Red Brigades | Mapping Militant Organizations Mapping Militant Organizations 1984 First Attack September 17, 1970: The Red Brigades set fire to the car of a factory manager in Milan. (0 killed) [1] Last Attack April 16, 1988: The Red Brigades kidnapped a chemical engineer in Mestre. (No reported casualties) [2] Updated June 27, 2012 Narrative Summary The Red Brigades was Italy's largest, longest lasting, and most broadly diffused left-wing terrorist group. At its peak the organization had thousands of active members and supporters, with its strongest presence in the industrial cities of Northern Italy. [3] It sought to overthrow the democratic Italian state and replace it with a dictatorship of the proletariat. Its primary targets were symbols of capitalism and the Italian state. These included politicians, especially those of the center-right Christian Democratic party, law enforcement, and factories. The organization cast its armed activities as acts of self-defense, undertaken on behalf of workers facing repression from factory bosses and police.

[4] The first pamphlet signed by the Red Brigades – then using the singular "Red Brigade," or "Brigata Rossa" – appeared at a Sit-Siemens plant in Milan in 1970 [5] , but the roots of the organization extend back to the late 1960s, as student and worker demonstrations spread throughout Italy and protestors increasingly clashed violently with the police. The fall of 1968, known as the "autunno caldo" or "hot autumn," marked a high point in such violence as well as an organizational turning point as workers began to form collectives as alternatives to existing trade unions. The Red Brigades' founders are believed to have decided to take up arms during a November 28, 1969 meeting of the Metropolitan Political Collective (Collettivo Politico Metropolitano), a coordinating group of leftist student and worker movements, in Chiavari in the province of Genoa. [6] Some two weeks later, a bomb exploded in Milan's Piazza Fontana, killing 16 and wounding 87. At roughly the same time, two other bombs exploded in Rome, wounding 16.

Suspicion for the day's carnage initially fell on the far left, members of which insisted that right-wing groups, likely aided by elements of state intelligence, had planned the attack as a provocation. [7] What later came to be known as the "Piazza Fontana Massacre" was seen on the left as the inauguration of a "strategy of tension" pursued by the right in cooperation with the state. [8] Members of the Red Brigades attacked property rather than people until 1972; arson against factory managers' cars was particularly common, as were raids against the offices of right-wing organizations. [9] Beginning with the 1974 kidnapping of a Genoa magistrate, the Red Brigades expanded their attacks to include politicians and employees of the state. An April 1975 BR document outlining the organization's "Strategic Direction" identified Italy's long-dominant Christian Democratic party "the principal enemy." [10] The number of BR-directed attacks, including kidnappings and shootings, spiked between 1977 and 1979.

The organization's best-known attack of the period was the kidnapping and killing of Christian Democratic leader and former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978. The Red Brigades' activities began to decline in 1980. Members began being arrested at higher rates, and those arrested began increasingly to cooperate with authorities, leading to the capture of more members. The group split numerous times over the period. The Red Brigades ceased to exist as a unified organization around 1981. Its core successor, the Red Brigades Fighting Communist Party (BR-PCC) continued to stage high-profile attacks throughout the decade. The Red Brigades' original leaders, many of them in jail, continued to guide the BR-PCC until formally declaring the armed struggle finished in 1988. [11] Attacks have been carried out in Italy under the name "Red Brigades" as late as 2002, though the attackers are likely not formally connected to the original organization. [12] Leadership Antonio Savasta (Unknown to 1982): Savasta was the leader of the Venice branch of the Red Brigades. He was arrested in 1982.

[13] Margherita Cagol (1970 to 1975): One of the founders of the Red Brigades, Cagol was Curcio's wife. She was killed in a shootout with police in June 1975. [14] Mario Moretti (1970 to 1981): Moretti was a founding member of the Red Brigades and confessed to having personally fired the shots that killed Christian Democratic Leader Aldo Moro. He was arrested in 1981 and freed in 1998. [15] Renato Curcio (1970 to 1984): Police arrested Curcio, along with co-founder Franceschini, with the help of an informant in September 1974. Curcio remained in prison for about four months until a BR squad directed by his wife and co-founder Margherita Cagol freed him and several others from prison in February 1975.

Following his release, Curcio was among the authors of an April 1975 document outlining the BR's "Strategic Direction" and identifying Italy's long-dominant Christian Democratic party "the principal enemy" and "the political and organizational center of reaction and terrorism." Curcio was recaptured in Milan in January 1976. He is believed to have continued to guide the organization from prison. [16] Alberto Franceschini (1970 to 1984): Franceschini was arrested along with Curcio in 1974. He is believed to have continued to guide the organization from prison. Ideology & Goals Communist revolutionary Marxist The Red Brigades sought to seize political power in Italy with a strategy combining elements of the Maoist cultural revolution in China and the Leninist Bolshevik revolution in Russia. The "dictatorship of the proletariat" would be achieved in three phases; first, a period of "armed propaganda," followed by an attack on the "heart of the state," followed by a state of "generalized civil war" which would end with the overthrow of the state.

