In the First Italian Republic, after the Second World War, several armed, paramilitary, far-right organizations were active, as well as far-left ones, especially during the Years of Lead.
The attempt, in 1960, to include representatives of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), the neo-fascist heir of the National Fascist Party, in the Tambroni Cabinet led to rioting and was short-lived. Widespread labor unrest and the collaboration of student activist groups with factory workers and radical leftist organizations, such as Potere Operaio and Lotta Continua, culminated in the Hot Autumn of 1969, a massive series of strike actions in factories and industrial centres in Northern Italy.
Student strikes and labour strikes, led by workers, leftists, left-sympathizing laborers, or Marxist activists, became increasingly common, often deteriorating into clashes between the police and demonstrators composed largely of workers, students, activists, and militants.
In the same period, various organizations with a far-right ideology emerged in Italy and undertook violent action. Young neo-fascists perceived the legal political party MSI as betraying them through its ostensible inaction in the face of attacks by the police and political opponents from the extreme left,.
Influenced by theories of urban guerrilla warfare and spontaneism, a number of neo-fascists moved from street-fighting to armed militancy and terrorism.