<P> The initial perception of the New Deal was mixed . On the one hand the eyes of the world were upon America, because many democrats in Europe and the United States saw in Roosevelt _́ s reform program a positive counterweight to the seductive powers of the two great alternative systems, communism and fascism . As the historian Isaiah Berlin wrote in 1955, "The only light in the darkness was the administration of Mr. Roosevelt and the New Deal in the United States ." </P> <P> By contrast, enemies of the New Deal sometimes called it "fascist", but they meant very different things . Communists denounced the New Deal in 1933 and 1934 as fascist in the sense that it was under the control of big business . They dropped that line of thought when Stalin switched to the "Popular Front" plan of cooperation with liberals . </P> <P> In 1934, Roosevelt defended himself against those critics in a "fireside chat". Some people, he said: </P> <P> (Some) will try to give you new and strange names for what we are doing . Sometimes they will call it' Fascism', sometimes' Communism', sometimes' Regimentation', sometimes' Socialism' . But, in so doing, they are trying to make very complex and theoretical something that is really very simple and very practical...Plausible self - seekers and theoretical die - hards will tell you of the loss of individual liberty . Answer this question out of the facts of your own life . Have you lost any of your rights or liberty or constitutional freedom of action and choice? </P>

In 1987 congress passed legislation that endorsed mandatory retirement