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Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies
In this first comprehensive comparison of left-wing violence in the United States and West Germany, Jeremy Varon focuses on America's Weather Underground and Germany's Red Army Faction to consider how and why young, middle-class radicals in prosperous democratic societies turned to armed struggle in efforts to overthrow their states. Based on a wealth of primary material, ranging from interviews to FBI reports, this book reconstructs the motivation and ideology of violent organizations active during the 1960s and 1970s. Varon conveys the intense passions of the era--the heat of moral purpose, the depth of Utopian longing, the sense of danger and despair, and the exhilaration over temporary triumphs. Varon's compelling interpretation of the logic and limits of dissent in democratic societies provides striking insights into the role of militancy in contemporary protest movements and has wide implications for the United States' current "war on terrorism."
Varon explores Weatherman and RAF's strong similarities and the reasons why radicals in different settings developed a shared set of values, languages, and strategies. Addressing the relationship of historical memory to political action, Varon demonstrates how Germany's fascist past influenced the brutal and escalating nature of the West German conflict in the 60s and 70s, as well as the reasons why left-wing violence dropped sharply in the United States during the 1970s. Bringing the War Home is a fascinating account of why violence develops within social movements, how states can respond to radical dissent and forms of terror, how the rational and irrational can combine in political movements, and finally how moral outrage and militancy can play both constructive and destructive roles in efforts at social change.
Varon explores Weatherman and RAF's strong similarities and the reasons why radicals in different settings developed a shared set of values, languages, and strategies. Addressing the relationship of historical memory to political action, Varon demonstrates how Germany's fascist past influenced the brutal and escalating nature of the West German conflict in the 60s and 70s, as well as the reasons why left-wing violence dropped sharply in the United States during the 1970s. Bringing the War Home is a fascinating account of why violence develops within social movements, how states can respond to radical dissent and forms of terror, how the rational and irrational can combine in political movements, and finally how moral outrage and militancy can play both constructive and destructive roles in efforts at social change.
424 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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October 9, 2022
In his book, Jeremy Varon explores why factions of the American and German New Left degraded and followed the path of insanity and terrorism in the late sixties and early seventies. He focuses on the Weather Underground, which emerged after the disbandment of Students for a Democratic Society, and the Red Army Faction, a faction of the German counterpart of SDS.
Drawing upon first-hand sources, such as interviews, and upon other historical works, the author tells the story of the Weathermen's recovery from the SDS's failure and split. Established as an organization whose objective was to bring attention to and correct social and political issues such as poverty and disastrous foreign policy, SDS embraced "let people decide" as its motto and promoted the idea that if Americans organized for non-violent protests, they could improve the situation. Then the government got involved in the Vietnam conflict, and the SDS leaders organized the first mass demonstrations against this involvement, which turned the organization into a student movement. It was this development that drew the attention of leftist groups and wanna-be charismatic leaders to SDS. Trotskyists, Communists, and others turned what should have been an organization dedicated to participatory democracy into a group of factions loosely connected by Marxist ideology and Third-World rhetoric.
The Weathermen in particular made it their objective to prove that they were more Third Worldist and activist than everyone else. They armed themselves with a mutually opportunistic alliance with the Black Panthers and set about to show that they could do more than just speak at meetings. Adopting a militant attitude and screaming anti-imperialist statements, they called the American youth a "revolutionary youth movement" and urged it to confront the System, choosing the Chicago police as its first target in the Days of Rage.
The Days of Rage witnessed a weak attendance. The young revolutionaries did not come, and the Weathermen, barely three hundred of them, found themselves alone in their football helmets, yelling against Chicago's policemen. While pedestrians wondered what was going on, the policemen detained demonstrators, the majority of who subsequently jumped bail and fled the area.
After the failure in Chicago, the few remaining dedicated Weathermen regrouped, went underground, and engaged in abusive behavior and sexual exploitation of one another. They also carried out a few pointless acts, such as the Greenwich townhouse explosion. The Weather Underground was quickly forgotten, especially after the Vietnam conflict ended. Years later, some of the Weathermen leaders wrote memoirs.
The history of the Red Army Faction was even stranger. Although German SDS was a second-rate protest movement because the real action happened in America, the government of West Germany was an ally of the American government, which motivated German students to protest against it and the elites of the new German Federal Republic. The RAF was a small faction, comprised of about a hundred people, that was former in 1968. Unlike the Weather Underground, whose members were mostly American students trying to look like tough guerrillas, the RAF were real terrorists. Their actions were so wrong that they lost any potential to gain support and had to go underground. Blinded by its ambition to become a "new Red Army" of urban guerrillas, who would expose the democratic facade that disguised a semi-fascist regime in West Germany, the RAF is remembered as a gang that did little aside from robbing banks, planting bombs in crowded places, and killing innocent people.
