Review of the film: The Baader Meinhof Complex
This film traces the history of the German “Red Army Fraction” (RAF) from its origins in the predominantly student protest movement of the late 1960s through to the prison suicides of its remaining leaders in 1977.
In total, the RAF had 39 members, but never more than 20 at any one time. It was the most famous — or infamous — of a flurry of similarly-sized groups which emerged in Germany in the 1970s and which equated “anti-imperialist struggle” with armed struggle: bombings, kidnappings, hostage-taking, and killings, all financed by armed bank robberies.
The film is not a documentary. But it is historically accurate. Not just the general “storyline” but also the specific incidents portrayed in the film, much of the dialogue spoken by the RAF members, and also the way in which the personalities of the leading RAF members are portrayed.
Andreas Baader is a domineering, loud-mouthed, cynical, macho misogynist, with a penchant for violence as an end in itself. Just as he was in real life. Unlike other RAF members, Baader had little involvement in the political upheavals of the 1960s. For a young person living in West Berlin at the time, this was no small achievement.
His partner, Gudrun Ensslin, despite having a character of her own, provides Baader with the hero-worship which he craved. This too is the real-life Ensslin. On more than one occasion she wrote of Baader in terms such as: “The absolute enemy, the enemy of the state; the collective consciousness and the morality of the oppressed and of the downtrodden, of the metropolitan proletariat — that is Andreas.”
Ulrike Meinhof, a well-known left-wing journalist at the time, is portrayed as a more complex character, which indeed she was. At one point in the film she says that she could never join a group like the RAF as it would mean abandoning her children. And yet she did join the RAF — and then tried to arrange to have her children brought up in a Palestinian refugee camp.
The other members of the “core group” of the RAF have, at most, only an episodic role in the film. They shoot, they bomb, and they get arrested or killed. But their appearances are too fleeting for their personalities to be fleshed out.
This too reflects the real-life RAF: Baader, backed up by his high-priestess, made the decisions, with all other members reduced to mere supporting roles.
Based on Stefan Aust’s book of the same name, the film has been meticulously researched and incorporates material from a variety of other sources as well. But where the film falls down, as many of its critics have pointed out, is that it tries to cover too much in too limited a space of time.
The political context in which the RAF emerged is represented by scenes of protests against a visit to Germany by the Shah of Iran, demonstrations and rallies against the war in Vietnam, the attempted murder of Rudi Dutschke, the campaign to attempt to stop distribution of the right-wing Bildzeitung newspaper, protests against the “Notstandgesetze” (emergency legislation), news reports about the Six Day War in the Middle East and the following year’s General Strike in France, and the decline of the student protest movement in the closing years of the 1960s.
And that’s all just in the first half hour or so of the film!
All this certainly helps recreate the “atmosphere” of the period. But, especially in the case of non-German audiences, how many people can make sense of all this and recognise that the RAF was not so much the product of a movement of radical political protest but rather an expression of its decline and disintegration?
The history of the RAF in the early 1970s is dealt with in the same kind of rapid-fire style: the arson attack on a Frankfurt department store, the arrest and trial of Baader and Ensslin, Baader’s escape from imprisonment, military training with Fatah in Jordan, a series of bank robberies, and a succession of bombings of US military bases, police headquarters, and the offices of the Bildzeitung — interspersed with policemen being shot, and RAF members being shot.
This is followed by another succession of similar events, but more brutal and on a larger scale, carried out by the “second generation” of the RAF, with Brigitte Mohnhaupt duly anointed as commander-in-chief by the now imprisoned Baader.
All this provides little more than a glimpse into the political “logic” behind such events.
The RAF did not so much elevate “anti-imperialist struggle” over class struggle as reject the latter entirely in favour of “anti-imperialist struggle”. (The working class had been corrupted by material possessions. It was therefore no longer a force for social change.) And, beginning a tradition which has carried on to today, it found the ultimate expression of anti-imperialist struggle” in an armed Palestinian.
