Left-wing terrorism

Based on Wikipedia: Left-wing terrorism

In the summer of 1968, three members of a Palestinian militant group hijacked an El Al flight bound for Tel Aviv. The plane never reached Israel. According to David Rapoport, a political scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, that hijacking marked the beginning of something new: a modern wave of left-wing terrorism that would sweep across continents for the next two decades.

But the roots go much deeper.

The Tsar's Assassins

In 1881, members of Narodnaya Volya—a name meaning "People's Will" in Russian—succeeded in killing Tsar Alexander II. This wasn't their first attempt. They had tried bombs, mines, even an attack on the royal train. When they finally killed the Tsar with a thrown explosive on the streets of Saint Petersburg, they accomplished something that would echo through history: they proved that even the most powerful ruler could be brought down by a small group of determined ideologues.

More importantly, they developed a concept called "propaganda of the deed." The idea was simple but revolutionary: actions speak louder than pamphlets. A dramatic act of violence could communicate political ideas more effectively than years of organizing. This concept would inspire generations of radicals across the political spectrum.

Narodnaya Volya were socialists, but they were also Russian nationalists of a sort, and this blurring of ideological lines would become a recurring theme. What exactly makes terrorism "left-wing" as opposed to some other variety? The question is harder to answer than it might seem.

Defining the Undefinable

Here's an uncomfortable truth that scholars acknowledge openly: there is no agreed-upon definition of terrorism, either in academia or international law. The old cliché—one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter—contains a genuine analytical problem.

That said, left-wing terrorism generally refers to political violence motivated by far-left ideologies. The goal is typically to overthrow capitalist systems and replace them with communist, Marxist, anarchist, or socialist alternatives. It can also occur within socialist states, directed against ruling governments that revolutionaries consider insufficiently pure or genuinely communist.

Researchers Sarah Brockhoff, Tim Krieger, and Daniel Meierrieks draw an interesting distinction. They argue that left-wing terrorism is ideologically motivated, while nationalist-separatist terrorism is ethnically motivated. Left-wing terrorists, they suggest, make non-negotiable demands—total revolution, the complete restructuring of society. Nationalist terrorists, by contrast, are often willing to compromise: autonomy instead of independence, power-sharing instead of total victory.

This rigidity might explain why left-wing terrorist groups historically struggled to build mass support. When your demands are "overthrow everything and start over," you're asking a lot of people who just want better wages or an end to police brutality.

Strange Bedfellows

The boundaries between left-wing and nationalist terrorism have always been porous. Many revolutionary leftists expressed solidarity with national liberation movements that employed terrorist tactics—Irish republicans, the Palestine Liberation Organization (known as the PLO), the Tupamaros in Uruguay. They saw these struggles as part of a global war against capitalism and imperialism.

The traffic went both ways. Some nationalist movements incorporated socialist ideology into their platforms. The Basque separatist group ETA, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (often called the Provos or Provisional IRA), and the Irish National Liberation Army all blended nationalist aspirations with communist or socialist economic programs. When you're fighting for your people's freedom, Marxist analysis of class struggle and capitalist exploitation can seem like a natural fit.

This created odd alliances. West German Marxist revolutionaries trained in Palestinian camps. Japanese radicals carried out attacks on behalf of Palestinian groups in countries they had no direct connection to. The enemy of my enemy became my comrade.

The Restraint Question

David Brannan, who studies political violence, makes an observation that might seem counterintuitive: left-wing terrorists and insurgents tend not to engage in indiscriminate attacks on the general public. His reasoning is straightforward. These groups claim to be fighting for the working class. Bombing random civilians—who are largely working-class people—would contradict their entire ideological justification. It would also alienate the very population whose support they need to succeed.

Not everyone agrees with this assessment. Other researchers argue that left-wing terrorism is just as indiscriminate as its right-wing counterpart when you examine the actual casualty figures. The Shining Path in Peru, for instance, deployed extraordinary brutality against peasant communities—the very people Marxist revolutionaries claim to champion.

