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crisis. Their leadership maintained the same authority under any cir–
cumstances and with ever-changing programs, although both Com–
munists and Fascists manifestly received these programs from the
heads of other nations and acted at all times in accordance with the
foreign policies of other and possibly even hostile powers. They func–
tioned like the old parties before the general breakdown, whose disci–
pline and command of loyalty, due to the strong ties of common inter–
ests, enabled them to survive all their inconsistencies. Seen within the
context of the old party-system to whose rules they would temporarily
and for opportunistic reasons more or less conform, the Communist
and Fascist "parties" were the only ones that were alive and meaning–
ful to their adherents.
3.
Fortunately this internal disintegration and the rise of the Fascist
and Communist movements with their peculiar brand of ;<interna–
tionalism" is not the whole story. Partly in opposition to them, partly
even in alliance with the Communists, there rose two movements in
Europe during the last decade which were also international without,
however, being monopolized by any of the great powers, and which
also stood outside the old party-system, not as products of disintegra–
tion, however, but rather as attempts at a political re-organization of
the people and a new integration of its political institutions. These
were the Popular Front during the Thirties and the Resistance move–
ments during the Forties.
The Popular Front, originally a mere propaganda slogan of the
Third International, reached its climax of popularity during the
Spanish Civil War. It became quickly the first and only great politi–
cal success of the Left after the defeat of 1933.
It
swept all Europe
and influenced even the illegal opposition groups in Fascist dominated
countries. From its rather dubious start as a Communist-dominated
alliance of all left parties, it grew quickly into a genuine popular
movement that had little to do_with parliamentary tactics. Mter
its defeat, it split up, officially into its former party-constituents; a
great part of its membership, however, far from going back to their old
parties, remained embittered and disappointed, outside all political
organizations-an easy prey for the Communists as well as the Fascist<>.
Among the multiple reasons for the defeat of the Popular Front
movement in Europe, only two are important in this context. The
first is the well-known story of how this movement was abused by the
Communists, who tried to organize it as a mass party of fellow-trav–
ellers, and need not be repeated here. The second, however, occurred
years earlier and was significant in showing the possible strength
