La guerra civile immaginata. Un dilemma dell’Italia repubblicana

The Imagined Civil War. A dilemma of Republican Italy
The author denies that in Italy, in the Republican period, from 1946 to today, there has ever been a situation of civil war. He criticizes that many – albeit in a metaphorical way – use this expression to define the harshness of the political conflicts between communists and anti-communists. He points out that there is a common terrain of respect for the law and republican spirit. It’s true, however, that not a few, on the sides of the extreme right or the extreme left political parties, designed coups d’etat or carried out indiscriminate or targeted terrorist actions, which bloodied and shocked the country. This essay reconstructs their rhetoric: they have portrayed Italy as if it was in a situation of de facto civil war, have imagined a country that was not and in this way they have tried to change the course of its real history.