Unlike the European experience where the communists and socialists comprised the leadership element of the popular front against fascism, the popular front (I prefer peoples coalition) here during the Depression years had at its core the Roosevelt administration and the CIO and its member unions. The left in general and the communists in particular were organically embedded in that coalition and the surge of mass struggles from below of those times. Today circumstances are different in many ways. Nevertheless much can be learned from that experience, including the imperative of unity, not least multi-racial uniity.