‘Who Is the Government? We Are the Government!’
Liberation Committees were most frequently local institutions of grassroots counterpower vis-à-vis traditional power brokers wishing to facilitate the smooth return to the status quo ante bellum or ante Mussolini. In factories, large offices, and rural areas characterized by the survival of semi-feudal production relations, the latter still a prominent feature in parts of rural Italy, Liberation Committees constituted prima facie challenges to the reestablishment of the dictatorial powers of proprietors and top-level managers. Nowhere did the competing social visions and political projects clash more thoroughly than in factories, offices, or the circumstances confronting landless labourers vis-à-vis traditional landed elites. Next to no serious attention has been devoted to this contentious feature of the moment of liberation until now. My description and analysis of Liberation Committees at the point of production reinforces the assessment of the moment of liberation as a transnational moment of crisis and opportunity when everything appeared possible.