The micro-processes that shaped the patterns of radicalization among Italian and German activists determined as well the behavior and choices of those who – like Horst Mahler and Marco – eventually pursued the most radical course of action: going underground and adopting terrorist tactics. In analyzing the effect of organizational choices on the escalation of violence in the underground (in Chapter 5), I described the mechanisms by which social movement organizations gave way to criminal sects. In this chapter, I examine the process of goal displacement as it operates, not on the organizational level, but on the micro- or individual level, and address such questions as, How did people whose first experience of violence involved setting cars on fire “graduate” to accepting murder as a legitimate form of political action? How did the militants justify the escalation of violent means? When underground organizations abandon their original aims and transform themselves into military machines, why don't the members quit?

I have already emphasized that membership in the political counterculture was in no way typical only of those who later joined the underground. On the contrary, radical groups constituted only a small minority among the mass movements: a few thousand people in Italy, a few hundred in Germany. What particular characteristics, then, typified those militants who ultimately chose the underground? A sociological analysis cannot, of course, offer a complete explanation for individual choices, which depend to a great extent on the consciousness of each individual.