Popular Front
A Popular Front was a broad coalition of socialists that was created and dominated by the Communist party from 1935 to 1939 in opposition to fascists in Europe in the 1930s. The alliance was also called the People's Front and the Democratic Front.
The year 1938 marked the zenith of the Communist Party's Popular Front policy. Under CPUSA General Secretary Earl Browder's leadership this policy had won American Communists a measure of respect and influence on the left wing of the New Deal coalition, as well as in the new Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The Comintern was pleased that the American Communist movement had, at last, achieved some clout. It certainly approved of the Popular Front policy; that, after all, had been initiated by Comintern General Secretary Georgi Dimitrov in 1935. William Z. Foster, however, believed that Browder had allowed the program to get out of hand by offering excessive support to President Franklin Roosevelt and John L. Lewis.[1]
The Popular Front era ended with the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the Communazi period began which lasted until the June 21, 1941 when Gemany invaded the Soviet Union.
Further reading
- Remembering When Indians Were Red Bob Kaufman, the Popular Front, and the Black Arts Movement, by James Smethurst, Project Muse, Scholarly Journals Online.
See also
References
- ↑ The Soviet World of American Communism, Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes & Kyrill M. Anderson, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995, pg. 35.
