communard resolution
24th May 2008, 18:43
This document was printed in the radical Berlin newspaper Agit 883 in June 1970, shortly after Andreas Baader of the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction) was busted out of police custody. It was the first communiqué of the Rote Armee Fraktion, West Germany's then most active and notorious militant left-wing group. It has been alternately described as having been written by Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin.
The RAF's writing style used to be very informal and a bit peculiar. My English translation attempts to reflect the writing style of the German original.
Caligula Z
Comrades of the 883: there is no point in explaining all the right things to the wrong people. We have been doing that for long enough. It's not up to us to us explain the Baader liberation campaign to the intellectual jawsmiths, the chickenshits, the know-it-alls, but to the potentially revolutionary segments of the people.
This means to all those who can understand the act straight away because they are held captive themselves. Those who cannot take seriously the gibberish of the "Left" because it has not led to any results or actions. Those who are fed up! It's up to you to explain the Baader liberation campaign to the youths from the Maerkisches Viertel district, to the girls from Eichenhof, from Ollenhauer, from Heiligensee, to the boys from the Jugendhof, from the Jugendhilfsstelle, from the Gruenes Haus, from the Kieferngrund [EDIT: these names refer to youth rehabilitation centres and reformatories]. To the families who have many children, to the young workers and apprentices, to the pupils at comprehensive schools, to the families who live in areas affected by urban renewal, the Siemens and AEG-Telefunken workers, those working at SEL and Osram, the married working women who on top of running the household and bringing up kids have to work - goddamn!
You have to explain the campaign to those who will not be compensated for the exploitation they have to suffer through with a better standard of living, consumption, a mortgage, small-scale loans, a medium range car. Those who cannot afford the whole shebang, those who are not tied to it. Those who have recognized as lies all the promises made by their educators and teachers, caretakers and welfare workers, foremen and apprentice trainers, union functionaries and district councillors, and whose only remaining fear is the fear of the police. You have to tell them - and not the petty-bourgeois intellectuals - that it's over now, that things are taking off now, that an end of the police reign is in sight! You have to tell them that we are building up the Red Army, that it is their army.
You have to tell to them that things are taking off now. They won't ask silly questions along the lines of "why now?" They've already been through it all, they've done all the walks to authorities and offices, all the games and procedures, all the opening hours and waiting rooms, all the dates on which everything should have worked out but didn't work out in the end. And they had a word with the friendly female teacher, who ultimately did not prevent their kid from being transferred to a special needs school, and the helpless nursery school teacher who couldn't offer their other kid a place. They are not asking you "why now", goddamn.
They will obviously not believe a word you say if you can't even get around to hand out the newspaper before it gets confiscated. Because it's not your task to agitate the leftist suckups but the objectively leftist people, you have to build up a distribution system which the pigs cannot figure out. Don't talk nonsense about this being too difficult. The Baader liberation campaign wasn't a walk in the park either. If you grasp what's happening, if you grasp anything you have to organize the distribution better. And we will not tell you anything about the methods, neither will we tell you anything about the action plan, you dimwits! As long as you let them catch you, you cannot not give people advice on how to not get caught. What is the meaning of being an adventurer after all? It means to find your own ways [EDIT: literally "It means to build your own lamps.
So...
What does it mean: to let the conflict escalate? It means: to not let them slaughter you. That's why we're building up the Red Army. Behind every parent there's a teacher, the office for juvenile affairs, the police. Behind every apprentice trainer there's a foreman, the human resources office, the plant security guard, the welfare worker, the police. Behind every caretaker there's a property manager, the bailiff, the eviction notice, the police. Whatever the pigs can regulate through school marks, firing people, eviction notices, sticks and truncheons, they will regulate in those ways. Of course they will reach for their service guns or resort to tear gas, hand grenades and machine guns, of course the means will escalate if they can't manage in any other way. Of course the GIs in Vietnam have been retrained to adopt guerrilla tactics and the Green Berets to use means of torture. So what? Of course they're making penal system more severe for political prisoners.
