Mohammed Farhan

Thesis

As leftists the importance of class-analysis, and the aligning of this analysis to praxis is paramount to the success of a proletarian revolution. The red brigades are an example of such a failure to align these principles to devastating results. This article seeks to both analyse the functions of the red brigades, failures, successes and lessons to be learned from them.

The Red Brigade, much like its contemporary ‘revolutionary leftwing’ (Jackson 2011) urban guerrilla movements can be categorised as a domestic, group terrorist organisation. That utilised, to great effect, kidnapping, bank robberies and assassination to sustain their presence in Italy. Using Marxist-Leninism as its ideology organised the class antagonisms of an industrialising Italy to galvanise enough resources to lead a decade long class-struggle.

History / Context

In understanding the theory, tactics and praxis of the Italian Red Brigade, it is important to contextual the material conditions of Italy during this time period, Sundquist (2010:54) finds “Marxist communism represented one of the several forms of social collectivism that rooted itself within the fabric of European society”, during the 1968-1970s Italy saw a surge in worker and student movements culminating often into “mass worker strikes” (Sundquist 2010:54), Ginsborg (1990:351) credits these class antagonisms to “the rapid transformations from 1958 to 1972 had given rise, as we have seen, to major tensions” going as far as to suggest “had the economic climate been more serene in the 1970s… might have achieved a higher level of political mediation” (Ginsborg 1990:351)

During these class antagonisms, two university students Renato Curcio, and Mara Cagol officially formed the Red Brigade in 1970 (Sundquist 2010:54) through galvanising the “discontent of frustrated and alienated university students”. The group quickly rose to legitimacy through working in tangent with trade unions and students, specifically through organising closely to places “where social disparities were more evident” (Sundquist 2010:55) such as factories.

Ideology

However, it wasn’t until 1975 that the Red Brigades developed a coherent ideology – and a praxis terroristic in nature. Inspired by the revolutionary success of urban guerrilla movements such as that in Cuba, the Red Brigades adopted Marxist Leninism. Specifically, Lenin’s (2011) theory of the state and revolution and Lenin (1963). A theory that is best described by Stalin (2015:43-45) “The state is a machine in the hands of the ruling class for supressing the resistance of its class enemies… the proletariat cannot arise as the result of the peaceful development… of bourgeois democracy; it can arise only as the result of smashing of the bourgeois state machine, the bourgeois army, the bourgeois bureaucratic apparatus, the bourgeois police” and best represented by the Red Brigades in their 1975 manifesto describing their goals as “The working class the revolutionary subject the capitalist the enemy… concentrated strike against the heart of the state because the state is an imperialist collection of multinational corporations” (Sundquist 2010:55-57). Their goal can be summarised as the creation of a socialist state through revolutionary armed class warfare.

Sundquist (2010:57) finds that the vilification of the government working in tandem with “multinational corporations” gave justification and reasoning for targeting local police and legal authorities to enhance their terror operations in urban areas. The natural target – in relation to their goal were government officials and police as they by extension are related to the alienation perpetuated by multinational corporations. This would soon extend to foreign officials too, specifically the kidnapping Chief of NATO James Dozier describing him as “Imperialist” and “‘hero’ of the American massacres” (Tanner 1981) in relation to the Vietnamese cold-war struggle.

If we are to apply Jackson (2011) categorisation of ideology, Red Brigade fits well into the left-wing revolutionary column, albeit with aspects of ethno-nationalism in their later years due to growing emphasis on anti-imperialist actions, best exemplified in their attack on the NATO defence college in 1990 and US base in Aviano (Westcott 2004) but most specifically the Dozier. (Ginsborg 1990).

Structure

The red brigades structure, were too – ideologically determined, arguably inspired by Lenin’s (2003) philosophical note works on class dialectic helped formulate an antithetical structure (Ogunrotifa 2013) to rival all aspects of bourgeois state machine (police, army, bureaucracy) – Sandquist (2010:57) described it as a “field unit structure” which was vertical chain of command compartmentalised with the strategic directorate as a central decisions maker and “urban/regional divisions” alongside “brigade fronts” as an opposition to the Italian government’s military, intelligence, communications and logistics while controlling boundary lines. Sandquist (2010:56) demonstrates this in figure A Figure A (Sandquist 2010:56)

Leadership / typology

The primary strategy employed by the Red Brigades, were in the form of Domestic terror, acknowledging Jackson’s (2011:150-152) definition as “campaigns of political violence that take place primarily inside the boundaries of the state” actions which will be further analysed in the next section. They can also be described as a group-terror organisation (Jackson 2011) as even once the founders of the Red Brigades were jailed and sentenced to 18 years in prison in 1975 (Ginsborg 1990) the organised terror under the renewed leadership of Moretti continued with their most infamous crimes yet to be committed in the period known as the years of lead.

