Popular front

For thoughtful child sponsors

Popular Fronts comprise broad coalitions of political and other groups, often made up of left wingers, and often united against particularly stringent circumstances.

After Stalin changed the Komintern policy to collaboration of Communists with other leftist parties, Popular Front governments formed in France (Front Populaire), the Second Spanish Republic and Chile in the 1930s.

The government of the former state of East Germany presented itself as a de facto Popular Front: 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).

At the time, Leon Trotsky criticised this position, claiming that only united fronts could ultimately be progressive. This position is now common to most Trotskyist groups, although they disagree on the exact definition of a popular front. Left communist groups also opposed popular fronts, and also came to oppose united fronts.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine preserves a self-image of multiple groupings united in a common cause of self-determination.