Massimo Morsello - an Inspirational Nationalist Hero

Today is the anniversary of the death of Massimo Morsello, a great friend and Comrade.

An Italian nationalist and adopted son of England for many years who had to fight to clear his name.

To those of of us who had the honour to know him he will forever live on in our hearts and minds.





Tip of my Falangist side cap to Thought and Action

Massimo Morsello: Remembering an Italian Hero

Massimo Morsello remembered.

All Nationalists from all nations salute the memory of our Comrade.

Long may his memory endure.

Rest In Peace.

New CD: Italia Presente

This new CD features the best of Italian nationalist music from the last 40 years.

from Janus to Massimo Morsello, to Peggior Amico and Hate for Breakfast.

From folkish anthems to Identity Rock, the sheer breadth of Italian Nationalist music is breathtaking.

A CD worthy of any collection.

Link:
Italia Presente

Look out for more CDs, militaria, patches etc. soon.

The Bologna Bombing: Who & What Was the NAR?

NAR Blamed for the Bologna Massacre

Who and What Was the NAR?

by M. Fishwick

Before arriving at the history of the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, NAR, which in turn cannot be successfully explained without presenting a brief outline history of the post-war national struggle in Italy, it would be equally useful to review the general background of Italy in which the history is set.

Overview

After the destruction and chaos of the Second World War, Italy found herself to be very much a part of the frontline theatre of a titanic life and death struggle between the Soviet sphere of interest and the Atlantic Alliance.

Liberals, the Christian Democrats backed by the USA and NATO, held precariously onto the reins of national government against a widespread and militant Communist base consisting of former partisans and their areas of support.

Surviving members of the Fascisti had re-grouped under the banner of the Italian Social Movement, MSI, against a backdrop of persecution directed by the Liberal State allied with the bloodlust of former partisans, and they had begun to rebuild social, cultural and political structures.

Many parts of Italy, if not controlled by Communists, fell increasingly under the power and influence of the Mafia and similar crime syndicates that had been all but wiped out by Mussolini but were now free again to re-exert their dominion.

In similar manner Masonry, all but destroyed as an operational entity by Mussolini, re-asserted itself on an organisational level and spread its tentacles widely throughout the structures of the Italian State and Big Business.

The Atlantic Alliance developed underground guerrilla cells and ammunition dumps as part of its Operation Gladio network, and the Soviet sphere aided Red Terrorist cells throughout western Europe.

From 1945 to the mid-1980's Italy was the scene of a lingering chaos, verging upon civil war. Italy became a pawn in the geo-political machinations and conflict that existed firstly between the USSR and NATO, and secondly between the USSR/Arab nations and the USA/Israeli axis.

Bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings, and arms-trafficking were a feature of life common to Italy for four decades after the end of World War Two due largely to the geo-political Strategy of Tension instigated by the CIA.

Targetted kidnappings, bombings and assassinations were routinely carried out and claimed by the Red Brigades and kindred groups. Several indiscriminate bombings have never been resolved but were automatically blamed upon 'neo-fascists' - convenient scapegoats who were hated by all the major powers at play. But it made no sense for weak and powerless 'neo-fascists' to engage in such immoral, indiscriminate, killing when they prided themselves on being a movement from, of, and for the Italian people. Such senseless acts of indicrimate horror could achieve nothing except facilitate further hatred towards them and result in their further repression.

The intense investigations into terrorism during the 1980's and 1990's eventually brought various State Secrets to light that explained and made sense of these murderous and indiscriminate bombing atrocities. They were designed to reign in the Christian Democrats to the US-Israeli axis and force them away from agreements made with the Italian Communists and from relationships built with Socialist Arab countries such as Libya.

Amongst other things the Christian Democrats had forged a secret agreement with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine so that the Italian government would turn a blind eye to PFLP related arms trafficking and other activities in return for the PFLP not launching attacks in Italy.

The Bologna railway station massacre was the final act in a series of indiscriminate bombings that shook Italy during those decades. This time, the ramifications of the act spread far beyond Italy due to the high level of casualties and because a number of casualties amongst the 85 dead and two hundred or so injured were foreign tourists. The international outcry was enormous.

As usual, the atrocity was immediately blamed on 'neo-fascists'. Italian Prime Minister of the time, and former Minister of the Interior in charge of the Italian Secret Service organisations, Francesco Cossiga, announced the "fact" to the Italian Senate and it led to a severe persecution of young nationalists that included mass round-ups, long imprisonments without trial, torture, severe beatings and deaths during arrest or whilst in custody. Many of those who managed to successfully escape the persecution found themselves exiled abroad for many years. After the many years of investigation into the bombing Francesco Cossiga now publicly states that he is certain that 'neo-fascists' had nothing to do with the terrorist outrage.

As the investigations into the terrorist activity surrounding Bologna progressed during the 1980's and 1990's the secret agreements of the Italian State with sections of the Palestinian resistance became known, although never officially admitted until 2008. With the benefit of this knowledge, and especially with its official admittance at long last, it is easily understood, for example, why the presence of Thomas Kram, a leading activist of the German Revolutionary Cells and ally of the PLPF, who arrived in Bologna the night before the bombing and left Bologna immediately after the bombing, was hidden from public view by the Italian State investigators for many years.

The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that either Kram had some involvement in planting the bomb or that the bomb was planted in order to implicate Kram, and hence the PFLP, bringing pressure upon the Christian Democrat government of Italy to publicly condemn and suppress the Palestinian arms trafficking network and re-orientate themselves to the United States/Israeli axis.

As always, the fundamental question to be asked is who benefits? When the question is considered it becomes difficult to conclude other than that the atrocity was not the work of a 'neo-fascist' network or a Palestinian network, neither of which had anything to gain from such actions but much to lose, but was typically the work of either the CIA or Israeli Mossad.

War on the Streets: The Years of Lead

In order to trace the origin and development of NAR, the armed gang led by Valerio Fioravanti to which the guilt of the Bologna massacre was attributed by the media and politicians and then upheld by the criminal courts, it is necessary to return to the MSI.

