34 Facts About Velio Spano

Velio Spano was a Sardinian-born antifascist activist and, at times, fighter through the Mussolini years.

Velio Spano is remembered for his writings: he later came to be identified, increasingly, as a journalist.

Velio Spano was born at Teulada, a little town close to the southern tip of Sardinia, which had been part of Italy since unification.

When Velio was just 5 the family relocated some fifty kilometers to the north, to Guspini, a slightly larger and more dynamic small town in which the local economy was, at that time, dominated by lead and zinc mining.

Velio Spano was exposed to the prevailing left-wing ideas of the time, and to the potential power of effective political organisation.

Velio Spano was almost 19 by this point and did not accompany his parents.

Velio Spano's body was found just outside the city a couple of months later.

Almost at once Velio Spano joined the Lazio region Young Communists.

Early in 1925 Velio Spano took on the leadership of the University Communist Group at Rome, jointly with Altiero Spinelli.

Velio Spano's activism did not go unnoticed by the security services on the group and in 1926, at the invitation of the party there, he moved to Turin, and industrial city with a long-embedded tradition of liberalism and socialism to take on the leadership of the University Communist Group there.

Velio Spano enrolled at the university to continue his studies, but by 1927 had abandoned these.

Velio Spano became part of the illegal organisation abroad of the Italian Communist Party, taking charge of the section handling management and liaison in respect of Italian emigrant workers.

In December 1936 Velio Spano was sent by the party to Barcelona to contribute to the antifascist struggles in the Spanish Civil War which had broken out six months earlier.

Towards the end of 1937 Velio Spano returned to Paris where a focus of his energies was on political j0urnalism through the print media.

Velio Spano took on co-directorship, with the Torinese Mario Montagnana, for l'Unita, the party's mass-circulation daily newspaper which had been banned by the Italian government in 1926, but of which clandestine copies were nevertheless produced, not always with the same frequency, in Milan, Turin, Rome and Paris between 1927 and 1944.

Velio Spano launched an energetic propaganda programme and established contacts with numerous young communist activists from Italy who by this time had found refuge in to Tunisia.

Velio Spano was keen to do the same, but was persuaded by the party leadership that he could be more helpful to the cause by remaining in Tunisia.

Velio Spano was held there until Paris fell to the Germans in June 1940, which generated delight among some of the more vocal Tunisian nationalist but, in political terms, ushered in a period of increased uncertainty for the territory.

Nadia Gallico Velio Spano spent time confined at the Sbeitla camp which later, she memorably described.

Velio Spano established links with the Gollisti, with French socialists, and with the Neo Destour nationalists under Habib Bourguiba.

Velio Spano was nevertheless convicted in absentia and sentenced to death.

On 16 October 1942 Velio Spano arrived by plane in Naples.

In Naples, Velio Spano joined up with Eugenio Reale, Marcello Marroni and Clemente Maglietta to take on the leadership of the Communist Party which, based in Naples, they were able to reinstate in the liberated south of Italy.

Velio Spano was similarly uncompromising in confronting separatism in the party in Sardinia and in Calabria.

Meanwhile in December 1945, at the fifth national congress of the Communist Party, Velio Spano was elected to membership of the Party Central Committee and, within it, to the party directorate, remaining in post till the ninth national congress.

Velio Spano served as a member of the Constituent Assembly in Sardinia between 1947 and 1957 and was party secretary for the Sardinian party branch.

Velio Spano was prominently involved in the turbulent social and political developments during the later 1940s on the island, notably in respect of farm worker uprisings and land occupations.

Velio Spano was involved in the bitter 72 day miners' strike against the Carbosarda organisation at Carbonia in 1948.

Velio Spano himself was arrested in September 1948, but due to his parliamentary immunity he had to be released.

Velio Spano arrived in September and stayed in the country until 1950, acting both as an envoy, selected for the task by Palmiro Togliatti, the leader of the Italian Communist Party and as a correspondent for the party newspaper, l'Unita.

In 1956 Velio Spano was given a leading role in the party's foreign affairs section.

The principle exception concerned the African continent, in which Velio Spano, encouraged by his Tunisian-born wife, had taken a particular interest ever since his Tunisian exile during the later Mussolini years.

Velio Spano took a close interest in the decolonisation process which was accelerating in various parts of Africa during the later 1950s and early 1960s.

Velio Spano died from cancer at Rome on 7 October 1964.