Paolo Ravazzoli e il Psi-Ios nell’emigrazione antifascista in Francia (1931-1940)

In the 1920s, Paolo Ravazzoli was a national executive of the Communist Party of Italy. In 1930, he was expelled due to his opposition to the methods of implementation of the “turn” carried out by the party direction; then, he was (together with Alfonso Leonetti, Pietro Tresso, Mario Bavassano, and Gaetana Teresa Recchia) one of the founders and leaders of the New Italian Opposition, section of the International Left Opposition led by Leon D. Trotsky. However, his militancy inside the Trotskyist movement ended in 1934 because of disagreements with the political line carried out by the Italian and International Trotskyist movement. Simultaneously, he began to move closer to the Giustizia e Libertà ("Justice and liberty") movement and especially to the Italian Socialist Party – section of the Labour and Socialist International (Psi-Ios), which he joined in 1935. He became a regular collaborator of the party newspaper, Il Nuovo Avanti, until his death, which happened in 1940 due to a work accident. This article aims to describe his relations with the Psi-Ios thanks to archival documentation and the articles published by him in the Italian Trotskyist and Socialist press.