The MSI had been formed in 1946 by former minor officials of the Fascist regime. Just ten years later the ideas and principles of its members and supporters began to be severely compromised and then subverted as its leaders sought to build an alliance with Christian Democrats and conservatives. The MSI began to pursue an Atlanticist orientation and inevitably a number of non-compromising associations formed from within its ranks. A number of groups, such as the Fronte Universitario d’Azione Nazionale, FUAN, stayed under the MSI umbrella whilst pursuing an almost autonomous direction, whilst other groups of militants such as Ordine Nuovo and Avanguardia Nazionale left MSI and went their own way.

By the 1970's the MSI had become an object of derision for the younger generation of Italian patriots. It was increasingly becoming something to be despised and hated. The reason was not merely the ideological sell-out of the MSI leadership but, incredibly, their point-blank refusal to make use their many contacts amongst the Establishment parties and police in order to provide protection for local headquarters and street activists in face of an increasingly frequent level of, often deadly, Red violence against the MSI rank and file.

For example:

7th July, 1972: A typical Red "Commando Raid" was made upon the house of a member of the MSI youth organisation, Fronte della Gioventù. The FdG activist, Carlo Falvella, of Salerno, was stabbed to death.

16th April, 1973: An arson attack was conducted upon the house of MSI member, Mario Mattei, in Primavalle, Rome. Two of his sons, Stefano and Virgilio aged 10 and 22, were murdered in the attack.

28th February, 1975: A Greek student, a member of the MSI's university group FUAN, Mikis Mantakas, was shot and murdered in Rome.

13th March, 1975: FdG member, Sergio Ramelli, was shot dead outside Mass in Milan.

30th September, 1977: Hundreds of Reds violently besieged the local MSI headquarters in Balduina, Rome. The fighting lasted for hours until the small number of FdG activists inside the building found an escape route. Chased by the Red mob, and fleeing for their lives, future NAR activists Christiano Fioravanti and Alesandro Alibrandi fired upon the chasing mob killing one of them, a member of the murderous Communist group Lotta Continua.

7th January, 1978: FdG activists Franco Bigonzetti and Francesco Ciavatta were shot dead in a hail of machine gun bullets whilst leaving the MSI headquarters in Via Acca Larentia, Rome. A third young activist is wounded. The Roman MSI gathered in the street to pay honour to the victims and to protest at the massacre of its young activists. A captain of the Carabinieri, Edoardo Siveri, drew his pistol at the increasingly angry demonstrators and shot dead young FdG member Stefano Recchioni. He lay dying in the arms of future NAR activist Francesca Mambro.

In such circumstances young nationalists were forced to act to provide a measure of necessary safety and protection for themselves, their families, and their comrades. The testimonies of young militants of the time are striking:

"The physical struggle for us had value as a test of strength, but also the problem is that we need to contextualise it and at the time there were something like 5,000 attacks and 600-700 deaths, at least 5 violent events per day, and it was not possible even to affix posters without a physical clash... In Italy between 1973 and 1982, at least, we lived in a condition of real civil war hence it was not possible to reject a fight; it meant giving up going out into the streets.

The problem is also to understand when and where the civil war originated... there were the ex-partisans who were teaching that to kill a fascist is not a crime, and then there were groups like Avanguardia Operaia which first theorised and then practised the elimination of fascists. On a TV programme the other day they said that on the extreme left the armed groups were started in self-defence. However, the first person to be beaten with a bar in Italy, Spano, who ended up in a wheelchair, was beaten up by the student movement, the first person to be killed by a bottle full of sand was Ermanno Vinturini in Genoa, the first person to be shot dead was Mikis Mantakas in Rome. I believe that even the first person to be knifed was Falvella in Salerno... on the left the situation turned really nasty, therefore the taste for civil war was developed by the extreme left.. I mean to say that the left developed a strategy of hatred, this is important... on the left there was a culture of hatred, because if we look at what happened in Italy in 1919-1921, they used to kill in a heinous way, they dismembered alive those whom they took prisoners during the civil war."
Gabriele Adinolfi, former leader of Terza Posizione. .

"In the late 1970's the political scene was even harder and access to weapons became a matter of survival. Naturally we were particularly vulnerable to the slogan 'to kill a fascist is not a crime'. It became impossible to go to school without risk. In addition, we had also been betrayed by the party leaders. That bitter struggle completely ruined the lives of many young people. Some were murdered, others ended up in prison with very serious penalties in comparison to their crimes... From the police we received only beatings and torture whilst leftists acted with impunity."
Massimo Morsello, (Requiescat in pace), former activist of Fronte Universitario d’Azione Nazionale, Via Siena.

"It was a very dangerous period for those who were active in politics, both on the left and on the right. There was a lot of violence. I remember that when we went out at night my mother would wait for us until two or three in the morning and she used to tell us of the many explosions she had heard. It was not infrequent to open a paper and find news of ten bombs which had exploded in one day. Where I lived we had five attacks, at Francesca's house there were two, they put a bomb on the windowsill in the mezzanine room where she slept, aged eighteen and with two younger brothers.... Then there was this episode which she witnessed in person of a captain of the Carabinieri who killed one of ours. He did it in front of all the leaders of the MSI. And the whole MSI pretended not to have seen. And the reactions in the papers the next day were extremely harsh, but when Francesca said, 'We need to report what we saw, we need to go to the police', nobody wanted to go with her, because for the party to lose the votes of the police force was too serious... And so for me, for her, for all the others, this triggered a final revolt against the MSI which had sold us out".
Valerio Fioravanti, former leader of NAR.

"The 1970s were days when left-wing kids were forever beating up right-wing ones and vice versa. At the beginning, I had friends on both sides. But the right somehow always seemed to get the worst of it. I couldn't help identifying with that." And after she witnessed the cold-blooded murder of Stefano Recchioni by a policeman: "I swore I would never go anywhere without a gun."
Francesca Mambro, former leader of NAR

"During the 1970's, in ninety-eight percent of all cases, the radical right played the role of victims... We were victims of the political situation, of the political unrepresentativeness of our community - a community subject to fierce reprisals."
Marcello de Angelis, Italian Senator, former activist of Terza Posizione.

The "fierce reprisals" against young nationalists for daring to oppose the Christian Democrat/Communist Party status quo came from the police and the Secret State as well as from the Reds.

