The Lebanese National Movement had its genesis in a previous organization, the
Front of National and Progressive Parties and Forces – FNPPF (
Arabic:
Jabhat al-Ahzab wa al-Quwa al-Taqaddumiyya wa al-Wataniyya) or
Front for Progressive Parties and National Forces (
FPPNF), also known as the
Revisionist Front, an alliance of anti-status quo political parties originally formed in 1969, which later ran in the 1972 general elections on a
reformist secular platform. Overwhelmingly left-wing and
Pan-Arabist in both its composition and orientation, the LNM claimed to be a "
democratic,
progressive and
non-sectarian" broad organization that gathered parties and organizations opposing the
Maronite-dominated
sectarian order in
Lebanon. It was reorganized as the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) in the 1970s, and led by
Kamal Jumblatt as the main force on the anti-government side in the early years of the
Lebanese Civil War. Among the members were the
Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), the
Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), the
Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) and several
Nasserist and
Marxist groups. It was also joined by
Palestinian factions based in Lebanon's
refugee camps, mainly from the
Rejectionist Front.
Membership and political organization Its membership was overwhelmingly left-wing and professed to be secular, although the fairly obvious sectarian appeal of Jumblatt's
Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and some of the
Sunni Arab nationalist organizations in some cases made this claim debatable. However, to say that the LNM was an all-
Muslim organization would be a gross
oversimplification. Its main ideological positions were: the abrogation of sectarianism, political and social reforms, the clear proclamation of the Arab identity of
Lebanon, and increased support for the
Palestinians. In order to coordinate the military and political actions of the LNM an executive structure, the
Central Political Council – CPC (
Arabic:
Majliss Tajammu al-kinda) or
Bureau Politique Central (BPC) in
French, was set up shortly after the outbreak of the hostilities at the town of
Aley, a mountain tourist resort in the
Chouf District, which became the military headquarters of the Front. The Council was presided over from its inception by Kamal Jumblatt of the PSP, with
Mohsen Ibrahim of the OCAL appointed as Executive Secretary; after Kamal's death in 1977, he was replaced by his son
Walid Jumblatt, who led the LNM until 1982. Among the participants in the LNM were the
Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), the
Communist Action Organization in Lebanon (CAOL or OCAL), the PSP, the
Syrian Social Nationalist Party in Lebanon (SSNP), both a
Syrian-led Ba'ath Party branch and an
Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party branch,
al-Mourabitoun (a
Nasserist group) and several other minor Nasserist and Marxist groupings. Several Palestinian organizations joined the LNM, notably many from the
Rejectionist Front. Both the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) were active participants. The
Shia Amal Movement, although supporting some of the LNM's positions, did not join it formally.
Minor groups Above and beyond this, an 'alphabet soup' of other lesser-known smaller Parties were associated with the LNM. •
Revolutionary Communist Group – RCG • the Lebanese Revolutionary Party – LRP • the Front of Patriotic Christians – PFC • the Democratic Lebanese Movement – DLM • the Movement of Arab Lebanon – MAL • the Arab Revolutionary Movement – ARM • the Partisans of the Revolution • the Vanguards of Popular Action – VPA • the Organization of Arab Youth – OAY • the Units of the Arab Call – UAC • the Movement of Arab Revolution – MAR • the
Sixth of February Movement • the
24 October Movement – 24 OM • the
Lebanese Movement in Support of Fatah – LMSF • the
Union of Working People's Forces – UWPF • the
Union of Working People's Forces-Corrective Movement – UWPF-CM • the
Knights of Ali • the Black Panthers Most of them were marginal political organizations of
revolutionary or
populist trend (
Arab nationalist,
libertarian/
anarchist,
liberal/
idealist, radical
socialist,
Marxist–Leninist,
Hoxhaist,
Trotskyist, or
Maoist) that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and despite their rather limited base of support, they were quite active. Anti-status quo,
Pan-Arabist, and pro-Palestinian in policy, they strived for a social revolution that would transform Lebanese society, therefore sharing the same objectives as the leading LNM secular parties – the recognition of
Lebanon as an
Arab country and unwavering support for the PLO. However, apart this minority of committed idealists, the vast majority of the remainder 'movements' were actually façades or 'shops' (
Arabic:
dakakin) – slightly politicised neighbourhood militias operating under grandiose pseudo-revolutionary labels – set up by PLO factions (mainly
Fatah) in a misguided effort to widen its base of local support among the unemployed Lebanese urban youth. In most cases, their small, poorly disciplined, ill-equipped militia establishments were
ad hoc formations made of lightly armed and largely untrained
Christian or
Muslim youths that rarely surpassed the 100-300 fighters' mark – about the size of an understrength
company or
battalion. Some groupings were lucky enough to possess a few
technicals armed with
heavy machine-guns and
recoilless rifles but others, for the most part, fought on foot as
light infantry, with
small arms pilfered from the government forces, acquired on the black market or obtained via the Palestinian factions. Those groups either unable or unwilling to raise their own militias played a political role only by engaging in propaganda activities, keeping themselves out of the 1975-76 savage street battles and sectarian killings, with some of their militants preferring instead to join the
medical relief agencies organized by the LNM. The decline of the LNM in the late 1970s, culminating in its collapse in the aftermath of the
Israeli invasion of June 1982, sounded the death toll for many of the minor Lebanese leftist organizations. As the war progressed, many of these small factions – at least the more politically oriented ones – were destroyed in the violent power struggles of the 1980s. For the most part forced to go underground, some evolved to
Islamic fundamentalist groups, whilst the less politicized simply degenerated into
criminal street-gangs that engaged in assassinations, theft, smuggling, and extortion. As a result, only a small fraction of the truly ideologically committed groupings managed to survive the war to re-emerge in the 1990s as politically active organizations.
Military strength and organization At the beginning of the war in 1975, the different LNM militias were grouped into a military wing, designated the
"Common Forces" (
Arabic: القوات المشتركة,
Al-Quwwat al-Mushtaraka), but best known as
"Joint Forces" (LNM-JF), which numbered some 18,900 militiamen (not including allied Palestinian factions). Manpower was distributed as follows: the PSP militia (the
People's Liberation Army) and the LCP militia (the
Popular Guard) each had 5,000 men; the SSNP militia had 4,000 men; the pro-Syria Ba'athists and pro-Iraqi Ba'athists had 2,000 and 1,500 men respectively. The others militias shared the remainder. This number was to increase in the following months with the inclusion of 21,900 Palestinian guerrilla fighters from both the
Rejectionist Front (RF) and mainstream PLO factions, later joined by 4,400 Lebanese regular soldiers from the
Lebanese Arab Army (LAA) led by Lieutenant Ahmad al-Khatib who went over to the LNM-PLO side in January 1976. In the end, the LNM-PLO-LAA combined military forces reached an impressive total of 45,200 troops by March that year, aligned against the 12,000-16,000 right-wing troops their
Lebanese Front adversaries were able to muster.
Sponsor countries and organizations The LNM-JF received financial aid and arms from many countries such as
Syria,
Libya,
Iraq and
South Yemen, in addition to Palestinian support; besides lending their political backing and contributing with their organizational skills, experienced Palestinian cadres from RF and PLO groups provided weapons, equipment, and in many cases, military leadership to the Lebanese leftist militias. In addition, they also provided training, which was conducted at the
refugee camps in the major cities or at PLO bases in southern Lebanon, mainly in the
Beqaa Valley (a.k.a. "Fatahland"). ==Participation in the Lebanese Civil War 1975-1982==