The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History, Volume 1

by J. Smith

  Through these activities they show a willingness to act and to intervene that stands in contradiction to their actual methods of intervention, which remain those that were appropriate for the working class during the phase of competitive capitalism and parliamentarianism. They were appropriate in the period when Rosa Luxemburg, looking at the mass strikes in Russia in 1905, recognized the immense importance of strikes in the political struggle and Lenin recognized the importance of union struggles. It is the contradiction between their use of the German working class as their historical reference point, and the increasing tendency today of West German capitalism to organize itself in the form of West German imperialism.

  A section of the left still sees the RAF as Baader and Meinhof’s personal thing and—like Howeida, the Bild and the BZ—discusses armed struggle as if it were a form of criminal activity. In a similar vein, they also attribute our activity to faulty reasoning and misrepresent our positions. As a result, they will fail to resolve the contradiction between what they know to be the state of the class struggle, and what they perceive to be the revolutionary methods of intervention. They transform the objective problem that we all face into our subjective problem alone. They conduct themselves as if they fear the difficult task ahead of them—they bury their heads in the sand and refuse to think about it. The denunciation of the concept of the urban guerilla within a section of the left succeeds far too easily and without much thought, thereby allowing us to see the growing distance between their theory and their practice, a distance that we do not believe can be closed by our efforts alone. Their claim that they are actually involved in this debate proves, we think, that we and they have different self-perceptions.

  A year ago, we said that the urban guerilla unites the national and international class struggle. The urban guerilla makes it possible for the people to become aware of the interconnectedness of imperialist rule. The urban guerilla is the revolutionary form of intervention suited to an overall position of weakness. An advance in the class struggle only occurs if legal and illegal work are connected, if political propaganda has a perspective that includes armed struggle and if political organization includes the possibility of the urban guerilla. This was made clear through the concrete example of the chemical workers strike in 1971, which showed the objective reality of the social question, the subjective reality of the question of capitalist ownership and the militarization of the class struggle in West Germany and West Berlin.

  In the current phase of history no one can any longer deny that an armed group, however small it may be, has more of a chance of becoming a people’s army than a group that has been reduced to spouting revolutionary rhetoric.

  30 Questions to a Tupamaro1

  2. THE CHEMICAL WORKERS STRIKE OF 1971

  The widespread strikes in the chemical and metal industries in 1971— among the most developed industries in West Europe—made it clear what the problems facing the working class will be in the coming years. They exhibited a widespread readiness to struggle on the part of the workforce, while simultaneously showing the economic and political advantages the chemical and metal industries have vis-à-vis the working class; they showed the complicity of the union bureaucracies with the Social-Liberal government and the role of the government as the executive organ of this “corporate state.”

  The workers lost the strikes. They struck for 11 and 12 percent, and the unions settled with the employers for 7.8 and 7.5 percent. The situation that socialists in the Federal Republic and West Berlin will face in coming years was certainly clarified by this strike: subjectively, an increase in readiness to struggle on the part of the working class and, objectively, the reduced capacity to struggle; objectively, a decrease in wages and the loss of “vested social rights,” subjectively, increased class antagonism and class hatred.

  Economically speaking, the strength of the chemical industry was the result of the trends towards concentration and the export of capital which have been forced upon the entire West European economy by North American competition. Politically, it was the result of the lessons that West German industry drew from May 68 in France and the wildcat strikes of September 69. Their counteroffensive against the September strikes here certainly increased class consciousness.

  Concentration

  Due to their size and technological advantages, the large American industrialists can achieve lower production costs despite paying higher wages. Hugh Stephenson of Time magazine:

  the problem of size is not essentially one of the size of factory installations, rather the key is understanding the grandeur of the financial and economic factors that stand behind this. A large volume of business means almost nothing. However, it does have advantageous implications regarding dominant market position. And that is an advantage that can’t be achieved without substantial investment in modern industry, even if it is not in the area of developing technologies. The type of competition between industrialists in developing branches of industry, such as the automobile, chemical and oil industries, has completely changed. The cost of new investments is so high for the enterprises involved that as stable a future market as the intense competition allows for must be guaranteed. Under these circumstances, it is inevitable that European industry must in the future enter a phase of concentration into fewer and larger groups.

  Die Welt, February 23, 1972

  Public Funds

  Concentration is the first reality. The influx of public funds to cover the costs of research and development is the second. North American industries have access to greater funds of this variety as a result of their size and the U.S.A.’s permanent war economy. In 1963-64, the U.S.A. used 3.3 percent of its gross national product for research purposes—compared to an average of 1.5 percent in West Europe. Hugh Stephenson:

  In the area of developing technologies, Europe will never be able to deal with the immense and ever-growing research and development costs if a constant flow of public funds is not guaranteed.

  If not, then it would be better to just sign deals with American firms right away. That is the pressure that today’s economy places on the state. Concentration and state subsidies have become a question of survival for capitalist West Europe.

