British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has a bold proposal to house the survivors of a devastating fire at London’s Grenfell Tower apartment complex in empty luxury homes.

YouGov polling found that Corbyn’s idea is popular among the British public, with 59 percent supporting it. Yet there has been a harsh backlash from the U.K.’s right-wing government and press, which equated his plan with a Marxist plot. “Suggesting requisitioning empty properties when empty student accommodation is available locally is completely in line with his Marxist belief that all private property should belong to the state,” Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said.

But Corbyn’s plan has historical roots not in Marxist literature or state-run economies, but in his country’s own past.

During the Second World War, Great Britain faced one of the most powerful war machines in human history in a conflict with Nazi Germany. Its government responded by asking all of its citizens to contribute to the war effort in different ways.

For some, this included giving up their property. To help bear the brunt of the Nazi war machine, the British government requisitioned both industrial and residential properties to accommodate soldiers and evacuees, run makeshift schools and hospitals, and train the military, among other uses. As the U.K.’s National Archives website notes, “14.5 million acres of land, 25 million square feet of industrial and storage premises and 113,350 non-industrial premises were requisitioned during the Second World War. The War Office alone requisitioned 580,847 acres between 1939 and 1946.”