Vittorio Foa

Vittorio Foa (18 September 1910, Turin – 20 October 2008, Formia) was an Italian politician, trade unionist, journalist and writer.

Foa was born in Turin in 1910 into a middle-class Jewish family.

In 1931, Foa graduated in Law at the University of Turin and worked in a bank. In 1933, he joined Giustizia e Libertà, an anti-fascist political movement. He was arrested by the OVRA in May 1935 and was condemned to 15 years in prison. He shared his cell with Ernesto Rossi, Massimo Mila and Riccardo Bauer.

Foa was released in August 1943. He joined the resistance movement and entered the Partito d’Azione (Action Party, PdA). As a PdA member, he joined the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale (National Liberation Committee, CLN)

On 2 June 1946, Foa was elected member of the Constituent Assembly and he became a member of the Commission of the Seventy. Foa’s name is linked to articles 39 and 40 of the Constitution dealing with the freedom of trade union organisation.

When the Partito d’Azione dissolved in 1947, Foa joined the Partito Socialista Italiano (Italian Socialist Party, PSI) and was elected an MP in 1953 (and again in 1958 and 1963). In 1957, he joined the left-wing trade union of Giuseppe Di Vittorio, the CGIL, and became an influential and highly charismatic trade union leader.

A leading intellectual of the Italian non-Communist left, Foa supported the theory of the political autonomy of the working class, which would later inspire the foundation of extra-parliamentary leftist groups (PSIUP, PdUP, DP).

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