YOU CAN’T BLOW UP A SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP

YOU CAN'T BLOW UP A SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP

The Anarchist Case Against Terrorism

Introduction

The better part of a decade has passed since You Can't Blow Up A Relationship first appeared, yet it remains as timely as when it was written. Events in recent years have amply demonstrated the correctness of its main points: 1) That means determine ends; 2) That guerrillaism almost always leads to repression and little- thus making it much more difficult to organise and spread ideas;) That "successful" guerrillaism leads to authoritarian solutions; 4) those results are determined by the nature of guerrillaism: relies upon the capitalist media for much of its impact - presenting political acts as spectacles divorced from the to-day lives of ordinary people (thus reducing them to passive) while providing the corporate media with a perfect to frighten the public into the "protective" arms of the; and guerrillas attempt to act for the people - attempting to sub-their individual acts for mass actions - thus perpetuating the between leaders and followers (in this case, spectators). The recent case of the Vancouver five provides sad confirmation of these conclusions. After committing several arson attacks (on porn- censorship by "direct action") and bombings they were. The results of their actions? Media hysteria - further of anarchism with violence, repression (raids on anarchist households and heavy surveillance of anarchists - including those who had no connection with the case) using the five's "terrorism" as an excuse, the waste of large amounts of time, energy and money on defence committee work, and, tragically, the ordeal for these five idealistic young people of serving crushing, inhumane prison terms One can only hope that others will learn from their example - and not follow it. The only changes I've in the text are minor spelling and changes. These were made solely to bring the text in line standard American usage (substituting jail for gaol, for instance).

I've retained most of the comments amended to the text in the 1981 Communist Federation edition and added a few of my own. comments appear either as footnotes or in brackets within the.- Chaz Bufe, December 1985 to the 1981 Edition

We have printed this pamphlet to present an Anarchist examina-tion of terrorism. From this examination comes our position that terrorism as a strategy is no substitute for social revolution.

While the initial pages of this pamphlet address the nature of terrorism in Australia, the analysis presented relates to a broad range of situations. In so doing the authors of the pamphlet examine terrorismthe respective contexts of advanced industrial societies and theworld. The basic theme is that terrorism can in no way bea positive alternative to mass social revolutionary action.

Although the pamphlet rejects terrorism this does not preclude theand varied forms of direct action practiced by the revolutionary. Among these are actions of sabotage in the workplace,occupations, women take back the night marches, squatters'. In addition, both we and the authors believe situationsarise where armed self-defense is unavoidable. We believe this pamphlet should prove to be a major contribution the development of a mass movement for social revolution in North today.- Anarchist Communist Federation

Sydney Hilton bombing of March 1978 raised the issue of ter-in Australia {1}.

The deaths of three innocent people gaveincident a human as well as political significance. State-of the press and politicians about this absurd and sinister actto a catchcry for the erosion of democratic rights. Manyby public figures and articles in newspapers also showed anof the past because, for some time now, Australia has hadterrorist groups. In fact, there have been numerous incidents over the last few yearsonly by good fortune did not result in deaths. Has the attempted of Arthur Calwell in 1966 really been forgotten?

{2} has long been the base for overseas terrorist operations. The Croatian Ustasha {3} had been carrying out arms training and a number of bombings under what appeared to be the beneficent arm of liberal rule at the time. Yugoslav travel agencies and consulates have been attacked and murders attempted in the Yugoslav community. In September 1972 sixteen people were injured by a bomb in a Yugoslavagency. Raids were mounted into Yugoslavia by commandosin Australia. The September 1978 raid on an arms trainingindicates that Ustasha is still militarily active. As well, Australian Nazis possessed extensive weaponry (and undoubtedly still do) and petty harassments and announcements of death lists have occurred frequently. Bricks, guns and firebombs were all used by the Nazis to damage property, and terrorism occurred when they bombed theParty headquarters in Brisbane in April 1972. Another attempt was made in Perth. In the Brisbane bombing people at a CPAwhen the bomb exploded were lucky to escape without injury.origin of the letter bombs sent to Queensland Premier Bjelke-Petersen and Prime Minister Fraser in 1975 was not discovered and, though it was blamed on the left and a number of left-wing households were raided on flimsy grounds, it is by no means clear that it did not more truly serve the interests of the right at the time.

________________________________________________________________________{1}

Early in the morning of February 13, 1978, a bomb exploded in front of the 42-story Hilton Hotel in Sydney, the location of a conference of leaders of AsianPacific Commonwealth countries. The bomb had been placed in a trash cankilled two garbage collectors and a bystander but injured none of thedelegates. According to press speculation, the bombing wasat the Indian prime minister by the fanatical Buddhist sect, Anandwhose members believe their leader, convicted of murdering defectorshis group, is the incarnation of God.{2}

On June 21, 1966, Australian Labour Party leader Arthur Calwell wasby broken glass when a bullet was fired through his car’s window. His-year-old assailant was later sentenced to life imprisonment.{3}

