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The October 22 Group (Italian: Gruppo XXII Ottobre) was an Italian terrorist organisation, inspired by the Uruguayan Tupamaros, established on 22 October 1969 and dismantled by police in 1971.
The group was led by Mario Rossi, an animal embalmer, and Augusto Viel, an electronics technician. Mario Rossi was a former communist who wanted to unite the workers of Italy to prevent the return of fascism. Mario Rossi created the October 22 Group to unite workers after seeing their struggles in his everyday life. He was inspired by the numerous worker riots in the 1960s that occurred at the factory he worked at in Milan. He spread his ideals to his friends and that was the basis of the October 22 Group. Others in the group were former members of the Italian Communist Party who left because they were dissatisfied with the groups inability to enact change within the government [1]
The October 22 Group was inspired by left-wing, anti-fascist, and Maoist ideology. The group did not explicitly want to overthrow the government and their only clearly defined goal was to organize the working class. The October 22 Group never expanded outside of Genoa and was only active for a short time. They would eventually expand to about a dozen total members who all wanted to enact change within their government. The group was named by the media because of a ticket found in Mario Rossi's pocket when he was arrested after a failed robbery attempt that ended in murder. Its political approach was Marxist–Leninist but among its members were also petty criminals and even a fascist, Diego Vandelli, enrolled in the MSI and police informer.
The October 22 Group had a variety of targets including private citizens, private property, and particularly government property. Most of their attacks were not fatal. [2] Like most Italian left-wing organizations, the movement used dynamite as their weapon of choice in their attacks. Of all the group's targets, private citizens were the most frequently targeted, including the abduction and ransom of the son of a wealthy citizen of Genoa. This was the first kidnapping done by an Italian leftist group and was successful. In 1970, Mario Rossi organized the abduction of Sergio Gadolla, son of a rich Genoa family, as a way of financing. From the action, the gang gained a 200 million liras ransom; most of the money, however, was raked off by Vandelli, who had acted as middleman. [3] By then, the kidnapping was generally attributed by the press to the city's underworld.
On 26 March 1971, Rossi and Viel robbed a security officer who transported the wages for the Genoa Public Housing Institute's dependents. A delivery man of the institute, Alessandro Floris, tried bravely to stop the two raiders and was shot by Rossi. [4] Floris was the first victim of the Italian red terrorism. (Later, Rossi has always denied firing to kill.) A passerby took a photo the moment when Rossi, on a scooter driven by Viel, pointed his gun against the body of Floris, lying on the ground in a pool of blood. The image, besides becoming a symbol of the years of lead, helped to identify the killer, who was captured the same day, after a long chase in the city's streets. [5]
Along with attacking symbolic targets of state power and capitalism, like the United States consulate. The group spread their anti-fascist propaganda by hijacking radio or television transmissions and the members distributed pamphlets. The group used guerilla warfare in an urban setting to respond to grievances they had using a manual written by a revolutionary from Brazil as their guide. Originally they planned to do the guerilla warfare in the mountains but decided on an urban setting. One example of the group responding to a grievance they had was when the group bombed an oil refinery to protest high gas prices at the time with no fatalities.
The October 22 Group was only active for about two years before it disbanded due to the accidental murder of security officer Alessandro Floris by Mario Rossi. His arrest led the authorities to the group's warehouse where their revolutionary writings weapons were discovered. After the Rossi's arrest, the group was quickly disbanded in 1971. [6] The group's trial took place in 1973: Rossi received a life sentence, the other members of the group received a combined 180 years of prison. The public prosecutor was Mario Sossi, a judge notorious for his intransigence and his right-wing ideas. [5]
In 1974, Mario Sossi himself was kidnapped by the Red Brigades. The terrorist group asked, in exchange of the judge's life, the freedom and the expatriation to a communist country of Mario Rossi and the other members of the XXII October. The Genoa Assizes gave in to blackmail and ordered the eight prisoners' release, but the give-and-take was immediately stopped by the Ministry of Interior Paolo Emilio Taviani and by the Genoa General Procurator Francesco Coco. Three days later, Sossi was freed, without counterparts. [7]
The Red Brigades in 1978 demanded the release of three of the October 22 members from prison in exchange for the release of Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, whom the Red Brigades had captured and later executed. [8] The October 22 Group members who did not receive life were absorbed by The Red Brigades after the October 22 Groups collapse. [9]
In the 1980s, after the end of the wave of terrorism, the members of the gang were gradually set free. Mario Rossi alone got bail only in 1990 and was definitively released in 2002. [3]
Francesco Maurizio Cossiga was an Italian politician. A member of Christian Democracy, he was prime minister of Italy from 1979 to 1980 and the president of Italy from 1985 to 1992. Cossiga is widely considered one of the most prominent and influential politicians of the First Italian Republic.
