Political Violence and Liberty : Stuart Christie on The German Guerilla

[The state of the world more than the history of the movement means anarchists frequently discuss political violence. These texts were printed anonymously in The German guerrilla; terror, reaction, and resistance by Cienfuegos Press and Soil of Liberty in 1981. We assume that, had they been written by anyone other than Stuart, a pseudonym (at least) would have been used. They also match his comment that ‘any justification terrorism – as practised today – had as a tool for social change has long been debased.’[‘A time for anarchy’ City Limits 22-28 April 1983, reprinted in A life for Anarchy.]

Preface 

There are many important reasons for publishing this interview with Joachim Klein, the German guerrilla who was wounded during the kidnapping of the OPEC ministers in Vienna. Klein is trying to ‘come in from the cold’ and obviously this influences some of what he says, but it does not invalidate the basic points. 

Such rare accounts are vital if we are to make up our minds on both the moral and strategic aspects of armed resistance. Any form of ‘party line’ on this question is abhorrent because an individual must take up a position according to her own beliefs. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot clarify the issues in libertarian terms, and for this purpose we have included a short postscript examining political violence. 

Klein’s account of life underground is fascinating for, without dramatising it, he conveys the atmosphere through his concise answers. One of the most important aspects which emerges is the loss of personal identity through living a false life with false names and documents. Another is the desperately restricted circle of people with whom the guerrilla can discuss his feelings. Both of these products of secrecy cut him off from reality and thus make him lose touch with the very people he is trying to help. This armed elite cannot avoid having an incestuous circuit of ideas which must be influenced by the need to bolster their own morale, and that will automatically warp anyone’s view of events. 

The very nature of clandestine existence and warfare has an appalling effect on the minds of those who carry it out. To trust nobody and to rely on the gun at every moment to bolster one’s confidence gives the individual concerned a totally different perspective. Secrecy, short-term ‘military necessity’ and opportunist alliances change values and moral judgements. How else does one find anti-fascist guerrillas at Entebbe separating Jew from gentile by allowing themselves to say that anyone with a Jewish name must be a Zionist? 

Klein accuses his former comrades of being mercenaries but offers no details to support this apart from references to the luxurious life style to which some apparently became accustomed. It would be fairer to say that their sense of values was altered by the life which they had to lead, but this is a criticism of the inevitable effects of such a life. It would be completely wrong to impugn their original motives on these grounds. Once again we see the (inevitable?) distortion – the false identity and false environment which create a fake outlook, and which in turn distances and alienates them from their comrades and from their former idealistic selves. We already know that, however lofty the motive, power corrupts. Secrecy and violence are its two most important ingredients. 

Postscript: political violence and liberty 

If the first casualty of war and conflict is truth, then so is the meaning of many words in the political vocabulary, and in the present orchestration of opinion the term ‘terrorism’ is being deliberately warped. Even that authoritarian apologist Lord Chalfont said recently that ‘one of the interesting aspects of the phenomenon of political violence is the remarkable difference between the image and the reality’. Anyone who now dares to lift a finger against the State is indiscriminately labelled a terrorist with every horrific nuance that the word has been enrobed with by the media. 

Political violence takes many forms but it comes from three main areas of motive or source, and these are probably more important when attempting to define it than the resulting actions. These areas could be described as state terrorism; revolutionary terrorism, and violent political reaction. Terrorism in its strict sense is a policy of using terror to achieve particular ends. (An act of indiscriminate violence for its own satisfaction or to cause panic for its own sake cannot be regarded as political whatever the motives claimed retrospectively). Terrorism is a weapon of compulsion and is therefore a means adopted by a State to preserve and increase power, or by an authoritarian revolutionary group to obtain power. A violent political reaction is an act of armed resistance against specific repression without any programme of achieving ends through force.

There is no need to cite a host of examples when referring to state terrorism. It is used by authoritarian governments to enforce unpopular policies, suppress dissent and establish the power of their ruling elite. And because the State is automatically a reactionary organisation being committed to the maintenance of power, the description a ‘revolutionary State’ is a grotesque contradiction in terms. 

The State claims the monopoly on violence by saying that it is inherent in man and therefore must be controlled and used only by an organisation which is ‘above man’. It is not necessary to list the scientific evidence which refutes this theory of innate violence, but it is worth remembering Proudhon’s statement that order is the daughter of liberty, not the mother, for there will always be violence and disorder while man is oppressed. Of course the State cannot recognise this or else its whole justification for existing is destroyed. So instead of removing the causes for violence in present society it is perfecting methods for ‘removing violence’ from man. These include Operant Conditioning, Delgado’s electrodes for implanting in brains, drugs and narco-hypnosis, lobotomy and electro-convulsive therapy. This is their new arsenal which goes far beyond the mass apathy inculcated through the media’s diet of trivia that clips the wings of the people’s imagination. 

It was the Vietnam War which showed the most flagrant example of the State’s hypocrisy of violence. Another country had ‘to be destroyed in order to be saved’, as one American general explained. And on their own side recruits were subjected to ‘Life-Value’ treatment to reduce their reluctance to kill (surely the greatest example of contemporary double-speak). And then when these soldiers returned from Vietnam many had to have the instilled violence cut or electrocuted out of their brains. 

