Let's have a thread dedicated to individuals we think are p. based but don't get enough attention.
Pic related. American-born son of finnish immigrants, spent his youth in the Bronx, joining communist organizations like the Harlem Proletarians and the Bronx Communist League before he left for Spain to fight in the Civil War when he was only 21.
There, he fought with "irregular" guerrilla units, who were then operating somewhat autonomously and independent of any central command. He took part in sabotage missions and operations behind the enemy lines, including one raid (apparently, the only commando raid in spanish military history) where 30 men freed 300 Republican prisoners. He was eventually promoted to captain, and after becoming sick he returned to the US with the highest commendation of any member of the Lincoln Brigade.
During WW2 he was recruited by the OSS to be parachuted into Nazi-occupied Europe and help the resistance movements there, but after it was revealed that he was a fag the government decided to sent him to a training camp instead. He was, apparently, exposed by some of his Lincoln Brigade buddies, who were also recruited for the operation.
In this camp, where he instructed officer recruits in sabotage and demolition techniques, some moron dropped a grenade and Aalto lost his right hand while trying to throw it, putting an end to his military career.
He then went to Columbia where he studied poetry. During this period he wrote many pieces to the New Masses, the CPUSA magazine that also published authors like Hemingway, Sinclair, Dorothy Parker and John dos Passos. He became friends with some prominent people from the literary milieu of his time like W.H. Auden and Truman Capote, and started dating the poet James Schuyler.
Capote, in one of his letters, talks about their relationship:
And this isn't euphemism. Every record indicates that he got pretty batshit crazy later in life.
After they broke up, Aalto apparently went to live in Rome for a while, but eventually returned to the US where he died in 1958. His literary contributions are not available online, since the digitalized New Masses archive only goes as far as 1933: www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/
TL;DR, dude is pretty much the american (and gay) Guevara.
Anyway, post yours. I'm sure many people here spend as much time as I do reading about the history of left-wing movements and getting to know people that don't get the praise they deserve.
