What made the ideologies of communism and fascism appealing in the 1930s?

In the
midst of the Great Depression, it seemed to many that the old ways of doing things had failed.
The capitalist economic system had delivered the most serious economic catastrophe the world had
ever known, and liberal democracy, the dominant system of government in the West, had failed to
respond adequately to the growing crisis. All the old certainties had been swept away, and
inevitably people started looking for alternatives, both economic and political.

This created an ideal opportunity for the ideologies of Fascism and Communism to
exploit. Both provided relatively simple solutions to seemingly intractable problems. Communism,
for its part, offered a rational economic system based on planning and government control.
Instead of the production and distribution of goods being subject to the anarchy of an unstable
market, they would be based on the needs of society. Communism promised an end to unemployment,
an attractive proposition to the millions without...