Foto Ansa   We propose the contribution of a journalist who has worked, for a long time, on the subversive phenomenon in Italy. Our intention is to open a space to a debate which allows a personality of journalism and culture to analyze the theoretical, political and criminal aspects which have typified it. A close examination which, in respect of the several opinions, offers the reader the widest knowledge possible, of the various forms of endogenous terrorism which has so deeply marked the history of our Country..

History never repeats itself, they say. So affirms, among many others, Ernesto Galli Della Loggia, in dispute with those signatures of journalism like Giampaolo Pansa who, in front of the rising tension in the Country, warns against the risks of a return to the tragic past. After the attack suffered by Silvio Berlusconi, the 13th December, 2009, in Milan, and the “anarchic” bomb found three days later at the Bocconi University, certain columnists immediately evoked the climate of the “anni di piombo” (years of lead - meaning years of the bullets). A completely mistaken comparison, according to the historian of the parties and political movements. These were his comments in the Corriere della Sera of the 18th December: «It would be a good thing if the newspapers avoided writing the same article written a few years, or a few decades ago», that they avoided «the updating of the 70’s, the voluptuousness of the already known and the already said». And, finally, Galli Della Loggia asks «would it not be advisable to stop for a moment and try to get infected with a minimum of good reasoning».
Alright, let us stop for a moment and try to reason. Also the writer thinks that history never repeats itself. Because the contexts change, obviously. And only a foolish person could not be aware of the profound differences between the world of today and that of the 70’s; between Italy of today and the “anni di piombo”. But how is this relevant? That the phenomenon of terrorism, which deeply scarred that period of our history, cannot reproduce itself ever again, not even in a form, with modality and protagonists in different roles? That the risk of a new wave of violence is completely unrealistic in the always more heated social-political climate of these recent months?
Apart from what anyone of us can think, it is the same story of the last three decades that, in part, has already answered these questions. Unfortunately. Let us take the red terrorism (but analogous attention should also be given to the black subversion, changeable in form, but always active and dangerous). After the assassination of Aldo Moro, the State succeeded in disarticulating the Red Brigades and the Front Line by means of many arrests. And yet, for almost all of the 80’s, there was an extremely long reversal that caused other dead and injured. And when, in the “sleep” phase, which lasted for all of the first half of the 90’s, the enemy seemed, by then, definitively defeated, we did not realize that the Red Brigades were re-organizing. And so, towards the end of the decade, the labour law experts, Massimo D’Antona and Marco Biagi, and the policeman, Emanuele Petri, were killed. The culprits of those crimes were captured and it was thought that it was really finally finished. Some years of relative calm passed. But in February, 207, a piece of new awoke us from the torpor: the arrest of circa 15 neo-red brigade terrorists between Padua, Vicenza, Milan and Turin.
This time the terrorist were caught before they could carry out the clamorous actions they had programmed: attacks on newspapers and journalists, on political party and industrial Headquarters, the assassination of the labour law expert, consultant of the Cgil Union, Pietro Ichino. Planned attacks, prepared in minimum detail and already ready to be implemented: in what climate would we have lived in these last three years, if the new Red Brigades had not been stopped – just before they reached their goals – by police and Intelligence bodies, a good deal more prepared and vigilant than in the past? And yet, notwithstanding the efficiency of the State, which had led to the arrest of the members of the Northern neo-red brigades and to their conviction in the trial of Milan, the sensation to have inflicted a mortal blow to red terrorism was to be, once again denied. In June, 2009 (2009!), another six members of the neo-red brigades were captured in Rome. They had already planned even more clamorous actions, among which the assault on the Island of the Magdalena, during a summit of the G8, the meeting which, at the beginning, was announced to take place in Sardinia and was then transferred to Aquila.
Naturally, the military capacity of these new brigades can be questioned; their political-cultural weight; the degree of consensus they have in the factories, in the world of the young and in the intellectual strata. And, the conclusion can also be reached that, from this point of view, the Br that we have known in the last three years, were not even close to being compared with those who, in 1978, reached the «geometric strength» of the Moro operation. But counter-evidence does not exist. Because this time, as we have just mentioned, the State was far better prepared compared to the «anni di piombo» and its capacity of prevention has remarkably improved. This is an element that tends to be underestimated, because no-one asks into what atmosphere we would have been plunged if, in 2007, the terrorists had had time to strike, besides Ichino, the daily newspaper Foglio of Giuliano Ferrara and Libero then directed by Vittorio Feltri, the Milanese Branch of Eni and those of industries, political parties and union organizations. And what devastating propagandistic effect a successful attack would have had, like the one planned against the G8. Perhaps not everyone remembers that in the 70’s, the Left wing terrorists had a following, an area of sympathy – even of a fair consistence – in which they recruited en masse; and that their “success” was, to a great extend due to the very spectacular manner of their actions and to the myth of being unbeatable that had been created around them. For a long time, also due to the unpreparedness of the State in the face of the spreading violence, the idea became rooted, in different areas, that the Br were, in fact, leaders in the field, if not just one step away from the final victory. And many young people were prompted to join the armed struggle.
But there is yet another element which tends to be underestimated although it is before the eyes of everyone: beyond discussion, it is certainly a fact that, notwithstanding the blows received, over time, the Red Brigades continued to be reproduced. This should concern and induce serious thought.