[17] Size Estimates 1970: 50 (Terrorism and Security : the Italian Experience.) [18] 1979: 1,000 "militants" and "some 2,000 external support (Terrorism and Security: The Italian Experience.) [19] 1983: 100 "militants" and "200 external supporters." (Terrorism and Security: the Italian Experience.) [20] Designated/Listed N/A. [21] Resources The Red Brigades got some revenue from kidnappings for ransom and from theft, which is also how they often acquired weapons. In absorbing smaller militant groups, the Red Brigades also took on their material assets, including those of the Gruppi di Azione Partigiana (GAP), which was financed by millionaire publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli until his death in 1972. [22] The group Soccorso Rosso (Red Aid) provided free legal services to left-wing operatives.

By October 31, 1982, Italian police had discovered and dismantled some 200 bases belonging to the BR. [23] External Influences The Red Brigades were influenced in their ideology and methods by leftist and militant movements all over the world. As elements of the Italian left moved toward a strategy of political violence in 1967 and 1968, Uruguay's Tupamaros provided a model of urban guerilla warfare at the same time that Palestinian nationalist terrorism became more prominent in the wake of the Six-Day war of 1967. [24] Philosophically, the BR borrowed from Lenin and Mao. More formally, members of the Red Brigades had contact with other Western European militant movements extant in the 1970s, especially Germany's Red Army Faction (RAF), whose 1977 kidnapping of business leader Hans Schleyer was the model for the Aldo Moro kidnapping a year later. [25] The BR are also believed to have had some connection with France's Actione Direct (AD) and have allegedly provided training for them.

[26] Former Red Brigades members have told authorities that the BR acquired weapons from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), with Libya acting as intermediary, beginning in 1978 or before. [27] BR founders Renato Curcio and Margherita Cagol visited Cuba. [28] There is disputed evidence that the Red Brigades may have received funding from "Eastern bloc" communist countries including Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. [29] One former brigadier has denied these contacts, saying "The RB was formally prohibited from having contact, making liaison, or receiving assistance from the Eastern Bloc." [30] A training camp outside of Benghazi, Libya was allegedly used by Italian terrorists. Former members of the Red Brigades have denied press accounts of training abroad, however, saying that the BR instead used abandoned mines in Italy's mountains as training sites. [31] Geographical Locations Italian terrorist organizations of both the left and right were active primarily in the northwest and center of Italy. Left-wing groups concentrated on Milan, Turin, and Rome, whereas the militant right was most active in Milan and Rome.

The BR was the only one of these groups with a strong presence in Genoa. [32] The merger with NAP gave the Red Brigades a foothold in Naples and elsewhere in the more-agrarian south, but the Red Brigades had difficulty sustaining formal "columns" there, particularly after NAP dissolved. [33] Though the BR had its strongest presence in the cities listed above, the organization was active in at least 16 of Italy's 20 regions over its lifespan. [34] Targets & Tactics The Red Brigades typically attacked factories and the offices of right-wing targets such as political parties or certain trade unions. In its first few years such attacks were only against property and most often took the form of office raids and car arson.

Early Red Brigades communiqués describe such attacks as punishments for specific "anti-worker" actions, such as the firing of a coworker: "For every comrade they hit, one of them must pay," or, more generally, "for every eye, two eyes; for every tooth, an entire face." Thus, when in late 1970 "first the bosses, then the unions" of Milan's Pirelli plant fired a 50-year-old mechanic, "one of them, precisely the 'first on the list' (as suggested by many of the factory workers), found his car destroyed." [35] The Red Brigades' 1971 "self-interview" describes such methods as a form of "armed propaganda," which served both to recruit new members and to demonstrate "the conniving between power groups and/or apparently separate institutions." [36] The Red Brigades claimed its first attack against an individual on March 3, 1972, with the kidnapping of a Sit-Siemens plant manager. They released him the same day.

After 1972, the Red Brigades carried out targeted killings and kidnappings of factory managers, magistrates, and political figures, particularly members of the Christian Democratic party. The BR was one of few left-wing terrorist groups to engage in kidnappings, and conducted by far the most of any left-wing terrorist group, 18 of 24 attributed to the entire terrorist left. [37] Most of the BR's kidnappings were political, whereas other Italian leftist terrorist groups typically kidnapped to raise funds through ransom. [38] The BR adopted the practice of mass leg-shootings, also called "kneecapping," in 1980, months after another leftist group, Front Line (PL), pioneered the tactic. [39] The Red Brigades did not carry out mass-casualty explosive attacks. There were four such attacks in Italy between 1969 and 1980, all attributed to right-wing terrorists. [40] Political Activities The Red Brigades abandoned overt political activity after a wave of arrests in 1972.