On 10th January, 1979, the first anniversary of the Acca Larentia massacre that saw the murder of two young activists of the FdG by Reds, and another murdered by police, the FdG and FUAN held a protest of remembrance outside the Christian Democrat headquarters in Centocelle, in the centre of Rome. The protest passed without incident and the demonstrators began to quietly disperse and return home. An unmarked police car targetted two stragglers Alberto Giaquinto, of FdG, and Massimo Morsello, of FUAN. After following them for a short distance two plainclothes policemen got out of the car and followed the boys on foot. Suddenly one of them, Alessio Speranza, pulled out a gun and shot Alberto Giaquinto in the head. At first the police claimed that Giaquinto brandished a gun, but the story had to be dropped because there were too many impartial and independent witnesses at the murder scene. There was no gun. Shortly afterwards another GdF militant, Stefano Cecchin, was murdered in a drive-by shooting by whilst sitting at a pavement cafe. The primary witness to the Gianquilo murder, his comrade Massimo Morsello, insisted, despite threats, upon testifying against the police. For Massimino's trouble the policemen were later found not guilty and an arrest warrant was consequently issued against Morsello in revenge for him pursuing the trial against the policemen. Massimo managed to flee Italy and was later found guilty in abstentia of the 'crime' of subversive association and armed gang and sentenced to ten years imprisonment.

It was the murder of the young nationalist, Stefano Recchioni, by the police in January, 1978, that finally drove thousands of young activists completely away from the MSI. The leadership of MSI had even refused to demand the arrest of Siveri. Something was rotten to the core.

At that point most of the former MSI-GdF militants began to engage themselves in political struggle with the radical and innovative nationalist group Terza Posizione. Others gave in to despair and turned their back upon political struggle in favour of a hopeless and nihilistic armed struggle. The reference point of the latter became the embryonic NAR which was built upon a small circle of close-knit friends around Valerio Fioravanti. Fioravanti began to direct NAR actions against everyone and anyone whom they perceived as an enemy, including, before long, Terza Posizione.

Former NAR leader, Valerio Fiorantini explains:

"... in reality our target were not the Carabinieri, our aim was to kill our treacherous father, in a mythological sense, to kill the MSI which had sold us out... it is true that the characteristic of the NAR, even from a criminal statistics point of view, was that of a group which in percentage terms shot at members of the police forces more often than all the groups of the extreme left. But what is really serious, from an ethical point of view, is that in reality our hatred was not directed at the police, our wish was to get the MSI into trouble once and for all. And also to break that mechanism that we had seen also with the radical groups, according to which the big groups use the small ones to acquire more power for themselves and later abandon them when the time is right. This is what was happening with Terza Posizione."

In 1976 an independent student organisation, Lotta Studentesca, was founded in Rome at the library of Walter Spedicato by 17 year old Roberto Fiore, 20 year old Giuseppe Dimitri, and 22 year old Gabriele Adinolfi. It quickly built up a solid activist base amongst young Romans disillusioned with the ideological sell-out of the MSI. Chief amongst them were brothers Nazzareno (Nanni) and Marcello de Angelis. In 1978 Lotta Studentesca broadened its horizons with the help of Francesco Mangiameli, a literature professor from Sicily and former MSI politician, to organise as a national movement. It changed its name to Terza Posizione. TP began to recruit heavily from the hundreds of militants then leaving MSI in droves and soon established itself throughout Italy.

From its beginning TP took an independent line in everything under the slogan "Neither Red Front Nor Reaction". Because of its intransigent ideological stance, its incredible vitality in terms of innovative and miltant activity, and its disciplined and hierarchical structure, it soon became an object of hatred not just for the Italian State and the Reds, but also for the right-wing MSI and the embryonic NAR who preached and practised an anarchic "armed spontaneity".

At one stage Gianfranco Fini, then National Secretary of the MSI's youth wing, even encouraged its militants to physically oppose TP on the streets. It only resulted in more militants turning their backs upon MSI and becoming active with the growing TP.

Whilst, on the one hand, Terza Posizione was hated by the MSI leadership for presenting a militant ideological alternative to their pro-U.S. and Statist orientation, it began to be hated in equal measure by Fioravanti and his close friends who, after leaving FdG, began to publicly use the acronym NAR in specific reference to themselves. For the wild, hot-headed, youths of NAR, Terza Posizione was not militant enough. NAR wanted through its actions to encourage an anarchic form of guerrilla warfare on the streets, directed largely against the police and Establishment figures; a black version of the Red Brigades. To do this they needed to influence the militants but Terza Posizione was successfully orientating them into constructive political, social, economic and community actions aimed at building a living cultural reference in opposition to the moribund and decayed ideas of right and left. The success of Terza Posizione was preventing the nihilistic influence of NAR from spreading to any great degree.

NAR leader Francesca Mambro explained: "We were a thorn in everybody's sides. The political right wanted nothing to do with us. The extra-parliamentary right, the grown-up Fascist bands, thought we were just a bunch of snotty kids. We simply didn't count".

From that moment, from virtually the beginning of Terza Posizione, TP became an object of hatred for NAR. The TP leadership had made clear in its publications that whilst it was always in favour of self-defence against aggressive attacks, it was steadfastly opposed to the immoral "armed spontaneity" called for by the nascent NAR.

Marcello de Angelis, Italian Senator and former TP militant: "With NAR relations were so bad that 'Giusva' [Valerio] Fioravanti had decided to take out our leaders in order to take all the power of the area."

The watershed in the short, but legendary, life of Terza Posizione came late in 1979. Some of its members, including one of the founders, 'Peppe' Dimitri, began to leave TP and gravitate towards the orbit of NAR. Dimitri and two others were arrested, in December 1979, in the act of transporting boxes of machine guns, rifles and hand-grenades.

Although Terza Posizione publicly disassociated itself from the incident the Italian State were presented with the excuse that they were looking for in order to destroy TP. Even though Peppe Dimitri confirmed that his clandestine action had been unknown to TP, the State set to work and launched an 'investigation' attempting to establish that there existed two levels of Terza Posizione: one level being militant and extra-parliamentary but above board, the other clandestine and involved in acts of terrorism. Nothing could be established but the State seized its opportunity in September 1980 whilst the nation was in a mood for "fascist blood" in wake of the Bologna atrocity. Arrest warrants against TP leaders and militants were issued on 23rd September, 1980, under the pretext of the peculiar Italian 'catch-all' crime of 'subversive association and armed gang'.

