ABSTRACT
The 1930s were a dangerous decade. Across the world, their passage was marked by economic depression, war and the approach of war. There was a rising challenge to democracy and liberal parliamentary systems of government, which few countries survived unscathed. The United States escaped its worst excesses, thanks to the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan, the Soviet Union and many of the countries of central and eastern Europe fell under the rule of dictatorship or a one-party state of left or right, while France suffered the near-permanent political crisis of the dying days of the Third Republic. Britain stood aside from these trends, but not wholly so. The National Government has been viewed as a species of dictatorship or one-party state. There were movements committed to extremism, revolution and political violence and opposed to parliamentary democracy. Not until the mid-1930s had the threat posed by these movements been neutralised and a measure of balance restored to the party system. This final chapter, accordingly, examines the nature and impact of the National Government, assesses the challenge presented by political extremism and concludes with a survey of the reviving party system as it was developing in the late 1930s and beyond.
