International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Gladio, otherwise known as the “strategy of tension,” was a counterinsurgency policy established by Italian state secret services and economic elites with the support of fascist organizations and terror groups to oppose leftist movements and political parties. Through the use of bomb attacks and secret operations carried out by the Gladio structure, it sought to create an atmosphere of instability, placing the state as a neutral victim of right- and left-wing extremist forces. By generating public fear, Gladio paved the way for the legitimation of a strong authoritarian state through stern legal measures and zealous police enforcement. In the 1995 trial arising from the bomb attack of Piazza Fontana in 1969, Judge Guido Salvini declared that the origin of the strategy of tension could be identified in a congress on “revolutionary war” organized in March 1965 by the Military History Institute Alberto Pollio in Rome. The congress included speeches by high-ranking army officials and fascists, including Fascist Party (MSI) leader Pino Rauti, and was attended by several fascists, including Stefano delle Chiaie and Mario Merlino, and the intelligence collaborator Guido Giannettini, later involved in terrorist attacks carried out during the strategy of tension. The central speech was given by former volunteer Nazi officer Pio Filippani Ronconi, a university professor and translator of ... log in or subscribe to read full text