Following the 1969–70 large-scale series of industrial action in Northern Italy, the acts of civil disobedience and mass demonstrations often turned to violent confrontations between leftist militants and the law enforcement authorities of the Italian state.

[1] Similar events introduced a period of unprecedented social conflict in the urban centers of Italy, with acts of violence carried out almost daily by both right- and left-wing organizations.

A group of demonstrators broke off from the procession to head to the University of Milan and in piazza Cavour they crossed paths with three militants from the Fronte universitario d'azione nazionale or FUAN, the student branch of the neofascist MSI.

In the ensuing clash, as was subsequently reported in L'Unità, two of the neofascists managed to get away while the third, Antonio Braggion, due to a physical impediment in his leg, was forced to take refuge in his Mini Minor car.

Reinforcements were called in by the unit and a truck speeding in from the via Lamarmora barracks went over the sidewalk, and fell on 28-year-old Giannino Zibecchi, a militant of the Comitati di vigilanza antifascista, the Committees of antifascist vigilance.

On 13 January 1975, according to testimony at the trial, Ramelli was ambushed by a group of young boys while leaving school and was forced to erase with a brush and white paint "some fascist writings" from the institute's wall.

[9] Among the many tactics used by militants from both sides was the so-called practice "dei cucchini" ("of the spoons"): A prominent member of the opposite camp would be ambushed outside their place of work or residence, and then "severely" beaten up, i.e. they were to be cuccarlo ("cooked"), as a means of intimidation.

The coffin was interred in the family tomb at the cemetery of Lodi in Lombardy, the funeral procession having been banned by the local authorities out of fear of clashes between right- and left-wing "extremists.

I am enunciating a general phenomenon.In L'Unità, Claudio Petruccioli, journalist and co-founder of Movimento Lavoratori per il Socialismo ("Workers' Movement for Socialism"), wrote:[8] In the iron bars that left Ramelli dying on the sidewalk of Via Amedeo there was neither a desire for redemption nor love for freedom.

In those blows there was only blind and smug violence, entirely individualistic, aimed at nothing else but at reproducing itself in an endless spiral: such as to arouse horror and repulsion in every sincere democrat, in every honest man.Following a series of research and interrogations undertaken by magistrates Maurizio Grigo and Guido Salvini,[note 3] ten suspects were identified and indicted with various criminal violations.

")[note 4] was often heard, because the Hazet wrench, "almost as long as a forearm," was typically used by leftist militants in street fighting, ostensibly "as a response to the knives, pistols, and hand grenades" employed by the Milanese far-right.

[10] The cry, after Ramelli's death, fell gradually into disuse, while, within the extra-parliamentary left in Italy, a period of internal discourse and "harsh" self-criticism began on the use of violence in the ideological struggle.

[10] Two years after Ramelli's death, in 1977, the leaders of Avanguardia Operaia dissolved the organization, concerned about the law enforcement's increased activities directed against it but mainly to discourage members from being attracted to the armed struggle.

"[17] Stefano Boeri, an architect and urban planner running in 2010 as a candidate in the centre-left Democratic Party's primaries for mayor of Milan,[note 5][18] and a participant in the 1975 attack on Antonio Braggion, stated that "these were years of passion [and] turbulence, tragic, dramatic.

"[19] Giuseppe Ferrari Bravo worked for a time as a journalist at Liberazione, the newspaper of the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation Party) and has never publicly referred to the Ramelli case.

"[20] Giorgia Meloni, then a member of Brothers of Italy,[note 6] congratulated Veltroni, tweeting: "We must all work hard so that those dark years, in which so many innocent people of the left and the right lost their lives, never return.