According to the thesis of the 1922 4th World Congress of the Communist International: The united front tactic is simply an initiative whereby the communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie.
According to the leaders of the Communist International, the shift from offensive to defensive struggles by workers strengthened the desire for united action within the working class.
The leaders hoped that the united front would allow the revolutionaries to win a majority inside the class: The task of the Communist Party is to lead the proletarian revolution.
In order to summon the proletariat for the direct conquest of power and to achieve it the Communist Party must base itself on the overwhelming majority of the working class....
After Hitler's 1933 victory, the Communist International argued for popular fronts drawing in forces far beyond the working-class movement.
Trotsky argued that the united front strategy would have great appeal to workers who wished to fight fascism: The programme of action must be strictly practical, strictly objective, to the point, without any of those artificial 'claims', without any reservations, so that every average Social Democratic worker can say to himself: what the Communists propose is completely indispensable for the struggle against fascism.
On this basis we must pull the Social Democratic workers along with us by our example, and criticize their leaders who will inevitably serve as a check and a brake.
Currently, the United Front Work Department gathers intelligence on, manages relations with, and attempts to gain influence over elite individuals and organizations inside and outside mainland China, including in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and in other countries.