New introduction to The Transitional Programme

[Jolly Red Giant]

Trotsky’s key 1938 work shows rich application of the method of Marxism

Peter Taaffe, general secretary of the Socialist Party (CWI England and Wales) June 2010.


On the 70th anniversary of the death of Leon Trotsky, on 21 August 1940, Peter Taaffe examines one of the great revolutionary key texts, ’The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth Intenational’, also known as the Transitional Programme, and its relevance today.

Here unfolds before us in all its richness the application of the method of Marxism to the historical tasks of the workers’ movement. It was written in 1938 in preparation for the Second World War and its revolutionary consequences for the working class worldwide. But the approach adopted – despite some of the demands not yet being fully applicable today in all situations – is very ‘modern’ and relevant to the struggles of the workers’ movements today.


http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4442

[Die Neue Zeit]

Sorry, but the transitional "method," if applied to programs and not platforms, is hopelessly economistic. Also, despite the rhetoric of "method" and flexibility, I don't see much of it. Either that, or demands are dumbed down.

I don't see you guys having Minsky (http://www.revleft.com/vb/public-employer-last-t124658/index.html) replace sliding scales of hours and public works.

I don't see you guys having Meidner (http://www.revleft.com/vb/compensation-and-capital-t137331/index.html) replace nationalize-the-top-such-and-such companies.

I don't see a solution to the petit-bourgeois problem - such as enabling the full replacement of the hiring of labour for small-business profit by cooperative production, and also society’s cooperative production of goods and services to be regulated by cooperatives under their common plans.

[blake 3:17]

There are a number of good and thoughtful points made in the Taafe introduction.

A link to the Transitional Program: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/marxists/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm


Sorry, but the transitional "method," if applied to programs and not platforms, is hopelessly economistic. Also, despite the rhetoric of "method" and flexibility, I don't see much of it. Either that, or demands are dumbed down.
I think we need to re think "dumbing down" -- if the Left is to succeed it is going to need to embrace populism, it also needs to embrace principle and clarity. The centre and moderate Lefts have been doing neither. The Movementist Left has been best at embracing central elements of the Transitional Method.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Please address the examples above. There are two shades of "populism": substantive and shallow. Defensive, anti-cuts struggles are shallow.