Social fascism

[1] The Comintern argued that capitalism had entered a Third Period in which proletarian revolution was imminent, but could be prevented by social democrats and other "fascist" forces.

The end of capitalism, accompanied with a working class revolution, was expected and social democracy was identified as the main enemy of the communists.

The Comintern's theory had roots in Grigory Zinoviev's argument that international social democracy is a wing of fascism.

There is no ground for assuming that the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie can achieve decisive successes in battles, or in governing the country, without the active support of Social-Democracy.

[6] In 1929, the KPD's paramilitary organisation, the Roter Frontkämpferbund ("Alliance of Red Front-Fighters"), was banned as extremist by the governing social democrats.

[10] After Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party came to power in Germany, the KPD was outlawed and thousands of its members were arrested, including Thälmann.

At the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935, Georgi Dimitrov outlined the new policy of the popular front in his address "For the Unity of the Working Class Against Fascism".

[16] In part of The Open Society And Its Enemies (1945), philosopher Karl Popper criticized what he saw as Communist inaction during the rise of fascism, stating that "there was never a 'communist danger' to the fascist conquest of power".

Popper argued that some radical parties of the era welcomed or turned a blind eye to the weakening of democracy, or saw a dictatorship as a temporary stepping stone to a revolution.