COMITATI DI LIBERAZIONE NAZIONALE

National Liberation Committees

   On 9 September 1943, representatives of the major antifascist parties formed a clandestine Committee of National Liberation in Rome. Regional and local committees were formed subsequently; in northern Italy, a separate committee, the CLN-Alta Italia, operating secretly in Milan, was formed. The Partito d’Azione/Action Party (PdA), the Democrazia Cristiana/Christian Democracy (DC), the Partito Liberale Italiano/ Italian Liberal Party (PLI), the followers of Ivanoe Bonomi, and the two Marxist parties, the Partito Socialista Italiano/Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the Partito Comunista Italiano/Italian Communist Party (PCI), despite their strong ideological disputes, agreed to make national liberation their primary objective.The PCI emphasized this priority. When Palmiro Togliatti returned from the USSR (in spring 1944), he insisted—in the svolta di Salerno (the Salerno about-turn)—on postponing political questions until after the war. In the meantime, his party was ready to cooperate with and even take part in a transitional government under Pietro Badoglio. Defeating the forces of Germany and their Fascist allies was what mattered most.

   In June 1944, the king, without abdicating, turned over his powers to Crown Prince Humbert, styling him Lieutenant-General of the Realm. Badoglio resigned, and Ivanoe Bonomi formed a provisional government of all six CLN parties in liberated Rome. The CLN and the CLN-AI continued with the task of organizing and authorizing partisan activity against the Germans and Benito Mussolini’s followers.

   See also Resistance.