The nation of the people

'In 1945, he called for a “moral and democratic restoration” to replace the “political nation” with the nation of the people".' In this sentence, and in many other sentences in the book I have been translating, the word "nation" means "society, public", not "country". But I couldn't understand the phrase "the nation of the people", I mean both of these are, one way or another, populations. What does that mean? Thanks in advance. The source:Fascism To Populism In History by Federico Finchelstein.