Red Brigades

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	Communism Marxism–Leninism
Political position	Far-left
Major actions	Left-wing terrorism, murder, conspiracy, kidnapping
Battles and wars	Years of Lead Kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro

The Red Brigades (Italian: Brigate Rosse [briˈɡaːte ˈrosse], often abbreviated BR) was a Marxist–Leninist armed terrorist^[1] organization,^[2] which was operating as a far-left guerilla and terrorist group based in Italy.^[3] It was responsible for numerous violent incidents during Italy's Years of Lead, including the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978.^[4] A former prime minister of Italy through the Organic centre-left, the murder of Aldo Moro was widely condemned, as was the murder of left-wing trade unionist Guido Rossa in January 1979. Sandro Pertini, the then left-wing president 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!"^[5]

Formed in 1970, the Red Brigades sought to create a revolutionary state through armed struggle, and to remove Italy from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The organization attained notoriety in the 1970s and early 1980s with their violent acts of sabotage, bank robberies, the kneecapping of certain industrialists, factory owners, bankers, and politicians deemed to be exploitative, as well as the kidnappings or murders of industrialists, prominent capitalists, politicians, law enforcement officials, and other perceived enemies of the working-class revolution.^[6] Nearly fifty people were killed in its attacks between 1974 and 1988.^[7] According to the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the BR was a "broadly diffused" terrorist group.^[8]

Models for the BR included the Latin American urban guerrilla movements and the World War II era Italian partisan movement, which was itself a mostly leftist, anti-fascist revolutionary movement that the BR saw itself as a continuation of, and an example of a youthful anti-fascist movement using violent means for just ends. The group was also influenced by volumes on the Tupamaros published by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, which in the words of historian Paul Ginsborg became "a sort of do-it-yourself manual for the early Red Brigades".^[9] Other influences included the Algerian National Liberation Front and the Viet Cong.^[5]

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. The group had a resurgence in the late 1990s to the 2000s. Although Italy was not the sole country to experience years of terrorism,^[10] the BR were the most powerful, largest, and longest-lived post-World War II left-wing terrorist group in Western Europe.^[3] Like-minded organizations were the Red Army Faction in Germany, the Irish Republican Army, and Basque's ETA. Countries hit by terrorism included France, Germany, Ireland, and Spain.^[11]

Throughout their existence, the BR were generally opposed by other far-left groups, such as Lotta Continua and Potere Operaio, and were isolated from the Italian political left, including by the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which they opposed for their Historic Compromise with Moro and Christian Democracy.^[5][12] With the kidnapping and murder of Moro, they were instrumental in blocking the PCI's road to government.^[5] 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 an anti-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, especially in regard to the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro.^[5]