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From: aforum@moose.uvm.edu (autonome forum)
Subject: a history of the Red Army Fraction (RAF)
Message-ID: <1993Jan5.105236.4742@uvm.edu>
Organization: University of Vermont -- Division of EMBA Computer Facility
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 10:52:36 GMT
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subject: a history of the Red Army Fraction (RAF)
posted by: autonome forum
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THE HISTORY OF THE RED ARMY FRACTION (RAF)
The Red Army Fraction, Germany's oldest revolutionary armed
clandestine organization has, for the past 22 years been, as they
put it, "shaking the imperialist system". The most recent
communique the RAF (10.4.92), in light of the changed world
situation and the rise of the new world order, takes a
retrospective and introspective look at its history and political
theory and practice with the aim of fostering discussion and
debate around armed resistance to imperialism and capitalism. In
this communique, for the first time in a long while, the RAF
takes itself to task; questioning and debating both its role in
the fight against imperialism and the merits of its guerrilla
actions as a means of attacking and overcoming imperialism, in
order that a new political orientation may be found. Most
importantly, the RAF has decided to stop its attacks while this
debate and discussion goes on. What follows is a very brief
overview of the history and politics of the RAF.
The RAF emerged in 1970, out of the anti-Vietnam war student
movement, and after a brief period of consolidating itself as an
organization it began attacks in support of the Vietnamese
people's liberation struggle, bombing targets associated with
U.S. imperialism's and fascist West Germany's complicity in the
Vietnam war. In May of 1972, the RAF attacked a whole series of
targets - Army bases, police headquarters, the right-wing press,
and more. In a communique accompanying the May 12, 1972 bombing
of a police headquarters, the RAF summed up their duties as "the
steady development of the revolutionary guerrilla movement, the
long and protracted process of the struggle for liberation from
fascism, capitalism, capitalist exploitation and suppression of
the people." And in a document entitled "Concept of the Urban
Guerrilla", the RAF stressed its link with liberation struggles
in the three continents (Africa, Asia, and Latin America),
putting forward the strategy of "fighting from the inside";
waging the struggle from the metropoles, the homelands of
imperialism, in support of these liberation struggles.
By 1975, most of the RAF's founders were either in jail or
dead. In spite of intense repression, the RAF continued to
maintain its revolutionary offensive. A 1974 hungerstrike by RAF
prisoners culminated in the murder by the state of Holger Meins,
a RAF founder. Consequently, a commando from the June 2nd
Movement, a more anarchist guerrilla grouping, shot and killed
the president of the West Berlin Supreme Court, and the Holger
Meins Commando of the RAF occupied the West Germanan embassy in
Stockholm, Sweden, in an unsuccessful attempt to gain freedom for
their imprisoned comrades, most of whom were standing trial at
the Stammheim prison.
From the start, there was criticism of the RAF and its
actions. For example, the editors of the British periodical
"Anarchy" took the RAF to task rightly, arguing that "the armed
resistance of the RAF is both centralised and spectacular, and
this has two very negative effects: their actions don't relate to
people's everyday experience and the majority of people look at
their struggle with the police as some kind of private feud in
which they have no part." Further, they argued that the RAF, by
refusing to combine legal and illegal work, and by carrying out
actions which were supplementary rather than integral to the
struggle, had effectively cut themselves off from comrades who
were willing to help them. They had isolated themselves from the
masses, preaching a political elitism and avant-guardism that
seperated them "from the many types of direct action that are
carried out at the grass-roots level."
In 1976, Ulrike Meinhof, another founder of the RAF, was
murdered by the state, leading to demonstrations throughout
Europe, including the bombing of the West German consulate in
Nice and the bombing of the U.S. Armed Forces Radio station in
Frankfurt. Then, in September 1977, as the Stammheim trial
continued, the RAF kidnapped the Daimler-Benz Chief Executive
Martin Schleyer, a former S.S. officer. To make a long and
complex story short, the RAF demanded the release of its
imprisoned comrades in exchange for Schleyer; the state refused.