Why, at forty years from their origin (convention of Pecorile, Colline Reggiane, September, 1970), the Br, far from being definitively archived as a dead and buried chapter of the past, are, instead, still a phenomenon of actuality? On what does their longevity depend, which has few precedents in the history of European terrorism? Perhaps it would be too much to exact an answer from the world of politics, so taken up with the everyday squabbles and so little attentive to the history of this Country. But the question is inescapable. And the answers that politicians do not want to give, or are unable to give, at least, we can ask the intellectuals, the historians and the journalists. Even though the subject, one can perceive, could generate anxiety.
The truth is that the phenomenon is reproduced because its roots are so deep that it has never been possible to extirpate them completely. And some are still very much alive. Let us look at the facts. What do the arrests of 2007, of 2009 and those as recent as 2010, tell us? In the first place, between the old and the new Br, there is an ideological continuity. But not only this. There are also the people who constitute a kind of “red” connection line that links-up the various eras of terrorism. The forty and fifty-year-old leaders arrested recently in the North and in Rome (Alfredo Davanzo and Claudio Latino, to mention some names) were the young apprentices of the armed struggle in the 70’s and 80’s. There has been, therefore, a continual transit of witnesses from one generation to the other, which has always kept the organizational network alive, also in the moments of the hardest repression by the State: hidden, silent, disguised, but always active.
Illuminating in this sense are the arrests, in recent days, of two supposed members of the New BR: Constantino Virgilio and Manolo Morlacchi, the latter, son of the former red brigade terrorist, Pierino Morlacchi.The direct connection with the experience of the «anni di piombo» is proved also by many other elements. The military arsenals discovered in the hide-outs of the neo-terrorists, per example: arms utilized already in the past or, however, inherited from companions of that time. The logistics network of support, to give another example: it is the same of the old Red Assistance and is very active, not only in Italy (between the Triveneto and Milan), but also abroad (between Switzerland and Paris). It is a kind of network that, just like the historical Red Assistance, supplies legal assistance to companions in prison and to their families. It promotes real and proper campaigns of political support to the imprisoned neo-red brigade terrorists. And it has it anchorage in a series of social centers among the most extremists of the Left antagonism, direct descendents of the clubs of the young proletariat and of the Autonomia of the 70’s.
These social centers – one thinks of the Gramigna of Padua, where various neo-red brigade terrorists have passed the last years of their apprenticeship – constitute the water in which the fish swim, the area of strict contiguity, where the terrorists often disguise themselves for protection, to carry out a work of ideological insemination and to recruit initiates. Just as it happened in the most acute phase of the «anni di piombo».
We have cited only some of the data which has emerged from the last inquiries, fragments of a reality which are far more eloquent than a thousand fine words. But the connection is not only with the recent past, like those of the 70’s. There is an ideological root that goes much deeper, submerged in the history of a part of the Communist Left, always more in the minority, fortunately, but still active - where fragments of a culture still endure that demonize the adversary, that transform it into an enemy to be destroyed, that fuel the idea according to which political and social conflicts can be resolved also by means of violence. In any event, it is sufficient to think that this principle has survived up to a few years ago. Even, in the Statute of the ‘Refoundation’ (of the hard-line Communist Party). And that recently, in a conversation with the journalist, Antonio Galdo – who has written a biography, Pietro Ingrao, the disarmed companion, with the eloquent sub-title: I have thirst and hope of non-violence’ – the elderly communist leader admits: «I have spent an existence battling for essential things: the right to eat, to grow, to be educated, to have health assistance, to be creative in one’s work. But my biography, like that of many companions, shows that we did not take a truly crucial distance from violence The time has come to say it…. ».
It was 2004, only five years ago, when Ingrao invited the Left, still communist, to finally take a «truly crucial distance» from the violence! It gives one a strange impression re-reading those words of his about the never thorough acknowledgement of the actions of a tradition which saw grow, within himself, the “monster”: that disease, the origin of which Ingrao himself individuated in the Leninist and Stalinist communism. And which, one can add, was developed under the wing of the Italian Communist Party (but in conflict with its more illuminated executive) already during the Resistance and for all the after-war period, until exploding with dramatic virulence in the 70’s.
It was the idea of a zero hour; the almost messianic waiting for the violent breaking point and of subversion of the social order, which some fringes of the communist partisan movement believed had arrived with the struggle of liberation from the Nazi-fascism. Not all the communist partisans fought for the same objective: if for some, it was a struggle of liberation from a totalitarian regime and from a foreign occupation, for others, it was also a class struggle against the bourgeoisie, the conquest of power and the establishment of the proletariat dictator. And when the PCI of Palmiro Togliatti took the road of amnesty, of the national pacification and of the democratic Constitution, the diehards cried betrayal of the revolutionary ideas. The «betrayed Resistance»: the myth that had fed for decades, first the ideology of the insurrectionist current «Secchiana» and «Feltrinelliano»; then that of the red terrorism; and finally, survived also the fall of the Wall and at the end of the cold war, reached more recent epochs to feed also the current of the neo-red brigades and its area of contiguity.
To be fully aware of the situation, it is necessary to read the last words of Mario Toffanin, the Commander Giacca of the Friulian Communist partisans who, in February, 1945, massacred, in the
Malga (Alpine grazing area) of Porzus, a few kilometers from Udine, anti-communist partisans of the Osoppo Brigade, accused of intelligence with the «fascist and bourgeois» enemy. He gave this interview in 1996, shortly before he died; almost as if he wanted to consign his political-moral testament to the future generations. The news sheet, named Rivoluzione, is of the antagonist area tied to the social center “Gramigna”. A particular excerpt, among the most illuminating of this interview, merits to be cited in full:

