Among the many left-wing organizations,having declared themselves in the second half of the 20th century, the Italian “Red Brigades” occupy a special place. Of the total mass of fighters for social justice, who used the method of terror and violence, they were distinguished by their particular cruelty and indiscriminate choice of means, which ultimately repelled the majority of workers, whom they hoped to support.
Students who became terrorists
As often happened in history,a terrorist organization originated among untrained students, this time at the University of Trento. In 1970, Renato Curcio with his girlfriend, and later his wife, Mara Kagol, created an underground youth organization whose goal was to fight for the creation of a revolutionary state and for Italy to withdraw from the alliance with Western countries, including NATO.
In addition to violent acts that includedmurders, kidnappings, blackmail and extortion, the “Red Brigades” in the initial period of their activities also used quite legal methods of political struggle — agitation, propaganda, and the creation of semi-legal circles in factories and educational institutions. However, this open activity continued only until 1974, when, after the killing of two members of the right-wing socialist organization, Renato Curchos and his supporters were forced to go underground.
Arrest of militant leader
From this point on, their main tactic becomespolitical terrorism. The “Red Brigades” (Italy) left a truly bloody trail in history. Suffice it to say that in the first decade of their activities, members of the organization, which, according to official figures, consisted of twenty-five thousand people, carried out fourteen thousand acts of violence, of which more than a hundred were murders.
In 1974, government intelligence agenciesRenato Curcio and several other leaders of the organization were arrested. This became possible thanks to the actions of the secret agent introduced in the “Red Brigades”. All of them were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, but immediately after the trial, Curcot’s wife organized an armed raid on the police car in which her husband was being transported, and managed to free him. Only a few months later the convicted terrorist was able to be put back in jail.
Abductions and Extortion
But, contrary to the expectations of the authorities, having lost itsleader, the militants largely stepped up their actions. They committed a series of abductions of political figures and employees of the judiciary in order to exert pressure on the government. Every time their demands were not met, they mercilessly killed their victims.
The main source of funding for the organizationthere were abductions of major entrepreneurs for ransom. They did not disdain also banal robberies of banks and rich houses. Italian law enforcement agencies waged an active struggle with terrorists, and many of them were in prison.
The murder of the ex-premier
В конце семидесятых годов «Красные бригады» в Italy finally lost the support of the broad masses of the population. One of the reasons for this was the high-profile murder of a prominent political figure, former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, organized by the new leader of the group, Mario Moretti.
Militants kidnapped their prey by killingfive of his bodyguards. Then, after keeping the policy for fifty-four days in the basement of one of the houses and not having achieved the authorities' fulfillment of their demands, they shot and left the body in the trunk of an abandoned car outside. This was one of the most high-profile crimes committed by the Red Brigades.
In Italy, the photo ex-premiere, shot by the kidnappersagainst the background of their flag, and then dead in the trunk of a car, bypassed the front pages of all newspapers. It is not surprising that with such bandit methods of solving social problems, members of the organization were completely compromised in the eyes of the people.
Decline of the organization
The eighties “Red Brigade” managedsurvive with great difficulty. There was a split in their ranks, as a result of which two independent branches, independent of each other, were created. This led to a general weakening of the organization. In addition, some of its members, convinced of the futility of further action, immigrated to other countries, and a significant part of the militants were behind bars.
“Red Brigades” in Italy whose historiographymakes up a whole section in the studies of sociologists and historians of modern times, who are generally considered to have suffered in many respects as a result of the unseemly actions of the majority of their members who were in prison. It is known that many of them, in order to mitigate the sentence, were cooperating with the police and provided substantial assistance in apprehending their recent comrades.
Successors killers
In the late nineties in many Western countriesEurope was experiencing increased social tensions, and with it intensified political terrorism. In this connection, the “Red Brigades” (Italy) received a certain impulse for revival, but not as a single structure, but in the form of several organizations, each of which had its own name and adhered to a certain tactic of actions. What they had in common was that they all declared their continuity to the previous terrorist group, which left a bloody trace in the history of the country.
