The Years of Lead (Italian: Anni di piombo) were a period of social and political turmoil in Italy that lasted from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, marked by a wave of both far-left and far-right political terrorism.
The Years of Lead are sometimes considered to have begun with the 1968 movement in Italy and the Hot Autumn strikes starting in 1969; the death of the policeman Antonio Annarumma in November 1969; the Piazza Fontana bombing in December of that year, which killed 17 and was perpetrated by right-wing terrorists in Milan; and the death shortly after of anarchist worker Giuseppe Pinelli while in police custody under suspicion of being responsible for the attack, which he was ultimately deemed as not having committed.
The conflict involved violent struggles between militant neo-fascist and far-left organizations, as well as the Italian state. Neo-fascist groups pursued a campaign of indiscriminate bombings and massacres known as the "strategy of tension", which sought to sow panic, blame the left, and provoke an authoritarian coup. Far-left groups, most prominently the Red Brigades, carried out targeted assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings intended to destabilize the state and inspire a proletarian revolution. This political violence emerged from a backdrop of widespread social unrest following the post-war economic boom, and disillusionment with the mainstream political parties, primarily the ruling Christian Democracy and the Italian Communist Party.
Major attacks of the period include the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, the 1974 Piazza della Loggia bombing, and the 1980 Bologna Massacre, all committed by neo-fascist or far-right groups. Meanwhile, the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former prime minister Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades left a lasting impact on and stunned the nation. The deadliest single attack of the era was the 1980 Bologna Massacre conducted by the neo-fascist Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, which killed 85 people. Between 1968 and 1988, the conflict resulted in 428 deaths and approximately 2,000 injuries attributed to political violence.
The violence began to decline in the early 1980s following the arrest of key political terrorists and Red Brigades leaders and the introduction of anti-terrorism laws that encouraged militants to become state witnesses (pentiti). Parliamentary inquiries later revealed the covert involvement of rogue elements within Italian intelligence services and the secret Propaganda Due (P2) Masonic lodge in the far-right's strategy of tension. NATO's "stay-behind" network in Italy, known as Gladio, was also speculated to be connected to some of these operations, though this remains controversial and was never proved in court. Although most armed groups were dismantled by the end of the 1980s, the Years of Lead have left a profound impact on Italian politics and society.
Origin of the name
The term's origin possibly came about as a reference to the number of shootings during the period of the conflict, or as a reference to a popular 1981 West German film, named Marianne and Juliane in English after the main characters, but which was released in Italy as Anni di piombo. This is closer to the original title, Die bleierne Zeit (The Leaden Time), which refers to the 1950s in West Germany, a period which is perceived as conservative and suppressive by the character of Marianne, a female terrorist within the film. Marianne's terrorist cell is based on the real-life West German far-left militant group the Red Army Faction (RAF), who gained notoriety during the 1970s by kidnapping and killing dozens. Their Italian counterpart, the Red Brigades, copied one of the RAF's 1977 German Autumn crimes in the 1978 kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro.
Background
The Years of Lead emerged from the widespread social unrest of the late 1960s. The turmoil was fuelled by the rapid and disruptive social changes of the post-war Italian economic miracle, which saw a mass exodus from rural areas and the explosive, often chaotic growth of cities. This transformation, combined with the paralysis of the political system—dominated by the Christian Democracy (DC) in a permanent but unstable coalition—created deep-seated tensions. Expectations for reform in housing, education, and social services, raised by the brief centre-left experiment of the early 1960s, remained largely unfulfilled, leading to profound disillusionment.
This unrest coalesced into two major movements: the student movement and the workers' movement. The Italian student movement, part of the global Protests of 1968, began in late 1967. It was driven by the crisis of an education system that had expanded massively but remained chronically underfunded, overcrowded, and unreformed. The movement quickly developed a radical anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist critique, challenging not only university structures but also the values of consumer society and the traditional nuclear family. It drew ideological inspiration from a mixture of dissident Catholicism, a revival of Marxist thought outside the traditional Communist Party, and international events such as the Vietnam War and the Cultural Revolution.