The RAF was contemptuous of theory and glorified “action”. The ultimate form of “action” and of “anti-imperialist struggle” was armed struggle (no matter how few people were involved in it).
Insofar as the RAF had what might be termed a strategy, it was one of carrying out provocative actions in order to force the state to reveal its true but concealed repressive nature. The RAF — and large sections of the organised German left in those years — adhered to the view that Germany was either a fascist society already, or, at a minimum, was well on its way to becoming one.
Another criticism levelled at the film, especially in Germany, is that it glorifies the RAF and its violence. “The ultimate idealisation of the idiots of the Revolution,” according to one critic. This is a particularly perverse criticism: the film is a sustained attack on what one of its characters calls the “myth” of the RAF. In fact, the declared goal of the film’s author and producer is to destroy the mythology which, over three decades later, still surrounds the RAF.
The film shows the remorseless escalation of violence inherent in the RAF’s notion of “urban guerillaism”. It begins with an arson attack on a department store after opening hours. It moves on to bank robberies. Then bombings and murders. And from there to mass hostage-taking in the German Embassy in Stockholm and participation in plane hi-jackings.
By the time of the kidnapping of Hanns Martin Schleyer, head of the German equivalent of the German CBI, the violence has become obsessive: even after his bodyguards are dead, the kidnappers continue to empty their machine-guns into their corpses.
In the prison scenes following the arrests of Baader, Ensslin and Meinhof, the film focuses on the systematic humiliation and mental bullying of Meinhof by her fellow RAF prisoners. “You’re the knife in the back of the RAF,” says Ensslin to Meinhof at one point. Eventually, their behaviour drives Meinhof to suicide.
Similarly, the death of fellow RAF member Holger Meins while on hunger-strike in prison is portrayed as a price which Baader and Ensslin are happy to see someone else pay in order to maintain the momentum of the campaign for their release from prison.
In contrast to the ruthlessness of the RAF, the police chief in charge of the hunt for RAF members is portrayed as a fatherly Mr Wise Owl figure. He does not support terrorism — not many police chiefs do — but, he explains, terrorism will be ended only when politicians find solutions for the political conflicts which lead to terrorism. If only politicians could be as sensible as police chiefs!
The closing words of the film are spoken by Brigitte Mohnhaupt, the daemonic and ruthless leader of the “second generation” of the RAF. She explains to her comrades that Baader, Ensslin and fellow-RAF-member Jan-Carl Raspe, whose deaths in prison have just been announced, were not murdered by the state but committed suicide, like Meins and Meinhof before them.
Her statement is met with bewilderment by the other RAF members in the room. They genuinely believed that Meins and Meinhof had been murdered. And their group has just taken part in a plane hi-jacking and the Schleyer kidnapping to prevent the other RAF prisoners from being murdered as well. But now Mohnhaupt disabuses them of their illusions.
“Stop seeing them (the RAF) as people they weren’t” says Mohnhaupt in the closing words of the film. The words have a broader meaning for the film’s audience.
To underline how the RAF should really be remembered, the film immediately switches to its final scene: the murder of Schleyer in a Belgian forest, probably the most senseless of all the RAF’s killings. (Schleyer had been taken hostage to secure the release of the imprisoned RAF members. But by this time they were no longer alive.)
The film’s attitude to the RAF could not really be stated much more clearly than that.
Comments
Good film, good review
I also saw this film and share Stan's general approval of its historical accuracy and good characterisation of the RAF. I'd just like to add a couple of points.
Firstly, the RAF's relationship to the working class and the German left. The German working class was poltically frozen into Cold War attitudes (not least because of 'real existing socialism' just across the border)and economically relatively well off. There was one strike wave in '69 but nothing on the scale of Britain in the 70s. Accordingly the German left became ghettoised and developed predominantly either into Maoism (very strong in countries with quiescent working classes after '68) or into 'alternative' politics based around a left 'scene' that developed in W. Germany's universities and large cities. The latter provided the milieu that supported the RAF, whether actively or passively. In the film, there is one character (an academic?) who lets the group stay in his flat with posters about Cuba on the wall without knowing that they are making bombs there. He is presumably meant to exemplify this milieu.
