The History of the Russian Revolutionary Movement
The Question of United Front Tactics

(From 'The History of the International Communist and Workers Movement' 1971)

Written by Hiroyoshi Hayashi
Translated by Roy West

1. The Communist Party's United Front Tactics

Today the idea has spread that the primary source of power for revolution-this is called a national democratic "revolution" not a socialist revolution-is the "united front tactics" of the class or political party. Concretely speaking, this class united front tactics is a united front between the working class and the petty bourgeois class. This is the view of the Japan Communist Party (JCP).

According to the JCP, national democratic united front tactics which rally all of the "people" are a "weapon to isolate and destroy the reactionary ruling class and foreign imperialism."

This position-which can also be seen more or less from New Left radicals with the Revolutionary Communist League and the reconstructed Bund (Communist League)-substitutes the revolution's substantial content for a hollow formalism. The JCP triumphantly say that if the Party could rally the workers and farmers they would comprise 81% of the working population. They add that with 81% of the population they could immediately achieve a national democratic revolution! But this 81% is nothing more than a figure, and has no other meaning. The problem would be a simple one if this were to directly signify revolutionary power. The revolutionary movement would be almost unnecessary because at any given time the direct producers form an overwhelming majority of the society's population, and the ruling class is a minority. The workers and farmers added together are 81% (and if the petty bourgeoisie is included the figure would be close to 100%. This is an approach which gives ample space for the fantasies of the reformists and parlimentarians!

However, workers, farmers, small businessmen, intellectuals, students and highly paid technical workers, certainly do not share the same class interests. Even if they add up to close to 100% of the population, this has nothing to do with the revolutionary movement.

A revolution in general is the decisive outcome of an upsurge of class conflict, the ultimate expression of class struggle. Therefore, a revolution must be sought not in a formal majority, but within the revolutionary struggle of the working class-the most revolutionary class. Revolution does not come down to a calculation of numbers. For a revolution to be victorious, more than a formal majority, what is needed is a revolutionary mass struggle to crush the ruling class. The JCP's ideology of a formal majority (united front tactics) is a social democratic ideology which makes a necessity out of sticking to the Social Democratic Party and is connected to parlimentarian fantasies.

Of course, we don't belittle a formal majority. But we insist that a formal majority of 81% alone is meaningless without the appearance revolutionary actions of the advanced class-the highest expression of which is the general uprising against capitalism. In this sense, there is an opposition and contradiction between a true Bolshevik revolutionary program and the united front tactics of the JCP and Trotskyists.

We don't criticize united front tactics in general. However, this is not a question of principle, but rather a question of temporary, concrete compromises. But present-day united front tactics, which go so far as to beautify a democratic alliance government (and say that this can possibly lead to socialism!), are in fact a generalization or fixing of compromise and a traitorous, reactionary policy which secretly (or openly) slides into class collaboration. The JCP's united front tactics are a kind of collaborationism and petty bourgeois opportunism, particularly their policy of concessions and submission to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which betray and are hostile to the fundamental spirit of Marxism Leninism. Through the actions of the JCP, revolutionary Marxism has been turned into a vulgar and impotent collaborationism.

Here we will not be directly criticizing the JCP's ideology. In another essay we will analyze the class relations in Japan and clarify the outlook for revolution in Japan. Here, our goal is the study the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia by taking up as our theme the question of "united front tactics" in the history of the Russian revolutionary movement. The Communist Party presents various historical experiences of united front tactics, but can only give examples from the period since the fourth Congress of the Comintern. They say that Lenin stressed united tactics between the workers and peasants, but it cannot be ignored that he bitterly struggled organizationally and politically with petty bourgeois democratic parties (in the case of Japan this is the Socialist Party). United front tactics that can be found to justify tailing and subordinating themselves to the Socialist Party are ones that Lenin did not always adopt. In this way the JCP distorts the history of the Russian revolutionary movement.

"In his struggle against various opportunist and revisionist internal and external trends, Lenin as a revolutionary Marxist always demanded that 'a line be drawn' between these trends on the political and ideological level. However, Lenin made a strict distinction between 'drawing a line' on the political and organizational level from the organizational level. He definitely didn't make it an unchanging principle that a "line is drawn" between opportunist and revisionist groups on the organizational level, and united front tactics were not unconditionally refused under all circumstances." (Red Banner August 8, 1966)

The JCP summarizes Lenin's activity as drawing a line between petty bourgeois democrats and reformists (Mensheviks=Socialist Party) on the ideological and political level, but not always on the organizational level-this effectively removes the borderline between them and the Socialist Party. They believe that organizationally no line was drawn between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, and that their united front tactics were justified by historical experience.

But was this really the case? This is what we will investigate in this essay. But first let's look at what Lenin said: "As a trend of political thought and as a political party, Bolshevism exists since 1903." ("Left-Wing Communism") Exists as a political party since 1903! Isn't this perfectly clear. Further, a political party exists precisely by "drawing a line organizationally"! In fact, the first condition for the victory of Bolshevism is the fact that from 1903 it was independent of the petty bourgeois reformist and democratic groups (Mensheviks) and grew as an independent political party of the working class. This is exactly what secured the Bolsheviks success. Conversely, the revolutionary elements among European "socialists", which included the centrist faction (Kautsky) and the left-wing faction (Luxemburg), instead of taking the Bolshevik road "drew a political and ideological line" between themselves and the right-wing Bernstein faction, but they did not "draw an organizational line". This is precisely what renders the independent concentration of revolutionary proletarian elements impossible, and inevitably leads to the defeat of all revolutionary movements. Within the Russian revolutionary movement, it was Trotsky who insisted that while the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks are opposed politically and ideologically they should be united organizationally. Thus, the JCP's thought is not that of Lenin, but rather that of Luxemburg and Trotsky, as well as Stalin since he appeared in 1910 as a supporter of unity between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

The sentence from Lenin which the JCP employs to justify their own view is from the part which summarizes "united front tactics" in the Russian revolutionary movement. For this reason, we will also look at this passage.

