Pograms or Programs?

 “The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution” Leon Trotsky, 1938

One of the greatest problems of socialist activity is to link the day to day demands, reform demands or minimum programs that exist in any struggle to a longer game.  The ultimate goal is to increase the strength of the proletariat and weaken the capitalists to the point where a social revolution will not be some distant goal, but an immediate possibility.  Demands that play a role as a transmission belt, so to speak.

Some rely on passive waiting for a catastrophe – a war, an economic depression, environmental collapse, fascism – that might make a social revolution inevitable.  Certainly these things are in the cards. Others spend their time chasing every cause that arises, without a perspective.  As we know, the collapse of capital is not inevitable, even in its direst hour.  This is why the conscious use of a transitional program, revolutionary demands or ‘revolutionary reforms,’ as others have said, is useful.  They take longer strides towards the real solution.  The strategy of a ‘mass line’ attempts to do this, but it doesn’t have a transitional component that I am aware of.

I’m going to take a look at the original 1938 work that became known as the Transitional Program (TP) to see if it is still relevant, if it needs to be adjusted, if it would work in the U.S. context.  The TP document was adopted in1938 at the founding of the 4^th International, titled “The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the 4^th International.”  As we know, capital did not die, though it was significantly weakened in this period.  The 4^th International, and the currents that came from it, now exist as weak reflections of its former self.  Assassinations, the downturns in the labor movement in core capitalist countries, the prevalence of social-democratic or Stalinist solutions at the time, the ostensible victories against colonialism and the collapse of the USSR all played a role.  These components have affected the whole Left, not just the FI.  But presently there exists a somewhat new world context for the Marxist Left … 

SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC DEMANDS?

In the U.S, reform socialist Bernie Sanders and the social-democratic DSA, along with others, have come up with their own versions of ‘somewhat’ transitional demands in the U.S. You might consider the best known “Medicare For All” as some kind of a ‘transitional’ demand in the U.S.; just as are “The Green New Deal” (GND), “Free College,” “Jobs for All” and “Keep the Oil/Gas/Coal In the Ground.”  Two of them limit privatization and benefit the working class economically – in the medical industry and in education. One, the GND, creates competition for a key U.S. industry, while attempting to provide new jobs for those workers unemployed by its diminution.  Jobs for all creates economic security for every proletarian.  The last impacts every carbon industry in the U.S. and world – auto, oil, gas, plastics, fertilizer, transport, agriculture, cement - and indirectly ‘might’ encourage ‘degrowth’ and a break in the commodity economy.  No doubt gaining any of them would be a large advance in the present shitty U.S. context.  I’m not going to mention socialized day care, debt relief, shorter hours - 32 hours work for 40 hours pay, reining in the Pentagon or other issues.

Given the liberal pablum and aging clichés spewed by the Democratic Party leadership or the propaganda media, these demands seem radical, even though most people support them.  For the working class they are not radical at all, as normal self-interest would lead you to agree with them.  So what are their limitations, or better yet, how might they be used by a wing of capital?  Are they transitional, utopian, limited or perhaps somewhat capitalistic?

Medicare for All would catch up the U.S. to the Nordics, Europe and a number of other countries, while weakening the capitalist medical industry.  The Green New Deal is actually the perspective of a majority wing of the international capitalist class, which is orienting towards an explosion in ‘green’ technology to revitalize capitalist industry, much as railroads, the steam engine, the automobile or the computer once did.  Of course, minus the part about providing unemployed workers jobs or reining in carbon corporations.  Free college or cheaper college would also bring the U.S. up to the level of a number of other capitalist countries. Jobs for all does strike at the heart of the capitalist economy, as it needs a reserve army of cheap labor – illegal, desperate or unskilled – to maintain profits and pressure on the employed.  It also blunts privatization, as the government would do the hiring.  Keeping the coal/oil/gas in the ground is somewhat similar to the GND, except more radical, as it pushes the time envelope for adaptation and prevention of catastrophic global climate change.  Yet without putting the carbon companies under public and workers control, the only avenues to achieve this are consumer behavior, civil disobedience, legal challenges, tax and corporate welfare changes and market ‘competition’ … all of which are slow, incremental and narrow. 

The other issue is that as world police-man, the U.S. cannot afford social-democracy.  The U.S. is based on imperial violence and war industries.  Becoming ‘social-democratic’ would almost definately require it to relinquish its dominant global role in the world capitalist system as arms producer, enforcer and economic controller. 

TRANSITIONAL DEMANDS

In a way, these demands would bring the U.S. closer to the level of social-capitalist development in the Nordics, Europe, Canada and certain other countries.  The actual reality is that any gains in these countries are always being undermined by capitalist forces in each one.  Look at the U.K. which is slowly privatizing the NHS, just as Medicare here in the U.S. is being privatized through Advantage© plans and ‘direct contracting.’ In France, it is pensions that are being cut.  Name your country, it is going on across the world.  I.E. every single ‘advance’ is liable to be reversed – quickly or slowly – as long as capital remains in control of society. Nor do these demands address some issues like imperialist war, exploitation and debt.  This is why the real ‘long game’ is social revolution.  

So what does the 'old' and mysterious original Transitional Program say?  Here is my list from the text:

    1.   Sliding scale of wages and hours.

    2.   Seek leadership in the trade unions; create labor organizations when unions are inadequate; break with the conservative trade-union apparatus when it betrays.