The politics of Italy are conducted through a parliamentary republic with a multi-party system. Italy has been a democratic republic since 2 June 1946, when the monarchy was abolished by popular referendum and a constituent assembly, formed by the representatives of all the anti-fascist forces that contributed to the defeat of Nazi and Fascist forces during the liberation of Italy, was elected to draft a constitution, which was promulgated on 1 January 1948.
The Piazza Fontana bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on 12 December 1969 when a bomb exploded at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88. The same afternoon, another bomb exploded in a bank in Rome, and another was found unexploded in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The attack was carried out by the Third Position, neo-fascist paramilitary terrorist group Ordine Nuovo, and possibly undetermined collaborators.
l'Unità is an Italian newspaper, founded as the official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1924. It was supportive of that party's successor parties, the Democratic Party of the Left, Democrats of the Left, and, from October 2007 until its closure in 2017, the Democratic Party.
The Bologna massacre was a terrorist bombing of the Bologna Centrale railway station in Bologna, Italy, on the morning of 2 August 1980, which killed 85 people and wounded over 200. Several members of the neo-fascist terrorist organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari were sentenced for the bombing, although the group denied involvement.
Renato Curcio is a former terrorist, and the former leader of the Italian far-left terrorist organization, the Red Brigades.
Mario Moretti is an Italian terrorist and convicted murderer. A leading member of the Red Brigades in the late 1970s, he was one of the kidnappers of Aldo Moro, the president of Italy's largest political party Democrazia Cristiana, and several times premier. In 1978, Moretti confessed to killing Moro.
Left-wing terrorism or far-left terrorism is terrorism motivated by left-wing or far-left ideologies, committed with the aim of overthrowing current capitalist systems and replacing them with communist or socialist societies. Left-wing terrorism can also occur within already socialist states as criminal action against the current ruling government.
Poliziotteschi constitute a subgenre of crime and action films that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as polizieschi all'italiana, Italo-crime, spaghetti crime films, or simply Italian crime films. Influenced primarily by both 1970s French crime films and gritty 1960s and 1970s American cop films and vigilante films, poliziotteschi films were made amidst an atmosphere of socio-political turmoil in Italy known as Years of Lead and amidst increasing Italian crime rates. The films generally featured graphic and brutal violence, organized crime, car chases, vigilantism, heists, gunfights, and corruption up to the highest levels. The protagonists were generally tough working class loners, willing to act outside a corrupt or overly bureaucratic system.
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.
Prima Linea was an Italian Marxist–Leninist terrorist group, active in the country from the late 1970s until the early 1980s.
Alberto Franceschini is a founder and former leading member of the Italian far-left terrorist organization, the Red Brigades, along with Renato Curcio, Margherita Cagol and Mario Moretti.
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.
Prospero Gallinari, also known as "Gallo", was an Italian terrorist, a member of the Red Brigades (BR) in the 1970s and 1980s.
Marco Donat-Cattin was an Italian terrorist. He was a founding member of Prima Linea far-left terrorist organization.
The Red Brigades was an Italian Marxist–Leninist armed militant guerilla group. 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!"
Terrorism in Italy is related to political and subversive terrorism activities, carried out by various groups and organizations with different and sometimes conflicting methods, motivations and interests. This article is primarily about late 20th-century and early 21st-century terrorism.
Mario Sossi was an Italian magistrate and politician.
Alessandro Alibrandi was an Italian neofascist terrorist who was active in the organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari. He was killed during a firefight with the police in Rome while attempting to steal their weapons.
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