In 1927, Karl Kilbom tried to work within the Comintern on how to develop strategies to combat fascism and to defend the Soviet Union against attacks from the Capitalist world. Kilbom advocated the creation of a popular front suggested that communists should try to collaborate with radical social democrats. The Italian communist leader Palmiro Togliatti agreed with Kilbom that the only way to defeat the fascist leader Benito Mussolini in Italy would be for the communists to unite with the social democrats. Stalin opposed Kilbom's suggestions and together with Ernst Thälmann, who now saw Karl Kilbom as a personal enemy, Stalin started to develop the idea of Social fascism, i.e., that social democrats were just as bad as fascists.