The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History (43 page)

I was rather appalled by the paper. I felt as if I had been cheated out of a reappraisal of 1977. It was the same old thing: what lay behind us was glossed over with something new. Those of us in prison had withheld our criticisms for years in order to allow those on the outside the space to assess things.

In 1980, it appeared to me that, with the resistance against the Bremen swearing-in exercise, the years of defensiveness and paralysis had been overcome. My view at the time was that this radical left resistance had developed in spite of the RAF's politics, that there existed independent radical positions in society. The “Front Paper” presented it as if these events occurred suddenly as a result of the dialectic created by the ‘77 offensive! If one saw things
that way, reflection was no longer necessary. I felt that was wishful thinking, so as to avoid a necessary self-criticism. In addition, the paper contained platitudes like “our strategy is the strategy against their strategy,” about which those of us in Celle could only shake our heads.
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Regardless, at the time, Dellwo and the others at Celle continued to hold their tongues, and their criticisms remained unknown.

While they could not have seemed more different at the time, in retrospect the May Paper might be compared to the RZ's
Revolutionärer Zorn
no. 5, released in 1978, which (with far more practical advice, and much less theoretical fanfare) had similarly called for members of the aboveground left to form their own cells and carry out low-level actions. That move by the RZ had been a striking success, but it was an open question whether it could be replicated, especially by a group which had a much heavier reputation and continued to engage in a much more intense conflict with the state. (Of course, another critical difference was that the RZ's strategy consisted of taking its lead from the aboveground left and encouraging attacks on multiple fronts, whereas the RAF remained wedded to the idea of the guerilla and its aboveground supporters concentrating their fire on specific targets.)

At the same time, the RAF's focus on NATO, and its claim that Western Europe was a cornerstone of the world revolutionary process, did not sit well with all of its supporters. Some saw in this new strategy a distressing departure from the anti-imperialist line they had spent years defending. This included individuals who could trace their relationship with the RAF back to the West Berlin commune scene of the APO days. In some cases they had known the founding members personally, and, unlike so many others, they had never stopped supporting the guerilla. While there were no immediate public recriminations, behind the scenes many of these traditional supporters were not at all happy with this new analysis. Indeed, in some cities a generational split would eventually occur around the May Paper, some seeing it as a bold step forward, while others considered it to be a dereliction of the RAF's internationalist duties.

These criticisms remained whispered, if not unspoken, for two years. It was a heavy thing to be an anti-imp or a RAF supporter, and leaving the scene or repudiating the guerilla's choices was not something that was done lightly, at least not while trying to remain true to a pro-guerilla perspective.

It was 1984 by the time a public version of this critique appeared, in the form of a series of scathing articles in
Antiimperialistischer Kampf,
a sporadic and very small circulation magazine that had emerged from the Marxist-Leninist
Knastgruppe Bochum
(Bochum Prison Group), which had taken its distance from the RAF following the 1981 hunger strike. Without presenting the AIK as more than it was, for the purposes of exposition we will go over their critique in some detail, as it summed up many of the misgivings shared by these older supporters. According to AIK:

The RAF was ideologically anti-white. It consciously placed the anti-imperialist struggle in the metropole under the hegemony of the liberation struggles of the oppressed peoples and nations of the Third World. This made them simultaneously the protagonists of the proletarian position in the class struggle within the FRG and the opponents of the modern revisionism of the left in the FRG. While the student movement's proletarian parties were developing the chauvinistic specter of a revolution in the FRG, simultaneously reducing their politics to the wage-labor/capital contradiction in the imperialist metropole… the RAF continued to develop the student movement's ideological dividing line: the criterion for dividing friend from foe in the class struggle in the metropole is that any struggle against imperialism that is not an unconditional struggle against the subjugation of three quarters of the world's population to the interests of finance capital is in the final analysis a direct betrayal of the international revolution.

Now, however,

The better part of the May Paper… consists of a new chauvinist ideology… as the basis for “anti-imperialism.” There are two issues. First, the historical revisionism and the destruction of the anti-imperialist position held by the RAF up until ‘77. Second, the assertion of an international relationship of forces that reflects a true chauvinism, and from which, conversely, that chauvinism can draw nourishment, support itself, and meet its needs.

The critique continues,

The RAF's 1982 May Paper… constitutes a complete revision of the line the RAF formulated in the 1970s, which served as a reference point for an entire section of the anti-imperialist movement in the FRG, laying the groundwork for an entire concrete political experience.

Such a revision obviously doesn't occur overnight. It developed in the heart of the RAF itself, and within the anti-imperialist movement, following the execution of the leading RAF cadre in Stammheim in autumn 1977. With the 1981 hunger strike, the Kroesen and Ramstein communiqués, and the trial statements from 1981 on, a strategy and tactic was formulated, on the basis of which the RAF and its section of the anti-imperialist movement would in the future take a position concerning the national and international class struggle that was completely different from the one held in the 1970s. The May Paper is the programmatic document for this new line, and with regard to the important anti-imperialist questions, it constitutes a break with the historical continuity associated with the RAF's name.
¹⁰

The AIK's critique was twofold. First, by reorienting itself toward the radical left in West Germany, the RAF was no longer operating within the framework of Third World revolution. Second, by adopting an anti-NATO focus and mentioning the Soviet bloc alongside the national liberation movements as factors opposing imperialism, the RAF was adopting a pro-Soviet position. (The AIK, like many Maoist groups, held to a staunchly anti-Soviet version of Marxism-Leninism; its chief criticism of the peace movement, for instance, was its alleged close ties to the “social imperialist” Eastern Bloc. That such views had never been shared by the RAF, either before or after the Stammheim deaths, was well known in the support scene, making these accusations of “betrayal” all the more disingenuous.)
¹¹