It's up to you to make clear that it's Social Democratic rubbish to claim that it's possible to infiltrate, string along, cheat, intimidate, remove without violent struggle Imperialism and all its Neubauers and Westmorelands [EDIT: the names of industrial bigshots], Bonn [EDIT: then the capital of West Germany], the senate, the federal office for juvenile affairs and the councils, and all that filthy business. Make clear that the revolution will not be a nice walk in the park, that the pigs will only let the means escalate as far as they can, but no further. To make the conflict escalate we are building up the Red Army.
Without simultaneously building up the Red Army, every conflict, all political struggle at work and in Wedding and in the Maerkisches Viertel and in Ploetzensee [EDIT: districts in Berlin] will degenerate into reformism, i.e.: effectively, you will only achieve improved means of disciplining people, improved means of intimidation, improved means of exploitation. Which only destroys the people, it doesn't destroy what destroys the people!
Without building up a red army, the pigs can do as they please, the pigs can continue to imprison us, fire us, dispossess us, steal our children, intimidate us, shoot us, rule over us. To make the conflict escalate means that they can no longer do what they want, but instead will have to do what we want.
You have to make this clear to those who don't gain anything from the exploitation of the Third World, from the Persian oil, from Bolivia's bananas, from South Africa's gold - to those who don't get a piece of the cake, who have no reason to identify with the exploiters. They can understand that what is taking off here has already taken off in Vietnam, in Palestine, in Guatemala, in Oakland and Watts, in Cuba and Chine, in Angola and New York. They will understand if you explain to them that the Baader liberation campaign is not an isolated campaign and never was, that it was only the first of its kind in West Germany. Goddamn.
Don't sit on that couch that has been subjected to house searches and count your loved ones like a petty huckster. Built up a proper distribution apparatus, leave the chickenshits and social workers and that whole gang of rascals who doesn't do anything except sucking up anymore.
Find out where the reformatories are, and the families with many children, and the sub-proletariat, and the proletarian women who only wait to punch the right person. They will take over the leadership. And don't get caught, and learn from them how to not get caught - they know more about it than you do.
Develop the class wars.
Organize the proletariat.
Let the armed resistance begin!
BUILD UP THE RED ARMY!
The RAF's writing style used to be very informal and a bit peculiar. My English translation attempts to reflect the writing style of the German original.
Caligula Z
Comrades of the 883: there is no point in explaining all the right things to the wrong people. We have been doing that for long enough. It's not up to us to us explain the Baader liberation campaign to the intellectual jawsmiths, the chickenshits, the know-it-alls, but to the potentially revolutionary segments of the people.
This means to all those who can understand the act straight away because they are held captive themselves. Those who cannot take seriously the gibberish of the "Left" because it has not led to any results or actions. Those who are fed up! It's up to you to explain the Baader liberation campaign to the youths from the Maerkisches Viertel district, to the girls from Eichenhof, from Ollenhauer, from Heiligensee, to the boys from the Jugendhof, from the Jugendhilfsstelle, from the Gruenes Haus, from the Kieferngrund [EDIT: these names refer to youth rehabilitation centres and reformatories]. To the families who have many children, to the young workers and apprentices, to the pupils at comprehensive schools, to the families who live in areas affected by urban renewal, the Siemens and AEG-Telefunken workers, those working at SEL and Osram, the married working women who on top of running the household and bringing up kids have to work - goddamn!
You have to explain the campaign to those who will not be compensated for the exploitation they have to suffer through with a better standard of living, consumption, a mortgage, small-scale loans, a medium range car. Those who cannot afford the whole shebang, those who are not tied to it. Those who have recognized as lies all the promises made by their educators and teachers, caretakers and welfare workers, foremen and apprentice trainers, union functionaries and district councillors, and whose only remaining fear is the fear of the police. You have to tell them - and not the petty-bourgeois intellectuals - that it's over now, that things are taking off now, that an end of the police reign is in sight! You have to tell them that we are building up the Red Army, that it is their army.
