anatomy of the red brigades

326 Pages·2011·1.21 MB·English

ANATOMY OF THE RED BRIGADES

ANATOMY OF THE
RED BRIGADES
THE RELIGIOUS
MIND-SET OF
MODERN TERRORISTS
Alessandro Orsini
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN BY SARAH J. NODES
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
Ithaca and London
Originally published in Italian as Alessandro Orsini,
Anatomia delle Brigate rosse: Le radici ideologiche del terrorismo
rivoluzionario, by Rubbettino Editore S.r.l., Viale Rosario
Rubbettino n. 10, 88049 Soveria Mannelli (CZ), Italy.
Copyright © 2009 by Rubbettino Editore,
www.rubbettino.it
English translation copyright © 2011 LUISS University of
Rome “Guido Carli”
English translation first published 2011 by Cornell
University Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review,
this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any
form without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage
House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Orsini, Alessandro, 1975–
[Anatomia delle Brigate rosse. English]
Anatomy of the Red Brigades : the religious mind-set of
modern terrorists / Alessandro Orsini ; translated from the
Italian by Sarah J. Nodes.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8014-4986-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Brigate rosse. 2. Ideology. 3. Terrorism. I. Title.
HV6433.I82R436313 2011
363.3250945—dc22 2010047281
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Contents
Introduction 1
1. The Pedagogy of Intolerance 9
The Revolutionary Vocation 9
Violence as the Only Way 14
The “Binary Code” Mentality 17
Political Violence and Social
Marginality 21
Eschatological Politics 26
2. The Sacralization of Politics 30
The “Fanaticism of a New Religion” 30
Radical Catastrophism 33
The Revolutionary Sect and the
Obsession with Purity 36
The Hatred of Reformists 42
3. Toward the Bloodshed 48
Daily Life in a Revolutionary Sect 48
The Red Brigades’ Organization Plan 54
The Blood Crime and Its “Story” 58
The Path to Bloodshed 66
Shedding Blood and the Role of the
Revolutionary Sect 83
The Detachment from the Surrounding
World 89
4. The Genesis of the Red Brigades 93
The Red Brigades’ Social Roots 93
The “Cultural Lag” Theory 108
When Were the Red Brigades Born? 118
vi CONTENTS
The Red Brigades: “Imbeciles” or
Real Revolutionaries? 122
Antonio Gramsci and the “Hour
of Redemption” 125
The Italian Communist Party’s Role in
the Genesis of the Red Brigades 131
An Oxymoron: The “Leninist-
Reformist” Party 147
5. The Masters of the Red Brigades 155
Illustrious Predecessors: Thomas
Müntzer 155
John of Leiden, King and
Revolutionary 162
The English Revolution and the
Puritan Movement 165
The French Revolution and the
Jacobin Experiment 170
Babeuf: “The world has plunged
into chaos” 184
Karl Marx’s Pantoclastic Dream 187
The Revolutionary Tradition of
Russian Populism 196
6. The Purifiers of the World in Power 208
Lenin and State Terrorism 208
The Bolshevik Revolution and the
“Victims of the Victims” 213
The Gulag, or The Promise Kept 217
Mao and the Myth of the “New Man” 226
The Cambodian Revolution 237
Not a Conclusion: Portrait of a
Red Brigadist 253
Appendix: Red Brigades and Black Brigades 263
A Note on Method 285
Bibliography 289
Index of Names 313
ANATOMY OF THE RED BRIGADES

