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A constitutional referendum was held in Italy on 2 June 1946,〔Nohlen, D & Stöver, P (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1047 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7〕 a key event of Italian contemporary history. Until 1946, Italy was a kingdom ruled by the House of Savoy, kings of Italy since the Risorgimento and previously rulers of Savoy. However, Benito Mussolini, enjoying the support of the reigning monarch, imposed fascism after the 28 October 1922 March on Rome, eventually engaging Italy in World War II alongside Nazi Germany. In 1946, Italy became a republic after the results of a popular referendum. Monarchists had suspicions of fraud, but were never allowed to prove these. A Constituent Assembly was elected at the same time.〔 ==Background== The Italian referendum was intended only to determine whether the head of state should come from a family dynasty or be elected by popular vote. Democracy was not a new concept in Italian politics. The Kingdom of Piedmont had become a constitutional monarchy with the liberalizing reforms of King Charles Albert's famous Albertine Statute in 1848. Suffrage, initially limited to select citizens, was gradually expanded; in 1911, the government of Giovanni Giolitti introduced universal suffrage for male citizens. In this period, the provisions of the Statute were often not observed, however. Instead, the elected Chamber and the Head of Government took major roles. At the beginning of the 20th century, many observers thought that, by comparison to other countries, Italy was developing in the direction of a modern democracy. Essential issues that needed to be resolved included the relationship of the Kingdom with the Roman Catholic Church. A crisis arose in Italian society as a result of the First World War, social inequalities, and the consequent tension between Marxist and other left-wing parties on one side and conservative liberals on the other. This crisis led to the advent of Fascism, which destroyed freedoms and civil rights and established a dictatorship, breaking the continuity of the still fragile new parliamentary tradition. The support of the ruling elite and especially the monarchy was crucial for the seizure of power by Benito Mussolini. After the March on Rome, King Victor Emmanuel III refused to sign a decree to declare a state of siege, and asked Mussolini to form a new government. The King's decisions were made in accordance with the Statuto, but in opposition to the parliamentary practices of the Italian liberal state, the Fascist Party having a little number of MPs only. After the invasion of Italy by Allied forces in 1943, Italy and its government were split in two. Mussolini's Grand Fascist Council, with the co-operation of the King, overthrew Mussolini and established a new government headed by Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Germany, concerned with the new government's intentions to negotiate peace with the Allies, invaded and occupied Northern Italy. German paratroopers rescued Mussolini from the hilltop hotel (Operation Oak) in which he had been imprisoned by the new government. Under pressure from Adolf Hitler, Mussolini established the Italian Social Republic to administer the German-occupied territory. Mussolini declared that the monarchy had been overthrown, and began to establish the apparatus of the new state. The Italian Social Republic was headquartered in the town of Salò, and is commonly known as the Republic of Salo. Southern Italy, meanwhile, was nominally under the control of the new legitimist government of Badoglio, continuing as the Kingdom of Italy. Rome descended into chaos as fighting erupted between Mussolini loyalists and supporters of the new government, as well as leftist opponents of fascism who emerged from hiding. The King and the Badoglio government left Rome to seek the protection of the Allied forces that occupied the South. With half of Italian territory occupied by the Germans and the rest by the Allies, the restoration of civil rights was abandoned due to the complete disorder in the country. The pre-Fascist-era parties had been disbanded, had only clandestine limited activity and had become out of touch with the population. Consequently, the relationships between these parties, and the balance of power was left to be decided at a later, quieter time. Some political forces organized the Resistance and received a strong popular consensus, but it was impossible to determine what they represented without an election, which could not be held because of the chaotic situation. Almost all the Resistance was anti-monarchist. A temporary alliance between them and the Badoglio government was created by the decision of Joseph Stalin and Palmiro Togliatti, secretary of the Italian Communist Party, to postpone the problem of the state organisation and focus all efforts on the struggle against Hitler's puppet state in the North. At the end of the war, Italy was a severely damaged country, with innumerable victims, a destroyed economy, and a desperate general condition. The defeat left the country deprived of the Empire it had fought for in the past two decades, and occupied by foreign soldiers. For some years after 1945, internal, politically motivated fighting continued. The emergence of political forces to replace fascism could not occur until the internal conflict ended and elections could be held. After fighting had died down, a few months were needed before attention could be given to institutional matters. The first important question regarded the royal family, blamed by many for the fascist regime, the war, and the defeat. Republican traditions in Italy traditionally hark back to the Roman Republic and the Medieval Communes, in which a wide spectrum of people took part in the business of government, but remained largely theoretical, as in the conclusion of Machiavelli's ''Il Principe''. The struggle for a Republican Italy independent of foreign powers had been started by Giuseppe Mazzini in the 19th century. The movement ''Giustizia e Libertà'', which continued the traditional Mazzinian ideology, was the second important force during the resistance. It posed the question of the form of the state as a fundamental precondition to developing any further agreements with the other parties. ''Giustizia e Libertà'' joined the ''Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale'' (National Liberation Committee, CLN). The various competing political factions agreed that a popular referendum would be held to determine the future choice of Head of State. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Italian constitutional referendum, 1946」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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