The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History

by J. Smith

  For us, the subjective side of the developments that came out of the dialectic of ‘77—the possibility of a front in the center—is essential. This remains the case. It will determine whether the struggle develops in the imperialist centers, which do not normally produce revolutionary conditions, but are objectively destructive and corrupt due to the way in which the crisis is managed and all social developments are turned into instruments of domination.

  Obviously, nobody climbs to a higher level on their own. The qualitatively different situation that exists now is born of the objective development of the international class struggle and can only be understood in that context.

  The long history of liberation wars on the colonized continents culminated in the struggle of Vietnam’s National Liberation Front, and their victory gave rise to a new historical stage of anticolonial national liberation struggles by peoples subjected to imperialism.

  The effects of this historic breakthrough: the new strength of the emergent national states in international politics—the generalized economic, political, and social crises in the imperialist center—the rise, parallel to the liberation struggles, of the Soviet Union as a superpower equal to the United States—all of this has destabilized the global balance of power between North and South, between East and West, and between the state and society in the imperialist centers. It has thus destabilized the uneasy balance between imperialism and liberation. In other words, all around the world imperialism’s instability produces a situation whereby it could slide into a final systemic crisis if it is defeated at any point in the global system or loses its dominance in some area—whether a strategic military position (Southern Africa, the Middle East), an economic component (such as oil, strategic mineral resources, or technological superiority), or the political domination of a geographic region (such as Central America or the Gulf).

  Since Vietnam, the conflict has shifted from a confrontation between the center and the liberation struggles, the front and the hinterland, to a situation where the front line cuts across every sector and every country. Any sector, due to its specific point of integration and its unique significance in the overall system, could disrupt the balance of power—and, as a result, any sector could become a front in the liberation war.

  To put it bluntly, imperialism must react by centralizing its power: the state, the unified structure of the U.S. chain of states, the reconstruction of its capacity for military, economic, and political action, and of its instruments of domination. In an attempt to get global developments back under control, they will intervene everywhere: in the existing struggles in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, in the emergent national states, in the East-West conflict, and in Western Europe, with the goal of using this generalized offensive to reestablish their hegemonic position.

  Faced with united imperialist reaction, it is necessary for the anti-imperialist struggle to carry out parallel struggles on all fronts. They are all different sectors of a single front. And, as struggles that must be carried out side by side, each sector—and this includes the West European sector—will, on the basis of its own strengths, its own particular development, and its own specific current and historical conditions, be able to form an actual front that can shake imperialism.

  This is why the dialectic of the ‘77 confrontation led to qualitatively new subjective conditions of struggle here and to the definitive integration of contradictions in the center into the development, the imperative, and the possibility of international class war. In this sense, it came at the right time.

  In fact, this is also the context in which the state found itself in ‘77. Faced with the end of the U.S. chain of states’ first stage of development, our defeat provided it with an opportunity to put on a show of force that was meant to show that it was not acting within the context of the national state, but on the level of the global counterrevolutionary project. In other words, it was acting as the key European power, which, in keeping with its function within the U.S. chain of states, will be politically compelled to act both domestically and throughout Western Europe against all forms of resistance, so as to facilitate the international attack. But by doing this it has helped define the lines along which the decisive struggle will develop: the unified struggle of the West European states against the guerilla has made the concept of a West European guerilla front a reality, and, at the most basic social level, as a result of the FRG’s laws and its history, a profound chasm has opened between society and the state, making the revolutionary front a realistic option here.

  There is no longer any point in analyzing the internal changes here as isolated phenomena. As a result of their attitude and experiences, those who have been struggling for some time have already internalized the new situation and have accepted it as a turning point. What we are saying is that the system is faced with unprecedented fundamental opposition. Cold, without illusions, expecting nothing from the state. It’s no longer about “changing the system” or an “alternative model” of the state. All of that seems completely absurd. That’s over now—only with the end of the system can one imagine a life of any quality.

  Imperialism offers no positive or meaningful future, only destruction. That is the key issue, the root of militancy in all areas of life.

  This reality is experienced on the level of daily economic reality, through the arms race and the preparations for nuclear war, in the natural and social conditions of life, and also on a personal level within each individual, a level where alienation and oppression express themselves through massive distortions and the destruction of any depth of individual thought, the feeling that one’s very personality has been mutilated. The majority have lost all hope. Imperialism has perfected and systematized domination in its centers to such a degree that people feel powerless to resist. Skyrocketing suicide rates, people losing themselves in sickness, alcohol, tranquilizers, and drugs; these are reactions to the long history of defeats, hardship, and suffering—depoliticization to such a degree that people are no longer able to see the need for violent resistance.

