Popular Fronts (Perestroika)

A Borrowed Name for a Different Movement

In the Soviet republics of the late perestroika years, 'popular front' meant something other than the Comintern's popular front of the 1930s. The name attached itself to mass movements led by liberal-minded intelligentsia, movements that began under the banner of defending perestroika. Their official aim was to protect reform from reactionary elements within the state bureaucracy, and that cautious tone bought them room: considerable freedom to organise and access to the mass media. Over time, however, they began to question the legitimacy of their republics' membership in the Soviet Union.

In most cases they were led by members of the intelligentsia who were themselves local Communist Party members. In the Baltic republics they soon became the dominant political force, gradually taking the initiative from the more radical dissident organisations established earlier. They also became the main challengers to communist party hegemony in Byelorussia, Moldavia, Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The Baltics: From Popular Front to Independence

In Estonia, Edgar Savisaar introduced the idea of a popular front on a television broadcast on 13 April 1988, and the Estonian Popular Front (Rahvarinne) was officially established on 1 October 1988. The movement, part of what was called the Singing Revolution, pushed the Estonian Supreme Soviet to adopt a declaration of sovereignty in November 1988.

In Lithuania, the Sąjūdis Initiative Group was formed at a meeting of intellectuals at the Academy of Sciences on 3 June 1988; in Latvia, the Latvian Popular Front (Tautas fronte) was founded on 9 October 1988. The Latvian front initially took a moderate position, requesting wide autonomy while stopping short of independence, and was supported by moderate members of the Latvian SSR leadership but opposed by hardline Communists. In the 1990 Supreme Council election the Popular Front won 131 of 201 seats.

The three movements' largest joint action came on 23 August 1989, the fiftieth anniversary of the secret protocols of the Nazi-Soviet pact: the Baltic Way, in which two million people formed a human chain of six hundred kilometres linking the three capitals. The republics then moved through declarations of sovereignty toward declarations of independence.

The Other Republics

The popular fronts were also the main challengers to communist party hegemony in Byelorussia, Moldavia, Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan. In Azerbaijan the Popular Front came to prominence amid the violence over Nagorno-Karabakh and the military intervention of Black January 1990, and its leader, Abulfaz Elchibey, later became president of independent Azerbaijan.

A Popular Front was established in Georgia as well, but it remained marginal. The bloodshed in Tbilisi on 9 April 1989 had radicalised society, and the front was unable to play the compromising role its counterparts played elsewhere. In the remaining republics such organisations existed but never posed a meaningful threat to the incumbent party and economic elites.

What They Left Behind

The popular fronts played a key role in ending Communist Party rule in the Soviet republics and are counted among the political agents of the USSR's dissolution. They also show a dynamic perestroika could not control: movements that began in the language of defending reform ended by denying the legitimacy of the Union itself. In the Baltic states they persisted into the early 1990s and fed into successor parties.