Social Revolutionary Terrorism As the twin of nationalist-separatist terrorism, social revolutionary terrorism gained traction around the same time period, but its origins date back to the late nineteenth century. Anarchist terrorism is the predecessor to what is currently known as social revolutionary terrorism. It began with the ideology of “propaganda of the deed” which was originally introduced by Carlo Piscane in 1857 and then eventually adopted and expanded by the Russian revolutionary, Pyotr Kropotkin in 1887. The goals of social revolutionary terrorism were akin to those of national-separatist; autonomy. Social revolutionary terrorist desired economic and social retribution and were not above extreme violence to attain such.
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Founded in 1970, the Red Army Faction (originally the Baader-Meinhof Group) started as a student protest coalition in West Germany. These student groups protested and opposed some of the more modern social issues that arose, such as civil rights, racism, and anti-colonialism. Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, and Ulrike Meinhof founded the Red Army Faction after being convinced to go underground by Régis Debray, a close associate of Marxist revolutionary, Che Guevara. What inspired them originally was the wrongful murder of a fellow student, Benno Ohnesorg, by a plainclothes police officer in Germany. Ohnesorg became a martyr for the movement and represented the victims in the fight for justice. The motive of the Red Army Faction was to get the attention of the government and trigger a response just as violent and extreme as their attacks. The only weakness was that prospective members were disillusioned by the copious amounts of violence the organization resorted to.
In order to further their mission, the Red Army Faction took part in bank robberies to fund their cause, assassinations, kidnappings, shoot-outs, and bombings. As the organization evolved, the original ideologies were lost as new members joined and as the Soviet Union dissolved. The pivotal point in their decline was that three of the four founding members committed suicide while imprisoned. Eventually, the Red Army Faction disbanded in 1998 by sending a formal letter to Reuters
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Founded in 1970, the Red Army Faction (originally the Baader-Meinhof Group) started as a student protest coalition in West Germany. These student groups protested and opposed some of the more modern social issues that arose, such as civil rights, racism, and anti-colonialism. Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, and Ulrike Meinhof founded the Red Army Faction after being convinced to go underground by Régis Debray, a close associate of Marxist revolutionary, Che Guevara. What inspired them originally was the wrongful murder of a fellow student, Benno Ohnesorg, by a plainclothes police officer in Germany. Ohnesorg became a martyr for the movement and represented the victims in the fight for justice. The motive of the Red Army Faction was to get the attention of the government and trigger a response just as violent and extreme as their attacks. The only weakness was that prospective members were disillusioned by the copious amounts of violence the organization resorted to.
In order to further their mission, the Red Army Faction took part in bank robberies to fund their cause, assassinations, kidnappings, shoot-outs, and bombings. As the organization evolved, the original ideologies were lost as new members joined and as the Soviet Union dissolved. The pivotal point in their decline was that three of the four founding members committed suicide while imprisoned. Eventually, the Red Army Faction disbanded in 1998 by sending a formal letter to Reuters