Politica bombelor : cum la începutul secolului XX s-a inventat cea mai murdară armă a războiului rece: strategia tensiunii

The politics of bombs How the early 20th century invented the Cold War's dirtiest weapon: the strategy of tension 'Tension strategy' is one of the darkest expressions of twentieth-century Italian history, the combination of those words still evokes mourning, fear, unpunished crimes and disturbing mysteries. Was it an all-Italian tragedy? Definitely not. Firstly because it matured in the context of the Cold War, as it was determined by the need to ensure its balance and was linked to the tacit, yet cogent, western version of the Brezhnevian doctrine of limited sovereignty. Secondly, because parts of that script were staged not only in Italy but also in other theatres, in Latin America as well as in Europe, although the greater complexity of the 'Italian edition' may derive from the peculiarities of the national case and their original combination with international factors. Thirdly, because even the first draft of that script could be written not for Italy and outside of Italy: think of the 'doctrine of revolutionary war' developed by the French during the Algerian conflict, not by chance used as a model in 1960s Italy precisely in that grey area between institutions, politics and subversion that seems to have incubated the tormented decade of '69-80. Does the political use of violence envisaged by the strategy of tension, so different and, in some ways, so much more refined than the one acted out within the framework of traditional terrorist organizations, really originate with the formation of its ideal habitat (the Cold War)? Or does it too, like so many aspects of our contemporaneity, take shape in the season of iron, fire and the masses that inaugurates the political 20th century, from the First World War to the 1930s? In this work we will try to reread some pages from the 1920s, the burning of the Narodni Dom in Trieste, the bombs at the Kuursal Diana and the headquarters of 'l'Avanti! " in Milan, the recourse to the revolutionary myth in a counter-revolutionary key, the intertwining of vanguards, political power, institutions and mass movements, domestic politics and international balances, in order to grasp the archetypal aspect with respect to the strategy that bloodied Italy in what we have long perceived as the most dramatic years of the Cold War.