Crisanto Abaño Evangelista (November 1, 1888 – June 2, 1942) was a Filipinocommunist politician and labor leader of the first half of the 20th century. He is credited as being one of the founders of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas. Evangelista was also an influential head of the Congreso Obrero de Filipinas, at the time the foremost and largest trade federation in the Philippines, having served as secretary for multiple years. He also headed the Union de Impresores de Filipinas as its Secretary-General. Prior to forming the PKP, Evangelista was a member of the Partido Obrero de Filipinas, a Filipino workers' party with increasingly radical leanings. Evangelista was eventually captured by the Japanese during the Second World War and executed.
After defecting from the Nacionalista Party with its left wing allies, he became one of the founders and early leaders of the increasingly MarxistPartido Obrero de Filipinas, which became the Progressive Workers Party. Around it, he formed a new trade union federation, one that was more radical in its goals.
Evangelista was one of five members of the inaugural executive committee of the Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat, established in 1927 as a Pacific regional subdivision of the Red International of Labor Unions (RILU, commonly known as the Profintern).[2] He was instrumental in affiliating the Philippine labor federation, the Congreso Obrero de Filipinas (COF) with that organization on June 30 of that same year.[3]
^William Lawrence, "Australia and the Comintern — An Incident," Australian Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 3 (Sept. 1951), pg. 72.
^E.H. Carr, A History of Soviet Russia, Volume 14: Foundations of a Planned Economy: Volume 3, Part 3. London: Macmillan, 1978; pg. 1040.
^Karnow, Stanley (1989). "Crisanto Evangelist". In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines. Random House. ISBN978-0394549750., Note: Karnow misspelled the first name as "Cristano", page 444.
^L. Taruc, He Who Rides the Tiger. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1967; pg. 61.
