAF were a product of that time period. They were a part of a generation that were pissed off at their government for the part they were playing in the genocide of the people in Vietnam and the 3rd world. I think its hard not to like and support them, or even have not have a little bit of respect for them. I see them as true revolutionaries.

Just to add, they also were almost exclusively committed to striking at the state and the American military bases as opposed overthrowing the State.

[Prometeo liberado]

It is not hard for me. I have no respect for them whatsoever, stupid middle class individualists who had nothing to do with the working class or it's struggle. If there is one thing worse than those sort of people, it is those who decades on still admire them.

Devrim

They never claimed to represent to working class or start a revolution. They were what they were, people who said "no more" and decided to finally slap back at the big bully.

[boiler]

To be honest I'm pretty ignorant about who the RAF were in real life and have no idea if their tactics were effective but...I did see the film 'The Baader-Meinhoff Complex' and that certainly made them look cool.

A lot of whats in the film is lies, particularly the parts when the leaders are in prison. In the movie it portrays the leaders ganging up on Ulrike Meinhof and basically bully her into committing suicide. There are lots of other lies in the movie.

I think there tactics did help the national liberation struggles that were going on. Like for example, the RAF bombed a US army base that had a computer in it which was used to make calculations for carpet-bombings in South and North Vietnam. The computer was destroyed in the attack.
There were pictures of RAF members hung up in Hanoi because of this bombing.

[boiler]

It is not hard for me. I have no respect for them whatsoever, stupid middle class individualists who had nothing to do with the working class or it's struggle. If there is one thing worse than those sort of people, it is those who decades on still admire them.

Devrim

I admire anyone that is prepared to give their life to fighting imperialism. And I admire those that gave their life to fighting imperialism.

[Volcanicity]

Haven't read "How it all began" but will look into it. I highly recommend the Baader-Meinhoff Complex movie. I was also impressed on what the RAF had to say about the Weather underground, "we don't ask what the weather is". They had an acute insight as to how moribund the working class was and had no illusions about starting a revolution.

They've already been mentioned but If you're interested in the RAF both of these books are a great read.

http://libcom.org/library/red-army-faction-volume-1-projectiles-people

http://libcom.org/library/bringing-war-home-weather-underground-red-army-faction-revolutionary-violence-sixties-se

[LiamChe]

I haven't read that much about the RAF, but I have watched the German Docu-Drama "Baader-Meinhof Complex" it was quite good. As far as the RAF themselves, they're methods may have been slightly unorthodox for the time, but they were youth fighting against their Capitalist Imperialist governments and they felt that anything was necessary to start a revolution.



It is not hard for me. I have no respect for them whatsoever, stupid middle class individualists who had nothing to do with the working class or it's struggle. If there is one thing worse than those sort of people, it is those who decades on still admire them.


This couldn't be farther from the truth. The RAF was trying to start a Socialist Revolution and fight Western Imperialism, which ravaging countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, DPRK, Cuba, Africa, etc etc. I don't see how any of that makes them "Middle-Class Individualists" :laugh:

[freecommunist]

You don't start a Socialist Revolution by blowing stuff up and stealing posh cars. The working class creates social revolutions and stupid middle class individualists blow stuff up cos they think its cool.

[Crabbensmasher]

It is not hard for me. I have no respect for them whatsoever, stupid middle class individualists who had nothing to do with the working class or it's struggle. If there is one thing worse than those sort of people, it is those who decades on still admire them.

Devrim

I always got the feeling most middle class individualists would shy away from the RAF. Like, they were pretty goddamn unorthodox. I figure if you're joining the RAF, you don't have much to lose. You have to have been squeezed pretty damn hard by the system. It just doesn't seem like the breeding ground for middle class individualists. We have to remember, they were considered a terrorist organization. It's not for the light of heart.
And it's not like the RAF was the only leftist group in West Germany at the time. Don't you think the 'fake revolutionaries' would join something else?