[41] Major Attacks April 18, 1974: Kidnapping of Genoa Assistant State Attorney Mario Sossi. Sossi was the sixth person, and the first state employee, kidnapped by the Red Brigades. In its claim of responsibility, the BR called the kidnapping an attack "on the heart of the state." The group released him on May 23 in exchange for a court order, later blocked, to release eight BR-affiliated prisoners. (). [42] June 17, 1974: The BR killed two members of the right-wing party Italian Social Movement (MSI). (2 killed). [43] November 16, 1977: BR operatives shot Carlo Casalegno, deputy editor of La Stampa newspaper, on a street in Turin in broad daylight. Casalegno died of his wounds on November 29. (1 killed). [44] March 16, 1978: The BR kidnapped Aldo Moro, president of the Christian Democratic party and a former prime minister. In the attack, members of the Red Brigades killed five of Moro's bodyguards.

On April 15, a BR communiqué announced that a "People's Tribunal" (Tribunale del Popolo) had tried Moro and had condemned him to death for his role in the "counter-revolutionary function of the [Christian Democrats]." Until May, however, BR communiqués offered to exchange Moro for 13 imprisoned BR members, including founders Franceschini and Curcio. The Italian government refused. Police found Moro's body in a car on May 9, 1978. (1 killed). [45] May 20, 1981: The Red Brigades kidnapped a chemical engineer in Mestre. It was the last attack claimed with the name "Red Brigades" as the organization split into factions. (0). [46] Relationships with Other Groups The Red Brigades was the largest left-wing terrorist organization in Italy, and most other left-wing Italian terrorist groups had some relationship to it as either rivals or allies. Other organizations later split off from the BR or were absorbed by it. The BR's most important ideological rival was Front Line (PL), the second-largest left-wing terrorist group in Italy.

Several of the PL's founders were dissident members of the BR who left the group because of its strict hierarchy and the centrality of the armed struggle to its political agenda. The PL viewed the hierarchy as counterproductive, and the armed struggle as merely a tactic in a larger political program. The Red Brigades may have begun to cooperate with the PL in the late 1970s as the smaller organization declined and began calling for a unified proletarian force. The BR's symbol, a five-pointed star, appeared on the PL's claim of responsibility for a 1979 attack on a Turin school. [47] The BR formed an alliance with Naples-based Armed Proletarian Nuclei (NAP) in 1976. The BR had had difficulty extending its reach into agrarian southern Italy due to its focus on the class struggle in factories, which were concentrated in the industrial north. [48] Most of NAP's leadership was arrested shortly after that, and the BR absorbed the remainder of the group's assets and members.

[49] The BR absorbed several other smaller groups as well, including Partisan Action Groups (GAP), which merged with the Red Brigades in 1970 after itself absorbing the October XXII Circle. [50] The BR itself began to decline with the arrest of many of its leaders in the early 1980s. The group split; its main successors were the Red Brigades Walter Alasia Column (BR-WA), the Red Brigades Guerrila Party (BR-PG), and the Red Brigades Fighting Communist Party (BR-PCC). Community Relationships Leftist extraparliamentary organizations represented a recruitment pool and a source of logistical and public relations support for the BR, especially Workers' Autonomy (Autonomia Operaia, AUTOP) and Workers' Power (Potere Operaiao, POTOP or PO). [51] This latter group formally dissolved in 1973, though prosecutors investigating the case argued that the "dissolution" was a cover for members' deciding to take up arms with the Red Brigades and others. [52] References ^ Barbato, Tullio. Il Terrorismo In Italia Negli Anni Settanta : Cronaca E Documentazione.

Milano: Bibliografica, 1980. p. 52 ^ Brigaterosse.org. "Breve storia delle Brigate Rosse (1970-1987), Parte III." Last updated March 15, 2007. Retrieved April 15, 2012, from . ^ Della Porta, Donatella. Il Terrorismo Di Sinistra. Bologna: Il mulino, 1990. p. 92. ^ Brigate Rosse, "Prima intervista a se stessi," 1971. Available: ^ Barbato, Tullio. Il Terrorismo In Italia Negli Anni Settanta : Cronaca E Documentazione. Milano: Bibliografica, 1980. On This Day: Aldo Moro Kidnapped by the Italian Red Brigades Aldo Moro in a photo released by the Red Brigades to the media on April 20, 1978.

On This Day: Aldo Moro Kidnapped by the Italian Red Brigades March 16, 2012 06:00 AM by findingDulcinea Staff On March 16, 1978, former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped by a left-wing extremist group; he was killed 55 days later when the terrorists’ demands were not met. Many in Italy believe that domestic or international government forces were complicit in the murder of Moro, who was due to sign a controversial agreement with the Communist Party on the day of his kidnapping. Moro Kidnapped Before Compromise Two-time former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, leader of the Christian Democratic Party, had negotiated an agreement to form a coalition government with the Italian Communist Party (PCI) . Known as the Historic Compromise, it alarmed both right wing parties and the extreme left, including the Red Brigades, a Marxist-Leninist paramilitary group. “The Red Brigades completely opposed this idea, as it interfered with the declared aim of spearheading an armed Marxist revolution in Italy, led by a ‘revolutionary proletariat,’” explains The Florentine.

