National Liberation Front (South Yemen) in the context of People's Republic of Southern Yemen

South Yemen, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), abbreviated to Democratic Yemen, was a country in South Arabia that existed in what is now southeast Yemen from 1967 until its unification with the Yemen Arab Republic in 1990. The sole communist state in the Middle East and the Arab world, it comprised the southern and eastern governorates of the present-day Republic of Yemen, including the islands of Perim, Kamaran, and the Socotra Archipelago. It bordered the Yemen Arab Republic to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the north, Oman to the east, the Arabian Sea to the southeast, and the Gulf of Aden to the south. Its capital and largest city was Aden.

South Yemen's origins can be traced to 1874 with the creation of the British Colony of Aden and the Aden Protectorate, which consisted of two-thirds of present-day Yemen. Prior to 1937, what was to become the Colony of Aden had been governed as a part of British India, originally as the Aden Settlement subordinate to the Bombay Presidency and then as a Chief Commissioner's province. After the establishments of the Protectorate and Federation of South Arabia amidst rising Pan-Arab and anti-colonial sentiment, an armed rebellion began in 1963 that was led by the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) against British colonial rule. The Federation and Protectorate of South Arabia were overthrown to become the People's Republic of Southern Yemen (PRSY) on 30 November 1967.

Slavery in Yemen (Arabic: العبودية في اليمن) was formally abolished in the 1960s. However, it has been reported that enslavement still occurred in the 21st century.

Chattel slavery in Yemen was abolished in two stages between 1962 and 1967. The 1962 revolution in Yemen led to the abolition of slavery by the government in North Yemen, but slavery in South Yemen was not abolished until the socialist National Liberation Front (NFL) took power when the British left in 1967. Al-Muhamashīn are descendants of the former slaves.

The Aden Emergency, also known as the 14 October Revolution or the Aden Insurgency, was an armed rebellion led mainly by the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) against the British Protectorate and Federation of South Arabia. It began on 14 October 1963 when tribes from Radfan attacked British troops and ended with the proclamation of independence of the People's Republic of Southern Yemen.

The British had declared a state of emergency following the throwing of a grenade at a gathering of British officials on 10 December 1963 at RAF Khormaksar. A state of emergency was then declared in the British Crown colony of Aden and its hinterland, the Aden Protectorate. The emergency escalated in 1967, hastening the end of British rule in the territory, which had begun in 1839.

The 1963 Aden airport attack was an incident which saw the beginning of the Aden Emergency. Arab nationalists of the NLF made a grenade attack against the British High Commissioner, Sir Kennedy Trevaskis, killing one person and injuring 50.

George Henderson, the assistant high commissioner, saved Sir Kennedy's life by pushing him out of the way. Henderson later died of his injuries.

The Yemeni Socialist Party (Arabic: الحزب الاشتراكي اليمني, romanized: al-Ḥizb al-Ishtirākī al-Yamanī; YSP), also known as the Socialist Party Organization (منظمة الحزب الاشتراكي, Munaẓẓamat al-Ḥizb al-Ishtirākī), is a political party in Yemen. The successor of the National Front, it was the sole legal political party in South Yemen until the Yemeni unification in 1990. Originally Marxist–Leninist, the party has gradually evolved into a social democratic opposition party in today's Republic of Yemen.