The 'Red Brigades' (''Brigate Rosse'' in Italian, often abbreviated as the ''BR'') were a
terrorist group
[1] located in
Italy and active during the "
Years of Lead". Formed in
1970, the
Marxist-Leninist Red Brigades sought to create a
revolutionary state through
armed struggle and to separate Italy from the
Western Alliance (NATO). In
1978, the second groups of the BR, headed by
Mario Moretti, kidnapped the former Christian Democrat Prime Minister
Aldo Moro and murdered him 54 days later. The BR barely survived the end of the
Cold War following a split in 1984 and the arrest or flight of the majority of its members. In the 1980's, the group was disbanded by Italian investigators, also due to the fact that several leaders under arrest assisted the authorities in capturing the other members. A majority of such leaders took advantage of a law that gave credits for retracting the doctrine (''
pentito'' status) and contributing to the capture of members on the loose.
1970 foundation: the first BR generation
The Red Brigades were founded in August 1970 by
Renato Curcio, a student at the
University of Trento, his girlfriend Margherita Cagol (
Mara Cagol), and
Alberto Franceschini. Franceschini described in his 2005 book how he met with Renato Curcio and Corrado Simioni, nicknamed "The English" because of his eccentricity and "international connections". According to Franceschini (2005), the
Piazza Fontana bombing of December 1969 was a leading cause explaining the formation of the BR.
While the Trento group around Curcio had mainly roots in the Sociology Department of the Catholic University, the Reggio Emilia group (around Franceschini) included mostly members and former members of the Communist Youth movement (FGCI). In the beginning the Red Brigades were mainly active in
Reggio Emilia, and in large factories in
Milan, (such as Sit-Siemens, Pirelli and Magneti Marelli) and in
Turin (Fiat). Members sabotaged factory equipment and broke into factory offices and trade union headquarters. In 1972, they carried out their first kidnapping: a factory foreman who was held for some time but later released
[2].
During this time the Red Brigades' tactics and agenda split from other extreme left political groups, such as
Lotta Continua or
Potere Operaio (which were closer to the
Autonomist movement). The Red Brigades now became far more violent and organized than their contemporaries and began receiving direct and indirect aid from the
Czechoslovakian StB. In June 1974, the Red Brigades made its first lethal attack, against two members of the Italian neo-fascist party, ''
Movimento Sociale Italiano'' (MSI). After this it abandoned its non-clandestine political activities among workers
Nonetheless, the 1972 Peteano car-bomb attack, killing three policemen, was blamed for a long time on the BR, though it was later found that neo-fascist activist
Vincenzo Vinciguerra was the true culprit. After this bombing, Vinciguerra escaped to
Franquist Spain where he continued to organize terrorist attacks, in the frame of the
strategy of tension [3].
1974 arrest of BR founders and Corrado Simioni's "superclan"
In September
1974, Red Brigades founders Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini were arrested by General
Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, and sentenced to 18 years in prison. The arrest was made possible by "Frate Mitra," alias Silvano Girotto, a former monk who had infiltrated the BR for the Italian security services
[4]. Curcio was freed from prison by an armed commando of the Red Brigades, led by his wife Mara Cagol, but was rearrested some time later.
The Red Brigades then operated some high-profile political kidnappings (e.g. Genoa judge Mario Sossi) as well as kidnapping industrialists (e.g. Vallarino Gancia) in order to obtain ransom money, which was their main source of financing.
According to Franceschini, the death of publisher
Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, on March 15th, 1972, who blew himself up accidentally, while trying to dynamite electricity power installations near Milan, had left them like "orphans”, and sparked the more violent nature of the BRs' acts after 1972
. Curcio and Franceschini were released under the 1987 law on "dissociation". Franceschini also admitted the Red Brigades' involvement in the bombing of the US Embassy in Athens Greece, which
Corrado Simioni organized. Simioni also set up a secret group inside the Red Brigades, a sort of "
superclan". Franceschini alleged that Simioni was working on behalf of NATO (in reality, Corrado and Simioni were the same person) in a
false flag operation, citing Simioni's insistent proposal to assassinate
Junio Valerio Borghese in
November 1970 or another unattended request to murder two NATO agents
.
