Anti-fascism and democracy in the 1930s

One consequence of the rise of fascist and authoritarian movements in the 1930s was a striking affirmation of democracy, most notably in the election triumphs of the French and Spanish Popular Fronts. Here, and in other countries where Popular Front movements emerged, anti-fascism was able to unite a very broad coalition from liberals and the centre-Right to socialists and communists on the Left. But were these coalitions untied more by their fear of fascism than by their love of democracy - were they, in effect, marriages of convenience? Historians have profoundly disagreed on this issue. Some have emphasized the prior loyalty of Communist Popular Frontists to the Stalinist regime in the USSR, and others have noted the hap between the democratic rhetoric of Communist leaders and the revolutionary temper of their working-class followers. Conversely, many historians have chosen to see in the Popular Fronts, and in the volunteers who went to fight with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, the manifestation of a genuine passion for democracy that had its roots in popular democracy. This article seeks to advance this debate by focusing on the neglected question of what type of democracy anti-fascists were seeking to defend - indeed, the kind of democracy that they were hoping to create.