Polish Communism's wartime embrace of nationalist politics was not unique. By 1947, Communist parties throughout Europe enjoyed a great deal of success in proclaiming themselves to be not only the most progressive of political forces but also, by virtue of their role in the post-June 22, 1941 anti-Nazi resistance, to be the most patriotic of parties in their various countries. In spite of this, in Poland as in most of the other states of the Soviet bloc, the identification of Communism with nationalism and ethnic cleansing produced deep internal tensions within the emerging People's Democracies and between these countries and their Soviet masters. In the decades prior to the war, Communist activists had been on the fringes of their countries' politics. Now they could plausibly pass themselves off as patriots—while casting opposition to their hegemony as not only fascist, but a betrayal of their countries' national interests as well. Yet, in the face of the relentless nationalism of postwar political life, many leading Communist activists feared that they and their parties were going ideologically blind.