Giovanni Germanetto
Giovanni Germanetto (born January 18, 1885 in Turin , † October 7, 1959 in Moscow ) was an Italian politician ( KPI ), trade unionist and author .
Life
Germanetto, a hairdresser by profession , joined the trade union movement in 1903. In 1906 he became a member of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). He was an opponent of the First World War , which he castigated as imperialist. In Mondovì and Saluzzo he wrote pacifist articles for various newspapers. In January 1921 he represented the Fossano party section at the PSI party congress in Livorno . Here he joined forces with Amadeo Bordiga , Antonio Gramsci and Palmiro Togliatti for the formation of the Communist Party of Italy (KPI), of which he became a member.
In October 1922 he took part in the IV Congress of the Comintern in Moscow . He then became a party official in Turin. In 1923 he was arrested by the fascists for the first time along with thirty other communists. In 1924 he stayed in Moscow again. After his return to Italy in March 1925, he became editor of the trade union section of the KPI central organ L'Unità . In 1926 he was arrested again and sentenced to five years in prison. However, Germanetto was able to flee in 1927 and reached the Soviet Union via France. At the IV Congress of Profintern in Moscow in March / April 1928 and at the V Congress of Profintern in August 1930 he was elected to the Executive Committee and the Secretariat. Germanetto toured Germany, Austria and France several times on behalf of Profintern. On the VI. At the Comintern Congress in August 1928, he again represented the KPI. Germanetto, who had been a candidate since 1926, was elected as a full member of the KPI's Central Committee in 1931 . He remained in exile in the USSR until the end of World War II, where he worked for several Soviet newspapers.
Not until 1946 did he return to Cuneo , where he took over the leadership of the party newspaper. In 1948 Germanetto became a member of the Central Party Control Commission and from then on worked for the party headquarters in Rome . Already seriously ill traveled to the Soviet Union for treatment, he died in Moscow in 1959.
plant
Germanetto is the author of several books. His first and most famous book, Memorie di un barbiere , was first published in 1930 in France in Italian. The German translation Comrade Kupferbart appeared that same year. Overall, this autobiographical work, which deals with the struggle of the Italian working class and the communist party against fascism, has been translated into over twenty languages. His last work, Trent'anni di lotte dei comunisti italiani. 1921–1951 (Rome 1951), written together with Paolo Robotti, is also available in German translation ( Thirty Years of the Struggle of the Italian Communists: 1921–1951 . Dietz, Berlin 1955).
Honors
A street in Fossano is named after him.
literature
- SP Potapowa: Article Giovanni Germanetto in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)
- Pietro Secchia: Enciclopedia dell'antifascismo e della Resistenza . Vol. II. La Pietra, Milan 1989, p. 571.
- Branko Lazitch: Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern . Hoover Institution Press, Stanford 1986, pp. 136f.
Web links
- Comrade Kupferbart in the Socialist Archive for Fiction
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Germanetto, Giovanni |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian politician (KPI), trade unionist and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 18, 1885 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Turin |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 7, 1959 |
| Place of death | Moscow |