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The Dogs Are Barking And The Caravan Moves On
The Revolutionary Cells
Respond To Hans Joachim Klein
Hans Joachim Klein has left the guerrilla. He changed his mind
about fighting in the armed left movement, because the conflicts
which the decision to fight in the guerrilla had created for him
could only mean that he stop this struggle. We are taken aback,
because we didn't forsee this development on his part.
In our written statements, especially the interview from 1975,
one can read what our expectations from each fighter in the guerrilla
are and must be: the necessity for trust and clarity among the fighters,
without competition, without problems of image, without machismo,
without any kind of force.
It is within the logic of the guerrilla to solve contradicitions
within the group with openness, by unlimited solidarity, by love.
Only in this way can we begin, continue and bear this struggle.
The RZ has never forced, pushed, tore, or seduced anybody into the
group. The RZ never integrated comrades simply because they were
screaming "they are ready". Among us, between us and the
new ones, there is a long and arduous process to verify decisions
again and again, to get to know oneself and each other, by experiences,
by talking, talking, talking, to get to know by small steps in practice,
whether the identity of life and of politics in the armed struggle
is really the identity of each single member. We and he did not
succeed in the case of HJK. Our weakness, that we cannot realize
all of our expectations completely because we are not the marvelous
new humans, our weakness shows at another point as well: we did
not manage to arrange such a relationship with HJK, and we did not
succeed in having him test himself; we did not see that HJK expected
too much of himself; we were not critical enough with ourselves
or with him, we loved him blindly.
Only now do we see one part of how the human being HJK "functions".
As he knows, the alternative between fighter and cop doesn't exist
for us, he could have solved, with us, whatever made it impossible
for him to continue the armed struggle, how to "leave",
how to make his future safe. We, he, and the left know that it is
possible to leave the guerrilla whenever one wants. Each one has
the possibility to live anonymously with the support of those with
whom she or he fought and lived before. It is precisely Hans Joachim
Klein who could have had many possibilities. As a lot of people
before him. He knew that, a lot of you on the left knows it very,
very well, even the bourgeois press knows it. (Look at the article
in FAZ!) (1)
To stop struggling in the urban guerrilla is no betrayal. Even
though they know much better, certain people continue to place the
problem of defending oneself from traitors on the same level as
the historical events of Kronstadt, the Ukraine, and Catalonia,
where the essential thing was differences of political positions
and practice being solved by liquidating individuals. (2) Hans Joachim
is a worldwide problem for the guerrilla - not because he split
politically; anyone can do that without a single hair on her-his
head being harmed. He is a problem because the way in which he split
gives us reason enough to fear that he will not refrain from giving
concrete details, structures, meeting points, names. The first name
in the letter from JEMAND, the publication of so-called plans are
the first signals (for the cops, too) that he is ready to cooperate
when he can't bear it any longer or when they catch him.
The other self-evident way was always forbidden Hans Joachim Klein.
His desperate pursuit to always be the greatest, the top fighter,
the king, the admired one, didn't allow him that option: to show
weakness (which, in fact, is no weakness), to put it on the table.
He can only do that in a new framework which allows him his Star
Show, where he can become master of his problems and his deep insecurity.
This is only possible by telling his current audience what they
want to hear. His current story is at complete odds with his old
experience with this audience, it's at odds with his experience
with us and with his last year and a half. That's the reason for
the shit and the lies in his letter to 'Spiegel' (3) and 'Pflasterstrand'.
We know it is impossible and senseless to contest these lies, as
if in a criminal trial. It has nothing to do with proof, especially
for those people who have already known for a long time what they
want to believe. The only thing we can say at this point: the precise
hints in his letter where he wants to "prove" that we
put pressure on him, where he wants to prove our fascist thoughts
concerning anti-human actions, our objectifying relationships between
ourselves and concerning him and foreign liberation movements, where
he wants to prove our cold-blooded feelings, this proof is complete
and total lies - and he knows it! But perhaps, on the other hand,
he believes all of that himself.
What is JEMAND's use for all of this? What is the 'Pflasterstrand'
left using this for? They maintain they are able to differentiate
between criticism and State Security activity, they maintain they
are helping the revolutionary Hans Joachim K. Reality is different.
The human being Hans J. K. doesn't make a shit of difference to
them. They aren't "digging deeply", they don't want to
"really know him". JEMAND's logic is to use him: he shall
be used to finally, finally kill the urban guerrilla in Germany.