Dozens of young people were rounded-up in a series of brutal raids, whilst dozens more received warning just in time and managed to evade the dragnet. Some, including Roberto Fiore, Gabriele Adinolfi, Walter Spedicato and Marcello de Angelis managed to flee abroad and spent years, even decades, in exile. Others, such as Nanni de Angelis, were caught before they could leave the country and suffered severe beatings and, in many cases, five years in jail without trial before being released after being found not guilty of what they were charged with. Nanni de Angelis was murdered inside a police-cell on 5th October, 1980, after having being arrested and beaten senseless by the police earlier that day.

In January 1981 members of the Italian Secret Military Intelligence Service, SISMI, directed by P2 Masonic Lodge 'godfather' Licio Gelli, attempted to conclude the State operation against TP by planting a suitcase containing weapons and the same type of explosive that was used in the Bologna massacre, on the Taranto-Milano Express train along with a fabricated paper trail implicating Terza Posizione leaders Roberto Fiore and Gabriele Adinolfi. This set-up, by using the same difficult to obtain explosive, was intended not just to implicate Fiore and Adinolfi in terrorist activity but also to fabricate a link between NAR, who had already been blamed by SISMI for the August 1980 Bologna massacre, and Terza Posizione.

Two very high-ranking SISMI officers, General Pietro Musumeci and Colonel Giuseppe Belmonte, SISMI officer Francesco Pazienza, along with a SISMI operative, Massimo Carminati, who was working within both NAR and the Magliana mafia organisation, as well as P2 godfather Licio Gelli, were all later found guilty and jailed for preparing and instigating the black operation.

Interestingly, a phone-call received by the Italian press agency ANSA a little over three hours after the Bologna explosion, and greatly publicised at the time, claimed the Bologna bomb on behalf of NAR. The phone-call was later found to have originated from the Florence office of SISMI.

The State persecution of Terza Posizione in wake of the mass round-up of nationalists provided just the opportunity that NAR had been looking for in order to destroy TP for their own purposes. A series of murderous attacks were launched against TP by Fioravanti's gang which first resulted in the cold-blooded killing of Terza Posizione leader Francesco Mangiameli in Rome on 9th September, 1980. Hatred of the TP leadership was so intense, and so insane, that Fioravanti had even planned to travel to Sicily in order to murder Mangiameli's wife and young daughter at their home. Fioraventi was prevented from doing so by the early discovery of Francesco Mangiemeli's hidden body. The discovery foiled Fioravanti's plan to eradicate the Terza Posizione leadership before they realised what was going on, allowing defensive measures to be taken. Knowing this, Fioravanti and Mambro then made public their intent to kill Fiore and Adinolfi. Several young TP militants such as Luca Perucci and Marco Pizzaro were also murdered by NAR.

The State show-trial against Terza Posizione for 'subversive association and armed gang', concluded on 12th March, 1985, with NAR leaders such as Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro being falsely presented by the Court as members of Terza Posizione in order to keep up the State-fabricated appearance of a TP-NAR 'link'. Fiore, Adinolfi and de Angelis, who were all safely in exile at the time, were sentenced to 9, 8 and 6 years respectively, in abstentia. The sentences were later reduced by the Court of Appeal and timed-out.

Although the fabricated sentence has not yet been overturned, or the TP men officially pardoned, the President of the Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry on Terrorism in Italy clarified on public record during its 77th Session, 17th January, 2001, that their conviction, and that of Massimo Morsello who was later convicted of the same charge in a trial against NAR, was on the basis of 'subversive association' and not membership of an 'armed gang'.

Massimo Morsello's inclusion in the NAR trial, which was held after the TP trial had concluded, was an act of revenge for him daring to become an official witness against a policeman in regard to the cold-blooded murder of Alberto Giaquinto. His inclusion in the NAR trial was based solely on the 'strength' that he was a member of the FUAN university group that was based at the MSI'svia Sienna headquarters in Rome. The same MSI premises had been frequented by the Fioravanti brothers, Francesca Mambro, and other members of the FdG circle that would later evolve into NAR. Not-with-standing the fact that literally hundreds of other people also regularly frequented the same MSI headquarters in Rome, Morsello was targetted on this 'evidence' and received a ten year sentence in abstentia for this extremely tenuous guilt by association.

The official request for the trial of Terza Posizione submitted to the Roman Judiciary by State Investigators actually explains the basis of 'subversion' that Terza Posizione was considered 'guilty' of.

Firstly, in Chapter B3 it is made clear that: "The subversive aims and conduct of members of the Third Position in propagating the ideology of the movement through the dissemination of newspapers, written hand-outs, collection of memberships and building sympathy in the neighbourhoods, must be fully considered and understood as the normal archetype of the movement."

Then in Chapter B4 one reads that TP should be suppressed because it presents a potential danger to the personality of the Liberal Democratic State!

"It is clear here that, within the penal code, the association is facing charges precisely because of the particularly dangerous nature that it presents... with the result that the commission or consumption of unlawful acts that fulfill the purpose of the movement are not necessary. The indictment, in fact, seeks to avoid determining conditions for perpetration of crimes against the personality of the State."

And then:

"The Third Position is a clearly functional organisation in respect to achieving its subversive end. As already mentioned, the associations of the neighbourhood and those that exist in schools are, for Third Position, the appropriate structures from which the avant-garde transmit their values and embryonic structures to form an alternative to the constitutional development of the people... The task of these associations is to serve as centres of reference and proselytising activity in the name of the principles of which the members conduct themselves. But also to create the awakening of a popular consciousness. The end is clearly to transform civil disobedience into popular organisational education and to build a stable and decisive alternative that completes the organisation as a statelet."

In other words, the persecutions and trials directed against Terza Posizione by the Italian State constituted a politically-motivated repression launched to protect the Liberal Democratic State against subversive ideas and a growing network of alternative and self-sufficient counter-power structures within communities that increasingly rejected the Liberal Idea and the Liberal Regime.

A Short History of NAR Activity

The Armed Revolutionary Nuclei was founded in 1978 by a small group of friends belonging to the youth organisation of the MSI: Valerio Fioravanti, his brother Cristiano Fioravanti, Francesco Anselmi, and Alessandro Alibrandi. Several others, such as Francesca Mambro and SISMI agent provocateur Massimo Carminati, would later become central to its criminal activities.

