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In Marxist theory, a transitional demand either is a partial realisation of a maximum demand after revolution or an agitational demand made by a socialist organisation with the aim of linking the current situation to progress towards their goal of a socialist society.
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Historically the parties adhering to the Second or Socialist International had adopted programmes that included both minimal demands, which it was believed could be satisfied by reform of the bourgeois state, and maximum demands which it was argued would see the end of capitalism and the beginning of a transition to communism. The left of the Socialist International came more and more to reject this separation of minimal and maximal demands and argued that socialism was imminent and that therefore the pursuit of minimal demands, reforms, was closing.
The use of transitional demands as part of a transitional programme was developed by the early Communist International and to some considerable degree was codified by the Second, Third and Fourth Congresses of the Comintern as "transitional slogans." However the Fifth and Sixth Congresses saw the Comintern returning to the division of its political demands between reformist, or minimal, and revolutionary, or maximum, demands. The key difference being that at the Fifth Congress both were seen as important but at the Sixth there was a marked tendency to reject any minimal demands as bring operative in the short term.
Crucially, the Sixth Congress also saw the adoption of a programme by the Comintern which was more in line with maximum demands than with transitional slogans. A major debate took place at the Congress with regard to this with major contributions from Bukharin and Thalheimer the dissident German Communist who championed the concept.
Perhaps the most famous example of a transitional programme is The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International , adopted by the Fourth International and written by Leon Trotsky. Earlier examples include Lenin's The Impending Catastrophe and How to Avoid It. [1]
Transitional demands differ from calls for reform (a minimum programme) in that they call for things that governments and corporations are unwilling or unable to offer, and therefore, any progress towards obtaining a transitional demand is likely to weaken capitalism and strengthen the hand of the working class.
Transitional demands differ from calls for revolution (a maximum programme) in that they call for primarily economic demands that could be achieved under capitalism. So "Rule by workers' councils" would not be a transitional demand, as it would imply the overthrow of capitalism. Examples of transitional demands would be "Employment for all" or "Housing for all," demands that sound reasonable to the average citizen, but are practically impossible for capitalism to deliver on. Trotsky held that, while socialists should not hide their programme, it was essential to plan a possible route to it.
The BBC television documentary Lefties, which aired in several parts in April 2006, featured interviews with people who were radicals in the 1970s and 1980s, in which the concept of transitional demands is described. [2]
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishment of communism. The function of the Leninist vanguard party is to provide the working classes with the political consciousness and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism in the Russian Empire (1721–1917). Leninist revolutionary leadership is based upon The Communist Manifesto (1848), identifying the communist party as "the most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country; that section which pushes forward all others." As the vanguard party, the Bolsheviks viewed history through the theoretical framework of dialectical materialism, which sanctioned political commitment to the successful overthrow of capitalism, and then to instituting socialism; and, as the revolutionary national government, to realise the socio-economic transition by all means.
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an orthodox Marxist, a revolutionary Marxist, and Bolshevik–Leninist, a follower of Marx, Engels, and 3L: Vladimir Lenin, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg. He supported founding a vanguard party of the proletariat, proletarian internationalism, and a dictatorship of the proletariat based on working-class self-emancipation and mass democracy. Trotskyists are critical of Stalinism as they oppose Joseph Stalin's theory of socialism in one country in favour of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. Trotskyists criticize the bureaucracy and anti-democratic current developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin.
The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of world socialism via international revolution. The Fourth International was established in France in 1938, as Trotsky and his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union, considered the Communist International as effectively puppets of Stalinism and thus incapable of leading the international working class to political power. Thus, Trotskyists founded their own competing Fourth International.
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state". The Comintern was preceded by the 1916 dissolution of the Second International.
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The Third Period is an ideological concept adopted by the Communist International (Comintern) at its Sixth World Congress, held in Moscow in the summer of 1928. It set policy until reversed when the Nazis took over Germany in 1933.
The history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was generally perceived as covering that of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from which it evolved. The date 1912 is often identified as the time of the formation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as a distinct party, and its history since then can roughly be divided into the following periods:
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The International Revolutionary Marxist Centre was an international association of left-socialist parties. The member-parties rejected both mainstream social democracy and the Third International.
In Marxist practice, a maximum programme consists of a series of demands aiming to achieve socialism.
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The 11th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held during 27 March – 2 April 1922 in Moscow. The congress was attended by 522 with a casting vote alongside 165 with consultative vote, and elected the 11th Central Committee.
The 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (b) was held in Moscow 18–23 March 1919. The Congress was attended by 301 voting delegates who represented 313,766 Party members. A further 102 delegates attended with speaking rights, but no vote. It elected the 8th Central Committee.
Internationalism is a political principle that advocates greater political or economic cooperation among states and nations. It is associated with other political movements and ideologies, but can also reflect a doctrine, belief system, or movement in itself.
A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition especially of leftist political parties against a common opponent".
The Left Opposition was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (b) from 1923 to 1927 headed de facto by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's illness and intensified with his death in January 1924. Originally, the battle lines were drawn between Trotsky and his supporters who signed The Declaration of 46 in October 1923 on the one hand and a triumvirate of Comintern chairman Grigory Zinoviev, Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin and Politburo chairman Lev Kamenev on the other hand.
The Transitional Program, originally titled The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International and later reprinted under the title, The Transitional Program and the Struggle for Socialism, is a political platform adopted by the 1938 founding congress of the Fourth International, the international Leninist organization founded by Leon Trotsky. It is an example of a transitional programme.
Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for transitioning from a capitalist to a socialist mode of production. Revolution is not necessarily defined as a violent insurrection; it is defined as a seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the state is directly controlled or abolished by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests.
A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political and/or military struggle carried out by revolutionaries, especially in revolutionary socialism, communism or anarchism. The basic theory of the united front tactic among socialists was first developed by the Comintern, an international communist organization created by communists in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. According to the thesis of the 1922 4th World Congress of the Comintern:
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.
The Sixth Congress of the Communist International was held in Moscow from July 17 to September 1, 1928. The Congress was attended by 515 delegates from 65 organizations from 57 countries. Adopting the theory of the "Third Period", Congress proclaimed social democracy to be "social fascism."
