Teresa Noce

Teresa Noce (29 July 1900 – 22 January 1980),

Following the rise of Mussolini and the Fascists, Noce left the Socialists, becoming a founding member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1921. After the Communist and Socialist parties were outlawed in 1925, she continued organizing workers illegally. During the 1920s, she oversaw the Communist Youth Federation and their periodical La voce della gioventù. She met PCI functionary Luigi Longo, whom she married in 1926. The two emigrated first to Moscow then to Paris. Noce organized a strike of rice workers in the spring of 1934. She then fled to Paris and surfaced as a leading political figure among the Italian exile community. As editor of Il Grido del Popolo, Noce called for improved labor conditions for the working class and for abolition the Special Tribunals used to imprison anti-Fascists. She also led a campaign on behalf of imprisoned PCI leader Antonio Gramsci that resulted in mass demonstrations in Paris.

In 1947, Noce was elected as the general secretary of the Italian Federation of Textile Workers, becoming the first woman to lead a major Italian industrial trade union. She served until 1955, when she became the general secretary of the Trade Union International of Textile and Clothing Workers, and then as president of its successor, the Trade Union International of Textile, Leather and Fur Workers Unions.

In Italy Noce was elected to the Central Committee of the PCI. She was then elected to the Italian Parliament and was appointed general secretary of the textile workers union, where she founded the publication La voce dei tessili. In 1951 she was one of two dissenting votes in the Communist leadership against a proposal made by dictator Joseph Stalin.

Electoral history ElectionHouseConstituencyPartyVotesResult 1946 Constituent Assembly Parma–Modena–Piacenza–Reggio Emilia PCI 47,219 1948 Chamber of Deputies Brescia–Bergamo FDP 34,445 Elected 1953 Chamber of Deputies Brescia–Bergamo PCI 13,877 Elected

Selected publications Nuestros hermanos, los internacionales (1937) Tra gli eroi ed i martiri della liberta (1937) Gioventù senza sole (1938) Teruel martirio e liberazione di un popolo! (1939) Ma domani fara giorno (1952) Rivoluzionaria professional (1974) Vivere in piedi (1978) Estella: Autobiographie einer italienischen Revolutionärin (1981)