Mussolini’s fall the PCI and these other differing political groups had begun to organise themselves more actively in Rome and in other major cities. No sooner had Mussolini been deposed than six anti-fascist parties declared themselves. In addition to the Communists, there were the Socialists – once a major force in Italy before the Fascists took power; the Christian Democrats; the Liberals; the Labour Democrats; and the Action Party – a new organisation that took its name from Giuseppe Mazzini’s party during the age of Italian unification. None, not even the Communists, had any great strength and they held little sway during the days before the armistice. Furthermore, they all had quite different agendas. The Communists, Socialists and the Action Party, for example, were all vehemently anti-monarchist as well as anti-fascist, while the other three were far more divided on this issue. The Liberals were even positively right-wing. However, despite these differences, following the flight of Badoglio and King Vittorio Emanuele III on 9 September, delegates of these six parties came together in Rome to form the Committee of National Liberation – Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, or CLN – with the aim of leading the resistance against German occupation and the Neo-Fascists. The president of the CLN was the former Socialist prime minister and now leader of the Labour Democrats, Ivanoe Bonomi.
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Throughout the autumn the CLN helped set up clandestine committees in northern Italy, and in January, the main Rome committee gave the Milan CLN the authority to become the ‘official’ clandestine government of the north and the supreme organ of the resistance movement. With this change, the Milan CLN became the National Committee for the Liberation of Upper Italy – Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale per l’Alta Italia – otherwise known as the CLNAI.