The Croatian Ustasha was founded in 1929 with the Italian fascist movementa model. With Nazi support it ruled Croatia 1941-1945. -1-Ô, no leftists were prosecuted. There have been some incidentsfrom the left as well. There were some incidents of propertyduring the Vietnam War and, recently, there was the bombingthe woodchip facility in Western Australia. The only personal attackthe bailing-up [stickup] at gun point of an official by a black activ-. None of these incidents has revealed the hand of an organizedof leftist terrorists. What is noticeable, then, in the history of terrorist activity inhas been the existence of organised right-wing terrorism,even this has been of relatively minor significance. It certainlynot provoke official or media campaigns for military involvement,security measures or expanded political police forces. Fraser took advantage of the Hilton bombing for precedent-settinghistrionics which even security commentators attacked. He an-a new emphasis on security which will soon be seen to be atexpense of rights. Finally, a general attempt was made to exploitdeaths to take the heat off political police under attack after theAustralian investigations of the Special Branch. Calls were madea strengthening of their organizations. {1} Despite all this in sections of the press and especially in letters toeditor and street interviews (notably at Bowral){2} evidence existedmany people were keeping things in proportion. Overseashas shown that the most powerful weapon in the hands oftrying to use the existence of terrorism as an excuse to weakenrights has been the creation by the media, police, and poli-of an atmosphere of hysteria. Then the real impact of terrorismno longer be sensibly gauged. But more than this will be required ifare to stand up to the pressure to acquiesce in a gradual growth repression. For example, justifying political police activity by invok-the fear of subversion was not really questioned in the 1978 Southinquiry into that state’s Special Branch. Subversive activities, according to Liberal-National governments,not been those of Ustasha and other extreme right-wing groupsthose of all leftist, unionist and reform groups and even those of the[Australian Labor Party]. This was spelled out by sacked SouthPolice Commissioner Salisbury, who said at a press con-that, before the Second World War, an ASIO [Australian Intelligence Organization - the central government secretforce] equivalent organization would have concentrated on the

_____________________________________________________________________{1}

On January 17,1978, the Labour Party premier of South Australia, Donald, fired State Police Commissioner Harold Salisbury following a judicialcritical of undercover activities in the state. These activitiesthe surveillance of over 40,000 persons and organizations, most ofLaboursupporters.

{2} Bowral is a resort town in New South Wales. -2- Ôwing, but that, since the war, the left has definitely become theobject of concern for intelligence services. We have alreadyout that since the war it is the right that has dominated the fewof terrorism that have occurred. The current balance of forcesthe Liberal Party has resulted in police attention to Croatian. This has not changed the function of political police, which islimit political debate not to prevent violence. Subversion for today’spolice is not merely questioning the status quo - it is question-the Liberal-National status quo which makes the connection of thewith the setting up of the political police all the more repre-. It seems that Dunstan’s will remain an isolated act in Aus-social-democracy. Despite Attorney General Murphy’s raid onheadquarters during the Whitlam government’s term of office,*ALP’s main concern regarding the political police was not totheir function but merely to make them more efficient. Whatupset some people about the South Australian revelations wasjudges and other upright citizens were being watched. "What aof time," they say, "when the police should be concentrating onweird folk who think that capitalism should be reformed or donewith." If these people cannot be awakened to a concern for basic, they should at least be reminded that one thing leads to anotherthat it might be their rights endangered tomorrow. Subversion is ineye of the beholder and the beholder is the ruling class. Furthermore, the recent past has shown that democracies will useopportunity created by political violence to disrupt or repress theas a whole. They will even incite or conspire in terrorism to justifyown actions. An ex-member of a German terrorist group, nowincognito, has written a book critically appraising the guerrilla[How It All Began, by Bommi Baumann]. In it he tells howfirst bombs and weapons were supplied by a police agent, "Unwittingly, we were a very specific element of the bulls’ (police)." (p.37) Stupidly he does not follow the obvious implications of. "It isn’t clear to me even today what role one plays in that game."(p.85) The famous American Sacco and Vanzetti case of the 1920s is ancase of the preparedness of the police to frame dissenters onof political violence. They were charged with robbery and. It is now generally accepted that these charges were trumped. It is officially admitted that the anarchists did not get a fair trial.massive international campaigns over a period of years for

