For many on the left today, the Transitional Programme has become a source of renewed interest. It has led to significant debates among various left tendencies and, more recently, however, the Transitional Programme occupies a place in marxist tradition that is generally not well understood.
There are some on the left today who consider it to be irrelevent to the present situation. D. Hallas, writing in International Socialism 40, points out that the changed world situation in the post-war era has rendered the programme inneffective. As he put it, criticising the Trotskyist movement after the war, its errors "...arise, fundamentally, from the attempt to apply this analysis to a world situation in which it is irrelevent or false".
Others, verging on the opposite extreme, the Transitional Programme as a 'sacred text' with which only 'heretics' dare meddle. WRP, in its hysterical attacks upon the Fourth International, has strenuously denounced all attempts to add to it demands stemming from the new forms of class struggle that have grown up over the past few decades - particularly those of women or Blacks for their liberation.
What both these extremes misunderstand is the real significance of the programme. Such a significance resides not so much in the precise demands it raises - although, it is worth noting, most of these remain valid for today - as in the method underlying them. This method was succinctly explained by Trotsky himself in the early part of the programme when writing:
"It is necessary to help the masses in the process of their daily struggle to find the bridge between present demands and the socialist programme of revolution. This bridge should include a system of transitional demands stemming from today's conditions and from today's consciousness of wide layers of the working class and leading them, unalterably, to one final conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletThe uniqueness of this programme - which has to be concretised at every step - must be found precisely in the method Trotsky outlined as one of finding 'bridges'.
Method Such a method, it should be noted, was not at all new. Trotsky, in his discussions with leading members of the Socialist Workers Party who helped elaborate the programme, stressed that it was not sucked out of the thumb of any one individual but represented the laccumulated experiencel of the marxist movement.
The point was well-made. Such a method can be traced back to the 'healthy! years of the Third International and its attempt to establish ".. the necessity of the struggle for transitional "The current debate on the left on the significance of the Transitional Programme is not an academic discussion on a 40 year old document. It is a key debate on the way socialists should intervene in the labour movement and amongst its allies"
demands, making the necessary reservations about the dependence of these demands on the concrete circumstances of time and place". It can, indeed, be traced back even earlier to the Communist Manifesto drawn up by Marx and Engels which, likewise, attempted to 'bridge' the gulf between the day-to-day struggles facing working people and that for socialism.
In this sense, the Transitional Programme (and its predecessors) occupies a unique place in marxist tradition. It does not, of course, include all the programmatic positions developed by that movement over the years. It is an 'action programme' applied to the present. It attempts to apply the marxist method to. the ongoing class struggle by drawing up a series of demands which, while relating to the problems facing working people and their allies, leads them through struggle to heighten their con -sciousness & grasp the necessity of socialism.
As Trotsky himself put it: "It is a programme of action from today until the beginning of the socialist revolution. And from the practical point of view, what is most important is how we can guide the different strata of the proletariat in the direction of social revolution".
The discussion around such a programme is not, therefore, an academic discussion on an historical document. What is being debated by the 'left! is the way socialists should intervene in the class struggle, how they should relate to the different forms of struggle thrown up and what demands they should propose for these struggles. Unfortunately, despite the renewed interest in the Transitional Programme - and the debate that has taken place - there is very. little real grasp of the method behind it.
l. Objective Conditions One of the major errors of the left is to look at the Transitional Programme as a static set of demands - 'fixed' for all time - to be applied regardless of time, place and circumstance. This does damage to the very method of the programme which was, itself, a modification of earlier programmes in the light of experience. Trotsky, in his discussions with SWP leaders, stressed how it arose out of the concrete exper¡ence of sections of the Left Opposition in the The Transitional Programme was drawn up to correspond to the objective conditions operating at that time and was, in this sense, necessarily open-ended. The very division of the programme into four parts - dealing with the advanced capitalist countries, colonial countries, fascist regimes and degenerated workers states - is in itself a confirmation of the conjunctural nature of this analysis, open to change.
The task of marxists is not to repeat, parrot fashion, the demands stemming from conditions operating over 30 years ago (despite the fact many of these demands still remain valid today). It is, using the method of the programme, to modify and adapt it to the very real changes in the objective situation that have taken place in the intervening decades. Such changes include the creation of nuclear warfare, the rise of new workers states from China to Cuba, the growth of revolutionary nationalism and of the women's liberation movement. Unlike the WRP, for whom the world stood still in 1940, the Transitional Programme has to be constantly amplified, adjusted & concretised to take into account such changes. Only by reality. avoid fall with the WRP which refuses to recognise dynamic of new struggles because they don't fit into their pre-1940 Iblue-print'. Such an attitude has led the WRP to isolate itself from the new waves of radicalisation, denouncing the struggle of Blacks as a 'diversion' and that of women as a 'middle class' cul-de-sac.