Consequently, Palestinian comrades hijacked a Boeing 737 and
reiterated the demands of the RAF. The elite anti-terrorist
German GSG 9 squad stormed the plane freeing the passengers and
killing some of the hijackers. The German state then murdered
three RAF members in their cells at Stammheim. Martin Schleyer
was later found, executed by the RAF.
Between 1977 and 1979, the RAF was somewhat less active.
Their base of support fell away, and in the eyes of many the RAF
had become essentially a 'free the guerrilla organization' - all
of its actions seemed to be aimed only at liberating its
prisoners and it appeared to be engaged primarily in a private
war with the state. Further, the main original political
motivation of the RAF - the Vietnam war - was over.
By 1979, the RAF emerged with a new orientation - U.S.
imperialism's and NATO's plans to turn Europe, and Germany in
particular, into one huge NATO installation complete with nuclear
weapons. A new base of support was sought among the growing anti-
nuclear and militant peace movements in Germany in order to build
an anti-imperialist movement that could effectively combat NATO's
plans to use Germany as the 'take-off' point for its wars against
the Third World, all under the slogan: "War on Imperialist War".
Also in 1980, the June 2 Movement announced that it was
disbanding and joining the RAF, stating that its notion of
"spontaneous proletarian politics" had produced division among
the guerrilla movement. In a communique they argued that "It can
never be the job of the guerrilla to please the population and to
get their applause, but the job of the guerrilla is to become the
frontline."
The RAF's new offensive started with their unsuccessful
attempt on Alexander Haig, at that time a NATO General, and
continued through into 1981 with a failed rocket grenade attack
on NATO Commander U.S. General Kroesen, and a bomb attack on the
U.S. Air Force/NATO headquarters at Ramstein. In a communique
accompanying the Ramstein action, the RAF stated that they
targeted it because it was the base for nuclear war in Europe,
and the starting base for war in the Third World.
In 1981, the Revolutionary Cells (an autonomous guerrilla
structure, in existence since 1973) issued a long paper in which
they castigated the RAF; taking the RAF to task for their
abstractness. The RZ put forward their ideas of a 'popular'
guerrilla, arguing for a guerrilla force "of which the activities
are understood, which enjoys the sympathy of the people, and with
a perspective on broad support." Importantly, the RZ criticized
the RAF for not acknowledging that in addition to the class
struggle between proletarians and capitalists, there are also
other contradictions which must be solved; for example "the
women's movement and over-exploitation and sexist suppression of
women, the ecological movement and the destruction of
environmental conditions by industrial technology." These are all
criticisms which the RAF appears to be, since 1989, addressing
more seriously, as the April '92 communique points out.
The year 1982 saw the RAF author an important document
entitled 'Guerrilla, Resistance and the Anti-Imperialist Front'
which called for a united anti-imperialist front against NATO
imperialism, and in which the RAF essentially recognized and
realized that they had made serious tactical and political
mistakes in 1977. Essentially, the RAF criticized its earlier
vanguardist ideas, and called for anti-imperialist struggle
alongside others, rather than the RAF being at the forefront of
the struggle. While in 1982 and 1983 the RAF was operationally
quiet, in 1984 the RAF came alive.
On December 4, 1984, RAF prisoners began a collective
hungerstrike which called for the unity of all political
prisoners and which again called for a united front against
imperialism. This hungerstrike mobilized, and was accompanied by,
a large number of attacks and actions by anti-imperialist groups,
including Belgium's Communist Fighting Cells (CCC), the
Revolutionary Cells (RZ), and France's anti-imperialist Action
Directe (AD). These actions were not just carried out in
solidarity with the hungerstrike, but as part of the over-all
offensive against NATO and imperialism.
On January 15, 1985, in a joint communique, the RAF and
Action Directe, announced the formation of what they termed "the
international organization of proletarian struggle in the
metropoles, with its politico-military core: the West European
guerrilla." Ten days later Action Directe executed french General
Audran, stating in a communique that he had "been central to the
strategic imperialist project of homogenizing the European states
under NATO's control." Then on February 1, 1985, the RAF executed
Audran's German counterpart, Ernst Zimmerman.