On the morning on March 16, as Moro was en route to the House of Representatives to enact the compromise, a dozen members of Red Brigades launched an assault on his car. The extremists shot and killed five of Moro’s bodyguards and abducted him, taking him to a safe house. The Red Brigades demanded the release of 13 leftist prisoners in exchange for Moro . Throughout his captivity, Moro was allowed to send letters to political allies and family members, in which he pled with the Italian government cooperate with the terrorists. In one letter, Moro writes to Italian Interior Minister Francesco Cossiga : “Weigh your actions carefully in order to avoid further evil ... In the given circumstances, besides humanitarian reasons, what becomes apparent is the reason of state. Most of all this reason of state means that in my present condition I find myself under full and uncontrolled domination. There is the risk that I will be induced to talk in a manner that could be dangerous ... May God enlighten you for the best.” Despite pleas from his friends, family and Pope Paul VI, the Italian government, which had negotiated with the Red Brigades in previous situations, refused to negotiate for Moro .

On May 9, Moro’s body was found in the trunk of a ca r, parked symbolically between the headquarters of the Christian Democrats and the Communist Party. The BBC: Italy’s history of terror There are many theories that the Italian government or foreign governments were involved in the kidnapping of Moro , or that they were willing to let Moro be killed for their own political gain. At issue is the Historic Compromise, which never went through due to the kidnapping. Italy would have become the first post-war Western European country to include communists in the majority government. There were many significant opponents to the compromise: right-wing and anti-communist politicians, along with some Christian Democrats, did not want to see the Communists given power. Both the United States and Soviet Union opposed the compromise, believing that it would destabilize East-West relations. The U.S. and NATO were concerned that the deal might threaten NATO’s position in Italy. A 1978 article by journalist Mino Pecorelli, who was murdered the following year, said that the kidnapping had “the hallmark of a lucid superpower.” Pecorelli suggested that the Gladio, a covert anti-communist network in NATO, aided the Red Brigades in the kidnapping.

Proponents of this theory point to the near-perfect execution of the kidnapping as evidence that the kidnappers were aided by elite forces. In particular, the fact that the kidnappers were able to kill the five bodyguards without harming Moro suggests that a professional shooter was involved. There are also many people who believe that, even if the Red Brigades carried out the kidnapping without outside help, there were governmental figures who wanted Moro to be killed and obstructed efforts to save him . Italian authorities launched a nationwide manhunt for Moro, but ignored key leads that would have led them to the kidnappers. Furthermore, for a country known for being willing to negotiate with terrorists, it was unusual for the government to adopt a hardline stance. Steve Pieczenik, a hostage negotiator in the State Department, claimed in 2008 that Moro was “‘sacrificed’ for the ‘stability’ of Italy.” According to his book, “We Killed Aldo Moro,” the U.S. and Italian governments instructed Pieczenik to write and deliver a false statement attributed to the Red Brigades, announcing Moro’s death.

Pieczenik said the statement was presented as a means of communicating to the Red Brigades that the Italian government already considered Moro dead, thereby removing the authority they leveraged through his captivity. Richard Drake, author of “The Aldo Moro Case,” rejects the conspiracy theories that have emerged surrounding Moro’s murder . He argues that the killing more aptly represents the threats of a country captivated by Marxist-Leninist ideology: “For all those under the beguiling spell of the revolutionary mystique, the prescriptions of Marx and Lenin transformed the most bestial acts of inhumanity into thrilling deeds on behalf of the proletariat. The Moro kidnapping was just such an act.” Munich Massacre The Brigate Rosse, known as the Red Brigades, was created in 1970s by radical Marxist-Leninist students who wished to see the overthrow off the capitalist system. The most active of Italy’s paramilitary groups during the “Year of Lead,” the Red Brigades became famous for the kidnapping of prominent Italian officials and industrialists . Following the murder of Moro, the Italian government cracked down on the Red Brigades and the extreme left .

More than 10,000 leftist leaders were arrested in 1980, while many of the Red Brigades’ leaders “disavowed their political doctrine and turned their comrades into the police,” reports The Florentine. Due to the crackdown, Red Brigades fissured around the mid-1980s, splitting off into The New Red Brigades/Communist Combatant Party and the Union of Combatant Communists. The New Brigades inherited the militancy of the original Red Brigades . The New Red Brigades claimed responsibility for the assassinations of labor minister advisor Massimo D’Antona in 1999, professor Marco Biagi in 2002 and a police officer in 2003. Red Brigades | Italian militant organization | Britannica.com Italian militant organization al-Qaeda Red Brigades, Italian Brigate Rosse, militant left-wing organization in Italy that gained notoriety in the 1970s for kidnappings, murders, and sabotage .