______________________________________________________________________*

On March 16, 1973, Attorney General Lionel Murphy led an unprecedentedon the ASIO headquarters in Melbourne. Murphy was searching forabout the Croatian Ustasha, which he believed the ASIO was. The raid was precipitated by the imminent visit of the Yugoslavto Australia. -3-Ôrelease they were executed in 1927. Such was the determination ofrulers of the time. Cases like this, and there are many others,be kept firmly in mind when assessing bombings and courtarising from them. The state, therefore, can be very ruthless insuch people. However, when left-wing terrorism is beingout in a consistent way in society, it gives the state extrain using political repression against individuals and the left in. When by their own actions terrorists serve such ends, they areto the destruction of politics and the closing of variousfor the spreading of ideas before they have been fully utilized. Of course, the state will readily use various repressive methods if itany substantial resistance or if it has to handle a social crisisis creating resistance. Terrorism and guerrillaism cannot bejust because they produce repression. Even more important isfact that there is nothing to have made it worthwhile. In the end theget wiped out and there is nothing left but repression (and aand order mentality amongst the people). A developing mass movement will produce repression, but it willproduce numbers of people with clear aims and the organizedof reaching them. It will be able to build far more lasting meansarmed defense. In a social crisis in which all sorts of positivebegin, a separate guerrilla or terrorist group dashingcreating ultimately irrelevant confrontations concentratesdebate in too narrow a compass - "have they (government of) gone too far?" etc. instead of - "should the workers havethose factories?" etc. Terrorism and guerrillaism destroy. Terrorism by the State Terrorism, of course, does not belong solely to small bands in ItalyGermany. The most brutal and ruthless agent of terror, now, ashuman history, is the ruling class. Read history.recall that throughout the world our humane rulers havenuclear weaponry to kill everyone on Earth 24 times over (RuthSivard in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 1975). Or thinkthe implications of the property-preserving, life-destroying neutron. The point must be made that state terrorism is stronger, moreand much more destructive than vanguardist terrorism. It is a question of the degree to which the state feels challengeddetermines its use of terror, not constitutions or democratic. When they are threatened by a serious organizedmovement, the Western democracies will display the full -4-Ôof horrific methods. The massive use of torture by France in, its use by Britain in Aden and Northern Ireland, police andmurders and conspiracies in Italy are a few examples of theirto apply ruthless methods in varying situations. Thisfor brutality flows from the very nature of the state as ex-by the French Anarchist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1851: To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied upon, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctri- nated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue. To be governed means to be, at each operation, at each transaction, at each move- ment, noted, registered, controlled, taxed, stamped, measured, valued, assessed, patented, licensed, authorized, endorsed, admonished, hampered, reformed, rebuked, arrested. It is to be, on the pretext of the general interest, taxed, drilled, held to ransom, robbed; then at the least resistance, at the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, abused, annoyed, followed, bullied, beaten, disarmed, garrotted, imprisoned, machine gunned, judged, con- demned, deported, flayed, sold, betrayed, and finally mocked, ridiculed, insulted, dishonoured. Such is govern- ment, such is justice, such is morality. In South america state sponsored undercover police death squadsthe systematic use of torture have been recurrent. In the "white" in Guatemala literally thousands died each year (2,000-6,000the estimate for 1967-1968). The military dictatorships that haveBrazil since the coup in 1964 are notorious for their police-basedsquads. The U.S. brought members of these squads into Uruguaytrain police in torture of urban guerrillas. The U.S. is deeply involvedthe development of torture in this region. The police-based AAA[Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance] killed 1,000 people in 1975.[Estimates of the total number of those murdered by the police andduring the "dirty war’" against leftist guerrillas are in theof 9,000 to 10,000.] The full mobilization of the Chileaninto terror and killing is probably the worst anywhere since the war. Of course state terrorism is not practiced by corporate capitalist countries alone. It is also an integral part of the practice of such state capitalist countries as the Soviet Union [and Cambodia - estimates of the number of those killed by the Pol Pot regime (which, interestingly, the U.S. government has supported as the "legitimate" representative of the Cambodian people at the UN) run between one and three million.] -5-Ô The Urban Guerrilla Strategy of Revolution Around the world the word "terrorism" is used indiscriminatelypoliticians and police with the intention of arousing hostility to anyof resistance or preparedness for armed defense againstown terroristic acts. Terrorism is distinguished by the systematicof violence against people for political ends. Assassination,, kidnappings, hijacking and the taking of hostages fromthe public, and assaults and bombings deliberately aimed to, maim or affright the populace are methods used particularly instate terrorism. Within this category a distinction can be madeattacks on the public and those on individuals in power,implying approval in either case. Clearly attacks on theare worse than those on people guilty of some crime. In general it is important to differentiate between terrorism andcould be called intimidation. The state is constantly involved into prevent the expression of political opinions by the threat of, harassment or disruption. Much activity of the state fallsthe term intimidation. Some elements in the Australian left havevarious types of intimidation against other leftists. We mustbe careful to differentiate between terrorism and the damaging of. Although it is clear that intimidatory activity and propertyare not usually as serious as terrorism, leftists shouldthe ease with which a preparedness for such activities canto worse consequences. This is not to argue that revolutionarieshave a reverent attitude to private property - merely that theysee that there is a vast difference between, say, the destructiona nuclear facility building site by a mass occupation and the blowing up of that site by a few individuals. Just as the rulers prefer the word "terrorist", terrorists prefer the description "urban guerrilla" as it lends them a spurious romantic air. Nevertheless, we believe that there is a distinction between terroriststhose revolutionaries who adopt the ideology and practice of"guerrillaism" which is to promote armed struggle as the revolutionary. Especially in rural warfare these people can useterroristic armed action. This usually involves armed clashes withpolice or army. However, because of the circumstances of urbanwarfare, this method automatically leads to terrorism as willdiscussed below. In South America the increased use of urban guerrilla warfare wasa result of the failure of the rural strategy which had becomeby the sixties. The rural strategy was based on tenuous conclusions drawn from an idealized view of what happened -6-Ô the Cuban revolution. However, the strategy of the urban guerrillanot