Post-war Sicily faced enormous challenges: rebuilding shattered cities, multiple humanitarian crises from the lack of food, housing and healthcare, recovering from a decade of economic disruption, navigating the political uncertainty of the immediate post-Fascist years, and dealing with a resurgent Mafia that had re-established itself following the chaos of the war. This chapter covers the first several decades after 1945, including the separatist movement that briefly flourished in the immediate postwar years, the establishment of Sicilian regional autonomy within the Italian republic in 1948, and the gradual reconstruction of the island’s economy and political institutions.
The chapter also covers the Sicilian postwar economic transformation, funded by massive levels of government spending. These regional investment programs gradually began to modernize the island and improve Sicilian living standards. By the 1970s and 1980s, Sicily had undergone a significant economic advancement, but still remained substantially poorer than the industrialized regions of northern Italy. The exodus of emigration from Sicily continued in the post-war period, though at lower rates than during the First Great Italian Migration of the early 20th century.
The chapter also summarizes the growing power of the post-war Mafia, which thrived during the chaos and political instability of post-war Italy, taking advantage of Sicily’s economic crisis, weak state authority, and the threats of growing separatist and communist movements. During this chaotic period the Mafia greatly expanded its repertoire of criminal enterprises beyond the traditional smuggling and rural protection rackets into government contract fraud, construction, real estate, and international heroin trafficking. The desire by various Cosa Nostra families for control of the immense profits of from the lucrative government contract fraud and drug trade led to a violent Mafia War in Sicily during the 1980s and 1990s, which claimed the lives of thousands, both mafiosi and innocent Sicilians alike. Efforts to combat the Mafia resulted in the grizzly assassinations of numerous high ranking Italian political and law enforcement officials – a bold declaration that the Mafia alone were the true masters of all Sicily, and that they would tolerate no interference or resistance to their rule.