Its self-proclaimed aim was to undermine the Italian state and pave the way for a Marxist upheaval led by a “revolutionary proletariat .” The reputed founder of the Red Brigades was Renato Curcio, who in 1967 set up a leftist study group at the University of Trento dedicated to figures such as Karl Marx , Mao Zedong , and Che Guevara . In 1969 Curcio married a fellow radical, Margherita Cagol, and moved with her to Milan, where they attracted a coterie of followers. Proclaiming the existence of the Red Brigades in November 1970 through the firebombing of various factories and warehouses in Milan, the group began kidnapping the following year and in 1974 committed its first assassination; among its victims that year was the chief inspector of Turin’s antiterrorist squad. Despite the arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of alleged terrorists throughout the country—including Curcio himself in 1976—the random assassinations continued. In 1978 the Red Brigades kidnapped and murdered former prime minister Aldo Moro . In December 1981 a U.S.

Army officer with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Brigadier General James Dozier, was abducted and held captive by the Red Brigades for 42 days before Italian police rescued him unharmed from a hideout in Padua . Between 1974 and 1988, the Red Brigades carried out about 50 attacks, in which nearly 50 people were killed. A common nonlethal tactic employed by the group was “kneecapping,” in which a victim was shot in the knees so that he could not walk again. At its height in the 1970s, the Red Brigades was believed to comprise 400 to 500 full-time members, 1,000 members who helped periodically, and a few thousand supporters who provided funds and shelter. Careful, systematic police work led to the arrest and imprisonment of many of the Red Brigades’ leaders and ordinary members from the mid-1970s onward, and by the late 1980s the organization was all but destroyed.

However, a group claiming to be the Red Brigades took responsibility in the 1990s for various violent attacks, including those against a senior Italian government adviser, a U.S. base in Aviano, and the NATO Defense College. Red Brigade Terrorist Group Tweet The Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist left wing terrorist group active in Italy in the 1970s and early 1980s. Known as ‘Brigate Rosse’ in Italian and sometimes shortened to BR, their main aim was to force Italy to leave the NATO alliance. They are most famous for the kidnap and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978. During their long history of political and at times somewhat random violence they carried out approximately 14,000 acts of violence. As with many Cold War European terrorist groups they were founded by radical students, in the case of the Red Brigades by Renato Curcio, Alberto Franceschini and Mara Cagol in 1970.

In the beginning there were two main groups, that of the Trento Group with strong ties to the sociology Department of a catholic university and the Reggio Emilia group headed by Franceschini which recruited mainly from the Communist youth movement. At first the groups’ areas of operations were around the University and in the industrial factories of Milan, both areas a rich source of recruits. Operations were fairly low level, mainly factory sabotage and burglary but did include a brief kidnapping in 1972. This was about to change when the Red Brigades began to get direct aid for the Soviet block via Czechoslovakia. By 1974 the Red Brigades had committed their first murder and become a totally covert terrorist organisation, although an earlier lethal petrol bombing was mistaken blamed on the Red Brigade. In September 1974 an Italian secret service agent infiltrated the organisation and his information lead to the arrest of Curcio and Franceschini who were both sentenced to 18 years. Curcio was briefly rescued but soon re captured. Kidnapping now became the organisation’s modus operandi with the taking of several industrialists and politicians, mainly to gain ransom money to fund the organisation.

The organisation was supported during its heyday by Soviet small arms and explosives provided by Czechoslovakia often via the PLO and smuggling routes for heroin, as well as training for members in Syrian camps and in Prague. (See state sponsored terrorism ). This support lead to friction between the Italian communist party and the KGB who refused to cut off support to the Red Brigades. As the Brigades became more radical and violent they also expanded into other regions of Italy striking against big industry and corporations. In 1975 a police attempt to rescue a hostage lead to a violent gun battle which left two police officers and Mara Cagol dead. This led to a campaign against Police and magistrates especially those who had been involved in the conviction of Red Brigade members. The most famous crime committed by the Red Brigades was in 1978, when they kidnapped and 56 days later murdered the politician Aldo Moro. The attack was well organised with members using stolen Alitalia plane company uniforms, and carrying out an ambush which left five of Moro’s bodyguards dead and him a prisoner of the Red Brigade.

The Brigade wanted a semi official status as ‘insurgents’ but the Government refused to negotiate despite various pleading letters from Moro to his family , friends and even the Pope. The terrorists started to fear discovery and had lost faith with the chance of getting what they wanted so shot Moro more than ten times and as a final insult to the police dumped his body in a car near the Christian Democratic Party headquarters in Rome, despite the city being under tight surveillance. The murder was counter productive, Aldo Moro had been a popular figure to people from both ends of the political spectrum, and the Italian left wing condemned the murder as did some of the imprisoned Brigade leaders. A further blow to the Brigade’s popularity came in 1979 when they shot and killed Guido Rossa, a popular trade Union official who had reported Brigade members for distributing propaganda. This killing lost the organisation much of the support from the factory workers. On the back of this loss in support the police made large inroads against the organisation arresting thousands of activists and forcing many others to flee to France or South America. Many those captured turned evidence and provided information to help capture other members in order to reduce their own prison sentences.