in essence different from that of the rural campaigns. Bothbased on the vanguardist concept of the armed group whosemilitary confrontations with the ruling regime’s repressivewould provide the small motor (the well known "foco") to startbig motor of political revolution. In this strategy successful militaryis the propaganda. The Uruguayan Movement for National Liberation (called the), most successful of the urban guerrillas, express thisthus: "The idea that revolutionary action in itself, the very acttaking up arms, preparing for and engaging in the actions which arethe basis of bourgeois law, creates revolutionary consciousness,and conditions." What a monomania! What simplistic! The total defeat of the urban guerrillas in Venezuela in-1963, who had support from the countryside and even theParty should have warned them that the strategy was. It is fractured thinking to identify the essence of revolution asor as armed confrontation with the repressive instruments of the state. This totally obscures the essence of our objection to this society which is not simply a disgust with state violence - the uses of jail, brutality, torture, murder, etc. - but with hierarchical relationships among people, with competition instead of cooperation. The "very act of taking up arms" may defy the law but it says nothing about what is being fought for. The essence of revolution is not armed confrontation with the state but the nature of the movement which backs it up, and this will depend on the kinds of relationships and ideas amongst people in the groups, community councils, workers councils, etc. that emerge in the social conflict. The job for revolutionaries is not to take up the gun but to engage in the long, hard work of publicizing an understanding of this society.must build a movement which links the many problems and issues people face with the need for revolutionary change, which attacks all the pseudo-solutions - both individual and social - offered within this society, which seeks to demystify those solutions offered by the authoritarian left and instead to place the total ephasis on the need for self-activity and self-organization on the part of those people willing to take up issues. We need to present ideas about a socialism based on equality and freedom. -7-Ô Political Rackets Both in the corporate capitalist world and the Third World,movements have made a very poor showing in the area of. That the state is repressive and that it can be fought is only asmall part of revolutionary ideas but this constitutes almost thecontent of what guerrillas attempt to communicate to the people.is based on the assumption that there is little to think about to make a. All that is required is to convince the people that they canthe state. Nothing could be further from the truth. If people dowant to see repeated again and again the old pattern of theplacing in power a new group of oppressors, then they willto realize that the responsibility for a new society rests with them.will have to think about how to structure this new society so that itdemocratic. Since it depends on them they will have to think about theirand this includes their attitudes in their personal lives. It is often argued that such demands are ridiculous in the contextimmediate basic needs in the Third World. In fact, self-organizationcooperative lines is becoming a feature of Third World struggles.economistic arguments about Third World struggles would seem tolinked with the idea that Western-style leaps into industrializationthe solution, when in fact decentralization is the key and thismakes the type of personal change we are thinking of easier. A few leaflets scattered about the site of an action is as much asgroups offer in the way of ideas. The communiques of the GermanArmy Fraction (Baader-Meinhoff) never rose above the politicalof slogans like "Expropriate Springer, Fight class justice, Fightexploiters and enemies of the people, Victory to the Viet Cong," etc.pamphlet "The Concept of the Urban Guerrilla" is a transferencethe same strategy as quoted above to Western capitalism. The samefor the American Weathermen (later Weather Underground), theAngry Brigade, Japanese Red Army, Symbionese Liberation(SLA), etc. Usually these groups have shown a sycophantic thirdwhich saw activity within imperialist nations as supportive of"real revolution" in the third world. The Weather Underground(WUO) elevated this into their whole ideology and. They denied the task of spreading revolutionary ideas to theof people in their own country. Instead the U.S. was to beimmobile while the victorious Third World revolutionariesrevolution from outside. The WUO were later to become marxist-leninists. Baumann, author of the book mentioned before, was in the Junend Movement. He reveals the same kind of thinking; though, unlikemarxist-leninist Red Army Fraction (RAF), they [June 2^nd] called"anarchists" : -8-Ô The analysis of imperialism tells us that the struggle no longer starts primarily in the metropolis, it’s no longer a matter of the working class, but that what’s needed is a vanguard in the metropolis that declares its solidarity with the liberation movements of the Third World. Since it lives in the head of the monster, it can do the greatest damage there. Even if the masses in the European metropolis don’t put them selves on the side of revolution - the working class among us is already privileged and takes part in the exploitation of the Third World. The only possibility for those who build the vanguard here, who take part in the struggle here, is to destroy the infrastructure of imperialism, destroy the apparatus. (p.36) It would be hard to find a "strategy" that was less anarchistic, less. The third-hand Lenin on the labour aristocracy, the, the profoundly elitist millenarian vision of total, etc., all absolutely exclude anything but a dictatorial. Baumann described how after Vietnam their line was "peopleget involved in Palestine" (p.50) - and the various German andterrorists have certainly appeared in Palestinian actions. Butonly reveals all the more clearly their total removal from the realin their homeland. And it does not display any substantialof internationalism, as they were acting totally above the headscompletely out of the control of the people they were supposedly. They were content to work with groups which themselvesmerely acting as "terrorist pressure groups" attempting to gainfrom various ruling classes. For example, the creation ofSeptember was a result of the defeat of the Palestinians at theof the Jordanian forces in 1970 and of the failure of the variousto successfully mobilize the people - instead they turnedinternational publicity. Now that the PLO has successfully organizedas a state amongst the Palestinians, terrorism is used as anof state policy. It is the avenue through which the PLO canto explode the situation in the Middle East. On the whole, struggles revolving around groups oppressed as aor nationality are those in which terror against the public andas a sole strategy is most often found. As a refuge for, authoritarian or vanguardist ideas nationalism masksas "progressivism." Terrorism does not conflict with such ideas.the aim is to place a new group in power whose only requirementthe people is that they are of the same culture or nationality, anywhich works will be consistent. The more one wishes to changerelationships by an aware, self-active populace initiating anda movement, then the more counterproductive and contra- -9-Ôterrorism becomes because of the elitism and manipulation in-in it. Nationalist ideas, as ruling classes know well, allow the presenta-of a dehumanized concept of the enemy from another nationality(or religion), which justifies immoral actions against them and excludesidea of real unity. In South America the groups typically rely on de-of tyrants and