Popular front

A popular front is a broad coalition of different political groupings, usually made up of leftists and centrists. Being very broad, they can sometimes include centrist and liberal (or "bourgeois") forces as well as social-democratic and communist groups. Popular fronts are larger in scope than united fronts.

In addition to the general definition, the term "popular front" also has a specific meaning in the history of Europe and the United States during the 1930s, and in the history of Communism and the Communist Party. During this time in France, the "front populaire" referred to the alliance of political parties aimed at resisting Fascism.

The term "national front", similar in name but describing a different form of ruling, using ostensibly non-Communist parties which were in fact controlled by and subservient to the Communist party as part of a "coalition", was used in Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

Not all coalitions who use the term "popular front" meet the definition for "popular fronts", and not all popular fronts use the term "popular front" in their name. The same applies to "united fronts".

In the weeks that followed Hitler's seizure of 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.

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