Cesare Fuochi

Cesare Fuochi (d. 2003), Italian anarchist, syndicalist railway worker and anti-fascist partisan, born.

orn into a libertarian family of Imola, Cesare Fuochi, after attending elementary school, had begun working as a boy at the hairdressing shop of Decimo Sarti, the anarchist of Imola who was most often beaten by the fascist nervis. Fuochi attacked the destruction of the shop by the fascists three times. In 1935, together with other young anti-fascists, he organized a traveling bookstore to distribute books with social content.

In 1936, along with other young anarchists, including Andrea Gaddoni, he began to date Primo Bassi, who had just been released from a long prison sentence for killing a fascist. Mourning his ideals, during the Spanish War, he would listen in the evening to Radio Barcelona in a bar run by anarchist Ireneo Sassi.

During the Second World War he was mobilized as a nurse until his demobilization in September 1943 during the fall of the regime. He then returned to Imola where with his father and brother Emilio who was a communist supporter, he attended numerous clandestine meetings and where, with Diolaiti, Bazzochi and Zavattero, in particular, participated in the reorganization of the libertarian movement. In early 1944, he joined the partisans in the IV brigade "Garibaldi" where he was appointed vice-commissioner and participated in many actions against the Germans. Meanwhile it was at his home in Imola that the communist bulletin La Comune was roneotized.

In 1945 with other supporters of the region he was enlisted in the Cremona unit of the Italian army, from which he soon deserted to return to Imola. Arrested for desertion and sentenced to 18 months in prison, he was imprisoned only about twenty days, following the intervention of Gualandi one of the spricipal leaders of the partisans in Romagna. He was then one of the founders of the group “Malatesta” of the Italian Anarchist Federation (FAI) and would participate in all the group’s activities and in particular in the struggles against the Stalinists. Thanks to his job as a railway worker that allowed him to travel he maintained contact with many companions and participated in most of the IAF congresses.

In 1965 during the split of the IAF and the creation of the Grupi d’iniziativa anarchic (GIA), he was one of those who with Spartaco Borghi, Cesare Gaddoni and Primo Bassi chose to stay at the ISP. In the 1970’s, when the anarchist movement gained new momentum, it was a valuable help for Imola’s young companions.
In 1990, he was the head of the IAF's internal Bollettino.

Cesare Fuochi died in Imola on 14 December 2003.