Secondly, the film does not really make clear the influence of Germany's Nazi past and the post war silence about it on the RAF. It is known (and if I remember rightly came out much more strongly in THE GERMAN SISTERS, a film about Gudrun Ensslin and her sister by Margarethe von Trotta) that this was a major motivating factor certainly in Ensslin's political development as it was in the choice of Schleyer as a target. Schleyer had joined the SS in 1933 and after the war had risen to be head of the equivalent of the CBI, an archetype of the hidden past of much of the West German establishment. Thus (though viewers of the film would not be aware of it) there is rather more than an irony when, in the film Schleyer makes begging for the state to release the prisoners the RAF demanded and thus save his life, he says "I have always been committed to the free democratic order."
never believe the propaganda of the state!
as an new sympathiser of AWL, really wondered bout the political positions expressed in "the myth of baader-meinhof", , an movie- review.
iam shocked, how much the author falls 4 the propaganda from the german state!!!
a)the movie shows them only as senseless killers, what was not the case
b) the author agrees with the suicide version of the state
c) he based that on brigitte mohnhaupt, leader of the 2nd raf-generation, who shud have confessed, that the raf-leaders did comitt suicide.
but mohnhaupt never said so. peter-jürgen boock said she did. boock, the only main witness 4 the police, ex-raf and ex-junkie, who did anything to get a deal. he told them so many lies, contradicting each other, that sometimes leading guys of the police confessed in tv or magazines, that its worthless what boock says.
after the death of ulrike meinhof, there was an independent international comission under the leadership of jean paul sartre, who published a book with what they found out in germany. they clearly stated, it was murder. for example, sperm was found on the dead body of totally isolated ulrike meinhof. 30 years later, a big german magazine posted 4 the first time the photo of the dead-found meinhof, which any "free press" was afraid 2 post: the legs of the "self-hanged" meinhof had still been on the chair!!! if some1 hangs himself, he kicks the chair away 2 hang in the air, or he wont die. so, meinhof probably was raped, murdered, and then some1 "hanged" her- stupid enough with leg on the chair!
and those, where it was said, they shot themselve, on any photo still did hold the pistol in their hand! from any criminal-novel, any child does know, that after shooting urself in head or neck, the pistol will fall out of the hand of the dying. and if afterwards the pistol was put in their hands, what does that mean??? and there was sand on baaders shoes. he, who cudnt go out. was he brought 2 mogadishu, 2 show him 2 those airplan-hijackers?
anyway, microphones and cameras had been anywhere. they have been completely under controll. they cudnt plan that and receive their guns under the eyes of their controllers. there are many more hints, but 2 difficult 4 me 2 explain in english.
i can only say: it is very dangerous, to 4get, in the hands of which state they where. there are more people who had been murdered in prison. but what does tell this bout the character of the state? thats why many state-loyal lefts never wanted 2 touch that subject. and i always wondered, why many trotskytes in germany simply ignored what happened with the raf. seems, that what we knew since long, never made its way 2 england? or have u guys always been ignorant too? in the "ak" 4 example, there have been endless good articles on that.
2. to make 1 thing clear: i never had sympathy 4 the raf. but i always refused to label them as terrorists, cause we have 2 teach the workers, that the 1st main terrorist is the capitalist! thats why i call them capital-terror-ists. and i disagree with a position which i read in the SEP´s worldsocialistwebsite, where they talked about "reactionary raf terror" who was RESPONSIBLE 4 the reduction of democratic rights in germany. this is very much the position of the revisionist &stalinist CP! we shud not 4get what lenin said: that imperialism is reactionary all down the line. that means, if the governments wudnt have had some raf-actions as a pretext 2 reduce democratic rights, they wud even have used SEP-actions or harmless actions of the CP for reducing democratic rights. they will always find enough pretexts! therefore its wrong to believe, if the raf wasnt in existence, reduction of democratic rights wud not have happened. this point of view does mix cause and effect: the raf was already an ANSWER -but a wrong one- to the already ongoing reduction of the democratic rights! cause this hadnt started with the raf, but before.
i think, its most important 4 any revolutionary, never fall to the propaganda of the state!!!
guenter from germany
P.S.