According to the author, the student radicals eventually learned that the most effective way to attract attention and receive support was to use tactics that would make them victims of excessive government repression. However, this worker only in particular circumstances. For instance, police brutality and the violation of basic human rights during the Kent State shootings led a large number of people to mistrust the government, but when the Weathermen tried to provoke a similar reaction with the Days of Rage, Americans were not impressed.
The RAF tried to make use of the fact that the new German Republic, its memory of the vulnerability of the Weimar regime still fresh, would be quick to crack down on a semi-terrorist organization. This is why RAF leaders went as far as killing themselves in prison to make it seem like they had been murdered by the state, and the less fanatic German radicals were forced to defend the terrorist group against the government, which resulted in chaos in the movement. Those who knew what the RAF was doing eventually started disliking it and considering its members criminals.
The main drawback of Varon's analysis is that it does not explain why several hundred American youngsters from mostly upper-middle-class families became Weathermen and how a hundred weird Germans made the RAF happen. The American involvement in Vietnam and Marxism influenced the student activists of the sixties and seventies, but they did not explain the Weather Underground and the Red Army Faction.
BRINGING THE WAR HOME is still an informative and well-written account. Most importantly, Varon has chosen a subject that is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago. This book will be of interest not only to those who want to learn about the student radicals.
Drawing upon first-hand sources, such as interviews, and upon other historical works, the author tells the story of the Weathermen's recovery from the SDS's failure and split. Established as an organization whose objective was to bring attention to and correct social and political issues such as poverty and disastrous foreign policy, SDS embraced "let people decide" as its motto and promoted the idea that if Americans organized for non-violent protests, they could improve the situation. Then the government got involved in the Vietnam conflict, and the SDS leaders organized the first mass demonstrations against this involvement, which turned the organization into a student movement. It was this development that drew the attention of leftist groups and wanna-be charismatic leaders to SDS. Trotskyists, Communists, and others turned what should have been an organization dedicated to participatory democracy into a group of factions loosely connected by Marxist ideology and Third-World rhetoric.
The Weathermen in particular made it their objective to prove that they were more Third Worldist and activist than everyone else. They armed themselves with a mutually opportunistic alliance with the Black Panthers and set about to show that they could do more than just speak at meetings. Adopting a militant attitude and screaming anti-imperialist statements, they called the American youth a "revolutionary youth movement" and urged it to confront the System, choosing the Chicago police as its first target in the Days of Rage.
The Days of Rage witnessed a weak attendance. The young revolutionaries did not come, and the Weathermen, barely three hundred of them, found themselves alone in their football helmets, yelling against Chicago's policemen. While pedestrians wondered what was going on, the policemen detained demonstrators, the majority of who subsequently jumped bail and fled the area.
After the failure in Chicago, the few remaining dedicated Weathermen regrouped, went underground, and engaged in abusive behavior and sexual exploitation of one another. They also carried out a few pointless acts, such as the Greenwich townhouse explosion. The Weather Underground was quickly forgotten, especially after the Vietnam conflict ended. Years later, some of the Weathermen leaders wrote memoirs.
The history of the Red Army Faction was even stranger. Although German SDS was a second-rate protest movement because the real action happened in America, the government of West Germany was an ally of the American government, which motivated German students to protest against it and the elites of the new German Federal Republic. The RAF was a small faction, comprised of about a hundred people, that was former in 1968. Unlike the Weather Underground, whose members were mostly American students trying to look like tough guerrillas, the RAF were real terrorists. Their actions were so wrong that they lost any potential to gain support and had to go underground. Blinded by its ambition to become a "new Red Army" of urban guerrillas, who would expose the democratic facade that disguised a semi-fascist regime in West Germany, the RAF is remembered as a gang that did little aside from robbing banks, planting bombs in crowded places, and killing innocent people.
According to the author, the student radicals eventually learned that the most effective way to attract attention and receive support was to use tactics that would make them victims of excessive government repression. However, this worker only in particular circumstances. For instance, police brutality and the violation of basic human rights during the Kent State shootings led a large number of people to mistrust the government, but when the Weathermen tried to provoke a similar reaction with the Days of Rage, Americans were not impressed.
The RAF tried to make use of the fact that the new German Republic, its memory of the vulnerability of the Weimar regime still fresh, would be quick to crack down on a semi-terrorist organization. This is why RAF leaders went as far as killing themselves in prison to make it seem like they had been murdered by the state, and the less fanatic German radicals were forced to defend the terrorist group against the government, which resulted in chaos in the movement. Those who knew what the RAF was doing eventually started disliking it and considering its members criminals.
