Interconnected - Actors, Objects, and Ideas on the Move

GRAINES Summer School, St Andrews, 7-10 June 2015

Author: Mikulas Pesta

The Horizontal versus the Vertical Network: Towards a Transnational History of Left-wing Terrorism in the 1970s

June 10, 2015 / / 0 Comments

The German and Italian terrorist organizations in the 1970s did not work on their own; they were strongly interconnected. Numerous terrorist groups in Italy created in the late 1970s a functioning network of cooperation and the Germans coordinated their plans as well. These networks had their centers in the Italy and Germany respectively, but they had also lot of transnational links, thus connecting the networks into one.

The Summer school raised several important questions that could contribute to my research. The one I concerned myself most was the issue of the role of the individual within the group and within the network. The transnational terrorist connections could be observed not only as horizontal “geographical” network but also as a vertical network. The organizations had a hierarchy and the cells that were usually operating in several cities at the same time, so we could define a single organization as a vertical network of cells and individuals.

Dealing with the vertical and horizontal network at the same time raises the question, who were the actors in such network. Was the contact conducted on “official” inter-organizational level, or was the input of the individuals more important? If the contact occurred between the individuals, to what extent did it reflect the “official” ideology of the organizations, expressed in the manifestos and communiqués? These issues could bring a new perspective to the transnational terrorist network by helping us to avoid a top-down understanding of the way these groups operated.

The Left-Wing Terrorism and Political Violence in Western Europe in the 1970s

May 12, 2015 / / 0 Comments

My name is Mikuláš Pešta, I am a PhD candidate at the Institute of World History at Charles University in Prague. I am currently studying as an exchange student at the University of Hamburg. During my undergraduate years, I studied one semester at the University of Bologna, where I have researched the subject of Italian Left-Wing terrorism. I also took part in the short-term exchange program at the University of Cologne and University of Regensburg.

My thesis deals with the European Left-wing terrorism in the 1970s and the 1980s, especially with its origins within the New Left movement, with specifics of the development in Germany and Italy and with the positions of the most influential terrorists organizations. My goal is to find and define common features of the European terrorism and its ideological background – reinterpretation of the Socialist and Anarchist thinkers, methods of the fight of the Latin American and Vietnamese guerrilla units, and disillusion of the Soviet way of fighting the capitalism.
The project focuses on the comparison of the terrorist movements in Germany and Italy, where the violent organizations were strongest. The goal is satisfyingly mapping the extent of the cooperation (or even the coordination of the plans) of the anti-state movements in Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany. The thesis will also include a comparison of the origins, structure, and functioning of the clandestine groups, as well as the analysis of their language, methods, aims, or the relations to the “Old Left”. I will try to answer the question to what extent the terrorists were directly influenced by a student-worker movement and if the escalation of the violence was inevitable consequence of it.

Studying the terrorist organizations brings many complications; as the illegal formations, they do not archive the documents concerning their functioning. The analysis will have to be carried out indirectly, especially from the governmental and police documents which relate to the terrorism, newspaper articles and other contemporary reflections of their functioning, and subjective sources, such as the memoirs or interviews with the terrorists themselves.

I would like to contribute to the GRAINES Summer School with the mechanics of the transnational influence and cooperation of the clandestine organizations and their role in the European New Left movement. My motivation to participate is mainly to deepen the general knowledge about the processes of transnational networks, especially the about the transfers of ideas and know-how.

Selected bibliography:

1968 in Europe. History of protest and activism 1956-1977, KLIMKE, M., SCHAROTH, J. (eds.), New York 2008

STERLING, C., The terror network. The secret war of internaional terrorism, New York 1981

ALEXANDER, Y., PLUCHINSKY, D., Europe’ Red Terrorists. The fighting communist organizations, London 1992

COLVIN, S., Ulrike Meinhof and West German Terrorism: language, violence and identity, New York 2009

TERHOEVEN, P., Deutscher Herbst in Europa. Der Linsterrorismus der siebziger Jahre als transnationales Phänomen, München 2014

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