Giangiakomo Feltrinelli Italian publisher and left-wing politician Date of Birth: 19.06.1926 Country: Italy

1. Italian publisher and left-wing politician
2. Early life and political awakening
3. The publication of "Doctor Zhivago"
4. Founding the Group of Partisan Action

Italian publisher and left-wing politician

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli was an Italian publisher and left-wing politician. He was also the leader of the urban partisan organization, the Group of Partisan Action.

Early life and political awakening

Born into a wealthy Milanese family, Feltrinelli began interacting with the household staff from a young age. His exposure to their problems and aspirations, along with the mysterious death of his father, who had disagreements with Mussolini's regime, led him to embrace left-wing values. Despite being the heir to a considerable fortune, Feltrinelli joined the Garibaldi partisans, a communist partisan group, in 1944. In 1945, he joined the Italian Communist Party (ICP), and in 1948, he started building an extensive library on the history of the workers' movement, which would later be transformed into a publishing house in 1954.

The publication of "Doctor Zhivago"

Known for his independence, Feltrinelli became the first publisher of "Doctor Zhivago" in 1958, despite pressure from the ICP and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This decision resulted in his expulsion from the party. In the 1960s, Feltrinelli traveled extensively and met with figures like Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Ho Chi Minh. He wrote articles about armed national liberation and revolutionary struggles in third-world countries. In 1967, he attempted to save Che Guevara in Bolivia but was arrested and expelled from the country on accusations of being a "red spy" with the help of a CIA informant. Feltrinelli later received Guevara's famous "Bolivian Diary."

Founding the Group of Partisan Action

Devastated by the loss of his friend and comrade, Feltrinelli returned to Italy and founded the Group of Partisan Action. Unlike the shortsightedness of the official Communist Party, Feltrinelli recognized the real threat of a right-wing coup in Italy. Following the example of the Red Brigades, he initiated armed resistance against the alliance between the bourgeois elite and neo-fascist and mafia groups. However, the intelligence services managed to infiltrate a provocateur into the Group of Partisan Action, and on March 14, 1972, not far from a power line tower, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli's body was discovered. According to the official version, he died from an explosion caused by his own explosive device.