While the vehemence of the AIK's charge does not seem obviously justified by the document itself, there is the intriguing coincidence that at the time the May Paper was being written, the RAF was indeed receiving aid from the GDR. What's more, during the period that the May Paper was being implemented, the idea did gain currency in anti-imp circles that that the Soviet Union was being threatened with NATO's new first strike missiles, and that this was what prevented it from intervening to counter imperialism's attacks on the Third World liberation movements.
¹²

This was anathema to AIK, which saw the Soviet Union as a major threat to the Third World in its own right:

[T]he Soviet Union presents its own hegemonic aspirations as a struggle against U.S. imperialism and as the “strategy of world revolution” for the people in the countries lying between them—through bloody or bloodless neocolonialism in the Third World and with political and military pressure in the Second World… For the peoples of the world, the Soviet Union is an enemy that is as dangerous as U.S. imperialism…

In the May Paper, the RAF makes this “world revolution” strategy into the anti-imperialist line for the FRG, and as such becomes a direct agent for Soviet hegemonic aspirations and, as such, a section of the social imperialist united front, which intends to conduct its conflict with U.S. imperialism on the backs of the peoples of the world.

And finally, the May Paper,

provides a chauvinist ideological basis for a new “anti-imperialism” that focuses on “resolving” the class struggle by developing a white socialism in the FRG, which achieves a fraternal accommodation with social imperialism, because it corresponds to the latter's social base.
¹³

While the AIK was always a tiny group even by the standards of the far left, and its magazine was never widely read, its critique of the May Paper became a reference point for a goodly number of older RAF supporters who rejected the guerilla's new strategy. Even if one did not agree with the AIK—even if one had not read the actual article in question—many of its arguments against the May Paper seemed on point. Within the broader radical left, this critique was of marginal importance (if it was even noticed at all!), the various criticisms from the
Autonomen
clearly speaking for far more people. However, within the ranks of the RAF's traditional supporters, the kind of criticisms made by the AIK gave form to many people's unease and provided a way to step away from the project while retaining one's anti-imperialist identity. Although in retrospect the AIK itself seems to have been little more than another variant of eighties Maoism, at the time this critique was experienced by some supporters as a way to make sense of changes in the anti-imperialist milieu.

When evaluating how important this break was, it is worth keeping three things in mind. First, those who stepped away tended to be older supporters, more likely to have been central to previous support efforts, and thus more able to provide a sense of continuity with the previous “generations” of the RAF and its support scene. They also tended to be more well-read, and more at ease discussing what younger comrades might have dismissed as “high theory.”

Second, despite how rooted these detractors may have been in the guerilla's previous interpretation of anti-imperialism, no new guerilla group was established by these anti-imperialist critics. While they may have felt they were being true to the original RAF, they certainly weren't setting out to repeat the latter's practice. As such, no matter how cogently they may have identified a crisis in anti-imperialism, these detractors seem to have been no more able to address this crisis than their erstwhile comrades in the underground.

Third, as we shall see, the May Paper would be implemented by future RAF members who had not yet gone under at the time it was released, and this would provide an opening for others to retroactively claim that the paper constituted a definitive break with what had come before. Yet in point of fact, although they were not underground at the time, some of the future RAF members in question had in fact participated in the discussions that led up to and informed the May Paper, as anti-imps. Furthermore, even a cursory reading of RAF statements in the period between 1979 and 1981 shows that these ideological changes had been in the works for years. It has been said that before his death, Wolfgang Beer had worked with Helmut Pohl on the ideas that found their way into the paper, and if this is so, it should be noted that both men had served years in prison, and could trace their involvement in the RAF back to its earliest days. As for those who remained in prison, while Dellwo's opinion has been noted, the overall view of the May Paper was a positive one. As Irmgard Möller would recall fifteen years later, most of the prisoners agreed with the front strategy and with the idea of a unified European guerilla:

We were familiar with the paper and discussed it at every opportunity, even if only in snippets. We were sympathetic to the idea within the front concept that the time was right for a front, with its components defined anew and its pivotal point and hub being the struggles in Western Europe. The basic idea was to also act politically, to develop political projects and build political relationships. The first phase, the formation of the guerilla, was over, and it was now a question of consolidation. We too felt the time
was ripe for that. Even from the inside looking out, we could see that there was once again a movement in 1980. The state of paralysis, stagnation, and torpor that had defined the radical left between 1977 and 1980 was gone. Demonstrations were occurring once again: for squats, against NATO, against nuclear power. There were new forms of action, and a lot seemed to be happening. We were very pleased about all of this.
¹⁴

Regardless of the amount of support, or lack thereof, from the prisoners, nobody denied that the May Paper represented a major shift, even where it was not seen as breaking with the guerilla's original orientation. For a great many supporters, the RAF remained the RAF, and the proposed changes amounted to a necessary coming to terms with the experiences of the previous twelve years. While disagreements about these new ideas would eventually lead to some acrimonious debates, for the time being these remained muted.

Indeed, despite this major declaration, nothing more would be heard from the RAF for several months, during which time the movement continued to grapple with its own challenges and build its own momentum.

The Revolutionary Cells seemed unstoppable in 1982, but tabulating their activity poses a methodological problem, as anybody could carry out an attack—from breaking some windows to planting a bomb—and claim it as an RZ action. Limiting the account to major actions is both arbitrary and unavoidable in a study not itself devoted to the Cells; nonetheless, readers should keep in mind that these major attacks were accompanied by a much greater number of low-level actions, even if most of these are now largely forgotten.