Neo-Fascist and Far Left Terrorists in Italy: Some Biographical Observations

In recent years a good deal of concern has been expressed about the phenomenon of political terrorism in Italy. The mass media have directed our attention to spectacular acts of international terrorism committed on Italian soil by groups, largely from the Middle East, which have used the country as a teatro in which to stage their operations against targets of opportunity. Scholars and journalists have also drawn our attention to the problem of domestic terrorism. The kidnapping and assassination of the former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 may serve as the most dramatic example. It seems fair to say that much of this publicity has been focused on the Left. The attempts by various leftist groups, the Red Brigades (BR), Front Line (PL), Worker Autonomy (AO) and others, to use terrorist violence as a means of bringing about a Communist revolution was a source of apprehension in the Western world from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s. Allegations that the revolutionary groups were aided by the Soviets or other Warsaw Pact nations, as part of an effort to destabilize the Western democracies, did much to heighten the concern.