U.S. imperialism. It would be hard to over-the role of U.S. imperialism in the area but when the enemy issimply in these terms and goal is national liberation, realideas are excluded. As has already been suggested, the guerrilla creed is that suc-military operation is the propaganda. Born of reaction to theSouth American communist parties which opposed all actioncould possibly get out of their control, guerrillaism is aof action, an irrational faith in action and the purity ofwhich propounds few ideas and produces programmaticmostly dedicated to the need for more action of the same. Worse, guerrillaism reproduces the old trap of a passive peopleare being fought for, struggling vicariously through the guerrillasuffering for them. While the sympathetic masses watch thisplayed out, time passes and with it their own chance to developown response to the social crisis. By the time the drama hastragedy and the guerrillas lie dead about the stage, theof masses finds itself surrounded by barbed wire, and, whilemight now feel impelled to take the stage itself, it finds a line of tanksit and weakly files out to remain passive again. Thosewho continue to object and call on the audience to storm theare dragged out, struggling, to the concentration camps.is in the tradition of vanguardist strategies for revolution.in general it merely leads to repression, should the strategyit can only produce an authoritarian left regime. This isthe people have not moved into the building of a democraticthemselves. The Chinese and Cuban successes (and the Indo-Chinese andstruggles of the time) were the great models inspiring assortedand urban guerrillas and terrorists. But in looking to thesethe imitators made little realistic adjustment to the generalin their own countries. They especially did not make anof the link between the type of governments established bystruggles and the methods used. Of course, for most of thesethe authoritarian governments established in China and Cubaentirely admirable. But for libertarians and anarchists this is not. Those armed groups in Spain and elsewhere who calledanarchist or libertarian drew much of their specific -10-Ôfrom the Spanish revolution and war and the urbanthat continued there even past the end of the Second World. For our argument the civil war in Spain is exemplary because theof "win the war first" was used against politics, to halt theand then to force it back under Stalinist dominated butrepublican governments. In fact the enthusiasm and determina-of the people who first threw back Franco’s 1936 coup was based onfact that at the same time they were seizing the factories andthem through cooperative means. The defeat in war necessarily followed the defeat of the revolution.the popular army was reorganized into an ordinaryand the original egalitarianism was stamped out undermilitaristic discipline and hierarchy. The post-war libertarianwere aware of this, but they did not analyze the experience. They did not see the absolute primacy of politics overstruggle. They did not see the vanguardist nature of armedseizing the initiative. They did not see the need for whateveractivity is necessary to be organized from an existing democraticand to remain under that movement’s control. One libertarian movement in Spain, the Iberian Liberation(MIL), founded itself on the theory of guerrillaism (though itinvolved in political activity). It carried out a number of bankand during arrests a policeman was killed. As a result an MILwas garrotted in 1974. The reason the MIL is mentioned herebecause they dissolved their organization after general defeat by thebut also because of the realization that their strategy was wrong."It is now useless to talk of politico-military organizations and suchare nothing but political rackets." (Congress of) They decided instead to work to deepen the anarchistperspectives of the social movement. Surely a lesson for all. "Nothing Radicalizes like Pigs in the Park" A democracy can only be produced if a majority movement is built.guerrilla strategy depends on a collapse of will in the ruling class tothe social crisis out of which revolution occurs, whether thefavors it or not. Any reading of guerrilla strategists revealsit is a philosophy of impatience. While a collapse of will in theclass is surely a vital element in any revolution, unless a masswith democratic structures for running the country exists,an elite will take power. Always lurking in the background and -11-Ôboldly stated is the idea that guerrilla warfare or terrorismto produce a fascistic reaction which would radicalize the people.Provisionals (IRA) quite obviously followed this strategy. Butlike the RAF and June 2^nd also shuffled this idea with theirworldism, especially as the third world stabilized intoand state capitalism and Western collapse appeared aprospect. Of the state apparatus, Bommi Buamann says, "We knew that if ittouched anywhere, it would show its fascistic face again." Asas many aspects of the West German state are, it is not fascist.clearer understanding of the situation would reveal that it is yetexample of the fact that dictatorial methods have always beenwill continue to be part of the arsenal of social control in a capitalistdemocracy. Such methods will be used with abandon in acrisis. More important still is the revelation that these guerrillascompletely unable to understand in a social-psychological senseoppression is maintained by consent, and that violence is aphenomenon. In general it can be seen that these groups are unembarrassed byawareness of how major events have changed leftist thought on arange of issues (or confirmed elements of libertarian thoughthad been suppressed by the dominance of marxism). For ex-, an interpretation of France 1968 or of Hungary 1956 seems topassed them by entirely. In March 1972 the Tupamaros stated that they wanted to "createundeniable state of revolutionary war in Uruguay, polarizing politicsguerrillas and the regime." There is even some suggestionthey discussed the possibility of carrying out actions designed toan invasion by Brazil in the belief that this would galvanize thepopulation into action. The RAF put it this way: We don’t count on a spontaneous anti-fascist mobilization as a result of terror and fascism itself... And we know that our work produces even more pretexts for repression, be- cause we’re communists - and whether communists will organize and struggle, whether terror and repression will produce only fear and resignation, or whether it will produce resistance, class hatred and solidarity... depends on the response to repression. Whether communists are so stupid as to tolerate such treatment... depends on this response. -12-Ô What is revealed completely in this quote is the absolute arrogancethese groups - "Sure we’re hoping for a radical response to the statewe bring down on your head, but if that doesn’t occur, well,will go to prove you are all stupid." They ignore the actual, like all guerrillas, demanding that everyone else miracu-achieve their "advanced" consciousness, when, as has alreadyshown, their ideas are superficial and without value and merely acry for a massacre. The reason for the occurrence of this ugly strategy derives from theof urban guerrilla warfare. Since they depend on armedfor their existence, all guerrillas can only develop their struggleescalating their engagements. If they do not they will be forgotten.is everything. But rural guerrillas can do this by es-and expanding their territory of action - liberated zones.can choose to take on army formations according to their. But urban guerrillas can hold no territory, for to attempt toa neighborhood or building is to take on the entire armed mightthe city. In any engagement the size of army forces cannot besince they arrive in minutes. Urban guerrilla warfare must become terrorism in order to. There is no