Widespread unrest and political violence shook Italy time and again during the decades following the end of the Second World War but never as much as during the 1970s and the 1980s. Seeking to counter political enemies including a conglomerate of rightwing movements organised crime and top figures in the economic and political life of the country in order to create a revolutionary state through an armed struggle and to remove Italy from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in 1970 leftists in Italy began to form the Brigade Rosse the Red Brigades. Organising themselves following the examples of the Latin American urban guerrilla movements and also drawing inspiration from the Italian partisan movement of the Second World War the Brigate Rosse emerged in Trento in 1970.