1944 (13 November): General Alexander of the Allies issues a radio message to the partisans declaring the summer offensive over and ordering them to return home for the winter of 1944–45. Luigi Longo of the PCI, speaking on behalf of the Corp Volontari della Libertà, responds that the partisans will remain at their posts in the mountains and will continue to fight.
1944 (6 December): Mussolini returns to Milan for his last public speech, while a German offensive in France briefly raises Fascist hopes. But the Allies regroup and advance, and a final battle for Milan begins.
1945 (21 February): Mussolini dismisses Guido Buffarini Guidi, a diehard fanatical Fascist, as minister of the interior in the RSI: a cynical attempt to mitigate the worst aspects of Fascism in order to attract moderate and conservative political elements.
1945 (22 March): RSI announces the immediate socialisation of all industry and companies. Fiat workers respond by forming the factory councils. Germans begin first desperate negotiations for surrender with Allies.
1945 (18 April): Mussolini leaves Gargnano and establishes final outpost in Milan.
1945 (21 April): The German line is broken; city of Bologna liberated.
1945 (25 April): CVL issues orders for general uprising; partisan formations enter Italy’s largest cities. In Milan, Mussolini has a last meeting with representatives of the CLN, who demand unconditional surrender. Mussolini departs Milan that evening towards Swiss border.
1945 (28 April): Mussolini and mistress Clara Petacci are arrested near Lake Como and are executed along with RSI functionaries. The corpses are taken to a petrol station in Piazzale Loreto in Milan, where they are displayed to the crowds. CLNAI assumes provisional power.
1945 (19 June): Ferruccio Parri of the Action Party named prime minister.
1945 (24 November): Parri government falls.
1946 (2 June): First political elections: in the referendum between monarchy and republic the latter wins, and a Constituent Assembly is elected to draft a new Constitution.
1948 (1 January): The new Constitution takes effect.
Adapted from Giorgio Bocca, Storia popolare della Resistenza, Bari: Laterza, 1978, p. 115, and Stanislao G. Pugliese, Fascism, Anti-Fascism and the Resistance in Italy, Lanham, MD; Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, p. xvii–xviii.
List of Abbreviations
AMG
Allied Military Government
CIL
Corpo italiano di liberazione (Italian Corps of Liberation)
CLN
Comitato di liberazione nazionale (Committee of National Liberation)
CLNAI
Comitato di liberazione nazionale Alta Italia (Committee of National Liberation Northern Italy)
CMRP
Comando militare regionale piemontese (Regional Piedmontese Military Command)
CTLN
Comitato toscano di liberazione nazionale (Tuscan Committee of National Liberation)
CUMER
Comando unico militare Emilia-Romagna (Single Military Command for Emilia-Romagna)
CVL
Corpo volontari di libertà (Volunteer Corps for Freedom)
DC
Democrazia cristiana (Christian Democracy)
FFI
Forces françaises de l’Intérieur (French Forces of the Interior)
FTPF
Franc-tireurs partisans français (French Partisan Sharpshooters)
GAG
Gruppi d’azione giovanile (Youth Action Groups)
GAP
Gruppi d’azione patriottica (Patriotic Action Groups)
GL
Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Liberty)
GNR
Guardia nazionale repubblicana (National Republican Guard)
MUP
Movimento di unità proletaria (Movement of Proletarian Unity)
MVSN
Militia volontaria per la sicurezza nazionale (Voluntary Militia for National Security)
ONARMO
Opera nazionale assistenza religiosa e morale agli operai (National Organisation for Religious and Moral Assistance for Workers)
OSCAR
Organizzazione del soccorso cattolico agli antifascisti ricercati (Catholic Relief Organisation for Persecuted Antifascists)
OSS
Office of Strategic Services
PCI
Partito comunista italiano (Halian Communist Party)
PdA
Partito d’azione (Action Party)
PFR
Partito fascista repubblicano (Fascist Republican Party)
PIL
Partito italiano del lavoro (Italian Labor Party)
PLI
Partito liberale italiano (Italian Liberal Party)
PNF
Partito nazionale fascista (National Fascist Party)
PRI
Partito repubblicano italiano (Italian Republican Party)
PSI
Partito socialista italiano (Italian Socialist Party)
PSIUP
Partito socialista italiano di unità proletaria (Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity)
RAU
Reparto arditi ufficiali (Department of Arditi Officers)
RSI
Repubblica sociale italiana (Italian Social Republic)
SAP
Squadre d’azione patriottica (Patriotic Action Squads)
SIM
Servizio informazioni militari (Military Intelligence Service)
SOE
Special Operations Executive
Glossary
Arditi/arditismo (lit.: ‘the daring ones’): Italian shock troops during the First World War, many were later followers of D’Annunzio and Mussolini.
