The Future of the Idea of 1968

Declaration of the Deutsche Kolleg (www.deutsches-kolleg.org/)

1. The idea which forms the basis of past events has a future if, on the one hand, its Being appeared in the past and manifested itself as an action-thought (i.e. as idea) and if, on the other hand, it is perceived in the present only as a bundle of deeds in which substantial and unsubstantial matters cannot be distinguished. The events of 1968 and their evaluation are characterised to this day by their being considered as opposites of positive and negative, where a third view does not seem to exist. The German uprising of 1968 had sufficient grounds which need to be explored if it is to be understood.

2. The magnitude of a historical Being can be seen in the intensity with which its appearance influences posterity. The denunciation campaign against participants of the uprising of 1968 in the government of the FRG, is a multiply reflected appearance which, owing to the fact that the Being of an idea appears in the appearance, hits the right people, namely the traitors of the 1968 idea: the chieftains of the Spontaneous Anarchists ("Spontis") who lack all theories and the Communist dogmatists of the 1970s. The 70s were the decade of the social-democratic Communist counter-revolution; this was then inherited by the capitalistic reaction of the 1980s.

3. According to its historical Being, the German `68 was the second uprising against an occupying power since the 17th of June 1953. In accordance with the principle cuius regio eius oeconomia, the occupying powers imposed their obsolete systems of economy, politics and conviction (under violation of the Peoples' right) onto their respective zones of occupation. The student uprising of 1968 in West Berlin and West Germany, against America and capitalism, was led by Central German students with the help of young academic fellow travellers of the West Zone (who often reproached their fathers of having been fellow travellers in the Third Reich as well as in Adenauer's FRG).

4. According to Klaus Mehnert, 1968 was the first world revolution in history. It was undertaken by the youth of the industrial states against capitalism's monetary rule, against its American-Israeli stronghold and for the Realm of Freedom. It was a successful seizure of verbal power, whose words in future first need to be understood by the German People, and then by the other Peoples of the world; otherwise, they will be unable to proceed to the seizure of power and to finally seize possession of their own countries. If, however, they become enabled to seize power, then the Fourth Age of Power will be initiated in the great Peoples of the world by the Fourth German Reich, where the Spirit rules and money, which ruled in the Third Age of Power, will be broken. The Realm of Freedom began with the world revolution of 1968 insofar as it was the victorious seizure of verbal power which will lead to the future seizure of power and possession of the Spirit as the Fourth Age of Power. But the meaning has yet to be correctly grasped, the words which have been heard yet need to be properly understood.

5. The struggle for the inner meaning of 1968, which has been fought for decades and which has currently broken out again, is a struggle for the continuation of the capitalistic economic system and for parliamentarianism as the political form in which money rules the world. The ideological defenders of monetary rule try to obscure the sense of `68 to the best of their abilities, and attempt to falsely attribute the counter-revolution of the 70s as well as the Americanisms of the sympathising youth of the Western Zone to the revolutionaries of `68. The ideological safeguarding of the capitalist rule of money is dependant on the success of this intensive propaganda of obscuring the meaning of 1968. If this smokescreen is torn down, then the seizure of verbal power of `68 will become virulent again, and the immediate task of breaking capitalism, i.e. the rule of money, will again be clear to the developed Peoples of the world. The situation will become dangerous and problematic for the powers in the background, who direct the destiny of the world through the streams of capital which they steer. For when the priority of the self-economies of the Peoples over the market economy is re-established after the next world crisis, the market on the whole, and as such also the capital market, will be put back into the marginal position to which it belongs.


6. The true, i.e. world-revolutionary, `68 begins in April 1965 with Rudi Dutschke determining the fixed-point of the strategy. Determined as this fixed-point, which was to be the starting point of the strategy, was the ultimate goal of the technological process which even then was clearly recognisable, and today is obvious: the "tendency of total unemployment" (R. Dutschke, Geschichte ist machbar, ed. Miermeister, Berlin 1980, p. 32) with simultaneous unemployed production. With this, the disappearance of the working class was presupposed. In developed countries, the revolution could now no longer be burdened onto the industrial workers. The tasks of the revolution had to be assumed by those who had the confidence to do so.

7. In such a situation, the ruling class is for the first time in world history no longer ordained to be the one which is fed by the masses, but on the contrary, the rulers have to feed the ruled. Rule now has a different meaning and content. Suppression no longer serves the privation of added value. Intellectual life itself is drowned in the sea of stupidities. Maintenance of power has now become the single focus of the rulers. Abstract power, however, is the self-abolition of the rule which has become abstract and has thus lost all its significance. The relationship between the rulers and the ruled has dialectically completely changed, and it is in this sense that the theoreticians of `68 always spoke of the end of the rule of man over (other) men, of self-determination and also of democracy qua self-determination of the Peoples as well as each individual person. For each person to be able to lead a self-determined life within his respectively self-determined People, was, is and always will be the ideal of all who feel committed to the idea of 1968.

