ABSTRACT
Francisco Franco and his supporters depended on the army for support and foreshadowed a one-party state created with the agreement of the Catholic clergy. French Catholics such as Francois Mauriac and Georges Bernanos objected to such a regime, while Emmanuel Mounier and his supporters, gathered around the review Esprit, defended democratic institutions. The dictatorship of the proletariat, implemented by the Russian Bolsheviks, was at odds with democratic ideals; but out of fear of the proletariat, the European bourgeois reaction also assumed an antidemocratic form, such as in Italian Fascism. Many democratic Catholics remained faithful to the principles of pluralism and parliamentary democracy. Dominated by the Soviet Union, Marxists after World War I viewed fascism as the last stand of capitalism and social democratic party members as "socialfascists." the necessity was clear of reaching agreement on common action with social democratic parties, with reformist-dominated unions, and with working-class organizations in general, against fascism.
