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Workers' Power (Potere Operaio) - POTOP/ AUTOP

Logistical and service activities in support of terrorist organizations does not exclude the direct perpetration of typical terrorist crimes, which is indicative of an operational orientation as well. Before examining this pattern, it is beneficial to expand briefly upon the organic logistical and service structures of the terrorist organizations.

All terrorist groups of the left, and in particular the better established ones, aimed at the highest possible level of self-sufficiency. Much of their funds were raised through "evolutionary expropriations" [armed robberies of banks, payrolls, and jewelry stores] and, in some cases. kidnaping for ransom. For example, the proceeds obtained by the NAP from the Moccia abduction in 1974 were used to extend their zone of operations to the north of Naples. The proceeds obtained by the BR from the Costa kidnaping for ransom in 1977 were used to finance the political abduction of Aldo Moro the following year.

Material, including weapons, motor vehicles, and other equipment, is most frequently stolen either by stealth or clamorous actions. For example, between March 30, 1980, and November 20, 1982, at least six known raids were disjointly conducted by the BR and by PL against army and air force installations and trucks to obtain weapons.

Files and other information of intelligence use were likewise often acquired through raids on offices or private dwellings. Other intelligence gathering functions were accomplished by strategically planted irregulars or points of contact. Logistical requisitioning and intelligence collection were conducted by the operational units or elements of the terrorist organizations. But for purposes of logistical or intelligence planning and distribution, other echelons, such as the logistical front and the mass front of the BR were utilized.

Whenever goods or services cannot be acquired by support structures from within the organization, in accordance with this methodology, the organizations rely on three other procedures: overt purchase, if possible; organized common crime channels, against compensation; or auxiliary support.

Auxiliary support is provided by a number of extremist organizations and groups of the extra parliamentary left that regard themselves as part of the Movement or of the Autonomy. As the privileged interlocutors of the terrorist organizations, these outfits not only constitute a terrorist recruitment pool, but also render a variety of services ranging from logistics to propaganda, from cover to intelligence, and from medical to legal assistance.

Of particular significance within this context is the extra-parliamentary organization Workers' Autonomy (Autonomia Operaia, AUTOP), which developed the most refined organization of the entire cluster. Dozens of its members were tried by the Court of Assizes of Rome for armed insurrection, the organization of an armed band, participation in an armed band, support for an armed band, illegal possession of explosives and weapons, and other crimes.

AUTOP was formed shortly after the self-resolved dissolution of Workers' Power (Potere Operaio, POTOP), a similar extraparliamentary organization in existence from 1969 through 1973. Beginning on April 7, 1979, the judiciary issued a number of arrest warrants and indicted numerous professors, intellectuals, writers, and activists within the ranks of AUTOP. The prosecution substantially argued that the dissolution of POTOP decided at its party Congress of 1973 in Rosolina was purely tactical. At this time, its members secretly agreed to form two parallel branches of the dissolved organization: one consisting of clandestine elements that were to become part of terrorist organizations and the other consisting of a supporting legal structure that came to be known as AUTOP. Moreover, the leadership of both branches remained vested in a unitary directorate responsible for providing both ideological and operational guidance.

Whatever the merits of the prosecutorial posture, it is a fact that the activism of POTOP/ AUTOP ran parallel to the operations of the BR, PL, and sister groups. It initially pursued confrontation politics in the factories, but progressively deemphasized verbal dissent vis-a-vis the system and began to promote disorders and violence especially in the course of labor union unrest and demonstrations. Its tactics included public instigation to commit crimes and urban guerrilla actions entailing the use of Molotov cocktails as well as firearms.

Indicative of AUTOP's ideology were numerous political slogans such as "Work is not a manner of living, but the ohligalion to sell oneself in order to live." From the struggles within the factories for guaranteed wages, AUTOP expanded its subversive propaganda and militancy to include unilaterally reduced payments of rent by tenants and of public-utility rates by customers, seizures of unrented apartments, resistance against eviction, and proletarian expropriations in supermarkets. It also targeted the school system, because of its alleged role as the school of unemployment, selectivity, and repression.

Moreover, AUTOP devoted intensive attention to the prisons in conjunction with the militancy of such groups as Red Aid (Soccorso Rosso), whose members on the surface render free legal assistance to "political detainees stricken by the bourgeois repression"; but in practice, besides serving as defense counsel for extremists and terrorists of the left, act as intermediaries between imprisoned terrorists and terrorists at large, thus providing operation liaison.

