Giorgio Amendola

Giorgio Amendola (21 November 1907 – 5 June 1980) was an Italian writer and politician.^[1] He is regarded and often cited as one of the main precursors of the Olive Tree.^[2] Born in Rome in 1907, Amendola was the son of Lithuanian intellectual Eva Kühn [it] and Giovanni Amendola, a liberal anti-fascist who died in 1926 in Cannes after having been attacked by killers hired by Benito Mussolini. He secretly joined the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1929. After graduating in law, he started to propagandize opposition to the Mussolini regime.

Giorgio Amendola
Amendola in 1972
Member of the European Parliament
In office 17 July 1979 – 5 June 1980
Constituency	Southern Italy
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office 8 May 1948 – 5 June 1980
Constituency	Naples
Member of the Constituent Assembly
In office 25 June 1946 – 31 January 1948
Constituency	Naples
Personal details
Born	(1907-11-21)21 November 1907 Rome, Italy
Died	5 June 1980(1980-06-05) (aged 72) Rome, Italy
Political party	PCI
Spouse	Germaine Lecocq ​ (m. 1934)​
Relatives	Giovanni Amendola (father) Eva Kühn [it] (mother)
Occupation	Politician, journalist

Arrested and brought in exile in France, and successively banished to Santo Stefano Island in the Pontine Islands, Amendola was freed in 1943 by the resistance troops, which he then joined. After World War II, he served as a deputy in the Italian Parliament for the PCI from 1948 until his death in 1980. He became known especially in the 1970s as one of the leaders of the party's right-wing, which espoused gradual removal of the ideas of Soviet Communism and Leninism, and supported alliances with the more moderate parties, especially the Italian Socialist Party, a concept later called Eurocommunism. One of his main allies was Giorgio Napolitano, a member of the Chamber of Deputies who became President of Italy (2006–2015) and remained an avowed disciple and follower of Amendola.

From 1967 onwards, Amendola started to work as a writer; his most notable books include Comunismo, antifascismo e Resistenza ("Communism, Anti-Fascism and Resistance", 1967), Lettere a Milano ("Letters to Milan", 1973), Intervista sull'antifascismo^[3] ("Interview on Anti-Fascism", 1976, with Piero Melograni), Una scelta di vita^[4] ("A Choice of Life", 1978), and Un'isola ("An Island", 1980), which is considered to be his best work. Amendola died in Rome, aged 72, after a long illness. His wife Germaine Lecocq, whom he met during his French exile in Paris and who helped him to write his last work, died a few hours after Amendola.