    3.   Factory committees.    

    4.   Open the books.

    5.   Workers control of industry.

    6.   Public works to end unemployment.

    7.   Expropriation and nationalization of certain industrial sectors.

    8.   Expropriation and nationalization of banks.

    9.   Create a public national bank.

    10.               Union defense guards; a workers’ militia.

    11.               Sit-down strikes.

    12.               Alliance of workers and farmers.

    13.               Nationalization of land; collectivization of agriculture.

    14.               Struggle against imperialism and war.

    15.               Workers and farmers government.

    16.               Soviet democracy, growing out of factory committees and other forms of dual power.

·  For capitalist ‘developing’ countries, the TP also advocates agrarian revolution and national independence.

·        For fascist-run countries, the TP advocates, of course, democratic demands but also a united front against fascism, not a popular front with liberal capitalists.  All this is very difficult in a fascist state. 

·        For the deformed or degenerated workers’ states (the USSR at the time), the TP advocates a political revolution against the bureaucracy; legalization of pro-Soviet parties; a real planned economy; opposition to secret diplomacy; workers’ control of enterprises; right to strike; a united front with the bureaucratic layer against capitalist counter-revolution; Soviet democracy.

·        For general political/theoretical struggle, the TP advocates: against liberalism, pacifism, social democracy, sectarianism, Stalinism, anarchism.  The TP advocates turning to women workers and youth under its banner.

 It is a somewhat complete program, but a bit dated.  Let’s briefly look at the 16 points:

#1 - A sliding scale of wages and hours is based on a rise in unemployment and a rise in prices, so the ‘slide’ would compensate by wages going up and hours going down with the same pay, which would provide jobs for the unemployed. (Similar to the demands of 32 for 40.)

#2 – Union points.  Seem logical and has happened already in various forms.

#3 - Factory committees (and warehouse, office, mill, retail, transport) are seen as an incipient form of dual power and a training ground to run a planned economy and businesses.  Quite advanced for the U.S. at this moment, especially given the weakness of the left in industry.  Best to call them ‘workplace’ committees.  

#4 – Open the books could be a demand by any union in negotiations with a corporation or company.  It would also apply to government bailouts.

#5 – Workers’ control is a demand somewhat similar to cooperatives, workers’ ownership or actual ‘control’ by a factory or office or warehouse or mill or mine or retail store committee of their working conditions.  The union-based Labor Party had a demand close to this, regarding ‘democracy on the job,’ but this goes farther.

#6 – Public works was partly done in the U.S. during the depression.  Still applicable.

#7- #8 – Nationalization and workers control would actually stop criminal corporations and banks in their tracks.  Still relevant, but a big move in the U.S. context presently, though it is becoming more common to advocate.  In practice it happened during the 2008-2009 crisis for the banking and auto industries, but they didn’t call it that, nor was there any ‘workers’ control’.

#9 – A public bank has become a common demand, especially through the Post Office.

#10 – Union defense guards existed in the 1930s.  With the rise, again, of fascist militias and union-breaking in the present U.S., a workers’ militia is not out of the question at all.  We’ve seen small community and political examples of it, though not yet connected to unions.

#11 – Sit down strikes are uncommon, but still an excellent tactic to prevent scabbing.  It promotes the understanding that the workers 'own' the workplace.

#12 – An alliance of workers and farmers sounds good in some countries.  In the U.S. many farmers are now multi-millionaires, vote Republican, have huge debts to banks and owe their business to some Ag conglomerate contract, but still protect wealth.  So perhaps an ‘alliance of workers and small farmers’ might be more appropriate.

#13 – Nationalization of land would end rising land prices and be an aid to new and small farmers, cooperatives and communes. Nationalization might also help with city gentrification, as cities are basically run by landlords and real estate developers.  There is no primary demand related to housing in the TP, only in the text.  On collectivization, studies and experience have shown that small scale farming can be very productive, preferably under cooperative and agro-ecological methods.  So ‘collectivization’ might be reserved for the many large farms where farmworkers now greatly outnumber owners.

#14 – Being against imperialism and war is up to date.  Some things never change.

#15 – ‘Workers and farmers government’ as an immediate transitional demand would best operate when dual power has arisen already, so it’s a bit for the long end now.  ‘Farmers’ might be replaced by ‘small farmers’ or some other middle-class entity, like small shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, contract workers or professionals.  This TP demand is a non-sectarian way to bring other sectors of the population over to social revolution.

#16 – ‘Soviet’ is a Russian word, so in the U.S. we’d use assemblies or councils as the form of dual power, growing out of workplace and neighborhood committees, leading to a workers government based on assemblies / councils in workplaces and neighborhoods. 

There is nothing about climate change in the original TP; housing is in the text but not as a larger demand except in the context of land; culture is not an issue, nor is the media or the internet; surveillance is not discussed; nor are the public police or secret police; nor migration except in the context of internationalism; nor the larger issues of racism/ sexism, etc. except as related in the text. 

A modernized TP seems to be necessary, as capital has become more complex, older and more vicious than it was even in 1938.    

The Pathfinder edition of the TP / ”Death Agony of Capitalism of Capitalism…” has introductory articles by Joseph Hansen and George Novack of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party; discussions with Trotsky; a program for Black Liberation; a strategy for revolutionary youth, pre-conference documents - all related to the original TP.  

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive: “The Socialist Challenge,” “Levers of Power,” “The Struggle for Power,” “Lenin’s Last Struggle,” “Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?” (Zizek); “Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives” (Cohen); “Viking Economics,” “Why the U.S. Will Never Be a Social Democracy,” or the words ‘transitional’ or ‘program.’

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

January 15, 2022  (Middle of the Winter!)