Guido Picelli was a leading light in the history of twentieth-century Italy and Europe and fought untiringly for the affirmation of social justice and opposed every form of totalitarianism. A theoretician of guerrilla warfare, a precursor of Che Guevara, with his 400 Arditi del Popolo (People’s Squads) he managed to defeat ten thousand fascists during the five-day Battle of Parma. The first supporter in Europe of the idea of the “Popular Front”, the perpetrator of sensational, heroic gestures, he challenged the Fascist regime by flying the red flag on the Italian Parliament building.He managed to avoid lethal Fascist ambushes while attempting to persuade Italy to rise up against Mussolini, but after fleeing to the USSR became an outcast persecuted by the Stalin regime.During the Spanish Civil War, at the head of the Garibaldi Battalion, he won significant victories at the Madrid front. On the 5 January 1937, while he was preparing an attack against Franco’s troops, he was shot dead by a bullet in the shoulder near his heart. His death has always been shrouded in mystery.