Here are some dates from OTL's history of Italy that maybe important to the development of the ISSR. I would certainly take note of the events of the 1960s and 1970s for possible post-collapse chaos in the "former-ISSR". As such please be warned:
July 25, 1943 Hitler and Mussolini meet at Feltre (ATL's version of the developments between Stalin and Hitler?).
July 28, 1943 Otto Skorzeny (in the ATL, attempts to assasinate) frees Mussolini, who then assumes leadership of the Republica Sociale Italiana - the Salo Republic.
December 8, 1944 British and US military accord to support anti-communists. M16 and OSS work closely on this.
December 27, 1944 Founding of The Common Man newspaper to appeal to fascist sympathizers, reactionaries, monarchists and Salo republicans.
March 21, 1945 Report from the "Confidential Affairs" section of the Interior Ministry of Mussolini's Salo Republic on the establishment of espionage in occupied Italy - calls for infiltration of the Communist Party. Also points to ties between Italian fascists and the Roman Catholic Church.
April 29, 1945 Angleton rescues Prince Borghese (a wartime fascist) from his hiding place in Milan and escorts him to Rome dressed as a US officer.
June 18, 1946 Communist Minister of Justice Togliatti proclaims a general amnesty with very few exceptions.
November 14, 1947 National Security Council document 1/1: "The Position of the United States with Respect to Italy."
1948 Covert CIA operations against leftists in Italian elections.
July 1948 Anti-anarchist and communist repression swings into gear - people are tried, convicted and do time for anti-fascist activity. MSI expands.
July 1951 Premier de Gasperi authorizes the formation of a "civil defence corps" to assist police and carabinieri.
May 14, 1952 US Joint Chiefs of Staff top secret memo on a plan code-named "Demagnetize" to reduce communism in Italy and France using "political, paramilitary and psychological operations." The governments of Italy and France were not informed of the plan - carried out in Italy by General Giovanni De Lorenzo, then head of military intelligence and later accused of having plotted a military coup in the summer of 1964.
1956 Ordine Nuovo founded by Pino Rauti - its members will be sentenced in 1973 for reconstituting the banned Fascist Party: the prosecutor was killed by the group in 1973.
1959 Military intelligence (SIFAR) begins collecting dossiers on Italian citizens - copies forwarded to the CIA.
1960 Fascist and anti-Semitic slogans painted on the walls of Jewish buildings and Socialist Party offices.
1961 Notorious soldier of fascism, Stefano Delle Chaie, is arrested for removing the flag of the Resistance from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Rome.
1961 Right-wing Italian journalist, Ordine Nuovo founder and future secretary of MSI, Pino Rauti gives a lecture at the US Marine College in Annapolis on "Techniques and Possibilities of a Coup d'Etat in Europe."
1963 Top secret Operation Gladio begins - SIFAR and CIA secret network that would stay behind in the event of Eastern Bloc invasion of Italy or communist subversion. Financed and controlled by the CIA. Later revealed that arms caches buried around Italy for use by Gladio members. P2 master Licio Gelli later reported that Gladio members were fascist members of Mussolini's last stand.
1964 Secret plan called "Piano Solo" is created for the paramilitary police to intervene to restore public order in a coup - exposed in May 1967 by L'Espresso. General De Lorenzo of the carabinieri and others were to have assassinated Premier Aldo Moro who promised an "opening to the left." The coup was called off at the final moment by a compromise between the Socialists and right-wing Christian Democrats. De Lorenzo would go on to create La Rosa Dei Venti, a secret organization that aimed to keep officers loyal to De Lorenzo and his plan.
May 3-5, 1965 Conference of fascists and conservatives sponsored by the Alberto Pollio Institute at Rome's Parco dei Principi Hotel on "Revolutionary War" - considered to be the momento zero of the strategy of tension.
1966 de Gaulle denounces previously secret NATO protocols committing the signatory countries to prevent communists from assuming political power as an infringement of national sovereignty.
April 21, 1967 CIA-inspired military coup in Greece - Greek junta visited immediately by Pino Rauti.
