The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-07-30
Zinoviev Takes up the Tactics of the United Front

and along with it came the conscious
ness that we are still in the minority
that the social democracy is strong,
that we are on the defensive, and this
was, historically speaking, the origin
Of the tactics of the united front.
Distortion Of Slogan Of United Front.
But comrades, history plays pranks
with this slogan as indeed it does with
many slogans. We adopted the
tactics of the united front as the
tactics Of revolution at a time in
history when the struggle had become
protracted. Some comrades in our
own ranks interpreted it as something
totally different, as the tactics of re-
volution. This became revealed grad
ually. At first it seemed as il it were
a question Of nuances or of statistics.
We understood the tactics of the
united front as preparatory work for
the revolution. But in some places it
was misinterpreted as the idea of
substituting the tactics of revolution
by peaceful, evolutionary methods.
We perceived these tactics as stra-
tegical manoeuvres. Some comrades
endeavoured to interpret them as an
alliance with the social democracy,
as a coalition of all "labour parties"
Recently communist party passed
a resolution mot for publication" in
which it declared that all this is ex-
cellent; let it be strategic manouvre,
but we must not speak of it so IRE
quently and so openly otherwise our
opponents will use it against us. The
resolution literally says the following:
I'm this connection (united 'front.' we
must take care not unnecessarily to
reveal to our opponents the sense of
our revolutionary strategy" Com
rades, l regard this as naive childish
ness or reformism. l rather think it
is the latter, for people who speak in
this fashion are not children.
The greatest weakness revealed by
our party is that when it is proposed
to them to adopt some revolutionary
strategy against our most cunning
enemies, the social democrats, they
Immediately endeavour to make this
strategy profound, to explain it from
the Marxist standpoint and to convert
it into a complete theory which turns
out to be un-communistic.
What Constitutes Revolutionary
strategy
The Bolshevik party has had to
make many manoeuvres during the
revolution. The genius of Lenin con-
sisted to a large extent in his skill
in the use of strategic art. 1t is the
good fortune of our party that in the
execution of every manouvre, we
knew exactly what we were driving
at. This enabled US to execute our
manoeuvres. We wished to fight and
we desired the victory; we wished
politically to destroy the mensheviks
and the Observation-Disclosures, and to
this end we directed our political
manoeuvres. The trouble with some
of our sections in the Comintern,
young or otherwise, is that firstly
they consider every strategical ma
noeuvre inadmissible, and secondly,
where they do apply they take it too
seriously and endeavour to convert it
into a profound" system. This ac-
counts for 80 per cent of our troubles.
We are surrounded by enemies; by
far the shrewdest of whom are the
social democrats.
' 1t has transpired that some parties
and some comrades do not understand
and do not wish to understand that
tactics of the united front are to the
Comintern nothing but method for
agitation and the mobilization of the
masses. To this must add that some
of the blame rests also upon myself,
for being somewhat too yielding in
this respect.
Permit me to deal with this ques-
ton in detail. On the 18th of June,