Excluding the 85 deaths resulting from the Bologna railway station bombing, which all the former members of NAR deny involvement in even to this day, the NAR reign of terror claimed more than 30 lives during its four year operational period from 1978 to 1982.

According to the testimony of Cristiano Fioravanti, who in return for the dropping of charges gave evidence against his brother and former friends upon being arrested in 1982, the first organised action of the group took place on 28th February, 1978, when they ambushed and shot dead a member of the Communist terror group Lotta Continua, and injured another.

6th March, 1978: NAR raided an armoury to acquire more weapons, an action that resulted in the death of Francesco Anselmi. In 1975 Anselmi had spent three months in a coma that resulted in a severe loss of eyesight after one of many attacks upon him by Communists. At the armoury he was unaware that a guard had managed to free himself and he was consequently shot in the back.

18th March, 1978: NAR ambushed and shot dead two Communist activists at a social centre.

17th May, 1978: the Rome armoury was attacked in an act of revenge for Anselmi's death.

Valerio Fioravanti then enlisted in the army and managed to supply NAR with 144 hand-grenades stolen from the armoury before being drummed out and jailed for eight-months for dereliction of duty and stealing an army truck.

9th January, 1979: NAR set fire to the premises of a small left-wing radio station and raked it with machine-gun fire, injuring four employees.

15th March, 1979: an arms raid was conducted at Omnia Sport in the centre of Rome.

16th June, 1979: the Communist Party headquarters in a district of Rome was attacked with two hand-grenades and several rounds of gun-fire. 25 people were injured.

17th December, 1979: an innocent man, Antonio Leandro, was murdered due to mistaken identity in the attempted targetted killing of a lawyer.

6th February, 1980: a young policeman was murdered in cold-blood in order to steal his machine-gun.

30th March, 1980: a raid was conducted upon a small military post to steal weapons. A sargeant was wounded.

28th May, 1980: a policeman was killed and two colleagues badly injured in an ambush.

23rd June, 1980: NAR killed the Deputy Prosecutor of Rome.

2nd August, 1980: 85 civilians were murdered by a bomb at Bologna railway station. A phone call was received by a news agency claiming the action on behalf of NAR, resulting in a wild mass persecution of nationalists by the Italian State. Many innocent young men and women were forced into exile or imprisoned, sometimes for several years, without being convicted of any offence. An official investigation later traced the phone-call to the Florence offices of the Italian Secret Military Intelligence Service, SISMI.

9th September, 1980: Third Position leader Francesco Mangiameli was targetted and killed by NAR.

5th February, 1981: three NAR activists were challenged by two carabienieri whilst collecting weapons from a secret arms dump near Padua. The two policemen were killed and NAR's leader, Valerio Fioravanti, was badly wounded in both legs. He was taken to an address in Padua by Francesca Mambro and Alessandro Alibrandi and captured later that night after phoning for an ambulance.

8th April, 1981: NAR founder Cristiano Fioravanti was arrested and testified against his colleagues in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

30th September, 1981: NAR killed Third Position militant Marco Pizzaro.

21st October, 1981: NAR ambushed and killed a Digos (General Investigations Division and special Operations) police captain.

5th December, 1981: NAR founder Alessandro Alibrandi was killed in a gunfight with police.

5th March, 1982: Francesca Mambro was injured and captured by police after a shoot-out during an attempted bank robbery.

5th May, 1982: George Vale, the last remaining fugitive of Fioravanti's close circle of murderous companions was tracked down by police and killed during a siege.

Despite NAR leaders Fioravanti and Mambro readily acknowledging NAR's involvement in the murderous activities above, and many more besides, they have always denied that they or their organisation had any involvement in the massacre at Bologna railway station. They continue to deny it to this very day despite having been convicted and having served two decades of their lives in prison for it.

Mikas Mantakas, Rest In Peace Comrade

Mikas Mantakas
Murdered by Reds, 28th February, 1975
PRESENTE!

Terza Posizione - Inno - Nè fronte rosso nè reazione

Bologna Bombing "Not Work of Fascists" -- Investigation to be Re-Opened

Quote from later Corriere Della Sera:

Carlos the jackal for the first time before an Italian judge, said the response in the French language: "The massacre of August 2, Bologna, is not the work of fascists."

According to Carlos, the August 2, 1980 massacre (85 victims) was ... "organized by the CIA and Mossad" in order to "punish and subdue Rome."

"We have always been convinced that it was organized by the American and Israeli services, they are the true "lords of the black terror" in Italy."

Will Searchshite magazine now apologise for 30 years of lies, defamation and subterfuge?



Former left-wing activist, and current spokesman for the Pdl government coalition in Italy, Daniele Capezzone, publicly called for the investigation into the Bologna Bombing to be re-opened on the 29th anniversary of the horrific massacre that shook Italy and the whole of Europe on August 2nd, 1980.

Link

Capezzone expressed what many people of all political persuasions believe about the terrorist atrocity and the events surrounding it when he stated that there are still "serious doubts" relating to the facts surrounding the massacre, and the guilt of those convicted for directly carrying out the bombing.

Capezzone stated that "The reconstructed in judgments leaves doubts heavy, and I think justified, in many of us. The 'dogma' of the fascist massacre seems rather an assumed ideological convenience for many, but certainly does not seem a convincing truth."

The call for the investigation to be fully re-opened comes at a time when Valerio Fioravanti, the leader of the armed gang that was immediately blamed for planting the bomb, has just been released from prison after 29 years.

Fioravanti and fellow NAR activist Francesca Mambra, whom was also convicted on the same charge and whom he later married in prison, have always denied any involvement in the Bologna massacre whilst at the same time readily admitting to a number of killings and robberies of banks and arms depots.

In April 2007 Luigi Ciavardini, who has always stated that Fioravanti and Mambro were with him in Treviso when the bombing took place in Bologna, was also given final sentence, after a long appeals process lasting many years, to 30 years imprisonment for planting the bomb in Bologna. Incredibly, the conviction is based on absolutely no evidence other than hearsay. [our emphasis - FC]

The Bologna massacre became the climax of a period known in Italy as "the years of lead".

After the destruction of Italy during the Second World War the United States found that they had created a situation where Italy was in serious danger of becoming a Communist satellite State allied to the Soviet Union.

