Franco Piperno (born 5 January 1943) is a former communist militant from Italy. He is an associate professor of Condensed Matter Physics in the University of Calabria. [1]
Franco Piperno (born 5 January 1943) is a former communist militant from Italy. He is an associate professor of Condensed Matter Physics in the University of Calabria. [1]
Piperno was born in Catanzaro in a Jewish family. He graduated in physics at the University of Pisa and was member of the FGCI (Italy's communist youth organization). After his expulsion, [2] in 1969 he was suspected of having sabotaged a Boston Chemical plant, which produced defoliant used in the Vietnam War, but he was immediately released. [3] In Rome he was an activist in the 1968 movement and in the summer 1969 he took part in the demonstration against Fiat in Turin.
In the late 1969, with Oreste Scalzone and Toni Negri, he was one of the founders of the far-left organisation Potere Operaio , [2] [3] and later he was a member of Autonomia Operaia . He also led the wing of Potere Operaio called Lavoro Illegale ("Illegal Work") [4]
With Negri, Scalzone, and others, he was charged for the publication of subversive magazines in 1979 [3] but he escaped capture. [2] In 1980 he was absolved, but one year later he was condemned to ten years of imprisonment in another trial for insurrectional activity and participation to the kidnapping of Aldo Moro. [3] In particular, he was accused of having acted as a negotiator (through one of the kidnappers, Valerio Morucci) between the Italian Socialist Party and the terrorists who were allegedly detaining Moro. [5] Documents left by the journalist Mino Pecorelli after his murder also hinted at an involvement of Piperno in the kidnapping. [6] Piperno then lived in exile for several years, first in France thanks to the Mitterrand doctrine and then in Canada, where he also obtained a position at the University of Montreal. [3] Most of the charges were later dropped, and the sentence was reduced to four years. [3]
Piperno returned to Italy from Canada in 1990, [7] and became active locally in his hometown, Cosenza, creating the cultural association Ciroma. In January 1996 his car was hit by four handgun bullets. [8] In May 1996 Piperno became a member of the local council of the city of Cosenza. [9]
Aldo Romeo Luigi Moro was an Italian statesman and prominent member of Christian Democracy (DC) and its centre-left wing. He served as prime minister of Italy in five terms from December 1963 to June 1968 and from November 1974 to July 1976.
Antonio Negri was an Italian political philosopher known as one of the most prominent theorists of autonomism, as well as for his co-authorship of Empire with Michael Hardt and his work on the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Born in Padua, Italy, Negri became a professor of political philosophy at the University of Padua, where he taught state and constitutional theory. Negri founded the Potere Operaio group in 1969 and was a leading member of Autonomia Operaia, and published hugely influential books urging "revolutionary consciousness".
Giovanni Leone was an Italian politician, jurist and university professor. A founding member of the Christian Democracy (DC), Leone served as the president of Italy from December 1971 until June 1978. He also briefly served as Prime Minister of Italy from June to December 1963 and again from June to December 1968. He was also the president of the Chamber of Deputies from May 1955 until June 1963.
Potere Operaio was a radical left-wing Italian political group, active between 1967 and 1973. It should not be confused with "Potere Operaio Pisano" which was one of the components of a competing revolutionary group, Lotta Continua. Among the group's leaders were Antonio ('Toni') Negri, Nanni Balestrini, Franco Piperno, Oreste Scalzone and Valerio Morucci, who led its clandestine armed wing. It was part of the "workerist" movement (operaismo), leading to the later development of the Autonomist movement.
Autonomism, also known as Autonomist Marxism, is an anti-capitalist social movement and Marxist-based theoretical current that first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism. Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tendencies became significant after influence from the Situationists, the failure of Italian far-left movements in the 1970s, and the emergence of a number of important theorists including Antonio Negri, who had contributed to the 1969 founding of Potere Operaio as well as Mario Tronti, Paolo Virno and Franco "Bifo" Berardi.
The 1968 Italian general election was held in Italy on 19 May 1968. The Christian Democracy (DC) remained stable around 38% of the votes. They were marked by a victory of the Communist Party (PCI) passing from 25% of 1963 to c. 30% at the Senate, where it presented jointly with the new Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP), which included members of Socialist Party (PSI) which disagreed the latter's alliance with DC. PSIUP gained c. 4.5% at the Chamber. The Socialist Party and the Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) presented together as the Unified PSI–PSDI, but gained c. 15%, far less than the sum of what the two parties had obtained separately in 1963.
