Orsini contends that the dominant logic of the Red Brigades was essentially eschatological, focused on purifying a corrupt world through violence.

1.The Pedagogy of Intolerance -- The Revolutionary Vocation -- Violence as the Only Way -- The "Binary Code" Mentality -- Political Violence and Social Marginality -- Eschatological Politics -- 2.The Sacralization of Politics -- The "Fanaticism of a New Religion" -- Radical Catastrophism -- The Revolutionary Sect and the Obsession with Purity -- The Hatred of Reformists -- 3.Toward the Bloodshed -- Daily Life in a Revolutionary Sect -- The Red Brigades' Organization Plan -- The Blood Crime and Its "Story" -- The Path to Bloodshed -- Shedding Blood and the Role of the Revolutionary Sect -- The Detachment from the Surrounding World -- 4.The Genesis of the Red Brigades -- The Red Brigades' Social Roots -- The "Cultural Lag" Theory -- When Were the Red Brigades Born? -- The Red Brigades: "Imbeciles" or Real Revolutionaries? -- Antonio Gramsci and the "Hour of Redemption" -- The Italian Communist Party's Role in the Genesis of the Red Brigades -- An Oxymoron: The "Leninist-Reformist" Party -- 5.The Masters of the Red Brigades -- Illustrious Predecessors: Thomas Muntzer -- John of Leiden, King and Revolutionary -- The English Revolution and the Puritan Movement -- The French Revolution and the Jacobin Experiment -- Babeuf: "The world has plunged into chaos" -- Karl Marx's Pantoclastic Dream -- The Revolutionary Tradition of Russian Populism -- 6.The Purifiers of the World in Power -- Lenin and State Terrorism -- The Bolshevik Revolution and the "Victims of the Victims" -- The Gulag, or The Promise Kept -- Mao and the Myth of the "New Man" -- The Cambodian Revolution -- Not a Conclusion: Portrait of a Red Brigadist.