Vittorio Vidali

The official position of the present Cuban government is that Mella was killed on Machado's orders. It acknowledges that Modotti was known to have been a Stalinist operative in a number of countries. Some in Cuba continue to believe that Vidali killed Mella. How Machado's men could have operated alone and independently in the highly politicized environment of Mexico City is not explained. According to Abers (2002), both Magriñat and Rivera (who had just returned from Cuba) would have warned Mella that he was in danger.

According to Tennant, Vidali's interest in Modotti was related to his killing her current lover, Mella. Mella was among the founders of the Comintern version of the Communist Party of Cuba (Tennant, 1999). Mella had fled Cuba for Mexico in Gerardo Machado’s time, where he joined and then left the Mexican Communist Party.

Vittorio Vidali returned to Trieste in 1947 after World War II, when the Free Territory of Trieste was established. He soon became one of the most powerful members of the Communist Party there. In 1948, after the Tito–Stalin split, Vidali became the leader of the party, and conducted a thorough purge of alleged Tito in Trieste's Communist organizations. He also worked to reduce the influence of the Yugoslavian Party on the Communist Party of the Free Territory of Trieste. He strengthened connections with Pro-Soviet Italian Communists. During this period, he also clashed with the local Slovene minority that had been influential among Trieste's Communist before his arrival. After 1954, when Trieste became part of Italy again, Vidali was elected to and served as Communist Member of the Italian Parliament from the area.

Vidali returned to Mexico. He was identified as involved in the May 24, 1940 attack on Leon Trotsky's residence in Mexico City, a failed assassination attempt. Iosif Grigulevich, a Soviet NKVD operative, and Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros were also involved in the assault. Vidali is also thought to have been closely involved with the successful infiltration of fellow NKVD operative Ramón Mercader into Trotsky's inner circle. This resulted in Mercader's murder of Trotsky later that year.

Because he had performed military training in the Soviet Frunze Academy, Vidali, and other comrades such as Enrique Líster, are credited with markedly improving the preparation of the militias. As a senior advisor for the Comintern in Spain, Vidali headed the 5th Regiment (Quinto Regimiento). It was responsible for the political formation of MAOC's regiments. In the 1937 pro-Republican propaganda film The Spanish Earth, Vidali was shown addressing an assembly of military personnel.

Vidali was ordered to go to Spain, where he arrived in May 1936 under the pseudonym of Carlos Contreras. He led efforts to prepare, supervise and coordinate the Antifascist Worker and Peasant Militias (MAOC), organized by the Spanish Communist Party since 1934. This was before the Spanish Civil War broke out.

Officially, José Agustín López (said to have no particular political affiliations) was charged with Mella's murder; two other known criminals, Jose Magriñat and Antonio Sanabria, were also suspects. Police investigators received conflicting eyewitness reports, which are notoriously unreliable. In one version, Mella and Modotti were walking alone, whereas another said that Vidali was walking together with the two. Mella was shot at point-blank range, and neither Modotti nor Vidali were injured. Modotti gave a false name to the investigators, and, although police were suspicious of her alibi, she was released soon after being arrested. Magriñat was also set free: he was ultimately killed in Cuba (allegedly by communists) in 1933

In early December 1928, Mella was expelled from the Mexican Communist Party for his association with Trotskyists, but he was readmitted two weeks later. Mella was killed by gunshot in Mexico City on January 10, 1929, an incident believed to be a political assassination. Modotti was by Mella's side as he was shot. She was seen holding his arm, allegedly in a manner similar to her portrayal in Rivera's mural.

In 1922, he was expelled from the country after Benito Mussolini ascended to power with the Fascist movement. Vidali was described as a Bolshevik in the file kept on him by the police in Fascist Italy.

Vidali is believed to have used the revolver he commonly carried to murder Mella. Modotti was known to keep an M1911 pistol in her house.

Vittorio Vidali (27 September 1900 – 9 November 1983), also known as Vittorio Vidale, Enea Sormenti, Jacobo Hurwitz Zender, Carlos Contreras, and "Comandante Carlos", was an Italian communist. After being expelled from Italy with the rise of Fascist Benito Mussolini, he went to Moscow, where he became an operative for the Soviet Comintern. He was sent to Mexico, where he was implicated in at least two assassination attempts – of Cuban communist Julio Mella and Russian Leon Trotsky, there in exile. Later Vidali was active in other locations, finally leading the new communist part in the Free Territory of Trieste beginning in 1947 after World War II. He later represented the community in Parliament after it was annexed by Italy.