Angelo Tasca

Angelo Tasca was an Italian politician, writer and historian. He was a founding member of the Communist Party of Italy, but was expelled in 1929 due to his opposition to Stalinism. Having experienced persecution by the fascist regime in Italy, he took refuge in France in 1926, gaining citizenship in 1936. After joining the French Section of the Workers' International in 1934, he worked as a writer for the newspaper Le Populaire. He joined the exiled Italian Socialist Party and supported the POUM during the Spanish Civil War. After the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939 and the consequent resignation of Pietro Nenni, he became one of three joint leaders of the Italian Socialist Party. After the Fall of France, he aligned himself with the pro-German Vichy Government. He held an official position under Paul Marion in the Ministry of Information. He was arrested in September 1944 following the Liberation of France and was charged with collaborationism, being released only a month later after it emerged that he had secretly worked with a Belgian anti-fascist network since 1941. After the war he worked for various newspapers and was a consultant for NATO, maintaining an anti-communist position amidst the Cold War.