The main drawback of Varon's analysis is that it does not explain why several hundred American youngsters from mostly upper-middle-class families became Weathermen and how a hundred weird Germans made the RAF happen. The American involvement in Vietnam and Marxism influenced the student activists of the sixties and seventies, but they did not explain the Weather Underground and the Red Army Faction.
BRINGING THE WAR HOME is still an informative and well-written account. Most importantly, Varon has chosen a subject that is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago. This book will be of interest not only to those who want to learn about the student radicals.
March 30, 2014
Three good pamphlets on the Weather, the RAF, and revolutionary violence, but Varon doesn't really pull them together. That didn't bother me, since I'm independently interested in each of those three pamphlets; it might bother someone who was actually looking for comparative history.
But, unusually, he does a great job bringing out the emotional and intellectual roots of both groups' turn to violence. He argues that the Weather Underground ended up where they did because they wanted to oppose the war; help radical African-American movements; and renounce their *structural privilege*. Combine this with the general sixties fascination with transgression, and the desire to shock, and you end up with a pretty good basis for violent action. For the RAF, on the other hand, he lays more emphasis on a possible desire to compensate for the lack of German opposition to the Nazis, and to break the chain of German guilt.
Intellectually, both groups thought themselves into a corner, as did many sixites (soi disant) Marxists: violence was thought to change one's subjectivity and break internalized norms; it would function as an example for the Revolutionary Subject of working class youth, or as a sign to anti-imperialists in Vietnam or other non-Western countries that the white middle class was with them. Violence was also a way to prove one's authenticity, realness, aliveness and various other nonsensical existentialist qualities.
So far from being pathological in any way, these two groups are perfectly comprehensible.
Varon doesn't point out--probably for good reason--that most of their assumptions still circulate on the left, only instead of leading people to bomb empty buildings, they lead to constant online bickering and complaining that x isn't aware enough of his/her privilege; to endless, boring attempts epater the bourgeoisie; and they end up essentially immobilizing a large number of people who want to make the world a better place, but can't, because to suggest that you have an idea that might help someone else would be so crypto-imperialistic, unless they happened to have that idea too. Let's just hope the current, internet-enabled, low-intensity criticism-self-criticism sessions don't end up driving everyone (back) into the arms of the usual political villains.
But, unusually, he does a great job bringing out the emotional and intellectual roots of both groups' turn to violence. He argues that the Weather Underground ended up where they did because they wanted to oppose the war; help radical African-American movements; and renounce their *structural privilege*. Combine this with the general sixties fascination with transgression, and the desire to shock, and you end up with a pretty good basis for violent action. For the RAF, on the other hand, he lays more emphasis on a possible desire to compensate for the lack of German opposition to the Nazis, and to break the chain of German guilt.
Intellectually, both groups thought themselves into a corner, as did many sixites (soi disant) Marxists: violence was thought to change one's subjectivity and break internalized norms; it would function as an example for the Revolutionary Subject of working class youth, or as a sign to anti-imperialists in Vietnam or other non-Western countries that the white middle class was with them. Violence was also a way to prove one's authenticity, realness, aliveness and various other nonsensical existentialist qualities.
So far from being pathological in any way, these two groups are perfectly comprehensible.
Varon doesn't point out--probably for good reason--that most of their assumptions still circulate on the left, only instead of leading people to bomb empty buildings, they lead to constant online bickering and complaining that x isn't aware enough of his/her privilege; to endless, boring attempts epater the bourgeoisie; and they end up essentially immobilizing a large number of people who want to make the world a better place, but can't, because to suggest that you have an idea that might help someone else would be so crypto-imperialistic, unless they happened to have that idea too. Let's just hope the current, internet-enabled, low-intensity criticism-self-criticism sessions don't end up driving everyone (back) into the arms of the usual political villains.
January 30, 2008
The author is obviously sympathetic, and when it comes to the u.s.a. (from what i can see) his research seems good. When it comes to the Red Army Faction, he just doesn't seem to have done enough research.
Perhaps this is not fair, though, as really this book is an appraisal of the question of revolutionary morality, and when violence is useful, and when it is moral, holding New Left armed groups up to the ideals of the New Left. The problem with this approach is that it
(1) assumes a kind of 20-20 hindsight morality, so that it does not so much reject "ends-means" logic as it does rely (lazily) on the fact that the revolutionaries failed to achieve their ends. And,
2) it ignores imperialism in the equation, it ignores the splits within the New Left over questions of nation and labour aristocracy, and as such it fails to grasp the desperate context and stakes within which the guerilla saw itself operating.
