Among the numerous radical left organizations that declared themselves in the second half of the 20th century, a special place is occupied by the Italian Red Brigades. Of the general mass of fighters for social justice who used the method of terror and violence, they were particularly cruel and promiscuous in their choice of means, which ultimately alienated the bulk of the workers whose support they counted on.
Students Turned Terrorists
As is often the case in history, a terrorist organization was born among half-educated students, this time at the University of Trento. In 1970, Renato Curcio with his girlfriend and later wife, Mara Kagol, created an underground youth organization whose goal was an armed struggle for the creation of a revolutionary state and Italy's exit from the alliance with Western countries, including the NATO bloc.
In addition to violent actions, which included murders, kidnappings, blackmail and extortion, the Red Brigades in the initial period of their activity also used completely legal methods of political struggle - agitation, propaganda andthe creation of semi-legal circles at factories and educational institutions. However, this open activity continued only until 1974, when, after the murder of two members of the right-wing radical socialist organization, Renato Curcio and his supporters were forced to go underground.
Arrest of militant leader
From now on, political terrorism becomes their main tactic. The "Red Brigades" (Italy) left a truly bloody trail in history. Suffice it to say that in the first decade of their activity, members of the organization, which, according to official figures, included twenty-five thousand people, committed fourteen thousand acts of violence, of which more than a hundred were murders.
In 1974, government secret services arrested Renato Curcio and several other leaders of the organization. This became possible thanks to the actions of a secret agent introduced into the Red Brigades. All of them were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, but immediately after the trial, Kurcho's wife organized an armed raid on the police car in which her husband was transported, and managed to free him. Only a few months later, the convicted terrorist was again put behind bars.
Kidnapping and extortion
But, contrary to the expectations of the authorities, having lost their leader, the militants have largely stepped up their activities. They carried out a number of kidnappings of political figures and employees of the justice apparatus in order to put pressure on the government. Every time theythe requirements were not met, they ruthlessly killed their victims.
The main source of funding for the organization was the kidnapping of large entrepreneurs for ransom. They also did not disdain banal robberies of banks and rich houses. Law enforcement agencies in Italy were actively fighting the terrorists, and many of them ended up in prison.
The murder of the ex-premier
At the end of the seventies, the "Red Brigades" in Italy finally lost the support of the broad masses of the population. One of the reasons for this was the resonant assassination of a prominent political figure, ex-premier Aldo Moro, organized by the new leader of the group, Mario Moretti.
The militants kidnapped their victim, after killing five of his bodyguards. Then, having kept the politician for fifty-four days in the basement of one of the houses and not having achieved the fulfillment of their demands by the authorities, they shot him, and the corpse was left in the trunk of a car abandoned on the street. This became one of the most notorious crimes committed by the Red Brigades.
In Italy, a photo of the ex-premier, taken by kidnappers against the background of their flag, and then dead in the trunk of a car, went around the front pages of all newspapers. It is not surprising that the members of the organization were completely compromised in the eyes of the people with such gangster methods of solving social problems.
The decline of the organization's activities
The Red Brigades managed to survive the eighties withwith great difficulty. A split occurred in their ranks, as a result of which two independent, independent branches were created. This led to a general weakening of the organization. In addition, some of its members, convinced of the futility of further actions, immigrated to other countries, and a significant part of the militants ended up behind bars.
The "Red Brigades" in Italy, whose historiography makes up a whole section in the studies of sociologists and historians of our time, by all accounts, suffered greatly as a result of the unseemly actions of most of their members who ended up in prison. It is known that many of them, in order to reduce the sentence, cooperated with the police and provided significant assistance in the capture of their recent associates.
Successors of Assassins
In the late nineties, in many countries of Western Europe, there was an increase in social tension, and with it political terrorism intensified. In this regard, the "Red Brigades" (Italy) received a certain impetus 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 certain tactics of action. The only thing they had in common was that they all declared their succession to the former terrorist group, which left a bloody trail in the history of the country.