June 5, 1967 NATO decides to move its Mediterranean naval command to Naples and its Defense College from Paris to Rome. The US Sixth Fleet base changed to Gaeta, Italy due to de Gaulle's decision to withdraw from full membership in the Atlantic Alliance.
1968 Student and worker protests amid explosive attacks by Maoists and fascists.
January 1969 Constitution of the Italian Section of the Situationist International (henceforth the "SI").
April 25, 1969 Milan trade fair bombing injures twenty people - investigations center on anarchist and left-wing circles, but turns out that they had been infiltrated by the extreme right, which was in contact with the secret services. Two right-wing publishers and booksellers (Franco Freda, au. of The Disintegration of the System, and Giovanni Ventura) were responsible for the blast. They were said to have met with Pino Rauit and another right-wing journalist, Guido Giannetti on April 18 - the latter were linked to $800,000 payments from the US embassy for a "propaganda effort."
July 1969 Publication of Internazionale situazionista #1 (4,000 copies) edited by Claudio Pavan, Paolo Salvadori and Gianfranco Sanguinetti in the middle of the "hot" summer.
September 1969 Venice Conference of the SI. The Italian section represented by Pavan, Rothe, Salvadori, Sanguinetti. Sabotage of FIAT factories in Turin and the Pirelli plant in Milan.
November 19, 1969 Publication of the tract Advice to the Proletariat by the Italian Section of the SI on the day of a day-long general strike. Riots errupt in Milan.
December 12, 1969 bombs explode in Milan's Piazza Fontana and in Rome. The cover-up of the Piazza Fontana bombing would last decades and involve secret service officers uninvolved with the bombing itself. General Maletti and Captain Labruna were sentenced for sabotaging the investigation and the main suspects - Freda, Ventura and Giannettini - were acquitted even though two other courts had sentenced them to life for carrying out the bombing. The SID and latter renamed SISMI were undoutedly involved, with the police playing a minor role. Ventura, who tried to pose as a lefty, later claimed to be working for the CIA. Giannettini was an SID informant since 1967. Politicians such as Moro, who were made aware of the details of the bombing and opposed the strategy of tension, accommodated the plotters rather than expose them publicly.
December 19, 1969 Publication of the tract Is the Reichstag Burning? (a tract denouncing the police provocation of the bombings in Milan and Rome on December 12 - signed "Friends of the International").
January 17-19, 1970 SI conference in Trier Wolsfeld with Pavan representing the Italian section.
February 20, 1970 Pavan's resignation from the SI is refused and transformed into an exclusion.
April 21, 1970 Exclusion of Eduardo Rothe from the SI.
July 27, 1970 Attempted exclusion from the SI of Sanguinetti by Salvadori.
August 1970 The Red Brigades convene in Pecorile.
September 18, 1970 Exclusion of Salvadori from the SI.
October 1970 Publication of The Workers of Italy and the Revolt of Reggio de Calabre by the Italian section of the SI.
December 7, 1970 Coup attempt by WWII naval commander and founder of right-wing National Front Prince Borghese in 1968 under the code name Tora Tora (after the Japanese attack on the same date in 1941 that brought the US into WWII).
July 23, 1971 Expulsion of Sangunetti from France by the Minister of Interior as he attempts to join the French section of the SI.
April 1972 Sanguinetti and Debord sign the Theses on the SI and Its Time as the act of autodissolution of the SI.
May 31, 1972 Car bombing in Peteano kills three carabinieri and injures a fourth. Fascist Vincenzo Vinciguerra collaborated with the police in the case, revealing the way investigations followed wrong leads and generally covered up the strategy of tension by falsely blaming the left.
May 17, 1973 self-professed anarchist Gianfranco Bertoli throws a hand-grenade into a crowd outside the Milan police HQ killing four and injuring twelve. Thought to be revenge for the murder while under interrogation for the Piazza Fontana bombing of anarchist railway worker Giuseppe Pinelli. It was later discovered that Bertoli worked for SIFAR, i.e. military intelligence, and was a member of the Gladio conspiracy.
