A communist front (or a mass organization in communist parlance) is a political organization identified as a front organization, allied with or under the effective control of a communist party, the Communist International or other communist organizations. It is a structure used by Communist and left-wing parties to intervene in broader political movements. They attracted politicized individuals who were not party members but who often followed the party line and were called fellow travellers.
Vladimir Lenin originated the idea in his manifesto of 1902, What Is to Be Done? Since the party was illegal in Russia, he proposed to reach the masses through "a large number of other organizations intended for wide membership and, which, therefore, can be as loose and as public as possible".Quoted in Theodore Draper, American Communism and Soviet Russia (2003) p 172 Generally called "mass organizations" by the communists themselves, these groups were prevalent from the 1920s through the 1950s, with their use accelerating during the popular front period of the 1930s. The term has also been used to refer to organizations not originally communist-controlled which after a time became so such as the American Student Union. The term was especially used by anti-communists during the Cold War.
Mao Zedong broke bitterly with the Soviet Union in the late 1950s. He set up a network of pro-Chinese, anti-Soviet parties and communist fronts that directly challenged the pro-Soviet organizations.
International
Under the leadership of Grigory Zinoviev in the Kremlin, established fronts in many countries in the 1920s and after.Robert Service, Comrades!: a history of world communism (2007) To coordinate their activities the Communist International (Comintern) set up various international umbrella organizations (linking groups across national borders), such as the Young Communist International (youth), Profintern (trade unions),Ian Birchall, "Profintern: Die Rote Gewerkschaftsinternationale 1920–1937," Historical Materialism, 2009, Vol. 17 Issue 4, pp 164-176, review (in English) of a German language study by Reiner Tosstorff. Krestintern (peasants), International Red Aid (humanitarian aid), Red Sport International (organized sports), etc. In Europe, front organizations were especially influential in ItalyJoan Urban, Moscow and the Italian Communist Party: from Togliatti to Berlinguer (1986) p. 157 and France, which in 1933 became the base for Communist front organizer Willi Münzenberg. These organizations were dissolved the late 1930s or early 1940s.
Communist fronts typically attracted well-known and prestigious artists, intellectuals and other "fellow travelers" who were used to advance Party positions. Often they came to the USSR for closely controlled tours, then returned home to praise the future as revealed in the Soviet experiment.
According to Kennedy (1957), after the war, especially as the Cold War took effect around 1947, the Kremlin set up new international coordination bodies including the World Federation of Democratic Youth, International Union of Students, World Federation of Trade Unions, Women's International Democratic Federation, and the World Peace Council. Kennedy says the, "Communist 'front' system included such international organizations as the WFTU, WFDY, IUS, WIDF and WPC, besides a host of lesser bodies bringing journalists, lawyers, scientists, doctors and others into the widespread net."
The International Federation of Resistance Fighters – Association of Anti-Fascists (FIR) was designated by government agencies as a communist-influenced organization.Facts about international Communist front organisations (1958) S. 85–86
The World Federation of Scientific Workers (WFSW) is an international federation of scientific associations. It was a Cold War-era Communist front. The group was composed of scientists who supported communism. The federation opposed nuclear tests conducted by the United States.
The Union for repatriation of Russians abroad was Soviet front organization aimed at infiltration and control of the exiled community of White Russians.
The International Organization of Journalists (IOJ) was one of dozen front organizations launched by the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was controlled in Prague by the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and with many KGB agents on board was a "long hand" of Moscow.
The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) was established in 1945 to unite trade union confederations across the world; it was based in Prague. While it had non-Communist unions it was largely dominated by the Soviets. In 1949 the British, American and other non-Communist unions broke away to form the rival International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The labor movement in Europe became so polarized between the Communists unions and the Social Democratic and Christian labor unions, and front operations could no longer hide the sponsorship and they became less important.Anthony Carew, "The Schism within the World Federation of Trade Unions: Government and Trade-Union Diplomacy," International Review of Social History, Dec 1984, Vol. 29 Issue 3, pp 297-335
The then president, Ronald Reagan, in 1984, on the grounds of supposedly pro-Soviet trends, left the UNESCO.Streit um Palästina: USA treten aus Unesco ausAmerikas Abkehr
With the end of the Cold War in 1989, and the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, funding and support systems collapsed and many front organizations shut down or were exposed. For example, post-Communist Moscow newspapers reported the World Peace Council, based in Helsinki, Finland, had received policy guidance and 90% of its funding from Moscow.Jan S. Adams, A Foreign Policy in Transition: Moscow's Retreat from Central America and the Caribbean, 1985-1992 (Duke University Press, 1992) pp 69-70
The , originally the Berlin Conference of Catholic Christians from European countries, was a conference held on the 17 and 18 November 1964 in East Berlin and organized with the support of the GDR government and the cooperation of the GDR state security. The historian Clemens Vollnhal arranges them as a Communist front organization.Clemens Vollnhals, 1996: Die Kirchenpolitik von SED und Staatssicherheit: eine Zwischenbilanz, Band 7 von Analysen und Dokumente, Ch. Links Verlag, , S. 115 ().