In a long-term strategic response known as Operation Gladio, the US and NATO began to organise underground guerrilla cells and secret arms depots facilitated by the P2 Masonic Lodge and Italian crime syndicates.

A destabilisation campaign was orchestrated that resulted in kidnappings, assassinations and bombings involving the Red Brigades on the one hand, and CIA/P2/crime syndicate sponsored cells on the other, which were blamed generically on 'neo-fascists'.

The 'Strategy of Tension', as it has come to be known, also resulted inevitably in widespread tit for tat violence on the streets and in the schools between young anarchists/communists and nationalists.

A few of these street groups, from both sides, degenerated into little more than armed criminal gangs. It is to one of these groups, Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR), to which the blame for the Bologna Bombing massacre was immediately attributed by the powers-that-be.

The result was a vicious mass round-up of hundreds of young nationalists, the vast majority of whom had been engaged in purely political actions opposed to both left and right wings of the System. Beatings, tortures, imprisonments without trial and murders in custody were the order of the day.

The investigations and trials relating to the Bologna massacre and the surrounding events of those years eventually determined that the head of the P2 Masonic Lodge, Licio Gelli, and General Pietro Musumeci, Second-in-Command of the Italian Military Intelligence Secret Service (SISMI), as well as SISMI operatives Francesco Pazienza and Giuseppe Belmonte, had fabricated evidence against a number of young nationalists in order to tie them in with the Bologna terrorist outrage and similar atrocities.

Mussolini is No. 2 in Italian Download Charts!

The Telegraph (Britain)

A collection of speeches by Benito Mussolini has become an unlikely and controversial hit on the internet. The speeches, the last of which was delivered in 1938 when Italy introduced laws which discriminated against Jews, are the second-most downloaded application on the Italian version of Apple's iTunes website. .. .. Since the application was launched on Jan 21, it has been downloaded about 1,000 times a day. "The first day it was downloaded only 55 times, the second day more than 600 and from the third day I had on average 1,000 downloads a day," Mr Marino said.

Italian Minister Brambilla Gives the Fascist/Roman Salute

Polish Planes & Italian OAPs: Britain for the British?

It seems the BNP's main Euro Election leaflet is full of false (perchance Googled!) images of "supporters."

Imagine their outcry if UKIP had pulled a stunt like this?

This comes on the back of one BNP blogger attacking the NF for wanting to wipe out all non-Whites throughout the world, a lie so vast even Searchlies would blush to make it!

We are asked to hold our noses and vote for the BNP whilst they continue to use the most underhand methods and intemperate language against other nationalists.

As the OAPs on their leaflet could have warned them, the Italians say: You cannot be drunk and have a full barrel!


Link:
Collett's Latest Cock-Up

Merry Christmas to All FC Blog Supporters

A very Merry Christmas to all FC Blog readers and supporters (ye "men of goodwill").



Botticelli, Sandro
The Mystical Nativity
c. 1500
Tempera on canvas
108.5 x 75 cm
The National Gallery, London

A painting of Christ's Nativity is often a comfortable Christmas card. Botticelli's picture is the reverse. It is the record of a spiritual struggle, a pilgrim's progress in which the pain is remembered.

On earth there is a strenuous convergence of diagonals. The paths and rocky walls zigzag angrily, their movements only slightly modified by the three figures in the foreground ('men of goodwill , as their fluttering scrolls inform us) who are receiving angelic comfort, and whose angular poses ascend in contrary direction to the plot of ground on which they stand. At the sides of the cave the scars in the rock are like the lances of an invading army, and within it there is a design of dangerous sharpness, as of some complex machine which will cause us pain unless we can master it. The sharpest point touches the Virgin's brow.

But above the roof the rhythm changes. The angularities of trouble are cut short, their halt made less abrupt by a fringe of trees, and there appears in the clear winter sky, capped by a golden dome, a circlet of angels so light, so free in their ecstatic movement from the discords of human conflict, that they remain in the mind's eye as the purest expression of heavenly bliss.

I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee:
My heart is at your festival,
My head has its coronal
The fullness of your bliss, I
Feel - I feel it all.

The Nativity is not one of those pictures which can be enjoyed through the eye alone. It is, in the best sense, a literary picture, to be read and slowly unriddled in the light of all that we can know about the painter and his times; and it even contains a long inscription which is an integral part of the whole. This is in Greek capitals, and, although it is unlikely that Botticelli knew Greek, it is obviously painted by his own hand. This is the only time he ever signed a painting, and clearly it had a special importance to him.

'I, Sandro, painted this picture', he says, 'at the end of the year 1500 in the troubles of Italy'; and he goes on to state that, after a time foretold by St John, the Devil will be chained and 'we shall see him trodden down, as in this picture'. Actually, we do not see this. There are four minor devils who have been transfixed with lances; also both Botticelli's references to the Book of Revelation are incorrect. But the general meaning of the inscription is clear, and we are led to ask why the painter of the Primavera and The Birth of Venus comes to be in this apocalyptic state of mind?

Even in his early work what distinguishes Botticelli from the other artists of his generation is his spiritual tautness. While his colleagues were concerned with rendering the movement of the body, he was always occupied with the stresses of the soul. But this religious temper was complicated by an almost morbid hunger for physical beauty. And when the humanist philosophers of the Medicean circle persuaded him that the inhabitants of Olympus, even that witch Madam Venus, could be made to symbolise Christian virtues, we can imagine how willingly Botticelli accepted their fine spun arguments. But how little of a pagan he became! Nothing could be further from the thoughtless, full bodied, fruit like gods of antiquity than his anxious divinities. And in the early 1490's he received from the same patron who had ordered The Birth of Venus, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, a commission of a very different kind, an immense series of illustrations to Dante.

The Florentines of the fifteenth century studied Dante in much the same spirit as the Greeks of the fifth century (whom they so closely resembled) studied Homer; for information, for precept and for religious guidance. Botticelli's years of application to this task must have had a profound influence on his mind, and it is in the Dante drawings, of which over a hundred have survived, that one finds for the first time the uncorporeal lightness of his later work. They are the most Oriental works of Western art. They achieve their purpose by pure outline, which floats and dances with the same disregard of substance as thirteenth century illustrations to The Tale of Genji. The hard won laws of perspective, of which Botticelli had been the acknowledged master, are abandoned, and the figures are sprinkled over the pages like holy hieroglyphics.