other avenue for escalating the struggle.the warfare cannot stretch out indefinitely withoutaway. This is the appeal of the polarization and militarizationsociety strategy. It is the ultimate in manipulation - an intentionalto create suffering among the people for the ends of thewho assume that they know best and that the people will beoff in the long run. Of course the strategy usually results only in. The Tupamaros came to prominence in 1968. In 1967 thegovernment had begun responding to Uruguay’s first majorcrisis since the war by attacking the working class andrepressive legislation. So they entered the right social. They had also spent all the sixties preparing. They wereefficient and planned well. They had links in the unions andlegal movements that were not only maintained but grew. Theyelan, imagination and humanity. But by 1971, the year of elections,paucity of their strategy was becoming apparent and even theyindecisive. How could they go one step further without losing? They depended on transitory support that was impressedtheir seeming invincibility and their restrained use of violence.they would prove beatable, inevitably much blood would. Then it would be revealed that they had no mass base. After thethe army was let loose and soon up to 40 Tupamaros weretried every day. They were defeated before the military juntato power in 1973. Just because they were so good within the limitsurban guerrilla strategy they prove the basically flawed nature of the -13-Ô. It was quite clear that the ruling class of Uruguay was going toto the economic crisis by gravitation to dictatorship. But if theexpended by the Tupamaros had gone into the spreading ofencouraging people to organize, the resistance would have beenand more profound and therefore had more chance of success. Headline Hunters Another component in the foolishness of guerrillaism is that itto the media as the agency of its propaganda. According to: RAF said the revolution wouldn’t be built through political work, but through headlines, through appearances in the press, over and over again, reporting: "Here are guerrillas fighting in Germany." This overestimation of the press, that’s where it completely falls apart. Not only do they have to imitate the machine completely, and fall into the trap of only getting into it politically with the police, but their only justification comes through the media. They establish them- selves only by these means. Things only float at this point, they aren’t rooted anymore in anything, not even in the people they still have contact with. (p. 100) This is especially absurd given the role of the most popular newsin stimulating and maintaining the most irrational elements in’s response to acts of political violence. They deliberately try topolitical issues by omission and commission. Take the Middleas an example - How many people remember that 106 passengerscrew were killed in a civilian plane shot down by an Israeli jet over? How many people know that Israeli bombs killed 46 children in ain the Nile delta? How many know that 1500 were killed andnapalmed in Palestinian refugee camps and villages by Israel fromto 1972? In November 1977 rocket attacks by Palestinian guerrillas intokilled three people. In response Israeli planes bombed nineand three refugee camps which they claimed harbored. More than 100 civilians were believed to have been killed. Areporter (November 20, 1977) visited one village and one -14-Ôto find that they were not guerrilla outposts. The Israelis alsodelayed action bombs so that people were killed during attemptsfind survivors. Yet the terrorist acts of Palestinians are the onespeople abhor because they were the acts extensively reported. Before too long the killing of civilians by the Israelis in theirinto Lebanon will be forgotten. But you can bet that the killingcivilians by the PLO’s terror squad will be remembered. In fact theand cynicism of Israeli planning relies on this amnesia. The media seek to obscure politics further by treating incidents as. This does suit the apolitical nature of guerrilla strategy intheir struggle is supposed to take on bigger and biggerin the media in order to call forth a ruling class response. The real effect amongst the people, however, is to confirm the ideapolitics is a removed realm to be viewed passively - usually asroutine but occasionally as a spectacle. Even if people"support" the guerrillas, this hardly has any real meaning in terms ofown involvement in politics. Instead, the usual result is to provideorganizing base of vicious attitudes for the rulers to exploit for their. The hypocrisy of the media is illustrated by their tendency to playthe significance of political violence compared with their failure toany stir about industrial accidents and disease. Car accidents are, even sensationalized, but with a kind of primitive fatalism,in fact they are a serious social and political problem. Manydie of these causes, many more are maimed. Who cares? The existence of media manipulation should not, however, obscurebasis in reality. Leftists are inclined to dismiss people’s outrage as"reactionary." But the killing of school children, placing of bombs instations or machine gunning people at an airport canbe dismissed no matter what the context. People’s response is,the whole, genuine moral outrage. This is manipulated into law andhysteria which allows legislation to be passed and the left to be. But it is typical of the elitism of many passive leftists lackingprincipled ideas who sycophantically devote themselves to any activesomewhere else, carried out by someone else, to pour contemptthe reactions of people to real outrages. -15-Ô Military Madness There is undoubtedly much evidence of a tendency towardof death and violence by terrorists and guerrillas. Jebril,of the leaders of the Palestinian rejection front, sends his troopsIsrael with orders not to return (that is, to die) and was quoted as"We like death as much as life and no force on Earth canus from restoring Palestine..." putting himself in the sameas the Spanish Falangists (Fascists) who shouted "long live! "It must be admitted that this trend of love of death has beenamongst various terrorists. WUO leader Dohrn made aand positively gloating rave of support for the murders of the Manson gang. There is an element here of the"counter-cultural fascism" which saw the U.S. divided between "pigvs. woodstock nation." A section of the counterculture made aof Manson. Baumann mentions that, at the time, they did not think Manson"so bad." In fact, they thought him "quite funny." What should be avoided, however, is a tendency to explainby the alleged insanity of the actors, because the acts arise insituations of oppression and provocation - the obvious examplenationalities suffering embittering oppression. In West Germany there were specific incidents such asbrutal police behavior, leading to the death of a, the attempted assassination of a student leader, theof the major Springer press (many times worse than Packer or)* the social democrat Brandt’s introduction of berufsverbot 1972 (an employment ban [in government] against all leftists, re-, etc. who are "not loyal to the constitution" which was even-applied in some states to social democrats themselves), the gen-attempt to smash all extra-parliamentary or non-union movementswhich the ban is only the best known part. All of these thingsthe background for political violence. The whole Nazi experience was constantly enlivened by the factex-Nazis, war criminals and Nazis who were still active in rightall held positions in the judiciary, bureaucracy, business, etc.(an expedient policy of the allies who wanted reliable law and orderin the political vacuum of the post-war world. Since this was alsocase in Italy it may be no accident that these two countries are theprominent areas for terrorism in Europe.

