From 1970 to 1988 the largest and most deadly left-wing terrorist organization in Italy. The Red Brigades (RB) were responsible for most of the 415 deaths through terrorism during that period, including 75 assassinations and twice as many unsuccessful attempts. It also conducted 17 political kidnappings, some of which ended in death, most famously the abduction of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1979. The RB tended to avoid the use of indiscriminate bombing as a tactic, preferring instead to target specific individuals, although others such as police, guards, drivers, and bystanders were wounded and killed as a result of its operations. The RB drew on Marxist ideology to define its goal of destroying the state and creating a proletarian dictatorship.
At its height in the late 1970s, the RB included 600 full-time members as well as thousands of supporters who provided logistical assistance and funds. Most members of the RB had begun with radical politics but, frustrated by inaction, broke away from former associates and took the final step into violence. The group survived four "generations," as imprisoned members were replaced by younger recruits.
As was the case in many left-wing terror groups of the period, women made up at least 30 percent of the RB, and the percentage of female leadership was even higher. They seem to have joined the group for the same combination of ideological and personal reasons as their male comrades. Many RB women grew up having artisan, working-class, or peasant backgrounds, with parents who espoused left-wing or communist views. Others came from middle-class families where religious belief gave them their first impetus toward social transformation. A few had fractious relationships with their parents, but most came from close and contented families; family trauma has not been found to correlate with involvement in terrorism. Female RB members saw women as a distinct group experiencing a particular type of oppression, but they rejected the consciousness-raising activities of the women’s movement in the 1970s as time-wasting and fruitless. Instead they embraced the concept of revolutionary violence as the only means of societal transformation and put their faith in the Marxist model that would, they expected, erase gender distinctions along with those of class. Although women often were exposed to radical ideology through boyfriends or husbands, those who became involved in RB terrorism joined the group voluntarily, and many female terrorists were more conversant than men in ideological fine points because they felt compelled to prove and reprove their dedication.
The experience of Margherita Cagol, one of the three founders of the RB in 1970, illustrates many of these trends. Cagol grew up in Trent in a stable middle-class family where she was noted for her religious sensibility and concern for the poor. She attended the University of Trent, where she embraced radical politics wholeheartedly, marrying Renato Curcio, a fellow revolutionary. Although Curcio and Carlo Franceschini are frequently named as the founders of the RB, Cagol’s role was equally important. On September 8, 1974, Curcio was arrested by the police in connection with a series of bombings, but five months later, Cagol freed him. On June 5, 1975, she was killed in a shootout with the Italian gendarmerie, the Cara-binieri, the first RB militant to die. Curcio was recaptured in January 1976.
Like Margherita Cagol, women in the RB participated in assassinations, bank robberies, and gun battles, but they also acted as lookouts, scouts, drivers, and in other roles where a woman, sometimes with a child in tow, would be unlikely to attract attention. Some resented this unexciting role and wanted to be more directly involved in exciting exploits.
The RB’s comradeship and sense of belonging were attractive to women and men and led many members into the group; by the 1980s, however, the RB was decimated by arrests. Many women who found themselves in prison for long periods faced the likelihood that they would not see their children for years; others struggled with the reality that they might never have children. For many RB women both in and out of prison, the years of disillusion following their involvement with the group brought depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and other mental and physical illnesses. In 1987, concerned about the generation of young people who had wasted their lives on destructive activity, the Italian government pardoned RB members who renounced violence; almost 600 men and women did so. But no pardon could retrieve the decades or bring back the hundreds of lives lost to terrorism.