P.S.:
i forgot to say, that the raf-survivors used 2 say, that the "clashes" between meinhof and ennslin, and that this did lead 2 meinhof´s "suicide",(as said in the movie-review) was another story, produced by those professionals 4 desinformation.
also irmgard möller, the only survivor from this night in stammheim, who was found wounded by knifes, till today says "it has been the pgs!"
i dont know if i can believe all what this raf-guys does say, but i know that 4 sure we cant believe a single word of what the semi-fascist german state &his press is telling!
Author pls reply us
P.S.: i think it would be great, if people here not only post what they think, but if the author of an article with some comments on it, after a while would talk back to his critics and say what he thinks bout the points they made.
To Guenter
I'm afraid I don't know enough to answer in detail. I'd just make a couple of quick points- 1) you are right that we shouldn't necessarily beleive everything the German state says about the RAF 2) that doesn't prevent us from having political criticism of a group that put military action above and beyond mass woking class action.
Bruce is no doubt correct about some of the material objective factors limiting a socialist consciosu in the west of Germany in the 70s but short cuts don't work in terms of amnacipating the working class. The main task of socialists is to organise action, to build the movement, to contribute to the self-emancipation fo the working class. Militant self-defence is part of this but mass actions to close down military bases or prevent the shipping of armaments is more important than sabotage, though the latter has its place of course.
For another review of this see here
In response
Sorry about the delay in responding. I had not noticed these contributions until someone pointed them out to me. With regard to the main points made by Guenter:
I don’t think the film shows the members of the Baader-Meinhof group “only as senseless killers”. In fact, I think it’s very clear that the film does the exact opposite.
It portrays them as the expression of a particular set of politics (glorification of armed struggle) which emerged at a particular time (collapse of the student movement) in a particular country (one with a Nazi past) in a particular international context (armed conflicts in Vietnam, the Middle East, etc.).
Nor do I give any credence to the claims that first Meinhof and then the Baader, Ensslin and Raspe were murdered.
Certainly, there are a number of unexplained issues surrounding the deaths of the latter. Stefan Aust lists the main ones in his book, and you repeat them in your discussion contribution, together with various more fanciful claims (e.g. Baader had sand on his shoes because he had been taken to Mogadishu and was then flown back to Stammheim).
But I find the arguments advanced by the murder-thesis less convincing than the claims that the deaths were suicide. The murder-thesis also involves excluding large amount of relevant evidence. Boock, for example, was not the only ex-member of the RAF who agreed that it had been a planned suicide.
(The murder-thesis is separate from claims that the German state authorities were aware of the planned suicides and allowed them to go ahead, a claim which merits more serious discussion.)
The murder-thesis rests on a certain analysis of the German state. But the argument is an entirely circular one.
Because Germany was/is a semi-fascist state. as you yourself call it, it murdered Meinhof and the others. And the ‘proof’ that Germany was/is a semi-fascist state? The ‘fact’ that it murdered Meinhof and other members of the RAF.
The idea that Germany was a fascist or semi-fascist or on-the-way-to-fascism state was a common one in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It also helps explain why some individuals on the left saw armed struggle as a political necessity.
But it was a wrong argument at that time. And it’s a wrong argument now.
But perhaps you could explain why you think Germany in 2010 is a semi-fascist state (as I assume your reference to “the semi-fascist German state and its press” is a reference to that state today)?
Pls dont ignore many facts!
