Red Brigades - 1970: The First BR Generation

1970: The First BR Generation

The Red Brigades were founded in August 1970 by Renato Curcio and Margherita (Mara) Cagol, who had met as students at the University of Trento and later married, and Alberto Franceschini. Franceschini's grandmother had been a leader of the peasant leagues, his father a worker and anti-fascist who had been deported to Auschwitz.

While the Trento group around Curcio had its main roots in the Sociology Department of the Catholic University, the Reggio Emilia group (around Franceschini) included mostly former members of the F G C I (the Communist youth movement) expelled from the parent party for extremist views. In the beginning the Red Brigades were mainly active in Reggio Emilia, and in large factories in Milan, (such as Sit-Siemens, Pirelli and Magneti Marelli) and in Turin (Fiat). Members sabotaged factory equipment and broke into factory offices and trade union headquarters. In 1972, they carried out their first kidnapping: a factory foreman was held for some time but later released.

During this time the Red Brigades' activities were denied by far left political groups such as Lotta Continua and Potere Operaio (which were closer to the Autonomist movement). Although there has been an attempt to demonstrate any link between the Red Brigades and foreign State Security Services, nothing has been proved and such an idea has always been rejected by all the militants that after years of prison decided to speak their truth in books, interviews etc. In June 1974, the Red Brigades committed their first homicide. Two members of the Italian neo-fascist party, Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) were killed in Padua during a raid to the MSI headquarters.

Most of the Italian leftish political parties of the time, including the Italian Communist Party (PCI), denied the Red Brigades' involvement in the murder and even the Red Brigades' existence itself. However, according to the BR leaders, the BR received support by a large amount of people and this would be the reason of such a long existence for a military structure that counted a few hundreds of "effective members".