Nov 24, 2025
Most people, even on the Left, only know fragments of Italy’s
“Years of Lead.” This episode pulls the whole picture into focus:
the mass worker upsurge after the boom years, the 1969 Piazza
Fontana bombing and the death of Giuseppe Pinelli, the rise of the
Red Brigades, the kidnapping and execution of Aldo Moro, and the
1980 Bologna massacre. Alyson and Breht trace how far-right
stragismo (mass bombings) intersected with far-left clandestinism,
and how segments of the deep state, intelligence services, and the
Cold War Gladio architecture shaped a strategy of tension that
isolated the movements, kept the socialist and communist left from
power, and cleared the way for the establishment of neoliberalism
in Italy and beyond. Alyson and Breht then discuss what lessons we
can learn from this history and if there are any similarities to
the contemporary United States.
Check out our episode on the Italian fascist Julius Evola HERE
Check out our episode on Carl Schmitt's Concept of the Political HERE
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