Attesismo/attesistico: the stance of waiting to see which way the wind was blowing before deciding on a course of action.
Autonomi: ‘autonomous’ brigades, often politically tied to the Christian Democrats.
Avanti!: daily newspaper of the Italian Socialist Party.
Aventino (from the hill in Rome where the plebei withdrew against the patrizi in the third to fifth centuries BC, the first time with Menenio Agrippa): summer 1924 secession of Parliament in protest over the assassination of the Socialist Deputy Giacomo Matteotti.
Azionismo: The political philosophy of the Action Party; left-wing but non-Marxist.
Badogliani-comunisti: term of contempt used by the Germans when referring to the partisans, conveniently grouping together disparate political elements. The Nazis and Fascists also referred to the partisans as ‘terroristi’.
Baffone/Barbisun (lit.: ‘big moustache’ or ‘big whiskers’): colloquial name for Stalin.
biennio rosso: two red years of 1919–20 of intense political agitation in Italy in aftermath of the First World War.
Bordighista: follower of Amadeo Bordiga, a founder of the PCI.
Camicie nere (also ‘squadristi’, lit.: ‘black shirts’): Mussolini’s followers, often perpetrators of arson, physical assaults and assassination of political opponents.
Caporetto: First World War battle of October–November 1917; Italy’s worst military defeat, when the very nation appeared on the brink of surrender; instead, Italy rallied on to victory with the Vittorio Veneto offensive of October–November 1918.
CLN/CLNAI (Committee of National Liberation/Committee of National Liberation for Northern Italy): the political arm of the armed Resistance. Formally convened in September 1943 and comprising five parties: Liberal, Christian Democrat, Socialist, Communist and Action.
confino: the practice of internal or domestic exile, often to one of the penal islands such as Ustica or Lipari, or a remote village in the Mezzogiorno.
Democrazia Cristiana (DC, Christian Democracy): Catholic Political Party founded in 1943 by Alcide De Gasperi as heir to the Partito Popolare Haliano (PPI) of Don Luigi Stunzo, founded 1919. With the fall of the Parri government, De Gasperi became prime minister in December 1945.
Fasci di combattimento: the first groups of fascists organised on
23 March 1919 in Milan’s Piazza San Sepolcro.
Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino): the automobile factory works in Turin owned by the Agnelli family; site of the largest communist workers’ organisation and strikes against the regime in 1943–45.
federale: provincial Fascist party secretary.
Fosse Ardeatine: cave outside Rome where, on 24 March 1944, Nazis executed 335 men and boys in retaliation for a partisan attack.
fuorusciti: anti-fascist political exiles, ranging from monarchists and Liberals to Socialists, Communists and members of Justice and Liberty/Action Party.
Gappista (GAP, Gruppi di Azione Patriottica): armed anti-fascist communists engaged in guerrilla actions against Fascists and Nazis; often termed ‘bandits’ or ‘outlaws’ by the Fascist and Nazi authorities.
Garibaldino: Member of the Garibaldi (Communist) anti-Fascist partisan brigades.
gerarca/gerarchi (lit.: ‘hierarchs’): high-ranking leaders of the Partito Nazionale Fascista.
GL: Giustizia e Libertà (Justice and Liberty), movement founded in 1929 by Carlo Rosselli, whose followers were often referred to as giellisti from the first letters of the name. Rejected Marxism and espoused liberal socialism.
Gruppo di Riconstruzione Liberale (Liberal Reconstruction Group): founded late 1942 by Liberals, liberal Catholics and some reform socialists.
Italia Libera: daily newspaper of the Action Party.
L’Unità: daily newspaper of the Italian Communist Party.
manganello (lit.: ‘little club’): a favourite weapon of the fascist squadristi and camicie nere in their street fights against political opponents.
Matteotti, Giacomo: reform socialist deputy assassinated June 1924; anti-Fascist Matteotti Brigades named in his memory.
Il Messaggero: daily newspaper of Rome.
Movimento d’ Unità Proletaria (MUP, Movement of Proletarian Unity): founded 10 January 1943 in an attempt to renew traditional Italian socialism. Strong in the regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, and Lazio.
