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

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, the "popular front" referred to the alliance of political parties in France 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".

The Comintern's Popular Front policy 1934–1939[link]

In response to the growing threat of fascism in the 1930s, Communist parties that were members of the Comintern (then largely under the control of Joseph 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 Republic, and Chile. Others never quite got off the ground. There were attempts in the United Kingdom to found a Popular Front against the National Government's appeasement of Nazi Germany, between the Labour Party, the Liberal Party, the Independent Labour Party, the Communist Party, and even rebellious elements of the Conservative Party under Winston Churchill, but they failed mainly due to opposition from within the Labour Party but incompatibility of Liberal and socialist approaches also caused many Liberals to be hostile.^[1]

The Popular Front policy of the Comintern was introduced in 1934, succeeding its ultra-left "Third Period" during which it condemned non-Communist socialist parties as "social fascist". The new policy was signalled in a Pravda article of May 1934, which commented favourably on socialist-Communist collaboration.^[2] In June 1934, Léon Blum's Socialist Party signed a pact of united action with the French Communist Party, extended to the Radical Party in October. In May 1935, France and Russia signed a defensive alliance and in August 1935, the Comintern's Seventh Congress officially endorsed the Popular Front strategy.^[3] In the elections of May 1936, the Popular Front won a majority of parliamentary seats (378 deputies against 220), and Léon Blum formed a government.^[2]

In Italy, the Comintern advised an alliance between the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party, but this was rejected by the Socialists. Similarly, in the United States, the CPUSA sought a joint Socialist-Communist ticket with Norman Thomas's Socialist Party of America in the 1936 presidential election but the Socialists rejected this overture. The CPUSA also offered critical support to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in this period. The Popular Front period in the USA saw the CP taking a very patriotic and populist line, later called Browderism. According to some historians, Joseph Stalin used the concept of the Popular Front to solidify control of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and to suppress criticism from those in the radical left after the Moscow show trials and subsequent series of executions and assassinations.^[4]

The Popular Front period came to an end with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Nazi Germany and Russia, at which point Comintern parties turned from a policy of anti-fascism to one of advocating peace.

Critics and defenders of the Popular Front policy[link]

Leon Trotsky and his supporters roundly criticised the Popular Front strategy. In the first place, Stalin had used the Popular Front as a tool to oppose Trotsky and other dissidents outside Stalin's immediate control.^[4] Additionally, Trotsky believed 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.

In a book written in 1977, the Eurocommunist leader Santiago Carrillo offered a positive assessment of the Popular Front. He argued that in Spain, despite excesses attributable to the passions of civil war, the period of coalition government in Republican areas 'contained in embryo the conception of an advance to socialism with democracy, with a multi-party system, parliament, and liberty for the opposition'.^[5] Carrillo however criticised the Communist International for not taking the Popular Front strategy far enough — specifically for the fact that the French Communists were restricted to supporting Leon Blum's government from without, rather than becoming full coalition partners.^[6]

Popular Fronts governments in the Soviet Bloc[link]

After World War II, most Central and 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, Farmers' Party, Youth Movement, Trade Union Federation, etc.). At legislative elections, voters were presented with a single list of candidates from all parties. In practice, however, only the Communist Party had any real power; all parties in the front had to accept its "leading role." By ensuring that Communists dominated the candidate lists, it effectively predetermined the composition of the legislature.

The People's Republic of China's United Front is perhaps the best known example of a communist-run popular front in modern times.

In Soviet republics[link]

In the Republics of the Soviet Union, between around 1988 and 1992 (by which time the USSR had dissolved and all were independent), the term "Popular Front" had quite a different meaning. It referred to movements led by members of the liberal intelligentsia, in some republics small and peripheral, in others broad-based and influential. Officially their aim was to defend perestroika against reactionary elements within the state bureaucracy, but over time they began to question the legitimacy of their republics' membership of the USSR. It was their initially cautious tone that gave them considerable freedom to organise and gain access to the mass media. In the Baltic republics, they soon became the dominant political force and gradually gained the initiative from the more radical dissident organisations established earlier, moving their republics towards greater autonomy and later independence. They also became the main challengers to Communist Party hegemony in Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan. A Popular Front was established in Georgia but remained marginal compared to the dominant dissident-led groups, because the April 9 tragedy had radicalised society and it was unable to play the compromise role of similar movements. In the other republics, such organisations existed but never posed a meaningful threat to the incumbent Party and economic elites.^[7]

^[8]

List of Popular Fronts[link]

National fronts in current Communist countries[link]

• People's Republic of China - the United Front led by the Communist Party of China
• Socialist Republic of Vietnam - the Fatherland Front led by the Communist Party of Vietnam (succeeded the North Vietnamese Fatherland Front of 1955-1977)
• Lao People's Democratic Republic - the Lao Front for National Construction led by the Lao People's Revolutionary Party
• Democratic People's Republic of Korea - the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland led by the Workers' Party of Korea (succeeded the United Democratic National Front of 1946-1949)

National fronts in former Communist countries[link]

