STRIKE ONE to EDUCATE ONE HUNDRED the Rise of the Red Brigades in Italy in the 1960S-1970S
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STRIKE ONE TO EDUCATE ONE HUNDRED The rise of the Red Brigades in Italy in the 1960s-1970s A Seeds Beneath the Snow Publication, republished by the rhizzone forum 2018-2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Chapter 1. Background: Italy ------------------------------------------------------- 4 Chapter 2. Italian New Left up to the formation of the BR -------------------------- 10 Chapter 3. Preparation for a new resistance: Metropolitan Political Collective ----- 20 Chapter 4. The Red Brigades appear: factory actions -------------------------------- 27 Chapter 5. The struggle for the line ----------------------------------------------- 33 Chapter 6. BR begin political kidnappings ------------------------------------------ 41 Chapter 7. Campaign against "Fiat Fascism" ----------------------------------------- 45 Chapter 8. Against "White Shirt Fascism" ------------------------------------------- 52 Chapter 9. Sossi Action ------------------------------------------------------------ 70 Chapter 10. Carry the Attack to the Heart of the State ------------------------------ 94 APPENDIX Afterword --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 119 Excerpts from a BR training manual -------------------------------------------------- 123 Typical Days ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 127 Footnotes --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 129 Distributed By: Cooperative Distribution Service Room 1222 — 93 17 N. State St Chicago, IL. 60602 Copyright © 1986 "Strike one to educate one hundred" INTRODUCTION This work has a certain degree of difficulty and is intended for the serious student, who needs an understanding of repression. It is based on the key documents of the strategic debate within the Italian revolutionary movement as they approached armed confrontation with the State. That was the first stage of urban guerrilla warfare in Italy from 1970- 1975, whose primary (although not only) expression was the Red Brigades. While many have heard of that organization, people know little but the name. The entire Italian revolutionary struggle was politically unknown to us save for the subliminal: effects of imperialist media, with all its censorship and untruths. In general it is our internationalist duty to spread the lessons of all revolutionary movements, to strengthen ourselves as we defeat the isolation that imperialism strains to impose on all of us. Specifically, the struggles of the european metropolis, which take place in the urban-technological society, have special meaning for us. It is not just in Vietnam, Guinea-Bissau, and El Salvador that one finds the front-lines of battle. The experience of forming the Red Brigades is not in our opinion a blueprint or an idealized model to be imitated. Situations within the u.s. Empire, within both oppressor and oppressed nations, differ greatly from the Italy of the 1960s-1970s. Yet the problems, pressures, errors and questions they faced in their formative stage were to some degree true here as well. The questions around beginning the process of revolutionary organization are important, since we, like our Italian comrades know that: “To fight, to be defeated, to fight again, to be defeated again, to fight anew until final victory” is the law of history. What is essential now is that the Italian experience deepens and re-states questions that we must answer. Not facile answers but a more profound question. In setting off on the still-unknown path of urban guerrilla warfare, the Red Brigades rejected the non-materialist conception of armed struggle as a voluntary tactic. That is, that armed struggle is supposedly something only done when the movement decides that it is ready to try it. The founding members of the Red Brigades pointed out that in Italy a truly mass revolutionary sentiment was forming, which the State had decided to militarily wipe out. So violent confrontation would take place whether or not the movement was ready or even willing. Nor was the timing completely up to the movement. The only choices were to give up, to suicidally pretend that violent repression wasn't happening, or to leap to the higher stage of revolutionary armed struggle, however hard that leap. This study begins with two background chapters. The first gives a brief factual overview of Italian society and its political situation in the years being discussed. The second chapter tells the general history of the New Left, from 1960 to the coming together in 1969 of what would become the Red Brigades. We have no secret sources of information. This study is completely based on publicly available documents, Italian newspaper and