"Before the downfall of tsardom the Russian revolutionary Social Democrats repeatedly utilised the services of the bourgeois liberals, that is, they concluded numerous practical compromises with them; and in 1901-02, even prior to the appearance of Bolshevism, the old editorial board of Iskra (consisting of Plekhanov, Axelrod, Zasulich, Martov, Potresov and myself) concluded-not for long it is true-a formal political alliance with Struve, the political leader of bourgeois liberalism, while it was able at the same time to carry on incessantly a most merciless ideological and political struggle against bourgeois liberalism and against the slightest manifestation of its influence in the working class movement. The Bolsheviks have always adhered to this policy. Every since 1905 they have systematically insisted on an alliance between the working class and peasantry against the liberal bourgeoisie and tsardom, never, however, refusing to support the bourgeoisie against tsardom (for instance, during the second stage of elections, or during second ballots) and never ceasing their relentless ideological and political struggle against the bourgeois-revolutionary peasant party, the 'Socialist-Revolutionaries,' exposing them as petty-bourgeois democrats who falsely masqueraded as Socialists. During the Duma elections of 1907, the Bolsheviks for a brief period of time entered into a formal political bloc with the 'Socialist-Revolutionaries'. Between 1903 and 1912 there were period of several years in which we were formally united with the Mensheviks, in one Social-Democratic Party; but we never ceased our ideological and political struggle against them on the grounds that they were opportunists and vehicles of bourgeois influence among the proletariat. During the war we effected certain compromises with the 'Kautskians,' with the Left Mensheviks (Martov), and with a section of the 'Socialist-Revolutionaries' (Chernov and Natanson); we were together with them at Zimmerwald and Kienthal and issued joint manifestoes; but we never ceased and never relaxed our ideological-political struggle against the 'Kautskians,' Martov and Chernov (Natanson died in 1919 a 'Revolutionary-Communist' Narodnik who was very close to and almost in agreement with us). At the very outbreak of the October Revolution we entered into an informal but very important (and very successful) political bloc with the petty-bourgeois peasantry by adopting the Socialist-Revolutionary agrarian programme in its entirety, without a single alteration-that is, we effected an unquestionable compromise in order to prove to the peasants that we did not want to 'steamroller' them, but to reach an agreement with them. At the same time we proposed (and soon after effected) a formal political bloc, including participation in the government, with the 'Left-Socialist-Revolutionaries' who dissolved this bloc after the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk peace and then, in July 1918, went to the length of armed rebellion, and subsequently of armed warfare, against us." ("Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder; International Publishers pp. 53-55)

Here Lenin explains that in the course of the Bolsheviks' struggle against tsardom and the bourgeoisie, cooperation and compromise should not be rejected out of hand, but rather utilized for the sake of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat. Still, Lenin stressed by putting it in italics that even though the Bolsheviks formally united in the same organization with the Mensheviks (this was a compromise) they "never ceased" their struggle with the Mensheviks. Lenin entered into the same organization as the Mensheviks, but he said that this was one form of compromise. The JCP, however, uses this one sentence of Lenin to justify the organizational alliance with opportunists. In this way they distort history a little bit-but this "little bit" is in fact the distortion of a decisively important, and principled point.

2. Class Struggle and Left Wing Currents in Russia

The revolutionary movement in Russia began with the rebellion of liberal aristocratic officers in 1825, developed through the terrorist movement of the Narodnik intellectuals, and finally into a mass struggle of hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants. Fundamentally, this revolutionary movement (seen from its social character) was bourgeois democratic. However, capitalist development had already progressed in western Europe, and this was also reflected in Russia with the formation of advanced capitalist elements introduced from western Europe along with the inclusion proletarian and socialistic elements.

In 1861 the serfs in Russia were emancipated as individuals, and their sales and purchases of commodities also became possible. However, substantially they were still suffering under the weight of the rule of the landlords and aristocratic class. The struggle of the Russian peasants was fundamentally a struggle against the semi-feudal system of land ownership, and the superstructure of tsarism. Lenin analyzed the peasant movement in the 1905 revolution, and found the primary contradiction in the countryside to be the opposition between the peasants and the aristocracy.

"Ten million peasant households own 73,000,000 dessiatins of land, whereas 28,000 noble and common landlords own 62,000,000 dessiatins. Such is the main background of the field on which the peasants' struggle for the land is developing." (1 dessiatin=2.7 acres) pp. 169 Selected Works Vol. III.

Clearly this semi-feudal system of land ownership came from the incomplete emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Although this was called the emancipation of the serfs, like any liberation from above, it was fundamentally for the benefit of the ruling class, i.e. the landlord class, and was carried out in a limited form that would not harm their interests. In words only the objective was to liberate the serfs from the exploitation and oppression of the aristocratic landlords and turn them into land owning farmers. However, this was opposed because it directly conflicted with the interests of the ruling landlord class. To liberate the peasants as individuals and for them to become independent, landowning farmers, would have necessitated carrying out the thorough appropriation of the property of the landlords. In other words, the premise which was the class relation of landowner=farmer, would have lead to the complete collapse of the landlord state.

This top-down liberation could not provide a revolutionary solution. First of all, the total amount of land which was distributed in order to make the peasants landowners was extremely small. Not only was the landlords' property not thoroughly liberated, throughout the period of emancipation they even "eliminated" the land the serfs had owned or had access to prior to the emancipation In the northern and eastern part of the black soil region, peasant ownership of land did increase 10%, but the landlords who gave this land profited by extracting large sums of money from the peasants. The total sum of bribes reached over 2 billion rubles. As a result, these peasants fostered a great hostility towards this landlord system of debt enslavement.

Even though Russian economic society was deeply tinged with semi-feudalistic relations, from the latter half of the 19th century capitalism began to expand with the state's development policy. The characteristics of capitalism in Russia were that it grew with the help of the tsarist development policy, and from the beginning capitalism took the form of accumulation through foreign capital. From the 19th until the 20th century, foreign capital comprised from forty to fifty percent of the total share of capital! The level of business concentration was abnormally high, much higher than any of the advanced capitalist countries. For instance, in the United States companies with a workforce of over 1,000 were 17.8 percent of the total, whereas in Russia they comprised 41.4 percent of the total number of companies (Trotsky's "History of the Russian Revolution"). The forty thousand workers at the Petrograd Puchiroff factory played a big role in the two revolutions of 1917. The number of workers in the whole of Russia was close to three million. (Lenin)

This is an outline of the socio-economic system and classes in Russia. Within these objective conditions the Marxist movement began to develop from the latter half of the nineteenth century. Marxism in Russia grew through criticism of the Narodniks (and later the Socialist-Revolutionary Party) which had been the main current in the revolutionary movement in Russia.

Next, we will look at the conflicts between the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and Marxism, and the opposition between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks within Marxism.

The Socialist-Revolutionary Party claimed to represent wage workers in general and opposed all oppression. Their position was the following: The Socialist-Revolutionary Party is not a party of one class, but a party of intellectuals, peasants and workers. The peasants are the main revolutionary force and would have to become revolutionized. Peasants are not petty bourgeois, but collective producers. The ideal is the nationalization of the land. Terrorism is an acceptable means of promoting the popular revolution. All of the revolutionary parties should joint together. Etc. In this manner, the Socialist-Revolutionaries tried to create a base of the "people", i.e. peasants, workers as well as "wage labour intellectuals", rather than a particular class.

The Marxists opposed this position with a counter-argument. The party of the Marxists represented factory workers, i.e. the proletariat as one class, and they sought their goal through the development of class struggle, not terrorism. They argued that the peasants were petty bourgeois, and that the fundamental role of the Muhr had ended, and had become reactionary and was falling apart, or had become a tool to exploit the peasants. The small landowners, glorified by the Socialist-Revolutionaries, in the end are victims of the greed of the big land owners. Terrorism is not in the interest of the mass revolution, and in fact harmful. The revolutionary organization of the proletariat should not join forces or unite with other parties. They only agreed to temporary alliances with other revolutionary parties.

The 1917 revolution can teach us where the thought and policies of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party leads. They were decisively corroded and weather-beaten by 1917, and had become the tail of bourgeois liberalism. This should be a decisively important lesson for the JCP (as well as the New Left) which is becoming the Socialist-Revolutionary Party of Japan.

