Transitional Demands:
From the Comintern to the Fourth International
In 1939, Marceau Pivert, a prominent French socialist, disparaged the Fourth
International for fetishizing the “dogmas” of the Communist International of
Lenin’s time. Leon Trotsky responded:
“Only continuity of ideas creates a revolutionary tradition, without
which a revolutionary party sways like a reed in the wind.
· · ·
“Pivert either refuses or is unable to understand that our invincible
strength lies in our theoretical thoroughness and irreconcilability. ‘Trotsky
allows in his organization,’ writes Pivert, ‘only those members who accept
as dogma (?), and consequently without discussion (?), a systematic reference to the
principles elaborated in the first four congresses of the Communist International. Our
conception of the party is altogether different’…. “In the Bolshevik
Party differences arose after the first four congresses of the Comintern, whose
decisions were elaborated with the most direct participation of the future leaders of
‘the Left Opposition.’ A sharp turn toward opportunism was sanctioned by the
Fifth Congress. Without renouncing the revolutionary tradition, the greatest in the
annals of history, we have nevertheless not made the first four congresses more than
our starting point, nor have we restricted ourselves to them.” [1]
The Communist (or Third) International was launched in 1919 by the leaders of the
Bolshevik Revolution as an agency of world proletarian revolution. It is well known that
Trotsky played a prominent role in the Third International in its early years, but the
direct political continuity between the first four congresses and the Fourth International
is less widely appreciated.
The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International
(commonly known as the Transitional Program) was adopted as the program of the
Fourth International at its founding conference in September 1938. In it Trotsky fused the
programmatic conceptions of the revolutionary Comintern with the subsequent contributions
of the Left Opposition (particularly on Stalinism and fascism). The 1938 program is
chiefly noted for its inclusion of a series of “transitional demands” (a
sliding scale of wages and hours, workers’ control of production, workers’
defense guards, etc.) aimed at mobilizing the working class to struggle for power. It is
often supposed (even by many ostensible Trotskyists) that the idea of a
“transitional” program (as opposed to the minimal/maximal program of the
social democrats and Stalinists) was devised by Trotsky as a sort of gimmick to
distinguish his new international. But anyone taking the trouble to read through the major
documents of the early years of the Comintern can plainly see that the transitional
demands in the Fourth International’s 1938 program came directly from the
resolutions of the first four congresses of the Third International.[2]
In the turbulent years following World War I, the “World Proletarian
Revolution” seemed a very immediate prospect. Between the First Congress of the
Comintern (1919) and the Fourth (1922), European capitalism was shaken by a series of
revolutionary and near-revolutionary upheavals. In a July 1921 speech in Moscow, Trotsky
recalled the mood at the first two congresses:
“…it is unquestionable that in the era of the First Congress
(1919) many of us reckoned—some more, others less—that the spontaneous onset
of the workers and in part peasant masses would overthrow the bourgeoisie in the near
future. And, as a matter of fact, this onset was truly colossal. The number of
casualties was very large. But the bourgeoisie was able to withstand this initial onset
and precisely for this reason regained its self-confidence. “The Second Congress
in 1920 convened at the breaking point. It could already be sensed that by the onset
alone the bourgeoisie would not be overthrown in a few weeks or in one, two or three
months; that needed more serious organizational and political preparation. But at the
same time the situation remained very acute.”[3]
Factory committees and Workers’ Control
The Second Congress had addressed the importance of the struggle for leadership of the
mass organizations of the working class:
“The indecision of the working masses, their intellectual
irresolution, their susceptibility to the specious arguments of the opportunist leaders,
can be overcome only in the course of the sharpening struggle, to the extent that the
broadest strata of the proletariat learn from their own experience, from their victories
and defeats, that it is no longer possible within a capitalist economic system to get
human conditions of life, to the extent that the advanced communist workers learn to
act, in the economic struggle, not only as heralds of the ideas of communism, but as the
most determined leaders of the struggle and of the trade unions. Only in this way will
it be possible to get rid of the opportunist union leaders. Only in this way can the
communists get at the head of the trade union movement and make it an organ of
revolutionary struggle for communism….”[4]
The resolution called for forming “factory committees” to implement
“workers’ control of production” in order to counter the effects of
capitalist economic irrationality and sabotage:
“The economic disorder which is enveloping one country after another
shows even the backward workers that it is not enough to fight for higher wages and a
shorter working day, that with every day the capitalist class is less and less able to
restore economic life and to ensure for the workers even the standard of life they
enjoyed before the war. From this growing recognition arise the efforts of the working
masses to create organizations which can take up the struggle to rescue economic life by
workers’ control, exercised through the control of production by factory
committees….”[5]
The creation of factory committees and the imposition of workers’ control (dual
power on the shop floor) are “transitional” measures that clearly pose the
question of state power:
“The struggle of the factory committees against capitalism has as its
immediate general object workers’ control over production….The committees in
the different factories will soon be faced with the question of workers’ control
over entire branches of industry and industry as a whole. But since any attempt by the
workers to supervise the supply of raw materials and the financial operations of the
factory owners will be met by the bourgeoisie and the capitalist government with the
most vigorous measures against the working class, the fight for workers’ control
of production leads to the fight for the seizure of power by the working
class….”[6]
These ideas, subsequently reiterated by both the Third and Fourth Congresses, feature
prominently in the Transitional Program.
