The French and Spanish Popular Fronts: Comparative Perspectives

The menace of triumphant Nazism and fascism across Europe in the 1930s drove the left into unity with liberals, in order to make common cause against the extremist right. Popular Front initiatives were a significant attempt to bar the way to further fascist victories. This collection of essays focuses specifically on France and Spain as the only two countries where Popular Front coalitions won political power through the ballot box. From a comparative perspective the volume gathers leading experts on the 1930s who travel beyond the territory of orthodox political history. Taken together, their contributions provide the first multi-dimensional approach to the Front phenomenon. The Popular Fronts in France and Spain emerge here as more than elite political partnerships - they were movements of the masses in search of social, cultural and educational change.

Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction Martin S. Alexander and Helen Graham; 2. The formation of the French Popular Front, 1934–6 Joel Colton; 3. The origins and nature of the Spanish Popular Front Santos Juliá; 4. The French Radicals, Spain and the emergence of appeasement H. Haywood Hunt; 5. The Spanish army and the Popular Front Michael Alpert; 6. Soldiers and socialists: the French officers corps and leftist government, 1935–7 Martin S. Alexander; 7. The Spanish Church and the Popular Front: the experience of Salamanca province Mary Vincent; 8. ‘La main tendue’: the French Communist Party and the Catholic Church, 1935–7 James Steel; 9. Trotsky and left-wing critics of the Popular Front Tom Kemp; 10. The development of marxist theory in Spain and the Frente Popular Paul Haywood; 11. The other Popular Front: French anarchism and the Front Révolutionnaire David Berry; 12. The French Popular Front and the politics of Jacques Doriot Alan Forrest; 13. The Blum government, the Conseil National Economique and economic policy Adrian Rossiter; 14. Social and economic policies of the Spanish left in theory and in practice José Manuel Macarro Vera; 15. Women, men and the 1936 strikes in France Siân Reynolds; 16. From clientelism to communism: the Marseille working class and the Popular Front David A. L. Levy; 17. A reinterpretation of the Spanish Popular Front: the case of Asturias Adrian Shubert; 18. Le temps des loisirs: popular tourism and mass leisure in the vision of the Front Populaire Julian Jackson; 19. The educational and cultural policy of the Popular Front government in Spain, 1936–9 Christopher Cobb; 20. French intellectual groups and the Popular Front: traditional and innovative uses of the media Martin Stanton; Index.