Because Germany was/is a semi-fascist state. as you yourself call it, it murdered Meinhof and the others. And the ‘proof’ that Germany was/is a semi-fascist state? The ‘fact’ that it murdered Meinhof and other members of the RAF.
that wasnt my argumentation at all. and i cant believe how ignorant u are about all the points i made, which do clearly speak 4 an murder (as, self-"hanged" meinhof with her feets on chair, the other "suiciders" holding their pistols in hand, etc.pp.) Iam afraid that perhaps u WANT to believe, such things cudnt happen in a bourgeois democracy. and maybe thats why u didnt also say anything bout my argumentation at the end: can the RAF be declared as responsible 4 governmnet cancelling democratic rights (as CP and SEP in germany say in agreement) or wud this suspending of democratic rights anyway have taken place, with whatever pretext, as i said?
interesting, that some police-guy, stole the death-masks of them as a sign 4 "victory".. what i say is not based on the book of untrustable aust, which i didnt read, and who was the chief of a big bourgeois mag. there was a lot of serious work on this issue among the rev. left in germany.
its also not fair to trap me for my incorrect english: "semi-fascist" was simply not the right verb i used.i can distinguish between fascism and bourgeois democracy, but as we know, they are not like fire and water, and espec. not in germany, where most of the postwar apparatus in state, politics and police really was composed with mainly old "ex"-nazis. no illusions in this state!
Peculiarities of the West German state
It is particularly important to be precise when using the term 'fascist'. Otherwise, as Trotsky pointed out in his critique of the KPD in 1930-2, you tend to downplay the significance of the real thing when it comes along. Or else, like the RAF, you resist the bourgeois state in inappropriate ways that only lead to isolation.
I don't think the post-war West German state has ever been 'semi-fascist (and I am not sure what that means). That some of its personnel were ex-Nazis does not make it so. The West German state was:
- institutionally anti-communist, which led to anti-democratic actions such as the banning of the KPD and the Berufsverbot;
- until the Brandt period (early 70s), unwilling to accept Germany's post-war borders, not merely the division of Germany but the loss of East Prussia, Silesia etc (though it was unable to do anything about it for obvious reasons);
- repressive in its response to any serious dissent such as the student revolt;
- able to rest on a broadly conservative population, most of whom had lived through the Nazi period and which was not on the whole sympathetic to the youth radicalisation.
These things helped both to produce the RAF and the repression that followed and was based on an overestimation (cynically used) of the threats to the state they really represented.
state violence in prevent of things to come (or not)
I can live with the describtion of bruce. i already said, that i DID NOT mean 2 label the westgerman state as half-fascist.but a perhaps-murder of political prisoneres in prison cud have been interpretated as "being on the way". and i think, things will go now in a more authoritarian direction. and there always was a bit more repression in germany than in other westeuropean countries, where there was no "berufsverbot" 4 lefties.(1 bourgeois german mag recently claimed, that "the british bobbies" wud act so much more civilised than the german police. now imagine, what i mean!psychlogically there is something fascist still alive in german mentality.)and i doubt it, if the german state did really overestimate the "threaten" from such very small groups. i say, they "overreacted" well calculated, in prevent of more resistance.
IF there ever was a new fascism, they wud definitive not wait again till they face a strong mass-movement on the edge of revolution. they wud attack in prevent. and a new type of fascism or "fascism light" wud not be as the old one, with so much massmurder and brownshirt murder troops in the street. it wud, i guess, rather be based on full technical observation and controll of the people, as orwell described it.
It gets worse
I’m not trying to “trap” anyone for using incorrect English.
When I read a contribution which refers to “the semi-fascist German state and its press”, I think I’m entitled to assume that the author is defining the German state as semi-fascist – especially when that definition is consistent with everything else in his contribution.
I find your subsequent contributions worse than your original one.
I didn’t say anything about whether or not restrictions would have been imposed on democratic rights even in the absence of the RAF?
That’s right, I didn’t. But I would point out that the ‘strategy’ of the RAF (and not just the RAF, but sections of the broader student movement) was based on the idea of provoking the state into imposing such restrictions, in order to ‘expose’ its true nature. That was the politics of the RAF.
“Der Spiegel” is a “big bourgeois mag”?
