Armed, far-right organizations in Italy
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In the First Italian Republic, after the Second World War, several armed, paramilitary, far-right organizations were active, as well as far-left ones, especially during the Years of Lead.
The attempt, in 1960, to include representatives of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), the neo-fascist heir of the National Fascist Party, in the Tambroni Cabinet led to rioting and was short-lived.[1] Widespread labor unrest and the collaboration of student activist groups with factory workers and radical leftist organizations, such as Potere Operaio and Lotta Continua, culminated in the Hot Autumn of 1969, a massive series of strike actions in factories and industrial centres in Northern Italy.[1]
Student strikes and labour strikes, led by workers, leftists, left-sympathizing laborers, or Marxist activists, became increasingly common, often deteriorating into clashes between the police and demonstrators composed largely of workers, students, activists, and militants.[1]
In the same period, various organizations with a far-right ideology emerged in Italy and undertook violent action. Young neo-fascists perceived the legal political party MSI as betraying them through its ostensible inaction in the face of attacks by the police and political opponents from the extreme left,.[note 1][2]
Influenced by theories of urban guerrilla warfare and spontaneism,[3][4] a number of neo-fascists moved from street-fighting to armed militancy and terrorism.[5]
Organizations
| Name in Italian | Flag or symbol | Name translated | Leading figures | Period of activity | Ideology | Principal actions | Political representation, affiliation, or legacy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Associazione Protezione Italiani | Italians' Protection Association | 1961–1979 | Neo-fascism | Alto Adige bombings (1961)[6] | |||
| Avanguardia Nazionale |  | National Vanguard | Stefano Delle Chiaie[7] | 1970–1972 | Neo-Nazism | Reggio revolt (1970), Gioia Tauro train station sabotage (1970), and Peteano massacre (1972) | Comunità Politica di Avanguardia[8] |
| Falange Armata | Armed Phalanx | SISMI[9] | 1990–1994 | Far-right politics | Assassination of Opera prison educator Umberto Mormile (1990) | ||
| Fasci di Azione Rivoluzionaria | Fasces of Revolutionary Action[note 2] | Pino Romualdi | 1946– 1947; 1951 | Neo-fascism | Attacks against Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of the United States, Rome[10] | ||
| Movimento di Azione Rivoluzionaria | Movement of Revolutionary Action | Carlo Fumagalli Gaetano Orlando[11] | 1962–1974 | Neo-fascism | Arson and bombing attacks on Enel pylons (1960s), and arson attack on the Pirelli-Bicocca tire depot in Milan, in which a worker lost his life (1971) | ||
| Movimento Rivoluzionario Popolare | Revolutionary Popular Movement | Paolo Aleandri Marcello Iannilli[12] | 1979–1980 | Neo-fascism | Bombing attack at the Capitoline Hill (1979), bombing attack on the Regina Coeli prison (1979), bombing attack against Italy's High Council of the Judiciary (1979), and bombing attempt at the Piazza dell'Indipendenza in Rome, which failed due to bomb malfunction (1979)[13] | ||
| Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari | Armed Revolutionary Nuclei | Valerio Fioravanti Francesca Mambro Massimo Carminati Alessandro Alibrandi Franco Anselmi | 1977–1981 | Neo-fascism | Bologna massacre, a bombing with 85 dead (1980), and assassination of magistrate Mario Amato (1980) and police officer Francesco Evangelista (1980) | ||
| Ordine Nero |  | Black Order | Fabrizio Zani Marco Pastori Adriano Petroni Luciano Benardelli | 1974–1983 | Neo-Nazism | Italicus Express bombing (1974), Piazza della Loggia bombing, with 8 people dead and 102 wounded (1974),[14] and assassination of judge Vittorio Occorsio (1976) | |
| Ordine Nuovo |  | New Order | Pierluigi Concutelli[15] Pino Rauti | 1965–1973 | Neo-Nazism | Piazza Fontana bombing in the headquarters of the Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura, with 17 people dead and 88 wounded (1969), and Peteano massacre, with 3 Carabinieri killed and one injured (1972), plus various bombings of trains | Movimento Politico Ordine Nuovo[16] |
| Terza Posizione |  | Third Position | Giuseppe Dimitri Nanni De Angelis Roberto Fiore Gabriele Adinolfi Massimo Morsello | 1979–unknown | Neo-fascism | Collaboration with the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei in armed militancy and popularization of the Third Position ideology[note 3] | Forza Nuova (via Roberto Fiore),CasaPound (via Gabriele Adinolfi) |
| Partito Nazionalsocialista Italiano dei Lavoratori |  | National Socialist Italian Workers' Party | Unknown | 2016–2019 | Neo-Nazism | A small, clandestine group that attempted to form alliances with other far-right parties in Western Europe. Eventually banned in Italy following police investigations and raids conducted by Italin police. | |
| Nuovo Ordine Sociale/Nuovo Ordine Sociale-Sole Nero |  | Nuovo Ordine Sociale | Andrea Cavalleri.[17] | ~2021-December 2024 | Accelerationism, Neo-fascism Neo-Nazism, | Part of the international terrorist cell Atomwaffen Division, the NOS described itself as "A special unit of National Socialist revolutionaries" which "only welcomes warriors ready to die" and has "race war as its main purpose". It was weakened thanks to several police operations[17] On December 4, 2024, in Bologna 25 houses belonging to the members of a splinter group of the Italian Atomwaffen "Nuovo Ordine Sociale-Sole Nero" (New Social Order-Black Sun) or "Werwolf Division" were raided and members were arrested for plotting to murder Giorgia Meloni and possessing illegal firearms. According to Il Giornale the group was connected to jihadi terrorists. Allegedly a man from Bologna volunteered to fight in the Palestinian group Lions' Den and returned to Italy, and a Palestinian PLO member Zyad Abu Saleh built explosives for the group.[18][19][20] |