Members of the Christian Peace Conference were churches from the socialist countries as well as church communities and individuals from other countries. In the face of their initiation with the help of socialist states, which Christians were difficult to discriminate against and partly pursue, and the proximity to Marxism, the Christian Peace Conference is regarded as controversial.vgl. etwa Hedwig Richter: Der Protestantismus und das linksrevolutionäre Pathos. Der Ökumenische Rat der Kirchen in Genf im Ost-West-Konflikt in den sechziger und siebziger Jahren, in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 3 (2010), S. 408–436; Hebe Charlotte Kohlbrugge: Zwei mal zwei ist fünf. Mein unbeschriebenes Leben seit 1914. Leipzig 2003; Gerhard Besier, Armin Boyens, Gerhard Lindemann: Nationaler Protestantismus und ökumenische Bewegung: kirchliches Handeln im Kalten Krieg (1945 - 1990) Berlin 1999 (=Zeitgeschichtliche Forschungen, Bd. 3). Historians and the media classify CPC as a Communist front organization.Clemens Vollnhals, 1996: Die Kirchenpolitik von SED und Staatssicherheit: eine Zwischenbilanz, Band 7 von Analysen und Dokumente, Ch. Links Verlag, , S. 116 ().Holger Kremser (1993): Der Rechtsstatus der evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR und die neue Einheit der EKD. J.C.B. Mohr, Tübingen. S. 157 ().Rainer Eckert: Verstrickungen der Humboldt-Uni mit dem MfS
During the Cold War, Mondpaca Esperantista Movado (MEM) was able to conduct official activities on behalf of Esperanto in East Bloc countries on the condition that it must support their Communist governments and the Soviet viewpoint.Peter Glover Forster, The Esperanto movement, Mouton Publishers, The Hague, 1982, p. 399.
The World Federation of Teachers Unions (FISE), the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAAL) and the International Radio and Television Organisation (OIRT) were also front organisations.The North Atlantic Alliance and the Soviet Union in the 1980sCommunist Front Organizations
Asia The Pan-Pacific Trade Union Secretariat (PPTUS) was set up in 1927 by the Profintern (the Comintern's trade union arm) with the mission of promoting Communist trade unions in China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and other nations in the western Pacific.Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, The Secret World of American Communism (1996) p 42 Trapeznik (2009) says the PPTUS was a "Communist-front organization" and "engaged in overt and covert political agitation in addition to a number of clandestine activities."Alexander Trapeznik, Agents of Moscow' at the Dawn of the Cold War: The Comintern and the Communist Party of New Zealand," Journal of Cold War Studies Volume 11, Number 1, Winter 2009 pp. 124-49 quote on p 144
There were numerous Communist front organizations in Asia, many oriented to students and youth.For listings of front organizations in East Asia see Malcolm Kennedy, History of Communism in East Asia (Praeger Publishers, 1957) pp 118, 127-8, 130, 277, 334, 355, 361-7, 374, 415, 421, 424, 429, 439, 444, 457-8, 470, 482
In Japan in the labor union movement of the 1920s, according to one historian, "The Hyogikai never called itself a communist front but in effect, this was what it was." He points out it was repressed by the government "along with other communist front groups."Stephen S. Large, Organized Workers and Socialist Politics in Interwar Japan (2010) p. 85 In the 1950s, Scalapino argues, "The primary Communist-front organization was the ." It was founded in 1949.Robert A. Scalapino, The Japanese Communist Movement 1920-1967 (1967) p 117
Consentrasi Gerakan Mahasiswa Indonesia ('Unified Movement of Students of Indonesia', abbreviated CGMI) was an organization of university students in Indonesia, linked to the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI). CGMI was founded in 1956, through the merger of communist-led university student groups in Bogor, Bandung and Yogyakarta (which had emerged in the early 1950s). At the time of its founding, CGMI had a membership of around 1,180.Hindley, Donald. The Communist Party of Indonesia, 1951-1963. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964. pp. 196-197
Fadjar Harapan ('Dawn of Hope') was a short-lived Indonesian pioneer organization, linked to the Communist Party of Indonesia. Fadjar Harapan was founded in 1959, albeit that there already was an existing Scouting movement initiated by the Communist Party. However, the organization was officially not connected to any political party (according to the constitution of the organization) and was open to all children between the ages of six and thirteen. The initiative to found the new organization was taken by the party leader Aidit. Cadres of the Communist Party and Pemuda Rakjat (the youth wing of the Communist Party) were given the task to study how pioneer movements functioned in other countries, but adapting Fadjar Harapan to Indonesian conditions.Hindley, Donald. The Communist Party of Indonesia, 1951-1963. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964. p. 199