AHC: Italian secession

samcster94

Banned
At any point after WWII, a part of Italy has to secede from the rest of the country. No violence is allowed and the new county has to join the EEC/EU separately. Bonus points if the Lega Nord is not involved in any way.
 
The constitutional referendum of 1946 results in the country splitting in two, with a republican north and monarchist south, might work.

To expand on this, look at the election map of Italy in 1948.

800px-Italian_Election_1948_Province.png

Blue is Christian Democrat and Red is the Popular Democratic Front (leftist).

North Italy would probably go Socialist and drift into either Stalin or Tito's sphere of influence. There's also the possibility of a Soviet coup that would create a one party Soviet satellite state, like what the Soviets did to Czechoslovakia, which would bring the Iron Curtain to the French border.

Trieste under Allied occupation may never rejoin the North Italian state, becoming a capitalist free port wedged between two communist powers, with an extensive NATO/American military presence. The Western allies might also push for South Tyrol rejoining Austria rather than North Italy. If the Soviets don't like this and the Allies do so anyways, it could lead to a collapse of the joint occupation scheme in Austria, resulting in a West Austrian and East Austrian state similar to the case in Germany.
 
There's also the possibility of a Soviet coup that would create a one party Soviet satellite state, like what the Soviets did to Czechoslovakia, which would bring the Iron Curtain to the French border.

How could there be a "Soviet coup" in Italy? In Czechoslovakia, the Communists controlled the Prime Ministership, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defense... A totally different situation from Italy. Moreover, the US had pretty much written off Czechoslovakia. According to John O. Crane and Sylvia Crane, Truman had told Jan Masaryk in 1947 during the latter's last visit to the United States, that in case of a crisis, "Czechoslovakia could not count on more than the moral support of the United States." *Czechoslovakia: Anvil of the Cold War*, p. 310. (The authors seem to be basing this on what Masaryk told them in New York in late 1947.) Assuming this is true, word probably got around to Stalin. Even if it didn't, he could probably surmise this. Again, this was totally different from the situation with Italy, where the US went all-out to prevent a Communist victory in 1948.

Or do you mean that there could have been a Czechoslovak-style coup if the Popular Democratic Front (Communists and Nenni Socialists) had won the 1948 election? But it was not remotely close: 48.51 percent for the Christian Democrats, 30.98 percent for the Popular Democratic Front. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_general_election,_1948

(Even without the massive US aid, the Christian Democrats would still have powerful advantages, like the support of the Church. There was the famous scene in "Divorce Italian Style" where the priest, without of course mentioning any party by name, asks his parishioners to vote for a party that is both *Christian* and *democratic*:
)

In OTL if the Communists attempt an insurrection in the North--and there was some real fear they might do so after the attempted assassination of Togliatti--they will lose, period. Though it could be a very bloody business, as I note at https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/togliatti-assassinated-july-14-1948.298756/
 
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