Franco Salomone

Franco Salomone, a member of the Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici, died following years of painful illness on 24 March 2008 in Savona. Franco was a comrade who made an enormous contribution to Anarchist Communism and to the class struggle.

From a very early age, he was involved in various anarchist organizations in the Liguria region, choosing the class-struggle, communist line, and for decades dedicated himself to the double battle of work within the community, in the workers' struggles, while at the same time working to rebuild anarchism which, from the 1950s had started to lose its Anarchist Communist principles, overcome by humanist anarchism, often of the kind that Luigi Fabbri had denounced in the previous decades as being of "bourgeois inspiration".

Together with other comrades, many of whom were also Ligurian, Franco worked hard to re-establish class-struggle anarchism, and watched as it flowered in the Seventies, both from an organizational point of view and from that of political and union work in the struggles.

Long involved in cross-border political work, Franco divided his time between France and Italy, bringing some of the important work being carried on in France in the late '60s and early '70s to Italian anarchism. He was a leading figure in the renewed class-struggle anarchist movement in the early '70s that was typified in the Anarchist Workers' Congresses, which became a learning ground for a great number of anti-authoritarian left-wing militants, and in the rebirth of federations of tendency, which in those days used the term of "libertarian communist", along the lines of what was happening in France.

He was involved in the CGIL trade union, as had others such as Umberto Marzocchi, and in the 1980s took on greater responsibilities as a syndicalist in the healthcare sector. Indeed, the CGIL's Savona branch today remembers Franco as an anarchist, but also "as a historic leader of the Savona CGIL, in which he was for years responsible for the healthcare sector and also, from 1997 to 2003, General Secretary for the public sector. The entire CGIL in Savona recalls Franco with great affection and mourns his passing".

In 2003, Franco returned to active militancy, joining the Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici. His comrades in the FdCA remember him with great esteem and affection, and declare their intention to go on working for those ideals which Franco shared for many decades.

His funeral will be held on Thursday 27 March 2008 at the San Paolo Hospital in Savona.

Final send-off for Franco Salomone

On Thursday 27 March the funeral of our comrade Franco Salomone was held in Savona. Many workers and comrades were in attendance: colleagues and comrades in struggle from his union, old libertarian communist comrades from Liguria and Lombardy, comrades from the Irish Workers Solidarity Movement who are currently in Italy, the Circolo FAI from Savona, the Savona branch of the USI, comrades from Lotta Comunista and, of course, the flags and comrades of the FdCA. An emotional and compact funeral cortege of around 80 people, marched through the streets of Savona, with a pause outside the offices of the local trades council where we were greeted by the CGIL flag at half mast.

Eulogies were delivered by Pippo Giudice, secretary of the Savona CGIL in the 1970s, Beppe Oldani on behalf of the FdCA National Secretariat and the Cremona anarchist communist, Virgilio Caletti.

The image painted of Franco in words was of a "syndicalist and revolutionary, a pragmatic comrade who was uninterested in ideologized struggle, a promoter of well-defined, achievable objectives in all his battles; an "internationalist militant and an anti-fascist", a "reference point in the political growth of so many comrades". His battles in defence of workers' rights, public healthcare and the development of organized class-struggle anarchism were also remembered.

Franco's body was cremated at Savona cemetery and his ashes deposited in the family tomb.

Local newspapers ("Il Secolo XIX" and "La Stampa") also remembered Franco Salomone, quoting the Savona CGIL and FdCA press releases in their reports.

The Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici wishes to thank all those comrades who participated and above all the people who looked after Franco with great affection and dedication through the final years of his life (Pina, Marta, Fulmen and Christian).

We also send our thanks to those comrades who sent messages of condolence from Molfetta, Bisceglie, Bari, Lucca, Asti and Cremona.

National Secretariat
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici

30 March 2008