| Red Brigades | |
|---|---|
| Brigate Rosse | |
 Flag of the Red Brigades | |
| Also known as | Combatant Communist Party |
| Leaders | Renato Curcio Margherita Cagol Alberto Franceschini |
| Dates of operation | Red Brigades 1970s – 23 October 1988 New Red Brigades 20 May 1999 – 25 September 2006 |
| Active regions | Italy |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-left |
| Major actions | Left-wing terrorism,murder,conspiracy,kidnapping |
| Battles and wars | Years of Lead |
TheRed Brigades (Italian:Brigate Rosse[briˈɡaːteˈrosse], often abbreviatedBR) was an ItalianMarxist–Leninist armedterrorist group.[1][2] It was responsible for numerous violent incidents during Italy'sYears of Lead, including thekidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978,[3] a formerprime minister of Italy through theOrganic centre-left. The assassination of Moro was a national shock in Italy, as was that of left-wing trade unionistGuido Rossa in January 1979.Sandro Pertini, the then left-wingpresident of Italy, said at Rossa's funeral: "It is not the President of the Republic speaking, but comrade Pertini. I knew [the real] red brigades: they fought with me against the fascists, not against democrats. For shame!"[4]
Formed in 1970, the Red Brigades sought to create arevolutionary state througharmed struggle, and to remove Italy from theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The organization attained notoriety in the 1970s and early 1980s with their violent acts ofsabotage,bank robberies, thekneecapping of certain industrialists, factory owners, bankers, and politicians deemed to be exploitative, as well as thekidnappings or murders of industrialists, prominent capitalists, politicians, law enforcement officials, and other perceived enemies of the working-class revolution.[5] Nearly fifty people were killed in its attacks between 1974 and 1988.[6] According to theCenter for International Security and Cooperation, the BR was a "broadly diffused" terrorist group.[7]
Models for the BR included the Latin Americanurban guerrilla movements and theWorld War II eraItalian partisan movement. The group was also influenced by volumes on theTupamaros ofUruguay published byGiangiacomo Feltrinelli, which in the words of historianPaul Ginsborg became "a sort of do-it-yourself manual for the early Red Brigades".[8] Other influences included theAlgerian National Liberation Front and theViet Cong.[4]
In the 1980s, the group was broken up by Italian investigators, with the aid of several leaders under arrest who turnedpentito and assisted the authorities in capturing the other members. The group had a resurgence in the late 1990s to the 2000s. Although Italy was not the sole country to experience years of terrorism,[9] the BR were the most powerful, largest, and longest-lived post-World War IIleft-wing terrorist group in Western Europe.[2] Like-minded organizations were theRed Army Faction in Germany, theIrish Republican Army, and Basque'sETA. Countries hit by terrorism included France, Germany, Ireland, and Spain.[10]
Throughout their existence, the BR were generally opposed by otherfar-left groups, such asLotta Continua andPotere Operaio, and were isolated from the Italianpolitical left, including by theItalian Communist Party (PCI), which they opposed for theirHistoric Compromise with Moro andChristian Democracy.[4][11] With the kidnapping and murder of Moro, they were instrumental in blocking the PCI's road to government.[4] In the words of historian David Broder, rather than causing through their actions a radicalization of the Italian political landscape as they had hoped, it resulted in ananti-communist blowback and a decline for the extra-parliamentary left, which has sometimes prompted accusations that the Red Brigades were infiltrated by anti-communist or governmental entities seeking to undermine the group, especiallyin regard to the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro.[4]
The Red Brigades were formed in August 1970.[12] Its founders wereRenato Curcio andMargherita Cagol, who had met as students at theUniversity of Trento and later married, andAlberto Franceschini. Franceschini's grandmother had been a leader of the peasant leagues, his father a worker andanti-fascist who had been deported toAuschwitz.[13]
The formation of the Red Brigades took place in the context of social struggles in the late 1960s. Workers' strikes shook factories,Pirelli andSiemens in particular, which led part of thelabour movement to adopt "armed propaganda" as a method of struggle. The first actions, such as the destruction of foremen's vehicles or sequestration of executives, reflect the social composition of the armed groups. Among the 1,337 people convicted of belonging to the Red Brigades, 70% were workers, service sector employees or students.[14]
