Editing Politics of Italy (section)

====Years of Lead====<!-- This section is linked from [[Italian Social Movement]] -->
{{See also|Strategy of tension|Years of Lead (Italy)}}

On 12 December 1969, a roughly decade-long period of extremist left- and right-wing political terrorism, known as The Years of Lead (as in the metal of bullets, {{langx|it|anni di piombo}}), began with the [[Piazza Fontana bombing]] in the center of [[Milan]]. Neofascist [[Vincenzo Vinciguerra]] later declared the bombing to be an attempt to push the Italian state to declare a [[state of emergency]] in order to lead to a more authoritative state. A bomb left in a bank killed about twenty and was initially blamed on [[anarchism|anarchist]] [[Giuseppe Pinelli]]. This accusation was hotly contested by left-wing circles, especially the [[Maoist]] Student Movement, which had support in those years from some students of Milan's [[university|universities]] and who considered the bombing to have all the marks of a fascist operation. Their guess proved correct, but only after many years of difficult investigations.<ref>David Moss, ''The Politics of Left-Wing Violence in Italy, 1969-85'' (1989)</ref>

[[File:Strage di bologna funerali 1.jpg|thumb|Funerals of the victims of the 2 August 1980 [[Bologna massacre]], the deadliest attack ever perpetrated in Italy during the Years of Lead]]
The strategy of tension attempted to blame the left for bombings carried out by right-wing terrorists. Fascist "black terrorists", such as ''[[Ordine Nuovo]]'' and the ''[[National Vanguard (Italy)|Avanguardia Nazionale]]'', were in the 1980s and 1990s found to be responsible for several terrorist attacks. On the other extreme of the political spectrum, the leftist Red Brigades carried out assassinations against specific persons, but were not responsible for any blind bombings. The Red Brigades killed socialist journalist [[Walter Tobagi]] and in their most famous operation kidnapped and assassinated [[Aldo Moro]], president of the [[Christian Democracy (Italy)|Christian Democracy]], who was trying to involve the [[Italian Communist Party|Communist Party]] in the government through the ''[[historic compromise|compromesso storico]]'' ("historic compromise"), to which the radical left as well as Washington were opposed.<ref>Robert C. Meade Jr.. ''Red Brigades: The Story of Italian Terrorism'' (1989)</ref>

The last and largest of the bombings, known as the [[Bologna massacre]], destroyed the city's railway station in 1980. This was found to be a neofascist bombing, in which [[Propaganda Due]] was involved. On 24 October 1990, Prime Minister [[Giulio Andreotti]] (DC) revealed to the Parliament the existence of [[Gladio]], [[NATO]]'s secret "stay-behind" networks which stocked weapons in order to facilitate an armed resistance in case of a communist coup. In 2000, a Parliament Commission report from the [[The Olive Tree (Italy)|Olive Tree]] (centre-left) coalition concluded that the strategy of tension followed by Gladio had been supported by the United States to "stop the PCI and, to a certain degree, the PSI [Italian Socialist Party] from reaching executive power in the country".<ref>Leonard Weinberg,  "Italian neo‐fascist terrorism: A comparative perspective." ''Terrorism and Political Violence'' 7.1 (1995): 221-238.</ref>