Marco Giacomelli

On 20 August last, the St. Raphael Center for the Blind in Bolzano informed us that Marco Giacomelli had died. Our comrade, with serious sight problems and not being able to take care of himself, was a guest of that institution for several years.

Two years ago a group of our comrades visited him and found him in good health and lucid mind: he wanted to give us his archive of texts and his party correspondence. Returning a year later he was completely absent without even showing signs of recognizing us.

Marco was born on 19 January 1928 in Tiene, in the province of Vicenza. Son of a single mother, he lived with his grandmother until the age of 6. His mother had to leave the village and look for a job far away. When his grandmother died, he was put into boarding school. Then he alternated short stays with his mother, who had married in the meantime, with stays in various schools until the age of 14.

At that age he began to work in a machinists as an assistant to an old communist of the 1921 Communist Party of Italy, who had to emigrate because he was banned by the fascists. From that comrade Marco first heard of communism. At first a few words almost whispered during work, then real meetings, especially on Sundays, in the public gardens of Bolzano where he was erudite on the Manifesto, the Russian revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat…

When he was 17 years old, when the war was over, he joined the Communist Party of Italy (PCI). He dedicated himself to party activities, spread the press, proselytized and founded the „Red Star“ cell. His faith in the PCI, however, began to falter when the Communists voted for Articles 7 and 49 of the Constitution: how can religion and democracy reconcile with Communism? In 1949 he did not renew his card, left the party and formed an anarchist group in Bolzano and joined the „Anarchist Groups of Proletarian Action“, an interregional organization. The PCI, as per Stalinist method, refused his resignation from the party and expeled him for „anarchic-trotsko-bordighism“.

Throughout his life he was a skilled proletarian worker, and he also knew what it means to study. It’s no coincidence that in 1953 he helped found the Popular University of Bolzano.

In 1956 his organization, which had changed its name to „Libertarian Communist Party“, merged into a grouping called „Quadrifoglio“ with the Stalinists of „Communist Action“, the trotskists of „Red Flag“ and „Battaglia Comunista“.

Disgusted by the tactics of „Quadrifoglio“ and, by now, a reader of the „Programma Comunista“, in 1958 he joined the International Communist Party where, with renewed enthusiasm, he put himself at the complete disposal of the party.

After the „dirty split“ of 1973, he was the first among the older members to leave the Bolzano section of Programma and join our party. He wanted to make clear to everyone that he wasn’t joining a new party but re-entering the party he had joined in 1958.

In the party, as long as it had the strength, it contributed to the drafting of the press, to its diffusion and propaganda, and also wrote reports on difficult subjects.

Three times he organized the Party’s General Meetings in Bolzano, as well as several public conferences, with outside speakers providing the propaganda.

Even after his illness, when he could no longer carry out political activities, he continued to keep in touch and to encourage his comrades to work.

We will try to keep our promises.