Despite this decline in influence the Red Brigades were far from finished - on December 17th 1981 a small group kidnapped US Army Brigadier General Dozier who was at that time Deputy Chief of Staff for NATO Southern Land forces. 42 days later the General was rescued by Italian Special Forces from the apartment where he was being held. Despite this alarming swansong the organisation was in its death throes and in 1984 it split into two factions and many of its former leaders renounced the idea of armed struggle while the support from the Soviet Block dried up. Isolated killings continued with the murders of the US Sinai Multinational Force commander Leamon Hunt in 1984, the ex-mayor of Florence Lando Conti in February 1986, General Licio Giorgieri in 1987, and Senator Roberto Ruffilli in 1988. Police operations in response led to many arrests and the Red Brigades had virtually ceased to exist as a meaningful entity by the end of 1988. A remnant of the group still exists, possibly a new group with very little connection to the old Red Brigades.

It briefly resurfaced in the 1990s and early 2000s murdering several government advisors and some police in gunfights. On October 23rd 2003 police raids in several areas of Italy, including Rome and Sardinia led to the arrest of several members of this group, four of whom were sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2005. It is possible other isolated cells remain and the Red Brigades were certainly a long time in dying even after Soviet support was cut off at the end of the Cold War, but any threat they still pose is more one of criminal activity than any meaningful political action. How to cite this article: Dugdale-Pointon, T. (19 November 2007), The Red Brigade Terrorist Group, Red Brigades - Metapedia Red Brigades Jump to: navigation , search The logo of the Red Brigades The Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse in Italian, often abbreviated as the BR) was a collection of communist- terrorist cells [1] in Italy . They were most active during the 1970s and 1980s.

The Red Brigades sought to create a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist state through armed struggle , and to separate Italy from the Western alliance ( NATO ). They did this through numerous bombings, kidnappings, robberies, and assassinations. The BR barely survived to the end of the Cold War following a split in 1984 and the arrest or flight of the majority of its members. Through the 1990s and into the 2000s, several holdouts still carried out actions. Contents 9 References 1970: 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 its main 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 organised 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" Moro, photographed during his detention and subsequent execution by the Red Brigades 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. [2] 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's Operation Gladio 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. [2] 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 the public, 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 was 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 Main article: Aldo Moro 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 sentences. The most well-known collaboratore di giustizia was Patrizio Peci, one of the leaders of the Turin "column". In revenge, the Brigades assassinated, in 1981, his brother Roberto. This murder also widely contributed to discredit the movement.

On April 7, 1979, the Marxist philosopher Antonio Negri was arrested along with the other persons associated with the Autonomist movement, including Oreste Scalzone . Padova's Public Prosecutor, Pietro Calogero , accused those involved in the Autonomia movement of being the political wing of the Red Brigades. Negri was charged with a number of offences including leadership of the Red Brigades, masterminding the kidnaping and murder of Aldo Moro and plotting to overthrow the government. At the time, Negri was a political science professor at the University of Padua, visiting lecturer at Paris' École Normale Supérieure . Thus, French philosophers Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze signed in November 1977 L'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 Italian anti-terrorism legislation . [7] [8] A year later, Negri was exonerated from Aldo Moro's kidnapping.

No link was ever established between Negri and the Red Brigades and almost all of the charges against him (including 17 murders) were dropped within months of his arrest due to lack of evidence. Negri was however convicted of crimes of association and insurrection against the state (a charge that was later dropped) and, in 1984, sentenced to 30 years in jail. Two years later he was sentenced to an additional four and a half years on the basis that he was morally responsible for acts of violence committed by militants during the 1960s and 1970s largely due to his writing and association with far-left causes- and groups. French philosopher Michel Foucault later commented, "Isn't he in jail simply for being an intellectual?" [9] 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.

[10] The BR in the 1980s Most of the BR were dismantled in the 1980s. 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 L. 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.

Mulinari's 1983 arrest After the Abbé Pierre 's death in January 2007, Italian magistrate Carlo Mastelloni recalled in the Corriere della Sera that the Abbé Pierre 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. [11] Some of those associated with the Hyperion School (which included Corrado Simioni, Vanni Mulinaris and Duccio Berio [12] ) were accused by the Italian authorities of being the "masterminds" of the BR, although they were all cleared afterwards. After Vanni Mulinari's travel to Udine and subsequent arrest by the Italian justice, the Abbé Pierre went to talk in 1983 with Italian President Sandro Pertini to plead Mulinari's cause. Mulinari had been imprisoned on a charge of assisting the BR.

The Abbé had even observed eight days of a hunger strike from May 26, 1984 to June 3 in the Cathedral of Turin to protest the conditions suffered by "Brigadists" in Italian prisons and the imprisonment without trial of Vanni Mulinari, who was recognized as innocent some time afterwards. Mulinari's treatment was, according to the Abbé, a "violation of human rights ". [13] [14] [15] La Repubblica specified that Italian justice has recognized the innocence of all people close to the Hyperion School. [16] 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-CCP) 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. [17] 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.