Mario Moretti then took the head of the BR, and organized
Aldo Moro's March 1978 kidnap. Moretti was suspected of being a
spy by Franceschini and Curcio
[5].
Expansion and radicalization of the BR
After 1974, the Red Brigades expanded into
Rome,
Genoa, and
Venice, and began to kidnap prominent individuals. Its 1975 manifesto stated that its goal was a "concentrated strike against the heart of the State, because the state is an imperialist collection of multinational corporations". The "SIM" (Stato Imperialista delle Multinazionali) became the target of its violent tirades, expressed in classical Marxist-Leninist jargon, which were however incomprehensible to most of public opinion, and often derided for their pretentious but vacuous wording.
In 1975, the Italian police discovered the farmhouse where industrialist Vallarino Gancia was kept prisoner by the Brigades (Cascina Spiotta). In the ensuing gunfight, two police officers were killed, as well as Mara Cagol, Curcio's wife. That following April, the Red Brigades announced that they had set up a Communist Combatant Party to "guide the working class." Terrorist activities, especially against
Carabinieri and
magistrates, increased considerably, in order to terrorize juries and cause mistrials in cases against imprisoned leaders of the organization. Also,since arrested members of the Brigades refused to be defended by lawyers, lawyers designated by the Courts to defend them ("difensori d' ufficio") were also targeted and killed.
Aldo Moro's Murder, 1978
Moro, photographed during his detention by the Red Brigades
In 1978, the Second BR, headed by
Mario Moretti, kidnapped and murdered Christian Democrat
Aldo Moro, who was the key figure in negotiations aimed at extending the Government's parliamentary majority, by attaining a
Historic Compromise ''("compromesso storico")'' between the
Italian Communist Party and the ''
Democrazia Cristiana''. A team of Red Brigades members, using stolen ''
Alitalia'' plane company uniforms, ambushed Moro, killed five of Moro’s bodyguards and took him captive.
Moro's captivity was used by the Brigades in order to try and obtain some kind of recognition by the Italian Government, as an "insurgency" movement. However, the Government refused to negotiate with Moro's captors, while the various Italian political forces took either a hard line ("linea della fermezza") or a more pragmatic approach ("linea del negoziato"). From his captivity, Moro sent desperate letters to his family, to his political friends, to the Pope, pleading for a negotiated outcome.
After holding Moro for 56 days, the Brigades realized that the Government would not negotiate and, fearful of being discovered, decided to kill their prisoner. They placed him in a car and told him to cover himself with a blanket. Mario Moretti then shot him ten times in the chest. Moro's body was left in the trunk of a car in Via Caetani, a site midway between the Christian Democratic Party and the Communist Party headquarters, as a last symbolic challenge to the police, who were keeping the entire nation, and Rome in particular, under strict surveillance. Moretti wrote in ''Brigate Rosse: una storia italiana'' that the murder of Moro was the ultimate expression of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary action. Original founder Alberto Franceschini wrote that those imprisoned members did not understand why Moro had been chosen as a target.
Aldo Moro's assassination caused a strong reaction against the Brigades by the Italian law enforcement and security forces. The murder of a popular political figure also drew condemnation from Italian left-wing radicals and even the imprisoned ex-leaders of the Brigades. The Brigades lost much of their (small) social following.
A crucial turning point was also the murder, in 1979, of Guido Rossa, a member of the PCI and a trade union organizer. Rossa had observed the distribution of BR propaganda and had reported those involved to the police; he was shot and killed by the Brigades, but this attack against a popular trade union organizer totally alienated the factory worker base to which the BR propaganda was primarily directed.