Mentality To adjust the Transitional Programme - to expand on certain demands and remove others no longer relevant - does not mean, however, to adapt the programme to passing moods layers of the working class & its allies. While the programme has to be adjusted, ments must take place in accord with changes in the objective situation. Trotsky himself was to stress this point when suggesting to SWP leaders that the task consisted of "helping the of adapting their mentality politically and psychologically to the objective situation".
This point is often overlooked. The starting point of adjusting the programme is not the given consciousness of the masses - or even changes within it - but the objective which gives rise to new tasks to which the Imentality has to be adjusted. If it is incorrect to refuse to take into account the changes over the past decade (like the WRP), it is equally wrong to adapt the programme to passing moods. The converse of Healy's sectarianism is the 'adaptationismi of groups such as the IS and IMG who often capitulate to the latest moods among the layers with which they are working. These moods can often run counter to the interests of working people both nationally and internationally.
This can clearly be seen on the issue of Vietnam. In the middle isixties, groups such as the IMG played a central role in building a mass movement in support of the Vietnamese freedom fighters. Building such a movement was a recognition that the Vietnam conflict represented the pivotal point, internationally, of the class struggle which could help determine the balance of class forces for years to come. Mass demonstrations around the world were of decisive aid to the liberation forces as they made clear on numerous occasions.
Mass anti-war demonstration in the USA Towards 1970, however, many of the student youth who had pioneered the struggle were, themselves, beginning to lose interest in Vietnam and identify more with the industrial struggles in Britain. Instead of fighting to win these youth to a recognition of the importance of the Vietnam conflict, groups such as the IS and IMG capitulated to passing moods and began to Iback-peddle! on the need for a solidarity movement. They 'back-peddled' to , such an extent that in 1972, when the US was
dropping the equivalent of one atom bomb per day on the cities of North Vietnam, the left was incapable of mobilising anyone.
The adaptation of groups such as the IMG or IS to passing moods represents substituting for the objective needs of working people the moods of isolated layers (often called, by the IMG, the Ivanguard'). Politically, very dangerous and lead to abstaining on key issues because they are not 'in tunel with the Iconcerns' of that vanguard at any one Vietnam represents, in this sense, merely one example. Another is the refusal of the 'left! over the past years, to take up the issue of racism in a central way and, equally vital, that of Ireland. In the latter case, it is not just a question of 'abstention! - i.e. refusing to build a mass Troops Out Movement - but in the case of IS, actually moving to an anti-socialist position. Instead of denouncing the entry of British troops in 1968 as an attempt by Britain to re-assert its control over Irish aftairs, IS actually welcomed them at first as a 'peace-keeping' force designed to prevent pograms against the Catholic community.
Once again, the error made was to substitute the passing moods of layers of Irish Catholics - who themselves had illusions originally in the peace - keeping role of the troops objective analysis of the role of British Imperialism in Ireland and the need for socialists to call for their immediate withdrawal. Of course, once the illusions had begun to break down in the Irish community, they began to break down in IS as well. "?
While, as was pointed out, many left groups adapted to the student movement in its workerist phase in the early 'seventies, this adaptation was to a movement that itself had an ultra-left understanding of the labour movement. Radicalising largely outside the workers! movement & horrified by the Wilson government's attacks on working people, the young radicals saw only the 'bureaucratised' face of the Labour Party that they (falsely) identified with the Tories.
Instead of fighting this false understanding, instead of struggling to win the young radicals to a correct understanding of the Labour Party as a gain as well as an obstacle for working people, the left groups largely capitulated to it. In the 1970 elections, the IS and the IMG advocated virtually an abstentionist position. Figures like Robin Blackburn (writing in Red Weekly) openly called on people to abstain and disrupt Labour Party meetings.
The gradual rise of workers struggles in the early 'seventies and return - in 1974 - of the Lapour government brought about a major shift in these positions. The ultra-left rhetoric of the past was a major handicap in relating growing numbers of workers who were attracted to the radical speeches of the Labour lefts such as Benn. In the years that followed, the 'abstention! calls gradually disappeared as the IMG and other groups tried to cuddle up to the 'new vanguard' developing within the workers! movement. The only problem was that, in trying to reach this new layer, they adapted as much to its centrist illusions as, previously, they had to the ultra-left ones of the students. The abstention calls were replaced by those giving