Some of this oriental character survives in the Nativity. But compared with the decorations at Ajanta or Horajui, how complex is its design, how dreadfully urgent its message! This vision of joy and love has not been achieved, as in a Buddhist painting, by peaceful contemplation, but through participation in disasters.

Botticelli's experiences in the 1490's were such as would have bruised a stronger spirit than his. His patron and close friend, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, was the enemy of Savonarola. Yet Botticelli's brother Simone, with whom he shared a house, was an actual follower of the frate, and one cannot doubt that Botticelli himself was moved by the power of that high, haunting voice which had driven the Florentines into a state of hysteria. In 1497 his patron was forced into exile; in 1498 Savonarola's body was burnt in the Piazza della Signoria, and the conquering armies of France threatened the tranquillity of every State in Italy. By 1500 the troubles of Italy were real enough, and the most realistic mind in Europe was seeking for a saviour, though emphatically not for a Prince of Peace. There were also less real troubles. The two references to the Apocalypse in Botticelli's inscription remind us that just before the half millennium there was an outbreak of that fear of universal destruction which had afflicted men's minds five hundred years earlier, and from which we are not altogether free as the year 2000 approaches [nb - originally published in 1960.]. The night which preceded the blissful morning of Botticelli's Nativity must have been exceedingly dark.

The Nativity is in many respects an archaic work. Botticelli has accepted Savonarola's denunciation of realism, and drawn his Virgin and Child on a different scale from the subordinate figures, as a Byzantine painter would have done. He has made no attempt to create an illusion of depth, and has set the thatched penthouse in the centre of his scene, frontally to the spectator. The foreground figures have this same archaic flatness, as if to represent them in the round would be to introduce too strong a flavour of mortality. But such scruples need not be extended to Heaven, and the angels are far from archaistic. Ruskin called them pure Greek, and in fact their billowing draperies and thrown back heads do derive from the maenads of the fourth century. He also called them 'faceless', by which he meant he averted his eyes from their faces, because they are no longer pretty. SavonaroIan puritanism has made Botticelli renounce the physical beauty which he still thought appropriate to the blessed spirits in his Dante drawings. He has not been able to shake off the habit of sensitive observation on which his wonderful powers of draughtsmanship were based, and the thin arms are still drawn with delight. But the draped bodies are as angelically immaterial as anything in Byzantine art. This is the least sensuous dance in painting. If we join it, we do so with our spirits only, and as we move round the circle, swayed by the cross currents of draperies and wings, pausing at magical patterns of crowns and palmleaves, we may fancy that the heavenly music of the initiates may yet be audible to our corrupted senses. But for all its archaism and its renunciation of material things, the Nativity is not at all a 'precious work. It is, on the contrary, a strong picture, strong in design, grave in colour, vigorous in execution. Before a recent cleaning its strength was partially concealed by a tapestry like unity of tone, but now the interplay of colour enhances the energy of the design.

In the foreground wine-red draperies complement the mossy greens; to the right the shepherds are a subtle contrast of grey and brown, given life by the whitest angel in the whole picture. To the left the kings, although puritanically deprived of their regalia, are allowed more festive colours, and there is a Soft, rainbowish kind of pink in the angels' wings. But the central harmony, the grey of the rocks and the ass and the cold blue of the Virgin's mantle, is extremely severe, and reminds us that near the top of the Monte Sancto di Dio the air is too pure for human breath.

Cleaning has also heightened the contrast between earth and heaven. Only now, can we realise how clear and cold is the winter sky, and I confess that I had never before observed the small clouds, as jewel like as the clouds of Altdorfer, which infrinLe the golden dome. The painting of the foreground is much richer than I had supposed. The three groups have gained in importance and I am led to speculate on their meaning. Can these olive crowned martyrs be a cryptic representation of Savonarola and his two companions? Or do they, as seems more probable, symbolise all those who have come through great tribulation ? In either case these figures stretching out their arms to one another, their heads touching, their bodies far apart, are the visual equivalent to those reunions of the Blessed Spirits which reward us in the Paradiso.

The Nativity was the first of Botticelli's pictures to reach England, and when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1871 it seemed to confirm the spirit of pre-Raphaelitism in its second, poetic phase. The effect of the angels on Burne-Jones is obvious enough, although he was so far from the strain and struggle which underlay Botticelli's vision. For Ruskin, on the other hand, this latent hysteria was an added reason for enthusiasm, and set him off on one of his own most memorable visions: 'Suppose that over Ludgate Hill the sky had suddenly become blue instead of black, and that a flight of twelve angels covered with silver wings and their feathers with gold had alighted on the cornice of the railroad bridge as the doves alight on the cornices of St Mark's at Venice, and had invited the eager men of business below, in the centre of a city confessedly the most prosperous in the world, to join them for five minutes in singing the first five verses of such a psalm as the 103rd "Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me (the opportunity now being given for the expression of their most hidden feelings), all that is within me bless His holy name, and forget not all His benefits" do you not even thus, in mere suggestion, feel shocked at the thought, and as if my now reading the words were profane.'

Ever since I read this paragraph in The Eagle's Nest, over thirty years ago, it has been in my mind when I look at Botticelli's Nativity. It is not the kind of response to painting which has been considered acceptable during those years. But is it so far from Botticelli's intention? And, as this question forms in my mind, I begin to reflect on the shaky foundations of art history. Before the time of Leonardo da Vinci we have very little evidence of how painters regarded their art. Some scholars believe that they were simply craftsmen who derived all their ideas from learned patrons. Others assume that they were able to master the most complex systems of philosophy and embody them in their works. I do not know which is nearer the truth. But I am fairly certain that Botticelli was a man of the finest intelligence which he applied to the subjects of his pictures as well as to their design: that, for example, his St Augustine in the Ognissanti is the result of profound meditation on the Confessions, and that in the Nativity every movement has a meaning which becomes apparent only when we have steeped ourselves in the thought and imagery of his time.

Text from Kenneth Clark, Looking at Pictures.

Last Week's Quote: Italian Bishops on Mussolini

"Italy thanked Jesus Christ for the renewed greatness of the Fatherland made stronger by Mussolini's policy."


Telegram from National Eucharistic Congress,
22nd August 1935,
sent to Italian government.

