What was Italy's role during the cold war?

Answer 1

Italy was not a main player within the Cold War. The main events were the Italian branch of Operation Gladio (an anti-communist network established in all NATO member countries) and the Years of Lead (a period of socio-political turmoil from the 1960s to the 1980s).

Answer 2

In the years of the cold war, Italy found herself in a most difficult situation. The South had been liberated and was under Allied Military Government. The Allies had landed in Sicily in July 1943 andhad entered Naples in September. From there they advanced only slowly: the whole of Italy was liberated only in April 1945. Between 1943 and 1945 central and northern Italy were under German occupation, while Mussolini established a small Fascist Republic along the shores of lake Garda. These same parts of Italy experienced a Resistance movement, with the participation of liberal, catholic, democratic, socialist, and communist forces, in which theCommunist partisans' organisations were the largest and best organised group. The Resistance movement was fighting a war of national liberation, to liberate Italy from the Germans, and also a civil war, between fascist and anti-fascist Italians. For many Italians it represented a war to achieve a democratic transformation of their country; they had great aspirations and hopes concerning the Italy that would emerge from the war. The Italian Resistance is generally considered as having played a minor role in Europe compared to what happened in other countries. Indeed the Italian Resistance was downplayed after the war, not least by Italians themselves, for reasons which, I hope, will be made clear in this paper, and failed to become a unifying national myth and symbol. In reality it was quite significant and more important than for example the French Resistance.