Europe S Red Terrorists

This unique volume explores Europe's most dangerous communist terrorist organizations and reveals how they use violence as a means of political communication and persuasion. It outlines seven terrorist groups from Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Belgium, Italy and Turkey and gives their modus operandi, rationale and political messages in translated communiqués never before available in English.

Since the 1970s, Europe's last Marxist-Leninist terroriststhe Greek Revolutionary Organization 17 November have waged a violent campaign against US and NATO personnel, Turkish diplomats and members of the Greeks military and business elite. In May 2000 they assassinated a top British diplomat in Athens in a daring daylight attack. Yet no one suspected of belonging to the organization, let alone of being involved in its terror campaign, has ever been arrested. This is the first book to deal with revolutionary terrorism in Greece. Tracing the history of 17 November, Kassimeris demonstrates how it has persevered with a one-dimensional view of a world peopled by heroes and villains, that has precluded the emergence of a coherent ideology. Combining fanatical nationalism, contempt for the existing order, and the cult of violence for its own sake, 17 November has stubbornly refused to accept that its eclectic belief system is incompatible with modern democratic principles. Unlike Italy's Red Brigades or Germany's Red Army Faction, which both assailed "the capitalist state and its agents," 17 November hopes to create an insurrectionary mood that will propel the Greeks into revolutionary political action without disrupting society as a whole. As such, 17 November's terror campaign has been an audacious protest aimed at discrediting and humiliating the Greek establishment and the US government, but one that has never sought to develop widespread revolutionary guerrilla warfare.

This book is concerned with terrorism in West European liberal democratic states and with the way in which they react, as a group in the European Community, to international terrorism. It interprets terrorism as a means of attempting to effect political change by the indiscriminate use of violence.

Part of series, this deals with international terrorism. Among the topics addressed are: the conceptualization of terrorism; the origins and aims of terrorism in Europe; a five-country comparison of terrorism and public opinion; the recruitment of Italian terrorists; and South Moluccan terrorism.

This collection brings together a spread of writers, revolutionaries and reprobates to offer up a variety of critical perspectives on key European armed struggle groups from the 1970's . Gianfranco Sanguinetti, founding member of the Italian Section of the Situationist International, writes in 'On Terrorism and the State', 1978 : "Italian terrorism is the last enigma of the society of the spectacle and only those who reason dialectically can solve it.... Today, all those who speak of social revolution without denouncing and combating the terrorist counter-revolution have a corpse in their mouths." Dave and Stuart Wise, (King Mob) look into the relationship between the Italian Communist Party, workers struggles post 68' and the roots of the Red Brigades, concluding of the latter: "they added to the substitutionism of Lenin, who replaced the proletariat by the Party, by replacing the Party with the armed struggle." Prof. Charity Scribner (MIT), contributes "Buildings on Fire: The Situationist International and the Red Army Faction", exploring how and why the SI and the RAF's differing definitions of autonomy produced divergent modes of resistance : "Both the RAF and the Situationists drew from the arsenals of anarchism and Marxism. But whereas Debord critiqued the society of the spectacle...the leaders of the RAF became fodder for the media machine, leaving a legacy heavy on style, but light on political analysis." Tom Vague contributes fast paced, potted histories of the RAF and Angry Brigade, both strong on time line energy, both useful entry level introductions to the respective narratives. John Barker was sentenced to ten years at the Old Bailey in 1972 for his Angry Brigade activities ("they framed a guilty man"), and here he laments Tom Vague's "fetishisation of the Angry Brigade" and "how comfortable he is with ‘the situationist angle' while saying nothing about the analysis and theory that came out of the Italian movement from Potere Operaio onwards, which was more important to us." Barker's piece, dated from the late 1990's, goes on to give a brief, but uniquely frank first person perspective on the AB's activities, viewed through the prism of realism, maturity, and continued belief in the revolutionary potential of mass working class action over the clandestine, substitutionist activities of the few - a fitting end to this book.

This study places terrorist acts in Europe in their historical perspective by examining terrorist and anarchist movements in late nineteenth century Europe. The political and legal aspects of modern terrorism are discussed in detail and the themes and variation in political terrorism are examined fully. In addition, selected case studies of contemporary terrorist movements are considered in the context of the political tradition of the particular country. A comprehensive picture of European terrorism, in its historical and more contemporary ideological and political aspects emerges from this work.

This unique volume explores Europe's most dangerous communist terrorist organizations and reveals how they use violence as a means of political communication and persuasion. It outlines seven terrorist groups from Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Belgium, Italy and Turkey and gives their modus operandi, rationale and political messages in translated communiqués never before available in English.