"Was there really any chance of this working in west-Germany?"
There never was a better one since the early 1920s, and it still failed. Countercultural left movements where about as big in Germany as they where in the US or France, there where larger than ever numbers of disenfranchised young people fed up with the postwar order, an amount of activism unprecedented in West Germany, everybody asking their parents and grandparents uncomfortable questions about what they did during the war. While former Nazi-Bonzen still dominated politics, economy, law, academia and the media. Many of the RAF's targets where selected specifically because they where elites with a nazi background that had gotten off scott free after WW2. Baader and Meinhoff where convinced that targeting these figures would spark something like the Cuban revolution, which had also been carried out by a tiny core group of a mere 200 revolutionaries. Ché's Foco theory was a huge influence on the concept of the Stadtguerilla ("urban guerilla").
The thing is, Germany is not Cuba. During the heyday of the RAF, it was a state full of labor aristocracy, with social security systems still intact and unions still powerful bargainers, with the SPD having its greatest electoral successes since decades. Even though the oil crisis shook those foundations, workers did not live in the conditions you see in countries with successful revolutionary projects. They did not see themselves as opressed revolutionary subjects, but as people who enjoyed representation and a share of the wealth they were producing. The RAF always had its support largely in academic petit bourges, not among the working class, which was also bombarded with highly effective reactionary propaganda courtesy of Axel Springer and the BILD tabloid, a blight upon German mass media till this day. The unrest seen at that time and the decade prior to it could not bridge that class and ideology divide, and it was also in many ways rooted in idealist, ultimately liberal mindsets that gave rise not to a revolutionary class, but to what later became the Green neo-libs.
Good text, albeit a bit fun since Lenin's group during the early 1917 was very small and close to every point thrown at others was thrown at him or could be seen with him, till the trend shifted over the course of the Russian revolution.
Che’s Foco honestly does not seem theoretically sound and also didn’t result in successful revolution in the other places Che himself tried it, Cuba was in a pretty unique position to where any number of people might have been able to waltz in and seize power, Fidel and Che were lucky enough to be the ones that happened to do so.
Interesting take, I don't know enough about where it was tried, or Foco itself. My feeling is that not everyone would'be been able to lead the prolonged peoples battle on Cuba and kept the reaction down though.
It seems a whole lot like trying a protracted people’s war without getting the people on board first. I once read a pretty long and in depth analysis about it that was pretty interesting, I think written by some Trotskyist.
"Was there really any chance of this working in west-Germany?"
There never was a better one since the early 1920s, and it still failed. Countercultural left movements where about as big in Germany as they where in the US or France, there where larger than ever numbers of disenfranchised young people fed up with the postwar order, an amount of activism unprecedented in West Germany, everybody asking their parents and grandparents uncomfortable questions about what they did during the war. While former Nazi-Bonzen still dominated politics, economy, law, academia and the media. Many of the RAF's targets where selected specifically because they where elites with a nazi background that had gotten off scott free after WW2. Baader and Meinhoff where convinced that targeting these figures would spark something like the Cuban revolution, which had also been carried out by a tiny core group of a mere 200 revolutionaries. Ché's Foco theory was a huge influence on the concept of the Stadtguerilla ("urban guerilla").
The thing is, Germany is not Cuba. During the heyday of the RAF, it was a state full of labor aristocracy, with social security systems still intact and unions still powerful bargainers, with the SPD having its greatest electoral successes since decades. Even though the oil crisis shook those foundations, workers did not live in the conditions you see in countries with successful revolutionary projects. They did not see themselves as opressed revolutionary subjects, but as people who enjoyed representation and a share of the wealth they were producing. The RAF always had its support largely in academic petit bourges, not among the working class, which was also bombarded with highly effective reactionary propaganda courtesy of Axel Springer and the BILD tabloid, a blight upon German mass media till this day. The unrest seen at that time and the decade prior to it could not bridge that class and ideology divide, and it was also in many ways rooted in idealist, ultimately liberal mindsets that gave rise not to a revolutionary class, but to what later became the Green neo-libs.
I don't think you win the support of labour aristocracy with that kind of terrorism. I just don't see how that translates into mass support.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/jun/09.htm
Good text, albeit a bit fun since Lenin's group during the early 1917 was very small and close to every point thrown at others was thrown at him or could be seen with him, till the trend shifted over the course of the Russian revolution.
Mao was pretty against adventurism as well.
BILD hat mitgeschossen
Enteignet Springer!
Che’s Foco honestly does not seem theoretically sound and also didn’t result in successful revolution in the other places Che himself tried it, Cuba was in a pretty unique position to where any number of people might have been able to waltz in and seize power, Fidel and Che were lucky enough to be the ones that happened to do so.
Interesting take, I don't know enough about where it was tried, or Foco itself. My feeling is that not everyone would'be been able to lead the prolonged peoples battle on Cuba and kept the reaction down though.
It seems a whole lot like trying a protracted people’s war without getting the people on board first. I once read a pretty long and in depth analysis about it that was pretty interesting, I think written by some Trotskyist.
deleted by creator