Vittorio Vidali


Vittorio Vidali, also known as Vittorio Vidale, Enea Sormenti, Jacobo Hurwitz Zender, Carlos Contreras, and "Comandante Carlos", was an Italian Communist. After being expelled from Italy with the rise of Fascist Benito Mussolini, he went to Moscow, where he became an operative for the Soviet Comintern. He was sent to Mexico, where he was implicated in at least two assassination attempts - of Cuban communist Julio Mella and Russian Leon Trotsky, there in exile. Later Vidali was active in other locations, finally leading the new communist part in the Free Territory of Trieste beginning in 1947 after World War II. He later represented the community in Parliament after it was annexed by Italy.

Early life

He was born in the small coastal town of Muggia, then part of the county of Istria in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and now part of Italy. As a teenager, he joined the socialist movement in the nearby port city of Trieste. At the age of twenty, Vidali is said to have been one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party.
In 1922 he was expelled from the country after Benito Mussolini ascended to power with the Fascist movement. Vidali was described as a Bolshevik in the file kept on him by the police in Fascist Italy.

Comintern agent

Vidali found refuge in the Soviet Union, relocating to Moscow. Working for the International Red Aid, Vidali was sent by the Comintern to Mexico to discipline its national party, according the Mexican Communist Party. During this period, Vidali became romantically involved with photographer and communist activist Tina Modotti, who had a previous liaison with artist Diego Rivera and was then involved with Cuban communist Julio Antonio Mella, then in Mexico.

Murder of Julio Mella

According to 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 the Communist Party of Cuba. Mella had fled Cuba for Mexico in Gerardo Machado’s time, where he joined and then left the Mexican Communist Party.
Diego Rivera portrayed Vidali, Modotti, and Mella in his mural In the Arsenal. 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.
Given Rivera's personal knowledge of these people, some analysts or critics suggest that his portrayal was evidence of Vidali's and Rivera's involvement in Mella's assassination. Rivera was subsequently expelled from the Mexican Communist Party.
In early December 1928, Mella was expelled from the Mexican Communist Party for his association with Trotskyites, but he was readmitted two weeks later. Mella was killed by gunshot in Mexico City on January 10, 1929, an incident believed to be a political assassination. Modotti was by Mella's side as he was shot. She was seen holding his arm, allegedly in a manner similar to her portrayal in Rivera's mural.
Vidali is believed to have used the revolver he commonly carried to murder Mella. Modotti was known to keep an M1911 pistol in her house.
Officially, José Agustín López 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 at point-blank range, and neither Modotti nor Vidali were injured. Modotti gave a false name to the investigators, and, although police were suspicious of her alibi, she was released soon after being arrested. Magriñat was also set free: he was ultimately killed in Cuba in 1933
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. How Machado's men could have operated alone and independently in the highly politicized environment of Mexico City is not explained. According to Abers, both Magriñat and Rivera would have warned Mella that he was in danger.

Spanish Civil War

Vidali was ordered to go to Spain, where he arrived in May 1936 under the pseudonym of Carlos Contreras. He ked efforts to prepare, supervise and coordinate the Antifascist Worker and Peasant Militias, organized by the Spanish Communist Party since 1934. This was before the Spanish Civil War broke out.
Because he had performed military training in the soviet Frunze Academy, Vidali, and other comrades such as Enrique Líster, are credited with markedly improving the preparation of the militias. As a senior advisor for the Comintern in Spain, Vidali headed the 5th Regiment. It was responsible for the political formation of MAOC's regiments. In the 1937 pro-Republican propaganda film The Spanish Earth, Vidali was shown addressing an assembly of military personnel.

In Mexico and Italy

Vidali returned to Mexico. He was identified as involved in the May 24, 1940 attack on Leon Trotsky's residence in Mexico City, a failed assassination attempt. Iosif Grigulevich, a Soviet NKVD operative, and Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros were also involved in the assault. Vidali is thought to have been involved with the insertion of assassin Ramón Mercader into Trotsky's inner; Mercader killed Trotsky later that year.
Vittorio Vidali returned to Trieste in 1947 after World War II, when the Free Territory of Trieste was established. He soon became one of the most influential members of the Communist Party there. In 1948, after the Tito-Stalin split, Vidali became the leader of the party, and conducted a thorough effort to decrease the influence of Tito in Trieste's Communist organizations. He also worked to reduce the influence of the Yugoslav Party on the Communist Party of the Free Territory of Trieste. He strengthened connections with the Italian Communists. During this period, he also clashed with the local Slovene minority that had been influential among Trieste's Communist before his arrival. After 1954, when Trieste became part of Italy again, Vidali was elected to and served as a member of Italian Parliament from this area.

Reputation

Reportedly Tina Modotti said to Valentín 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".
The exploits of Vidali in carrying out Trotsky's assassination, and lethal purges of agents in the Soviet Union and Fulgencio Batista's Cuba gained him attention. Julián Gorkin likened Vidali's activities, including known travels through Cuba before and after Fidel Castro's coming to power, and his presence in Turkey, Mexico, and Spain in relation to Soviet Communist activities to the farflung exploits of British writer Ian Fleming's well-known MI-6 character in his James Bond series of novels.

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