Perhaps the truth depends on which groups and which time periods you examine. Or perhaps ideology provides less restraint on violence than its adherents would like to believe.

The Cold War Hothouse

Left-wing terrorism flourished during the Cold War. The ideological conflict between American-led capitalism and Soviet-led communism provided a framework that made revolutionary violence seem both meaningful and potentially successful. If one of the world's two superpowers was communist, then communism was clearly a viable alternative to capitalism. And if you believed capitalism was an engine of oppression, violence in service of revolution could seem justified—even noble.

The late 1960s proved especially fertile ground. The political upheavals of 1968 radicalized a generation. In France, students and workers nearly brought down the government. In the United States, opposition to the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy created a sense that the system was both fundamentally corrupt and vulnerable to challenge.

From this ferment emerged a constellation of armed groups. In West Germany, the Red Army Faction—sometimes called the Baader-Meinhof Group after two of its founders—declared war on what they called the fascist state. In Italy, the Red Brigades kidnapped and murdered former Prime Minister Aldo Moro. In Greece, the Revolutionary Organization 17 November carried out assassinations for nearly three decades. France had Action Directe. Belgium had the Communist Combatant Cells.

Each group had its own history and grievances, but they shared a common analysis: Western democracies were facades hiding capitalist exploitation, and armed struggle was the only path to genuine change.

The Weather Underground and America's Brief Moment

The United States had its own experience with left-wing terrorism, though it was relatively brief and contained compared to Europe.

The Weather Underground emerged from Students for a Democratic Society, a mainstream organization that advocated for social change through protest and organizing. A faction within the group grew impatient with peaceful methods. They went underground, meaning they adopted false identities and lived outside the law. Between 1969 and 1977, they carried out a campaign of bombings targeting government buildings, banks, and corporate headquarters.

They were remarkably careful to avoid killing people. Most of their bombs went off after hours, preceded by warnings. When three Weather Underground members died in a Greenwich Village townhouse in 1970—killed by their own bomb, which they were building for an attack on a military dance—the group reportedly reconsidered its tactics. The device had been packed with nails designed to kill.

Between 1973 and 1975, the Symbionese Liberation Army took a more violent approach, committing bank robberies and murders. They gained notoriety by kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, who subsequently appeared to join her captors and participate in their crimes. The group was largely destroyed in a shootout with Los Angeles police that killed six members and was broadcast live on television.

By the mid-1980s, American left-wing terrorism had essentially ended. The May 19th Communist Organization—named for the shared birthday of Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese revolutionary leader, and Malcolm X—represented a last gasp. Formed by former Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army members, they carried out armored car robberies and bombings until their leadership was arrested in 1985.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War removed both the ideological framework and practical support that had sustained these movements. Communism no longer seemed like the inevitable future.

Latin America's Longer Struggle

The trajectory in Latin America was different. Left-wing guerrilla movements there had deeper roots, broader support, and far greater longevity.

The Cuban Revolution of 1959 proved that armed struggle could actually succeed in overthrowing a government. Fidel Castro and Che Guevara became icons for revolutionaries worldwide. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, guerrilla movements proliferated across the continent, often receiving support from Cuba and the Soviet Union.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym FARC, waged a half-century insurgency that became increasingly entangled with the cocaine trade. They employed a grim repertoire of tactics: car bombings, kidnappings, extortion, the use of child soldiers. Businesses in rural areas paid monthly protection fees. Families of kidnapping victims paid ransoms that funded more violence. An estimated five thousand children served in FARC ranks, many recruited by force. Those who tried to escape faced torture and death.

The Shining Path in Peru may have been the most brutal of all. Led by a philosophy professor named Abimael Guzmán, who styled himself Chairman Gonzalo and claimed to be the fourth great light of Marxism after Marx, Lenin, and Mao, the Shining Path launched what they called a "people's war" in 1980. Their campaign of violence killed somewhere between 31,000 and 38,000 people over two decades, according to Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Many victims were the peasants and workers the movement claimed to represent.

