Americas

Home page

Americas

Famous communist Luis CorvalÃ¡n dies

21 July 2010 16:36 (UTC +04:00)

Luis Alberto CorvalÃ¡n Lepe was born in 1916 and joined the Communist Party of Chile at the age of fifteen in the city of ChillÃ¡n shortly after the fall of the repressive dictatorship of Carlos IbÃ¡Ã±ez del Campo in 1932. Trained as a teacher, after 1952 he became an elected member of the PCCh’s Central Committee, and after 1958 served as the Secretary-General. The party was outlawed from 1948 until 1958. In this period CorvalÃ¡n was interned in the concentration camps of PitrufquÃ©n and later in Pisagua. On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet lead a military Coup and CorvalÃ¡n was among the many arrested. The Soviet Union launched an international campaign for his release. December 18, 1976 CorvalÃ¡n was exchanged for a Soviet political prisoner dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, and received asylum in the USSR. In 1983, Corvalan changed his appearance and returned to Chile. After the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1989, CorvalÃ¡n also retired from the Communist Partyâ€™s leadership.