“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 4th International, titled “The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the 4th
International.” As we know, capital
did not die, though it was significantly weakened in this period. The 4th 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.
#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!)
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