ABSTRACT
The Soviet leaders wished the Republic to resist Franco and keep German and Italian military forces engaged far from Soviet borders. The communists were urged to avoid all revolutionary excesses and to give absolute priority to military needs. The popular-front strategy was abandoned when Joseph Stalin made his alliance with Adolf Hitler in August 1939, but was hurriedly revived after Hitler attacked his ally in June 1941. Stalin accepted the fact with equanimity. In his speech to Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1956, the veteran Politburo member A. I. Mikoyan spoke of the possibility of a "peaceful road to socialism". The ultimate failure of this attempt set off a series of experiments in communist tactics in Europe—in Portugal, Italy, France, and Spain. The rapid modernization of Japan after 1868, and influx of European ideas, had among other consequences the appearance of Marxist socialism, first among intellectuals and then among parts of working class.