These left wing people never politically criticize our reality
and continuity in the last five years of actions, statements, and
results. They create fantasies - and then reinforce the sick offspring
of their fantasies (especially in Frankfurt, we could publish weekly
denials about the things that circulate about us in the terrified
scene).
They don't deal with us as real human beings, as an existing fighting
group with the political contents and logic of the urban guerrilla
- eg., Galinski: you easily believe the horror story of Hans Joachim
Klein (4) instead of reflecting on Galinski's role in the crimes
of Zionism, for the cruelties of Israel's imperialistic army, you
don't reflect on the propaganda work and material support of this
guy, you don't see him as anything other than "a leader of
the Jewish community", and: you don't reflect about what to
do against this fact, and what could be done in a country like ours...
You avoid this political discussion and get exited about the maintained
(anti-semitism?) fascism of the RZ and the men behind them. (5)
HJK's letter is the "proof" previously lacking, for all
the shit the left maintains in order to avoid dealing with the debate
about armed resistances, the debate with us, the debate amongst
themselves, and their fear within this system. They foam with hate
against us, and each piece of information they get about us they
put into their frame of reference, "now we will say everything
we know" (Pflasterstrand editors). The articles concerning
us in this paper from Frankfurt are sentence by sentence proof of
their self- betrayal, of their colonized minds, of their confused
memories of common experiences (with us, amongst themselves, and
with Hans Joachim Klein), they are proof of the unbounded hate propaganda,
attempting all the while to destroy by any means the small bases
of the urban guerrilla, and they are proof of the cop mentality
with which Hans Joachim is made a vehicle of their psychological
and practical warfare against us. If this clique didn't want that
but wanted to help Hans Joachim Klein, this clique should not reinforce
in him his role as a "revolutionary", but should try to
bring him out of his desperate political situations not by firing
up his hate, but by clarifying his situation: the situation of a
man who took part in an operation, who began a kind of politic that
he could not cope with. A man who cannot go back after this operation
because of the cops (!), who can't have a legal life, who can't
carry on legal politics like the Spontis, who can only live secretly,
always in danger of discovery, a situation which is, politically
and psychologically, very, very difficult to stand without an identity
as an armed fighter.
Everything that is going on now indicates that the intention is
the opposite because the struggle against us has become the main
purpose. But this will not work! The cops, the justice system, the
destructive prison conditions, the torture, the CIA, and the Zionists
did not succeed in destroying the guerrilla in Germany or anywhere
else because resistance and struggle are and remain necessary. And
Hans Joachim Klein, JEMAND, and "the editorial board"
also cannot do that. The guerrilla won't be forced into anything
by you; Hans Joachim Klein is not, for us, the "purification
of a revolutionary body", "the removal of the trouble
spot in the armed everyday life", not at all, friends! Yet,
how we deal with it, how we relate to it, how we develop further
is a matter for us, a matter of political criticism, self-criticism,
and practice.
In our actions, in our statements, in our politics, in our resistance,
in our lives, we won't be dictated to by you, who threaten us with
betrayal, isolation and destructive detention. As well as your previous
"critique", your dirt could not make the urban guerrilla
impossible, yours and HJK's lying propaganda will not do it and
your circulating list of names and your gossipy betrayal definitely
will not do it.
You assume that these politics, by which each of us risks her-
his freedom, and even her-his life, at all times, would give in
to such a ridiculous threat. Your "revolutionary" critique
- i.e., to call the cops for help - will put some of us behind bars
under certain circumstances if you continue in the same way, that
we will certainly know how to deal with. But your threat and your
preparations for its realization will not make the guerrilla in
Germany disappear. The guerrilla cannot be blackmailed.
Revolutionary Cells
May 24, 1977
Footnotes:
- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - conservative bourgeois daily
for the business community, similar to the London, England "Financial
Times" in contents and style.
- Reference to JEMAND, the German word for somebody. JEMAND was
the signature chosen by an anonymous group of left-wing people
who helped Klein have his denunciations of guerrilla politics
printed in 'Pflasterstrand', a Sponti newspaper from Frankfurt,
West Germany, that began to distance itself from the guerrilla
in 1975.
- Der Spiegel - intellectual bourgeois weekly.
- Galinski - spokesman for the Jewish community in West Berlin.
Klein claimed the Revolutionary Cells intended to kill him.
- Reference to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP).
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