  The Export of Capital

  The third thing is the export of capital. This entails cooperation with foreign industries and building factories in foreign countries, with the aim of profiting from the cheaper raw materials and lower wages available in these countries, and of reducing transportation costs by buying from foreign markets.

  Because the chemical industry stands at the forefront of this development, the chemical workers strike of 1971 had a central significance. It serves as an example of an entire trend, from the chemical companies’ strike preparations in December 1970, through the purge of teachers who are members of the DKP from the public service and the incorporation of the BGS into the federal police force, from the first signs of fascism in the Federal Republic to the CSU seizing control of Bayerischen Rundfunk,1 from the refusal to allow Mandel to teach at the Free University to the application of the death penalty to the Red Army Faction.

  As a result of this, in the coming years increasing numbers of people from all levels of society, with the exception of the owners of capital, will find themselves dissatisfied with the structure of ownership. It therefore follows that it is tactically and strategically incorrect not to treat the question of ownership, which is now addressed with trivial and wishy washy arguments about co-management2 and “protecting what we’ve begun,” as the general and ongoing central issue. The situation has also led to a development whereby anyone who profits from these circumstances can conceal that fact.

  Bayer – BASF – Farbwerke Hoechst

  The chemical industry is among the industries with the highest levels of concentration in West Germany. The market share of just three, IG Farben-Nachfolger Bayer, Farbwerke Hoechst, and BASF, makes up 50 percent of the industrial sector. These three chemical corporations are among the four largest
companies incorporated in the Federal Republic.

  Of the 597,000 employed in the sector, 200,000 work for the big three. They control over 50 percent of the funds for research and development in the chemical industry. In the years 1965-70 alone, BASF gained control of business and corporate concerns that conducted 4 billion DM3 worth of business, which was more than it had itself been conducting in 1965.

  Regarding the cooperation between the state and the chemical corporations, the 1969 Federal Research Report states:

  In the chemical industry one can speak of a genuine division of labor between state-funded basic research and industrial research. The chemical industry can only continue their recent rate of growth and retain their international importance if a high level of (state-supported) basic research continues.

  What export of capital means in the chemical industry is that while in 1970 West German industry did 19.3 percent of their business outside of Germany, for Farbwerke Hoechst it was 44 percent, for BASF 50 percent, for Bayer 56 percent. South Africa, Portugal, Turkey, Iran, and Brazil are some the places where they have production facilities.

  The Federal Republic also provides military aid to Portugal, Turkey and Iran. Obviously, this military aid serves to ensure conditions of exploitation beneficial to West German capital in these countries, which is to say, holding wages down and gunning down workers who resist. It is also clear that since the mid-60s this military aid has also served to build up “security forces,” which is to say the police, who conduct the anti-guerilla war under the guise of fighting crime, saying whatever is necessary to support that position: there is no resistance, the masses are completely satisfied, it’s only a question of criminals and crime.

  American military aid to Iran was given to support the campaign against drug dealing and smuggling, and Brandt has no “ideological biases” if the execution of revolutionaries is disguised as sentences carried out against criminals. Scheel spoke recently—in the context of the signing of a contract, in which the Federal Republic secured future Brazilian uranium discoveries—of the common interest of the Federal Republic and the Brazilian military junta in resisting “terrorism and subversive activities,” which is in reaction to the Latin American guerillas who laid bombs at the BASF installation.

  Together with American corporations, the West German chemical corporations control almost the entire chemical and pharmaceutical market in Iran. Iran is the site of the greatest rate of expansion of western interests; South Africa offers the highest rate of profit—Volkswagen for example averaged dividends of 30 percent last year, and in 1968 they were as high as 45 percent. Between what they produce and what they sell, the West German chemical and pharmaceutical industry controls 10 to 12 percent of the South American market.

  Pressure on wages and the reduction of the wage-cost ratio in production was achieved through the exploitation of lower wage standards in foreign countries, through guest workers, and through investments at home, all of which the chemical industry has used in recent years to achieve a 75 percent increase in capacity, as well as rationalization and redundancy in the labor force.

  The figures: between 1950 and 1970, the number of people employed in the chemical industry increased by only 100 percent, compared to an increase in sales of 636 percent. In general, the tendency is for the number of people to decrease. The closing of Phrixwerke made the headlines. Hüls announced this February that in 1972 the number of people it employs will decrease by 3 to 4 percent. The chemical industry speaks of the “the increasing importance of labor costs.” This indicates that they intend lay-offs and wage rollbacks. They entered the 1971 round of negotiations with the aim of asserting their concept of “labor costs,” which is to say, with the hope of putting the working class on the defensive through a massive attack.

  The Strength of the Capitalist Class

  Concentration as the precondition for a strong negotiating position for capital requires nothing more than a unified position on the part of the employers, in a situation where the Employers Association is controlled by the corporations that control the market: Bayer, BASF and Hoechst. Export of capital is a source of strength for the chemical industry, given that it creates a situation in which the working class that confronts it is not the industry’s only source of profit. In the workers’ struggle, the elimination of competition between wage workers always finds its practical limits within national borders, and so a strike only stops a part of capital’s profitable production. While the workers gamble everything, capital only gambles part of what it has.

