Red Brigades

The Red Brigades (Italian: Brigate Rosse [briˈɡaːte ˈrosse], often abbreviated BR) were an Italian far-left Marxist–Leninist militant group. It was responsible for numerous violent attacks during Italy's Years of Lead, including the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978, a former prime minister of Italy through the organic centre-left. The assassination of Moro was a national shock in Italy, as was that 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!" 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. Nearly fifty people were killed in its attacks between 1974 and 1988. According to the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the BR was a "broadly diffused" terrorist group. Models for the BR included the Latin American urban guerrilla movements and the World War II era Italian partisan movement. The group was also influenced by volumes on the Tupamaros of Uruguay 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". Other influences included the Algerian National Liberation Front and the Viet Cong. In the 1980s, the group was broken up by...