In August, the George Jackson Commando of the RAF/AD
attacked the Rhein-Mein Air Base due to its role as "a centre for
war against the Third World." In order to gain access to the
airbase, the RAF executed an American G.I. and used his I.D. card
to get them in. This caused fierce debate among the German left,
and further served to alienate the RAF from some of its base of
support. As one autonomist put it: "Any military line of action
is wrong when it proceeds in isolation from what is being fought
against. If I fight against something, then I must also have a
line to those who are the victims of what I am fighting against.
This is not at all the case with the RAF. With the Revolutionary
Cells it is different; they make sure that their actions convey a
message."
In July of 1986, the RAF assassinated the German
industrialist Karl-Heinz Bekurts who was involved with SDI
research, and in October of 1986, high-ranking Foreign Officer
Gerald von Braunmuhl was executed, "one of the central figures in
the formation of the West European policy in the overall system
of imperialism."
The year 1988 saw the RAF issue a joint communique with a
fraction of Italy's now-defunct Red Brigades - the BR-PCC (Red
Brigades-Fighting Communist Party) - in which the unity of the
revolutionary movement was called for, in the face of unification
in Europe, and in which it was argued that "the attack of the
West European front against the strategic projects for the
political, economic, and military formation of West Europe aims
at weakening the imperialist system and causing a thorough
political crisis." In September of 1988, the RAF carried out an
unsuccessful attack on the German Secretary of State for the
Minister of Finance, Hans Tietmeyer, and in November of 1989 they
were succesful in executing one of the world's most powerful
financiers, Alfred Herrhausen. In 1989, the RAF carried out yet
another unsuccessful hungerstrike which called for an end to
isolation toruture and the regroupment of political prisoners.
July of 1990 saw Hans Neusel, state secretary in the
Interior Ministry and the government's leading 'terrorism'
expert, survive a RAF attack. In the accompanying communique, the
RAF appeared to have taken some of the criticisms directed at it
to heart; it acknowledged the need for resistance to come from
within grassroot movements, and called for the building up of a
"counter-power from below" which would be made up of a diversity
of struggles, including, for example, the squatters movement.
During the Gulf War, the RAF machine-gunned the American
embassy in Bonn in response to the devastation in Iraq being
waged by US/UN forces. The accompanying communique called for,
among other things, solidarity with the struggle of the political
prisoners in the isolation units in the U.S. In 1991, the RAF
asassinated the head of the company responsible for the
reconstructing of East Germany along capitalist lines, Detlev
Rohwedder, "one of the architects of the new Germany". In the
communique around this action, the RAF argued for the necessity
of pushing through "the preconditions for a self-determined life
with human dignity in the struggle against the reactionary great
German and West European plans to exploit people here and in the
Three Continents."
Since then, the RAF has again been operationally quiet,
although they have been releasing communiques around issues such
as political prisoners, and attempts by the police to criminalize
the legal resistance movements by stating that parts of it carry
out logistical support for the RAF. [NOTE: another communique
around the G-7 summit was released on 29.6.92 -ed.]
With this most recent communique, the RAF appears to be
taking the criticism levelled at it throughout its history ever
more seriously. A reading of the communique makes clear that the
RAF is shedding its vanguardist ideas, and is taking into account
other struggles and other contradictions, i.e. racism and sexism.
They now see various struggles such as the squatting and anti-
fascist movements, the struggle by refugees and immigrants
against racist asylum policies, and the fight by social prisoners
against isolation as all being integral to the building of a
counter-power from below.
It is unclear what role the RAF will play within this
"counter-power". Whether or not the RAF continues to carry out
actions on a lower-level as a "popular guerrilla", as the
Revolutionary Cells mentioned above, or whether they will cease
to exist entirely, remains to be seen. This decision by the RAF
to break with its past history and practice has precipitated
massive discussion and debate within the German autonomous left.
Many are discussing the role of the armed resistance - how and in
what context. The building of a revolutionary movement requires
that these questions be discussed, not only in Germany and in
other parts of the world, but also here in North America.
For the full text of this communique, or of any of the
communiques mentioned, and for information about armed struggle,
political prisoners, and militant resistance in Germany, North
America, and the rest of the world, write to Arm The Spirit, or
contact Autonome Forum via e-mail: aforum@moose.uvm.edu
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