Following the Marxists struggle with the Narodniks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries there was a debate within the Marxist camp around the time of the 1905 revolution. The position of the Mensheviks was that because the revolution was a bourgeois revolution, the liberal bourgeoisie would become the leading force. Therefore, the workers should approach the bourgeoisie, not the peasants. In this case, the important thing was for the workers not to frighten the bourgeoisie with their revolutionary nature. Otherwise, the front would be split and the bourgeoisie would become estranged from the revolution thereby weakening it (this is not only the position of the Mensheviks a long time ago, but even today the position of the JCP and Socialist Party). If the revolution should succeed, the Social Democrats should step aside, and not participate in the provisional revolutionary government. This is because the interests of the workers is purely economic (here we can see a shift to economism). In other words, the Social Democrats should devote their energy to economic reforms, and not attempt to become the leaders of the bourgeois revolution which was connected to all classes. The policy of the Mensheviks was to concentrate on following and forming alliances with the bourgeoisie (the Cadets=party of the liberal bourgeoisie). Plekhanov struggled against what he called the "mistaken idea of the possibility of a bourgeois revolution without the bourgeoisie). The Mensheviks, with the exception of Trotsky, insisted on a united front with bourgeois liberalism.

The position of the Bolsheviks, by contrast, was that socially the revolution was a bourgeois revolution. That is, a revolution to sweep away the feudal power, abolish the aristocratic system of serfdom, and open the road to the more free and powerful development of the capitalist means of production. However, this doesn't mean that the revolution will copy the bourgeois revolution in western Europe. The interests of the proletariat lie with the victory of the bourgeois revolution. Lenin argued that a thorough bourgeois revolution was more in the interests of the proletariat than the bourgeoisie because this would mean that the proletariat could build their own organizations, rise politically, and provide the possibility for the shift from a bourgeois revolution to a proletariat revolution.

In this case, the revolutionary tactics of the proletariat should be to only seek the support of the peasantry. Without the complete victory of the bourgeois revolution, the peasantry would be unable to become independent from the landlords. The bourgeoisie, conversely, had no interest in the complete victory of a bourgeois revolution, because above all they feared the workers and needed an imperial government as a whip against them. The planned for the compromise with tsarism in the form of a constitutional monarchy.

This is the manner in which the Bolsheviks criticized the Mensheviks for their plan to ally with the liberal bourgeoisie. They believed the revolution would be a democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants. The tactics of the Bolsheviks were to draw in the peasants while carrying out proletariat's independent struggle.

As a left-wing Menshevik organizationally, Trotsky opposed Lenin's dictatorship at the Second Congress and joined with the economists and trade unionists in blaming Lenin for not having faith in the working class and trying to create a narrow party of schemers instead of a workers party. However, on the problem of tactics he argued that he had transcended both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. He thought that both the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks were wrong to argue from the premise that the coming revolution was a bourgeois one, and that instead Russia would give birth to a proletariat government. Moreover, Trotsky said that if no socialist countries emerged in Europe to assist the Russian workers government, this government would not be able to hold on to power and become socialist, but would inevitably clash with the peasants and collapse.

Trotsky's position included a certain idealism and defeatism. The view that socialism could be built in Russia if there were a proletarian revolution in Europe, but that if this did not occur the revolution could only collapse, completely ignores the internal social and economic conditions in Russia. Even if the proletariat had been victorious in Germany in 1919 or 1920, this does not mean that Russia would immediately be able to shift to socialism. Trotsky was criticized by Lenin for "jumping over the peasantry". Lenin believed that even if a democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasantry were born, socialism could not be reached right away. To be faithful to Marxism and in order to be realistic, one would have to argue like Lenin. Trotsky claimed that only his prediction correctly foresaw the process of the revolution in Russia, but in fact it was not so simple. Lenin was the one who was more realistic.

3. The Revolution of 1905 and the United Front Against the Imperial Government

Marxists were carrying out these sorts of theoretical and ideological struggles, but the 1905 revolution broke out before the organizational and political structure of the revolutionary party was in place. The Russia-Japanese War which broke out in January 1904 was a crushing defeat for Russia owing to the decay and incompetence of tsarism, and tens of thousands of soldiers were killed or wounded, and the lives of the people were reduced to poverty. Out of this a revolutionary situation emerged, and the revolution began with the Bloody Monday incident of January 9. The revolution broke out, but at the forefront of the struggle against tsarism was the intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie. The first three months of the 1905 revolution were called the period of the "revolt of the liberals". The intellectuals and the bourgeoisie fought against Czarism with resolutions and speeches, but another section (Socialist-Revolutionaries) declared revolution and used terrorist direct action such as assassinating Grand Duke Sergei on February 17. In the early period of the revolution, the direct action of the Socialist-Revolutionaries was even toasted by the bourgeoisie.

The tsarist regime yielded to the convening of an advisory committee (February 8), and were able to reinforce the reactionary system, and rally on the basis of the authority of tsarism among the peasants not having completely been lost. By around May, they were able to enforce the suppression of liberal groups, and round up the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

The struggle of the workers developed after the purely verbal struggle of the liberals and intellectuals (and the terrorist struggle which was the reverse side). Furthermore, once the struggle of the workers appeared it became a persistent, continuous mass movement. The workers struggle reached its peak in autumn with the Petrograd general strike and the Moscow uprising.

The effect of the struggle in the cities caused unrest among the peasantry. Military officers also revolted. On June 28 there was the famous rebellion of the battleship Potempkin, and a revolt also broke out at the Krondstadt (June 30). The military rebellions failed, but they had a considerable impact. In 1917 the sailors appeared as the most revolutionary elements in the military.

In the 1905 revolution the force opposing tsarism advanced through "united front tactics" (even though initially this was nothing more than a spontaneous thing). The workers, peasants, liberal bourgeoisie, and intellectuals (university professors, writers, lawyers, scientists, and students) opposed tsarism as a democratic, socialistic overall class.

At the beginning of the revolution when the struggles of the workers had yet to develop greatly, the liberal bourgeoisie actively opposed tsarism, and looked forward to a constitutional monarchy, and feeling it was a good opportunity took a defeatist stance on the Russia-Japanese War. With the beginning of the revolution, they formed alliances with the liberal intellectuals and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and supported the struggles of the workers with speeches and resolutions. Of course, whenever blood was spilt in the struggle against tsarist power it was the workers in the city and the peasants in the country. However, the material and moral support the bourgeoisie gave to the Social Democratic Party (i.e. the workers movement) through a large amount of financial aid at a time when the workers movement was still extremely undeveloped had considerably important significance. During the September strike which started in Moscow and spread to St. Petersburg, the "Cadets supported the strike at their national congress, bosses showed sympathy with the workers, and capitalists gave large contributions to the central organs of revolutionary parties."

The liberal bourgeoisie also supported the terrorism of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Their generosity towards the tactics of terrorism was in fact much greater than that towards Marxism. This is just like the generosity of liberal intellectuals today towards the "direct action" of anarchists and radical students. In 1902, Mirukof, who was later to become a Cadet leader, paid a visit to the "Iskra" editorial board in London which he praised, but he said that he couldn't approve of their pronouncements against terrorism. He said that "If just two or three attempts are carried out against the Tsar's ministers, our country will be able to have a constitution." He considered terrorism as a means of putting pressure on tsarism.

