Informationen zum Autor Alessandro Orsini is professor of political sociology in the Faculty of Political Science, LUISS University of Rome "Guido Carli." He also teaches at the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" and is the author of several books in Italian. Klappentext The Red Brigades were a far-left terrorist group in Italy formed in 1970 and active all through the 1980s. Infamous around the world for a campaign of assassinations, kidnappings, and bank robberies intended as a "concentrated strike against the heart of the State," the Red Brigades' most notorious crime was the kidnapping and murder of Italy's former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978. In the late 1990s, a new group of violent anticapitalist terrorists revived the name Red Brigades and killed a number of professors and government officials. Like their German counterparts in the Baader-Meinhof Group and today's violent political and religious extremists, the Red Brigades and their actions raise a host of questions about the motivations, ideologies, and mind-sets of people who commit horrific acts of violence in the name of a utopia. In the first English edition of a book that has won critical acclaim and major prizes in Italy, Alessandro Orsini contends that the dominant logic of the Red Brigades was essentially eschatological, focused on purifying a corrupt world through violence. Only through revolutionary terror, Brigadists believed, could humanity be saved from the putrefying effects of capitalism and imperialism. Through a careful study of all existing documentation produced by the Red Brigades and of all existing scholarship on the Red Brigades, Orsini reconstructs a worldview that can be as seductive as it is horrifying. Orsini has devised a micro-sociological theory that allows him to reconstruct the group dynamics leading to political homicide in extreme-left and neonazi terrorist groups. This "subversive-revolutionary feedback theory" states that the willingness to mete out and suffer death depends, in the last analysis, on how far the terrorist has been incorporated into the revolutionary sect. Orsini makes clear that this political-religious concept of historical development is central to understanding all such self-styled "purifiers of the world." From Thomas Müntzer's theocratic dream to Pol Pot's Cambodian revolution, all the violent "purifiers" of the world have a clear goal: to build a perfect society in which there will no longer be any sin and unhappiness and in which no opposition can be allowed to upset the universal harmony. Orsini's book reconstructs the origins and evolution of a revolutionary tradition brought into our own times by the Red Brigades. Zusammenfassung An award-winning attempt to understand the logic of revolutionary terrorism. Inhaltsverzeichnis Introduction1. The Pedagogy of Intolerance The Revolutionary Vocation Violence as the Only Way The "Binary Code" Mentality Political Violence and Social Marginality Eschatological Politics 2. The Sacralization of Politics The "Fanaticism of a New Religion" Radical Catastrophism The Revolutionary Sect and the Obsession with Purity The Hatred of Reformists 3. Toward the Bloodshed Daily Life in a Revolutionary Sect The Red Brigades' Organization Plan The Blood Crime and Its "Story" The Path to Bloodshed Shedding Blood and the Role of the Revolutionary Sect The Detachment from the Surrounding World 4. The Genesis of the Red Brigades The Red Brigades' Social Roots The "Cultural Lag" Theory When Were the Red Brigades Born? The Red Brigades: "Imbeciles" or Real Revolutionaries? Antonio Gramsci and "the Hour of Redemption" The Italian Communist Party's Role in the Genesis of the Red Brigades An Oxymoron: The "Leninist-Reformist" Party 5. The Masters of the Red Brigades Illus...

Klappentext

The Red Brigades were a far-left terrorist group in Italy formed in 1970 and active all through the 1980s. Infamous around the world for a campaign of assassinations, kidnappings, and bank robberies intended as a "concentrated strike against the heart of the State," the Red Brigades' most notorious crime was the kidnapping and murder of Italy's former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978. In the late 1990s, a new group of violent anticapitalist terrorists revived the name Red Brigades and killed a number of professors and government officials. Like their German counterparts in the Baader-Meinhof Group and today's violent political and religious extremists, the Red Brigades and their actions raise a host of questions about the motivations, ideologies, and mind-sets of people who commit horrific acts of violence in the name of a utopia.

In the first English edition of a book that has won critical acclaim and major prizes in Italy, Alessandro Orsini contends that the dominant logic of the Red Brigades was essentially eschatological, focused on purifying a corrupt world through violence. Only through revolutionary terror, Brigadists believed, could humanity be saved from the putrefying effects of capitalism and imperialism. Through a careful study of all existing documentation produced by the Red Brigades and of all existing scholarship on the Red Brigades, Orsini reconstructs a worldview that can be as seductive as it is horrifying. Orsini has devised a micro-sociological theory that allows him to reconstruct the group dynamics leading to political homicide in extreme-left and neonazi terrorist groups. This "subversive-revolutionary feedback theory" states that the willingness to mete out and suffer death depends, in the last analysis, on how far the terrorist has been incorporated into the revolutionary sect.

Orsini makes clear that this political-religious concept of historical development is central to understanding all such self-styled "purifiers of the world." From Thomas Müntzer's theocratic dream to Pol Pot's Cambodian revolution, all the violent "purifiers" of the world have a clear goal: to build a perfect society in which there will no longer be any sin and unhappiness and in which no opposition can be allowed to upset the universal harmony. Orsini's book reconstructs the origins and evolution of a revolutionary tradition brought into our own times by the Red Brigades.

Zusammenfassung
An award-winning attempt to understand the logic of revolutionary terrorism.

Inhalt

Introduction1. The Pedagogy of Intolerance
The Revolutionary Vocation
Violence as the Only Way
The "Binary Code" Mentality
Political Violence and Social Marginality
Eschatological Politics2. The Sacralization of Politics
The "Fanaticism of a New Religion"
Radical Catastrophism
The Revolutionary Sect and the Obsession with Purity
The Hatred of Reformists3. Toward the Bloodshed
Daily Life in a Revolutionary Sect
The Red Brigades' Organization Plan
The Blood Crime and Its "Story"
The Path to Bloodshed
Shedding Blood and the Role of the Revolutionary Sect
The Detachment from the Surrounding World4. The Genesis of the Red Brigades
The Red Brigades' Social Roots
The "Cultural Lag" Theory
When Were the Red Brigades Born?
The Red Brigades: "Imbeciles" or Real Revolutionaries?
Antonio Gramsci and "the Hour of Redemption"
The Italian Communist Party's Role in the Genesis of the Red Brigades
An Oxymoron: The "Leninist-Reformist" Party5. The Masters of the Red Brigades
Illustrious Predecessors: Thomas Müntzer
John of Leiden, King and Revolutionary
The English Revolution and the Puritan Movement
The French Revolution and the Jacobin Experiment
Babeuf: "The world has plunged into chaos"
Karl Marx's Pantoclastic Dream
The Revolutionary Tradition of Russian Populism6. The Purifiers of the World in Power
*Lenin and State Terrorism
The Bolshevik Revolution and the "Victims of the Victims"
The Gulag, or The Promise Kept
Mao a…