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Front Line (Prima Linea, PL)

Simultaneous political action and armed struggle characterized Front Line (Prima Linea, PL) and its satellite formations. It should be premised, however, that the ideology and political objectives as well as the human and material targets of PL did not substantially differ from those of the BR. PL came into being in 1976 in the footsteps of the BR, at the same time that numerous minor formations were making their appearance on the terrorist scene.

PL may have had 20 militants when organized, plus as many as 1,500 to 2,000 potential supporters; 2,500 at the point or maximum expansion in 1979; 100 at the end of 1982/beginning of 1983. These remaining assets should be considered, however, as remnants that did not necesarily look to PL any longer as an umbrella organization. Moreover, the figure at the point of maximum expansion takes satellite groups into account.

By 1980 PL was second to the BR alone in the menace it posed. Thereafter, following successful police operations, part of its residual assets were absorbed by the BR, while other remnants attempted to resurface under their original banner or other names. More recently the name Communist Combatant Nuclei was used by a commando group that liberated PL prison inmates in Rovigo.

Two primary differences in revolutionary strategy account for the distinction between PL and the BR. The latter believed in the determinant and exclusive role of the armed vanguards and are consequently more militarily structured in the Marxist-Leninist sense. PL, on the other hand, consistently demonstrated its belief in the armed struggle, but it has also displayed a marked propensity for political action. Therefore, its members have traditionally combined, where possible, political militancy at the nonclandestine level with clandestinely perpetrated terrorist crimes.

The second difference stems from the first. The BR generally condemned spontaneity as damaging to the revolutionary cause, whose vanguard they perceived themselves to be. PL, on the other hand, adopted a comparatively flexible operational structure that left room for individual decision-making by its organic units and satellites in the belief that situational objectives (goals and targets immediately perceivable as significant by the various strata of the proletariat in specific or varying circumstances) could likewise be best achieved through grass-root initiatives.

For these reasons, PL has been defined as a "federation of connected groups lacking the rigid military organization of the BR." It is also worth noting how Marco Donat Cattin, a repentant PL member distinguished his own terrorist band from the BR: The BR were substantially a Marxist-Leninist organization. PL, instead, is linked from its birth to salaried-workers' themes and is more oriented toward the achievement of immediate objectives. PL dids not consider itself a party, but a service structure, an armed group that carries out actions in reference to the contingent situation. Given the federative nature of PL, uncertainties still subsist even with respect to its heyday organization. As one can best reconstruct the organization, it included a centralized political structure consisting of various fronts with functions pertaining to intelligence, liaison, recruitment, and logistics and a territorial structure consisting of fire groups with subordinate squads and patrols. These structures were loosely connected by some sort of a central committee.

From a functional standpoint, the fire groups are analogous to the columns of the BR. Known fire groups include those that operated in Turin, Milan, Florence, and Rome. Fire groups headquarters assigned targeting tasks to subordinate or connected squads which had their own internal organization, broad operational autonomy, and an individual name that modified the word squad. Patrols were practically subsquads that shared the nature of the squads except for the fact that their operations were intended to be more intimidatory than violent and their actions were less systematic. Similarly, patrols frequently possessed their own denominations.

Again, because of the aggregative structure of PL and its tolerance for revolutionary spontaneity, responsibility for actions perpetrated by PL has been claimed either under its own name, or that of its subordinate or satellite squads and patrols, or even a combination of these units.

The Italian Government's semiannual intelligence report stated that a number of affiliations of PL still maintained a certain degree of efficiency. It can therefore be presumed that squads, patrols, and similar units once connected to PL, were operating without their former umbrella link.

Spontaneous and sporadic terrorist crimes that fall within this pattern are among the most complex to analyze with respect to their true objectives and paternity. In many cases, they are perpetrated by previously unknown groups which, after making a brief appearance on the scene, are not heard from again. Their operations most often, but not always, entail unsophisticated acts of terrorist violence such as arson or bombings of property.

Several actions that appear to be part of this pattern in reality constitute secondary missions of the BR or PL practioners, including security (e.g., when a new unit is being instituted in a different area of the country but is not yet fully organized or sufficiently supported by nonterrorist elements of sympathetic political fringes), propaganda (e.g., the spreading of the armed struggle), and training or testing of new recruits.

A common tendency is to attribute most actions falling within this pattern to presumable affiliations or satellites of PL, especially if the words "squads" or "patrols" appear in the name of the formation that claims responsibility for a specific action. But such an assumption, while based on a reasonable degree of probability, is not always correct. It should be noted that within what the BR call the Proletarian Offensive Resistance Movement (Movimento Proletario di Resistenza Offensiva, MPRO), which was in essence an outer ring or reservoir for BR recruitment or delegation of specific operations, there were elements which initiated, without mandate, actions under different names to establish themselves as qualified candidates for fullfledged BR membership. Moreover, a number of these seemingly spontaneous and sporadic actions is perpetrated by variously named elements of the Automomy.