[12] 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 [18] ). The issue of a general amnesty in Italy for these crimes is highly controversial and still source of dispute. Most political forces oppose it and, in particular, the associations of victims of terrorism and their family members are adamantly against it. 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 19 , 2002 , the same gun 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. [19] 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.

[20] 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 terrorist actions. [21] Allegations of international contacts According to Ion Pacepa , Red Brigades primary support allegedly came from the Czechoslovak StB and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). [22] [23] Soviet and Czechoslovakia small arms and explosives would have came from the Middle East via heroin traffickers along well established smuggling routes. [24] 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 .

[22] [25] According to the 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. [26] 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 . [27] Recent developments In October 2007 , a former BR commander was arrested after committing a bank robbery while out-of-prison on good conduct terms. 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, on October 1 , 2007 .

[28] In March 2008, Antonio Negri, who had been incarcerated from 1997 to 2003 for his association with the Red Brigade over the assasinatrion of Aldo Moro, was denied a visa for entry into Japan where he planned to give lectures on labor and other issues at the International House of Japan in Tokyo, Kyoto University , and the University of Tokyo . The Immigrant Control and Refugee Recognition Law bans entry to Japan by a foreign national if he has been given a prison sentence of one year or longer, except for political prisoners. [29] References ↑ Yonah Alexander, Dennis A. Pluchinsky. (1992) Europe's Red Terrorists: The Fighting Communist Organizations. Routledge. ISBN 0714634883 p.194 ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 See Giovanni Fasanella and Alberto Franceschini (with an afterword by 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 Red Brigades Privacy Red Brigades The Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse in Italian , often abbreviated BR ) was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization, based in Italy , which was responsible for numerous violent incidents, assassinations, and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead". Formed in 1970, the organisation sought to create a "revolutionary" state through armed struggle, and to remove Italy from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Red Brigades attained notoriety in the 1970s and early 1980s with their violent attempts to destabilise Italy by acts of sabotage, bank robberies, and kidnappings. Models for the Red Brigades included the Latin American urban guerrilla movements.

Volumes on the Tupamaros published by Feltrinelli were influential", a sort of do-it-yourself manual for the early Red Brigades " and also the Italian partisan movement of 1943–45 which was interpreted as an example of a youthful minority using violent means for just ends. The group's most infamous act took place in 1978, when the second groups of the BR, headed by Mario Moretti, kidnapped the former Christian Democrat Prime Minister Aldo Moro , who was trying to reach a compromesso storico, or "historic compromise", with the Communists. The kidnappers killed five members of Moro's entourage, and murdered Moro himself 54 days later. The BR barely survived the end years of the Cold War following a split in 1984 and the arrest or flight of the majority of its members . In the 1980s, the group was broken up by Italian investigators, with the aid of several leaders under arrest who turned pentito and assisted the authorities in capturing the other members. After the mass arrests in the late 1980s, the group slowly faded into insignificance.

A majority of those leaders took advantage of a law that gave credits for renouncing the doctrine (dissociato status) and contributing to efforts by police and judiciary to prosecute its members ("collaboratore di giustizia", also known as pentito). Red Brigades Fighting Communist Party | Mapping Militant Organizations Red Brigades Fighting Communist Party Formed 1988 First Attack December 17, 1981: Members of the BR-PCC kidnapped a high-ranking NATO official and American Brigadier General James Lee Dozier. Italian police freed Dozier in a raid in January 1982. (No reported casualties) [1] Last Attack April 16, 1988: Members of the BR-PCC assassinated an Italian Senator. (1 killed) [2] Updated June 20, 2012 Narrative Summary The Red Brigades Fighting Communist Party (BR-PCC) was the main successor to the Red Brigades (BR), Italy's largest left-wing terrorist organization, after the BR began to split in 1980.

Like the Red Brigades and its other successors, it sought the overthrow of the democratic and capitalist Italian state, but it differed with the BR's other successors over tactics and strategy. Similar to the Red Brigades and its other successors, it was dismantled by arrests and former militants' cooperation with police. The BR-PCC, which inherited the core of the parent organization and retained much of its traditional leadership, was the most successful of the groups that split from the BR. The BR had faced a law enforcement crackdown in the wake of its most famous attack, the 1978 kidnapping and eventual murder of a former Prime Minister, and began to break apart into factions shortly afterward. [3] The BR-PCC formed a few months after the Red Brigades Guerrilla Party (BR-PG) split from the BR. [4] The BR-PCC retained much of the traditional structure and ideology of the original Red Brigades. The BR's other offshoots criticized it for this, saying the BR-PCC was too militaristic and hierarchical and had lost touch with the workers. [5] Departing from other BR branches, the BR-PCC had international political goals in addition to a desire to instigate local class warfare.

