"The Baader Meinhof Complex" is a new film opening this week in Germany. Reaction so far has been generally positive. Joerg Schleyer, son of industrialist and former SS member Dr.Schleyer, one of the estimated 34 people murdered by the Red Army Faction (aka Baader-Meinhof Gang), said the film ".. shows the wanton brutality of the RAF without sullying its victims' memory,..You see how my father's chauffeur and another passenger in the car were just slaughtered. It hurts me to watch that but it is the only way to make clear to young people how brutal and bloodthirsty the RAF was at that time. They were not rebels or freedom fighters. They were murderers." Yes they were murderers, but to suggest that rebels or freedom fighters, whether identified as icons (Che, Mao, etc) or groups (ANC, Contras, etc.), did not murder their victims is a dangerous conceit.
Further information about this murderous bunch of 'freedom fighters' is given in the following contemporaneous account:
"..On the 21st October this year [1977], the Paris daily Liberation, carried this statement from the Baader-Meinhofs: "We will never forget the blood spilled by Schmidt and the Imperialists who support him. The battle has only begun. Freedom by the anti-Imperialists." So, like the present Eurocommunists, the Baader-Meinhofs believe that the section of the population to be overthrown is not the capitalst class as a whole, but only part of that class. (The Eurocommunists would claim that it is the "monopoly capitalists" whereas the Baader-Meinhofs make out that it is the "Imperialists".) And like the 19th century Blanquists, the Baader-Meinhofs believe that they can change society by confrontation with the state power. But it is impossible for such action to succeed, because they have to take on the ruling power: the existing army, the police force, etc. The existing state machines have access to vastly greater resources to build armaments etc. than any minority group can hope for. Often the result of terrorism is to increase repression. The governments of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina have adopted ruthless methods against terrorists; and there has been talk, in the Conservative Party in Great Britain recently, of bringing back hanging for terrorists.
The British government refused to give way to the demands of the Tupamaros when they held captive the British Ambassador to Uruguay Geoffrey Jackson. And the Dutch Government held firm while the industrialist Dr. Herrema was held by members of the IRA in 1975.
Moreover, in the rare event of the minority grouping succeeding in taking over state power by force, it is inevitable that the group will have to maintain power by force, or by being prepared to use force if and when necessary. In the 1940s in China, Mao Tse-Tung and his guerilla army succeeded in building up a sufficiently strong force to overthtrow the legitimate government of the Kuomintang. They were able to do this partly because of hostility among large sections of the Chinese peasantry towards the Japanese who were occupying parts of China. But the Chinese "Communist" party have kept a 2.5 million strong so-called "People's Army" (which, of course, is not an army of the people, a conceptwhich is nonsensical, but an army which, if necessary, would act contrary to the interests of the people.)
Terrorism is no new force of warfare: the slaves led by Spartacus in Rome were in many ways like the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - "not to be confused with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command" according to Wikipedia, something which would be funny if it were not so tragic]. But, as a form of "warfare" it does seem to be growing. Richard Clutterbuck, in a recent book on the subject, argues that though as old as civilization, terrorism has replaced old-style wars between armies as a form of international coercion. Whether or not this is true terrorism cannot be an agent of socialist revolution, because Socialism requires a majority understanding and accepting the socialist case. Instead, terrorists are making the task more difficult by bringing into disrepute the word Revolution."
Alision Waters (Socialist Standard, December 1977)
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