The fear of a far-right power grab in Italy, like theregime of the colonels in Greece and themilitary dictatorship of Chile led byAugusto Pinochet, in a country still scarred by itsItalian fascist past, partly explains why far-left terrorism has developed in Italy more than in any other European country. Sergio Segio, one of the figures of the Years of Lead, said: "I grew up with the idea that they were planning a coup, like in Greece or Chile. And that they would have killed us. In fact, they had already started." Between 1969 and 1975, attacks and political violence were mainly attributable to right-wing groups (95% from 1969 to 1973, 85% in 1974, and 78% in 1975).[14]
While theTrento group around Curcio had its main roots in the Sociology Department of the Catholic University, theReggio Emilia group (around Franceschini) included mostly former members of theItalian Communist Youth Federation (FGCI) expelled from the PCI for extremist views.[15] In the beginning, the BR were mainly active inReggio Emilia, in large factories inMilan (Pirelli,Sit-Siemens, andMagneti Marelli) and inTurin (Fiat). Memberssabotaged factory equipment and broke into factory offices andtrade union headquarters. In 1972, they carried out their firstkidnapping, in which a factory foreman for Sit Siemens was held for around twenty minutes whilst pictures were taken of him wearing a placard declaring him to be a fascist.[16] The foreman was then released unharmed.[17]
The BR's kidnappings were different from those in Latin American or European groups in that, apart from two major exceptions, they had been pursued not for immediate practical possibilities but for symbolic ritualism, where the targeted symbol represented an action towards the symbolized entity.[18] Initially, the BR focused on managerial staff and right-wing trade unionists from the country's largest firms, such asAlfa Romeo, Fiat, and Sit-Siemens.[18] By 1974, with the decrease of working-class mobilization, they shifted from the factory to the state and its institutions; in 1976, they described in particular the magistrature as "the weakest link in the chain of power".[18] Subsequently, they began targeting politicians. During the 1970s, the BR had carried out eight symbolic kidnappings. They all followed a similar path in which the victim was subjected to a summary trial, held in captivity for a period between 20 minutes to 55 days, and then released unharmed.Aldo Moro's, the ninth of those symbolic kidnappings, was the only one to result in murder.[18]
During this time, the BR's activities were denounced byfar-left political groups, such asLotta Continua andPotere Operaio, which were closer to theautonomist movement. Those like Lotta Continua shared the need for armed self-defence against police and fascist violence but were critical of terrorist actions, which they saw as elitist and counterproductive, and condemned the BR as a catalyst rather than an answer to repression.[4] Lotta Continua questioned the BR's claim that eliminating individual capitalists would have strengthened class organization.[4] After its dissolution, the Lotta Continua continuity paper headlined "neither with the state nor the Red Brigades".[4]
Frequent allegations of links between the BR and the intelligence services ofCommunist states were made but never proven, and were always rejected by the militants in books and interviews. In June 1974, the Red Brigades killed two members of the Italianneo-fascist party,Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), during a raid on the MSI headquarters inPadua.
In September 1974, Curcio and Franceschini were arrested by GeneralCarlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, and sentenced to eighteen 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.[19] Curcio was freed from prison by an armed commando of the BR, led by his wife Cagol, but was rearrested sometime later.
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After 1974, the Red Brigades expanded intoRome,Genoa, andVenice, their numbers grew drastically and began to diversify in their criminal ventures. The BR operated some high-profile political kidnappings (e.g. Genoa judge Mario Sossi) and kidnapped industrialists (e.g. Vallarino Gancia) in order to obtainransom money which (together withbank robberies) were their main source of income. Its 1975manifesto stated that its goal was a "concentrated strike against the heart of the State, because the state is animperialist collection of multinational corporations". The SIM (Stato Imperialista delle Multinazionali) became a primary target.