Granted, that's only the impression I get. I don't really have the knowledge to make any claims apart from that.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Hes not saying they weren't actually revolutionaries, just that their tactics never left an opening for them to connect with the working class, of which they weren't members anyhow. Terrorist actions necessarily limit you to interacting with a small group of people to avoid state infiltration. How can a secretive exclusive group connect with a mass movement or even lay the ground work for one? It can't, which is why the tactic has failed in every county that it's been tried in.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The two volumes of the Documentary History Of . . . mentioned above are excellent, and I highly recommend them. The R.A.F.'s own writings, and writings from other left perspectives in Germany at the same time are pretty invaluable for getting a real picture of what was up. Their anti-imperialist politics certainly had problematic aspects (notably practical, if not theoretical, anti-semetism), but at the same time, they weren't unreflexive. Some of the best articulated critiques of the RAF came from within the RAF. They went out of their way, it seems, to remain critically engaged with the broader German left, in a way that I think is pretty difficult and admirable for an underground group (especially one facing the level of repression they were).

Anyway, yeah, read them bookz.

[freecommunist]

Other books worth reading on the subject, however if you are interested in the working class and class struggle I would suggest reading something more useful.

The Baader Meinhof Complex - Stefan Aust (what the film is part based on)
Margrit Schiller - Remembering the Armed Struggle. Life in Baadar-Meinhof
Every Talks About the Weather... We Don't. The Writings of Ulrike Meinhof

It's a pet hobby of mine, 70's European urban guerilla groups, but not related to my politics as it is total nonsense.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

As you say in the OP, the financing they had and the links they had to the world communist movement at the time render their model historical and defunct. It would be nigh on impossible for any group, or group of individuals, today to raise the necessary funds, get the right training etc. to carry out a program like the RAF did.

Not to mention that whatever one thinks of their strategy, their tactics were at best mis-guided, and at worst horrific; their record on targeting ordinary people, or having ordinary people as collateral damage, make their particular model impossible to support un-critically.

[Os Cangaceiros]

As you say in the OP, the financing they had and the links they had to the world communist movement at the time render their model historical and defunct. It would be nigh on impossible for any group, or group of individuals, today to raise the necessary funds, get the right training etc. to carry out a program like the RAF did.

Why is that? The RAF wasn't the first instance of an insurgent group being funded and trained by a rival power.

One modern example I can think of is powerful people within the Saudi Arabian government contributing to the funding & training of Islamist terrorist groups.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Why is that? The RAF wasn't the first instance of an insurgent group being funded and trained by a rival power.

One modern example I can think of is powerful people within the Saudi Arabian government contributing to the funding & training of Islamist terrorist groups. I think The Boss is referring to left-wing groups.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

As you say in the OP, the financing they had and the links they had to the world communist movement at the time render their model historical and defunct. It would be nigh on impossible for any group, or group of individuals, today to raise the necessary funds, get the right training etc. to carry out a program like the RAF did.

Not to mention that whatever one thinks of their strategy, their tactics were at best mis-guided, and at worst horrific; their record on targeting ordinary people, or having ordinary people as collateral damage, make their particular model impossible to support un-critically.

I'm not particularly interested in the subject of the RAF, Nothing for or against the fellows but as people have said here, blowing things up does not a People's War make. I haven't really studied them so I don't have any critiques to make and I suppose I do extend a certain degree of solidarity towards them. I am personally more interested in groups such as the Communist Party of Spain (re-organized) who had a strategically coherent view of armed struggle and it's place in the seizure of power, and whose model is replicable and serves as a valuable learning experience since it created an armed struggle almost as intense as the troubles in Northern Ireland.

However what I will say is that it is false that such a thing could not be done today. I won't go into details, but to reference an ongoing struggle, the Naxalite movement tends to train it's cadre on the level of a standard military and I remember reading one offical police document from the Indian government which claimed that the Naxal cadre was being trained by members of the military who defected to the PLGA. Likewise guns can be homemade. I saw a documentary about the gunsmiths from the tribal regions of Pakistan who can make the most advanced weapons of modern militaries with your basic scrap, so it's more a matter of knowledge than anything else. And even though the PLGA is doing well lately, they don't import guns. All of their weapons are homemade or raided from the military States aren't special structures with magical powers, they can be, and have been defeated before, and they will be defeated again as history goes on. Homegrown groups and the broad masses can overthrow the state without the assistance of a foreign power.

