Ghioldi, Rodolfo (1897–1985)

Rodolfo Ghioldi (b. 21 January 1897; d. 3 July 1985), Argentine political leader, born in Buenos Aires, brother of Américo Ghioldi. In 1918, he helped establish the Internationalist Socialist Party (PSI), which was renamed the Communist Party (PC) in 1920. Ghioldi traveled several times to the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s and was one of only two Latin Americans to sit as an alternate delegate on the Comintern's executive committee. He served as the Argentine party's president in 1930–1931 and, along with Victorio Codovilla, dominated the Argentine Communists for most of their history. Ghioldi was his party's unsuccessful senatorial candidate in 1946 and a presidential candidate in the 1951 elections, but he never held public office.

As with most Argentine communists, he was a strict disciple of the party's often slavishly pro-Soviet line. Ideologically, Ghioldi adhered to orthodox positions on the role of the party and the necessity of passing through historical stages in the movement toward socialism.

See alsoArgentina, Political Parties: Socialist Party; Communism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rollie Poppino, International Communism in Latin America: A History of the Movement, 1917–1963 (1964).

Jorge Abelardo Ramos, Historia del stalinismo en la Argentina (1969).

Sheldon B. Liss, Marxist Thought in Latin America (1984).

Additional Bibliography

Azcoaga, Juan. Rodolfo Ghioldi: Un luchador social. Buenos Aires: Círculo de Legisladores de la Nación Argentina: Secretaría de Cultura de la Presidencia de la Nación, 1999.

Marín, Jaime. Misión secreta en Brasil: El argentino Rodolfo Ghioldi en la insurrección nacional-liberadora de 1935 liderada por Prestes. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Dialectica, 1988.

                                         James P. Brennan