National Liberation Front (redirected from National Liberation)

National Liberation Front

Title used by nationalist, usually socialist, movements in various countries since World War II. In Greece, the National Liberation Front-National Popular Liberation Army was a communist-sponsored resistance group that operated in occupied Greece during the war. In Vietnam, the National Front for the Liberation of the South was formed in 1960 to overthrow the South Vietnamese government (see Viet Minh). In Algeria, the National Liberation Front, successor to the body that directed Algeria's war of independence (1954–62), was the only constitutionally legal party from 1962 to 1989. In Uruguay, the leftist guerrilla Tupamaro National Liberation Front (1963) battled police and the army from 1967 to 1972; it later became a legal political party. In the Philippines, the Moro National Liberation Front (1968) espoused separatism for the Moros; during the last three decades of the 20th century, its insurgency resulted in about 100,000 deaths. The Corsican National Liberation Front (1976), the largest and most violent Corsican nationalist movement, remained active into the 21st century. See also Sandinistas.

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National Liberation Front 

(Front de Libération National; FLN), in Algeria, a national organization that existed from 1954 to 1964 and directed the Algerian people’s armed struggle for independence.

The FLN represented the workers, peasants, and intelligentsia, as well as part of the national bourgeoisie and feudal elements. It had its own military organization: the National Liberation Army. Under the leadership of the FLN, broad strata of the Algerian people took part in various aspects of the anticolonialist movement.

The first program of the FLN, adopted at the Congress of Soummam in August 1956, defined as the basic tasks of the organization the achievement of Algerian independence, the creation of a democratic republic, the implementation of agrarian reform, and the nationalization of the principal means of production. The congress adopted resolutions creating various bodies, including the supreme body of the FLN—the National Council of the Algerian Revolution (NCAR). In September 1958 the FLN established the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic.

The program adopted at a session of the NCAR in Tripoli in June 1962, shortly after the war of national liberation had ended, provided for a transition to a people’s democratic revolution whose goals would be to “create a state based on socialist principles and popular sovereignty,” to implement an anti-imperialist and anticolonialist foreign policy, to carry out agrarian reform, and to nationalize mineral resources, transportation, banks, and foreign trade. The Tripoli Program also called for the industrialization of the country, the establishment of a planned economy in whose management the working people would take part, the development of a national culture, and an improved life for the toiling masses (seeNATIONAL DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION IN ALGERIA). The program envisioned the transformation of the FLN into a political party.

The FLN split into two factions: those who supported the Provisional Government, some of whose leaders were opposed to the Tripoli Program, and those who supported the Politburo of the FLN, which had been established in July 1962 and which sought to continue the revolution. The second faction, aided by the National Liberation Army, seized power and in September 1962 formed the government of the Algerian People’s Democratic Republic. The FLN became the ruling political organization and subsequently was declared the sole legal political organization in the country. In 1964 the Party of the National Liberation Front was formed from the FLN.

IU. I. BEL’SKII

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National Liberation Front 

(Ethnikon Apeleutheroti-kon Metopon; EAM), an organization uniting the patriotic forces of Greece during World War II.

EAM was founded on Sept. 27, 1941, at the initiative of the Communist Party of Greece (CPG). Its principal aims were to liberate Greece from the fascist German occupiers, secure the country’s complete independence, and form a provisional government in which each of its constituent political parties would be represented. It wanted the question of the ultimate form of government of Greece to be decided by the Greeks themselves.

EAM organized the Greek resistance movement and, in December 1941, formed the Greek National Popular Liberation Army (ELAS). It was also responsible for the Athens General Strike of 1943. In the same year it laid the foundations for a popular democratic regime in the liberated areas of the country. On Mar. 10, 1944, in accordance with a resolution of the Central Committee of EAM, the Political Committee of National Liberation was established; it in effect performed the functions of a provisional democratic government. By October 1944, when Greece was liberated from the fascist German occupation forces, more than 1.8 million people were united in support of EAM.

On Apr. 24, 1945, EAM became a political bloc of left-wing parties, such as the CPG, the Agrarian Party, and the Democratic Party. An antidemocratic law of Dec. 27,1947, banned the EAM bloc.