MARCH 2nd — MARCH 12th, 1976
By early 1976, barely 6 years after the formation of the Red Brigades, the armed struggle in Italy had reached a high level of intensity. Listed below are armed actions by the revolutionary Left and the State's repressive response over a period of ten days in March 1976. Most of these actions were part of the BR's armed offensive Attack on the Heart of the State.
MARCH 2
MILAN...Traffic police begin special training, to check people for drugs, arms and identification. Italian traffic cops (traditionally unarmed and more like our crossing guards) "now become vigilantes".
ROME...Carabinieri vehicle burned in courtyard of carabinieri barracks.
FLORENCE...Another carabinieri vehicle. burned inside barracks.
NAPLES...Another carabinieri vehicle burned inside barracks.
GENOA...Three bombs destroy 4 carabinieri vehicles and break all the windows in the barracks.
RHO...Molotov cocktails thrown and shots fired at carabinieri barracks.
All these actions claimed by NAP and BR in a joint leaflet.
MARCH 3
MILAN...Time bomb set off in front of a cafe in Porta Romana neighborhood. A leaflet found in telephone booth explains attack is part of a broader campaign aimed at places used by drug dealers to sell hard drugs heroin, morphine and cocaine. Milan is like Algiers.
MARCH 4
FERMO...BR claim responsibility for machine gun attack on carabinieri barracks.
LIVORNO...Two bombs explode in Innocenti car sales room-—-heavy damage to building and cars inside.
MARCH 5
MILAN...Jaka Book publishing house and Super Milano Radio both tied to rightwing Catholic group "communion and liberation” attacked.
MARCH 6
BOSTO ARSIZIO (va)...Another "communion and liberation" office raided. 5 people inside, one of them received light wounds.
MARCH 9
Angela Rossi, sister of Mario Rossi, one of the October 22nd Group comrades sentenced to life, is kidnapped, raped and tortured by death squad in collusion with the police. Angela's crime: publicly denouncing police repression. The lives of Angela's children and brother also are threatened in attempt to silence her.
MARCH 10
MILAN...Adriano Colombo factory worker comrade who owned apartment Renato Curcio and Nadia Montovani lived in arrested. Roberto Serafini militant arrested on weapons charge. Large demonstration on streets by collectives and neighborhood organizations belonging to "autonomy" movement.
MARCH 11
MILAN...Two PCI members arrested for illegal possession of weapons. 2 comrades, 21 year old electrician and 20 year old Anna Toraldo arrested for allegedly distributing joint NAP-BR leaflet outside ITT subsidiary Face-Standard electronics factory. Giuliano Isa 24 year old Sit-Siemens factory worker arrested on charges of belonging to an armed group, possession of weapons and explosives. Police came onto Sit-Siemens factory floor to arrest him to intimidate other militant workers.
ARONA...10:30 pm armed attack on Catelletto Ticino carabinieri barracks.
MARCH 12
ROME...Comrade Alvaro Isnardi knifed and shot by fascists and left badly wounded in the Tuscolana neighborhood.
NAPLES...While NAP comrades trial taking place police arrest two comrades one the brother of the NAP defendants.
MILAN...For four days now a force of 50 carabinieri with radio cars have been conducting a dragnet of "criminal hotspots" in the city's cafes, hotels, public places, parking garages, subway stations.
ROMAGNANO SESTO...Attack on carabinieri barracks.
NAPLES...Molotov cocktails thrown at headquarters of fascist "New Popular Party" on Via Pisanelli. A FIAT model 500 full of explosives blown up in the afternoon in front of main entrance of the courthouse where in the morning the trial of the NAP comrades was taking place.
* * * * * * *
There has been a completely mistaken evaluation of the relations of force existing between proletariat and bourgeoisie, that is of the phase of struggle we are going through which is certainly a phase of proletarian offensive but definitely not a phase of military struggle.
Here our political analysis is clearly different from that of those who have advanced the above view.
We hold that the phase the class struggle is going through today is that of the conquest of the instruments of organization and the accumulation of the revolutionary forces capable of sustaining the conflict; preparing the offensive in the face of the growth of a reactionary movement consciously aiming at an armed counter-revolution.
We hold that we are in a period of transition from a spontaneous, mass, even though violent, response, to an organized attack, which chooses its own pace, calculates its intensity, decides the terrain, and imposes its own power.
APRIL 1971
RED BRIGADES
