People's Front of Yugoslavia

For People's Liberation War of Yugoslavia, see Yugoslav Front (World War II).

People's Front of Yugoslavia was an organization of antifascist and democratic masses of nations of Yugoslavia. The idea of its creation sprang up in the 1930s, especially during the May 5, 1935 parliamentary elections in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

At the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in June 1935 held in the city of Split (Dalmatia) it was concluded to form the Front of National Freedom. Also it was concluded that Fascism could be defeated by the joint efforts of proletariat, peasantry, nationally oppressed and all democratic and progressive layers of society. The basis for the Front of the People's Freedom would be the Communist Party of Yugoslavia joined by the trade unions, "left wings" of the peasant parties, youth, university students, cultural, educational, sports societies, different professional associations and national liberation movements under the auspices of civic parties. The main platform was:

1. The destruction of the 6 January Regime,
2. Equal rights of the nations of Yugoslavia,
3. Preventing the burden of crisis on the back of the People and improving the economic position of broad working masses at the expense of the rich.

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia comprehended the People's Front (NF) as a political platform for the approaching of masses with its ideas and as a method of alliance with other opposition parties like civic, republican and democratic bourgeois parties.

The Communist Party of Yugoslavia was banned from political life of the country but remained seized with the matter of creating a singular People's Front up to the beginning of the World War II.

At the conference in Stolice (Serbia) it was concluded that the antifascist movement should be transformed to a United People's Liberation Front of Yugoslavia.

Each of the future republics and autonomous provinces had its own People's Liberation Front.

National front of republics and provinces

Name of the people's front	Date of first lands' conference	Place, Republic or province
United People's Liberation Front of Croatia	May 18, 1944	Croatia
People's Liberation Front of Bosnia and Herzegovina	July 3, 1944	Sanski Most, BIH
People's Liberation Front of Montenegro	July 16, 1944	Kolašin, Montenegro
United People's Liberation Front of Serbia	November 14, 1944	Serbia
People's Liberation Front of Macedonia	November 26, 1944	Skopje, Macedonia
People's Liberation Front of Vojvodina	December 11, 1944	Novi Sad, Vojvodina
People's Liberation Front of Kosovo	April 11 and April 12, 1945	Kosovo
Liberation Front of the Slovene People	July 15 and July 16, 1945	Slovenia

The first congress of the People's Front of Yugoslavia was held in Belgrade from August 5 to August 7, 1945. The Programme and the Statute of the National Front of Yugoslavia were passed. Edvard Kardelj gave the main guidelines for the NFY in his seminary which described the NFY as "the sole of the Nation, its reflection, its heroic uprising, its greatest majority – that it is – the Nation itself".

At the fourth congress of the NFY it changed its name to the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Yugoslavia. The congress accepted the proposal of the sixth congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia to have the name changed at the fourth congress of the National Front of Yugoslavia, held in Belgrade from February 22 to February 25, 1953.

Parties and general people's organizations of the NF

• Antifascist Front of Women of Yugoslavia (AFŽ)
• Croatian Peasant Party
• Independent Democratic Party
• Landworkers' Party
• National Peasant Party
• Socialist Party of Yugoslavia
• Social-Democratic Party of Yugoslavia
• United Alliance of Antifascist Youth of Yugoslavia (USAOJ)
• United Trade Union of Workers and Employees (JSRiN)
• Yugoslav Republican Democratic Party

Parties not members of the NF

• Democratic Party
• National Radical Party

References

• Narodni front Jugoslavije, Političko odeljenje Ministarstva narodne odbrane, Beograd, 1945.
• Katarina Spehnjak, Narodni front Jugoslavije (SSRNJ) - razvoj, programsko-teorijske osnove i procesi u društvenoj praksi, published in Povijesni prilozi Year 3, No 1, a collection of papers by the Institute of the History of the Workers Movement of Croatia, Zagreb, 1984. ISSN 0351-976