About 30 years have passed since Claudio Pavone cleared the issue of the Italian civil war in 1943-1945, using for the first time the term civil war instead of the traditional war of liberation or war of resistance, and observing that, in that conflict made in italy , beyond the various political and philosophical interpretations that could be given to the conflict, in the end, it was simply Italians who were fighting against other Italians, re-proposing the dynamics and mechanics of a civil war, without ifs and buts .
This internal conflict in Italy and at the same time inserted in the broader context of the Second World War, brings with it many complications that, for decades, the use of terms such as war of resistance and liberation, had somehow led to keep quiet, diverting attention to a more general dynamic of contrast between good Italians and bad foreigners. And in this paradigm in which the Italians, all Italians, whether they were on the side of the King or of the CSR, fought against foreign powers and resisted the invasion and foreign occupation of Italy, the Italians who were "from other party "," on the wrong side "were simply innocent victims of foreign occupation policies, and this, in the aftermath of the end of the conflict, allowed a more moderate reconciliation of the two sides, thus giving the Italians who had fought for CSR and those who had fought for CLN, to become good friends again, in some cases reuniting families that the war had kept away.
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This precarious balance, however, was based on a dramatic historical misunderstanding, a misunderstanding wanted for political reasons and fueled by a popular wrong perception of history and the historical events that flowed into it, preventing, for decades, from analyzing in a clear and complete way, the dynamics of the conflict that took place in Italy between the summer of 43 and the spring of 45. It is an apparently short and yet extremely long period, in which Italy, and especially the Italians, had to deal with themselves and with its own past, it is a period in which, the war conflict gave way to previous internal conflicts within Italy itself that the country had been carrying with it since its birth, since its unification which took place almost a century earlier and which, despite the great unifying power of the Fascist period, they had never been completely eradicated. In 1943 there was not a single Italy, but not even two or three Italies, in reality there were dozens of different Italies, each with their own reasons and needs, each with their own interests and their own desire to express themselves and expand to the rest of the country. .
There was the Italy of the fascists linked to Mussolini and embodied in CSR, well rooted in the northernmost area of the country, supported and supported by the traditional Italian ally, Germany of the third Reich, alongside which Italy had started the war, then there was traditional Italy, monarchical Italy still loyal to the King, well rooted in the southernmost area of the country, supported and supported by the new Anglo-American allies, after the armistice of September 1943, there was then the Italy of the "indolent", that Italy that simply let things happen, without taking part in the historical events in progress, without choosing whether to stay with the king or the leader, in short, that Italy that did not know which side to stand and banally waited for the end of the conflict to exult in victory, regardless of the fate of the war and who had been the victors. Then there was the Italy of the CLN, which opposed CSR and fought against CSR, claiming the need to create a new Italy far from the King and far from Fascism and in designing a new Italy divided between those who pursued liberal dreams and horizons looking west, looking at America and who was looking the other way, who was looking east, dreaming of Russia and the Soviet Union.
All these realities are only the tip of the Iceberg, and digging deeper we encounter ever greater differences between Italians, in addition to the political conflict described above, we also encounter a social conflict, indeed, we encounter various social conflicts, conflicts that pitted the popular masses against the high bourgeoisie and the aristocracy and in this opposition to the Nazi-Fascist model on one side, the American model on the other side and the Soviet model on the other side, manifested themselves as three possible ways to follow and to pursue, three possible realities for which it was worth fighting and this only as far as it concerns the popular sections of the Italian population, because then even aristocrats and bourgeois had their own interests and fought for their own interests.
There were the aristocrats, large landowners close to both the King and the regime, there were entrepreneurs and the high bourgeoisie especially close to the regime (and not because the whole Italian bourgeoisie was fascist but because, simply, the bourgeoisie alone survived the twenty years was the one close to fascism) , then there were the workers and salaried workers, who were getting closer to the Communist Party, and then there were the peasants, tenants and sharecroppers of the south who, especially in the most remote countryside of the peninsula, actually lived out of time and history, totally immersed in an alien world at the time in which they lived and in which Christ, understood as modernity, to quote Carlo Levi , had never arrived, these are archaic realities immersed in almost feudal dynamics and culturally in a very primitive stage of civilization.
Each of these realities has interests, desires, ambitions to follow, each of these historical, political, social and cultural realities, had objectives to achieve and a way of life to defend, each of these realities had a reason to fight in that civil war and as the case may be, choose your side.
Those who claimed the ideology and values of fascism, those who believed in Mussolini and saw in the Anglo-Americans foreigners who were penetrating and occupying Italy militarily, those who claimed primacy in Italian tradition and culture and claimed a hegemonic role for Italy in the Mediterranean and in the world, it fought against the allies.
Those who claimed the values of tradition, those who believed in the King and saw in the forces of the Reich present in Italy a foreign presence that was militarily occupying the country, those who wanted a social revolution and feared the Nazi-fascist drift, those who wanted the birth of a new free Italy and democratic, fought against CSR.
The Italian civil war of 1943-1945 is therefore configured with a large, enormous cauldron, inside which countless different conflicts have converged, born at different times and for different reasons and exploded in a moment of great ferment and chaos and limit the conflict to only one of its components, war of liberation from the Anglo-Americans or from the Reich, war of resistance to the advance of the Anglo-Americans or the Reich, social war, class war between popular masses and aristocrats, between peasants and landowners, between workers and entrepreneurs, or more generally between servants and masters, between atheists or lay people and Christians, between Italians and foreigners, etc. etc., it would be extremely reductive, and if today we prefer the use of civil war it is because, beyond all the components of the conflict , of all the reasons and all the possible implications and the different interpretations, in the end, to fight on both sides there were simply Italians, and if fighting were two parts of the same people, of the same nation, so there is no key to interpretation, it is simply a civil war.
Sources
C. Pavone, A Civil War, https://amzn.to/2S0Tb19
M.Battini, Sins of memory, https://amzn.to/2CbSV9N
L.Paggi, The People of the Dead, https://amzn.to/2zWiMBm
C. Levi, Christ stopped in Eboli, https://amzn.to/2zSmjAz
E. De Martino, South and magic, https://amzn.to/2BthKgb