National Vanguard

National Vanguard (AN) was one of three main neo-fascist Italian terrorist groups to form prior to the mid-1970s, along with New Order (ON) and National Front (FN). It broke from ON in 1960 but continued to collaborate with the group. Like the other neo-fascist groups, AN sought to stage or provoke a fascist coup in Italy, and to protect Italy from a feared Communist takeover. In the longer term, AN sought to unite all of Europe into one totalitarian nation. The group had deep ties to the ON and the FN. Their membership overlapped and the three groups jointly planned a coup attempt, ultimately aborted, in 1970. AN dissolved and many of its members fled abroad after the group was banned by authorities in the mid-1970s. Its remnants, along with those of ON and FN, were afterward subsumed into another neo-fascist group, Black Order.