Armed, far-right organizations in Italy

In Italy, after the war, many armed, paramilitary, far-right organizations were active, as well as far-left ones.

Background

The attempt to endorse the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) by the Tambroni Cabinet, in 1960, led to rioting and was short-lived.[1] Widespread labor unrest and the collaboration of countercultural student activist groups with working class factory workers and pro-labor radical leftist organizations such as Potere Operaio and Lotta Continua culminated in the so-called "Hot Autumn" of 1969, a massive series of strikes in factories and industrial centres in Northern Italy.[1] Student strikes and labour strikes, often led by workers, leftists, left-sympathizing laborers, or Marxist activists, became increasingly common, often deteriorating into clashes between the police and demonstrators composed largely of workers, students, activists, and often left-wing militants.[1]

In the same period, various organizations with a far-right ideology also emerged in Italy and undertook violent action.

Young neo-fascists perceived the legal, far-right, political party MSI as betraying them through its ostensible inaction in the face of attacks by the police and political opponents, as in the case of the Acca Larentia killings.[2] Influenced by theories of urban guerrilla warfare and spontaneism,[3][4] a number of far-rightists moved from street-fighting to terrorism.[5]
For more information, see Strategy of tension.

Organizations

Name in Italian	Flag or symbol	Name translated	Leading figures	Period of activity	Ideology	Principal actions	Political representation, affiliation, or legacy
Associazione Protezione Italiani (API)		Italians' Protection Association		1961-1979	Italian nationalism; Neofascism	Alto Adige bombings (1961)[6]
Avanguardia Nazionale		National Vanguard	Stefano Delle Chiaie[7]	1970-1972	Neofascism; Anticommunism	Reggio revolt (1970); Gioia Tauro train station sabotage (1970); Peteano massacre (1972)	Comunità Politica di Avanguardia[8]
Falange Armata		Armed Phalanx	SISMI[9]	1990-1994	Extreme Right; Cosa Nostra	Assassination of Opera educator Umberto Mormile (1990)
Fasci di Azione Rivoluzionaria		Fasces of Revolutionary Action[note 1][note 2]	Pino Romualdi	1946 - 1947; 1951	Italian Fascism; Traditionalism; Anti-Americanism; Anti-communism	Attacks against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US Embassy in Rome[10]
Ordine Nero		Black Order	Fabrizio Zani; Marco Pastori; Adriano Petroni; Luciano Benardelli	1974-1983	Neofascism; National Socialism	Italicus Express bombing (1974); bombing at Piazza della Loggia, Brescia, with 8 people dead and 102 wounded (1974);[11] assassination of judge Vittorio Occorsio (1976)
Ordine Nuovo		New Order	Pierluigi Concutelli;[12] Pino Rauti	1965-1973	Neofascism; Neonazism; Fascist mysticism; Traditionalism; Nazimaoism	Bombing at Piazza Fontana, Milan, in the headquarters of the Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura, with 17 people dead and 88 wounded (1969); Peteano massacre in Sagrado, Gorizia, with 3 carabinieri killed and one injured (1972); various bombings of trains	Movimento Politico Ordine Nuovo[13]
Movimento Rivoluzionario Popolare (MRP)		Revolutionary Popular Movement	Paolo Aleandri; Marcello Iannilli[14]	1979-1980	Italian Nationalism; Fascism; National Socialism;Neofascism; Revolutionary nationalism; Communitarianism	Bombing attack at the Capitoline Hill (1979); bombing attack on the Regina Coeli prison (1979); bombing attack against the High Council of the Judiciary (1979); bombing attempt at the Piazza dell'Indipendenza in Rome, which failed due to bomb malfunction (1979)[15]	Costruiamo l'azione
Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR)		Armed Revolutionary Nuclei	Valerio Fioravanti; Francesca Mambro; Massimo Carminati; Alessandro Alibrandi; Franco Anselmi	1977-1981	Italian fascism; Revolutionary nationalism; Revolutionary spontaneity	Bologna's main train station bombing with 85 dead (1980); assassination of magistrate Mario Amato (1980); assassination of police officer Francesco Evangelista (1980)	Forza Nuova
Terza Posizione		Third Position	Giuseppe Dimitri; Nanni De Angelis; Roberto Fiore; Gabriele Adinolfi; Massimo Morsello	1979-unknown	Fascism; Third Worldism; Revolutionary nationalism; Peronism	Collaboration with NAR in armed militancy; Popularization of the Third Position ideology[note 3]	CasaPound; Forza Nuova

See also

• Right-wing populism
• Left-wing militant groups in Italy

Notes

1. Not to be confused with Mussolini's Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria
2. Also known as Legione Nera (Black Legion)
3. The rhetoric of the Third Position developed in Italy and in France. In the 1980s, it was taken up by the National Front in the United Kingdom. In 1983, the National Front was taken over by a Strasserist faction led by Nick Griffin who presented himself as a Third Positionist.

