Talk:Popular front

Untitled
why isn't there a section here on the american popular front era with browder, the new deal, etc?

Do we have a proper article somewhere else on the 1930s Comintern efforts at popular front politics? It certainly merits more of an article than the brief discussion here. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

can't find one...

Popular front versus National front
While the two names sound so similarly and were so close in time and space they describe very different political structures.

"Popular front", as propagated before WWII, was coalition of made out of necessity, where the communist party did not necessarily need to have absolute power.

The term "National front" was invented later to signify it is coalition of the whole nation (to fight with the Germans). After communist parties took over all power they kept this term as it was convenient enough. For most of the time the "national front" actually meant single party rule with few other, puppet like parties orbiting around.

This is case of Czechoslovakia: a popular front ("Lidová fronta") was (unsuccessfully) proposed by the communist party after Nazi takeover of Germany, a national front ("Národní fronta") was established during the war, initially to include all parties resisting the occupation. After 1948 national front turned into something as an empty shell. Official propaganda never mistook one term for another: "national front" (the "empty" variant) was step above of mere "popular front".

I am sorry I am nitpicking so much for one word but the disctinction was felt strong enough both officially and by people living in these countries. If no one will object I'll create a article on "national" fronts as post-WWII institution of its own. Pavel Vozenilek 09:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Anyone attempting to resolve page's NPOV violation, please consider this distinction as well. Wingedserif (talk) 17:57, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Citation
i'm willing to sort out the citations in the article, but also want to raise a few issues. The article does not mention The Popular Front in refrerence to the Spanish Civil war, or the dimishing role of the Comintern post 1936. Is there a reason for this or just an oversight? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.55.122 (talk) 19:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

NPOV violation: too much focus on Marxist-Leninist advocacy of popular fronts
The article focuses too much on Marxist-Leninist advocacy of popular fronts. Liberals and social democrats took part in popular fronts as well.--R-41 (talk) 19:59, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with this point, I think I'll tag with NPOV. By so heavily sourcing for information about Communist influence on popular fronts, I think the article creates a misleading representation of the historical movements that it refers to. (As an example, I've added a sourced note in the article about how the US popular front was actually composed of leftists as a whole, and that Communist Party membership is overemphasized in the historical literature.) One problem with the article is its structure, by placing the subsections about every country's popular front movement under the heading of "Comintern policy". A careful restructuring would help, as would adding sources that discuss the leftist, socialist, liberal, and anarchist contributions to the popular front movements (as well as the political relationships between them). Wingedserif (talk) 17:53, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

In most broad-front movements, the Communists were some of the best organisers and had an influence out of proportion to their numbers. The Leninist idea was that members must be committed and hard-working. Other organisations had more members but they did less. And mostly there were several organisations run by the party that found room for less active supporters, or people sympathetic but with points of difference.

Actual Popular Fronts were meaningful only where Communists were included, so the balance is right. --GwydionM (talk) 10:15, 26 November 2020 (UTC)


 * If that is the rationale then why not say so in the article and provide support with proper references? Otherwise, it is unsupported editorializing and/or original research Mballen (talk) 17:55, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

The article as it stands is OK.--GwydionM (talk) 09:49, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Name
Shouldn't this be at capitalized Popular Front? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 05:09, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't see why it should. Its not a proper noun. Int21h (talk) 22:33, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

China and North Korea as "Communist" countries
Currently the listing near the bottom shows North Korea as a former Communist country and China as still a Communist country. I realize that countries brand themselves as whatever they want, but is this accurate? It almost seems ridiculous to call China a Communist country (if you listen carefully you'll hear Mao spinning in his grave), but by any reasonable measure, isn't North Korea a much more Communist country than China is? __209.179.9.46 (talk) 18:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Based on what? Former leader Kim Jong-il became a vocal-critic of Marxism–Leninism and rejected historical materialism. The official state ideology, Juche, "considers human beings in general to be the driving force in history." Or, in other words, "man is the master of everything and decides everything".


 * Juche also differs from Marxism in its "Great Leader" theory. The so-called "Great Leader" is "the leading force of the working class". "The Great Leader is also a flawless human being, who never commits mistakes, who is always benevolent, and who always rules for the masses. The leader is incorruptible." Basically in Juche, the leader commands absolute power and is somehow more perfect than the rest of humanity. That part of the ideology does not derive from Marxism. Dimadick (talk) 21:38, 3 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for replying. One of my points was to show how ridiculous it was to have the PRC as a Communist and the DPRK as non-Communist. Even though the leaders of China claim they're still communist no one would argue that China is still a Communist country with a straight face. And North Korea is as Stalinist a country as the USSR was under Stalin. Just because someone claims their country is or isn't something doesn't necessarily make it so. Through it's whole history the USSR claimed it was a democracy, but no one will say that's true.


 * The quotes you provided help prove my point. That is clearly a case of Kim trying to further promote his cult of personality, and make him the center of the universe, rather than Marxism. If North Korea doesn't fall under the category of a Communist country then I don't know what does. Didn't Hitler used to claim Germany was a peace loving country, even when it was invading country after country?   A pig with lipstick on it is still a pig. And if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then...


 * I still think the article is wrong and somebody should try to fix it. Sincerely-  __209.179.9.46 (talk) 21:41, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

List
Most the groups listed in this section do not appear to meet the definition of popular fronts featured in the opening paragraph, such the PFI, PFLB, the PFLO, the PFLP and the PFLP-GC which are not "broad coalitions of different political groupings".

The article even states; "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'." Charles Essie (talk) 17:37, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Lenin
The article claims that

The strategy of creating or taking over organizations that would then claim to be expressions of popular will, and not manipulation by the Soviet Union or communist movement, was first suggested by Vladimir Lenin.

Where did Lenin suggest this? There is no citation here.

In general, the discussion of the separate sense of the term "front ... as a facade 'used to mask'" etc. seems to just confuse what should be the main issue of the article, especially since it comes so early. 60.241.189.184 (talk) 12:51, 28 January 2024 (UTC)