Introduction
It is a frightening idea that envy, resentment,
and hate can sometimes have a decisive effect on the course of history. A
rational vision of politics, in which the actors’ choices are always based on a
cost-benefit calculation, is much more reassuring.1
In this book I tell the story of a pathos that became a political movement
and kept an entire country under siege for almost twenty years, leading it to
the brink of civil war.2 We’re talking not about an army but about a handful
1. J. Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory.
2. According to the comparative analysis of modern terrorism by G. Chaliand and A. Blin (“Dal
1968 all’islamismo radicale,” 243), “Italy was by far the country most affected by terrorist activities
between 1969 and 1985.” The latest figures on terrorist violence in Italy in the 1969–2007 period are
given by L. Manconi, Terroristi italiani, 22ff. A total of 333 people were killed in attacks and massacres
in Italy between 1969 and 2007. Of these, 144 can be ascribed to left-wing terrorism, 54 to right-
wing terrorism; 135 were killed in massacres. Victims of international terrorism are not included. No
less impressive are the statistics concerning damage to things and violence against people. Between
1969 and 1980 12,690 political attacks were recorded. Of these, 4,035 were carried out between
1969 and 1974, and 8,655 from 1975 to 1980. Out of a total of 362 victims, 92 (25 percent) died
during the first period, 270 (75 percent) in the second. Between 1969 and 1974, 63 people were
victims of right-wing and 9 of left-wing terrorist attacks, and 10 were killed in shoot-outs with
the police; for the remaining 10 the identity of the attackers is unknown. Between 1975 and 1980,
115 people were killed by right-wing terrorists, 110 by left-wing ones, 29 by the police, and 16 by
unknowns. The least blood was shed in 1971 (6 deaths), the most in 1980 (135 deaths). The great-
est number of people were wounded during the late seventies (551, including 200 in Bologna alone
in 1980). At least 75 people had been “kneecapped” up to December 1978. See M. Galleni, ed.,
1
2 INTRODUCTION
of men and women animated by a fierce ideological determination. The
story of the Red Brigades and their homicidal fury is the story of a sociopsy-
chological process that strips the victim of humanity.
I call this process the “pedagogy of intolerance.”
The immediate object of pedagogical theories, as Émile Durkheim teaches
us, is to guide behavior. Such theories do not identify with the action but
prepare for it.3 The pedagogy of intolerance finds its raison d’être in action; it
is itself a tool of social change. Before being killed, the enemy is degraded to a
subhuman species. For the Red Brigade terrorist who has finished his or her
educational pathway, the enemy is a “pig”4 who arouses “absolute loathing.”5
When the enemy becomes a “filthy pig,”6 his life no longer has any value.
Political homicide in the ultra-left terrorist groups is above all a narrative,
a unilateral version of the facts without cross-examination; the world is a
“marsh”7 immersed “in the gloom of political slavery.”8 There are some
men responsible for this state of affairs. Killing them is an “act of justice”;9
Rapporto sul terrorismo; see also H. Hess, La rivolta ambigua, 125. For figures on “kneecapping,” see
G. Dossena, “Il polpaccio nel mirino,” 30–41.
3. E. Durkheim, L’educazione morale, 466.
4. Comunicato no. 1—D’Urso Campaign. Red Brigades document issued on 13 December 1980.
It states: “On Friday 12 December, an armed nucleus of the Red Brigades captured and placed in a
people’s prison the bastard, slave driver of thousands of workers, Giovanni D’Urso, judge, director-
general of the Ministry of Justice. This pig is chiefly responsible for the treatment of all proletarian
prisoners in both normal and special prisons. Everything that, in compliance with the directives
imparted by the imperialistic head offices, concerns the prisoners’ general and particular treatment,
the differentiation between prisons, the transfers, the tortures, and the political-psychic-physical an-
nihilation goes through his hands. Or rather went, because he is now in a people’s prison and will
be judged by that proletariat that the pig believed he could massacre with impunity” (see www.
brigaterosse.org).
5. Document claiming responsibility for the Labate kidnapping issued on 12 February 1973. Bruno
Labate was a manager at Cisnal. Now in Dossier Brigate rosse, 1:217.
6. Red Brigades document claiming responsibility for the Taliercio kidnapping issued on 11 June
1981. Giuseppe Taliercio was a director of the Montedison petrochemical company in Marghera.
Kidnapped on 20 May 1981, his body was found riddled with sixteen bullets on 5 July 1981. Some
extracts from this document are published in M. Clementi, Storia delle Brigate rosse, 299, from which
I quote.
7. V. I. Lenin, Che fare? 39. Lenin writes: “We are marching in a compact group along a pre-
cipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by
enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely
adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighbor-
ing marsh. . . . Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free . . . to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the
marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every
assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don’t clutch at us and don’t besmirch the grand word
“freedom,” for we too are “free” to go where we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but
also against those who are turning toward the marsh!”
8. Ibid., 45.
9. The Red Brigadist Giulia Borelli speaking to L. Guicciardi, Il tempo del furore, 251. Borelli
says, “What is most amazing, thinking back with a different mentality and maturity, is the naturalness
with which we came to accept (and I personally accepted) the idea of political homicide as a positive