The defining sentiment in late July of 1943 was that Mussolini's arrest signaled that the war was coming to an end and things would go "Back to normal." The method by which this would occur was still unclear at that point in time, but the scores had been drawn up so to speak, and Fascism had little to show: Inconclusive quagmires or outright defeats in costly wars abroad culminating now with an enemy making their way up the peninsula, as well as a steadily declining standard of living (not yet, however, to the extremes which would be seen in 1944) generally meant that the Fascist regime's plans by now benefitted from little sympathy. But "murmurs of discontent" was where broad opposition to the regime stopped at this point in time. Indeed, the bourgeoisie might have still professed a lukewarm sympathy for the regime right up to Mussolini's arrest, and if that arrest meant a stop to the war then there might indeed be cause of celebration (especially if they had only halfheartedly supported the regime in the first place — I am not absolving anyone here, only saying that passively professing support the regime had probably been the path of least resistance for most people, who nonetheless might have been happy to celebrate an imminent end to the war and political turnover, especially if the method by which those two things were achieved were still a nebulous promise for the future).

The murmurs of discontent and the deteriorating national mood, in other words, were not yet conditions for descent into violent confrontation. At this point the opposition was still largely underground, the armed forces were still largely intact, and the most politically influential segment of the populace (the urban bourgeoisie) really only wanted an end to war (with the acknowledgment that this would also include some political changes). But there was no open revolt, and Mussolini's arrest was more a consequence of a state of panic in the leadership of both government and the armed forces rather than any reflection of the national mood. That state of panic in political and military leadership, however, would not resolve itself and indeed eventually to the chaos which eventually did create a space where partizan militias would feel the need to take matters of security, social order, and political struggle, into their own hands by force of arms.

Things had made a turn for the worse by the emission of an armistice on September 8th, when a combination of poor organization and the accelerating German occupation (which had begun slowly but unmistakably to take hold as soon as Mussolini was arrested) led to a state of affairs which in some places can only be described as the utter disintegration of the country's institutions: From the inability of the apparatus of government to perform its ordinary functions (at all levels: town, province, and national), the large-scale capture of the country's military forces (where they didn't disband, either going home, or in several cases joining the early partizans) and perhaps most importantly the presence of the aforementioned foreign occupation (a turn of events which Mussolini's arrest and the armistice had meant to avoid) the opposition forces which in the preceding couple of months had been able to act with increasing freedom were now able to offer a tangible alternative to a chaotic (when not outright dangerous) state of affairs. The increasing perception was that a functioning Italian state no longer existed (La morte della patria, or "Death of the fatherland," as Enzo Galli Della Loggia put in the eponymous paper) and now the forces which would soon become the paramilitary partizans offered the only practical protection against occupying forces, but also new ideals for a better tomorrow in which to invest energy. In other words, there now existed a space for violent confrontation to exist.

Could the opposition have taken up arms in the summer, instead of the early autumn? Probably not. In the summer, there still was a belief that the Italian state could continue to exist with possibly only a few tweaks (the arrest of Mussolini, some de-Fascistifying and loosening social and political restrictions, and an embarrassing but early armistice ending hostilities) and any political opposition motivated to any sort of militancy was small and underground (and besides, many leaders were outright incarcerated). In addition, the country's police and military apparatus was still intact, and while its record abroad was less than stellar domestically it could still preserve some semblance of order. A couple of months later, the political opposition was not only more organized but offered what seemed like a tangible alternative to a social order which no longer seemed effective, or worse had thrown in its lot with an occupying enemy.