Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-set of Modern Terrorists

Contents

Contents Introduction 1 1. The Pedagogy of Intolerance 9 The Revolutionary Vocation 9 Violence as the Only Way 14 The “Binary Code” Mentality 17 Political Violence and Social Marginality 21 Eschatological Politics 26 2. The Sacralization of Politics 30 The “Fanaticism of a New Religion” 30 Radical Catastrophism 33 The Revolutionary Sect and the Obsession with Purity 36 The Hatred of Reformists 42 3. Toward the Bloodshed 48 Daily Life in a Revolutionary Sect 48 The Red Brigades’ Organization Plan 54 The Blood Crime and Its “Story” 58 The Path to Bloodshed 66 Shedding Blood and the Role of the Revolutionary Sect 83 The Detachment from the Surrounding World 89 4. The Genesis of the Red Brigades 93 The Red Brigades’ Social Roots 93 The “Cultural Lag” Theory 108 When Were the Red Brigades Born? 118 vi CONTENTS The Red Brigades: “Imbeciles” or Real Revolutionaries? 122 Antonio Gramsci and the “Hour of Redemption” 125 The Italian Communist Party’s Role in the Genesis of the Red Brigades 131 An Oxymoron: The “LeninistReformist ” Party 147 5. The Masters of the Red Brigades 155 Illustrious Predecessors: Thomas Müntzer 155 John of Leiden, King and Revolutionary 162 The English Revolution and the Puritan Movement 165 The French Revolution and the Jacobin Experiment 170 Babeuf: “The world has plunged into chaos” 184 Karl Marx’s Pantoclastic Dream 187 The Revolutionary Tradition of Russian Populism 196 6. The Purifiers of the World in Power 208 Lenin and State Terrorism 208 The Bolshevik Revolution and the “Victims of the Victims” 213 The Gulag, or The Promise Kept 217 Mao and the Myth of the “New Man” 226 The Cambodian Revolution 237 Not a Conclusion: Portrait of a Red Brigadist 253 Appendix: Red Brigades and Black Brigades 263 A Note on Method 285 Bibliography 289 Index of Names 313 ANATOMY OF THE RED BRIGADES ...