Popular front

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Popular Front was a left-wing social movement in the United States. It was supported by the Communist Party of the USA , the radical industrial workers' union federation CIO , but above all by independent anti-fascists, socialists and sympathizers of leftist ideals. It had support from the common people as well as from intellectuals.

prehistory

As early as the beginning of the century, strikes directed against unreasonable working conditions that had developed in the course of industrialization led to radicalization within the poorer sections of the population. But intellectuals were also enthusiastic about communist and socialist ideas. 1901 was Socialist Party of America , founded in 1905 , the international trade union IWW , 1919 , the Communist Party USA .

Already after the First World War there were extensive government measures against left organizations under the Justice Minister Alexander Mitchell Palmer , the so-called Palmer Raids (1918-1921). Palmer, who was known as an anti-communist, used a series of bomb attacks - including on his house, which was destroyed in the process - as an opportunity to arrest large numbers of communists and anarchists and to carry out "house searches" in the offices of left-wing organizations demolish. There were also expulsions of foreign activists. In the 1920s, a time of great economic prosperity, which was generally characterized by the idealization of an unbridled capitalism, socialist and communist ideals exerted a strong pull in intellectual circles.

The economic crisis, known as the " Great Depression " in the USA , has led to rapidly increasing unemployment and extreme impoverishment of large sections of the population since 1929. In the early 1930s this led to a radicalization of the masses. This was shown, for example, in the split of the industrial workers' association CIO from the AFL, which was considered too hesitant, in 1935. In the same year the CIO began to organize effective strikes and quickly gained high popularity among industrial workers.

The Popular Front

Like caused by industrialization social changes, but also the rise of fascism, an alliance of liberal and radical left groups known as "in many European countries emerged in response to the economic crisis, the Popular Front " (Engl. "Popular Front") refers has been. It was directed against right-wing extremist and fascist groups in the USA, against European and worldwide fascism, but above all stood up for a "just" society for everyone in the USA. After the stock market crash of 1929, caused by excessive speculation, and the economic crisis that followed, there was considerable distrust in the population of the large corporations and often of modern capitalism itself, so that the idea of ​​a "just" society fell on fertile ground. However, Stalinism met with widespread opposition.

Representatives of the "Popular Front" were also active on a cultural level, in music, painting, theater, literature and film. a. Orson Welles , Richard Wright and Tillie Olsen . Since the mid-1930s, socialist ideals have found increasing support among the general population, although the economic situation slowly improved. A 1942 Fortune magazine poll found that 25% of those polled were in favor of socialism and another 35% did not oppose it. (Michael Denning: The Popular Front, p. 4).

The general mood in the population also led to the very social policies of the Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt - social measures such as social insurance (a type of social insurance that later became social security ), pension insurance and state support became particularly needy, at least in rudimentary form Forms introduced (in the Social Security Act of 1935). There were also job creation schemes for both workers and intellectuals under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) from 1934 to 1943 .

Historical evaluation

In the course of the communist persecution (" McCarthy era ", English: McCarthyism ) under Senator Joseph McCarthy in the late 1940s and 1950s, attempts were made to reduce the Popular Front to the Communist Party alone and to denounce it. The memory of the time of the "Popular Front" is very little in the collective memory of the USA, although the "Great Depression" is still very present here today. However, it is mainly associated with the New Deal , the dust storms , a natural disaster in the so-called Dust Bowl , rural regions in the western United States. The most memorable artistic achievements were the photos by Dorothea Lange , the novels by John Steinbeck and the music by Woody Guthrie , which were not directly associated with the Popular Front, but reflect the socially critical zeitgeist of this period.

Historians stress, however, that “the heart of the Popular Front lay with those who were non-communist socialists and independent leftists who worked with communists and liberals who represented a culture that was neither a party nor a liberal New Deal culture . ”(Michael Denning:" The Cultural Front ", p. 5, own translation) The Popular Front marks a decisive turning point in American culture. It is considered to be one of the most radical social movements in modern US history, likened u. a. with the social movements of the 1960s.