Also, Italian police made a large number of arrests in 1980: 12,000 far-left activists were detained while 300 fled to France and 200 to South America; a total of 600 people left Italy
[6]. Most leaders arrested (including, e.g., Faranda, Franceschini, Moretti, Morucci) either retracted their doctrine ("dissociati"), or collaborated with investigators in the capture of other BR members ("collaboratori di giustizia"), obtaining important reductions in prison sntences.
The most well-known "collaboratore di giustizia" was Patrizio Peci, one of the leaders of the Turin "column". As a vengeance, the Brigades assassinated, in 1981, his brother Roberto, in a type of retaliation which seemed to emulate mafia procedures. This murder also widely contributed to discrediting the movement.
Aldo Moro's assassination continues to haunt today's Italy, and remains a significant event of the Cold War. In the 1980s-1990s, a Commission headed by senator
Giovanni Pellegrino investigated acts of terrorism in Italy during the "years of lead," while various judicial investigations also took place, headed by
Guido Salvini and others magistrates
[7].
Kidnapping of Brigadier General Dozier
On
December 17,
1981, four members of the Red Brigades, posing as plumbers, invaded the
Verona apartment of
US Army Brigadier General James Lee Dozier, then
NATO Deputy Chief of Staff at Southern European land forces. The men kidnapped General Dozier and left his wife bound and chained in their apartment.
[2] He was held for 42 days until
January 28,
1982, when an Italian anti-terrorist team rescued him from an apartment in
Padua. Dozier was the first American general to be kidnapped by terrorists and the first foreigner kidnapped by the Red Brigades.
Red Brigades-PCC and Red Brigades-UCC 1984 split
In
1984, the Red Brigades had split into two factions: the majority faction of the ''Communist Combatant Party'' (Red Brigades-PCC) and the minority of the ''Union of Combatant Communists'' (Red Brigades-UCC). The same year, four imprisoned leaders, Curcio, Moretti, Iannelli and Bertolazzi, rejected the armed struggle as pointless.
Also in 1984, the Red Brigades claimed responsibility for the murder of
Leamon Hunt,
US chief of the
Sinai Multinational Force and Observer Group.
In the mid-eighties, arrests increased in Italy. In February 1986, the Red Brigades-PCC killed the ex-mayor of Florence Lando Conti . In March 1987, Red Brigades-UCC killed General
Licio Giorgieri in Rome. On
April 16 1988, in
Forlì, Red Brigades-PCC killed Italian senator
Roberto Ruffilli, an advisor of Italian
Prime Minister Ciriaco de Mita. After that, the group activities all but ended after massive arrests of its leadership. The BR dissolved themselves in 1988
[8].
Flight to France
In 1985 some Italian members living in France returned to Italy. The same year, French president
François Mitterrand guaranteed immunity from extradition to BR members living in France who had made a break with their past, were not condemned for violent crimes and had started a new life, The
Abbé Pierre allegedly convinced him to take this decision, according to the ''Corriere della Sera''
[9].
In 1998,
Bordeaux's
appeal court decided that
Sergio Tornaghi could not be extradited to Italy, on the grounds that Italian procedure would not let him be judged again, after a trial during his absence. In 2002, however, Paris extradited
Paolo Persichetti, an ex-member of the Red Brigades who was teaching sociology at university, signaling for the first time a departure from the "
Mitterrand doctrine". These extraditions in the 2000s overreached the sole case of the BR, with other, leftist activists exiled in France being researched by Italian justice. These have included
Antonio Negri's voluntary return to Italy and surrender to the justice,
Cesare Battisti, etc.
While leftists had mostly fled to France, many neofascist activists involved in the strategy of tension, such as
Vincenzo Vinciguerra or
Stefano Delle Chiaie, fled to
Spain; Delfo Zorzi, condemned for the ''
Piazza Fontana'' bombing, was granted asylum and citizenship in ''
Japan'', while others fled to Argentina (in particular Augusto Canchi, wanted by Italian justice for his role in the 1980
Bologna massacre [10]).