  Just because the chemical industry ruthlessly uses its strengths to gain the upper hand politically is absolutely no reason for whining. It is an error to see the chemical companies as especially evil because they make use of slave labor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to put pressure on wages, because they use investments to get the labor force off their backs, and because they use concentration to secure economic and political mobility and flexibility. The brutality of their exploitative behavior—in the form of political repression and pressure to reduce the costs of social reproduction—indicates the effect of North American competition on West Europe’s economy, as well as the rationalization of the sector, its products, and the market. It is an integral part of the inhumanity and criminality of the system and will only be eliminated when the system is eliminated, or it will not be eliminated at all.

  The chemical industry prepared meticulously for the strike; it was they and not the unions that wanted the strike, and they and not the unions that won the strike. The workers suffered a setback. Everybody played different roles against them: capital, the government and the union bureaucracy.

  Preparing for the Strike

  In February 71, the unions called for a wage increase beginning March 31 in Hessen, North Rhine and Rhineland Palatinate, demanding 11 to 12 percent, and for Hessen a flat 120 marks,1 which for Hessen meant the same wage increase for all wage levels, the freezing of wage cuts and a step forward in the unity of the working class. The chemical industry refused to make any deal.

  In December 70, the chemical industry had already created “mutual support systems” between their companies in case of a strike. This took the form of transferring money related to wage payments to the development and conversion of raw materials, to the production of primary and intermediate products, and to the setting aside of capital for production facilities and transportation. They also provided their customers with an 8-week stock of their products, including the smaller clients such as drugstores and universities—the rector of Düsseldorf University, for example, called upon the institutes and seminars to stock up as a precautionary measure.

  Operating measures were worked out in detail: instruction manuals for strike breakers, secure plant telephone systems, a list of the names of union representatives, facilities to print leaflets, contacts with the local press and opinion-makers such as teachers, ministers and associations. Lists were drawn up of supposed members of an “underground political force” to be forwarded to the Verfassungsschutz and the police. Contacts with the police, government departments, and Interior Ministers. A line of argument was also developed about the “danger to the workplace posed by the strike,” etc.

  In December 70, the union representatives at Farbwerke Hoechst polled their members regarding the proposed wage demands. The Wage Commission—made up of representatives from the IG Chemie trade union and the larger companies—refused the demands. The vote with which the demands were rejected wasn’t even close: 4 to 1. The union representatives from Merck in Darmstadt demanded 160 marks1 or 12 percent. They also had little luck with the Wage Commission.

  State Support for the Capitalist Class

  The Employers Association received state support. The basic 9 percent wage increase projected in the government’s wage guidelines was reduced to 7.5 percent at the beginning of the year. Brandt, on May 11 in parliament: “In the current phase, wage costs that are too high risk causing underemployment.” The experts in their o
pinions supported the chemical industry, stating that “a very slow reduction in the rate of wage increases” is not enough, but that “extreme measures are necessary.” (May 71)

  In May, the chemical industry made an offer of 5 percent, and IG Chemie issued a press release stating that they wouldn’t insist upon 11 or 12 percent, but would accept 8 or 9 percent

  The Betrayal of Rhineland Palatinate

  On May 24, however, Rhineland Palatinate—to great public surprise— signed a wage contract for 7.8 percent over ten months, which on the basis of a real duration of twelve months is 6.5 percent, less than that suggested in Schiller’s2 reference data. Rhineland Palatinate is controlled by BASF. BASF won’t accept strikes.

  Bayer and Hoechst also later avoided strikes. The employees of the large companies don’t want the humiliation of a setback during a strike; they have been disciplined by a broad and diverse system of pacification: company housing, purported profit sharing, training grants, a body of company representatives alongside the unions, the organization of the workplace whereby the employees are split into hundreds of separate factory units, a wage system split into different wage levels, separate low wage groups for men and women.

  The chemical industry in Hessen circulated to its own employees the leaflet that the IG Chemie trade union had prepared for its members regarding this outcome. The Wage Commission in North Rhine and Hessen bristled at the outcome in Rhineland Palatinate. They talked about options for struggle, but didn’t prepare them. IG Chemie simply demanded that their members get their dues in order and recruit new members.

  The Strike

  In the face of the chemical industry’s resistance, federal government arbitration eventually failed in North Rhine and Hessen, and later in Westphalia and Hamburg. Following the failure of federal government arbitration, the strike began. From the beginning of June until the beginning of July, a total of 50,000 workers in these four areas were on strike and 150,000 were involved in support actions. In North Rhine they struck for 9 percent, in Hessen for a flat increase of at least 120 marks,3 or 11 percent, and in the other areas for 11 or 12 percent. It was the first strike in the chemical industry in 40 years, since the wage struggles at the beginning and end of the 1920s.