Julio Álvarez del Vayo (1890 - February 2, 1970) was the General Secretary and Chairman of the Communist Party of Spain from 1969 until 1970, when he was assassinated by the ELIA in Madrid. A hardline Communist, Álvares del Vayo seized power at the Party Conference in 1969 away from his predecessor Ali Yata, claiming that the country was insufficiently Communist. With the party having become more moderate during the 1960s, there is a conspiracy theory amongst many of his followers to this day that the Party's inner circle had learned of the assassination threat against him and had willingly decided not to act to prevent it. He was entombed at the Cemetery of Revolutionaries outside of Madrid and succeeded by his political rival Santiago Carillo, a pragmatic moderate.