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155 Chapter 5 The Masters of the Red Brigades We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism. —Karl Marx Illustrious Predecessors: Thomas Müntzer The Red Brigades’allegory of a joyful kingdom until the end of time has deep roots. It is a yearning for transcendence with respect to this world that tends to reappear during moments of great collective tension. The times and manner of its appearance can vary,but the story is always the same:the world is a place inhabited by demoniacal presences that are taking humanity toward destruction . But all is not lost because a handful of men know the way to salvation. To expel “evil”from history one has to undergo a very harsh discipline. Thoughts, gestures, and words must be purified to lead the war of extermination against the “infected”elements that are attacking eternal happiness. An immense clash is looming on the horizon. On the day of the “end,” the “elect” will lead the forces of “light” to victory. Then everything will be completed and finally a joyful kingdom will liberate humanity from pain and suffering. The Red Brigades have illustrious predecessors. They belong to a politicoreligious tradition that,in its most complete form represented by the Jacobin revolution, boasts at least two centuries of history. Although the core event was Robespierre’s ascent to power, the historic rise of revolutionary gnosticism started with the Protestant theologian Thomas Müntzer, the first to accomplish a revolution in the attempt in install paradise on earth. He represents an “anthropological type” that still exists today. 156 CHAPTER 5 As Tommaso La Rocca observes, Müntzer was a revolutionary through and through. He gives us an analysis of the social and political situation of Müntzer’s time, including the radical plan for social transformation; the organization of a popular insurrection to be achieved by an alliance of peasants, miners, and other marginalized poor classes; the formation of vanguards; the careful selection of professional revolutionaries; the attempt to coordinate the various bands of insurgents as well as the importance attributed to propaganda in the form of leaflets, appeals, and letters.1 Müntzer is born around 1489–90 in Stolberg in the Harz Mountains, a village with its share of social and political tensions. Germany is involved in a stage of intense capitalistic development. The peasants’ attempt to defend themselves from the “great transformation” provokes a chain of revolts that crosses Germany between 1513 and 1517, from the Hungarian border to southern Swabia.2 Alongside the introduction of the first rudimental means of capitalist production, the serf system and church levies continue. Müntzer is the “son of these contradictions, that is, of the old that wants to preserve and the new that wants to assert itself.”3 Unlike Luther, Müntzer has no vocation for the monastic life and meditation .4 He is driven by the desire to tackle the problems of a society full of tensions. This world enthuses him more than the kingdom of heaven. His writings are concerned with the artisans and peasants who have migrated to the cities, with the exploited and the oppressed. In 1512 he graduates in philosophy and theology at the University of Frankfurt on the Oder. In 1519—the year the emperor Maximilian I dies—he goes to Wittenberg, whose university is famous throughout Europe thanks to Luther, Carlostadio, and Melanchthon and their theological interpretation of the Bible. Müntzer supports Luther in denouncing the corruption of the Roman Church. From May 1519 to May 1520, he withdraws to the monastery of Beuditz near Weissenfels, where he devotes himself entirely to his studies. He molds his ideas into a revolutionary plan. At the end of his brief retreat, everything seems clear to him: the world is a corrupt place full of wicked people. The rich, the famous, the princes are all godless, and a relentless battle must be fought against them. The humble and the oppressed, 1. T. La Rocca, Es ist Zeit, 8. 2. For an analysis of the Peasants’ War, see I. M. Battafarano, Da Müntzer a Gaismair, 11–27. 3. E. Campi, introduction to Scritti politici, by Thomas Müntzer, 13. See also Campi, “Thomas Müntzer,” notebook no. 5. 4. For an analysis of Luther’s and Müntzer’s doctrinal differences, see E. Bloch, Thomas Müntzer teologo della rivoluzione, 120; M. Miegge, Il sogno del re di babilonia, 15...

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