The Tupamaros of Uruguay pioneered urban guerrilla warfare, inspiring groups as far away as West Germany. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua actually succeeded in taking power, overthrowing the Somoza dictatorship in 1979.

These movements had something their European counterparts lacked: genuine mass grievances. Latin America's extreme inequality, its history of military dictatorships backed by the United States, and the lived experience of poverty and exploitation gave revolutionary ideologies a resonance that was harder to achieve in prosperous Western Europe.

Asia's Diverse Landscape

Left-wing terrorism in Asia took varied forms, shaped by each country's particular circumstances.

The Japanese Red Army began in 1969 when students frustrated with the pace of change broke from the Communist Party. Their history reads like a cautionary tale about revolutionary purity. Fourteen members died in an internal purge—killed by their comrades for ideological deviations. Nine members hijacked a plane to North Korea, where they remained, having traded one form of captivity for another. The remaining members formed an alliance with Palestinian groups, establishing a base in Lebanon and carrying out attacks across the globe: an assault on Tel Aviv's airport, hijackings to Libya and Bangladesh, the kidnapping of France's ambassador to the Netherlands, a bombing at a nightclub in Naples that served American military personnel.

By the mid-1990s, the Japanese Red Army had faded into irrelevance. In 2001, their leader announced the group's dissolution, though some members remained in prison and others were still wanted by police.

India has faced a much longer and deadlier insurgency. The Naxalite movement—named after the village of Naxalbari, where a 1967 uprising launched the struggle—has waged what participants call a "people's war" against the Indian government for over half a century. The Naxalites are Maoists, adherents of the ideology that guided China's communist revolution. They operate primarily in impoverished rural areas, an expanse across central and eastern India known as the "red corridor."

At their peak in the late 2000s, Naxalite influence extended across nearly 180 districts. Government counter-insurgency efforts and development programs have reduced their reach to about 25 districts as of 2021. But the Indian government still considers them the country's largest internal security threat. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act gives soldiers broad authority to shoot to kill in affected areas. The conflict continues.

Nepal experienced a Maoist insurgency that began in 1996 after the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) performed poorly in elections and was excluded from subsequent ballots. The Maoists sought to overthrow both the monarchy and parliamentary democracy. They attacked schools—particularly private schools, which they opposed ideologically—bombed government facilities, and targeted civilians as part of their strategy. Amnesty International documented their campaign against private education: demands that schools close, followed by bombings when they refused.

The Philippines has contended with the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People's Army, since 1968. Founded by Jose Maria Sison four years before Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, the movement sought to overthrow the government and implement "National Democracy"—a program including the nationalization of industry and collectivization of agriculture. The insurgency continues today, though at reduced intensity.

Europe's Troubled Decades

European left-wing terrorism was typically urban, small in scale, and unsuccessful in achieving its revolutionary aims. But the security problems these groups created were serious and persistent.

Germany's Red Army Faction operated from 1970 to 1998, carrying out kidnappings, assassinations, and bombings. They killed dozens of people, including industrialists, judges, and American military personnel. Their most dramatic period, the "German Autumn" of 1977, saw them kidnap and murder the head of the German Employers' Association while Palestinian allies hijacked a Lufthansa plane to demand the release of imprisoned RAF members. The crisis ended with a German commando raid that freed the hostages and the subsequent suicide of three RAF leaders in prison.

Italy's Red Brigades reached their apex with the 1978 kidnapping of Aldo Moro, a former prime minister and the most powerful figure in Italian politics. After holding him for 55 days while the government refused to negotiate, they executed him and left his body in the trunk of a car parked symbolically between the headquarters of Italy's two largest political parties. The murder shocked Italy but ultimately strengthened public resolve against terrorism.

France's Action Directe was active from 1979 to 1987, concentrating initially on non-lethal bombings before escalating to assassination. Greece's Revolutionary Organization 17 November operated from 1975 to 2002, carrying out assassinations of diplomats, military officers, and industrialists. Their first victim was the CIA station chief in Athens. Their last was a British military attaché, killed in 2000. Police finally broke the group after an accidental explosion led them to safe houses and organizational records.

