Greek’s Radical Left: The Dangers of the Disaffected and the Unemployed

But Greece was not quiet for long. Inspired by the highly publicized arrest and trial of the 17 November members, a new group arose from the radical Greek left in 2003. This group was called Revolutionary Struggle. The group shared 17 November’s anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and anti-U.S. focus, but it was more anarchistic than the Marxist 17 November.

From 2003 to 2010, Revolutionary Struggle bombed several Greek law enforcement buildings, banks and international corporations. The group was also responsible for a number of firearm attacks against police and a rocket attack against the U.S. Embassy. In the latter attack, the group notably used an RPG-7, not the M28 super bazooka rockets associated with 17 November. The rocket-propelled grenade launcher was recovered in April 2010, when six members of Revolutionary Struggle were arrested. Two members of the group, founder Nikos Maziotis and his wife, Panagiota Roupa, fled after being released from custody during their trial in July 2012. They are still at large.

In 2008, another Greek anarchist group calling itself the Conspiracy of Fire Cells announced its presence with a series of low-level bombing attacks against car dealerships and banks in Athens and Thessaloniki. Until late 2010, the group’s attacks were meant to damage property and send messages rather than kill people — a big departure from the homicidal intentions of 17 November. In the January 2010 bombing of the Greek Parliament, the group made a warning call to a newspaper that permitted the area to be evacuated, thus avoiding casualties.

This operational paradigm changed dramatically in 2010, when the group began to send letter bombs. After a number of letter bombs were sent to the Greek Ministry of Justice, foreign embassies in Athens and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Greek police arrested two suspects. At the time of the arrests, the suspects were found to be in possession of letter bombs addressed to then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office in Paris and to the Belgian and Dutch embassies in Athens. In total, 13 people were arrested and charged for their involvement in the Conspiracy of Fire Cells letter bomb campaign.

In the weeks before their trial in January 2011, anarchists in Italy mailed letter bombs packed with shrapnel to several embassies in Rome. On Dec. 28, 2010, anarchists attacked the Greek Embassy in Buenos Aires, which was followed by a bombing attack on the Athens courthouse in which the Conspiracy of Fire Cells members were to be tried. The courthouse bombing involved a substantial device that damaged the building and several nearby vehicles, but because of a warning call placed to authorities 40 minutes before the device detonated, it inflicted no casualties.

A group calling itself the Lambros Fountas cell of the Informal Anarchist Federation claimed responsibility for the Rome parcel bombs. (Lambros Fountas was a member of Revolutionary Struggle who was killed in April 2010 and whose death led to the roundup of the group’s members.) The moniker shows the close relationship between Greek and Italian anarchists. Attacks in Italy, such as the May 2012 shooting of a nuclear engineer in Genoa, and two attempts to sabotage rail signaling cables in Bristol, the United Kingdom, have been claimed by people operating under the name of the Informal Anarchist Federation.

In one of the most brazen attacks in recent years, three armed men appeared at Microsoft’s Athens office in the early hours of June 27, 2012, and, after forcing out the security guards, they backed a van up to the doors of the building and ignited a large incendiary device, which damaged the building.

More recently, anarchists in Greece have conducted small-scale arson and bombing attacks against bank branches, political parties and the homes of journalists. On March 11, 2013, they conducted a low-level bombing attack against a courier company in Athens.

Progressing Toward Lethality

From this history, we can identify some trends for future radical activity. First, it’s clear that the Marxist terrorism that wracked Europe in the 1970s and 1980s is not about to return, no matter how many people are radicalized by the current crises. The geopolitical environment that spawned and nurtured Marxist terrorism has changed dramatically. The state-sponsored training and support that many European Marxist groups received from the Soviet Union and Eastern European states, such as East Germany, simply will not reappear. In addition, the Marxist training camps European militants were able to visit in such places as Yemen, Libya and Iraq no longer exist.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, most left-wing radicals, save for some in Latin America, have become disillusioned with Marxism. This has helped foster the growth of anarchism, which is seen by many radicals as a system that is less prone to corruption and is therefore a more viable alternative to the capitalist imperialist system.

Something that has remained consistent among those in the radical left is the sense of international solidarity. It was this solidarity that drew Japanese Red Army operatives to conduct attacks in the name of their Palestinian comrades and inspired the Provisional Irish Republican Army to train other Marxist revolutionaries in bombmaking tradecraft in training camps in southern Yemen. Likewise, present-day Italian and Argentine anarchists claim attacks for their imprisoned Greek comrades.

While Greek and other European anarchists have shared the Marxists’ anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist beliefs, they have yet to kill people to the extent the Marxists did in their attacks. Bombing an ATM or setting a building on fire is a far cry from kidnapping or assassinating a banker or industrialist. Sending a letter bomb to an embassy is also quite different from the Nordeen and Welch assassinations.

Nevertheless, the shift from attacks meant to cause property destruction to attacks meant to maim people — sending letter bombs or kneecapping a nuclear engineer, for example — is quite disturbing. If the trend continues, it will not be a far jump to conduct attacks meant to cause fatalities. The Revolutionary Struggle already made this jump in their attacks against Greek police targets, and other anarchists could follow suit. The fact that Italian anarchists have included shrapnel in their letter bombs is another disturbing indicator that they may be making a similar progression toward lethality.

The January 11, 2013, firebombing attacks against the homes of five journalists in Greece is also unsettling in that it brought violence to the homes, rather than the business offices, of the targets. Fire can be a very deadly weapon, and if the firebombing attacks against homes continue, it is only a matter of time before someone dies.

Although today’s anarchists lack the state sponsorship the Cold War-era European Marxist groups enjoyed in terms of funding and obtaining weapons, the proximity of places like Greece and Italy to the black arms markets in the Balkans and the Middle East means that they will be able to readily obtain arms. The rocket-propelled grenade launcher and the Serbian Zastava pistols found in the possession of Revolutionary Struggle militants at the time of their arrests is a great example of the availability of arms in the region.

Whereas Molotov cocktails, camping gas canister bombs and letter bombs are fairly cheap, guns and rocket launchers cost real money on the black market. Therefore, it will be important to see if Greek anarchists begin moneymaking operations, such as bank robberies and high-value kidnappings for ransom. Since anarchists tend to be more plugged in to technology, indications of cybercrime should also be looked for.

Because the anarchist movement is so interconnected, shifts in violence in places like Greece and Italy can quickly translate into continentwide, even global, trends.

By Scott Stewart

“Greek’s Radical Left: The Dangers of the Disaffected and the Unemployed is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

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