Also, fie fie to the "left" communists who are denouncing the RAF based on their violence, such a thing has nothing to do with the Marxist Programme. To quote Bordiga:


No communist can harbour prejudices towards the use of armed actions, retaliations and even terror or deny that these actions, which require discipline and organisation, must be directed by the communist party. Just as infantile is the conception that the use of violence and armed actions are reserved for the “Great Day” when the supreme struggle for the conquest of power will be launched. In the reality of the revolutionary development, bloody confrontations between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are inevitable before the final struggle; they may originate not only from unsuccessful insurrectional attempts on the part of the proletariat, but also from inevitable, partial and transitory clashes between the forces of bourgeois defence and groups of proletarians who have been impelled to rise in arms, or between bands of bourgeois “white guards” and workers who have been attacked and provoked by them. It is not correct either to say that communist parties must disavow all such actions and reserve all their force for the final moment, because all struggles necessitate a preparation and a period of training and it is in these preliminary actions that the revolutionary capacity of the party to lead and organise the masses must begin to be forged and tested.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

As anyone ever read the book Some People Talk About the Weather...We Don't ?

It's an english book that collects many of Ulrike Meinhof's articles that she wrote for konkret all the way up to 1968 (right around the time she helped start the RAF).

[bcbm]

I always got the feeling most middle class individualists would shy away from the RAF. Like, they were pretty goddamn unorthodox. I figure if you're joining the RAF, you don't have much to lose. You have to have been squeezed pretty damn hard by the system. It just doesn't seem like the breeding ground for middle class individualists. We have to remember, they were considered a terrorist organization. It's not for the light of heart.
And it's not like the RAF was the only leftist group in West Germany at the time. Don't you think the 'fake revolutionaries' would join something else?

Granted, that's only the impression I get. I don't really have the knowledge to make any claims apart from that.

the raf early on had somewhat broad support for german middle-class leftists and drew members from their ranks. this allowed them easy access to hide outs, funds, etc which allowed them to flourish for a time.

[freecommunist]

Also, fie fie to the "left" communists who are denouncing the RAF based on their violence, such a thing has nothing to do with the Marxist Programme. To quote Bordiga:

Are you seriously suggesting the RAF where only doing what Bordiga wrote in 'Party and class action'???

[freecommunist]

As anyone ever read the book Some People Talk About the Weather...We Don't ?

It's an english book that collects many of Ulrike Meinhof's articles that she wrote for konkret all the way up to 1968 (right around the time she helped start the RAF).

I have read some of the articles in the book, though not all and RAF didn't appear till May 1970 with the breakout of Baader.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I'm not particularly interested in the subject of the RAF, Nothing for or against the fellows but as people have said here, blowing things up does not a People's War make.

I'd certainly agree that their tactics were mistaken and probably doomed to failure, but it wasn't their overall strategy of guerilla insurgency that was a mistake, it was that by itself, it was never going to accomplish anything. The whole issue of blowing shit up, blowing people up even and other nasty stuff was tactics, not strategy. The actual idea of forming an 'action' wing of the political struggle is not a bad one, but clearly their tactics of all-out violence only served to kill workers and land them all in jail forever.


I haven't really studied them so I don't have any critiques to make and I suppose I do extend a certain degree of solidarity towards them. I am personally more interested in groups such as the Communist Party of Spain (re-organized) who had a strategically coherent view of armed struggle and it's place in the seizure of power, and whose model is replicable and serves as a valuable learning experience since it created an armed struggle almost as intense as the troubles in Northern Ireland.

I think this is sensible, though I don't know too much about the Communist Party of Spain.


However what I will say is that it is false that such a thing could not be done today. I won't go into details, but to reference an ongoing struggle, the Naxalite movement tends to train it's cadre on the level of a standard military and I remember reading one offical police document from the Indian government which claimed that the Naxal cadre was being trained by members of the military who defected to the PLGA.

There is a difference between guerilla insurgency in somewhere like Nepal, where the terrain is less urbanised and such struggle is more dependent on local knowledge and, generally, local issues. In the developed, urbanised nations, where property rights are more entrenched, it is very difficult to build the infrastructure needed to re-create a professional outfit like the RAF. Properties, cars, passports and identities, cash and real-life social networks of solidarity would all cost more money than could be achieved by a few bank robberies. It would need funding from 'official' sources, which isn't so possible today unless you want to be backed by reactionaries like Iran and Russia.



Likewise guns can be homemade. I saw a documentary about the gunsmiths from the tribal regions of Pakistan who can make the most advanced weapons of modern militaries with your basic scrap, so it's more a matter of knowledge than anything else. And even though the PLGA is doing well lately, they don't import guns. All of their weapons are homemade or raided from the military States aren't special structures with magical powers, they can be, and have been defeated before, and they will be defeated again as history goes on. Homegrown groups and the broad masses can overthrow the state without the assistance of a foreign power.