In 1975, theCarabinieri discovered a farmhouse where Gancia was kept prisoner by the BR (Cascina Spiotta). In the ensuing gunfight, two police officers were killed, as was Cagol. That following April, the BR announced that they had set up a Communist Combatant Party to "guide the working class". Terrorist activities, especially againstCarabinieri andmagistrates, increased considerably in order to terrorize juries and causemistrials in cases against imprisoned leaders of the organization. Also, since arrested members of the BR refused to be defended by lawyers, lawyers designated by the courts to defend them (difensori d' ufficio) were also targeted and killed. Amongst jurists, ProfessorFausto Cuocolo was also attacked in 1979, during an exam atUniversity of Genoa; it was the first time that the BR attacked in a school.[20] Their weaponry came mainly from the stocks of the Italian Resistance during the Second World War.[14]
In 1978, the Second BR, headed byMario Moretti, kidnapped and murderedChristian Democracy (DC) presidentAldo Moro, who was the key figure in negotiations aimed at extending theItalian government's parliamentary majority, by attaining aHistoric Compromise between the DC and theItalian Communist Party (PCI). A team of BR members, using stolenAlitalia airline company uniforms, ambushed Moro, killed five of his bodyguards and took him captive. The captors, headed by Moretti, sought the release of certain prisoners in exchange for Moro's safe release. The government refused to negotiate with the captors, while Italian political forces took either a hard line (linea della fermezza) or one open to negotiating (linea del negoziato). All major political forces except theItalian Socialist Party led byBettino Craxi and the extra-parliamentary left took the hard line.[10] From his captivity, Moro sent letters to his family, to his political friends and to thePope Paul VI, pleading for a negotiated outcome. In his appeal to the BR, Pope Paul VI asked them to release Moro "without conditions".[21] The specified "without conditions" is controversial; according to some sources, it was added to Paul VI's letter against his will, and the pope instead wanted to negotiate with the kidnappers. According toAntonio Mennini, Pope Paul VI had saved£10 billion to pay a ransom to the BR in order to save Moro.[22]
After holding Moro for 54 days, the BR realized that the government would not negotiate. Fearful of being discovered, they decided to kill their prisoner. They placed him in a car and told him to cover himself with a blanket. Moretti then shot him eleven times in the chest. Moro's body was left in the trunk of a car in Via Caetani, a site midway between the DC and PCI headquarters, as a last symbolic challenge to the police, who were keeping the entire nation, and Rome in particular, under strict surveillance. Moretti wrote inBrigate Rosse: una storia italiana that the murder of Moro was the last expression ofMarxist–Leninist revolutionary action. Franceschini wrote that the imprisoned members did not understand why Moro had been chosen as a target. Moro was killed for his value as a symbolic representation of everything the BR opposed, rather than anything to do with his individual actions or beliefs.[23]
Moro's assassination caused a strong reaction against the BR by the Italian law enforcement and security forces. The murder of a popular political figure also drew condemnation from other Italian left-wing militant formations and even the imprisoned ex-leaders of the group. The BR suffered a loss of support. Another crucial turning point was the 1979 murder 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 BR; this attack against a popular trade union organiser proved disastrous, totally alienating the factory worker base to which BR propaganda was primarily directed.[4] In the words ofEzio Mauro ofLa Repubblica, the events were "Italy's 11th of September". It was the apogee of Italy'sYears of Lead.[3]