Significantly, attorney Edoardo Arnaldi, a former Communist partisan, committed suicide on April 19, 1980, as he was about to be arrested by the Carabinieri, pursuant to a warrant issued on those grounds. Another aLtorney, Sergio SpazzuLi, received a 4-year prison sentence on the same grounds on March 20, 1982, at the conclusion of the appellate proceedings against 72 members of the Turin column of the BR. Still another attorney, Giovanna Lombardi, was currently under indictment in Rome.

The militancy of AUTOP and of its predecessor POTOP in the Padua province and, through its appendages, in the Veneto region, affords an instructive example with respect to both the logistical/service aspects and operational aspects of the auxiliary support pattern as applicable to a specific area of the country.

The University of Padua and, in particular, its Political Science Department, served since the late 1960's as a training area for terrorist cadre. Under the intellectual inspiration and charismatie leadership uf Professor Antonio (Toni) Negri and his academic assistants - most of whom are today under indictment together with Negri - POTOP developed firm structures within the University itself. A main vehicle used for this purpose consisted of self-managed seminars (seminari autogestiti). Moreover, because of unfavorable local conditions (high cost of food and lodging), the student population. much of which was from out of town, became a fertile ground for extremist recruitment.

During the transition period between the demise of POTOP and the formal birth of AUTOP, loosely structured groups known as the Paduan Political Collectives (Collettivi Politici Pudovani) insured an unbroken chain of succession in the province.

Paduan AUTOP traditionally was a two-tier organizution with an overt and a covert structure. The overt structure endeavored to establish its presence in local society and disseminate Marxis-Leninist doctrine. The parallel covert structure, reliant upon sympathizers recruited through the overt organization, conducted subversive and terrorist activities by means of cellular groups that claimed responsibility for their actions under different names.

Throughout its history, Paduan AUTOP maintained logistical bases in the province by using student off-campus quarters as well as the University grounds. Another frequent technique entailed the occupation of empty facilities belonging to the Municipality of Padua. Its influence over the rest of the region was largely exercised through social centers (centri sociali) which had propaganda and recruitment purposes.

Notably, on April 11, 1979, a few days after the April 7 indictments of leading members of Paduan AUTOP, a device accidentally exploded in Thiene - a municipality in the neighboring province of Vicenza - while it was being manufactured. In the devastated premises, weapons, sketches of Carabinieri installations, and other subversion / terrorism-oriented materials were uncovered and confiscated.

Formations believed to be connected to Paduan AUTOP that have perpetrated major terrorist acts in Padua and elsewhere in the Veneto region include the Comhatant Communist Front, Combatant Communist Youth Front, Workers' Organization for Communism, Armed Anti-Fascist Groups, Communist Front for Counterpower, und Communist Combatant Nuclei.

Notwithstanding notable setbacks suffered at the hands of the judiciary and police since the late 1970's, Paduan AUTOP retained sufficient assets to publish a monthly, known as Autonomia, which may be considered to be the link between what was left of the overt and covert structures of AUTOP in the province and possibly in the region.

AUTOP reportedly entertained much more ambitious plans. For example, ideologues Francesco Piperno, a professor of physics at the University of Cosenza, Lanfranco Pace, and Oreste Scaizone, all associated with the extraparliamentary Communist Revolutionary Committees (Comitati Comunisti Rivoluzionari - Co.Co.Ri.) and the publication Metropoli had attempted to condition the strategies of the BR by infiltmting their ranks through their own disciples Valerio Morucci and Adriana Faranda. During the trial of 63 defendants for BR crimes committed in Rome between 1977 and 1981, including the abduction and murder of Aldo Moro, which produced, inter alia, 82 life sentences, repentant red brigadist Massimo Cianfaneli confirmed the existence of such a design.

A similar plan or link may have been contemplated or undertaken by AUTOP. Repentant terrorist Patrizio Peci stated: "We believed that Negri was in direct relationship with PL, in the sense that he provided said organization with the political stance to be followed. This assessment of ours was drawn, at least as far as I am concerned, from the analysis of Negri's writings and of the actions perpetrated and other members of the BR in Turin." Peci was the leader of the Turin column of the BR.