Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the death of our unforgettable comrade Mauro Stefanini. We are not great fans of formal rituals or commemorations (neither was he) but by way of acknowledging our debt to him we publish this short introduction to the volume of his work our comrades of the Internationalist Communist Party (Battaglia Comunista) published five years ago under the title Le radici spezzate – Il percorso ideologico della controrivoluzione in Italia (Broken Roots – The Course of the Counter-Revolution in Italy).

Remembering Mauro

It is ten years since the death of our much-loved comrade Mauro Stefanini, a loss that was both premature and devastating for the Internationalist Communist Party, amongst whose members he was greatly esteemed.

His memory remains more vivid than ever. We will never forget his untiring militancy, generosity and solidarity. He was always available to all, not just to our comrades, but to all who approached him. He never avoided debate and discussion and was always ready to patiently explain secure in the validity of the theoretical and political positions of revolutionary and internationalist communism.

Positions which he had never failed to contribute to even in his youngest days. Without neglecting the wide range of interests which made up his life even in the dramatic final years of the illness which tormented him and which he bore with lucid acceptance until the last.

He was not yet 16 when he began his activity as a militant in the ranks of the Internationalist Communist Party. We remember his first pieces in Battaglia Comunista and then, in 1970, in Prometeo. He became a faithful collaborator and editor of both publications. He began by criticising the student movement from a consistent class position which he deepened in the debates which developed inside the State University of Milan where Mauro began his first political activity before devoting himself to contacts with workers of the factories in the industrial periphery of Milan.

Ever present and always tirelessly engaged Mauro was elected to the Central Committee at the IV Congress of the Party in 1970 and then to the national Executive Committee. He quickly became the principal animator of our international contact work thanks to his knowledge of foreign languages (especially French and English) and played a significant part in the organisation of the International Conferences started by our Party in 1977. In 1983 the birth of the Bureau (IBRP, today the Internationalist Communist Tendency) was the outcome of his tenacity and diligent participation in the entire work of the Party in the international field.

Unfortunately death cut his life short in Milan when he still had so much of the best of him to offer to the cause of communism which he had served uninterruptedly for forty years.

Mauro, once again we embrace and salute you with a raised fist.

DC

2015