The issue of a general amnesty in Italy for these crimes is highly controversed. Most political forces oppose it and, in particular, the associations of victims of terrorism and their family members are adamantly against it ''
[3]''
New assassinations by new BR generation
A new group, with few links, if any, with the ancient BR, appeared in the late 1990s. The Red Brigades-PCC murdered in 1999 Massimo D'Antona, an advisor to the cabinet of Prime Minister
Massimo D'Alema. In
March 20,
2002 the same gun that was used to kill D'Antona was used to kill professor
Marco Biagi, an economic advisor to Italian
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The Red Brigades-PCC again claimed responsibility. On 3 March 2003 two followers, Mario Galesi and Nadia Desdemona Lioce, started a firefight with a police patrol on a train at Castiglion Fiorentino station, near Arezzo. Galesi and Emanuele Petri (one of the policemen) were killed, Lioce was arrested. In October 23 2003, Italian police arrested six members of the Red Brigades in early-dawn raids in Florence,
Sardinia, Rome and
Pisa in connection with the murder of Massimo D'Antona. On June 1st, 2005, four members of the Red Brigades-PCC were condemned to life-sentence in Bologna for the murder of
Marco Biagi: Nadia Desdemona Lioce, Roberto Morandi, Marco Mezzasalma and Diana Blefari Melazi.
Several figures from the 1970s, including philosopher
Antonio Negri who was wrongly accused of being the "mastermind" of the BR, have called for a new, honest analysis of the events which happened during the "years of lead" in Italy. Negri voluntarily returned to Italy in 1997, after living 14 years in France, and was imprisoned several times; his objective was to raise awareness on the situation of hundreds of radical left political activists who had been condemned to prison sentences and/or had fled to foreign countries. Negri was freed in the spring of 2003, having served the remainder of his sentence of 17 years.
On the other hand, BR founder Alberto Franceschini declared after his release from an 18-year prison term that "The BR continue to exist because we never proceeded to their funeral," calling for truth from every involved party in order to be able to turn the page
[11].
Statistics
According to Clarence A. Martin, the BR were credited with 14,000 acts of violence in the first ten years of the group's existence
[ Understanding Terrorism, , Clarence Augustus, Martin, Sage Publications Inc, , ]. However, according to
statistics by the
Ministry of Interior, 67,5% of the violences ("brawls,
guerrilla actions, destruction of goods") committed in Italy from 1969 to 1980 are imputable to the far right, 26,5% to the far left, and 5,95% to others. Furthermore, 150 persons were killed in terrorist actions carried out by the far right, and 94 by far left bombings
[12].
Allegations of international contacts
According to
Ion Pacepa, Red Brigades primary support allegedly came from the
Czechoslovak StB and the
Palestine Liberation Organization.
[ Red Horizons, , Lt Ion Mihai, Pacepa, Regnery Publishing, , ] [ Terrorist Group Profiles, , , , Dudley Knox Library, Naval Postgraduate School, , ] Soviet and Czechoslovakia small arms and explosives would have came from the Middle East via
heroin traffickers along well established smuggling routes.
[ That Fine Italian Hand, , Paul, Hofmann, Owl Books, , ] Logistic support and training were allegedly carried out directly by the Czechoslovak StB both in Prague and at remote PLO training camps in North Africa and
Syria.
[ Red Horizons, , Lt Ion Mihai, Pacepa, Regnery Publishing, , ] [ Global Terrorism, , James M, Luntz, Routledge, , ]
According to the controversed
Mitrokhin Archives, the Italian Communist Party lodged several complaints with the Soviet ambassador in Rome regarding Czechoslovak support of the Red Brigades, but the Soviets were either unwilling or unable to stop the StB. This was one of several contributing factors in ending the covert relationship that the
Italian Communist Party had with the
KGB culminating with a total break in 1979.
