From anarchist groups to Stalinist cells, many with a youthful twitch for change wanted to bring about something new in Italy. With constant political instability in the country, the time was ripe for such an endeavor. The Red Brigades were a left-wing political terrorist organization. The objective of the group was to bring about a left-wing “revolutionary” period (Jenkins). This “revolutionary proletariat” would seek to destabilize the state of Italy, through the use of direct action in the form of political terrorism. Drawing on the ideas of Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, and ultimately Karl Marx, the Red Brigades had a large swath of intellectual, but most importantly, tactical understanding of how to achieve a revolutionary government in Italy (Jenkins). Through politically charged violent acts, the Italian state, and the capitalism within it, would cease the newly aligned revolutionary government in Italy would bring about Sovietization. The group was decidedly revolutionary in a Communist avenue, Marxist in the sense of its ideological foundation, and anti-Fascist in its opposition to right-wing political ideologies seeing the Christian Democratic Party during this time to be the “political and organization center of reaction and terrorism” (Stanford – …show more content…
With no active political engagement being conducted by the group since 1972, very early in the group’s history, no precise numbers can be known. In the initial year of the group it was estimated that there was about 50 active members (Stanford – MMO). As time went on and membership grew, the peak number of active members was in 1979 with about 1,000 active “militants” and 2,000 structural supporters (Stanford – MMO). After many arrests and shootouts with police, the group dwindled to about 100 active members and 200 structural supporters in 1983 (Stanford –