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Vittorio Vidali (27 September 1900 – 9 November 1983), also known asVittorio Vidale,Enea Sormenti,Jacobo Hurwitz Zender,Carlos Contreras, and "Comandante Carlos", was an Italiancommunist.[1] After being expelled from Italy with the rise ofFascistBenito Mussolini, he went toMoscow, where he became an operative for the SovietComintern. He was exiled to Mexico, where he was implicated in assassination attempts of Cuban communistJulio Mella and Russian revolutionaryLeon Trotsky. Later Vidali was active in Spain during itsCivil War, and later lead the new communist party in theFree Territory of Trieste beginning in 1947 after World War II. He later represented the community in Parliament after it was annexed by Italy.
He was born in the small coastal town ofMuggia, then part of the county ofIstria in theAustro-Hungarian Empire, and now part of Italy. As a teenager, he joined the socialist movement in the nearby port city ofTrieste. At the age of twenty, Vidali is said to have been one of the founders of theItalian Communist Party.
In 1922, he was expelled from the country afterBenito Mussolini ascended to power with theFascist movement. Vidali was described as aBolshevik in the file kept on him by the police inFascist Italy.
Vidali found refuge in theSoviet Union, relocating toMoscow. Working for theInternational Red Aid, Vidali was sent by theComintern to Mexico to discipline its national party, according to theMexican Communist Party. During this period, Vidali became romantically involved with photographer and communist activistTina Modotti, who had a previous liaison with artistDiego Rivera and was then involved with Cuban communistJulio Antonio Mella, then in Mexico.
According to Gary Tennant, Vidali's interest in Modotti was related to his killing her current lover, Mella. Mella was among the founders of the Comintern version of theCommunist Party of Cuba.[2] He had fled Cuba for Mexico inGerardo Machado’s time, where he joined and then left the Mexican Communist Party.
In early December 1928, Mella was expelled from the Mexican Communist Party for his association withTrotskyists, but he was readmitted two weeks later. Mella was killed by gunshot inMexico City on 10 January 1929, an incident believed to have been a political assassination. Modotti was by Mella's side when he was shot. She was seen holding his arm, allegedly in a manner similar to her portrayal in Diego Rivera's mural of the three.
Vidali is believed to have used therevolver he commonly carried to murder Mella. Modotti was known to keep anM1911 pistol in her house.[citation needed]
Officially, José Agustín López (said to have no particular political affiliations) was charged with Mella's murder; two other known criminals, Jose Magriñat and Antonio Sanabria, were also suspects. Police investigators received conflicting eyewitness reports, which are notoriously unreliable. In one version, Mella and Modotti were walking alone, whereas another said that Vidali was walking together with the two. Mella was shot atpoint-blank range, and neither Modotti nor Vidali were injured. Modotti gave a false name to the investigators, and, although police were suspicious of heralibi, she was released soon after being arrested. Magriñat was also set free: he was ultimately killed in Cuba (allegedly by communists) in 1933.[3]
The official position of the present Cuban government is that Mella was killed on Machado's orders. It acknowledges that Modotti was known to have been a Stalinist operative in a number of countries. Some in Cuba continue to believe that Vidali killed Mella.[4]
Vidali was ordered to go to Spain, where he arrived in May 1936 under the pseudonym of Carlos Contreras. He led efforts to prepare, supervise and coordinate theAntifascist Worker and Peasant Militias[5] (MAOC), organized by theSpanish Communist Party since 1934.[5] This was before theSpanish Civil War broke out.
Because he had performed military training in the SovietFrunze Academy, Vidali, and other comrades such asEnrique Líster, are credited with markedly improving the preparation of the militias.[5] As a senior advisor for theComintern in Spain,[6] Vidali headed the5th Regiment (Quinto Regimiento). It was responsible for the political formation of MAOC's regiments.[7][page needed] In the 1937 pro-Republican propaganda filmThe Spanish Earth, Vidali was shown addressing an assembly of military personnel.
Vidali returned to Mexico. He was identified as involved in the 24 May 1940 attack on Leon Trotsky's residence in Mexico City, a failed assassination attempt.Iosif Grigulevich, a SovietNKVD operative, and Mexican painterDavid Alfaro Siqueiros were also involved in the assault. Vidali is also thought to have been closely involved with the successful infiltration of fellowNKVD operativeRamón Mercader into Trotsky's inner circle. This resulted in Mercader's murder of Trotsky later that year.
Vidali left Mexico in 1947.[8]
Vittorio Vidali returned to Trieste in 1947 after World War II, when theFree Territory of Trieste was established. He soon became one of the most powerful members of theCommunist Party there. In 1948, after theTito–Stalin split, Vidali became the leader of the party and conducted a thorough purge of allegedtitoists in Trieste's Communist organizations. He also worked to reduce the influence of theKPJ on the Communist Party of the Free Territory of Trieste. He strengthened connections with pro-Soviet Italian Communists. During this period, he also clashed with the localSlovene minority that had been influential among Trieste's communists before his arrival. After 1954, when Trieste became part of Italy again, Vidali was elected to and served as a Communist Member of theItalian Parliament from the area.
Diego Rivera portrayed Vidali, Modotti, and Mella in hismuralIn the Arsenal.[9] He included the figure of Tina Modotti holding a belt of ammunition on the right side of the mural. Vidali is shown staring over her shoulder and wearing a black hat. Modotti gazes lovingly at Julio Antonio Mella (shown with a light-coloured hat).
Reportedly Tina Modotti said toValentín González in Spain, after he had decided not to kill Vidali, words to the effect: "You should have shot him, I hate him". But she continued: "I have to follow him until I die" (which she did).[10]
The exploits of Vidali in carrying out Trotsky's assassination, and lethal purges of agents in the Soviet Union andFulgencio Batista's Cuba (such asSandalio Junco in the latter)[11]) gained him attention. Julián Gorkin likened Vidali's activities, including known travels through Cuba before and afterFidel Castro's coming to power, and his presence inTurkey, Mexico, and Spain in relation to Soviet Communist activities to the far-flung exploits of British writerIan Fleming's well-knownMI-6 character in hisJames Bond series of novels.[10]
Vidali has been called the "jaguar of Muggia."[12]
In English:
In Spanish:
In Italian:
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