[ The Sword and the Shield: the Mitrokhin archive and the secret history of the KGB, , Christopher, Andrew, Basic Books, , ]
On the other hand, Alberto Franceschini declared to the Commission on terrorism headed by senator
Giovanni Pellegrino that some members of the group had been in contact with the
MOSSAD [13].
Trivia
Singer
Joe Strummer of British
punk band,
The Clash, attracted some controversy after wearing a Brigate Rosse T-shirt to a 1978
Rock Against Racism event.
References
1. Yonah Alexander, Dennis A. Pluchinsky. (1992) ''Europe's Red Terrorists: The Fighting Communist Organizations''. Routledge. ISBN 0714634883 p.194
2. See Giovanni Fasanella and Alberto Franceschini (with a postface from judge Rosario Priore, who investigated Aldo Moro's death), ''Che cosa sono le BR'' [1] ( "BRIGADES ROUGES. L'Histoire secrète des Red Brigades racontée par leur fondateur, Alberto Franceschini. Entretien avec Giovanni Fasanella." Editions Panama, 2005 a review by ''Le Monde'' and another review by ''L'Humanite''
3. Ed Vulliamy, Secret agents, freemasons, fascists... and a top-level campaign of political 'destabilisation', ''The Guardian'', December 5, 1990
4. Brigate Rosse and Moro Kidnappig: secrets and lies
5. «Curcio mi disse: sono certo che Moretti è una spia», ''Corriere della Sera'', May 4, 2004
6. On the Autonomist movement, Mémoire de maîtrise (Master's degree, now M1), , 2004
7. Italian Commission on Terrorism headed by Giovanni Pellegrino
8. Paolo Perschichetti, De l’usage sélectif du passé, on Parole donnée
9. Abbé Pierre, il frate ribelle che scelse gli emarginati, ''Corriere della Sera'', January 23, 2007
10. Denuncian que Almirón también participó en la ultraderecha española, ''Telam'' Argentine news agency, January 6, 2007
11. Giovanni Fasanella and Alberto Franceschini, ''Che cosa sono le BR'' (See Paris, capitale des « années de plomb », review of the book in ''Le Monde'', November 30, 2005 )
12. See Mauro Galleni, ''Rapporto sul terrorismo'', Rizzoli, Milan, 1981, quoted by Anne Schimel (Study and Research Center of the Institute of Political Studies), in "Justice "de plomb" en Italie ("Lead" justice in Italy), ''Le Monde diplomatique'', March 1998]
13. Mario Moretti, l’Hyperion e la Cia
Bibliography
★ Giovanni Fasanella and Alberto Franceschini (with a postface from judge Rosario Priore, who investigated on Aldo Moro's death), ''Che cosa sono le BR''
[4] ( "BRIGADES ROUGES. L'Histoire secrète des Red Brigades racontée par leur fondateur, Alberto Franceschini. Entretien avec Giovanni Fasanella." Editions Panama, 2005
a review by ''
Le Monde'' and
another review by ''
L'Humanite''
★
A Giovanni Fasanella's bibliography
★ Ganser, Daniele: NATO's Secret Armies. Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe. (London: Frank Cass, 2005). ISBN 0-7146-8500-3.
★ Terrorist Group Profiles, Dudley Knox Library, Naval Postgraduate School.''
See also
★
Black Brigades
★
Gladio in Italy
★
CIA and
NATO "
stay-behind"
Operation Gladio
★
False flag and
strategy of tension
★
Aldo Moro's 1978 assassination
External links
★
Interview with Alberto Franceschini
★
Brigate Rosse - Fatti, Documenti e Personaggi - archives and documentation
★
Strike One to Educate One Hundred: the rise of the Red Brigades in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s - this page includes links to several scanned-in chapters of the book "Strike One to Educate One Hundred", a sympathetic appraisal of the Red Brigades. Lots of political context about both Italy and the Italian revolutionary left.
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