Written by the Red Army Faction themselves in 1971 and with an introduction by Anthony Murphy (2004), this is the first major ideological text from West Germany's most famous urban guerillas. The Red Army Faction was Marxist and Maoist, militant direct action organization in Germany; a network of underground guerillas who committed acts of violence in the service of the class struggle; a successor to the Baader-Meinhof Gang; became one of Europe's most feared groups; disbanded in 1998. Its document merits attention from anyone who wants to understand the motivation and ideology behind the beginning of a long and violent confrontation between the Red army Faction and the German state. Apart from setting out the justification for armed struggle this text touches on: the strength of the capitalist system in West Germany; the weaknesses of the revolutionary Left; the significance of the German student movement; the meaning and importance of internationalism; the necessity for taking a revolutionary initiative; the importance of class analysis and political praxis; the failure of parliamentary democracy and how this had the inevitable consequence of political violence; the factionalism of the German Left; and the organization and logistics of setting up an illegal armed struggle. An educational tale of forgotten history that we could all learn from.
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