The RAF were highly professional, though. I don't think that fits with the idea of homemade weaponry. In any case, it's a moot point since it would be foolish to attempt such a struggle in the urban metropolis today.

For me the best things we can take from the RAF, Red Brigades, Revolutionary Cells etc. are:
a) the idea that 'action' of some (hitherto un-defined) form, not necessarily violence, can be legitimate if tied to a proper political wing, if it doesn't end up targeting workers, and if it has more broad support;
b) some of Ulrike Meinhof's writings aren't bad. Some of them, anyway. And the final communique from 1997 or whenever they disbanded is quite a good read.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I'd certainly agree that their tactics were mistaken and probably doomed to failure, but it wasn't their overall strategy of guerrilla insurgency that was a mistake, it was that by itself, it was never going to accomplish anything. The whole issue of blowing shit up, blowing people up even and other nasty stuff was tactics, not strategy. The actual idea of forming an 'action' wing of the political struggle is not a bad one, but clearly their tactics of all-out violence only served to kill workers and land them all in jail forever.


I think you correctly note the distinction between Guerrilla warfare and blowing things up, if you wouldn't mind I'd like to elaborate on that distinction.

No person who can call themselves a Communist is opposed to Guerrilla warfare. That is for certain. As Lenin said once before:
"When I see Social-Democrats proudly and smugly declaring “we are not anarchists, thieves, robbers, we are superior to all this, we reject guerrilla warfare”,—I ask myself: Do these people realise what they are saying? Armed clashes and conflicts between the Black-Hundred government and the population are taking place all over the country... I can under stand us refraining from Party leadership of this spontaneous struggle in a particular place or at a particular time because of the weakness and unpreparedness of our organisation. I realise that this question must be settled by the local practical workers, and that the remoulding of weak and unprepared organisations is no easy matter. But when I see a Social-Democratic theoretician or publicist not displaying regret over this unpreparedness, but rather a proud smugness and a self-exalted tendency to repeat phrases learned by rote in early youth about anarchism, Blanquism and terrorism, I am hurt by this degradation of the most revolutionary doctrine in the world."

Lenin, On Guerilla Warfare


But of course that isn't the question being raised here. I admit that the critique I am about to make is somewhat unprincipled, after all, no investigation no right to speak. However I'd like to go further than you. I wouldn't even say their struggle was even a guerrilla one. Guerrilla warfare exists in a certain social context and does not consist in acts of violence which are not committed by a state actor. If I were to go and blow up my local Wal-Mart, that would not be an example of Guerrilla warfare, if I did it with a group of friends it still wouldn't be guerrilla warfare, and even if I held up the red flag while I was doing it that still does not define it as an act of guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare is a warfare which depends solely on the working masses for its support and its success. As Mao once wisely said:


What is the relationship of guerrilla warfare to the people? Without a political goal, guerrilla warfare must fail, as it must, if its political objectives do not coincide with the aspirations of the people and their sympathy, co-operation, and assistance cannot be gained. The essence of guerrilla warfare is thus revolutionary in character. On the other hand, in a war of counter-revolutionary nature, there is no place for guerrilla hostilities. Because guerrilla warfare basically derives from the masses and is supported by them, it can neither exist nor flourish if it separates itself from their sympathies and co-operation.

~ On Guerrilla Warfare


The important distinction here is the guerrilla warfare does not exist within a void. The very soul of it depends on the cooperation of the broad working masses to succeed. I would go as far as to say that in the stage prior to revolutionary civil war, it is the only military doctrine which could be considered in anyway revolutionary while other forms of violence are to a certain extent the anti-thesis of working class politics. Lenin makes the distinction between guerrilla warfare and Blanquism very clear with a historical ancedote:


The usual appraisal of the struggle we are describing is that it is anarchism, Blanquism, the old terrorism, the acts of individuals isolated from the masses, which demoralise the workers, repel wide strata of the population, disorganise the movement and injure the revolution. Examples in support of this appraisal can easily be found in the events reported every day in the newspapers.