The student protests intersected with a powerful wave of labour unrest that culminated in the "Hot Autumn" (Autunno caldo) of 1969. This period saw millions of workers, particularly in the northern industrial centres, engage in massive strikes. The militancy was especially strong among the new generation of semi-skilled workers, many of whom were recent migrants from Southern Italy, who found themselves working in rigid, alienating assembly-line conditions. Student activists joined workers on picket lines, and new forms of struggle emerged, including wildcat strikes and factory occupations, which challenged both management authority and the control of traditional trade unions. While the unions ultimately reasserted their leadership and secured a landmark national contract for metalworkers in late 1969, the "Hot Autumn" fundamentally changed the balance of power in the factories and demonstrated a new potential for mass collective action.
It was in this climate of intense social conflict and revolutionary expectation that armed political violence began to escalate. The Italian Communist Party (PCI), then the most powerful opposition movement, was prevented to gain power by the alliance of most other parties with the Christian Democracy. Its apparent abandonment of revolutionary goals also disappointed left-wing radicals. On the right, neo-fascists remained marginalized since the fall of Benito Mussolini: the Italian Social Movement (MSI) failed to break out of its isolation following its brief alliance with Fernando Tambroni's government in 1960. This situation favored the rise of radicals both on the left and on the right. On the far left, small groups emerged from the student and worker movements, disillusioned with the perceived moderation of the Communist Party and committed to overthrowing the state through armed struggle. On the far right, neo-fascist groups, frustrated by the MSI's failures and inspired by the theories of neofascist Clemente Graziani, initiated the "strategy of tension" — a campaign of indiscriminate bombings designed to create panic, discredit the left, and provoke an authoritarian coup d'état inspired by the Greek coup in 1967. The first major attack of this campaign, the Piazza Fontana bombing of December 1969, is often cited as the symbolic start of the Years of Lead.
Timeline of events
1969
Public protests
Public protests shook Italy during 1969, with the workers' rights movement and autonomist student movement being particularly active, leading to the occupation of the Fiat Mirafiori automobile factory in Turin.
Killing of Antonio Annarumma
On 19 November 1969, Antonio Annarumma, a Milanese policeman, was killed during a riot by far-left demonstrators. He was the first civil servant to die in the wave of violence.
Piazza Fontana bombing
The Victor Emmanuel II Monument, the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in Rome and the Banca Commerciale Italiana and the Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Milan were bombed in December.
Local police arrested 80 or so suspects from left-wing groups, including Giuseppe Pinelli, an anarchist initially blamed for the bombing, and Pietro Valpreda. Their guilt was denied by left-wing members, especially by members of the student movement, then prominent in Milan's universities, as they believed that the bombing was carried out by fascists. Following the death of Giuseppe Pinelli, who mysteriously died on 15 December while in police custody, the radical left-wing newspaper Lotta Continua started a campaign accusing police officer Luigi Calabresi of Pinelli's murder. In 1975, Calabresi and other police officials were acquitted by judge Gerardo D'Ambrosio who decided that Pinelli's fall from a window had been caused by him becoming ill and losing his balance.
Meanwhile, the anarchist Valpreda and five others were convicted and jailed for the bombing. They were released after three years of preventive detention. Then, two neo-fascists, Franco Freda (resident in Padua) and Giovanni Ventura, were arrested and accused of organizing the massacre before being acquitted by the Supreme Court in 1987 for lack of evidence.
In the 1990s, new investigations into the Piazza Fontana bombing, citing new witnesses' testimony, implicated Freda and Ventura again. However, the pair cannot be put on trial again because of double jeopardy, as they were acquitted of the crime in 1987.
1970
Birth of the Red Brigades
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.
While the Trento group around Curcio had its main roots in the Sociology Department of the Catholic University, the Reggio Emilia group (around Franceschini) mostly included former members of the FGCI (the Communist youth movement) expelled from the parent party for their extremist views.
Another group of militants came from the Sit-Siemens factories in Milan; these were Mario Moretti, a union official, Corrado Alunni, who would leave the Red Brigades to found another organization "fighter", and Alfredo Buonavita, a blue-collar worker.
