Again we quote the Red Papers:
The strategy of the united front provides the concrete basis for determining friends from enemies. Presently, all those who unite on the basis of a minimum program – short of the overthrow of the imperialist ruling class – in opposition to monopoly imperialism – are friends of the proletariat. As the ruling class is weakened and the proletariat and its basic allies gather strength and momentum, the fundamental contradiction between the proletariat and its basic allies and the monopoly capitalists and their basic allies will come to the fore. This will happen in revolutionary crisis, when the proletariat and its allies must fight for power in order to meet the immediate urgent needs of the people. Then the basis for determining friends from enemies – the program of the united front – will be the question of socialism, dictatorship of the proletariat. At that point, many middle forces will split, although most will continue to vacillate, up to and even beyond the seizure of power by the proletariat and its allies. But at the present time to make the basis for determining friends from enemies the dictatorship of the proletariat, or Marxism-Leninism, is to push potential friends into the camp of the enemy...
The anti-imperialist united front strategy is not only supposed to represent a maximum program, but a minimum program as well. This is a curiosity in itself. It is admitted that between now, today, and the socialist revolution, there will be shifts, changes in the united front, but that in both cases, maximum and minimum, it will be the same united front. But this is wrong. Two things will change between the minimum and maximum programs – both the forces arrayed on either side, and also the program around which these forces fight. What then holds the “united front” together? A phrase, nothing more! In its immediate program, the proletariat demands certain concessions from the capitalists. Some of these demands will find varying degrees of support, up to and including some of the capitalists themselves in certain cases. Take the case of the war – no matter what anyone says, it cannot be denied that certain sections of the capitalists came to the conclusion that it was better to get out of Vietnam. On other issues, certain aspects of what would constitute a minimum program would find more or less support among a broad strata. Such will not be the case in the socialist revolution. Capitalist elements are not going to support socialism, except, as we say, insofar as they desert their own class standpoint. Objectively, to speak of a single united front in regard to one’s minimum and maximum programs is to confuse the distinction between the two.