Luis Alberto Corval�n Lepe was a Chilean politician. He served as the general secretary of the Communist Party of Chile. Corval�n joined the Communist Party of Chile at the age of fifteen in the city of Chill�n shortly after the fall of the repressive dictatorship of Carlos Ib��ez del Campo in 1932. Trained as a teacher, after 1952 he became an elected member of the PCCh's Central Committee, and after 1958 served as the Secretary-General. The party was outlawed from 1948 until 1958. In this period Corval�n was interned in the concentration camps of Pitrufqu�n and later in Pisagua. On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet led a military Coup and Corval�n was among the many arrested. After the murder of V�ctor Jara, he was the most prominent political prisoner in Chile. While in prison, Luis Corval�n was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. The Soviet Union launched an international campaign for his release and on December 18, 1976 Corval�n was exchanged for a notable Soviet political prisoner, dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, and received asylum in the USSR. 

September 14th, 1916 in Puerto Montt  /  Died:   Jul 21st, 2010