1974 Red Brigade founders Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini arrested, paving the way for Mario Moretti, former member of Superclan, and his strategy of constant military escalation. Moretti maintains contacts with CIA front Hyperion Language School in Paris. Moretti was so suspect that even the Red Brigaders put him on trial in prison when he was arrested - he wasn't acquitted or convicted, rather isolated from his comrades. Note that in 1974, the Brigades had also been infiltrated by Marco Pisetta and then Silvano Girotto. Despite the information they gave to authorities regarding Brigade activity, the group was allowed to carry on.
April 18, 1974 Red Brigades kidnap Mario Sossi, a right-wing magistrate from Genoa. He was held, then released without any concessions from authorities. Later revealed that the secret service had planed to kidnap a left-wing lawyer in contact with the Red Brigades to force Sossi's release. Note that former counter-espionage chief Giandelio Maletti had reports in 1975 that the Red Brigades were "recruiting terrorists from all sides and the leaders remained in the shadows, but I wouldn't say you could describe them as leftists." Many secret services officers reported that it was well-known where Sossi was being held. Maletti agreed that there were Eastern Bloc agents in the Brigades, but that one found "further in, in the most secret compartment, the infiltrators of the Interior Ministry and Western secret services."
June 17, 1974 Killing of neo-fascists by the Red Brigades; speculation that it was an internal right-wing dispute.
August 1974 Bombing of the Italicus express train. 12 deaths, 105 injuries. The bombing was linked to the P2 by the courts - the injured parties were on record stating that the accused had been "inspired, armed and financed by freemasonry, which made use of subversion and right-wing terrorism in the framework of the so-called 'strategy of tension' to create the conditions for a possible coup d'etat."
May 28, 1974 Bombing in Brescia during a union and anti-fascist protest kills eight and injures 94. In May 1987 trial one of the terrorists stated that, "All the bombings had a single purpose: to create social tension and prepare the conditions for intervention by the army."
August 4, 1974 Bombing of the Italicus Rome-Munich express train near Bologna. The P2 Commission stated that support was given by P2 to the bombers.
September 1974 As Foreign Minister, Aldo Moro visits the United States. Kissinger opposes Moro's efforts at a historic compromise with the communists and his pro-Arab foreign policy. The next day Moro becomes sick and swears off politics. He is also said to have been warned by US intelligence that his policies would be blocked and that groups on the fringes of the official secret services might be used. His wife recalled his recounting of the meeting: "You must abandon your policy of bringing all the political forces in your country into direct collaboration. Either you give this up or you will pay dearly for it." Press reports in the US carried Kissinger's unabashed intention to use covert action to undermine communism in Italy.
September-October 31, 1974 General Vito Miceli, then head of Italian military intelligence, testifies that "Now you will no longer hear people talk about black terrorism, now you will only hear them speak about those of others." Miceli is arrested for conspiring to overthrow the government by provoking an armed insurrection in order to provide an excuse for military intervention. He discloses the existence of a "Parallel SID" (SID = Defense Information Service) formed in secret agreement with the United States and within the framework of NATO.
June 1975 Red Brigader Mara Cagol killed in a shoot-out with carabinieri.
August 1975 Sanguinetti publishes his Real Report
1975 According to court testimony by P2 member Arrigo Molinari, P2 Master Gelli met with Italian and US secret services in the US embassy in Rome to discuss ways to halt the communist electoral surge in regional elections.
June 8, 1976 Red Brigades murder Public Prosecutor Fancesco Coco and two bodyguards in Genoa beginning a wave of murder of people chosen for little reason.
1976 Arms deals between the PLO and the Red Brigades based on a secret accord between the PLO and the CIA mediated by Colonel Stefano Giovannone, an Italian SISMI (Military Security Information Service, formerly SID) officer in Beirut who collaborated with Abu Ayad in a disinformation operation about the Bologna bombing.