magazine accounts, books, and the Italian movement press. We are indebted to the former Information-Documentation Section of Red Aid, whose diligent work made this book possible. CHAPTER 1 Background: Italy In terms of geography, Italy is a long, boot-shaped peninsula that juts out of Southern Europe some 500 miles into the Mediterranean Sea. In area this peninsula is roughly the size of Georgia and Florida combined. And to the West and South respectively, the two large islands of Sardinia and Sicily (each the area of Vermont) extend Italy even further out into the Mediterranean. While its Northern border anchors Italy to France, the Swiss Alps, Austria and Yugoslavia, on its other three sides Italy is bordered by sea. There is less than 100 miles between Sicily and Tunisia, on the North African coast. So Italy is almost a bridge between Western Europe and the Arab world. The Italian nation is sharply divided regionally between North and South. Northern Italy is completely European--urbanized, highly industrial, relatively prosperous, consumeristic. The way of life in such cosmopolitan cities as Turin or Milan differs only in details from that of Hamburg, Paris or London. By contrast, the South seems almost like the Third World. The saying that Southern Italy is closer to Africa than it is to Europe is meant as a social comment. Southern Italy has a hot, sunny, Mediterranean climate. There is little industrial development. Traditional peasant agriculture and fishing play a large role in the economy. Poverty and unemployment are widespread. In Naples, the major city of the South, there is 40% unemployment. Smuggling and other Mafia activities comprise the largest single economic sector in that city of 1.1 million people. The per capita income in Sicily and Reggio Calabria, the two poorest South Italian provinces, is on a level with that of Greece, Puerto Rico or Venezuela, and is roughly one- third less than per capita income in Northern Italy.1 Not surprisingly, the South's main export has always been emigrant workers, who historically made up the bottom of the industrial and service workforce in the North; the cleaning women, factory assemblers, sanitation men and construction laborers. Italy is the weakest of the major imperialist nations. In the colonial era it was almost completely left out as Italy was itself dominated by other Powers, and until very late – 1861 – did not have a national government. Italian capitalism attempted to take over near- by Tunisia in the 1860s-1870s, but lost out to French colonialism. The Italian army which invaded Ethiopia in 1896 was smashed, with Italy having to pay reparations to Ethiopia for the return of its captured soldiers. Italy began colonizing the Somalia coast in 1885, gradually expanding inland until it had taken all of Somalia by 1927. In 1912, Italy seized Libya from the dying Turkish Empire. Despite killing half the population, Italy was never able to stamp out Libyan guerrillas. Albania was captured in 1939, at the start of World War II. This meager colonial empire – Albania, Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia – was all lost by Italy in the course of the War (1939-1945). Italy's weakness is manifested in uneven economic development. Although Italy is Europe's second-largest steel producer and FIAT is Europe's second largest auto corporation, the state had to assume the main role of industrial development due to the weakness of the Italian bourgeoisie. Italy's largest industrial corporation, IRI, and the major petroleum corporation, ENI, are both government-owned. Main industries are textiles, steel, auto, shoes, machinery and chemicals. Italy's main exports to the u.s. empire are shoes, textiles and foodstuffs (olive oil, etc.). In important capitalist sectors such as finance or advanced electronics, Italy plays only a minor role. While there is considerable natural gas in the North, petroleum must come from the Arab nations. Italy has historic ties to Libya, and is Libya's biggest trading partner (taking 24% of Libyan exports, mostly oil, and sending 30% of Libyan imports). The Americanization or Coca-Colonization of Italy has been pronounced since the u.s. occupation during World War II. This is especially noticeable in the more prosperous Northern cities, where people have been better able to afford it. As in so many other nations, automobiles, Hollywood movies and rock music are basic elements in the mass consumer culture. 1 The per capita income in Southern Italy is still much greater than the per capita income of poorer oppressed nations such as Kenya, Haiti and Sri Lanka. The living standard in Italy is at the low end of the major oppressor nations. In 1980 Italian per capita (i.e. per adult person) income was $6,914 per year, while Japan's was $8,460 and in the u.s.