________________________________________________________________________*

K.F.B. Packer and Rupert Murdoch are Australian press and television. Murdoch also owns newspapers in the U.K. and U.S. including theYork Post. -16-Ô All this is not an excuse for terrorism, but such considerations areof an overall explanation. Concentrating on the supposed insanitythe guerrillas or terrorists is an attempt to provide a justification fortowards them and for the introduction of general. Many of these people become involved in terrorism merely by cir-and associations as Baumann’s book shows. They getup in an environment of self-glorification and isolation from the. Even their relationships with supporters are one-sided ratherbroadening. This unreal situation produces features of madnessthat an escalating series of acts is seen as justified and rational.any attempt by the media, police and politicians to create aof demonic blood-thirsty monsters will be for the purpose oftheir own barbarity and corruption. (See the film or read theby Heinrich Boll, The Lost Honor of Katerina Blum.) Erich Fromm has written: We can witness (the) phenomenon among the sons and daughters of the well-to-do in the United States and Germany, who see their life in their affluent home envi- ronment as boring and meaningless. But more than that, they find the world’s callousness toward the poor and the drift toward nuclear war for the sake of individual egotism unbearable. Thus, they move away from their home environment, looking for a new lifestyle - and remain unsatisfied because no constructive effort seems to have a chance. Many among them were originally the most idealistic and sensitive of the young generation; but at this point, lacking in tradition, maturity, experience, and political wisdom they become desperate, narcissistically overestimate their own capacities and possibilities, and try to achieve the impossible by the use of force. They form so-called revolutionary groups and expect to save the world by acts of terror and destruction, not seeing that they are only contributing to the general tendency to violence and inhumanity. They have lost their capacity to love and have replaced it with the wish to sacrifice their lives. (Self-sacrifice is frequently the solution for individuals who ardently desire to love, but who have lost the capacity to love and see in the sacrifice of their own lives an experience of love in the highest degree.) But these self-sacrificing young people are very different from the loving martyrs, who want to live because they love life and who accept death only when they are forced to die in order not to betray themselves. Our present-day self-sacrificing young people are the accused, but they are also the accusers, -17-Ô in demonstrating that in our social system some of the very best young people become so isolated and hopeless that nothing but destruction and fanaticism are left as a way out of their despair. Baumann shows that he has learned this lesson through harsh ex-(though he still misses that there is a tradition of humanwhich has survived even "the machine" and that this tradition is, for example, in many episodes of mass revolutionary activityas the Spanish revolution in 1936, the Hungarian revolution (1956)the French revolution (1968). Making a decision for terrorism is something already psychologically programmed. Today, I can see that - for myself - it was only the fear of love, from which one flees into absolute violence. If I had checked out the dimension of love for myself beforehand, I wouldn’t have done it... Until now it has been assumed that there is no simultaneity of revolutionary praxis and love. I don’t see that, even today I don’t. Otherwise, I might have continued. But I saw it like this: you make your decision, and you stop and throw away your gun and say: Okay - the end. For me, the whole time it was a question of creating human values which did not exist in capitalism, in all of Europe, in all of Western culture - they’d been cleared away by the machine. That’s what it’s about: to discover them anew, to unfold them anew, and to create them anew. In that way, too, you carry the torch again, you become the bearer of a new society - if it is possible. And you’ll be better doing that than bombing it in, creating the same rigid figures of hatred at the end. Stalin was actually a type like us: he made it, one of the few who made it. But then it got heavy. [Stalin was a bank robber, etc. for the bolsheviks before the revo- lution.] You can see how bad it was in Schmuecker’s case - they shot him down (Ulrich Schmuecker was a former member of the June 2^nd Movement who was assassinated in 1974 after informing on the group.) He was just a small harmless student. They forced him into one of these situations, not asking themselves if he was far enough along to handle it. He couldn’t have talked that much anyway, and they did him in. That’s real destruction; you just can’t see it any other way. The murder of Schmuecker reminds one strongly of, Charles Manson. It really is murder, you have to see that. (pp.105-106) - 18 -Ô Minimize Violence by Emphasizing Politics The very essence of libertarian revolutionary strategy is the ideathere is an inextricable link between the means used and the ends. While there may be a link between the rotten authoritarianof nationalists and marxist-leninists and rotten terrorist means, itunquestionably clear that libertarian ends must disallow terrorist. In fact the majority of marxist-leninist groups oppose terrorism,, as Lenin says in Left-Wing Communism - An Infantile Disorder,"It was, of course, only on grounds of expediency that we rejectedterrorism." Leninists are the proponents of vanguardism par. They also are proponents of terrorism by the state - as longthey control it. Libertarians look at history and at the ruling classes of the worldconclude that a libertarian movement will face state violence andstruggle will be necessary in response. It is quite obvious thatactivity could not even commence in certain conditions withoutup arms immediately. Also in certain conditions, as inbased societies, it would be necessary to set up armed bases incountryside. But the aim here would not be to carry out"exemplary" clashes with the military but to protect the politicalto enable the spreading of ideas to continue. This maysome guerrilla tactics but it cannot mean the strategy of. Nor can it mean the creation of a separate, hierarchical,organization, which is not only anti-libertarian but is alsoand inefficient. The Tupamaros were, being marxist-, hierarchically organized. One of the factors in their defeatthe treason of Amodio Perez, a "liaison director" in the, i.e. a second-level institutionalized leader who knew sothat he was able to single-handedly put police onto large sections. In Baumann’s book he makes it quite clear that the capture ofof groups was often the result of betrayal by sympathizers.was not even a result of hierarchical structuring as this did notin the group he belonged to. Though the police did use virtualmethods on some sympathizers this was not the main factor. It rather follows from the life of illegality: Three people who were illegal would sit in one apartment and two or three legal ones would take care of them... (p.56) -