Strategy

The main methods of terror deployed by the Red Brigades came in the form of kidnapping, assassinations, and bank robberies (Westcott 2004). Kidnappings and bank robberies were frequently used to sustain resources through means of ransom, but with mixed success (Sundquist 2010:59-61)

Their most infamous, and high-profile crime came as a result of the Aldo Moro kidnapping, in 1978 Red Brigade members, lead by Moretti ambushed and kidnapped Aldo Moro the current prime minister of Italy, this was not their first kidnapping – however it was the first to involve a high-profile government official (Ginsborg 1990). To rescue 16 of their previously imprisoned militant brigade members they put Moro up for ransom, these negotiations failed resulting in the assassination of Moro. The Italian government refusal to budge signalled a shift: Italian authorities now acknowledged them as a “national threat” and “decided to wage an all-out war against the leftist-network” (Sundquist 2010:60)

A notable shift in the strategy deployed by the Red Brigades came alongside a heightened animosity to NATO (Ginsborg 1990). Which culminated into the 1981 kidnapping of NATO chief of staff James Dozier – the distinguishing nature of this kidnapping as oppose to Moro, was the kidnapping was a direct means to gain resources – but to make a statement of anti-imperialism and exportation of anti-imperialism across international boundaries, a statement which would come in the form of a 188-page document best described in these two passages:

“The crisis of Capitalism generates an imperialist war. Only an anti-imperialist civil war can sink the war! War on the imperialist war is the only path for the transition to communism” … “Comrades, Proletarians, the proletarian trial of swine Dozier has begun. This swine, this assassin, was a ‘hero’ of the American Massacres in Vietnam, where he won various decorations for his ‘merits’” (Tanner 1981)

Failures

In measuring the success of the Red Brigade, it would be essential to return to their perceived goal: the creation of a revolutionary state, through armed class struggle. A goal mirrored in various successful urban guerrilla movements (Ogunrotifa 2013). The Red Brigades unlike the PCC of Cuba were unable to successfully overthrow the government.

Sundquist (2010:59) would argue it was the kidnapping of Moro that worked as a two-fold failure for the Red Brigades that signalled “the beginning of the end”.

Moro was a popular president and the conditions of his kidnapping were terribly calculated as he was on his was to make concessions to the communist party in parliament (conceding his class-antagonisms). The kidnapping and subsequent assassination delegitimised the Red-Brigades as a representative wing of the working class. (Sundquist 2010:59-61) Italian authorities were therefore able to justify the allocation of vast resources to suffocate the leftist network by labelling them a “national threat” (Sundquist 2010:61) without agitating class antagonisms.

Ultimately this culminated into an all out offensive, and shortly after the kidnapping of Dozier the Italian authorities combined with NATO brought an end to the organisation. “members were either killed, arrested or chose to quietly dissolve” (Sundquist 2010:61)

Success:

However, unlike many other “New Left” (Jackson 2011) terrorist organisations such as Symbionese Liberation Army (USA) they were able to retain influence and mass attention through their prime that lasted over 15 years ingraining their legacy into the history of Italian politics. These successes can be accounted most heavily to their effective capitalisation of 3 points:

The material conditions of Italian rapid industrialisation of the 1970s created a large alienated working class, in tandem with an alienated student population (Ginsborg 1990:351) gave rise to a viable class-antagonism needed to legitimise an insurgent left-wing militant organisation The tactic of organised kidnapping and bank robberies were able to pool large amounts of sustainable resources to both keep their presence in the public. Martin (2010) finds that the Red Brigades can be credited to up to 14,000 acts of violence – many of which were materially beneficial for them. Their “Field Unit” (Sundquist 2010:56) structure allowed them to combat the Italian government on from military, policing and intelligence with great effect, especially amongst regional boundaries.

Conclusion

The Red Brigade can be described as a domestic, group terrorist organisation (Jackson 2011), using Marxist-Leninism Curcio and Cagol was able to energise and organise a disgruntled working class (Ginsborg 1990:351) into a rival system to the government characterised as a vertical command that rivalled police, bureaucracy and the army. Though its success laid with this structure, and the success (and sheer quantity) of the methods deployed by the organisation, they were ultimately undermined once the Italian Authorities focused public discontent and resources into suffocating the group for good.

As leftists it is important to understand the failures of the Red Brigades as a vanguard of the proletarian, and its organised forces of violence, as one of a failure to thoroughly align praxis, with class-analysis.

Bibliography

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