This book is still worth reading in order to prod your brain about these questions of violence, but as a way of understanding the guerilla or (even worst) learning about the RAF or WUO, it is just not a good resource.
Perhaps this is not fair, though, as really this book is an appraisal of the question of revolutionary morality, and when violence is useful, and when it is moral, holding New Left armed groups up to the ideals of the New Left. The problem with this approach is that it
(1) assumes a kind of 20-20 hindsight morality, so that it does not so much reject "ends-means" logic as it does rely (lazily) on the fact that the revolutionaries failed to achieve their ends. And,
2) it ignores imperialism in the equation, it ignores the splits within the New Left over questions of nation and labour aristocracy, and as such it fails to grasp the desperate context and stakes within which the guerilla saw itself operating.
This book is still worth reading in order to prod your brain about these questions of violence, but as a way of understanding the guerilla or (even worst) learning about the RAF or WUO, it is just not a good resource.
October 19, 2018
Varon compares and contrasts the Weathermen and the Red Army Faction in a way that is at some times difficult to follow because he splits the text in two halves and focuses one part on either group. This did not seem like an efficient way of analyzing both movements and how they related to one another. The text seems heavily weighted about the Weathermen, with one more chapter about the American movement than the Red Army Faction. Moreover, the title is a nod to the Weathermen’s slogan, “Bring the war home,” from 1969-70, possibly showing Varon’s favoritism of the Weathermen (157). A shorter chapter experience with specific subjects for each chapter comparing and contrasting the movements might have been more efficient. Still, the introduction and conclusion lay out many of these examples, the reader just has to analyze the larger sections in order to find the details and evidence for the anecdotes.
May 16, 2017
Varon compares the Weather Underground in the United States and the Red Army Faction in West Germany, as some who had come up in the New Left turned to revolutionary armed struggle through guerilla tactics, at a point of the New Left’s height but shortly before its decline. Groups like SDS and student unions in West Germany split over questions of mass organizing versus violence. Dozens to hundreds of small groups engaged in nearly 2800 attacks from January 1969-April 1970 alone. Both groups took to violent action and remained in the public imagination in forms. The first chapter deals with situation where the antiwar movement and Black Power pushed many middle class whites into action, even as social movements stalled. The following three chapters deal with the Weather Underground, and then the next two touch on the Red Army Faction. It concludes with comparison of the two groups legacies.
Key Themes and Concepts:
-The groups privileged the national liberation movements of the Third World (which included minority struggles of Black and Puerto Rican groups), and saw themselves doing support by bringing pressure on home regimes. They believed that by simply existing, they were helping third world struggles.
-The Weather Underground’s violence was generally nonlethal and more self reflective. Though the group’s initial beginnings contained abusive attempts at breaking off individuality, after the Days of Rage, and the death of 3 Weathermen in a bombing accident the group turned to bombing property and tried to avoid fatalities, though they pushed themselves to take more and more extreme positions and actions in its early days. Their stated goals were opposition to the Vietnam War and support for the Black Panther Party. Eventually, the group moved to arguing in favor of mass organizing, renouncing its earlier denunciation of the white workers. Even while underground, it attracted hundreds of sympathizers who kept them hidden, and notably, they abandoned earlier extreme brutality of breaking each other’s individuality, as each other’s care became more important. The group voluntarily gave up as the persecution of the group tapered off because of earlier FBI abuses. Most of its members spent little time in jail, with a few exception.
-The RAF saw itself as rebelling against its parents generation that accepted or participated in fascism, and that the FRG was a continuation of Nazism. The FRG saw that groups like RAF were a danger to liberal democracy and harshly cracked down on the small group, which helped push many Germans to question the need for extreme security. The RAF was not shy about carrying out assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings. Their position was abstract, and quickly turned into a war to free RAF prisoners (who were treated harshly by the FRG), than anything else. The continued their campaign into the 1980s, only disbanding in 1998 after renouncing violence with the reunification in 1992. The RAF was seared into the collective memory of West Germans, unlike the Weather Underground.
Key Themes and Concepts:
-The groups privileged the national liberation movements of the Third World (which included minority struggles of Black and Puerto Rican groups), and saw themselves doing support by bringing pressure on home regimes. They believed that by simply existing, they were helping third world struggles.