Italian police made a large number of arrests in 1980 when 12,000 far-left militants were detained while 300 fled to France and 200 to South America; a total of 600 people left Italy.[24] Most leaders arrested including Faranda, Franceschini, Moretti, and Morucci either retracted their doctrine (asdissociati) or collaborated with investigators in the capture of other BR members (ascollaboratori di giustizia), obtaining important reductions in prison sentences. The best-knowncollaboratore di giustizia was Patrizio Peci, one of the leaders of the Turin "column". In revenge, the BR assassinated his brother Roberto in 1981, significantly damaging the standing of the group and lowering them in the public's eyes to little more than a supposedly radicalCosa Nostra.[25]
On 7 April 1979, theoperaismo philosopherAntonio Negri was arrested along with the other persons associated with the Autonomist movement, includingOreste Scalzone. Padua's public prosecutor, Pietro Calogero, accused those involved in the Autonomia movement of being the political wing of the BR. Negri was charged with a number of offences including leadership of the BR, masterminding the kidnapping and murder of Moro and plotting to overthrow the government. At the time, Negri was a political science professor at theUniversity of Padua and visiting lecturer atParis'École Normale Supérieure.[26] Thus, French philosophersFélix Guattari andGilles Deleuze signed in November 1977L'Appel des intellectuels français contre la répression en Italie (The Call of French Intellectuals Against Repression in Italy) in protest against Negri's imprisonment and Italiananti-terrorism legislation.[27][28] A year later, Negri was exonerated from Moro's kidnapping. No link was ever established between Negri and the BR and almost all of the charges against him (including seventeen murders) were dropped within months of his arrest due to lack of evidence. Moro's assassination continues to haunt Italy today, and remains a significant event of theCold War. In the 1980s–1990s, a parliamentary commission headed by senatorGiovanni Pellegrino investigated acts of terrorism in Italy during theYears of Lead, while various judicial investigations also took place, headed byGuido Salvini and other magistrates.[29]
On 23 January 1983, an Italian court sentenced 32 members of the BR to life imprisonment for their role in the kidnapping and murder of Moro, among other crimes.[30] Many elements and facts have never been fully cleared up,[31] despite a series of trials,[32] and this led to a number of other alternative theories about the events to become popularized.[3][33]
Much of the BR was dismantled by the security services in the 1980s.
On 17 December 1981, four members of the BR, posing as plumbers, invaded theVerona apartment ofU.S. Army Brigadier General,James L. Dozier, thenNATO deputy chief of staff at Southern European land forces. The men kidnapped Dozier and left his wife bound and chained in their apartment.[34] He was held for 42 days until 28 January 1982, when a team ofNOCS (a special operations unit of the Italian police) successfully carried out his rescue from an apartment in Padua, without firing a shot, capturing the entire terrorist cell. The guard, Ugo Milani,[35] assigned to kill Dozier in the event of a rescue attempt did not do so and was overwhelmed by the rescuing force. Dozier was the first American general to be kidnapped by insurgents and the first foreigner kidnapped by the BR. After Dozier's return to the US Army in Vicenza, he was congratulated by telephone by U.S. presidentRonald Reagan on regaining his freedom.[36]
After theAbbé Pierre's death in January 2007, Italian magistrate Carlo Mastelloni recalled in theCorriere della Sera that the Abbé had "spontaneously testified" in the 1980s in support of a group of Italian activists who had fled to Paris and were involved with the Hyperion language school, directed by Vanni Mulinaris.Simone de Beauvoir had also written a letter to Mastelloni, which has been kept in juridical archives.[37] Some of those associated with the Hyperion School, which included Corrado Simioni, Vanni Mulinaris, and Duccio Berio,[38] were accused by the Italian authorities of being the "masterminds" of the BR, although they were all cleared afterwards.