A 2014 academic study by researchers Kis-Katos and colleagues concluded that left-wing terrorism was the most prevalent form of terrorism in the past but had largely declined in the present day. The Cold War's end removed ideological certainty and practical support. Economic growth and the expansion of social welfare programs addressed some of the grievances that had fueled revolutionary sentiment. The groups' failure to achieve any of their goals demonstrated the futility of their approach.

The Contemporary Picture

Where does left-wing terrorism stand today?

In the United States, it is rare. After 1985, there were no confirmed acts of left-wing terrorism by organized groups for decades. In October 2020, the killing of Aaron Danielson in Portland—shot during protests following the police killing of George Floyd—was added to the Center for Strategic and International Studies terrorism database as a deadly far-left attack, the first such incident in over two decades. The Anti-Defamation League describes it as the only "suspected antifa-related murder" on record.

This matters for context when evaluating claims about left-wing violence. Following the September 2025 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump and others attributed terrorist acts broadly to left-wing actors. But studies consistently show that the overwhelming majority of political violence in recent decades has come from right-wing perpetrators. Research indicates that from 2022 through 2024, all 61 political killings in the United States were committed by right-wing extremists. Islamist extremists rank second historically. Left-wing actors rank third, responsible for a small fraction of political violence.

Some researchers have identified signs of a potential rise in left-wing terrorism in 2025, though it remains far less prevalent than violence from other sources.

The historical wave has largely passed. The Shining Path still exists but is a shadow of its former self. FARC signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government in 2016, though splinter groups continue operations. The Naxalite insurgency in India persists but has contracted significantly. European left-wing terrorism is essentially extinct.

What Changed?

Several factors explain the decline.

The end of the Cold War removed the ideological framework that made revolutionary violence seem viable. When the Soviet Union collapsed, it took with it the credibility of Marxism-Leninism as an alternative to capitalism. Young radicals today are far more likely to focus on climate change, racial justice, or economic inequality through other frameworks.

The practical support networks disappeared. Cuba still exists as a socialist state, but it lacks the resources to fund guerrilla movements. No great power champions armed communist revolution.

Perhaps most importantly, the terrorist campaigns failed. None of the European groups achieved their revolutionary goals. The Red Army Faction didn't bring down West German capitalism. The Red Brigades didn't spark a workers' uprising in Italy. The Weather Underground didn't stop the Vietnam War or transform American society. Decades of bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations produced nothing but death, imprisonment, and eventual irrelevance.

The groups that did achieve power—the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the Vietnamese communists—did so primarily through guerrilla warfare and mass mobilization, not terrorism. The distinction matters. Guerrilla warfare seeks to hold territory and build parallel institutions. Terrorism seeks to provoke reactions and inspire followers through dramatic violence. The latter proved far less effective as a strategy for revolution.

Understanding the Phenomenon

What can we learn from this history?

First, that political violence is not the monopoly of any ideology. The left, the right, religious extremists, and nationalist movements have all produced terrorists. Focusing exclusively on any single category distorts understanding.

Second, that terrorism rarely achieves its stated goals. Left-wing terrorists wanted to overthrow capitalism and build socialist societies. They accomplished neither. Instead, they often strengthened the states they opposed by providing justification for expanded security measures and delegitimizing the broader left.

Third, that context matters enormously. Left-wing terrorism flourished during the Cold War, when an ideological alternative to capitalism seemed genuinely viable and great powers competed for influence by supporting armed movements. It declined when that context disappeared.

Fourth, that grievances persist even when terrorist movements fade. The inequality and injustice that fueled left-wing radicalism haven't vanished. They find expression through other channels: social movements, electoral politics, online activism. Whether those channels prove adequate to address underlying problems remains an open question.

The history of left-wing terrorism is ultimately a history of failure—failed revolutions, failed tactics, failed predictions about the course of history. But it's also a reminder that when people believe the system is irredeemably unjust and peaceful change is impossible, some will always reach for violence. Understanding why they failed may be less important than understanding why they tried.