-The Weather Underground’s violence was generally nonlethal and more self reflective. Though the group’s initial beginnings contained abusive attempts at breaking off individuality, after the Days of Rage, and the death of 3 Weathermen in a bombing accident the group turned to bombing property and tried to avoid fatalities, though they pushed themselves to take more and more extreme positions and actions in its early days. Their stated goals were opposition to the Vietnam War and support for the Black Panther Party. Eventually, the group moved to arguing in favor of mass organizing, renouncing its earlier denunciation of the white workers. Even while underground, it attracted hundreds of sympathizers who kept them hidden, and notably, they abandoned earlier extreme brutality of breaking each other’s individuality, as each other’s care became more important. The group voluntarily gave up as the persecution of the group tapered off because of earlier FBI abuses. Most of its members spent little time in jail, with a few exception.
-The RAF saw itself as rebelling against its parents generation that accepted or participated in fascism, and that the FRG was a continuation of Nazism. The FRG saw that groups like RAF were a danger to liberal democracy and harshly cracked down on the small group, which helped push many Germans to question the need for extreme security. The RAF was not shy about carrying out assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings. Their position was abstract, and quickly turned into a war to free RAF prisoners (who were treated harshly by the FRG), than anything else. The continued their campaign into the 1980s, only disbanding in 1998 after renouncing violence with the reunification in 1992. The RAF was seared into the collective memory of West Germans, unlike the Weather Underground.
March 1, 2020
Very very good monograph on the way the New Left in the U.S. and West Germany followed paths that took them deeper and deeper into "revolutionary violence." Varon, founder and editor of the excellent journal The Sixties, is equally adept at parsing the intellectual and political logics that sometimes ran parallel in the two settings and, especially as the Sixties gave way to the Seventies, diverged. Varon avoids the revisionist trap of condemning the obvious mistakes in a way that ignores the contextual justifications. He's excellent on the racial politics and the internal contradictions of Weatherman. I didn't know as much about the Red Army Faction and the book deepened my understandings of the European crosscurrents.
Published more than 20 years ago, Bringing the War Home stands up to anything published in the interim. Crucial to anyone who wants to really understand the weirdness of Sixties radical politics.
Published more than 20 years ago, Bringing the War Home stands up to anything published in the interim. Crucial to anyone who wants to really understand the weirdness of Sixties radical politics.
August 18, 2013
really good! i've read other books on the weatherman and wanted to read this one to get more familiar with the raf. but i recommend this even if you know nothing about either. this book is important because, while not glorifying the violence of these groups, it explains very thoroughly why a turn to violence was attractive to activists based on their views of the nature of the state and the state of the movement. very thorough and very entertaining.
May 6, 2010
Varon gives the pretty straight story of two extreme radical groups - one from the US, the other from Germany - and their journey from protest to violence. His conclusions are not wrong, if not mind-blowing. I hungered for even more analysis, however. There are some intimations of how the different societies in the two countries both effected and were effected by the groups, and (as he points out) the US case is so often held apart from comparative works, but perhaps adding a third site to his work would have given him the courage to make even more daring conclusions.
September 24, 2007
I found this book very interesting and well-written, but ultimately didn't finish it I think because it was a little more academic than I was hoping. Once I had the story pretty much down I didn't need as detailed an analysis as this offered. I'd recommend it though.
February 19, 2008
Well argued--poorly researched on the German half.
Read
April 21, 2013Reads like a dissertation, but covers an interesting topic.
Read
September 24, 2015A comparative work detailing the similarities and differences of German and American society in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as between the two terrorist organizations.*
October 29, 2019
A good read - scores points for being up front about the ideology presented, but loses points for sometimes getting too into the whole thing.
March 6, 2021
great soundtrack
December 7, 2007
This makes fascinating reading. I was suprised to find out that the Nixon administration was genuinely worried by the protestors and demonstrations, esp. the Weathermen (even though Tricky Dicky pretended to be watching football while they were going on outside). So at least the threat of violence helped to stoke that worry. I was very dispirited after the 2004 protests against Bush in New York after marching all day. But I was delighted to see that we may have equalled the numbers of the Nov 1969 march, as many as 800,000. It sure felt like a cool million to me. And I think we also chnged public opinion in the country, eventually. The wars change, and the names of the leaders, but the imperative to resist them stays the same.
August 13, 2007
This book examines the pitfalls that await many nationalized organizations, especially those based on students. The book takes a mostly non-morality based look at revolutionary violence and instead puts it in the context of long term-effectiveness.
March 28, 2008
This one sucks all of the mystique out of sixties radical clog dancing without eschewing the groups' basic, non-fanatical ideals underneath the surface.
July 29, 2011
Very unpleasent read.
March 8, 2013
8,5/10
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews