Gino Perente Archive (original) (raw)

Gino Perente, who also went by the aliases Gino Parenti, Eugenio Perente, Mario Eugenio Perente, Mario Eugenio Perente-Ramos, Geno Savo, and Claude, was born Gerald Doeden in Crookston, Minnesota, USA, on 21 November 1937, and grew up in the area of Yuba City and Marysville in California. He became one of the more secretive and idiosyncratic leaders to claim the revolutionary mantle on the American left in the 1980s and 1990s.

After spending some time in radical circles in and around San Francisco, including leading a short-lived would-be guerilla group, the Liberation Army Guerrilla Organizations (LARGO), "Geno Savo" left California and resurfaced in New York as "Gino Parenti". There, after a brief stint with the United Farm Workers union, he established the Eastern Farm Workers Association (EFWA) in 1972, and also the National Labor Federation (NATLFED), both secretive and closed organizations by all accounts.

Along the way, in 1973, Perente was also involved in founding the Communist Party USA (Provisional); a group self-described as a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist cadre organization with links to Cuba and to the Sandinistas, but which has been described by some former members as a "political cult". NATLFED, the EFWA, the Western Farm Workers Association, and other similar NATFELD groups, are interlinked quasi-underground organizations, all serving as fronts for the Provisional Party. All were led by Perente until his death of a heart attack in 1995.

Among the few organizational texts directly attributed to Perente are The Essential Organizer (1973) a mimeographed handbook for EFWA members, and "The Genesis", which purports to be a true account of the founding of the Provisional Party and was used in recruiting cadres.