But are such examples convincing? In order to test this, let us take a locality where the form of struggle we are examining is most developed—the Lettish Territory. This is the way Novoye Vremya (in its issues of September 9 and 12) complains of the activities of the Lettish Social-Democrats. The Lettish Social-Democratic Labour Party (a section of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party) regularly issues its paper in 30,000 copies. The announcement columns publish lists of spies whom it is the duty of every decent person to exterminate. People who assist the police are proclaimed “enemies of the revolution”, liable to execution and, moreover, to confiscation of property. The public is instructed to give money to the Social-Democratic Party only against signed and stamped receipt. In the Party’s latest report, showing a total income of 48,000 rubles for the year, there figures a sum of 5,600 rubles contributed by the Libau branch for arms which was obtained by expropriation. Naturally, Novoye Vremya rages and fumes against this “revolutionary law”, against this “terror government”.

Nobody will be so bold as to call these activities of the Lettish Social-Democrats anarchism, Blanquism or terrorism. But why? Because here we have a clear connection between the new form of struggle and the uprising which broke out in December and which is again brewing. This connection is not so perceptible in the case of Russia as a whole, but it exists. The fact that “guerrilla” warfare became wide spread precisely after December, and its connection with the accentuation not only of the economic crisis but also of the political crisis is beyond dispute. The old Russian terrorism was an affair of the intellectual conspirator; today as a general rule guerrilla warfare is waged by the worker combatant, or simply by the unemployed worker. Blanquism and anarchism easily occur to the minds of people who have a weakness for stereotype; but under the circumstances of an uprising, which are so apparent in the Lettish Territory, the inappropriateness of such trite labels is only too obvious.

Lenin, On Guerrilla Warfare



I think this is sensible, though I don't know too much about the Communist Party of Spain.

Of course I admit that I do need to study them more, but what is admirable is that they came out of the context of the fall of the Franco regime and attempted to push that democratic momentum into the struggle for socialism, they didn't just wake up one day and say "let's blow some shit up". That and the fact that they were actually competent at what they did, and as I said before were trying to implement a concrete strategy for the overthrow of the Spanish state. I'd say more but I can't find the history of their organization that I have studied before. But what is more important is that they provided a model which can be learned from, where mistakes and successes are observable and useful as a learning experience. As opposed to Blaiquism which has little to teach us.


There is a difference between guerrilla insurgency in somewhere like Nepal, where the terrain is less urbanised and such struggle is more dependent on local knowledge and, generally, local issues. In the developed, urbanised nations, where property rights are more entrenched, it is very difficult to build the infrastructure needed to re-create a professional outfit like the RAF. Properties, cars, passports and identities, cash and real-life social networks of solidarity would all cost more money than could be achieved by a few bank robberies. It would need funding from 'official' sources, which isn't so possible today unless you want to be backed by reactionaries like Iran and Russia.

I'm not going to go into specifics here for a couple reasons and I think you'll understand why. Obviously with internet surveillance being what it is it'd be foolish to give details of a revolutionary military policy online. But even if that weren't the case I always felt that it was posturing for armchair revolutionaries to give such advice from the comfort of their labtop.

However the argument that guerrilla warfare is difficult in the cities and the modern condition might be true to an extent, however as Abraham Guillén, a famous anarchist guerrilla tactician of Brazil and Uruguay, pointed out in his critique of Che Guvera, Guerrilla operations are often more effective in the cities.

As I said before, I'm not willing to point out specifics, but I think the whole point about not being able to commit to Guerilla warfare says nothing about Guerilla warfare as a tactic but rather the state of the modern left. As Lenin pointed out:


It is not guerrilla actions which disorganise the movement, but the weakness of a party which is incapable of taking such actions under its control. That is why the anathemas which we Russians usually hurl against guerrilla actions go hand in hand with secret, casual, unorganised guerrilla actions which really do disorganise the Party. Being in capable of understanding what historical conditions give rise to this struggle, we are incapable of neutralising its deleterious aspects. Yet the struggle is going on. It is engendered by powerful economic and political causes. It is not in our power to eliminate these causes or to eliminate this struggle. Our complaints against guerrilla warfare are complaints against our Party weakness in the matter of an uprising.

Lenin, On Guerrilla Warfare, Emphasis mine


Hence, all the mud which is flung at the guerrilla ought to be hurled unto the left. But you are correct, it would be wrong to engage in such operations today.


Are you seriously suggesting the RAF where only doing what Bordiga wrote in 'Party and class action'???


