The United States, Great Britain, and dismantling Italian fascism, 1943--1948

Despite wartime declarations by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill to rid Europe of fascism, Anglo-American allied attempts to do so in Italy were much less robust than in Nazi Germany or Vichy France. Of more than 10,000 names submitted to the Allied purge commissions by the Italian central government fewer than 600 individuals were actually removed from office. The failure of the Allies to fully dismantle Italian fascism from 1943 to 1948 has not gone unnoticed by historians, who tend to blame weaknesses in the bureaucratic machinery of defascistization.; More significant in explaining the faltering progress of what was known as epurazione (epuration), however, were various aspects of the Anglo-American Allied relationship with Italy. Important differences between British and American cultural attitudes toward Italy, for example, had a crucial impact on joint Allied policy, as did the existence of over five million Italian Americans living in the United States. In addition, the impact of the deteriorating U.S. relationship with the Soviet Union on Allied policy toward Italy was particularly significant.; In specific terms, this study examines the process of defining and identifying the fascists, the relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy, and the tensions between fascism and communism underlying the origins of the Cold War in Europe. In the broadest terms, the research enhances our understanding of how the United States, Great Britain, and Italy approached the resolution of World War II and the dawning of the Cold War.