However, the support of bourgeois liberals for the workers revolutionary movement was short-lived. In August Milyukof welcomed the certification of the August Advisory Congress as "the crossing of the Rubicon for Constitutional Politics in Russia". They quickly jumped at the small concessions thrown out by the Tsar. Moreover, when the working class moved more and more to the left, and started demanding an eight hour day from the bourgeoisie instead of simply asking for freedom from despotism, and then general strikes and armed uprisings appeared one after another, the exciting honeymoon between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat was over. The bourgeoisie probably envisaged the terrible rule of the Jacobins in 1793. At any rate, the bourgeoisie became reactionary, and supported the government repression of the workers movement.

The 1905 united front tactics against the Imperial Government were not the result of someone calling for their creation, but rather were caused by the situation and level of development of the class struggle. There was no united leadership body, or a united program. Each class and social layer struggled and acted in accordance with their own class interests and class ideology. They all agreed that tsarism had become completely useless historically and a fetter to social development, but outside this there was not a single thing they agreed upon.

Furthermore, the liberal bourgeoisie was less interested in completely eliminating the feudal system, than in molding it into a shape to suit its own needs. The complete abolishment of tsarism filled them with a deep feeling of unease and dread. This was because it would mean a naked class struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat. The Russian bourgeoisie, immature and powerless as a class, had no confidence for this class struggle and secretly hoped to hide in the shadows of tsarism. In 1905 they added their voice to the criticism of the decay and incompetence of tsarism and supported the struggles of the workers, but this was only in order to gain concessions from the Imperial Government, not to overthrow it.

The Cadets were an earnest liberal political party who hoped to overthrow despotism, but when their interests where threatened, they retreated and began to oppose the workers movement. In any country, during the period in which the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat has yet to develop, the bourgeoisie, to a certain extent, will be progressive and revolutionary. However, once the workers movement has clearly and independently manifested itself, the bourgeoisie will simultaneously begin to become reactionary, and from this point the bourgeoisie will not longer be able to be revolutionary. In Russia, as well, as soon as the struggles of the working class began to develop beyond the intentions of the bourgeoisie, and exhibit their own independent objectives, the bourgeoisie quickly stopped supporting the proletariat. In Russia, just like Germany in 1848, the bourgeoisie revealed their cowardice, and incapacity to fight the Imperial Government to the end.

If the workers movement comes under their sphere of influence, the bourgeoisie flatters the workers movement. They anticipated that their support of the workers struggles would surprise and frighten the Imperial Government which would then offer them some concessions in order to save itself. Only for this reason, and within these limits, did the bourgeoisie support the struggles of the working class. Once the struggle of the proletariat developed beyond these limits, and escaped their control, the bourgeoisie quickly gave up "playing with fire" and ceased to support the working class. This was the fundamental thought and approach of the bourgeoisie.

Lenin criticized the Menshevik call for a united front with the bourgeoisie (Cadets) as a tactic that would cause the destruction of the revolution. He stubbornly insisted on and developed the idea of the independent revolutionary struggle of the working class supported by the peasantry. The Mensheviks insisted on a policy of moderation and concession so as to not frighten away the bourgeoisie, "one wing of the united front", by refusing to form a united front with them.

The Bolsheviks were opposed to the Mensheviks. Lenin said that the cowardice and indecisiveness of the bourgeoisie only showed that the workers struggle should be firm and decisive. If the workers were to tie their hands by allying themselves or following the bourgeoisie, they would also fall into indecisiveness. They would have to firmly reject forming uniting-front tactics with the bourgeoisie. If the bourgeoisie struggles against despotism, the proletariat will fight along with them, and struggle more firmly than them. However, even if the bourgeoisie ceases the struggle and betrays it, the proletariat should not give up the struggle. Thus, the proletariat should not tie itself hand and foot to the bourgeoisie. "Advance separately, strike together", was how Lenin expressed the tactics of the Bolsheviks.

The current united-front tactics of the JCP are Menshevik tactics. This is because just as the Mensheviks sought out an alliance with the Cadets who were indecisive when faced with the bourgeois revolution and were conciliatory towards the Imperial Government, the JCP now seeks an alliance with the Socialist Party (i.e. the party of petty bourgeois intellectuals and trade unionists) which is indecisive in the face of socialist revolution and only seeks to cooperate and gain trivial concessions from the bourgeoisie which it has no serious intention of overthrowing.

4. United-Front Tactics in the Period of Reaction

Here we will mainly look at the political and organizational relations between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks that the JCP talks about. The JCP says that the Bolsheviks struggled against the Mensheviks politically and ideologically, but organizationally they both carried out a struggle against tsarism as "one single Social Democratic Party".

Certainly, in 1905 the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks (and to a certain extent the Socialist-Revolutionary Party) joined hands to fight together against the Imperial Government. This trend was very strongly manifested in Petrograd. However, this only reflected the undeveloped state of the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat in this period, and the immaturity of the revolutionary proletarian movement. This was only a temporary delay in the essential differences between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks which became clear in 1903.

At the starting point of 1903, the differences between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks probably appeared to be trivial, but they involved the fundamental question of whether the road to revolution or the road to reform should be taken. The road to reform inevitably became the road to tailing, and dependence on the bourgeoisie. These two views were impossible to unite reconcile.

Of course, with the repression of rank and file party members after the 1905 revolution, there was a period in which the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were once again formally united. However, even in this period, apart from Trotsky, the leaders of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks felt that cooperation was impossible. The two factions increasingly developed into separate political parties. Certainly during the close to ten years from 1904 until the Bolsheviks were clearly declared as an independent party during the 1912 London Congress, formally speaking the opposition between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks was that of two factions within one common Social Democratic Party. However, substantially this factional struggle represented a conflict between two ideologies, two political lines, two parties, and two organizations. The two factions struggled hard for the party organs, newspaper, and party funds.

Let's give a simple overview of the history of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The famous July 1903 Second Congress of the Social Democratic Party was supposed to have ushered in a revolutionary political party of the working class, but in fact there was a split between the proletarian party and the petty bourgeois reformist party. At the London Congress of April 1905, the twenty four Bolshevik participants decided on the tactics of opposition to the bourgeoisie. Since the Mensheviks were in the minority they called the meeting a conference. At the April 1906 Stockholm Congress, the Mensheviks were the majority, and a formal union was carried out, but in fact both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks insisted on their own views and their own independent organizations. Under the hegemony of the Bolsheviks at the May 1907 London Congress it was decided to struggle against the liberal bourgeoisie and the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and to "carry out an exposure struggle". At the same time, it was also decided to agree with these parties and individuals in order to carry out a combined struggle against Czarism. This is precisely the tactics of the Bolsheviks! On the other hand, the JCP united-front tactics of tailing social democracy is the opposite of the Bolshevik tactics, a tragic caricature.