19 -Ô

You only have contact with, other people as objects, when you meet somebody all you can say is, listen old man, you have to get me this or that thing, rent me a place to live, here or there and in three days we’ll meet here at this corner. If he has any criticism of you, you say, that doesn’t interest me at all. Either you participate or you leave it easy and clear. At the end it’s caught up with you - you become like the apparatus you fight against. (p.98)well: Because you’re illegal, you can’t keep contact with the people at the base. You can no longer take part directly in any further development of the whole scene. You’re not in- tegrated with the living process that goes on. Suddenly you’re a marginal figure because you can’t show up anywhere. (p.98) It is obvious that these aspects of such a life are counter-productivelibertarians. On the whole then it would seem that suchcould only have a survival function for certain peoplethreat of murder or torture by the state. At one stage thewere able to stop systematic torture by threatening, but once the state resumed the offensive, torture was. To prevent executions and torture, armed activity might be, but its anti-political features would have to be weighed. Armed struggle means people would be killed and there is no get-away from the fact that violence threatens humanism. Butwould hope to preserve their humanism by ensuring thatstruggle would merely be an extension of a political movementmain activity would be to spread ideas and build alternative. The forces of repression (police, army) and the rulerswould not be excluded from such efforts. In fact much effortbe devoted to splitting them with politics to minimize thefor violence. In this situation everyone would have a choice.are extending to people the hope that they can change. Weextending to people our confidence that a self-managed society willmore satisfying for all people. This includes our rulers, even thoughrecognize the limitations created by the characters people havein their lives, especially those adapted to the exercise of. Small groups operating outside the control of a mass movementoften in the absence of any mass resistance at all, who take upondecisions of "class justice" in the name of groups who arebut whose interests are affected by action based ondecisions, are nothing but dangerous. The SLA killed a school after a community coalition tailed to prevent theof draconian disciplinary measures in schools. This failure was a reflection of the political level of the community and exactly the opposite of an invitation for the SLA to kill a mere pawn of the Board of Education. "The SLA recognizes but its own will which identifies with the will of the people in much the same manner that many psychopathic killers claim to be instructed by God. It has killed a defenseless individual whose guilt is not only not proved, but is mainly a fantasy of his executioners." These comments of Ramparts magazine apply to many a similar. If in these cases guilt can at least be attributed as a justification, what can be said of those actions against the public at large (indiscriminate bombing, taking hostages, hijacking planes, etc.)? Usually terrorists will attempt justification in terms of the kinds of strategies described above. The expected end results from these strategies supposedly justify the means used. Enough has been said about these strategies. But it should be emphasized again that foul means far from being justified by distant ends, merely provide athat the ends achieved will be horrible. You can’t blow up a social relationship. The total collapse of this society would provide no guarantee about what replaced it. Unless a majority of people had the ideas and organization sufficient for theof an alternative society, we would see the old world reassert itself because it is what people would be used to, what they believed in, what existed unchallenged in their own personalities. Proponents of terrorism and guerrillaism are to be opposedtheir actions are vanguardist and authoritarian, because their, to the extent that they are substantial, are wrong or unrelated to the results of their actions (especially when they call themselvesor anarchists), because their killing cannot be justified, and finally because their actions produce either repression with nothing in return or an authoritarian regime. To those contemplating political violence we say, first look to. Is destructiveness an expression of fear of love? There are political traditions and political possibilities you have yet to examine. To the society which produces the conditions of poverty, passivity, selfishness, shallowness and destructiveness in which the response of political violence can grow we say, take warning. These conditions must be overthrown. As a French Socialist said in 1848: "If you have no will for human association I tell you that you are exposing civilization to the fate of dying in fearful agony."

- 21 –

Can’t Blow Up a Social Relationship by uncredited Australian anarchists from the Acrata Press edition: Press.O. Box 6118Francisco, CA 94101 Press - March 1995