Different origins but clear similarities for two terrorist groups
When the Red Brigades assumed responsibility for the murder in 1999 of a senior government adviser, the economist Massimo D’Antona, investigators in Italy and abroad thought it was nothing but a crude imitation of the group’s methods. The organization founded by Renato Curcio that shook Italy’s political life in the 1970s was believed to be defunct, both as an organization and politically, after the effective crackdown by the Italian authorities. Last Tuesday’s murder of Marco Biagi supports the scenario of a second generation that had not cut its ties with the group’s original leadership, although it had developed completely different characteristics. Similarities with the November 17 Revolutionary Organization are also clear, despite their different origins. First of all, they release similar propaganda statements. November 17’s frequent references to a «lumpen monopolistic bourgeoisie» are reflected in the recent phraseology affected by the Red Brigades to describe the «neo-corporate Italian bourgeoisie.» In both cases, emphasis is on the supposedly parasitic, almost mafia-like relationship between the state and economic oligarchy. «Class/anti-capitalist» references are more frequently being linked to the traditional «anti-imperialism» that characterized the early days of both organizations. Even more marked are the similarities in their political strategies. During the 1970s, attacks by both groups were chiefly directed against figures who were hated by broader masses of the people – in Greece, torturers for the junta during the dictatorship and CIA agents, and in Italy, outright fascists preparing a military coup and committing mass slaughters, such as the one at the Bologna railway station. During that phase, they presented themselves as the armed wings leftist movements that claimed broad support and legitimacy, at a time of great political instability and radicalism. The turning point for both organizations came 11 years apart but their political semiology was identical. In 1978, the Red Brigades killed the centrist Christian Democrat, former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, who supported a «historic compromise» which would have seen a powerful Communist Party in the government. In 1989, the November 17 group killed Pavlos Bakoyiannis, the architect of the «historical compromise a la grecque» that eventually led to the Tzannetakis government. From this point onward, both organizations essentially abandoned any attempt at political moderation, adopting a more extreme form of political sectarianism and an even more closed structure. (It would be more correct to say that the Red Brigades adapted later to the tightly controlled model adopted by November 17 from the outset.) Faced with absolutely hostile public opinion – which they justify as a symptom of the «strategic withdrawal phase» – they declared a period of long-term preparation for the «passage from class struggle to class war.» Social security, labor relations and «imperialist war» have been the main reference points in recent proclamations by both groups which, except for a few statements of a more domestic nature, could have been written by the same closed group of activist-operatives. Naturally, the scenario regarding underground links between the second generation of Greek and Italian terrorists is only a working hypothesis, but the similarities are too obvious to be ignored.
