After the arrest of Mussolini on July 25, 1943, the armistice two months later, and the German occupation of the country, the Italian resistance movement began to take shape around the anti-fascist parties. However, after the birth of the Social Republic of Mussolini and until April 1945, the war of national liberation became part of both a civil war and a social war. This chapter, after examining the definitions of civil war given by the warring factions, focuses on the context that generated repressive violence in Italy from 1943 to 1945, both in terms of the victims and the perpetrators of violence. Then it compares the different ways in which the discourses of violence were legitimated, that is, the basic cultural structures that supported the warring parts. Finally, it analyzes the concrete forms of repressive violence against the inner enemy—including civilians—with the aim of highlighting the differences in behavior between the warring sides.