You have to tell to them that things are taking off now. They won't ask silly questions along the lines of "why now?" They've already been through it all, they've done all the walks to authorities and offices, all the games and procedures, all the opening hours and waiting rooms, all the dates on which everything should have worked out but didn't work out in the end. And they had a word with the friendly female teacher, who ultimately did not prevent their kid from being transferred to a special needs school, and the helpless nursery school teacher who couldn't offer their other kid a place. They are not asking you "why now", goddamn.
They will obviously not believe a word you say if you can't even get around to hand out the newspaper before it gets confiscated. Because it's not your task to agitate the leftist suckups but the objectively leftist people, you have to build up a distribution system which the pigs cannot figure out. Don't talk nonsense about this being too difficult. The Baader liberation campaign wasn't a walk in the park either. If you grasp what's happening, if you grasp anything you have to organize the distribution better. And we will not tell you anything about the methods, neither will we tell you anything about the action plan, you dimwits! As long as you let them catch you, you cannot not give people advice on how to not get caught. What is the meaning of being an adventurer after all? It means to find your own ways [EDIT: literally "It means to build your own lamps.
So...
What does it mean: to let the conflict escalate? It means: to not let them slaughter you. That's why we're building up the Red Army. Behind every parent there's a teacher, the office for juvenile affairs, the police. Behind every apprentice trainer there's a foreman, the human resources office, the plant security guard, the welfare worker, the police. Behind every caretaker there's a property manager, the bailiff, the eviction notice, the police. Whatever the pigs can regulate through school marks, firing people, eviction notices, sticks and truncheons, they will regulate in those ways. Of course they will reach for their service guns or resort to tear gas, hand grenades and machine guns, of course the means will escalate if they can't manage in any other way. Of course the GIs in Vietnam have been retrained to adopt guerrilla tactics and the Green Berets to use means of torture. So what? Of course they're making penal system more severe for political prisoners.
It's up to you to make clear that it's Social Democratic rubbish to claim that it's possible to infiltrate, string along, cheat, intimidate, remove without violent struggle Imperialism and all its Neubauers and Westmorelands [EDIT: the names of industrial bigshots], Bonn [EDIT: then the capital of West Germany], the senate, the federal office for juvenile affairs and the councils, and all that filthy business. Make clear that the revolution will not be a nice walk in the park, that the pigs will only let the means escalate as far as they can, but no further. To make the conflict escalate we are building up the Red Army.
Without simultaneously building up the Red Army, every conflict, all political struggle at work and in Wedding and in the Maerkisches Viertel and in Ploetzensee [EDIT: districts in Berlin] will degenerate into reformism, i.e.: effectively, you will only achieve improved means of disciplining people, improved means of intimidation, improved means of exploitation. Which only destroys the people, it doesn't destroy what destroys the people!
Without building up a red army, the pigs can do as they please, the pigs can continue to imprison us, fire us, dispossess us, steal our children, intimidate us, shoot us, rule over us. To make the conflict escalate means that they can no longer do what they want, but instead will have to do what we want.
You have to make this clear to those who don't gain anything from the exploitation of the Third World, from the Persian oil, from Bolivia's bananas, from South Africa's gold - to those who don't get a piece of the cake, who have no reason to identify with the exploiters. They can understand that what is taking off here has already taken off in Vietnam, in Palestine, in Guatemala, in Oakland and Watts, in Cuba and Chine, in Angola and New York. They will understand if you explain to them that the Baader liberation campaign is not an isolated campaign and never was, that it was only the first of its kind in West Germany. Goddamn.
Don't sit on that couch that has been subjected to house searches and count your loved ones like a petty huckster. Built up a proper distribution apparatus, leave the chickenshits and social workers and that whole gang of rascals who doesn't do anything except sucking up anymore.
Find out where the reformatories are, and the families with many children, and the sub-proletariat, and the proletarian women who only wait to punch the right person. They will take over the leadership. And don't get caught, and learn from them how to not get caught - they know more about it than you do.
Develop the class wars.
Organize the proletariat.
Let the armed resistance begin!
BUILD UP THE RED ARMY!