Victorio Codovilla

Codovilla was born in Italy in 1894 and joined the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano) in 1911.[1] He emigrated to Argentina in 1912, where he remained active in international socialist politics. He then joined the Communist Party of Argentina, being elected to its central committee and politburo (on which he would serve until his death in 1970).[2]

In 1924 he represented the Argentinian communists at the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) in Moscow. Afterwards he worked for the communist social service organization International Red Aid. In December 1926 he made an address before the ECCI and was made one of its alternate members.[2] Attending the congress of the League Against Imperialism in Brussels in 1927, he led the eighth congress of the Communist Party of Argentina in 1928 and participated in the first conference of Latin American communist parties in Buenos Aires the following year.[2]

Codovilla was sent to Madrid to advise the Communist Party of Spain (Partido Comunista de España or PCE) on behalf of the Comintern. He presented a paper to the PCE's fourth congress in March 1932, proclaiming that the new Second Republic was supported by monarchism on the right and "social fascists" (such as the members of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party or PSOE) on the left. He further predicted that the administration of President Manuel Azaña would quickly become a "clear-cut fascist dictatorship" and stressed the need for Spanish communists to create revolutionary committees and establish soviets in order to stem the counterrevolution.[3]

With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Codovilla remained in Madrid advising the PCE, but has been regarded as generally less effective than his Barcelona-based counterpart Ernő Gerő.[4] His position was further eclipsed by the arrival of Boris Stepanov, a favorite of Joseph Stalin, in February 1937.[5] By the summer of 1937 reports to Moscow by fellow Comintern advisor Palmiro Togliatti were critical of both the state of the PCE leadership and Codovilla himself. In September Codovilla was recalled to Moscow and superseded by Togliatti.[6]