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In addition to the general definition given above, the term "popular front" also has a specific meaning in the history of Europe during the 1930s, and Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
In response to the growing threat of fascism in the 1930s, the Communist Parties that were members of the Comintern (which was de facto controlled by Stalin) adopted a policy of forming broad alliances with almost any political party willing to oppose the fascists. These were called "popular fronts". Some popular fronts won elections and formed governments, as in France ( Front Populaire), the Second Spanish RepublicThe Second Spanish Republic ( 1931 1939) was the second period in Spanish history in which the election of both the positions of Head of State and Head of government were in the hands of the people. The First Spanish Republic was from 1873 1874. The Secon and ChileThe word chile may also refer to Chilli pepper. The Republic of Chile is a republic located on the southwestern coast of South America. It is a long and narrow piece of land between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It shares borders with Argenti. Others never quite got off the ground (there were attempts in the United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state in Western Europe, usually known simply as the United Kingdom the UK Britain or less accurately as Great Britain . The UK was formed by a series of Acts of Union which united the formerly to found a Popular Front between the Labour PartyThe Labour Party is a centre- left or social democratic political party in Britain (see British politics), and one of the United Kingdom's three main political parties. Under its leader Tony Blair it won a landslide in the 1997 general election, and forme, the Liberal PartyThe Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the early 19th century until the 1920s, and a third party of varying strength and importance up to 1988, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party to form a new party which wo, the Independent Labour PartyThe Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a former political party in the United Kingdom. The party was formed in 1893 making it one of the earliest democratic socialist political parties operating in the United Kingdom. Its founder chairman was James Keir H and the Communist PartyThe Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was a political party in the United Kingdom, which existed from 1920 to 1991. Formation The party was founded in 1920 after the Third International decided that greater attempts should be made to establish commu, but they failed due to opposition from within the Labour Party).
Leon Trotsky and his supporters criticised this strategy, claiming 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.After World War II, most 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, Peasants' Party, youth movement, trade unions, etc).