8. In those days this Dutschkistic strategy was boldest utopia, which today is understood by many intelligent people. Due to the technical-industrial and scientific revolutions of the past decades Dutschkism has become even more comprehensible. It will determine all programmes and strategies of the twenty-first century. In all these strategies the rational organisation of the Realm of Necessity and as such the material provision of each People will only be the preliminary task, the organisation and structuring of the Realm of Freedom, however, will be the main task.

9. The International Vietnam Congress which was organised by the SDS (Socialist German Students' Union) in February 1968 at the Technical University in West Berlin, was world historically the first internationale of the national revolutionaries. Our solidarity was with the Vietnamese revolution, the Vietnamese war for reunification, i.e. with a national revolution and not with conservativist, liberalist, socialist or other revolutions of a certain class. The categorical imperative that followed from this was quite rightly: "It is the duty of a revolutionary, to make the revolution happen!" We ourselves were the German revolutionaries, and the Communist students harvested derision whenever they drew our attention to the workers or even to trade union work.

10. It was against this national revolutionary principle of `68 that the social-democratic Communist counter-revolution arose in the 70s. In an ever reactionary fashion and with the double blade of reform and revolution, they posited the working class as the subject of history. It was confirmed in this by the farseeing powers of the conservatives and liberals, who in the revival of the class-struggle scheme sensed the chance for a revitalisation of their class rule, which indeed came about in the 1980s.

11. The counter-revolution of the 70s created the scene of the "Spontis" as a movement comprised out of the ruins of the losers, i.e. the hotchpotch of those fellow travellers of the Western Zone who were part of `68, but failed to return from this revolutionary awakening into the normality of the FRG. The national revolutionary line of the original `68 was maintained and continued to be persecuted in the successor organisations of the SDS. The Waffen-SDS (Red Army Fraction) took up the armed struggle and despite all tactical misjudgements and judicial mistakes, also hit legitimate targets of any national struggle of liberation. This manifested itself in assassinations of military personnel of the occupying power, in attacks against German collaborators and in the murder of a person who had betrayed the national revolutionary volksgemeinschaft to the interests of a class.

12. A further exponent of the national revolutionary line of the 70s was the Theory-SDS which continued to follow the theoretical programme of 1968 and brought it to a close in the mid 1980s. The national right-wing was then increasingly influenced by the original `68 movement with anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism from 1985 onwards, due to an alliance which had still been prepared by Dutschke. From 1990 onwards, the anti-capitalist moment increased as a result of the influx of Central German youths, who impressively defended themselves against the racially alien substitute occupiers in the folk-uprisings of Hoyerswerda and Rostock-Lichtenhagen. In the first half of the 90s the Theory-SDS introduced a programme and a theory to the awakening German national movement, which is based on the perfected theory of `68. The Theory-SDS reconstituted itself as the Deutsches Kolleg, as an educational institution of the national liberation movement of the Germans, which merged theory and terror – the weapon of theory and the theory of the weapon – in the year 2000. Both in its negative presupposition – the struggle of national liberation against the occupying power of monetary rule – as well as in its positive perspective – the organisation of the Realm of Freedom –, the idea of `68 contains an instruction of procedure for the German People (as well as all the other Peoples) which is rich in tradition, sated with the present and filled with the future.

13. Each nationalism begins at the many borders of its own nation, at the other nations, and as such as internationalism. Similarly, in economic life the market starts off at the boundary of the communities; it starts as a world market and has the inner market, which penetrates deeper and deeper inwardly and which ultimately necessitates the differentiated power of inland customs duty, as its final result. Nationalism is the truth of internationalism. Measure is the idea of Being.

14. The oldest and most despicable traitor of the `68 idea amongst the current members of the FRG government is Otto Schily. He is attempting to push the ban of the NPD through precisely because this party, which in 1968 still stood firmly behind the American occupying power and the capitalistic system of exploitation, has moved onto the most resolute anti-capitalist and anti-American course. This new political course of the NPD is borne by the German youth, in particular by the Central German youth. With the deployment of special units of the German Border Police, Schily has now spoken out a "Declaration of War against our Offspring" (Die Welt, 20.02.2001, p. 10). Dutschkism continues to live in this youth, whose feelings revolt against a system which in April 1968 managed to get a young worker from Saxony-Anhalt to shoot Rudi Dutschke.

15. Each person who is psychologically healthy, feels existential disgust towards capitalism, i.e. the rule of money. This disgust is insurmountable. Against this disgust, as well as the desire for salvation, capitalism will fail. Probably more ignominiously than Communism did.

DEUTSCHES KOLLEG http://www.deutsches-kolleg.org/