After Mulinaris travelled toUdine and was subsequently arrested by the Italian police, Abbé Pierre went to talk in 1983 withItalian PresidentSandro Pertini to plead Mulinaris' cause. Mulinaris had been imprisoned on a charge of assisting the BR. The Abbé had even observed eight days of ahunger strike from 26 May to 3 June 1984 in theCathedral of Turin to protest the conditions suffered by "Brigadists" in Italian prisons and the imprisonment without trial of Mulinaris, who was recognized as innocent some time afterwards. Mulinaris' treatment was, according to the Abbé, a "violation ofhuman rights".[39][40][41]La Repubblica specified that Italian justice has recognized the innocence of all people close to the Hyperion School.[42]
By 1981, the BR had split into two factions: the majority faction of theCommunist Combatant Party (Red Brigades-PCC, led byBarbara Balzerani) and the minority of theUnion of Combatant Communists (Red Brigades-UCC, led by Giovanni Senzani). In 1984, the group claimed responsibility for the murder ofLeamon Hunt, United States chief of theSinai Multinational Force and Observer Group. In the same year, Curcio, Moretti, Iannelli and Bertolazzi rejected the armed struggle as pointless.
In the 1980s, the arrest rate increased in Italy, including that of Senzani in 1982 and of Balzerani in 1985. In February 1986, the Red Brigades-PCC killed the ex-mayor of FlorenceLando Conti. In March 1987, Red Brigades-UCC assassinated GeneralLicio Giorgieri in Rome. On 16 April 1988, inForlì, Red Brigades-PCC killed Italian Senator Roberto Ruffilli, an advisor of Italian Prime MinisterCiriaco de Mita. After that, the group activities all but ended after massive arrests of its leadership. The BR dissolved themselves in 1988.[43]
In 1985 some Italian members living in France returned to Italy. The same year, French PresidentFrançois Mitterrand guaranteed immunity from extradition to BR members living in France who had made a break from their past, were not sentenced for violent crimes and had started a new life. In 1998,Bordeaux'sappeal court decided thatSergio 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, Paris extraditedPaolo Persichetti, an ex-member of the Red Brigades who was teaching sociology, signalling for the first time a departure from the "Mitterrand doctrine". In the 2000s, requests by Italian Justice for extradition from France involved several leftist activists, including Negri,Cesare Battisti, and others. This doctrine was based on the idea that the special laws (incarceration on the basis of mere suspicion, interrogations taking place without the presence of a lawyer, equal punishment for individuals belonging to the same group regardless of the nature of the offences committed individually, etc.) adopted by the Italian authorities to combat terrorists ran counter to the French conception of law.[44]
While leftists had mostly fled to France, manyneo-fascist activists involved in the strategy of tension, such asVincenzo Vinciguerra andStefano Delle Chiaie, fled to Spain; Delfo Zorzi, condemned for thePiazza Fontana bombing, was granted asylum and citizenship in Japan, while others fled to Argentina, in particular Augusto Canchi, who was wanted by Italian justice for his role in the 1980Bologna massacre.[45] The issue of a general amnesty in Italy for these crimes is highly controversial and still source of dispute. Most political forces oppose it, in particular the associations of victims of terrorism and their family members.[46] In April 2021, seven fugitive Italians were arrested in France, six of whom were identified as members of the Red Brigades.[47] The move was described as a turning point in French-Italian relations, with an advisor of French PresidentEmmanuel Macron stating that "it was a way for us to show responsibility, recognise this part of Italian history and stop turning a blind eye to the violent acts perpetrated between the mid-60s and the 80s."[47][48]
A new group, with few links, if any, with the old BR, appeared in the late 1990s. The Red Brigades-PCC in 1999 murderedMassimo D'Antona [it], an advisor to the cabinet of Prime MinisterMassimo D'Alema.[49] On 19 March 2002, the same gun was used to kill professorMarco Biagi, an economic advisor to ItalianPrime MinisterSilvio Berlusconi.[49] 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, and Lioce was arrested.
