Interesting but...
Zond (misleading name for the 7K-L1 Soyuz family) was a sort of a crash programme trying to beat americans on time at least around the Moon (because at that times, after the death of Korolev, Soviets knew that the work on N1/L3 was deeply behind the schedule).
The decision took by Politbjiuro was to merge the two already existing cis-lunar programmes merging in a workable one:
- the 7K-L1 spacecraft was a heavily modified Soyuz (with no orbital module replaced by an instrument package) coming from Korolev's OKB-1
- the Proton rocket come from the aborted LK-1 programme brainchild of Chelomej's OHB-52.
Oddly the strange combination at least worked even without carrying any crew at all (the original plan envisioned a couple of cosmonauts onboard).
The entire 1967 (started with the death of Komarov onboard the Soyuz 1 7K-OK) was wasted in failed launches, and the first successful mission was Zond 4 (7K-l1 s/n 6) in march 1968, so the 1967 Communist celebration was no way in any alternative scenario.
Soviets could attempt to beat Ameriacans around the Moon twice: with Zond 5 (7K-L1 s/n 5) in September 1968 and Zond 6 (7K-L1 s/n 12) in November 1968.
Said that both mission could potentially end in tragedy since:
Zond 5 expecienced a ballistic (rather than double-skip) re-entry from the Moon with a load of +20g to the crew
Zond 6 first depressurized and after suffered a parachute failure that would for sure killed everybody onboard (and in fact it killed all the animals transported).
