A strategy of the communist movement begun in the 1930s as a means of fostering collaboration among left and centre parties to oppose the rise of right-wing movements and regimes, most obviously fascist ones. There were popular front governments in France, Spain, and Chile. The strategy virtually died with the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939), but re-emerged after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.
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. The term "national front", similar in name but describing a different form of ruling, using obstensibly 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. 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 due to opposition from within the Labour Party).
In the United States, 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. Additionally, Trotksy 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. Left communist groups also oppose popular fronts, but they came to oppose united fronts as well. 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, Farmer' Party, youth movement, trade union federation, etc).
It should be noted that not all coalitions who use the term "popular front" necessarily meet the accepted definition for "popular fronts", and not all popular fronts necessarily use the term "popular front" in their name.
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