On 23 October 2003, Italian police arrested six members of the Red Brigades in early-dawn raids in Florence,Sardinia, Rome andPisa in connection with the murder of Massimo D'Antona. On 1 June 2005, four members of the Red Brigades-PCC were condemned to life sentence in Bologna for the murder ofMarco Biagi:Nadia Lioce, Roberto Morandi, Marco Mezzasalma and Diana Blefari Melazzi.[citation needed]
Several figures from the 1970s, including philosopherAntonio Negri who was wrongly accused of being the mastermind of the BR, have called for a new analysis of the events which happened during the Years of Lead in Italy. On the other hand, BR founderAlberto 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.[50]
In October 2007, a former BR commander was arrested after committing a bank robbery while out of prison on good conduct terms. On 1 October 2007, Cristoforo Piancone, who is serving a life sentence for six murders, managed to steal €170,000 from the bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena with an accomplice.[51]
In August 2024 Leonardo Bertulazzi was arrested inBuenos Aires.[52] He had been tried and convicted in absentia for the kidnapping of the naval engineer Piero Costa in 1977.[52]
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.[53] According tostatistics by Italy'sMinistry of Interior, a total of 75 people are thought to have been murdered by the BR. A majority of the murders were politically motivated, though a number of assassinations of random police andCarabinieri officers took place, as well as a number of murders occurring during criminal ventures such as bank robberies and kidnappings.
Romanian defectorIon Mihai Pacepa claimed that the Red Brigades' primary foreign support came from theCzechoslovak StB and thePalestine Liberation Organization (PLO).[54][55] Soviet and Czechoslovak small arms and explosives came from the Middle East viaheroin traffickers along well-established smuggling routes.[56] Pacepa further claimed logistic support and training were carried out directly by the Czechoslovak StB both in Prague and at remote PLO training camps in North Africa andSyria.[54][57] SmuggledCzechoslovakian-made Škorpion submachine pistols were used by the Red Brigades in many of their attacks, including the ambush ofAldo Moro's motorcade (and his later murder), theAcca Larentia killings, a1982 ambush on anarmy patrol inSalerno, as well as the murders of Roberto Peci, DiplomatLeamon Hunt, and Commissioner Antonio Esposito.
Russian defectorVasili Mitrokhin claimed that, aware of the involvement and fearing retaliation due to their own involvement with theKGB, the Italian Communist Party lodged several complaints with the Soviet ambassador in Rome regarding Czechoslovak support of the Red Brigades, but the Soviets were supposedly either unwilling or unable to stop the StB. This was one of several contributing factors in ending the alleged covert relationship that theItalian Communist Party had with theKGB, culminating with a total break in 1979.[58]
According to Pacepa, support for the Red Brigades was a major part of the operations ofUDBA, the intelligence service of non-aligned communistYugoslavia. Yugoslav connection with underground leftist movements in Italy began in the mid-1960s with the intent of destabilizing NATO, and ties were allegedly established with the Red Brigades immediately following the group's founding in 1970. The UDBA chief in charge of relations with the Red Brigades was, in Pacepa's account,Silvo Gorenc, a close associate ofJosip Broz Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia. Gorenc was supposedly proud of Yugoslavia's close yet clandestine relationship with the Red Brigades, though he allegedly insisted the government could and would not attempt to influence the group to avoid executing Aldo Moro, despite Romanian leaderNicolae Ceaușescu's pleas for Yugoslav intervention.[54]
Italian journalistLoretta Napoleoni said in aTED Talk that she spoke to a "part-timer" with the Red Brigades who claimed that he used to sail between Lebanon and Italy during summers, ferrying Soviet weapons for a fee from the PLO to Sardinia where the weapons were distributed to "other organizations in Europe".[59]
Joe Strummer ofThe Clash frequently wore a Red Brigade shirt in the earlypunk rock period. He also wore the shirt in the filmRude Boy.
The Red Brigades believed that the success of the kidnapping would stop the Communists' rise to become integrated into Italian state institutions and as such being part of the machine they viewed as corrupt and oppressive. Without the [PCI] being part of the government, the Red Brigades could continue with their revolutionary war against capitalism. In the first communication by the Red Brigades, they claimed that the DC: '... had been suppressing the Italian people for years'.
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