Angelica Balabanoff

Angelica Balabanoff Russian: Анжелика Балабанова
Angelica Balabanoff, 1917
Born	August 4, 1878 Chernihiv, Ukraine
Died	November 25, 1965(1965-11-25) (aged 87) Rome, Italy
Other names	Angelica Balabanov, Angelica Balabanova, Anželika Balabanova
Occupation	Italian politician, activist, secretary of the Comintern

Angelica Balabanoff (or Balabanov, Balabanova; Russian: Анжелика Балабанова – Anzhelika Balabanova; 4 August 1878 – 25 November 1965) was a Russian-Jewish-Italian communist and social democratic activist. She served as secretary of the Comintern and later became a political party leader in Italy.

Balabanoff was born into a wealthy family in Chernihiv, Russian Empire, where she rebelled against her mother's strictness. While attending the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium, she was exposed to political radicalism. After her graduation with degrees in philosophy and literature, she settled in Rome and began to organize immigrant workers in the textile industry, joining the Partito Socialista Italiano (Italian Socialist Party, which she later became the leader of) in 1900. She became closely associated with Antonio Labriola, Giacinto Menotti Serrati, Benito Mussolini, and Filippo Turati (the founder of the Italian Socialist Party).

She moved further to the left during the First World War, becoming active in the Zimmerwald Movement. During the war, she spent some time in exile in neutral Sweden, where she was affiliated with the Left Socialist movement and became a close friend of the Swedish Communist leaders Ture Nerman, Fredrik Ström, Zeth Höglund and Kata Dalström.