Yes, you can call it that if you want. But this “big bourgeois mag” also reports in depth on things like the fact that Mallach made death masks of Ensslin, Baader and Raspe. Or should I not believe “a single word” of that? “Der Spiegel” is, after all, part of the press of the “semi-fascist German state”.
Aust and what he writes is not to be trusted?
I think one reads Aust with the same critical mind that you read any other writer. But that’s a long way from saying that he’s not to be trusted. He is a serious bourgeois journalist. And his book is on the RAF is no work of fiction.
Returning to the question of the “semi-fascist German state”, you want to have your cake and eat it.
You say that it was just bad English to refer to the German state as “semi-fascist”. But then you say that the German state could be interpreted as “being on the way” (to fascism or semi-fascism). In doing so you endorse the totally wrong arguments about the ‘fascisisation’ of the German state of the 1970s:
“In den letzten Jahren ist die ‘Faschismus-Frage’ staerker ins Zentrum der Auseinandersetzung zwischen den kommunistischen Organisationen in der Bundesrepublik getreten. Dis Auseinandersetzung ging und geht im Kern um die Frage: Besteht in der BRD die Gefahr, dass die Kapitalistenklasse sich laengerfristig und geplant auf die Errichtung einer faschistischen Diktatur ueber die Arbeiterklasse orientiert? Der Kommunistische Bund bejaht diese Frage.” (“Kampf dem Faschismus”, KB, 1973).
Entire sections of the German Left in the late 1960s and early seventies went way beyond (justifiably) criticizing restrictions on democratic rights. They argued that these were a conscious (‘geplant’) orientation towards creating a fascist dictatorship. That was the kind of thinking which, in part, bred the RAF.
You write that there was always a bit more repression in West Germany than in other Western European countries.
But at the time of the RAF, Spain was still ruled by the fascists, Portugal was ruled by an autocratic dictatorship, Greece was ruled by a military junta, and the German ‘Democratic’ Republic was ruled by Stalinism. Northern Ireland wasn’t a very pleasant place either. There was rather less repression in Germany than in those countries.
Finally, you tell us that “psychologically there is something fascist still alive in German mentality.”
So all those Colonel Blimps are right after all! Germans? They just can’t help being fascists! It’s all part of the German psyche!
Your unfairness with me is getting worse &anti-socialist
I dont know why u get so unfair with me (almost demagoguel), i didnt experience that yet with other AWL-members.
you are clearly using my uncorrect english &that sometimes i missunderst.said things. i had clarified that i didnt really mean "semi-fascist", and when i said, some things "cud have been interpretated that way", i didnt mean to say that i (i) do, i meant in general, that i understand the reasons, why some said so. and even the theory of "fascissisation" didnt say that the development MUST end with fascism. it only saw it as a possible or latent danger, but how it will end does also depend on those who fight against it- open end. the correct part of the theory was, to say, that fascism isnt totally impossible, as long as there is no very strong revolutionary movement, but that the bourgeoisie wudnt wait that long,and act more hard than necessary to the "threaten" of small groups in PRETENT, to stop more resistnce in his beginnings. and that exactly did happen.(not the fascism, but the unnecessarily, calculated hard reactions of the state 4 the reasons of pretent- what u saw as an spontaneous over-reaction.)
and, most interesting, that the rather rightwing spiegel (his creator was member of FDP) seems to be a serious mag 4 you. thats news! aust was proofen wrong and lying very often by leftwing mags, but my english is indeed not good enough to translate all what was said correctly.
and when i said "more repression in germany", i meant to compare it with other states of bourgeois democracy, as france, italy, where something as "berufsverbot" didnt excist. i didnt mean 2 compare germany with the fascist dictatorships of spain and portugal u mentioned, which ceased to be in 73 &74, while the still excisting berufsverbot in germany also did kill some people by smashing their existence/leading to suicides.
i have no idea who colonel pimps is, but i guess i know german mentality better than you. sorry that iam unable 2 explain what i meant with "something", but i didnt mean 2 say that all germans are fascist by nature. iam struggling with language and what u make out of my words shows an serious lack of sensitivity and intuition. not the best way 2 handle an new AWL-sympathisant.
and u didnt stick to 1 single of the undeniable facts, as "selfhanged" meinhofs feet on the chair, the pistol in hands of suicders who seemed 2 have shot themselves in the neck from 50 cm or 1m distance and so on! when u then continue 2 lament about RAF "provoking" the (poor, pitiful, innocent?) state of westgermany, u sound like an socialdemocrat, defending "his" state.
