What has become of Giuseppe Sensi?
We found it interesting because of the story existence and repression of Italian communist left militants in the USSR as well as documenting the contacts the Italian Left had in the English speaking world.
Centrism in the USSR, which has physically suppressed the old Bolshevik guard, all those who were of ’Lenins time", has at the same time acquired full control over foreign political emigration, especially over that Italian emigration which as a whole would tend to be "infected with leftism". Calligaris was re-arrested in the vast net that was spread in 1937 prior to May 1 and the elections’ – not to mention along with him, Mosca da Silva, Lazzaretti, Manservigi, Cerquetti, Visconti (Allegrazza). All the Italian political emigres were taken to Odessa at the end of last year. Their fate? It is unknown and for many we can fear the worst.
Today we examine the case of Guiseppe Sensi. Sensi, if we are not mistaken, is from the province of Arezzo. He had become a political emigree when he was sentenced to more than twenty years in the galleys of Fascism. He was arrested the night of April 22, 1937 by the GPU which was lying in wait for him on his return from work. Sensi had been expelled from the party on suspicion of belonging to our fraction, or of being a "Trotskist", according to the formulas. He was one of those who could have re entered the party, if he had permitted himself to be convinced; moreover he had committed the error, which must have proved fatal to him as wall as to many others, of becoming a Soviet citizen. This placed him in the power of Stalinist terror, while the Italian authorities could wash their hands of the case. Since the day of his arrest, little or no news has leaked out. Only in December, 1937 en route to his deportation, did Sensi obtain a means of getting word to his wife – Sensi had a Russian wife and child. To her he wrote that he had been sentenced to five years of deportation in Siberia" for having been a member of the 1927 Opposition", and he concluded by advising her to "seek another life for it may be that I shall never see you again".
In this brief line one feels a certain presentiment of the fate which awaits many communists, Russian or foreign, accused of having been members of the 1927 Opposition.
NO INFORMATION
The brother of Sensi another communist militant, who served ten years in Italian jails, has sought for information in vain. All his efforts at the Soviet Embassy have borne no results, although at the beginning they were supported by that good centrist, Deputy Duclos, The brother of Sensi did not ask that the party intervene, but only begged to know that had become of his brother, if he were still alive, and, if not, that they should give him news of his brother’s son and wife, The laconic reply of the Soviet Ambassador was always the same. Here are his exact words: "We have no information about your brother and thus we are unable to furnish you with any news of him", The GPU does not reveal whether or not it has already assassinated its victim. The assassin, centrism, will have to rencana account of its misdeeds, and as far as we are concerned, that account will reveal responsibility for these crimes. The banditti who framed them was the Communist Party of Italy. Have no illusions about that! In the debt which the Italian Communist Party will have to pay to the Italian proletariat the name of Sensi will not be forgotten. Nor will the names of all those others assassinated in Russia and Spain.