Spinelli was born in Rome, the son of a socialist father, he joined the Communist Party of Italy (PCdI) at an early age to oppose the regime of Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party. Following his entry into radical journalism, he was arrested in 1927 and spent ten years in prison and a further six in confinement. During the war he was interned on the island of Ventotene (in Lazio) along with some eight hundred other political opponents of the regime.See Spinelli, Altiero: Come ho tentato di diventare saggio (1987). This autobiographical work was to be in two parts. The first part, which appeared during Spinelli's life-time under the title Io Ulisse (1984), covers the life of the author until the Liberation (1943). Spinelli's writing on the second part (La goccia e la roccia) was interrupted by his death in 1986. In 1937 he was expelled from the Italian Communist Party for opposing Stalinism, undermining the Bolshevik ideology and supporting Trotskyism.
