History of Italy (1970s-1980s)
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Eventual decrease of terrorist activity in Italy:
The Years of Lead (Italian: Anni di piombo) is a term used for a period of social and political turmoil in Italy that lasted from the late 1960s until the early 1980s, marked by a wave of both left-wing and right-wing incidents of political terrorism.
The left-wing autonomist Marxist movement in Italy which was involved in many events of the period lasted from 1968 until the end of the 1970s. The Years of Lead are considered to have begun with the death of the policeman Antonio Annarumma who was killed in a leftist demonstration in November 1969, and the Piazza Fontana bombing in December that year, which killed 17, both in Milan.
The term's origin possibly came as a reference to the vast number of bullets fired during the period, or a popular 1981 German film Marianne and Juliane, released in Italy as Anni di piombo, which centered 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.
There was widespread social conflict and unprecedented acts of terrorism carried out by both right- and left-wing paramilitary groups. An attempt to endorse the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) by the Tambroni Cabinet led to rioting and was short-lived. Widespread labor unrest and the collaboration of countercultural student activist groups with working class factory workers and pro-labor radical leftist organizations such as Potere Operaio and Lotta Continua culminated in the so-called "Hot Autumn" of 1969, a massive series of strikes in factories and industrial centers in Northern Italy.Student strikes and labor strikes, often led by leftist or Marxist activists, became increasingly common, often deteriorating into clashes between the police and demonstrators composed largely of students, workers, activists, and often left-wing militants. The Christian Democrats (DC) were instrumental in the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) gaining power in the 1960s and they created a coalition. The assassination of the Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro in 1978 ended the strategy of historic compromise between the DC and the Italian Communist Party (PCI). The assassination was carried out by the Red Brigades, then led by Mario Moretti. Between 1969 and 1981, nearly 2,000 murders were attributed to political violence in the form of bombings, assassinations, and street warfare between rival militant factions.
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