Biography
Early life
Born in to a working-class, Picelli worked as a watchmaker and later an actor. He participated in theAnti-fascist leader of Italy
Picelli was a founding member of theExile in France and the Soviet Union
In July 1932 he was arrested and expelled from France. He took refuge first in Belgium and, later, in the Soviet Union. There he taught "military strategy" at the International Lenin School. He carried out political activity for the Communist International and kept in touch with the Italian exiles and collaborated in political magazines. During his exile, he wrote three revolutionary plays which were performed in Moscow. Picelli became a critic of the political purges within among whose victims were Italian communists, including Dante Corneli, his emigration companion who was accused of Trotskyism. Eventually becoming a suspect himself, in March 1935 he was first fired from school, losing both the vouchers to buy food and the salary to pay the rent and finally he was sent to a factory. Feeling in grave danger Picelli requested the intervention of Palmiro Togliatti with an autograph letter dated 9 March 1935, and kept in the archives of the Comintern. Picelli wrote a letter denouncing Trotskyism and factionalism which was received positively by the Comintern and removed any suspicions of counter-revolutionary activities against him.Spanish Civil War and death
July 1936 the Spanish Civil War broke out and Picelli requested to be allowed to leave the Soviet Union, to fight Francoist forces. After a permit denied in September 1936, he later managed to get permission to leave the Soviet Union for Spain, but it was specified that he would not represent the Comintern in any way. Picelli left the Soviet Union in October 1936 and reached Paris, where he made contact with Julián Gorkin of the POUM, an anti-Soviet communist party. Gorkin invited him to travel to Spain to take command of a battalion of POUM militiamen. He reached Barcelona and the communist leaders sent him a friend of his, Ottavio Pastore with the task of making him desist from taking command of a battalion of the POUM. Nevertheless, he contacted Andreu Nin Pérez, Andrés Nin, a few days later Picelli enlisted and took command of a column of 500 volunteers of the IX battalion of the International Brigades (so-called "Colonna Picelli"). In Albacete, Picelli trained the volunteers of his column for the Madrid Front, Madrid front. On December 13, 1936, following the agreement signed in Paris for the formation of a single Italian anti-fascist legion under the political patronage of the socialist, communist and republican parties and with the help of the organizations adhering to the Italian committee for Spain, the ''Colonna Picelli'' it was incorporated into the Brigate Garibaldi, Garibaldi Brigade. Picelli was appointed deputy commander of the battalion and of the first company of the Italian formation. On 1 January 1937 in command of the entire Garibaldi Battalion. He conquered Mirabueno, a strategic village on the Guadalajara front. Four days later, on January 5, 1937, at the age of 47, Picelli was fatally shot by a burst of enemy machine guns during a fight on the Mirabueno front while attempting to place a machine gun. His body was therefore abandoned and recovered only later due to the danger represented by the presence of Francoist positions. The Spanish Republican government held a state funeral for him in Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia.References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Picelli, Guido 1889 births 1937 deaths Italian Socialist Party politicians Italian Communist Party politicians Deputies of Legislature XXVI of the Kingdom of Italy Italian military personnel of World War I Italian people of the Spanish Civil War Italian resistance movement members Exiled Italian politicians Italian emigrants to the Soviet Union Italian Comintern people Deputies of Legislature XXVII of the Kingdom of Italy Italian anti-fascists Italian Aventinian secessionists Military personnel killed in the Spanish Civil War (Republican faction)