The NS State



Popular Front Governments



Since the end of World War I, the labour movement was split in two major factions, the SOCIAL DEMOCRATS advocating a policy of peacefully achieving social reforms within the framework of parliamentary democracy, and the COMMUNISTS seeking to abolish parliamentary democracy and replacing it by a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat".
These two party organizations had, for over a decade, shown a hostile attitude toward each other, the communists blaming the social democrats for the failure of the revolution outside of Russia in 1918. Both movements had international organizations, the COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, controlled by Stalin, and the SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL which was organized on a democratic basis. In 1935, with many European countries having turned into dictatorships, Stalin ordered the remaining communist parties of Europe to give up their obstructionist policy and to seek cooperation with the socialists/social democrats.
In FRANCE and in SPAIN, the parties of the left (Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, Syndicalists) formed alliances called POPULAR FRONT. In 1936, in both countries the popular front alliances won the elections and proceeded to establish governments.
Their platform was that of far-reaching political reforms benefitting the working class and the poor in general; the program alienated the middle class, the landowners, the church, the parties of the right and center. In Spain neither the Army nor the traditional establishment were willing to take this and the CIVIL WAR broke out. The Popular Front government, now referred to as the legitimate republican government, with considerable support from international volunteers, held on until defeated in 1939. In France, the Popular Front government failed over internal dissent.


France 1929-1939 Spain 1936-1939




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This page is part of World History at KMLA
Last revised on February 20th 2002

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