Fifty years without Pietro Monetti, but his Party continues

Today, June 28, it is exactly 50 years since the passing of comrade Pietro MONETTI (see attached picture), founder of our Party, member of the Mendrisio city council and for five terms brilliantly elected member of the Parliament of the Republic and Canton of Ticino in the Swiss Confederation.

Born in the suburb of Mendrisio, Pietro Monetti at the age of 17 joined the Swiss Social Democratic Party of which he also became administrative secretary and editor of the newspaper “Libera Stampa” for a time. However, when the Social Democrats banned him from traveling to the Soviet Union, he disobeyed and was thus expelled from the Party for indiscipline. Pietro Monetti then organized comrades in clandestinity and later founded what is now the Communist Party (Switzerland) in Lugano on August 6, 1944 under the first name of Workers' and Peasants' Party (POCT).

Pietro Monetti's democratic commitment was also expressed in 1930, when he was given to hide the leads for printing the leaflets against the fascist regime of Mussolini, that aviator Giovanni Bassanesi, who had taken off from Switzerland, then launched over Milan inciting Italian workers to resistance. Pietro Monetti then developed various contacts with the Italian Communist Party, for example with MP Eraldo Gastone (battle name “Ciro”) from Turin, former commander of the Garibaldi Brigades of Valsesia during the Italian anti-fascist Resistance.

A charismatic character but with a strong practical sense, Comrade Pietro Monetti rejected all maximalist abstractions: a humble and simple person, he always remained close to the working classes and even in times of repression never renounced Marxism-Leninism and communist ideals. Pietro Monetti's political heir, former vice-mayor of Chiasso Marco Ferrazzini, is still active in our Party. 

The political life of Comrade Pietro Monetti was one marked by precise proposals adhering to the needs of the working class, whose interests Monetti represented coherently his whole life. Even his opponents were compelled to listen to him, and popular esteem lingers to this day. He was a fervent anti-imperialist and strenuously defended socialist countries in their independence.