Front of National Unity

This article is about Polish political organization. For Bolivian political party, see National Unity Front.
National Unity Front
Front Jedności Narodu
First leaderBolesław Bierut
Last leaderHenryk Jabłoński
Founded1947 (as Democratic Bloc)
Dissolved1983
Succeeded byPatriotic Movement for National Rebirth
Ideology
Political positionFar-left
Colors  Red
FNU election poster from mid 1970s.

Front of National Unity or National Unity Front (Polish: Front Jedności Narodu, FJN) was a popular front supervising elections in the Polish People's Republic which also acted as a coalition for the dominant communist Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) and its allies.[1] It was founded in 1952 as National Front (Front Narodowy) and renamed to Front of National Unity in 1956.[1] It was the heir of the Democratic Bloc (Blok Demokratyczny) which ran in the elections of 1947 before the merger between communists and socialists.

The Front was created by and was subordinate to the PZPR.[2] Its membership included all three legal Polish political parties (the PZPR, Democratic Party, and United People's Party) and many organizations (such as trade unions).[2] During elections it had a near monopoly (varied depending on particular time) on registering candidates who had the right to participate in the elections.[1][2] As was the case with other popular fronts in the Soviet bloc, the member parties of the Front were largely subservient to the PZPR; they had to accept the PZPR's "leading role" as a condition of their existence.

In 1983 it was disbanded,[1] to be replaced by the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth (Patriotyczny Ruch Odrodzenia Narodowego, PRON).

  1. ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference wiem was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c (in Polish) Front Jedności Narodu Archived 2011-06-07 at the Wayback Machine in Encyklopedia PWN