Popular front

The Comintern's Popular Front policy 1934–39

In the weeks that followed Hitler's rise to power in February 1933 the German Communist Party (KPD) and the Communist International clung rigidly to their view that the Nazi triumph would be brief and that it would be a case of "after Hitler – our turn". But as the brutality of the Nazi government became clear and there was no sign of its collapse, Communists began to sense that there was a need to radically alter their stance - especially as Hitler had made it clear he regarded the Soviet Union as an enemy state.

Georgi Dimitrov - who had humiliated the Nazis with his defence against charges of involvement in the Reichstag Fire - became general secretary of the Comintern in 1934 and by 1935, at the International's seventh congress the process of total reorientation reached its apotheosis with the proclamation of a new policy - "The People's Front Against Fascism and War". Under this policy Communist Parties were instructed to form broad alliances with all anti-fascist parties with the aim of both securing social advance at home and a military alliance with the USSR to isolate the fascist dictatorships. The "Popular Fronts" thus formed proved to be spectacularly successful in France and Spain, and also China, where it was called the 'United Front'. It had limited success elsewhere.

There were attempts in the United Kingdom to found a Popular Front against the National Government's appeasement of Nazi Germany, between the Labour Party, the Liberal Party, the Independent Labour Party, the Communist Party, and even rebellious elements of the Conservative Party under Winston Churchill, but they failed mainly due to opposition from within the Labour Party but incompatibility of Liberal and socialist approaches also caused many Liberals to be hostile.

The Popular Front policy of the Comintern was introduced in 1934, succeeding its ultra-left "Third Period" during which it condemned non-Communist socialist parties as "social fascist". The new policy was signalled in a Pravda article of May 1934, which commented favourably on socialist-Communist collaboration. In June 1934, Léon Blum's Socialist Party signed a pact of united action with the French Communist Party, extended to the Radical Party in October.

In May 1935, France and the Soviet Union signed a defensive alliance and in August 1935, the 7th World Congress of the Comintern officially endorsed the Popular Front strategy. In the elections of May 1936, the Popular Front won a majority of parliamentary seats (378 deputies against 220), and Léon Blum formed a government. In Italy, the Comintern advised an alliance between the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party, but this was rejected by the Socialists.

Similarly, in the United States, the CPUSA sought a joint Socialist-Communist ticket with Norman Thomas's Socialist Party of America in the 1936 presidential election but the Socialists rejected this overture. The CPUSA also offered support to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in this period. The Popular Front period in the USA saw the CP taking a very patriotic and populist line, later called Browderism.

The Popular Front has been summarized by conservative historian Kermit McKenzie as:

This McKenzie asserted was a mere tactical expedient, with the broad goals of the communist movement for the overthrow of capitalism through revolution unchanged.

The Popular Front period came to an end with the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact between Nazi Germany and USSR, at which point Comintern parties turned from a policy of anti-fascism to one of advocating peace.

Critics and defenders of the Popular Front policy

Leon Trotsky and his supporters roundly criticised the Popular Front strategy. Trotsky believed that only united fronts could ultimately be progressive, and that popular fronts were useless because they included non-working class bourgeois forces such as liberals. Trotsky also argued that in popular fronts, working class demands are reduced to their bare minimum, and the ability of the working class to put forward its own independent set of politics is compromised. This view is now common to most Trotskyist groups. Left communist groups also oppose popular fronts, but they came to oppose united fronts as well.

In a book written in 1977, the Eurocommunist leader Santiago Carrillo offered a positive assessment of the Popular Front. He argued that in Spain, despite excesses attributable to the passions of civil war, the period of coalition government in Republican areas "contained in embryo the conception of an advance to socialism with democracy, with a multi-party system, parliament, and liberty for the opposition". Carrillo however criticised the Communist International for not taking the Popular Front strategy far enough – specifically for the fact that the French Communists were restricted to supporting Leon Blum's government from without, rather than becoming full coalition partners.

Popular Fronts governments in the Soviet Bloc

After World War II, most Central and Eastern European countries became de facto one-party states, but in theory they were ruled by coalitions between several different political parties who voluntarily chose to work together. For example, East Germany was ruled by a "National Front" of all anti-fascist parties and movements within parliament (Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Liberal Party, Farmers' Party, Youth Movement, Trade Union Federation, etc.). At legislative elections, voters were presented with a single list of candidates from all parties. In practice, however, only the Communist Party had any real power. By ensuring that Communists dominated the candidate lists, it effectively predetermined the composition of the legislature. All parties in the front had to accept the "leading role" of the Communist Party as a condition of being allowed to exist. By the 1950s, the non-Communist parties had pushed out their more courageous members and had been taken over by fellow travelers willing to do the Communists' bidding.

The People's Republic of China's United Front is perhaps the best known example of a communist-run popular front in modern times.

In Soviet republics

In the Republics of the Soviet Union, between around 1988 and 1992 (by which time the USSR had dissolved and all were independent), the term "Popular Front" had quite a different meaning. It referred to movements led by members of the liberal-minded intelligentsia (usually themselves members of the local Communist party), in some republics small and peripheral, in others broad-based and influential. Officially their aim was to defend perestroika against reactionary elements within the state bureaucracy, but over time they began to question the legitimacy of their republics' membership of the USSR. It was their initially cautious tone that gave them considerable freedom to organise and gain access to the mass media. In the Baltic republics, they soon became the dominant political force and gradually gained the initiative from the more radical dissident organisations established earlier, moving their republics towards greater autonomy and later independence. They also became the main challengers to Communist Party hegemony in Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan. A Popular Front was established in Georgia but remained marginal compared to the dominant dissident-led groups, because the April 9 tragedy had radicalised society and it was unable to play the compromise role of similar movements. In the other republics, such organisations existed but never posed a meaningful threat to the incumbent Party and economic elites.

Popular fronts in non-communist countries

The French Front populaire and the Spanish Frente Popular popular fronts of the 1930s are the most important ones.

Popular fronts in post-soviet countries

These are non-socialist parties unless indicated otherwise.

These were established after the collapse of the USSR in 1991:

National fronts in current communist countries

National fronts in former communist countries