From 1908 to 1909 a struggle was waged against liquidationism and "otzovism" (boycottism). Liquidationism became a part of the Menshevik constitution, and led the way to their collapse. The 'Otzovists' were the petty bourgeois revolutionaries, numerous in the Bolsheviks who wanted the revolutionary party to "boycott" the Duma and legal activities. Lenin struggled against them and expelled them from the party. Trotsky appeared as a conciliator who sought the union of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. With the exception of the liquidationists and otzovists, both factions were united, but the Mensheviks couldn't accept this. This was because the Mensheviks were liquidationists themselves. For this reason the Mensheviks appeared as the destroyers of unity. At the January 1912 Sixth All Party Congress in Prague, the Bolsheviks finally proclaimed themselves as an independent party. Trotsky scraped together all of the factions apart from the Bolsheviks (including the "otzovists" expelled from the Bolsheviks) for a united meeting held in August. This was called the "August bloc", and was boycotted by the Bolsheviks. The August bloc collapsed soon after.

Special attention should be paid to Trotsky's activities during this period. After the 1903 and 1905 revolutions, Trotsky considered the opposition and split between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks as a temporary or chance phenomenon, a trifling intellectual in-fighting during a lull in the revolutionary workers movement, and he believed that the two parties would unite and fight together with the revival of the revolutionary movement. Thus, he acted as a conciliator. Within the Mensheviks he was relatively close to the Bolsheviks, but essentially he was a Menshevik. While saying that the revolution in Russia would give birth to a workers government, he supported the petty bourgeois democrats who flattered the bourgeoisie, and attacked the proletarian Bolsheviks for being schemers. He denounced the "destructive activity" of the Bolsheviks, and alleged a plot of the exile faction (Bolsheviks) against the Social Democratic Party, calling Lenin a "professional manipulator of the backwardness of the workers movement in Japan" (translated from Japanese). He flattered the lower ranks of the party by saying that he didn't want to lead the workers movement, but only render it a service. This is the prototype for the JCP's "lovable Communist Party" slogan!

Trotsky universalized the experience of the revolutionary events in Petrograd in 1905. The Petrograd Soviet was composed of both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Here the disputes between the leadership seemed to dissolve. He absolutized this experience, and remained a conciliator until the 1917 revolution, and more than any other Menshevik strongly attacked the Bolsheviks. The conciliators found the left wing particularly odious because they thought that the left wing, more than the right wing, was the source of the failure of concilation. The psychology behind the vile, demagogic attacks on the left wing (New Left) by the JCP are not necessarily incomprehensible. Trotsky said that the barrier between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks was "only on paper". However, the reason that the Menshevik leader Martov agreed with Trotsky's idea of a united party was because he felt that the Mensheviks were too weak at the time for split with the Bolsheviks.

Under internal party pressure, Lenin temporarily joined in the united movement. Within the Bolsheviks the unity faction of Rykov, Sokolnikov, Lozovsky, and Kamenev was temporarily victorious, and Stalin was in charge of the national underground movement, but hoped for unity (Trotsky and Stalin were repeatedly in agreement!). However, Lenin sought to expel the liquidationists who were destroying the party through their conditions of unity. The Mensheviks refused to accept this, and eventually it became clear to the party members that unity was impossible, and this fantasy was finally extinguished. Lenin called Trotsky a "Tushino deserter" (name given warriors in ancient Russia who deserted from on camp to another) Lenin's principles are clear: unity in general is not the problem, but unity with opportunism is out of the question!

Previously Trotsky was the theorists of unity with the Mensheviks. Today the theorist of unity (in the substantial, political sense) with the Mensheviks (Socialist Party) is the Communist Party. The JCP classifies political currents into those who agree with "democratic united fronts", and those who divide them. Moreover, the class evaluation of the various classes and their political representatives is merely tacked on as an appendix. They call those who agree with political unity "Marxists", and those who are opposed "tools of imperialism". But the axis of this political union is the petty bourgeois democratic, reformist Socialist Party. This is indeed like giving three cheers (banzai) to Trotsky's conciliation, and the opportunistic Trotskyist idea of united fronts.

The JCP blames the left-wing factions in the name of present-day union (in Japan the revolutionary petty bourgeois New Left factions are only formally and partially opposed to petty bourgeois democratic unity).

The New Left students "oppose the demonstrations of the Communist/Socialist Parties for democratic power, and vow to 'crush the corrupt CP/SP leaders who have betrayed the revolution', while carrying out 'left-wing' adventurism which provokes police repression and splits the demonstrators from the people." (Red Banner October 10)

One can see that this is the indignant voice of vulgar conciliators. They call for a united front between the JCP and the Socialist Party (Menshevism), i.e. a united front with opportunism, and when this doesn't go well they pass the responsibility off on the "left" wing. For them, union with the petty bourgeoisie is considered to be more important than proletarian principles. Just as Trotsky behaved just before his demagogic agitation against the Bolsheviks, they calmly spread this demagoguery. The JCP's "united front" theory conflicts with Marxism, and leads to the collapse and defeat of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat. These are not the tactics of the Bolsheviks, but the Mensheviks and Trotsky.

5. 1917 United Front Tactics

The 1917 revolution-which overthrew both the surviving feudalistic power and the power of a weak, newborn capitalism, and established the power of the workers and peasants-became the prototypical revolution for backward capitalist countries (countries in which capitalism is developing rapidly, but feudalistic relations still widely remain). The Russian proletariat essentially overthrew feudalistic power in February, and then crushed the bourgeois forces (and the social reformists who tailed them) in October. The Russian revolution decisively defeated the two main property owning classes, the feudalistic and capitalistic power. For this reason the Russian revolution had a strong attraction for the world's workers and peasants. This revolution marked the first signal fire of the struggle of the property-less. This great historical uprising of the workers and peasants combined a belated bourgeois revolution with a premature proletarian revolution.

The single year of 1917 verified the severity of the real class struggle to all of the political currents in Russia. The people learned through their own experience that only the Bolsheviks embodied the interests of the workers and peasants, and fought for them. It was no accident that the Bolsheviks were supported by an overwhelming number of people, and were able to carry out the greatest revolution in history.

The bourgeoisie, which had flirted with the workers' revolutionary movement and supported it in 1905, as well as giving large sums of money to the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Social Democratic Party in the hopes of using the struggles of the workers and peasants to pluck some concessions from the Imperial Government, became increasingly conservative, cowardly and dependent on the Imperial Government after 1905. The same bourgeoisie which in 1903 had given the Socialist-Revolutionaries tens of thousands of rubles when the Socialist-Revolutionary Sazonov assassinated the symbol of the despotic government, Preve, with a twelve pound bomb, adopted an ambiguous relationship with all revolutionary parties after 1905.

By 1917 already the Cadets were above all afraid of the revolution. They feared this because of their own capital. The bourgeoisie which had taken a defeatist stance towards the Russo-Japanese War, embraced the First World War as their own war, and became passionate chauvinists. Consequently, this meant that intellectuals also became chauvinists, and even the Mensheviks were inclined towards chauvinism. Representatives of the bourgeoisie such as Miliukov and Guchkov devoted all their energy to the study of "armed force", and made efforts for armed action. For three years they agitated for the war and nationalism, and had more than enough reasons to fear the revolution. They didn't even wish for the February revolution. Thus, the united front between the bourgeoisie and working class that the Mensheviks had hoped for, had already completely lost its basis. In other words, the tactic of a democratic united front was like building castles in the air. The Menshevik tactics of trying to build a democratic united front turned them into a tool of the bourgeoisie. This is a historical experience that the JCP seems anxious to forget.