‘Conquest of the Masses’
The Third Congress took place in 1921 in the midst of a series of setbacks for the
international workers’ movement:
“During the year that elapsed between the II and III Congress of the
Communist International a series of working-class uprisings and battles have resulted in
partial defeats (the Red Army offensive against Warsaw in August 1920; the movement of the Italian proletariat in
September 1920; the uprising of the German workers in March 1921).
“The first period of the revolutionary movement after the war is
characterized by the elemental nature of the onslaught, by the considerable formlessness
of its methods and aims and by the extreme panic of the ruling classes; and it may be
regarded by and large as terminated.”[7]
The Third and Fourth Congresses attempted to solve the problems posed by the transition
from a period of working-class offensive to one of relative capitalist stabilization. In a
report on the Fourth Congress, delivered on 28 December 1922, Trotsky recounted how, in
the aftermath of the German Communist Party’s abortive March 1921 uprising:
“The International issued a warning: ‘You must conquer the
confidence of the majority of the working class before you dare summon the workers to an
open revolutionary assault.’ This was the lesson of the Third Congress. A year and
a half later the Fourth World Congress convened. “….The Fourth Congress
developed, deepened, verified and rendered more precise the work of the Third Congress,
and was convinced that this work was basically correct.”[8]
The “Theses of the Third World Congress on the International Situation and the
Tasks of the Comintern,” drafted by Trotsky, and adopted on 4 July 1921,
proclaimed:
“The fundamental task of the Communist Party in the current crisis is
to lead the present defensive struggles of the proletariat, to extend their scope, to
deepen them, to unify them, and in harmony with the march of events, to transform
them into decisive political struggles for the ultimate goal.”[9]
RILU’s ‘Program of Action’
The “Program of Action” for the Red International of Labor Unions
(RILU—also known as the Profintern), adopted by the Third Congress, addressed the
same question:
“17….Red unions should remember that these problems cannot be
lastingly settled within the framework of capitalist relations….They must use
every action, every local strike, every conflict, however minor, to argue their point.
They must draw the lessons from the experience of struggle, raising the consciousness of
the rank and file and preparing the workers for the time when it will be necessary and
possible to achieve the social revolution and the dictatorship of the
proletariat.”[10]
The “Program of Action” addressed the problem of layoffs and unemployment
as follows:
“5….In no circumstance should factory owners be allowed to throw
workers out onto the streets without bearing any of the consequences. They ought to pay
full redundancy pay. The unemployed and, to an even greater extent, the employed workers
should be organized around this question. They should be shown that the problem of
unemployment cannot be solved as long as capitalist relations exist and that the best
method of beating unemployment is to fight for social revolution and the dictatorship of
the proletariat.”[11]
The call in the Transitional Program for a sliding scale of wages and hours is
more elegant, and more clearly anticipates how work is organized in a planned economy. But
the intent of the RILU program is the same: to unite the employed and unemployed in common
struggle to make the bosses bear the costs of labor-displacing technological innovation
and “downsizing.” The RILU program proposed to respond to capitalist threats
to cut hours or close down operations by opening the books. This demand was clearly linked
to the imposition of workers’ control and workers’ management of
production:
“6….The unions must fight the closure of factories and demand
that the workers have the right to investigate the reasons behind the closure. Special
control commissions to deal with raw materials, fuel and orders must be established to
carry out on-the-spot checks of the raw materials in stock, the materials essential to
production and the bank balance of the factory or institution. Specially elected control
committees must undertake a thorough investigation of financial relations between the
concern in question and other concerns—this raises in a practical way the need to
open the books.
