<HTML>I think this piece, from the encyclopedia in the Marxists archive, gives a good historical and ideological background to the current strategies of groups like WWP/IAC/ANSWER in the United States. http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/o.htm <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Popular Front (aka People’s Front) The Popular Front or “Peoples Front” was a right wing response by the <A HREF="http://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/c/o.htm#communist-international">Communist International</A> to the failures of the so-called “Third Period” (1928-1935), during which the Comintern embarked on an insurrectionary and ultra-left response to the world-wide capitalist depression (in the Comintern’s eyes, the “Third Period” of capitalist decline). This culmination of this line [of the "Third Period" --d.] was the failure of the German Communist Party, then the largest Communist Party outside of Russia, to effectively combat the rise of and eventual victory, of the German Nazis. It was a period marked by <A HREF="http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/e.htm#sectarianism">sectarianism</A> and adventurism. Around the world, Communist activists split unions to set up pure “red unions” in opposition to the established union movement, regardless of how isolated or small Communist influence among workers was. Additionally, any work with non-Communist workers was forbidden or discouraged, effectively destroying the ability of the class to unite against their common fascist enemy. In response, <A HREF="http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/d/i.htm#dimitrov-georgi">Georgi Dimitrov</A>, the Bulgarian leader of the Comintern, at the 1935 7th World Congress of the Communist International, proposed in a speech entitled <A HREF="http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/unity.htm">The Unity of the Working Class against Fascism</A> a turn away from this adventurism which was formerly known as the “United Front Against Fascism” but was more commonly referred to as the Popular Front. Whereas before this date, the Comintern’s sections regarded socialists and anarchist organizations as “social-fascists”, unity in action against fascism with them became the order of the day. However, this unity “against fascism” was also a unity with what Dimitrov, and Stalin, argued for as the “progressive” bourgeoisie. Thus this action, almost always manifested in an electoralist campaign with these “progressive” and anti-fascist capitalist political parties, meant forming such “People’s Fronts” at all costs, including subordinating the political independence of the working class parties to this unity. Because such unity was the point of the Popular Front, anything that would go beyond the confines of the agreement to fight fascism, had to be opposed and suppressed. The Comintern argued that “first we fight the fascists, then we fight for the socialist revolution.” This stagist approach inevitably meant that the Communist Parties had to act as brakes on mobilizations during this period. Popular front governments were elected in France and Spain 1936 on a capitalist “anti-Fascist” program. But due to the tremendous radicalization by the working class that resulted in the bringing to power of the Popular Front governments, the workers wanted to go beyond the limited program of the Popular Front. In France, factory occupations occurred in response to Fascist attacks on workers. Workers responded in a pre-insurrectionary way with action committees forming at the biggest plants in France. The Stalinist French Communist Party due to its control of the largest union in France, successfully demobilized and sabotaged these actions, thus defusing a pre-revolutionary situation, leading to the establishment of a right wing government. In Spain, a Popular Front government was also elected. The effects of a Fascist “pronunciamento” or coup attempt by Francisco Franco in July of 1936 resulted in a stunning set back for the Fascists, brought about by the workers, independently of the government, smashing the Fascist rebellion in half of Spain. The Stalinists in Spain were a small minority in the workers’ movement, and in Catalonia, the workers, lead by Anarchists and dissident communists, quickly established democratic control throughout this industrialized region of the Spanish state. The Stalinists then went on a war path trying to destroy this workers revolution. With war raging in the west of Spain, the Stalinists used the excuse of the Popular Front to argue that now was “not the time for revolution”, that only the fight against Franco’s Fascist legions was permissible. Most of the working class disagreed, instead taking on the local capitalists, most of whom were sympathetic to Franco, expropriating their holdings and collectivizing the land was the only way to fight fascism. Because the Stalinists controlled the oppressive apparatus of the Spanish state they attacked the Anarchists, dissident communists and left-socialists, imprisoned some of their members and murdered others ... all in the name of Popular Front. The Stalinist government of Russia aided their fellow Stalinists in both France and Spain and in other countries, in protecting the capitalist integrity of the People’s Front by using the KGB/GPU secret police to go after those on the left that would oppose the policies of the Front. The Popular Fronts in essence meant the subordination of workers’ parties to the capitalist political system. It meant the demobilization of workers who naturally radicalized when they say members of their own organizations in government and expected them to defend their interests, up to and including smashing capitalism and building a workers state. The ultimate failure of the Popular Fronts of the 1930s did not, however, mean the ending of the policies of the Popular Fronts. To this day, the Popular Front takes similar forms, always subordinating the interests of the workers to the alliance of socialist, Communist and capitalist parties. </BLOCKQUOTE> </HTML>