P.S.:
that fascism isnt totally impossible, as long as there is no very strong revolutionary movement,
u see, how my english probs does confuse myself and u. i just realised, that the above sentence cud b missunderst. as: more danger of fascism, if no big rev. movement. but i tried 2 argue with something the-other way around: many rev. socialists do say, as long as there is no big movement as in the 19-20ies, which the capitalists want 2 seen smashed, they wud never vote 4 the option of fascism. and KB believed, that this was wrong, and said: the ruling class will not sit and watch till such a movement grows big again. they will "overreact" to small groups as if they wud be a real threaten,trying to smash resistance in its beginnings.
And the RAF's politics?
I'm not sure if this discussion is going anywhere, and not because of your English.
Supposing the German state murdered Baader, Ensslin, Raspe and, before them, Meinhof. Would it change my view of the German state or German bourgeois democracy (either then or now)?
Not in the least.
(The opposite also applies. If it were to be definitively proven that the German state did not kill them, then I do not see why that would not require any overall re-assessment of the German state/bourgeois democracy either.)
I would have thought that the more substantive issues are:
- Attitude towards the politics of the RAF: Saying that you were never sympathetic to them but that the real enemy is the capitalist state kind of sidesteps a proper discussion of their politics.
- Relationship between the politics of the RAF and the fasiscisation theory of the 1960s/1970s: I think that both had common roots (i.e. a particular interpretation of the idea of ‘repressive tolerance’) and they both fed off each other.
- Relationship of RAF politics and fasciscisation theory to working class politics: Did the former have any (positive) relationship to the latter at all? I don’t think that they did. In fact, it could be argued that the RAF was a prototype of modern-day ‘anti-imperialism’ (although the RAF did at least take their politics to their logical conclusion).
demagoguel again- pls leave me
thats what i meant with demagoguel: u try to push me in a corner where i dont belong to. u talk to me as i wud have been an raf-sympathisant.
why cant u agree, if i insist, that the real enemy is the capitalist state? how can u interpretate this as intended sidestepping from discussing the politics of the RAF? why should i fear such an discussion, if i disagree with the politics of the RAF as much as u do?
but my first posting didnt indeed mean to discuss the raf-politics, but 2discuss if it might be possible that the state murdered them- something what u seemed to think as impossible.
and if u say now, even if they wud have been murdered, that dont change ur view about "bourgeois democracy" in germany, than 2 things are possible:
-whether u underestimate the cruelty and criminalty which is possible within a bourgeois "democracy",
-or u find it very normal that a bourgeois democracy do such things, so that u cud say, nothing special has happened.
but the latter wud contradict then the AWL´s position in some points,,where it was argued that bourgeois democracy is at least better than stalinism, so that it shud be sided with the bourgeois democrats (example: yeltsin).
so, if bourgeois democracy is the lesser evil (to avoid further missunderstandings: i also dont belong to those, who considered stalinism as the lesser evil. i say, marxists dont side with any evil), and if its possible in a normal democracy, that people can be murdered in jail, and if a normal democracy can lead into fascism (as 1933) or vice verse, fascism change into democracy (spain after franco, chile after pinochet), than how to explain the fake character of bourgeois democracy to the workers, if it was labelled before as a lesser evil? THIS quest i do find much more important than a discussion bout raf-politics, and if this was desperate anti-imperialism or classical anarchism or whatever.-
but iam also afraid that this discussion with u leads to nowhere. thats why i wud prefer if u leave me alone or if u talk to sacha first b4 u reply again. thank you.