Comrade Gastone Sozzi, 25-year-old leader of a local Young Communist League, is jailed, tortured, and murdered by Italian Fascists.

‘The Murder of Comrade Sozzi in the Prison of Perugia’ from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 8 No. 12. March 1, 1928.

Our Comrade Sozzi, a young and brave champion of the Communist movement, has been murdered by the fascists in the prison of Perugia. Reports which we have received from Italy state that the murder-government of Mussolini does not deny that Comrade Sozzi died a violent death. It is true the executioners wish to spread the version that Comrade Sozzi committed suicide by strangling himself.

This is not the first crime of Mussolini. Matteotti, Lavagnini, Spartaco Stagnetti were among the many other victims of the bloody regime. But it is perhaps the first time that the fascists have penetrated a prison in such an almost open manner and without more ado slaughtered a political opponent.

As the General Prosecutor for the Special Court himself admits, there are at present in the prisons of Italy 3000 anti-fascist workers who have been placed under preventative arrest in the course of the last two years and nearly an equal number of workers who have to serve very severe sentences in the various prisons in the country of fascism. These 6000 workers are also threatened with the same fate as Sozzi. The advance-guard of the working class of Italy is in danger. In face of the re-awakening of the workers of Italy, who are being forced into the struggle by the ever increasing economic crisis, in face of the heroic resistance of the Communist Party of Italy and of the trade union Federation of Italy, there no longer exists any doubt that fascism has resolved to kill the hostages. which it is keeping in its prisons.

The international proletariat cannot accept without resistance the crime of Perugia, which is a presage of fresh crimes.

The Committee for the Defence of the victims of Fascism, at the head of which stands Henri Barbusse, has submitted a very strongly-worded protest to the Italian Ambassador in France, demanding that a commission consisting of impartial people shall be set up in order to undertake an investigation in the prison of Perugia, and that there shall be an examination of the corpse of Comrade Sozzi in the presence of this commission.

Our murdered Comrade Gaston Sozzi had abandoned his university studies when a young student in order to devote himself wholly and entirely to the study and the struggles of the Labour movement. Since the fascist march on Rome in the year 1922, he was secretary of the Young Communist League of Forli (Romagna). After he had been accused of having taken part in the murder of a fascist, he had to live underground. When the accusation proved to be unfounded, he was able to resume his legal political activity. In the years 1924/25 he came to Gorizia in order to perform military service, after he had passed through the university course in the Lenin School in Leningrad and had there shown great qualities as a student and a revolutionary. Returned from military service he resumed his work in the Communist Party.

Gastone Sozzi was only 25 years of age. His martyr-death is only a fresh link in the long chain of suffering of the revolutionary proletariat of Italy. His example and his qualities as an inflexible fighter will be followed by hundreds of other proletarians, who will continue the fight until victory and until the day on which punishment will be meted out to all the vile murderers who are now ruling in fascist Italy.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecor” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecor’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly. Inprecor is an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1928/v08n11-mar-01-1928-Inprecor-op.pdf