No, but anyone who is limply crying "but they hurt people you guyssss" also has nothing to do with what Bordiga wrote in "Party and Class Action"

[Prometeo liberado]

One more time. THEY WERE NOT TRYING TO START A REVOLUTION. THEY WERE MERELY TRYING TO WAKE UP THE WORKING CLASS AND/OR ALTER THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE. NOTHING MORE.

[blake 3:17]

"To progressively eat away at the enemy's strength" meant, therefore, to kill police officers and scare the bourgeoisie. A good example of fetishism of the state! Capital's strength does not lie (primarily) in its cops or its army, but in the social dynamic which makes wage earners, especially in countries like West Germany, participate in the perpetuation of the system.

If you start off by attacking the official agencies of repression, you immediately place yourself on the military terrain, whereas, during a revolution, the center of gravity is elsewhere. In a non-revolutionary period such an error is fatal.

http://libcom.org/library/red-army-faction-baader-meinhoff-critique-grossman


Filmed as these events were unfolding and completed shortly thereafter, "Germany in Autumn" (new to DVD from Facets) is a visceral response to the bleak national mood, coordinated by the filmmaker Alexander Kluge, who recruited such prominent colleagues as Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff. The film proceeds in fits and starts, frequently interrupting itself and circling back. There are no identifying titles separating the segments, many of which are open-ended and some of which are threaded throughout.

A few are fictional vignettes — a tense border crossing, an atmospheric encounter between a pianist and a bloodied stranger who shows up at her front door — but more than half the film is given over to documentary footage.

Bookended by funerals, "Germany in Autumn" opens with Schleyer's solemn state memorial service and closes with the unceremonious burials, attended by a few scattered sympathizers, of RAF leaders Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe.

Also included: a prison-cell interview with Horst Mahler, an RAF founder, and some fly-on-the-wall passages observing the bustle of caterers at Schleyer's funeral and the discomfort of assembly-line workers at a Daimler-Benz plant asked to observe a moment of silence.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/09/entertainment/la-ca-second-look-20110109

[Prometeo liberado]

Without political practice, reading Capital is nothing more than bourgeois study. Without political practice, political programs are just so much twaddle. Without political practice, proletarian internationalism is only hot air. Adopting a proletarian position in theory implies putting it into practice.

The Red Army Faction asserts the primacy of practice. Whether it is right to organize armed resistance now, depends on whether it is possible, and whether it is possible can only be determined in practice.

I found this quote from the RAF's "Primacy of Practice" statement kinda puts it into perspective.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

First off, the RAF certainly were middle-class rebels who had quite a bit to lose. Ulrike Meinhof had a career, a husband, a child, a house, as did Gudrun Ensslin. In the case of the latter, her departure "zum Widerstand!" to the resistance, ended up causing her business owning husband Bernard Vesper to be thrown into a mental ward where he did himself in with sleeping tablets one year before his wife would be arrested. It cannot be said at all that they were driven by individual interest.

Millions and millions of Germans sympathized with the RAF and tens of thousands aided aided the ultra-leftist organization, so it's not a subject that should be treated lightly.

One has to see the whole context in which the RAF and all the other german left terrorist organizations at the time were born: The German People had committed the most massive, egregious and historic crimes during World War 2. Fathers and Mothers of the first German post-war generation (of which practically all RAF terrorists were a part) were mostly obedient executors of Fascism. In the 1960's, remaining capitalist (west) Germany, with its barring of socialist/communist teachers/public workers, the continued illegalization of the KPD, its conservative government, its aid to the US war on the people of Vietnam, and total lack of social solidarity, looked all too similar to the 3rd Reich.

The RAF was a product of an environment in which 1) all vital Marxist theory on how to revolutionize society lacked in face of state suppression of socialist dissent and smashing of communist organization, and 2) the Proletariat had been handed major concessions by the Bourgeoisie in light of the social-progressive competition of Socialism in the East. The whole confused 60's petty-bourgeois cultural and street rebellions were products of an environment in which capitalist society's main revolutionary force, the Proletariat, had been temporarily subdued.

[bcbm]

In the 1960's, remaining capitalist (west) Germany, with its barring of socialist/communist teachers/public workers, the continued illegalization of the KPD, its conservative government, its aid to the US war on the people of Vietnam, and total lack of social solidarity, looked all too similar to the 3rd Reich.

there were also quite a few former nazis (and not low ranking ones) still in the government and a seeming disinterest by the state to further punish war criminals.