Great Italian Nationalist Folk Rock: Lady U$A by Hobbit

This song has long been one of my favourites and, despite being in Italian, you cannot help but be moved by the superb musicianship and catch the sadness of what America has become.

This message is enhanced by this video.

For anyone interested this song is on the SWORD & CROSS cassette tape, along with other Nationalist anthems from across Europe & America.

In The Voice of St George #32 you can read a review of a London concert involving Nationalist musicians from Scotland, England, Spain, Italy and Germany - including two members of Hobbit.

Link:
Sword & Cross Tape

The Voice of St George #32

This is Ethnic Cleansing!

In today's Sunday Telegraph Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Conner says that multiculturalism threatens the nation's unity.

Quite so.

Now will society at last state what an untold disaster mass immigration has been?

It wasn't wanted, wasn't needed and has brought nothing but loss of identity, loss of community, loss of security and loss of social cohesion.

Why did the politicians and big businesses need to bring England to its knees (followed years later by Scotland and Wales)?

Now it's time to state that the multi-culti, multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-faith experiment has been an unmitigated disaster!

We had existent, established European communities which gave us different cultures without the violence, without the destruction, without the crime.

Mass coloured immigration has been a complete disaster.

Were our parents and grandparents in the 50s, 60s and 70s told that MILLIONS of Africans and Asians would be let in?

Just yesterday I was looking through a history magazine for an old picture of GK Chesterton I'd noted previously and I came across two pictures that I had to show my kids.

Taken at different ends of the country from two very different communities in the 30s.

One was of German first communicants in a parade through the streets of East London, looking resplendent in their little suits and white dresses. One was of Italian children carrying a Saint's statue in a procession through the streets of Manchester, all carrying ribbons and casting flower petals around. These were European customs dating back over a thousand years that even our forefathers would have no problem recognising.

These people had brought their customs and ways to the streets of England creating no animosity, no hatred, no divisiveness, no ghettos. They didn't fiddle the system, they didn't have drugs, guns, mugging... They didn't ship over thousands upon thousands of relatives to milk the tax-payer.

That was real multi-culturalism!

What we have today is plain and simple ethnic cleansing designed to undermine the Christian English, organised by the Masonic politicians, the Zionist "Race Relations Industry" and the long discredited ideological offspring of Marx.

Time to stop the rot and demand a return to sanity before it's too late!

The Indians won their independence from England. Africans won their independence from England, France, Portugal etc.

Now we want OUR independence - and it's high time the settlers from Africa and Asia were asked to leave.

Miners Distributism & Pan-European Cappuccino

When push comes to shove, when the proverbial hits the fan - people are Distributists.

No-one wants the State telling them what to do, or taking the food from their table.

No-one wants to work for some fat slobbering super-rich boss who pays them a pittance.

People want to work for themselves, or at least get a fair share and a say in their workplace.

People want to have their own home and bit of land to relax in, or to farm, or to have a few fruit trees and even a goat, a pig or a couple of chickens. They want a fair size bit of garden for the children to be able to run around in.

Most people have common sense. Most people are fair minded. Most people want to protect liberties and traditions.

We are all brainwashed, pressurised and/or bribed to conform. We "must" have the banksters with usury mortgages. We "must" have big businesses with wage slaves and obscene profits. We "must" have people pushed to live in shoe-box houses.

Not to mention the crime, the drugs, the family breakdown, the mass-murder of abortion, the ridiculous wars fought for profiteers.

Those who control us, those who profit from our poverty, those who dictate policy tell us what is normal and what we should want - and what we should fear.

So when Maggie Thatcher (or "Capitalism") forced the coal mines to shut down the Miners Unions (or "Socialists") fought back and thus we had the quandary (as so ably sung of by Frank Sinatra) of an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force. The two 'isms' told the workers how it should be: Capitalism or Socialism with the workers as cogs in the wheel.

In this case, via the most unreasonable of force, the Capitalists won a war of attrition and the power of the Socialists was broken; an important victory for Thatcher and her need to set an agenda.

Yet one workforce, when told their mine would close (because it was "unprofitable") did the seemingly unthinkable. They rallied together with their redundancy money and bought the mine and ran it themselves.

They became Distributists!

They didn't listen to the system. They didn't listen to the experts. They overcame the brainwashing and the dole queue subsistence that was offered.

The mine was theirs, run mutually for their own wages (or their profit if you like - but when has a profit or wage for the workingman ever been a Capitalist concern?).

Oh the usual Socialists stood nearby and celebrated the "workers rights," just as (when it succeeded) the Capitalists clapped politely for the profits made... yet both were blinded to the facts: that the people had done it themselves.

The State had not delivered success; Big Business had not delivered success. The people, the men who had worked the seams for generations, had taken the means of production, the workplace into their own ownership.

Not the State! Not Big Business! Property was in the hands of the people!

And so it was that with the coal finally exhausted, the miners at Tower Colliery finally closed the door on their endeavour on the 31st of January 2008 with a sense of pride in their achievement.

These last few days also witnessed the (gradual but increasing) passing of another tradition in the South Wales valleys. The last Italian cafe closed in the Garw Valley - an event that is being mirrored across the South Wales valleys.

Just this month in the BBC History magazine a reader corrected a mistake in the previous issue that implied Cappuccinos and Latte Coffees were launched in Britain in 1950s London. In fact they had been enjoyed in the many Italian cafes that sprang up in the pre-War Welsh Valleys.

You're wondering how these stories could be connected (aside from their geographical proximity of course), but surely if the story of the miners becoming Distributists is a fitting tribute to "Third Positionist" Nationalism, so the arrival of the Italians in the valleys, their European culture, their assimilation to Welsh life, with their becoming a specific creation of both nature and nurture is a fitting tribute to those of us who believe in a truly European ideal (beyond the Masonic bureaucrats and centralising Marxists of Brussels) and that "multi-culturalism" is something we Europeans can enjoy without being swamped by millions of coloured immigrants?

A land in which Distributism has been victorious and in which good coffee has been be enjoyed alongside a bag of chips and a pint of beer for decades?

Perhaps the Welsh should be grateful for more than just today's rugby result at Twickenham.



Links:
Last Welsh Deep Mine Closes
Miners Celebrated Their Distributism
Valley's Last Italian Cafe closes