In 1917, united fronts were also born in different forms. The fact is often forgotten (which Stalin intentionally concealed) that after the February revolution, from Stalin's return from Siberia on March 15 until Lenin returned from Switzerland on April 4, the Bolsheviks adopted the tactic of a united front with the Mensheviks. The top leaders Stalin and Kamenov, moved the party to the right until they almost had the same political position as the Mensheviks. For this reason, there was a increased tendency towards a renewed union between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, and the formation of a combined organization between the two groups. In the Bolshevik organ there were statements to "pressure the provisional government (half Imperial-half bourgeois government!) for peace, or that "the government should be supported as long as it struggles against reaction and counter-revolution". Stalin spoke of an arrangement between the provisional government and the Soviets. Stalin's national policy also echoed the bourgeoisie, and amounted to beautifying the imperialistic policies of the coalition government. For instance, Stalin said that national oppression was the offspring of the Imperial system, and could not occur under a democratic system. Essentially this is the thought of bourgeois liberalism, and was the recognition of the imperialist policies of the bourgeoisie and their "united-front" allies the Mensheviks and S-R since the February revolution.

This policy leads the Bolsheviks to stand on the same position as the Mensheviks, makes the working class the obedient tale of the bourgeoisie, and supports the imperialist war of the bourgeoisie which was aided by collaboration-socialists (Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries).The policy of a united front with the Mensheviks after they had become a tool of the bourgeoisie, would have meant selling out the working class to the bourgeoisie, and would have led to the defeat of the October Revolution. This is the appearance in nascent form of the policy of the people's front tactics which destroys the proletarian revolution by supporting "socialists" who had become the subordinates and tools of the bourgeoisie. It is natural that Lenin vehemently denounced the policy of Stalin and Kamenev, and set the Bolsheviks back on the revolutionary course. Their policy was essentially a Menshevik one, but was revived in the policies of the Comintern in the Twenties, and around 1935 or 1936 it was the official policy of the modern communist movement. The tradition of Bolshevism was secretly replaced by Menshevik opportunism!

In February, the bourgeoisie took control of the government with the help of the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. However, this bourgeois government, assisted by these so-called "socialists" (really petty bourgeois democrats), was completely incapable of solving any of the real problems. The only way to solve these problems would have been to rely on the revolutionary power of the workers and peasants, but this was what they feared above all. Only the Bolsheviks did not fear the revolutionary autonomy of the workers and peasants. The struggle of the Bolsheviks from 1903 was a struggle for the autonomous revolutionary movement of the proletariat and peasants, and to prevent the revolutionary movement from becoming the tail of the bourgeois reformist movement. This revolutionary tradition should have been kept alive and concretely applied to the circumstances of February. However, the conciliator Kamenev, and the impressionistic Stalin were unable to creatively apply the revolutionary essence of Bolshevism to the new reality following the February revolution. This was the cause of the Bolsheviks' "March Crisis". Trotsky's conclusion that the "March Crisis" stemmed from the Bolsheviks' position of insisting on a "democratic dictatorship" is self-praising and one dimensional. In the abstract sense the government erected from the October Revolution was a proletariat government, but in reality it was the revolutionary democratic dictatorship led by the proletariat. The peasants as the overwhelming majority of the population, cannot be forgotten, or jumped over. It was precisely because Trotsky obscured this point, and expected a sudden leap to world revolution, that he oscillated and fell into bureaucratism during the Brest Livotz Peace Treaty as well as the trade union debates.

The Bolsheviks struggled against the Mensheviks, not only to "exclude the bourgeoisie", but also for a complete bourgeois revolution in opposition to the bourgeoisie. The October Revolution completely carried out this task. At the same time, even though the October Revolution did not give birth directly to a socialist Russia, the leading power of the revolution did bring the appearance of a working class guided by Marxism, was an great herald for the revolution of the international proletariat, and it was even felt that the proletariat government in Russia had the prospect to shift to socialism.

From 1903 Lenin struggled against opportunism for ten years. The Bolsheviks strengthened their own ideas, and organization through the struggle with the Mensheviks. Lenin's call in the "April Theses" perfectly follows this tradition. It is also not accidental that Lenin was able to so quickly and completely overcome the party crisis and correct opportunism. The Bolsheviks' "March Crisis" ended as just another episode, but this was so dangerous that it would have ruined the October Revolution had it not been resolved. Once a revolutionary party has decided its fundamental program, this does not mean that subsequent process proceeds peacefully or automatically without incident. A revolutionary organization must carry out its daily struggles within class society. Moreover, this does not occur in a pure revolutionary world, but rather is fought in a realm in which the overwhelming ruling influence is petty bourgeois and bourgeois thought and politics. If a revolutionary party is unable to apply fundamental revolutionary thought to new conditions, there is always the possibility that the party will degenerate into radicalism or opportunism. This was the essential danger of the Bolsheviks crisis in March. This appeared in the form of tailing the bourgeoisie through a united front with the Mensheviks. This opportunism was temporarily victorious within the Bolsheviks. However, this appeared once again within the Comintern after Lenin's death. Moreover, this time it didn't end as a temporary episode, but rather took a semi-permanent form, and led to the opportunistic and radical degeneration of the Comintern. Without the serious efforts of Marxists to struggle against the incessant pressure of bourgeois society, it is always possible for opportunism to easily be victorious within revolutionary workers movement.

Lenin struggled. Lenin's policies were the exact opposite of those of Stalin and Kamenov. Because Lenin was aware of the impotence and immanent collapse of the collaborationists (Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries), he felt that to support them would be a criminal mistake. He emphasized that the workers who are disappointed by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries should not be led to hesitate at an intermediate stage, but rather must be brought up to the level of the Bolsheviks. Kamenov's "bourgeois dictatorship" in fact meant a dictatorship by the bourgeoisie, and for this reason merely acknowledged the actual situation following the February Revolution. Lenin opposed this by saying that socialism cannot be immediately introduced, but we should not be afraid of taking the first steps towards socialism."

Next we will look at the students who were one wing of the "democratic united front" in 1905. The students who had propagated terrorist activity in 1905 under the direction of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, lectured the peasants on legality and calm during the February Revolution of 1917. At this time in 1917 almost none of the intellegentia were members of the Bolsheviks. The "progressive" "left-wing" intellectuals exclusively united with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries! At the London Third Party Congress in 1903, the Mensheviks and Trotsky et al, sharply denounced the Bolsheviks for "lacking faith in the workers movement and the masses, because they thought that the workers could not raise themselves up from trade unionism to revolutionary socialism, and that revolutionary socialism was something that had to be brought into the workers movement from the outside by revolutionary intellectuals." They said that, "Lenin was trying to create a party of conspirators ruled by intellectuals". The Mensheviks, just like the Emancipation League (Rosa Luxemburg-ists) with the Social Democratic Party, tried to pit trade unionists against revolutionary intellectuals. However, after ten years or so, the results of the different theories could be seen. The Bolsheviks had created a more homogenous, firm workers party, while the Mensheviks were a party of intellectuals and trade unionists.

