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Years of Lead (Italy)

In Italy, the phrase Years of Lead (Italian: Anni di piombo) 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.

The Years of Lead are sometimes considered to have begun with the 1968 movement in Italy and the Hot Autumn strikes starting in 1969;[32] the death of the policeman Antonio Annarumma in November 1969;[33] the Piazza Fontana bombing in December of that year, which killed 17 and was perpetrated by right-wing terrorists in Milan; and the death shortly after of anarchist worker Giuseppe Pinelli while in police custody under suspicion of being responsible for the attack.[34]


A far-left group, the Red Brigades, eventually became notorious as a terrorist organization during the period; in 1978, they kidnapped and assassinated former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro. Another major crime associated with the Italian Years of Lead was the 1980 bombing of the Bologna railway station, which killed 85 people and for which several members of the far-right, neo-fascist terrorist group known as the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari were convicted. Far-right terrorist organizations were also involved in various other bombings that resulted in the killings of multiple civilians, including the Piazza della Loggia bombing in 1974 which killed eight people and wounded 102 others. The terrorist organizations gradually disbanded, and police arrested their members throughout the 1980s. Sporadic political violence continued in Italy until the late 1980s, resurfacing to a lesser extent in the late 1990s and continuing until the mid-2000s.

Origin of the name[edit]

The term's origin possibly came as a reference to the number of shootings during the period,[35] or a popular 1981 German film Marianne and Juliane, released in Italy as Anni di piombo, which centred on the lives of two members of the West German militant far-left group Red Army Faction which had gained notoriety during the same period.

(1970–1988)[N 13]

Red Brigades

(1976–1981)[N 14]

Front Line

(1969–1971)[N 15]

October 22 Group

(1976–1979)[N 16]

PAC

(1969–1976)[N 17]

Continuous Struggle

(1967–1973)[N 18]

Workers' Power

(1973–1979)[N 19]

Workers' Autonomy

Events after 1988[edit]

Resurgence in the 1990s and 2000s[edit]

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a resurgence of Red Brigades terrorism led to further assassinations.


On 20 May 1999, Massimo D'Antona, a consultant to the Ministry of Labour, was assassinated in an attack by a group of terrorists of the Red Brigades in Rome.


On 19 March 2002, Marco Biagi, an academic and consultant to the Ministry of Labour, was assassinated in an attack by a group of terrorists of the Red Brigades in Bologna.


On 2 March 2003, Emanuele Petri, a policeman, was assassinated by a group of Red Brigades terrorists near Castiglion Fiorentino.

2021 arrests[edit]

In 2021, France arrested seven of the dozens of fugitive leftist militants who had been given French protection for decades. Among the arrested were Giorgio Pietrostefani, a founding member of the Lotta Continua group who was convicted of the murder of Milan police commissioner Luigi Calabresi. Others were Marina Petrella, Roberta Cappelli and Sergio Tornaghi who had received life sentences for murders and kidnappings.[97]

Impact on emigration from Italy[edit]

The Years of Lead were believed to have increased the rate of immigration to the United States from Italy. However, as the Years of Lead came to an end in the 1980s and political stability increased in Italy, the rate of immigration to the United States decreased. In the years 1992–2002, Italian immigration ranged nearly 2,500 people annually.[99]

Armed, far-right organizations in Italy

1968 movement in Italy

Definitions of terrorism

Guido Rossa

History of the Italian Republic

Movement of 1977

(TV programme)

La notte della Repubblica

List of films about Years of Lead (Italy)

Operation Gladio

German Autumn

Political violence in Turkey (1976–80)

(Ireland)

The Troubles

Poliziotteschi

Coco, Vittorio. "Conspiracy Theories in Republican Italy: The Pellegrino Report to the Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism." Journal of Modern Italian Studies 20.3 (2015): 361–376.

Diazzi, Alessandra, and Alvise Sforza Tarabochia, eds. The Years of Alienation in Italy: Factory and Asylum Between the Economic Miracle and the Years of Lead (2019)

Drake, Richard. "Italy in the 1960s: A Legacy of Terrorism and Liberation." South central review 16 (1999): 62–76.

online

Cento Bull, Anna; Adalgisa Giorgio (2006). Speaking Out and Silencing: Culture, Society and Politics in Italy in the 1970s.

King, Amy. "Antagonistic martyrdom: memory of the 1973 Rogo di Primavalle." Modern Italy 25.1 (2020): 33–48.

Dossi, Rosella (2001). (PDF). University of Melbourne. Contemporary Europe Research Centre. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 February 2007. Retrieved 15 February 2022.

"Italy's Invisible Government"

[For the victims of terrorism in the Italian Republic] (PDF). Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato S.p.A. (in Italian). The office of Republic President. 2008. Retrieved 15 February 2022.

"Per le vittime del terrorismo nell'Italia repubblicana"