C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/13215932/WORKINGFOLDER/HERMAN/9781108498241C08.3D 148 [148–159] 21.5.2018 6:31PM chapter 8 Social-Revolutionary Violence in Western Europe The Case of the Red Brigades’ Trajectory during the 1970s and Early 1980s Lorenzo Bosi In the 1970s, Western Europe saw the emergence of social-revolutionary armed groups whose roots lay in the global social upheaval of the late-1960s 1 and who sought to imitate the revolutionary experiments that took place specifically in Latin America (Cuba, Uruguay, Argentina) 2 and more broadly in the third world. 3 The most important of these groups were the Red Army Faction in Germany, from 1970; 4 the Red Brigades in Italy, from 1970; 5 the Revolutionary Organization November 17 in Greece, from 1975; 6 the First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups in Spain, from 1975; 7 the Popular Forces of April 25 in Portugal; 8 and the Direct Action in France, from 1979. 9 While these groups were the most prominent in Western Europe in the 1970s, there were hundreds of other short-lived groups committed to political vio- lence at this time. Despite differences in ideological orientation, violent strategies used, and trajectories taken, these groups saw themselves as part of a global revolutionary, anti-imperialist front and shared important links nationally and transnationally. 10 They sought to overthrow Western, capitalist imperialism by force, convinced that the imperialist bourgeoisie would not voluntarily surrender its class domination and exploitation. They also believed that it was no longer necessary to post- pone the revolution until revolutionary conditions appeared. In this respect, as Kostis Kornetis has suggested, “Che Guevara’s call to ‘create two, three, many Vietnams’ implied that local realities did not necessarily matter and that revolutionary conditions could be transferred, adopted and adapted. In this ‘anti-capitalist’ and ‘anti-imperialist’ global struggle, local and geographical specificities could be strategically re- interpreted.” 11 During the 1970s it was widely believed that change from below was not only possible but necessary. By adopting and proclaiming their role as 148