• People's Socialist Republic of Albania - the Democratic Front led by the Albanian Party of Labour (succeeded the National Liberation Front of 1942-1945)
• Democratic Republic of Afghanistan - the National Front led by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
• People's Republic of Bulgaria - the Fatherland Front led by the Bulgarian Communist Party
• Czechoslovak Socialist Republic - the National Front led by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
• German Democratic Republic - the National Front led by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
• People's Republic of Kampuchea - the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation led by the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party (renamed Kampuchean United Front for National Construction and Defence in 1981)
• People's Republic of Poland - the Democratic Bloc led by the Polish United Workers' Party (replaced by the Front of National Unity in 1952 and subsequently by the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth in 1983)
• Socialist Republic of Romania - the People's Democratic Front led by the Romanian Communist Party (replaced in 1968 by the Socialist Unity Front, later renamed the Socialist Democracy and Unity Front)
• SFR Yugoslavia - the National Front of Yugoslavia led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (replaced by the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia in 1945)
• People's Republic of Hungary - the National Independence Front led by the Hungarian Communist Party (replaced in 1949 by the Independent People's Front led by the Hungarian Working People's Party, then replaced by the Patriotic People's Front in 1954, which after 1956 was led by the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party)

Popular fronts in non-Communist countries[link]

• Azerbaijan Popular Front Party
• Belarusian People's Front
• Frente Popular (Philippines)
• Popular Democratic Front (Italy, 1948)
• Popular Front (Chile)
• Popular Front (France)
• Popular Front (Mauritania)
• Popular Front (Senegal)
• Popular Front (Spain)
• Popular Front of India
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Bahrain
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command
• Popular Unity (Chile)

See also[link]

• National front
• Third Period
• United front

References[link]

Further Reading[link]

• Lewis Mates (2002). "The United Front and the Popular Front in the North-east of England, 1936-1939" (Thesis). http://durham.academia.edu/LewisMates/Papers/322234/_The_United_Front_and_the_Popular_Front_in_the_North-east_of_England_1936-1939_Ph.D_thesis_2002. 

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The Members are a British punk band that originated in Camberley, England. Their best known recording is "The Sound of the Suburbs" (1979).

Career[link]

The Members was formed by lyricist Nicky Tesco (Nick Lightowlers) in 1976, through an invited audition at a recording studio at Tooley Street, London.^[1] The original personnel, with Tesco (vocals), was Gary Baker (guitar), and Steve Morley (bass guitar), initially with Steve Maycock then Clive Parker (drums). Morley and Parker were later replaced by Chris Payne and Adrian Lillywhite.

In 1976, the band performed for its first engagements at The Red Cow (London W6), The Windsor Castle (London W9) and The Nashville Rooms (London W14). In that year composer Jean Marie Carroll (aka JC Carroll) joined the band to complement Tesco's lyrics.^[1] The Members had recorded a number of songs, but the first released recording was "Fear on the Streets", produced by Lillywhite's brother Steve Lillywhite. This song was included on the first record released by the Beggars Banquet label, the punk compilation, Streets (1977).^[2] The song-writing collaboration between Tesco and Carroll moved The Members' sound towards an incorporation of reggae, shown in the first single released for Stiff Records, "Solitary Confinement", produced by Larry Wallis. Following these releases, band personnel became Tesco (vocals), Carroll (vocals and guitar), Nigel Bennett (guitar), Payne (bass) and Lillywhite (drums).

In 1978/79 The Members continued to play the London pub and club circuit, and became a feature in the music press. They signed to Virgin Records in 1978, for which they recorded "The Sound of the Suburbs", again produced by Steve Lillywhite. This became The Members' biggest chart success and their best known song in the UK. The follow-up single, "Offshore Banking Business", a reggae tune written by Carroll, did not achieve the same popularity. A version of "Offshore Banking Business" was recorded for the early 1980s film, Urgh! A Music War, produced by Michael White, distributed by Filmways and Lorimar Productions.^[3]

The Members' first album, At the Chelsea Nightclub, was followed by a second for Virgin, 1980 – The Choice Is Yours. Their last album was Going West,^[2] issued a year earlier as Uprhythm, Downbeat (1982) in the US.^[1] The album featured the single" Radio", which made the Top 10 in parts of Australia.^[4]

The band broke up in 1983, when Tesco left the band after the last tour of the US. In 1989, Tesco appeared in Leningrad Cowboys Go America, written and directed by Aki Kaurismaki, a film about a fictional Russian rock band touring the US.^[5] This fictional band then toured as an actual band, and recorded the Tesco song "Thru the Wire". Kaurismäki directed a video for "Thru the Wire", featuring Tesco.^[6] As well as working as a music journalist for the magazine Music Week, Tesco has been a commentator on new releases for BBC 6 Music's "Roundtable".

In 2007, The Members were reunited at The Inn on the Green, Ladbroke Grove, London, MC'd by Phill Jupitus under his 1980s performance poet stage name of “Porky The Poet”.

In 2009, a new single "International Financial Crisis" (a re-write of "Offshore Banking Business") was released, recorded by Tesco, Carroll, Payne and Bennett, with artwork by the original Members’ album sleeve designer, Malcolm Garrett. The same year, Carroll and Payne toured as The Members, with occasional appearances of Tesco and Bennett. A Members' line-up of Carroll, Payne and Nick Cash (drums) performed during 2010, playing in Spain and Italy, and at the Isle of Wight^[7] and Glastonbury Festivals. Nigel Bennett currently plays with The Vibrators where he shares singing duties since the departure of frontman Knox. The band cover "The Sound of the Suburbs" in their live act.

In March 2012, they released what is only their fourth studio album, InGrrLand, featuring Carroll, Payne, Bennett, Cash and Rat Scabies. The Members continue to tour and record with Rat Scabies playing the drums.

Discography[link]

Line-ups[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Nick (Nicky) Tesco biographical videos.
• The Members web site
• Nick Tesco music review blog.
• J C Carroll myspace
• J C Carroll composition site entry
• Nicky Tesco filmography
• Nick Cash: a bio
• The Members Myspace