Carlos Petroni

1947 - 2025

Carlos Petroni
08/08/1947 - 04/13/2025
Revolutionary. Organizer. Fighter. Mentor.
Carlos Petroni, a lifelong revolutionary socialist, internationalist organizer, and writer, passed away on April 13, 2025 at the age of 77. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he dedicated his entire life to the cause of the working class-not in abstraction, but in the mud, blood, and glory of real struggle.
A leader of the Morenoist current of Latin American Trotskyism and a close collaborator of Nahuel Moreno, Carlos - known also as Leon Perez - helped build and lead workers' movements across Argentina, Central America, and the United States. From the underground PST during Argentina's dictatorship to the battle-scarred terrain of the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran revolutions, he was never far from the front lines. He organized metal workers, printers, meatpackers, and social workers-not from behind a desk, but shoulder to shoulder, risking everything for justice.
In the wake of the 1973 Chilean coup, Carlos was involved in the covert evacuation of leftist militants, union leaders, and activists fleeing Pinochet's regime. He personally helped many cross into Argentina, placing their safety above his own. Decades later, he would recount these stories to high school students-not as distant history, but as lived experience.
Exiled under threat of death by the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A), Carlos survived assassination attempts and emerged as a key witness in the historic trials that later exposed the right-wing death squads as perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
In the United States, he continued his revolutionary activism with undiminished fervor. While living in San Francisco, he co-founded the MDI – Immigrant Rights Movement, the Progressive Left Movement, and initiated the campaign for non-citizen voting rights in school board elections. That fight, won after years of grassroots organizing, secured the most far-reaching law of its kind in the United States-extending the right to vote to all parents, documented or not, in decisions about their children's education.
He also founded SF Frontlines, supported Matt Gonzalez's historic mayoral run, and ran for office himself-not to chase power, but to platform working-class issues. He authored ballot initiatives, including the pioneering Proposition F for African American reparations, which garnered widespread support and attention long before such ideas entered mainstream politics.
Carlos was a founding member or leader of revolutionary parties on three continents, a builder of the International Workers League (LIT-CI), and later a founder of the Left Party in the U.S. He published newspapers, managed campaigns, and trained generations of organizers-many of whom counted him as a friend, a comrade, and a mentor.
He was also a man of relentless humor, quiet stubbornness, deep kindness, and encyclopedic memory. He could quote Lenin, challenge a room full of liberals, recall a forgotten strike in Mar del Plata, and still remember your birthday. He never stopped writing, never stopped organizing, never stopped believing.
Carlos Petroni taught us that socialism is not a dream. It's a duty. And we carry that duty forward.
Hasta la victoria siempre, compañero Carlos.