MSI (Movimento Sociale Italiano): a neo-fascist party formed in December 1946 by former Fascist officials of the RSI.
‘Mutilated Victory’: rhetorical and political myth that Italy’s ‘victory’ in WWI was “mutilated” by Woodrow Wilson, the Entente and the Treaty of Versailles, denying Italy of her just rewards and spurring the formation of Fascism.
MVSN (Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale): Voluntary Militia for National Security, formed 1 February 1923 in an attempt to bring the squadristi under the control of the new fascist state.
naja: military service in vernacular.
Ordinovisti: members of the Ordine Nuovo journal and movement in Turin, followers of Antonio Gramsci’s wing of the PCI.
OVRA (Opera Vigilianza per la Repressione Antifascista): special police organisation established in 1927 to discover and imprison anti-Fascists.
paracadutisti: paratroopers.
Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist Party): founded in Livorno in January 1921 after split from PSI; first as PCDd’I then PCI (1943), by Antonio Gramsci, Armadeo Bordiga, Palmiro Togliatti, Iognazio Silone and others. Outlawed by fascist regime in 1926, led the armed Resistance and emerged from war as the largest communist party in Western Europe.
Partito d’Azione (PdA, Action Party): founded July 1942 by the political heirs of Carlo and Nello Rosselli, founders of Giustizia e Libertà, assassinated June 1937, based on liberal socialism and rejecting Marxist determinism. Largest and most influential political movement in the Resistance after the PCI.
Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI, Italian Socialist Party): founded in Genoa in 1892, externally split between its reformist and revolutionary factions, still played a major role in the Resistance.
passo romano (lit.: ‘Roman step’): introduced into the Italian military after the Rome–Berlin Axis and similar to the Nazi goose-step.
podestà: local fascist government official who usurped the powers and responsibilities of the more traditional (and autonomous) sindaco (mayor), consiglio comunale (communal council) and giunta comunale.
quadri (mil): cadres.
quadrumviri: four fascists appointed by Mussolini to direct the ‘March on Rome’: Emilio De Bono, Cesare Maria De Vecchi di Val Cismon, Italo Balbo, and Michele Bianchi; later members of the Fascist Grand Council.
questore: police commissioner.
ras (word of Ethiopic origin): local paramilitary fascist officials; often responsible for ‘punitive expeditions’ against anti-fascists, especially in the countryside.
Regina Coeli (lit.: ‘Queen of Heaven’): notorious prison in Rome.
repubblichino: derogatory term for a follower of the RSI.
resistenti: ‘resisters’; used here often in place of partigiani.
Risorgimento: the movement for national unification in nineteenth-century Italy.
Il Risorgimento Liberale: daily newspaper of the Liberal Party (1943–48).
Romanità (lit.: ‘Roman-ness’): the cultural policy in Fascist Italy of portraying contemporary Fascist Italy as the heir to ancient Rome; classicism corrupted for the Fascist political programme.
RSI (Repubblica Sociale Italiana): the Italian Social Republic (September 1943– April 1945) established with Hitler’s assistance after 8 September. Controversy still rages over whether the RSI was a legitimate form of government, worthy of the loyalty of patriotic Italians, or a puppet regime controlled by a foreign power (the Nazis). Also known as the Salò Republic.
squadristi/squadrismo: see camicie nere.
svolta di Salerno: Palmiro Togliatti’s (leader of the PCI) abrupt reversal of longstanding Communist Party platform urging revolution. Instead, in April 1944, Togliatti returned to Naples from Moscow and announced a new policy: the PCI would work with other parties to expel the Germans from Italy, defeat the Fascists and put off questions and debate regarding fundamental institutional reforms.
trinceristi/trincerismo (lit.: ‘those from the trenches’): veterans of the First World War who found it difficult to return to civilian life and who were often attracted to the military ethos and lifestyle of Fascism.
uomo qualunque/qualunquista: ‘everyman’ movement (1944) and subsequent political party (1946) with Fascist echoes and post-Fascist character.
ventennio (lit.: ‘twenty years’): the two decades of Fascist rule.
via Rasella: site of a communist partisan attack against German military unit which killed thirty-three soldiers; in retaliation, Hitler ordered ten Italians shot for each German. See also Fosse Ardeatine.
via Tasso: headquarters of the Nazi Gestapo and SS in Rome; notorious for the torture and executions of soldiers, anti-Fascists, and civilians that took place there.
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