We are also beginning to see the appearance of a new means of increasing governmental power and that is State-manipulated ‘revolutionary’ violence. It is a strategy which has developed out of black propaganda, or psych-ops. In this country General Kitson has advocated the assassination of ‘moderate’ trades union leaders so as to blame their deaths on the extreme left. It is a tactic used by the Selous Scouts in Rhodesia where they commit atrocities dressed as black nationalist guerrillas, and it was used by Green Beret trained Vietnamese. But the strategy of manipulated or faked terrorism was demonstrated most spectacularly in Italy when the Italian Secret Service set off bombs killing innocent people, and then tried to blame it on Anarchists. 

Revolutionary terrorism can basically be defined as the use of fear as a means to obtain political power. It is the policy which is used by a group believing that virtually any methods are justified by the end. History has shown us that such ruthlessness can only finish in a dictatorship as bad or worse than the regime it replaces. It is the inevitable extension of a belief in doctrinal infallibility. 

A violent political reaction is not authoritarian when it is resistance against violent repression. If it goes beyond that and begins to develop into a policy of achieving objectives through force alone, then it has started to move towards revolutionary terrorism. It is into this grey area that several revolutionary groups have moved developing a retrospective justification for their actions. For example in Germany we have seen two contradictory rationales, one saying that if the State is provoked into showing its true repressive nature a spontaneous revolutionary movement will spring up, and the other saying that although the time is not yet ripe it will be too late if the correct moment is waited for. Both of these ideas are short sighted to say the least. 

Firstly, the idea of provoking the parliamentary state is a rehash of the ‘detonator-explosive charge’ theory and makes the dangerous assumption that the State’s reaction will automatically manufacture the ‘explosive charge’ while the reservoir of potential support is not alienated by the revolutionary action. Events have shown that this not only fails in practice, but even strengthens the State’s hand in obtaining a widespread acceptance of further repressive measures. Any such policy cannot succeed while the working class has not yet been convinced of a viable alternative society for they will not understand or sympathise with the intentions of the revolutionaries. Kropotkin’s insistence that no violent act should be committed unless its purpose was clearly understood by the average worker cannot be ignored. 

Secondly, the idea of not delaying the armed struggle for fear of leaving it too late justifies falling into the beguiling trap of resistance for resistance sake. The purpose of a revolutionary is to build a new society, so the armed struggle must only be undertaken within that context and not for its own temptation. Without preparing the ground properly in a Parliamentary State by showing how a libertarian society can succeed, the armed struggle will not be understood or supported by the workers. They will reject it and be pushed into the arms of the very State which is oppressing them. The other fundamental mistake which revolutionaries tend to make is only to view the struggle from their own side. The most effective strategy is always to weaken the governing class’s ability to resist by discrediting it and wearing it down. While the impatient and furious attack, which so easily results from bitter desperation, usually plays straight into their hands, the only way of destroying the morale of security forces is through boredom and making them look ridiculous. Dramatic action makes them feel important and needed. It provides the very excitement which attracted them to the job in the first place. 

The situation in a dictatorship is obviously very different for the spirit of resistance will already exist and the working class will understand the reasons for armed action even if they have not yet been convinced that a libertarian society is possible. There they see that when power comes from the barrel of a gun it can only be fought with a gun. But in a parliamentary state when power comes from deception it can only be fought effectively by truth and propaganda of the deed relevant to the situation, i.e. demonstrating that a better society is possible despite the misrepresentation by authoritarians. 

This brings us to the central problem facing libertarian revolutionaries in a ‘liberal-democratic’ State. Herzen said that ‘the truly free man creates his own morality’, and this is totally accurate when we realise that the methods and objectives of an Anarchist have to be unfailingly consistent. A libertarian society can never be imposed by force and destroying the State is insufficient, (or again in Herzen’s words: ‘To dismantle the Bastille stone by stone will not of itself make free men out of the prisoners’). We cannot follow the American general’s sick paradox of destroying to save. We must recognise that the new society must start to grow before the old dies, and that we cannot ‘transfer moral responsibility from our shoulders to an unpredictable future order’. Only a soldier of the State claims to be released from personal morality on taking his oath of allegiance. However, we all know that a ruling elite will not give up its power voluntarily so it would appear that we are faced with an impossible contradiction. And yet facing that very contradiction will not just show us that our actions and morality are indivisible, but it will point to the only way a truly free society can be created. Anarchists have shied away from blueprints of a libertarian society rejecting the idea as authoritarian. But it is only authoritarian if the structure proposed is liable to give power to individuals or groups within it, and obviously it is a horrific travesty if anyone attempts to impose it by force. Discussing theoretical schemes is essential in that people can decide more clearly on what they want to work towards. And yet the only way to prepare a libertarian society is by starting to develop one within the old environment so that it is shown to work as a viable and better alternative. We have no right to expect support until we do this for revolutionaries have misled the people too often in the past. It is the only way of proving that a social revolution does not mean exchanging one set of masters for another. When we have this to point to, then and only then can the workers in a Parliamentary state sympathise with an armed struggle. Without this demonstration they will be completely alienated, preferring the devil they know. And yet we will certainly have to fight at some stage, of that there is little doubt, and we must be prepared for it. But to fight before we have built something to show what we are fighting for is to resign the moral and propaganda struggle before we start. And without that, the technocratic state will wash us effortlessly down the drain of history. 

[The German guerrilla; terror, reaction, and resistance is available at https://archive.org/details/TheGermanGuerrilla ]