ABSTRACT
Between 1968 and May 1986, according to Ministry of the Interior figures, 667 violent deaths resulted from terrorist activity in Spain. In Spain Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna (ETA) is the only extra-parliamentary, terrorist organisation with a degree of influence and potential for damaging the system. ETA has just recently added the 500th victim to its list of 'executions'. Throughout the 1960s, however, a process of radicalisation occurred and an intellectually weak variation of Marxism-Leninism was superimposed on the nationalist orientation of the youthful ETA. During the period of the transition, and the years preceding the attempted coup of 1981, this divergence between the two branches of ETA was accentuated. Although both continued with their respective military campaigns, the reasoning behind these followed two distinct conceptions of the socio-political circumstances within which they were operating. During the fragile nineteen-month period of the transition to democracy, ETA intensified its activities.
