Brandirali Aldo

I was born in Milan on 31 October 1941.
I went to work in a factory in Milan with 800 workers. I organised the first strike and then the formation of the Internal Committee.
Amidst the resurgence of the trade union movement, I also took up the issue of working conditions, opposing the alienating repetitiveness of tasks in the fragmentation of labour. I left the factory two years later to work for the CGIL. In 1963, I was elected to the national secretariat of the PCI Youth, moved to Rome, and soon faced the problem of the communist ideal being separated from the concrete reality of day-to-day politics focused on gaining power. I went into the army and on my return became an official in the PCI in Milan. I sparked a widespread youth dissent and finally, in 1967, I left the PCI; with other comrades, we went to live together in a commune and founded the Falce-Martello group. In 1968, after various meetings with other groups, we chose to align ourselves with the Chinese Cultural Revolution and founded the Union of Italian Communists (Marxist-Leninists). For seven years we published the weekly ‘Servire il popolo’. Our main activity was supporting the poorest sections of our people, through nurseries, canteens and aid to farmers in the south.
At the end of 1975, I brought about the dissolution of the movement because an extremist form of realism, with a tendency towards violence, was gaining the upper hand. I went through a very difficult period due to accusations of betrayal from my own comrades. I was engaged in a critical examination of Marxist theory, and I was faced with the problem of taking into account the fragility of the human person and, consequently, of finding the real link in people’s activities. In October 1982, together with a few comrades who had remained, we met Don Giussani; for me, this was an event that changed my life. I gradually transformed my worldview and came to recognise the centrality of Christ, the subject of human history.
I only returned to politics in 1992, when I was elected to the Milan City Council. And I continued to change political affiliations: initially the Christian Democrats, then the People’s Party, then the United Christian Democratic Centre, then Forza Italia, then the People of Freedom. In the meantime, I served as Councillor for Sport and Youth, before finally leaving politics in 2011. I opened a school of politics and thus work towards rebuilding politics, which has been devastated by the prevalence of the logic of power.

TODAY
I work as an educator in care communities for people in need, and I am politically active as a witness to the Christian experience in all fields, including politics.