Lidia Cirillo of the Revolutionary Communist League (Italian Section of the Fourth International) outlined to International the problems posed by terrorism and the erosion of democratic rights in Italy.
There is no doubt that the depth of the political, social and economic crisis and the hopeless response of the Communist Party and union leaderships has enabled the terrorist groups to grow again over the past period. They have succeeded in recruiting young workers to their cells from the big factories in cities like Milan. They have achieved this through taking bold initiatives like kidnappings and linking them to the demands of the workers in the factories.
For example in Milan there is a large Alfa Romeo plant employing 25,000 workers. The Red Brigades kidnapped one of the managers and linked it to the workers' demand for an end to the layoff affecting the plant.
The effect of these actions is to strengthen the hand of the union leaderships and of the managers. Whenever such terrorist initiatives are taken any struggles against the bosses are immediately called off by the union leadership. They then substitute the 'struggle against terrorism' for that against the bosses; often calling token work stoppages.
These terrorist actions are also used as a pretext to attack and discredit all the militant and revolutionary workers and the demands put forward by workers in struggle. The Red Brigades' support for the 35 hour week has been used by the Communist Party paper, L'Unita, to try and discredit the demand itself.
Another example was during the period of the kidnapping of the manager Sandrucci in the Alfa Romeo plant when another manager approached a worker in the factory harassing him to reveal the names of the 'terrorists' in the plant. He suggested some names to jog the workers' memory — they were all members of the trade union left, the Proletarian Democracy group or the Revolutionary Communist League.
In the same period a popular right wing magazine called Gente (The People) carried an article on the Alfa Romeo kidnapping. It published a picture released by the Red Brigades which showed Sandrucci seated in front of a poster of the workers' demands. Next to this they carried a picture of our party's poster supporting these demands. They explicitly drew the link between the two to imply that we and the workers' leadership in the struggle were really terrorists or terrorist sympathisers.
For three years now the workers' parties — the Communist and Socialist parties — along with the unions have supported the campaign of the government and the capitalists against terrorism. Needless to say all the anti-democratic legislation that has been passed has done nothing to stop terrorism but it has helped the state organise repression against worker militants and revolutionaries.
Early in July, when the FIAT bosses were discussing with the unions about 23,000 workers being laid off, the Torino anti-terrorist police launched a series of raids, As many as 40 workers' delegati (shop stewards) were arrested, all of whom were supporters of the trade union left or revolutionaries, including all 14 workers who comprised the coordinating committee of the laid-off workers.
The trade union bureaucrats accept the ideological argument of the capitalists that the militant unions are a 'nest' of terrorists. One Socialist Party leader, Mattina, went so far as to name the Alfa Romeo plant as having a number of terrorists who were trade union cadre. When a worker is accused of being a terrorist or suspected terrorist s/he is immediately suspended from the trade union for 'security' reasons. So collective workers' defence is very difficult — it is left to the individual against the ruling class and the courts to establish the worker's innocence or guilt.
Again in the Alfa Romeo plant a sympathiser of our party — Garofalo — was arrested as a terrorist while he was leading an important struggle in his workplace shop. Not only was the struggle immediately called off but he was held for seven months with no charges brought against him. Luckily the very unusual make-up of his branch meant that he was not suspended from the union — though his union-appointed lawyer was convinced that he was guilty and urged him to confess!
We were able to organise a signature campaign to free the comrade and we took legal action to insist that he be confronted with the evidence against him. This turned out to be the 'word' of a 'repented terrorist' — there are a growing number of these former terrorists who work in collaboration with the [illegible] 'terrorists'. After seven months the [illegible] party, were fired from the FIAT factory after organising a defence campaign for a worker accused of being a terrorist. He [went to] jail for [illegible] before being declared innocent.
The situation inside the workers' movement has changed over the past years, in the mid-seventies a worker accused of terrorism was assumed to be innocent by the workers, that is no longer the case — the majority of workers now go along with the union in assuming the worker's guilt. The turning point in working class consciousness on this was the killing of Prime Minister Moro in 1978.
We have argued the same view on terrorism for the last ten years, even when it was more fashionable on the far left to flirt with support for the Red Brigades in the early seventies. At that time their actions were less bloody and more spectacular.
We have always argued in the working class that the biggest danger was that the state would exploit terrorist actions to attack the democratic rights of the working class and their struggles. There have now been so many examples of struggles being halted after terrorist interventions that a growing number of workers understand this point.
We therefore also argue that any passivity of the workers in defending democratic rights or in allying with the state forces to 'defeat terrorism' only strengthens the hands of the bosses. Just as the workers mobilise in defence of their conditions and against unemployment so they should also mobilise in an independent and united way to defend democratic rights.
We have also had to take up self-defence within the workers' movement against terrorist attacks. The Red Brigades have gone so far as murdering a Communist Party delegati in Genoa Guido Rossa.
But it is important to remember that the appeal of the terrorists and their ability to take actions stems from the lack of initiatives by the mass workers organisations, political parties and unions, to solve the crisis. They are a reflection of the deep crisis of leadership in the working class. When the traditional leadership are mobilising the workers in actions to defend working class interests the space for activity for the terrorists is considerably reduced.