ABSTRACT

The involvement of women in the Italian Red Brigades is one of the well-documented cases of women involved in left-wing political violence and terrorism. The Red Army Faction was created in 1970 in West Germany. The center-right Christian Democratic Party was the major force in Italian politics for much of post-World War II Italy, despite the fragility of coalition politics. Many female members of the Red Brigades, Prima Linea, and the Communists Organized for the Liberation of the Proletariat (COLP) had been active in the feminist movement, but felt it was too constricting. After World War II, Germany became the site of the bipolar confrontation between the United States and Soviet Union. Racial inequality within the United States provided a similar motivation for the Weather Underground. Like the early Russian revolutionaries who sometimes worked in the factories, many in the New Left movement attempted to organize the Italian proletariat before explicitly advocating political violence.