Popular Front Government

Popular Front Frente Popular

Leader	Manuel Azaña
Founded	January 1936
Dissolved	1939
Ideology	Progressivism Republicanism Secularism Anti-fascism Internal factions: • Communism • Socialism • Liberalism • Social liberalism • Social democracy
Political position	Centre-left to Far-left
Colors	Red
Party flag

Politics of Spain Political parties Elections

The Popular Front (Spanish: Frente Popular) in Spain's Second Republic was an electoral coalition and pact signed in January 1936 by various left-wing political organisations, instigated by Manuel Azaña for the purpose of contesting that year's election. In Catalonia and today's Valencian Community the name of the coalition was Front d'Esquerres (in Catalan, meaning Front of the Left).

The Popular Front included the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Communist Party of Spain (PCE), the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM, independent communist) and the republicans: Republican Left (IR), (led by Azaña) and Republican Union (UR), led by Diego Martínez Barrio. This pact was supported by Galician (PG) and Catalan nationalists (ERC), socialist union Workers' General Union (UGT), and the anarchist trade union, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). Many anarchists who would later fight alongside Popular Front forces during the Spanish Civil War did not support them in the election, urging abstention instead.