For many communist partisans the fight of liberation should have arrived to transform Italy into a socialist republic. This did not happen, however, the Resistance enabled the worker class to obtain the conquests of the after-war period. What do you think?

the Resistance certainly contributed to the improvement of the conditions of life of the worker class after the war. For the very reason that there was the Resistance, because there were the communists to guide it, it was possible to obtain those improvements (…). But the bourgeoisie continue to exploit the worker. I am for the revolution; I would leave immediately, even tomorrow for Udine that I know well. When there was that attack on Togliatti, we expected a signal from the party and the partisan struggle would have started up again. We were all ready to fight the bourgeoisie. Unfortunately, the go-ahead never arrived. We lost a great occasion. Without revolution you cannot impede the exploitation of the workers. I would like a revolution to begin tomorrow; a decisive struggle to pull down the bourgeoisie that exploits the workers (…) it is necessary to make the revolution, it’s the only alternative to change things.

You said before that also tomorrow you would begin the revolution, but don’t you think that it is important to organize yourselves and, above all, reconstruct the communist Party?

Well, yes, I would start immediately, not tomorrow. It is certainly necessary to begin to organize ourselves, to have a communist party and also an army of proletarian fighters.

Have you seen your old companions again?

What can I say, I should think, by now, almost all of them are dead. A short while ago, they came to see me in six. They said to me: “Giacca, when do we start again?”.

This interview was republished in 2005 to celebrate the 70 years of the Resistance and has become a kind of Gospel which, today, inspires the greater part of the area of the social centers and the Left antagonist. And it is not a coincidence.
In the political clash that inflames Italy, rekindling passions and sentiments, creating strong states of unease, there has been rooted in sectors of the Left, also in those that are farthest away from terrorism and the social antagonism, the totally unrealistic idea that the Country is precipitating towards an authoritarian regime. Authoritative intellectuals fan the flames to feed the idea. It is as if we are not aware that words have weight, they produce effects; hardly ever do they remain without consequences. They contribute to create a climate, a political, cultural, psychological breeding ground in which the tumour of violence and terrorism can reproduce itself once again. The writer, in the last three – four years has been far and wide to speak of the «anni di piombo». He has been in the high schools, the universities, the factories and the cultural centers. He has participated in crowded debates, during which he has seen, with horror, flabby elderly veterans take the floor to claim with pride their own experiences of the 70’s, and jaunty twenty-year-olds, who have no memory of those years, applaud enthusiastically. If the idea that circulates is of a Country with no more hope, by now in the grip of a corrupt tyranny, it is clear that the temptation could come to someone to unearth the arms and prepare for a new Resistance.
Notwithstanding the bereavements provoke and the defeat suffered, the experience of the 70’s, for the generation of the twenty-year-olds who hang around the social centers of the Left antagonism, it does not seem to them a model to reject, at all. It is a story to look at and around which a renewed interest has been set aflame. Always more frequently there are the meetings to which are invited not only «teachers» and «ideologists», but also «military heads». Their «lessons», their testimonies, their stories – listened to live or by means of underground video circuits – it is the Word that forms the new generations of the «social rebellions». The cultural and ideological lymph which continues to nourish the sacred fire of the revolution.
Yet, notwithstanding everything, there are still many, too many, who are not aware of the danger. And whoever refers to the subject, even in the presence of unequivocal signs, is accused of emphasizing it, exaggerating it out of proportion, because moved by old conditioned reflexes, or by ‘whose know what’ political calculations.
But it is enough to frequent the web to realize the fascination that the old passwords exercise, still today: the forums are multiplying in which the seeds of hatred are sown, praises are sung to violence and the annihilation of the enemy is invoke: also the pages in which open praise is given to the Red Brigades are always more numerous.
Assuredly, it is not said that it will happen again, that the tragedy of the «anni di piombo» is inevitably destined to be repeated. But to deny that the political, cultural and ideological ground is still fertile would be an act of irresponsibility. And to rely exclusively on the capacity of prevention on the part of the State, would not be a good antidote. Above all, if the efficiency of these apparatuses is not supported by a general consciousness of the danger and of the necessity of fighting it at the roots.