National Liberation Committee

Flag of Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale.

The National Liberation Committee (Italian: Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale - CLN) was the underground political entity of Italian Partisans during the German occupation of Italy in the last years of the Second World War. It was a multi-party entity, whose members were united by their anti-fascism. Among the members were Ferruccio Parri, Sandro Pertini, Luigi Longo, Ivanoe Bonomi, Edgardo Sogno, Giovanni Gronchi, Nicolò Carandini and Enrico Mattei.

It was created by the Italian Communist Party, the Italian Socialist Party, the Partito d'Azione (a republican liberal party), Democrazia Cristiana (the Catholic party) and other minor parties took control of the movement, in accordance with King Victor Emmanuel III's ministers and the Allies.

The partisan formations, which were controlled by CLN, were eventually divided between three main groups, the communist Garibaldi Brigades, Giustizia e Libertà Brigades (related to Partito d'Azione), and socialist Matteotti Brigades. Smaller groups included Catholic sympathizers and monarchists (like the Green Flames, Di Dio and Mauri), and some anarchist formations.

The Committee was allowed by the United States to take the control of the local administrations of Central and Northern Italy as they were freed from the Nazis, and it formed the governments of Italy from the liberation of Rome in 1944 until the proclamation of the Republic in 1946.