References

1. Montanelli, Indro; Mario Cervi (1989). L'Italia dei due Giovanni [The Italy of the two Giovannis] (in Italian). Milan: Rizzoli Editore.
2. Zanarini, Manuel (10 June 2008). "NAR: lo spontaneismo armato neofascista" [NAR: the neo-fascist armed spontaneism]. Ariana editrice (in Italian). Retrieved 29 October 2020.
3. Commissione Parlamentare sul Terrorismo (Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism) (24 February 2006). "L'eversione di destra dopo il 1974" [The right-wing subversion after 1974]. Archivio900 (in Italian). Retrieved 27 October 2020.
4. Paternoster, Renzo (1 July 2015). "Gli "Orfani" Del Msi: Dal Ribellismo Allo Spontaneismo Armato" [The MSI 'Orphans': From Rebellion to Armed Spontaneism]. Storia in Network (in Italian). Retrieved 27 October 2020.
5. Minnucci, Marzia (2015). "A destra del MSI: evoluzione armata della destra radicale" [To the right of MSI: The armed evolution of the radical right] (PDF) (in Italian). Free International University of Social Studies "Guido Carli". Retrieved 27 October 2020. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
6. Tortello, Leticia (18 October 2019). "Alto Adige, nella valle che sogna la secessione e invoca la grazia per i suoi terroristi" [Alto Adige, in the valley that dreams of secession and invokes pardon for its terrorists]. La Stampa (in Italian). Rome. Retrieved 11 October 2020.
7. Harris, Geoffrey (1 January 1994). The Dark Side of Europe. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0748604661.
8. "Comunità Politica di Avanguardia" [National Vanguard community]. Misteri d'Italia (Mysteries of Italy) (in Italian). Retrieved 11 October 2020.
9. Pipitone, Giuseppe (25 June 2015). "Trattativa, l'ex capo dei Servizi Fulci: "la Falange chiamava dalle sedi Sismi, alcuni 007 usavano esplosivi"" [Revelation, the former head of the service Fulci: "the Falange called from the Sismi headquarters, some 007s were using explosives"]. Il Fatto Quotidiano (in Italian). Retrieved 11 October 2020.
10. Portella della Ginestra: alla radice del segreto italiano [Gate of the Broom: at the root of the Italian secret] (in Italian). Memoria e Futuro. 2019. ISBN 9788831618823.
11. Rodella, Mara (22 July 2015). "Strage di piazza Loggia, ergastolo ai neofascisti Maggi e Tramonte" [Piazza Loggia massacre, life imprisonment for neo-fascists Maggi and Tramonte]. Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved 7 December 2020.
12. Bianconi, Giovanni (19 April 2011). "Torna libero Pierluigi Concutelli" [Pierluigi Concutelli returns free]. Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved 27 October 2020.
13. Baldoni, Adalberto; Provvisionato, Sandro (1989). La notte piu lunga della repubblica : sinistra e destra, ideologie, estremismi, lotta armata, 1968-1989 [The longest night of the republic : left and right, ideologies, extremisms, armed struggles, 1968-1989] (in Italian). Serarcangeli.
14. "Movimento Rivoluzionario Popolare" [Revolutionary Popular Movement]. WebArchive (in Italian). Centro di documentazione storico politica sullo stragismo. 2005. Archived from the original on 2005. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
15. Casillo, Giuseppe (2012). "A destra della destra: Terza Posizione" [To the right of the right: Third Position] (in Italian). Universitá degli Studi del Molise. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Further reading

• Cento Bull, Anna (2016). Ending Terrorism in Italy. Routledge. ISBN 1-845740-65-3.
• Weinberg, Leonard; Eubank, William L. (2019). The Rise And Fall Of Italian Terrorism. Routledge. ISBN 978-0367295561.

External links

• "Terrorism and Security: The Italian Experience" (PDF). United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism. November 1984. Retrieved 11 October 2020.