  But this profound misery also constitutes the profound existential basis for struggle and hatred. It is not a matter of short, spontaneous bursts of rage. This hatred has been building for years. This is the terrain upon which the revolutionary front in the metropole is now developing. Should the system finally be reduced to destruction and extermination, the resistance—whether it knows it or not—will prove to be the element of opposition that will become total resistance, both within single-issue struggles and beyond them. The unity of the revolutionary struggle will be both possible and necessary. For everyone who wants to struggle to bring about a break with the state and a revolt across the spectrum of militant struggles, the first order of action must be to develop unity around a strategy of attack within the imperialist centers, through a practice that will itself inevitably create this unity.

  THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST FRONT

  Over the past two years, there have been numerous leaflets and actions with the slogan “a front with the RAF,” and we know that the need and the desire to achieve this cuts across all political issues. But there is still a very long way to go from this need, this desire, and this initial potential for a front, to the practical process of developing and organizing such a movement.

  The front will not emerge automatically from common struggles and a proclamation. Such a proclamation and any mobilization that accompanied it will come to nothing if the practical aspects of this strategy—how it can be undertaken and how it can be effective—are not tackled more seriously. And not by us alone.

  The front will not become a reality unless everybody, regardless of where they find themselves, makes it a priority to develop the process and practice necessary to unite the underground armed struggle and the aboveground militant resistance, as well as the methods, tactics, and structures that are necessary for them to determine the level of illegal activity and development that is possible for them. In this way, they will be able to make a conscious
decision about their further integration into this strategic process.

  THE FRONT REQUIRES THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRACTICAL AND POLITICAL COORDINATION IN THE ATTACK AGAINST IMPERIALIST POWER—OTHERWISE IT IS MEANINGLESS.

  While establishing the nucleus of this new guerilla structure over the past two years, we have found that this coordination springs up spontaneously quite easily and that it is powerful—both subjectively and objectively—in material terms, opening up possibilities for attack. On the other hand, we have found that it is difficult to maintain the momentum necessary for this strategy to transcend the boundaries between separate political initiatives, actions, and limited practical contexts. That is the roadblock that must now be dismantled.

  It’s not a question of morale, enthusiasm, or activity. It means that, as a result of deciding to engage in this struggle, one must take realistic steps to determine how the system can actually be smashed and to determine one’s role in the process.

  We have already had this experience ourselves, and we are ready to share it with those we know: the decisive moment in the breakthrough that underpins how far we’ve come is the struggle of those who have begun to act within the framework of this strategy, or who want to participate as subjects within the framework of the anti-imperialist front. They have started to anticipate this within themselves and for themselves and to determine all political initiative and action from this perspective and toward this end. They think of everything they do from the perspective of the fighting front.

  Since the first discussions in ‘79 about uniting the anti-imperialist struggle, the same obstacles have persisted within and between the anti-imperialist groups, preventing what would have otherwise been possible a long time ago: an active front. We can’t get anywhere with phony struggles over the fetishization of militancy or pleas to establish “links with the masses.” On the contrary, all expressions of support for us or efforts to discover some connection with us that only take the form of talk are useless. The fact is that all this will just result in the next simple step not being taken.

  The front means more than just actions. The front—meaning the struggles that by their common objectives become a common struggle and develop into practical political unity—will take many forms in the West European center. At this point, the anti-imperialist front in the FRG—the militant attacks, militant projects coordinated in a united fashion to counter the imperialist strategy, political initiatives that mediate politics, that intervene in the actual resistance—is the structural and organizational struggle to establish the capacity to act. It is, at every point in its development, a struggle for an alternative and for the practical application of our discussions and declarations in the strategic process.

  The front signifies more than building a legal structure around the guerilla. We have said before that there is no “legal arm of the RAF” and that none is possible. Sure, we have some contacts with people here and there, and this is also part of concrete guerilla politics. But it is only by specific, independent development in this area and by having common goals that one becomes part of the front. This is how division is broken down. This is the only way the struggle in this area can develop politically and achieve continuity and strength—and, as a matter of principle, self-determination and complete accountability are essential to each stage of the struggle for revolutionary politics in the West European center.

  Debates that always remain at the same level, in which isolated perspectives confront professions of faith, the insular nature of isolated groups, the incapacity to take initiative; all of that disappears the moment one understands and internalizes the reality of the situation: the anti-imperialist front is as desperately needed as it is underdeveloped—but it could develop a strong position in the West European center and has enormous potential in the context of the international liberation war.

  A SIGNIFICANT FIGHTING FRONT AGAINST THE IMPERIALIST STRATEGY IS THE MOST PRESSING GOAL.

  The extensive understanding of imperialism and its plans that pours forth in the form of papers—as well as the determination and the passion of the militant actions—all this will be in vain if it does not lead to the decision to forge the connections necessary for us to build the process together.