The first action of the RB was burning the car of Giuseppe Leoni (a leader of Sit-Siemens company in Milan) on 17 September 1970, in the context of the labour unrest within the factory.
Borghese coup attempt
In December, a neo-fascist coup, dubbed the Golpe Borghese, was planned by young far-right fanatics, mainly veterans of Italian Social Republic, and supported by members of the Corpo Forestale dello Stato, along with right-aligned entrepreneurs and industrialists. The "Black Prince", Junio Valerio Borghese, took part in it. The coup, called off at the last moment, was discovered by the newspaper Paese Sera, and publicly exposed three months later.
1971
Assassination of Alessandro Floris
On 26 March, Alessandro Floris was assassinated in Genoa by a unit of the October 22 Group, a far-left terrorist organization. An amateur photographer had taken a photo of the killer that enabled police to identify the terrorists. The group was investigated, and more members were arrested. Some fled to Milan and joined the Gruppi di Azione Partigiana (GAP) and, later, the Red Brigades.
The Red Brigades considered Gruppo XXII Ottobre its predecessor and, in April 1974, they kidnapped Judge Mario Sossi in a failed attempt at freeing the jailed members. Years later, the Red Brigades killed judge Francesco Coco on 8 June 1976, along with his two police escorts, Giovanni Saponara and Antioco Deiana, in revenge.
1972
Assassination of Luigi Calabresi
On 17 May 1972, police officer Luigi Calabresi, a recipient of the gold medal of the Italian Republic for civil valour, was killed in Milan. Authorities initially focused on suspects in Lotta Continua; then it was assumed that Calabresi had been killed by neo-fascist organizations, bringing about the arrest of two neo-fascist activists, Gianni Nardi and Bruno Stefano, along with German Gudrun Kiess, in 1974. They were ultimately released. Sixteen years later, Adriano Sofri, Giorgio Petrostefani, Ovidio Bompressi, and Leonardo Marino were arrested in Milan following Marino's confession to the murder. Their trial finally established their guilt in organising and carrying out the assassination.
Calabresi's assassination opened the chapter of assassinations carried out by armed groups of the far-left.
Peteano bombing
On 31 May 1972, three Italian Carabinieri were killed in Peteano in a bombing attributed to Lotta Continua. Officers of the Carabinieri were later indicted and convicted for perverting the course of justice. Judge Casson identified Ordine Nuovo member Vincenzo Vinciguerra as the man who had planted the Peteano bomb.
The neo-fascist terrorist Vinciguerra, arrested in the 1980s for the bombing in Peteano, declared to magistrate Felice Casson that this false flag attack had been intended to force the Italian state to declare a state of emergency and to become more authoritarian. Vinciguerra explained that the SISMI military intelligence agency had protected him by allowing his escape to Francoist Spain.
Casson's investigation revealed that the right-wing organization Ordine Nuovo had collaborated with the Italian Military Secret Service, SID (Servizio Informazioni Difesa). Together, they had engineered the Peteano attack and then blamed the Red Brigades. He confessed and testified that he had been covered by a network of sympathizers in Italy and abroad who had ensured that he could escape after the attack. "A whole mechanism came into action", Vinciguerra recalled, "that is, the Carabinieri, the Minister of the Interior, the customs services and the military and civilian intelligence services accepted the ideological reasoning behind the attack."
1973
Primavalle fire
A 16 April 1973 arson attack by members of Potere Operaio on the house of neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) militant Mario Mattei in Primavalle, Rome, resulted in his two sons, aged 22 and 8, being burned alive.
Milan Police command bombing
During a 17 May 1973 ceremony honouring Luigi Calabresi, in which the Interior Minister was present, Gianfranco Bertoli, an anarchist, threw a bomb that killed four and injured 45.
In 1975, Bertoli was sentenced to life imprisonment: despite self-identifying as an anarchist, the Milan Court wrote that he was connected with the far-right New Order and was a SID informant and a confidant of the police.
In the 1990s, it was suspected that Bertoli was a member of Gladio but he denied it in an interview: in the list of 622 Gladio members made public in 1990, his name is missing.