Gastone Sozzi Centuria
The Gastone Sozzi Centuria was a Communist unit raised in Barcelona by Italian and Catalan volunteers who, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, went to the defence of Madrid, besieged by the Rebel Army. The name of the unit was in honour to Italian communist Gastone Sozzi, assassinated in 1928 by camicie nere, of Fascist orientation.History
After the Spanish coup of July 1936, which was seen by many anti-Fascist unions as a Fascist uprising against the democratically elected Republic, a series of Italian anti-Fascists departed to Barcelona from Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Grenoble and Saint-Etienne. On September 2, around eighty Italian volunteers arrived to the Carlos Marx Barracks in the city, including at least two elements of different nationalities and some athletes that had come to Barcelona to participate in the People's Olympiad. On September 3, the column was officially established. Three groups of Italian volunteers had been created in Barcelona. The first, very small, left with the first columns of Catalan volunteers to the front. The other two gave rise to the Giustizia e Libertà Centuria -of Anarchist orientation, although directed by the Socialist Carlo Rosselli- and the Gastone Sozzi Centuria, with Gotardo Rinaldi as commander and Captain Francesco Leone as political commissar.
The Catalan authorities had planned the unit to go to the Aragon Front, but it was integrated into the PSUC Liberty Column as the 22th Centuria of the unit. The centuria arrived in Madrid on September 8, and quickly collaborated with the Fifth Regiment in the defence of the city. On September 13, it was already fighting in the 1300 Hill, in Cenicientos, in the Extremadura Road. The centuria was framed as the 3nd Company of the Garibaldi Battalion on October 10. Between October 16 and 18, the men of the centuria fought in Chapinería, before being sent to the base at Albacete. It was then attached, with mainly Italian volunteers, to the XI on October 22, and later the XII International Brigade.