  STARTING WITH WHAT ALREADY EXISTS: THE FORM OF ACTUAL RESISTANCE AND THE CONDITIONS OF STRUGGLE IN THE METROPOLE, THE POLITICAL, STRUCTURAL, AND PRACTICAL ELEMENTS AND LINES OF ATTACK AGAINST THE CORE OF IMPERIALIST POWER HERE: THE DISRUPTION OF THE WEST GERMAN STATE AND NATO WITH THE GOAL OF FURTHER DEVELOPING THE OFFENSIVE.

  The reality is that the anti-imperialist struggle is retreating in the face of the—certainly contradictory, but unified—imperialist machine. There was no new anti-imperialist mobilization against the post-Vietnam imperialist reconstruction and the beginning of the crisis, or against their preparations or the first stages of their offensive. At that stage, the resistance was paralyzed by the disorientation and final collapse of the ‘68 left. The mobilization only began after the reactionary attack had been going on for some time and on all levels. As their offensive continued to unfold, a large, spontaneous resistance came into being, but anti-imperialism was not its overall goal. In the future, anti-imperialism must be present as a proactive and significant factor in discussions about and actions against the imperialist projects that now determine the course of history: the U.S. war strategy in Europe—the reactionary domestic state offensives—the international strategy of the imperialist chain of states to roll back the liberation movements and the emergent national states, as well as against the socialist states.

  The fact of the matter is that it is an open question how history will unfold. U.S. imperialism—in its historic crisis, its existence threatened for the first time in forty years—has recourse to the most extreme means, and unless it is prevented from doing so it will use them if the system slides into an uncontrollable crisis. Given its potential for nuclear destruction, this certainly takes on a catastrophic dimension, which we, the oppressed and exploited of the world, have no reason to fear. Because it would mean the end of imperialism, and imperialism means the end of us. Faced with the possibility of nuclear destruction, our attitude is, first of all, that we do not fear it and, second of all, that we can and will prevent it through revolutionary war. Far more serious than the possibility of nuclear war is the fact that U.S. imperialism is preparing a broad-based general offensive to reestablish itself as a world power, which will only be possible if it succeeds in expanding its domination. But it is possible to intervene against this offensive, and the anti-imperialist struggle in Western Europe will be decisive in determining whether imperialism succeeds in its efforts or whether the outcome is a leap forward for the worldwide liberation struggle against imperialism. The expansion of their domination is meant to occur without any major wars. It is to be brought about by making extermination a part of daily life, a part of living conditions, and through manipulation and repression—which will result in death and the destruction of humane living conditions for millions of people for a long time to come.

  This is more or less certain, and will be for some time to come: given our relative weakness in the face of the power that controls almost everything here, we are in a situation where we cannot establish a front capable of threatening their power here. To resolve the generalized crisis at the social, socio-political, and politico-military level, they will be forced to adopt aggressive measures that will exceed the limits of what is politically acceptable in the metropole, the “limits of what is tolerable”—democracy, well-being, internal peace—and they won’t be able to do so indefinitely if they are constantly confronted with anti-imperialist struggle and constantly unmasked in open confrontation, for this will sever the fine ideological thread holding the state and society together. The limits of what is politically acceptable have been historically determined for the imperialist centers in Western Europe. They became established pillars of the system in the struggles against the workers’ movement and the liberation wars, and
they cannot be pulled down without provoking general social upheaval. This opens up the possibility of transforming the relative weakness of the anti-imperialist struggle in the West European center into a strong-point in the international struggle.

  As to the imperialist system overall, its global restructuring project can only succeed if its plans for the imperialist center unfold relatively smoothly and quickly without encountering any serious, radical resistance. Given the international contradictions, any disruption caused by the anti-imperialist struggle here would prevent this project from succeeding. Imperialism would have to bring its massive power to bear to impose solutions at home and abroad, which would result in a unified international class war being waged around the world at a higher, more intense level. That is to say: it would bring about a renewed struggle to smash the imperialist system. This is the starting point from which we struggle. And it is our awareness of this opportunity, of our power, and of the option that only we here have—and, as a result, also an awareness of our responsibility—that pushes us to establish and build the anti-imperialist front here.

  THE REVOLUTION IN WESTERN EUROPE HAS BECOME A CORNERSTONE OF THE GLOBAL CONFRONTATION.

  In the context of the international class war, the imperialist offensive in Western Europe, which depends on the FRG, is essential to ensuring the functioning of the global system of domination and capitalist reproduction. On the other hand, from our point of view, the development of the front in the center to resist this is of vital importance in order to be able to counter the current tendency for the global liberation process to get derailed by the East-West contradiction, and to break through the constraints caused by developments at the level of the state in those countries that have achieved national liberation.