Within the Bolsheviks as well, a wide stratum of former Bolsheviks student who had been involved in the 1905 revolution and then subsequently achieved success as teachers, doctors, or bureaucrats, coldly turned their backs on the Bolsheviks in 1917. During the reactionary period that followed the 1905 revolution, Bogdanov, the leader of the semi-anarchist faction within the Bolsheviks, was receiving a very large salary as a teacher, refused to contribute money to the Bolsheviks campaign with arrogant curses against the "aims of Lenin". The arrogance and conceit of intellectuals and petty bourgeoisie goes way back.

Next, there is the question of the united-front at the time of the Kornilov Insurrection. This example is always used by Trotsky to praise ideological united fronts.

The workers and soldiers criticism of bourgeois and Menshevik democratic united front=coalition government, was that it had become clear that government had done nothing at all to end the imperialist war, solve the land problem, or bring security to the masses. The anger of the workers and soldiers exploded in a spontaneous armed demonstration in July. At first the Bolsheviks were opposed to this demonstration, but when the danger of a spontaneous occurrence being left alone became clear, they decided to lead it and give it the form of a peaceful, armed demonstration. However, the coalition government accused the Bolsheviks of plotting to capture the government, and drove the Bolsheviks into a state of semi-illegality with a demagogic campaign of slandering the Bolsheviks as German spies. The Bolshevik leaders were either in hiding (Lenin, Zinoviev), or under arrest (Trotsky, Kamenev, Stalin). It appeared that the greatest left-wing proletarian force had been crushed-and at precisely this moment when the military dictatorship of the bourgeoisie was to be constructed, General Kornilov staged a rebellion.

After a few days however, this rebellion vanished into thin air without fighting a single battle. This is because the soldiers refused to fight for General Kornilov. This rebellion aimed for the destruction of not only the Bolsheviks, but also Soviets-which were also governed by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. For this reason, not only the Bolsheviks, but the Menshevkis and Socialist-Revolutionaries also had to stand up and fight against the Kornilov insurrection. They had an advantageous relationship to the existence of the Sovies, since without them they would have completely lost their base for conciliation and their very raison d'etre. This is the reason they stood up against the Kornilov insurrection and called for the struggle of the workers and soldiers.

Bolsheviks quickly warned the masses of the counter-revolutionary danger of the Kornilov rebellion. They were thus able to take immediate action against it. However, this doesn't mean that the Bolsheviks proposed "united-front tactics", or went so far as to adopt policies to turn the attention of the conciliators in the direction of Kornilov. The Bolsheviks said that they would support the concialators as long as they fight against counter-revolution. The conciliators (especially Kerensky), compromised and flattered Kornilov, and plotted together, thereby setting up the conditions for Kornolov's rebellion. However, when the reality of this rebellion was thrust before them, they were forced to fight against it because the victory of the rebellion would have meant the end of the contradictory conditions of their own existence (dual power). They had to call on the workers and soldiers, and Bolsheviks who they had slandered, to fight against the insurrection. They had no other way to survive politically since they possessed no independent power of their own. Faced with a right-wing rebellion, they had to rely on the left-wing for self-preservation, and thus had to release the Bolshevik leaders who they had arrested en masse in July. During the July demonstrations they had relied on the bourgeoisie, and now they were relying on the workers and soldiers! However, unlike the theory of "social fascism", opportunistic petty bourgeois socialists and counter-revolutionaries are not identical. The workers and soldiers didn't fight counter-revolution for the sake of the Kerensky government, but rather for their own interests. Thus, the "united struggle" was not some sort of strategy worked out between various left wing parites, but rather a necessary outcome of the logic of the class struggle. This was not an arbitrary-Stalinists call this a strategy-product of the Bolsheviks.

While fighting against Kornilov, the Bolsheviks utilized this power. The Bolsheviks did not immediately call for the overthrow of the democratic coalition government, but they prepared for this moment. The Bolsheviks participated as a minority in the Committee of Defense (also called the Military Revolutionary Committee), and joined the Executive Committees. Lenin said that even now the Bolsheviks don't support the Kerensky government. This is unchanging. In response to those who said that the Bolsheviks must fight against Kornilov, Lenin answered of course, but there is a limit. Some Bolsheviks, however, wanted to exceed this limit and slip into collaborationism, and would have been swept away by events.

Lenin's warning was important. "Some Bolsheviks", Piatakov for example, insisted that "we must forget all former calculations…..and unite with all revolutionary parties in a decisive struggle against counter-revolution. I call on everyone to unite." Lenin was opposed to this idea of "forgetting all former calculations". Lenin thought that while fighting Kornilov, they must not support the Kerensky government, but rather expose its weaknesses.

What we must stress here is that apart from a tactical alliance, there were no political or economic points in common with the coalition government. This was completely different from the program of the People's Front. Lenin never said anything like Dimintrov who in 1936 said that a People's Front was necessary to fight against counter-revolution.

Finally, let's look at the Bolshevik disequilibrium during the October uprising. Zinoviev and Kamenov were opposed to the October uprising and argued that the Bolsheviks couldn't hold power alone, and should seek the path of alliance with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries to create a "united type of state system". This state was defined as "a constitutional system of government plus Soviets". This amounted to the fantasy of permanent, fixed dual power of bourgeois and proletariat rule. This line of thinking had already appeared in Germany with Hilferding's idea that Soviets be included within the Weimer Constitution. Stalin stood in between the supporters and opponents of the uprising, saying that the differences between them were not great. Later he argued that the theory of the opponents of the uprising of "a combination of a constitutional system with Soviets" was the special tactic of the Bolshevik. Stalin's generosity (or dim-wittedness) towards opportunism later become the characteristic of the Communist Parties throughout the world. Lacking Leninist principles, Stalin didn't fully understand the danger of his acceptance of eclectic opportunism. He embraced opportunism, and as a result was forced to face many failures. He had not choice but to resort to convenient bureaucratic deception. As Stalin's position rose, and he was able to gain the trust of the international working class, the harm inflicted by Stalinism grew. This transformed the communist movement into a vulgar movement of petty bourgeois revolutionaries.

Following the insurrection, their was an attempt within the Bolsheviks to organize a coalition government with the irresponsible Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who had been reduced to a minority and abandoned the Soviets. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries proposed: the government assume responsibility not only for the Soviets, but also for "the broad circles of revolutionary democracy (a People's Front!); the Bolsheviks give up their weapons; and Lenin and Trotsky be excluded from the government. Even Kamenev couldn't accept this. Even though the Bolsheviks did not always refuse opposition parties on the basis of the system of Soviets, but the socialists also left the system of Soviets and flew in a counter-revolutionary direction. Virtually alone, the Bolsheviks had to fight against counter-revolution and foreign military intervention, and assume responsibility for the economic reconstruction of Russia. However, throughout their history, the Bolsheviks devoted all their energy to accomplishing these tasks.

