The phrase has its origin in the 1940s during the Second World War, especially through the anti-fascist "Free World" magazine and the US propaganda film series "Why We Fight". At this time, the term was criticized for including the Soviet Union (USSR), which critics saw as a totalitarian dictatorship. However, the term became more widely used against the USSR and its allies during the 1950s in the Cold War era, when the US depicted a foreign policy based on a struggle between "a democratic alliance and a communist realm set on world domination", according to "The Atlantic". The term here was criticised again for including right-wing dictatorships such as Francoist Spain, and Nikita Khrushchev said in the 21st Congress of the Soviet Communist Party that "the so-called free world constitutes the kingdom of the dollar".