The Primavalle fire was a political arson-attack that occurred in Rome in 1973. It resulted in the death of two people.
Autonomia Operaia was an Italian leftist movement particularly active from 1973 to 1979. It played an important role in the autonomist movement in the 1970s, alongside earlier organisations such as Potere Operaio, which was created after May 1968, and Lotta Continua.
In Italy, the phrase Years of Lead refers to a period of political violence and social upheaval that lasted from the late 1960s until the late 1980s, marked by a wave of both far-left and far-right incidents of political terrorism and violent clashes.
Buongiorno, notte is an Italian film released in 2003 and directed by Marco Bellocchio. The title of the feature film, Good Morning, Night, is taken from a poem by Emily Dickinson.
Paolo Virno is an Italian philosopher, semiologist and a figurehead for the Italian Marxist movement. Implicated in belonging to illegal social movements during the 1960s and 1970s, Virno was arrested and jailed in 1979, accused of belonging to the Red Brigades. He spent several years in prison before finally being acquitted, after which he organized the publication Luogo Comune in order to vocalize the political ideas he developed during his imprisonment. Virno currently teaches philosophy at the University of Rome.
The Legislature VII of Italy was the 7th legislature of the Italian Republic, and lasted from 5 July 1976 until 19 June 1979. Its composition was the one resulting from the general election of 20 June 1976.
Oreste Scalzone is an Italian Marxist intellectual and one of the founders of the communist organization Potere Operaio.
The kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, also referred to in Italy as the Moro case, was a seminal event in Italian political history. On the morning of 16 March 1978, the day on which a new cabinet led by Giulio Andreotti was to have undergone a confidence vote in the Italian Parliament, the car of Aldo Moro, former prime minister and then president of the Christian Democracy party, was assaulted by a group of far-left terrorists known as the Red Brigades in via Fani in Rome. Firing automatic weapons, the terrorists killed Moro's bodyguards — two Carabinieri in Moro's car and three policemen in the following car — and kidnapped him. The events remain a national trauma. Ezio Mauro of La Repubblica described the events as Italy's 9/11. While Italy was not the sole European country to experience extremist terrorism, which also occurred in France, Germany, Ireland, and Spain, the murder of Moro was the apogee of Italy's Years of Lead.
Valerio Morucci is an Italian terrorist, who was a member of the Red Brigades and who took part in the kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro in 1978.
Sergio Flamigni is an Italian politician and writer. A member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), he took part in the Italian Parliament's investigative commissions on the murder of Aldo Moro, the Propaganda Due scandal, and on the Italian Mafia.
Adriana Faranda is an Italian former terrorist, who was a member of the Red Brigades during the kidnapping of Aldo Moro.
The Red Brigades was a Marxist–Leninist armed organization, which was operating as a far-left guerilla and terrorist group based in Italy. It was responsible for numerous violent incidents during Italy's Years of Lead, including the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978. A former prime minister of Italy through the Organic centre-left, the murder of Aldo Moro was widely condemned, as was the murder of left-wing trade unionist Guido Rossa in January 1979. Sandro Pertini, the then left-wing president of Italy, said at Rossa's funeral: "It is not the President of the Republic speaking, but comrade Pertini. I knew [the real] red brigades: they fought with me against the fascists, not against democrats. For shame!"
Franco Anselmi was an Italian neofascist terrorist who was active in the organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari. He was killed during an attempt to rob a gun shop in Rome.
In May 1978, Aldo Moro, a Christian Democracy (DC) statesman who advocated for a Historic Compromise with the Italian Communist Party, (PCI), was murdered after 55 days of captivity by the Red Brigades (BR), a far-left terrorist organization. Although the courts established that the BR had acted alone, conspiracy theories related to the Moro case persist. Much of the conspiracy theories allege additional involvement, from the Italian government itself, its secret services being involved with the BR, and the Propaganda Due (P2) to the CIA and Henry Kissinger, and Mossad and the KGB.
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