A coded message via radio gave the green light on 2 April 1944 to what would be called the Salerno Turning Point on the institutional question. «Madrid recommends a participatory turn. Take this into account when you agree with Pietro. Signed Gegè”. Madrid is Palmiro Togliatti, Pietro is Pietro Nenni and Gegè is Eugenio Reale, or the leading group of the Italian Communist Party. It is a decisive change of direction with respect to the key points drawn up by Togliatti in deference to Georgi Dimitrev, former general secretary of the Comintern dissolved by Stalin with one of his diabolical rounds of political waltzes: the abdication of Vittorio Emanuele III, as responsible for the birth of the fascist regime and its crimes, and the temporary regency of Marshal Pietro Badoglio, but with the refusal of the communists to participate in the current government, reserving only to enter the new one hopefully with Carlo Sforza as prime minister. These points were set on March 1st, when Stalin was already ready to shuffle the cards and displace the Anglo-American Allies by being the first to recognize the Italian government. Togliatti was convinced that the American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in favor of maintaining the old King, and that the arrival of the Americans in Rome, after the landing at Anzio, would have reshuffled the situation in favor of the Savoys.
Change of perspective
The attitude of the Allies on the institutional question had already emerged on 28 January in Bari on the occasion of the Congress of anti-fascist parties convened in a semi-official form because the Anglo-Americans did not intend to recognize them as representing the Italian people, much less the chrism on the abdication of the king and the convening of a constituent assembly, as required. The British were optimistic about dynastic continuity, the Americans much less so. Stalin, on the other hand, needs the communists to “weigh” in the composition of the new government and therefore hastened to recognize that of Badoglio by bringing a bill of exchange for the PCI in a geopolitical key to reorganizing the Balkans. On the night between 3 and 4 March he summons Togliatti and tells him that he must go to Italy, to Salerno where the government is based, to make agreements with Badoglio and Vittorio Emanuele. On the 4th the Kremlin warns of its willingness to recognize the Italian government and when the news filters through, it becomes a problem for the British in the management of Italian affairs, because it strengthens the powers at the top and weakens those of the permanent executive council elected by the CLN congress in Bari .
Surprise recognition and Togliatti’s action
On March 14th the recognition was a done deal, Comrade Ercole Ercoli, alias Togliatti, left for Naples and arrived there by sea on the 26th. Harold Mcmillan was right about the change of perspective with respect to the abdication of the King and the end of the experience of Badoglio. On 3 April, with the arrival of Togliatti at the political table, the conflicts between the parties worsened, as did the meeting on the 6th at Benedetto Croce’s house in the presence of Carlo Sforza, when liberals and Christian Democrats were convinced to move to communist positions . On April 15, Togliatti’s line prevailed and in fact the role of the Executive Council was emptied. On 22 April the King appoints the ministers of the second Badoglio government, the first with the six anti-fascist parties of the CLN. Ministers without portfolio are Togliatti (PCI), Croce (Liberal Party), Sforza (independent), Pietro Mancini (PSIUP) and Giulio Rodinò di Miglione (DC); Interior goes to Salvatore Aldisio (DC), Justice is assigned to Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz (PLI), Finance to Quinto Quintieri (PLI), Agriculture to Fausto Gullo (PCI), Industry and Commerce to Attilio Di Napoli (PSIUP), Public Works to Alberto Tarchiani (Action Party), National Education to Adolfo Amodeo (Pd’A) and Communications to Francesco Cerabona (PDL); the rest of the departments fall to Badoglio and the military. They all swear in Ravello, in the hands of Vittorio Emanuele, who formally retired a few days ago to private life. Togliatti, meanwhile, immediately surrounded himself with the most diehard anti-monarchists, proving that the Salerno Turning Point is a tactical peace of compromise but with clear utilitarian party intentions according to Moscow’s directives.
The liberation of Rome and the end of the Savoy
That government will remain in office for just 55 days, and will fall on 6 June as soon as the express resolution clause which is represented by the entry of the Allies into Rome comes true. They will be the ones who deny Vittorio Emanuele from setting foot again in the capital he abandoned on 9 September 1943 with the escape of Pescara, and also the co-belligerent Italian troops from being the first to enter the Eternal City, allowing them only to keep guard at the Quirinale. The King will remain clinging to a throne that is no longer his and that no one intends to recognize, shielding himself with the trick of the Lieutenancy to his son Umberto, on 12 April 1944, and withdrawing from the scene without relinquishing the role. He will abdicate only on May 9, 1946, in Naples, with a notarial deed on stamp paper, like any bourgeois. That is the last month of the monarchy in Italy. On 2 June the institutional question raised by the anti-fascist parties in Bari was resolved with the referendum which saw the Republic prevail over the monarchy with a margin of around 2 million votes and a aftermath of virulent legal and political controversies. Umberto II will leave for exile in Cascais, Portugal on June 13th.