6. Conclusion

The JCP insists that the united front tactics of the Bolsheviks and the Comintern should be studied. "What is necessary for a Marxist-Leninist Party is to correctly carry out united front policies without falling into right-wing tailism or left-wing sectarianism, not to categorically deny united fronts that include opportunistic, or revisionist currents in every case." (Red Banner: August 8, 1966)

From this it appears that the problem today is the rejection of the united front in "every case". However, isn't the real problem today in fact the meaningless talk about "united fronts"? Isn't this making the united front one's primary objective in "every case". The JCP has blamed the Socialist Party for sabotaging the anti-Security Treaty Congress, which had been the base for their national-democratic united front, and they vow to rebuild this. However, this Congress hasn't taken one step beyond being a contact group centered on the Socialist Party. Moreover, from the necessity of the class struggle, there is no need to reconvene this Congress since the end of the anti-Security treaty struggle. The politics of the JCP have become idealistic and sectarian. Let's hear what the JCP is saying.

"In fact, while waging his indomitable struggle to build a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist party (Bolshevik party) within Russia, Lenin carried out a number of united front actions with the Mensheviks, the representative Revisionist current within Russia, in order to rally a wide stratum of workers to the party and the business of revolution. In particular, from 1903 to 1905, and from 1906 to 1912, united front tactics were carried out in the struggle against Czarism under the organizational form of "one united Social Democratic Party", even while a firm ideological, and political struggle was waged against the opportunistic line. This was, as Lenin also said, one form of the united front at that time." (Red Banner August 8, 1966)

The JCP's stubborn and unusual position that Lenin maintained organizational unity with the Mensheviks, which as we have already seen is not necessarily true, is only held in order to justify their own People's Front tactics (the policy of allying with petty bourgeois reformists). Their intention is to demonstrate that just like today's JCP, Lenin made a united front with opportunists. In order to do this they either brush over or deny that from 1903 the Bolsheviks were essentially an independent political party with their own independent leadership, policies, and central organ. This surely leads to the rejection of Bolshevism. This is how they revise history.

Furthermore, the position of the JCP is fraudulent. They admire Lenin for "carrying out united front actions a number of times with the Mensheviks, the representative current of Revisionism in Russia". However, they refuse to participate in united fronts with the "representative current of revisionism", the Structural Reformist League, who split from and criticize the JCP, and say that this group is not a wing of the "democratic forces". Isn't this the direct opposite of Lenin's way which the JCP admires so greatly? The semi-demagogic statements that the Structural Reformists caused the split of the JCP, or "aimed for its destruction" are beside the point. In Russia, the Mensheviks also caused a split in the Social Democratic Party. At the Second Congress in 1903, the Bolsheviks were the majority ("Bolshevik" has the meaning of majority"), and elected Lenin, Plekhanov, and Martov as its leaders. Right up to the split the Mensheviks were in the Social Democratic Party. The reason that the Mensheviks did not cause a split was that Plekhanov came to them from the Bolsheviks, and they became the majority and then expelled Lenin. In JCP terms, then, the Mensheviks were the "splitters" or "destroyers" of a revolutionary Marxist party.

Lenin understood this incident as stemming from an opposition between two fundamental ideologies, rather than simply the Mensheviks being saboteurs. For this reason, Lenin focused his energy on criticizing the ideas of the Mensheviks. To criticize the Mensheviks as destroyers when the split was clearly carried out based on two different principles, is meaningless and amounts to nothing more than mudslinging.

The united front that the JCP insists on is, in fact, a semi-permanent union with petty bourgeois social democracy, and inevitably amounts to collaboration with petty bourgeois socialism (i.e. reformism and trade unionism). Petty bourgeois socialism (Socialist Party) is one of the tools that the bourgeoisie employs to control the proletariat. The Socialist Party has one foot planted in bourgeois society, and for this reason they cannot fight to the end for proletarian revolution. They stop half-way, and are prepared to make any deal with the bourgeoisie. Half-finished revolutions lead to the appearance of bourgeois counter-revolution. The tactic of a semi-permanent united-front with the Socialist party inevitably means ties to the bourgeoisie through the Socialist Party. The Communist Party betrays communism by forging an alliance with the Socialist Party which is the tail of the bourgeoisie.

From the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia and the Bolsheviks, we can learn from the united front tactics of Lenin. They were not the JCP's semi-permanent union with opportunism, nor the toleration or cooperation with opportunism and trade unionism. They were temporary, concrete cooperation, political blocs, between the revolutionary proletariat movement and petty bourgeois socialism and trade unionism (and in some cases bourgeois liberalism). Above all, this was a concrete proposal determined by the concrete political situation and class relations. This can be understood by just looking a single trade union strike struggle. In the case of several political currents existing within a trade union, no struggle can be carried out without some sort of united front and cooperation. However, Lenin's united front did not make this front the primary goal, and it did not become a semi-permanent thing. If the united front becomes the primary goal, this inevitably leads to collaborationism. This signifies the abandonment of the independence and revolutionary demands of the proletarian revolutionary movement, and would lead to its dissolution. What is "necessary for a Marxist-Leninist political party" is not the to timidly walk on the vulgar middle-road, but rather to struggle while maintaining one's principles. The proletariat will never achieve its self-liberation through the unprincipled application of "united front tactics".

Revolutionary communists should firmly, and unconditionally reject as reactionary the JCP's slogan for a "broad united front". Leninist united-front tactics are temporary measures, and until the agitation of the workers for revolution has become a concrete task, they are connected to the real interests of the working class. The JCP, who stubbornly opposed the April 17 (1964) general strike with the own sectarianism, have no qualification to speak of Leninist united-front tactics.

The history of the Bolsheviks is the history of an unending struggle to protect the fundamental interests of the working class, and defend the principles of Marxism. Lenin wrote "Left Wing Communism and Infantile Disorder" to oppose the petty bourgeois "infantile leftists" who were "opposed to any compromise", not as the bible of collaboration. In this pamphlet he did not propose a politics of compromise and concession to petty bourgeois socialism (Socialist Party), but rather said that compromise and cooperation with them could occur depending on the time and situation. The JCP must have interpreted this to mean that the history of Bolshevism is nothing but a tale of compromise. But "full of compromise policies" and a policy of "compromise-ism" is not the same thing. Even though the history of Bolshevism "is full of compromise policies", the Bolsheviks were independent of all bourgeois and petty bourgeois politics, and the most revolutionary, principled and staunch revolutionary party at that time in the world. The Bolsheviks were firmly aware of compromise based on principles. Only those revolutionaries who defend their principles, and struggle consistently based on these principles, are able to make the boldest compromises when necessary.

Lenin wrote "Left-Wing Communism" at time of struggle against the danger of petty bourgeois revolution-ism. The current task, however, is not the need to compromise with petty bourgeois revolution-ism, but rather to maintain proletarian principles against opportunism. Our task must be to struggle with all our force against unprincipled pseudo-communism. If this is not done, there will be no way to avoid the collapse of the communist movement. Crush the Menshevik united-front theory of the Japan Communist Party!