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Title: Bifolchi, Giuseppe, 1895–1978 Author: Nick Heath Date: March 7, 2007 Language: en Topics: biography, Italy, Spanish Civil War, World War II, anti-fascism Source: Retrieved on 30th October 2021 from https://libcom.org/history/bifolchi-giuseppe-1895-1978
Giuseppe Bifolchi, aka Viola, aka V.
Born: Balsorano, Italy 1895. Died: Avezzano, Italy 1978.
Giuseppe Bifolchi was born in the Abruzzi in Balsorano on 20^(th)
February 1895. A non-commissioned officer during World War One Giuseppe
Bifolchi became an individualist anarchist, later moving over to a
pronouncedly organisational anarchist communism.
Forced into exile in France in the 1920s, he became a supporter of the
Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists of Arshinov,
Makhno, Mett et al. He participated in the international meetings
convened by the Platformists in 1927. [1]
In 1924 he contributed to the single issue (15^(th) December) of the
Italian paper L’Agitazione a favore di Castagna e Bonomini published in
Paris to support the two comrades Mario Castagna and Ernesto Bonomini
accused of having killed two fascists and threatened with extradition.
They were sentenced respectively to seven and eight years in prison.
In 1927 he worked in a cement works and lived at 47 rue Rebeval in the
19^(th) arrondissement of Paris with his partner Argentina Gantelli. He
contributed to the French anarchist paper Le Libertaire under the
signature “V”. The 7^(th) August 1927 he took part in the demonstration
in the Bois de Vincennes of the International Committee of Anarchist
Defence for Sacco and Vanzetti. The same year he suffered an expulsion
order in September and was forced to move to Brussels. There
between1929-1931 he was the publisher of the Italian anarchist monthly
Bandiera Nera (Brussels, 17 issues from April 1929 to May 1931). During
the same period he contributed to the bilingual Franco-Italian paper
published since 1900 in Geneva by Luigi Bertoni, Il Risveglio
anarchico-Le réveil anarchiste and to the monthly magazine Vogliamo
(Lugano, August 1929 – January 1931).
In July 1936, with Camillo Berneri, M. Centrone, Girotti, Perrone,
Ernesto Bonomini and Fantozzi he was part of the first group of Italians
to go to Perpignan to prepare to fight in Spain. He was later joined
there by Argentina. A member of the Italian section of the Ascaso
Column, he was the leader of the group of riflemen who on the 25^(th)
August 1936 managed to capture the heights of Monte Pelato, albeit with
heavy losses. He was later named as responsible for the Rosselli Column
on the Huesca front. Giuseppe Biffolchi was the real military head of
the column whose political head was the militant of the anti-fascist
organisation, Giustizia e Liberta, Carlo Rosselli. In November 1936
during the offensive on Almudevar he was responsible for the right wing
of the attack. Bifolchi showed great courage and calmness in action and
was a significant tactician.
During the events of May 1937 he was a member of the Italian section of
the Defence Committee of the CNT.
In a letter to his brother on the 14 August 1937, he wrote: “I can say
that in Spain I have passed the happiest year of my existence, If I have
to die I will die happy”.
He was forced to return to France where he was arrested in 1937 at
Perpignan and again served with an expulsion notice.
He was able to bring back Spanish passports and these were used to help
comrades in Belgium escape to South America on the eve of the Second
World war. Thus the passport of Giovanni Aragno, killed on 7^(th)
January 1937 on the Mirabueno front, was used by the anarchist Emilio
Marziani who, in 1940, departed from Anvers for South America, and that
of Luigi Fthealda, killed January 1937 at Majadahonda (Madrid), was
passed over to the anarchist Aramis Crenonini for the same purpose.
In 1940 he was interned in a prison camp then extradited to Italy. There
he was deported to Ponza and then Ventotene, and then fought in the
Resistance. He was nominated as the “Liberation Mayor” of Balsorano in
1944. In this capacity he went on 4^(th) June with a delegation from the
town to plead with the Allies not to bombard Balsorano as the Germans
had departed. The delegation was received in bad grace, and Balsorano
was not spared two further artillery shellings before the firing
stopped.
After the Liberation he set up a fruit cooperative based on anarchist
principles. He contributed to the anarchist magazine L’Internationale.
In 1970 he appears to have lived in the USA.
Giuseppe Bifolchi died at Avezzano on the 16^(th) March 1978.
[1] See also the “Anarchist Communist Manifesto” of the 1^(st) Italian
Section of the International Anarchist Communist Federation, set up
after the international meetings in Paris and of which Bifolchi was a
prominent member.