It is best-known for two actions against American targets: the kidnapping of a U.S. and NATO general, and the killing of an American diplomat. These attacks differed from those of the BR and its other offshoots, whose targets were almost exclusively Italian and which were focused more narrowly on fomenting revolution in Italy. The BR-PCC proposed a "strategic retreat" in the wake of a wave of arrests following its first kidnapping in 1982. The object was to reorganize the organization to better position itself for continuing its offensive against the state. [6] The BR's other offshoots opposed this, and the BR-PCC itself continued to stage attacks. [7] The BR-PCC likely formally dissolved in 1988, when the BR's traditional leaders issued a communiqué from jail, declaring the armed struggle finished. Leadership The BR-PCC was led by some of the historic leaders of the Red Brigades, many of whom guided the organization from jail. Antonio Savasta (October 1981 to 1982): Savasta was the leader of the Venice branch of the Red Brigades.

He was arrested for participation in the kidnapping of an American Brigadier General and high-ranking NATO official in 1982. His cooperation with authorities led to the arrest of hundreds more members. [8] Mario Moretti (October 1981 to 1988): Moretti was a founding member of the Red Brigades and confessed to having personally fired the shots that killed Christian Democratic Leader Aldo Moro. He was arrested in 1981 and freed in 1998. He likely helped lead the BR-PCC from prison. [9] Barbara Balzerani, alias "Sara" (December 1981 to June 19, 1985): Balzerani had been a member of the student movement in Rome prior to joining the Red Brigades. She participated in some of the BR's and the BR-PCC's highest-profile attacks. She was arrested in 1985. [10] Ideology & Goals Communist revolutionary Left wing The Red Brigades Fighting Communist Party (BR-PCC), like the Red Brigades and all of its successors, sought to overthrow the Italian democratic capitalist state and replace it with a dictatorship of the proletariat.

The BR-PCC differed with the BR's other successors over strategy, tactics, and organization, however. In particular, the BR-PCC was considered more strictly "Leninist" than the other groups in its embrace of strict hierarchy and centrally-planned, as opposed to spontaneous, attacks. [11] Its specific demands included Italy's withdrawal from NATO, a halt to the construction of missile installations in Sicily, and the withdrawal of a multinational peacekeeping force from Lebanon. [12] Name Changes High-profile attacks have been staged under the names "The New Red Brigades" and BR-PCC beginning again in 1999. It is unclear what if any connection these new groups have to the original groups. [13] Size Estimates Unknown: 93 people were charged with involvement in the BR- (La Mappa Perduta.) [14] Resources The BR-PCC funded its activities primarily by robbing banks. While it engaged in kidnappings like its predecessor the BR, the BR-PCC did not seek ransom and instead used kidnappings as political statements without a self-financing motive. [15] Targets & Tactics The BR-PCC attacked traditional left-wing targets such as politicians.

It appears not to have focused on law enforcement targets, though the group did kill two policemen, perhaps by accident, while robbing a bank. [16] The BR-PCC emphasized America as a primary enemy and symbol of international capitalism and imperialism. It advocated the creation of a multinational Anti-Imperialist Fighting Front that would unite anti-American fighters, especially from Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, and Libya. [17] Domestically, the BR-PCC staged two high-profile attacks against Americans in Italy, kidnapping one and killing the other. Though other groups on the left had condemned the U.S. as a capitalist imperialist power and had demanded Italy's exit from NATO, the BR-PCC appears to be the only Italian left-wing terrorist group to have successfully attacked Americans in Italy. Major Attacks December 17, 1981: Members of the BR-PCC kidnapped a high-ranking NATO official and American Brigadier General James Lee Dozier. Italian police freed Dozier in a raid in January 1982. (0 killed). [18] May 3, 1983: Members of the BR-PCC wounded a member of the Italian Socialist Party in Rome. (0 killed).

[19] February 15, 1984: Members of the BR-PCC killed U.S. diplomat Leamon Hunt in Rome. (1 killed). [20] February 10, 1986: Members of the BR-PCC killed a former mayor, citing his investments in the defense industry, in Florence. (1 killed). [21] February 14, 1987: Members of the BR-PCC killed two policemen in the course of a robbery in Rome. (2 killed). [22] April 16, 1988: Members of the BR-PCC killed an Italian senator. (1 killed). [23] Relationships with Other Groups The BR-PCC was one of three main groups that split from the Red Brigades following its decline in the 1980s. The BR-PCC was a rival of the other main splinter groups, the Red Brigades-Walter Alasia and the Red Brigades-Guerilla Party. Those groups criticized the BR-PCC for being too orthodox and too focused on militancy over other forms of political expression.

The dispute between the groups was mostly rhetorical, [24] however, and they did not attack each other. The BR-PCC split again beginning in 1985, leading to the formation of the Union of Communist Combatants (UdCC). The UdCC, like the BR's other offshoots, advocated a less militaristic approach to the revolution, and broader participation from the masses. [25] References

Question: Who was kidnapped and assassinated by the left-wing movement 'Brigate Rosse' in 1978?
Answer: ALDO MORO