Onorato Damen

Onorato Damen (4 December 1893 – 14 October 1979) was an Italian politician, communist revolutionary and internationalist.

He is viewed as one of the most notable representatives of left communism and proletarian internationalism in Europe. He was first active in the Italian Socialist Party, and later joined the Communist Party of Italy following the split. After being expelled in 1929, he worked with the organized Italian left, becoming one of the leaders and founders of the Internationalist Communist Party.

The Internationalist Communist Party, formally founded in 1943, was numerically the largest left communist organization in the post-World War II period. In 1952, Amadeo Bordiga, who had by then fully come out of retirement, split the party to found the International Communist Party. A majority followed Damen, whose group maintained the original name, the original theoretical journal Prometeo, and the paper Battaglia Comunista. Damen remained politically active for the duration of his entire adult life. He authored works such as Bordiga Beyond the Myth and Gramsci: Between Marxism and Idealism.