January 1978 Mino Pecorelli, publisher of Political Observer - or OP as it was known in Italy - and one-time member of P2, publishes the secret service report that would be the basis for the prosecution of the participants in the 1970 coup attempt led by Prince Valerio Borghese.
March 16, 1978 Christian Democrat Party leader Aldo Moro kidnapped with military precision on the way to Parliament on the Via Mario Fani - sometimes referred to as the Via Fani attack. His major preoccupation prior to the kidnap, seen in unpublished articles, was US opposition to his historic compromise with the PCI. CIA refuses to help in the manhunt.
May 9, 1978 Moro's body found in the trunk of a car on Via Caetani half-way between the headquarters of the Christian Democrat and Communist parties.
January 29, 1979 Prima Linea gunmen kill Magistrate Emilio Alessandrini whose murder would have been desirable for the P2 as he was investigating Banco Amrosiano, the Milan bank headed by P2 member Roberto Calvi.
February 1979 Publication of Preface to the Fourth Italian Edition of the Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord.
March 1979 Publication of On Terrorism and the State by Gianfranco Sanguinetti and the murder, Mafia-style, of Mino Pecorelli, publisher of OP. Pecorelli was scheduled to have an appointment for "dinner Licio" the night after his death - Licio being, quite probably, Gelli. The headline of the OP published a week before his death: "Assassinations, bombings, coup attempts - the shadow of freemasonry hovered over them all: from Piazza Fontana to the Occorsio murder, from the Borghese coup to kidnappings, to the flight of Sindona from Italy."
August 2, 1980 Bologna railway station bombing kills 85 and injures 200. 1988 conviction of right-wing terrorists for the crime is overturned in 1990.
January 1981 P2 Venerable Master Licio Gelli attends Ronald Reagan's inauguration. Gelli would later report that he spent the entire week with George Bush.
March 1981 P2 Venerable Master Licio Gelli's home is searched revealing that four cabinet ministers, three under-secretaries and 38 parliamentarians were P2 and helped precipitate the fall of the government of Arnaldo Forlani to appoint a Prime Minister who was not Christian Democrat for the first time since WWII.
July 4, 1981 Gelli's daughter, Maria Grazia, is searched at Rome airport upon entering the country. P2 documents are found on her that spell out a right-wing vision of government and the possibilities for civil war.
December 17, 1981 US General James Lee Dozier abducted by kidnappers disguised as plumbers. Largest manhunt in Italian history - bigger than for Moro - is successful largely because of the Mafia role and the hostage is released unharmed. Beginning of the end for the Red Brigade.
December 1987 Gelli sentenced to eight years for financing an armed band responsible for planting bombs on railway lines in Tuscany between 1973 and 1975. This and other convictions would later be reversed by complex legal maneuvers.
1990 Christian Democrat-controlled channel of state-run Italian televisions broadcasts allegations by an American who claimed to have worked for the CIA about Gelli's manipulation of Italian terrorism and his relationship with the CIA. He claimed that the CIA financed P2 drug trafficking and terrorism.
August 3, 1990 Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti makes a partial disclosure of Operation Gladio, a secret NATO resistance network sponsored by SIFAR and the CIA since 1963 and armed with Eastern Bloc weapons. They trained to go into action in the event of an Eastern Bloc invasion of Italy or domestic communist subversion. Andreotti quells the crisis by claiming that Gladio was legitimate. Evidence was destroyed and false information was supplied by President Francesco Cossiga. Demonstrations calling for the truth regarding Gladio and the right-wing bombings. Gladio was linked with the Parallel SID, Piano Solo plan and the Rosa dei Venti conspiracy to plot coups in the Seventies. Gladio may have been involved in the Red Brigades' kidnap of Aldo Moro (tied by a photocopier from the secret service ending up with the Red Brigades and by the fact that Moro's body was left near what had been a gladiator amphitheater, as Mino Pecorelli had predicted before Moro was found: "I read in a book that in those days runaway slaves and prisoners were taken there so that they could fight one another to the death. Who knows what there was in the destiny of Moro that his death should be discovered next to that wall? The blood of yesterday and the blood of today").