“7. Factory occupations and work-ins are also forms of struggle
against the mass closure of factories and wage cuts. In view of the prevailing lack of
consumer goods, it is particularly important that production be maintained and unions
should not permit the deliberate closure of factories….The administration of
factories occupied by workers should be placed in the hands of factory committees and
union representatives specially picked for the purpose.”[12]
Workers’ defense guards, another key transitional demand, was also raised in the
RILU program:
“12….Every important strike, for example, needs to be thoroughly
prepared. Furthermore, from the outset the workers must form special groups to fight the
strike-breakers and combat the provocative action of the various kinds of right-wing
organizations which are encouraged by the bourgeois governments. The Fascists in
Italy…have as their object the destruction and suppression of all working-class
activity, not only by providing scab labour, but by smashing the working-class
organizations and getting rid of their leaders. In such situations the organization of
special strike militias and special self-defence groups is a matter of life and
death.”[13]
Third Congress ‘On Tactics’
The resolution “On Tactics” adopted by the Third Congress (1921) was
drafted by the Russian delegation led by Trotsky and Lenin. Of particular interest is the
section entitled, “Single-Issue Struggles and Single-Issue Demands,” which
outlines how communists connect the immediate struggles of the working class to its
historic interests:
“By putting forward a militant programme urging the proletariat to
fight for its basic needs, they can show the backward and vacillating masses the path to
revolution and demonstrate how all parties other than the Communists are against the
working class. Only by leading the concrete struggles of the proletariat and by taking
them forward will the Communists really be able to win the broad proletarian masses to
the struggle for the dictatorship.
“All the agitation, propaganda and political work of the Communist
Parties must start from the understanding that no long-term improvement in the position
of the proletariat is possible under capitalism….This does not mean, however,
that the proletariat has to renounce the fight for its immediate practical demands until
after it has established its dictatorship.
“Even though capitalism is in progressive decline and is unable to
guarantee the workers even a life of well-fed slavery, social democracy continues to put
forward its old programme of peaceful reforms to be carried out on the basis
and within the framework of the bankrupt capitalist system….The social democrats
are thus retreating to their minimum programme, which now stands clearly
revealed as a counter-revolutionary fraud.
· · ·
“The Communist Parties do not put forward minimum programmes which
could serve to strengthen and improve the tottering foundations of capitalism. The
Communists’ main aim is to destroy the capitalist system. But in order to achieve
their aim the Communist Parties must put forward demands expressing the immediate needs
of the working class. The Communists must organize mass campaigns to fight for these
demands regardless of whether they are compatible with the continuation of the
capitalist system.”[14]
Unlike reformists, revolutionaries do not limit themselves to what the capitalists can
afford to concede:
“If the demands put forward by the Communists correspond to the
immediate needs of the broad proletarian masses, and if the masses are convinced that
they cannot go on living unless their demands are met, then the struggle around these
issues becomes the starting-point of the struggle for power.”
· · ·
“The Communist Parties should make certain that the demands they put
forward not only correspond to the demands of the broad masses, but also draw the masses
into battle and lay the basis for organizing them. Concrete slogans that express the
economic need of the working masses must lead to the struggle for control of
industry—control based not on a plan to organize the economy bureaucratically
and under the capitalist system, but on the factory committees and revolutionary trade
unions. Only the creation of such organizations and their co-ordination within the
different industries and areas makes possible the organization of a unified struggle of
the working masses….The present epoch is revolutionary precisely because the most
modest demands of the working masses are incompatible with the continued existence of
capitalist society, and the struggle for these demands is therefore bound to develop
into the struggle for Communism.”[15]
Many demands from the old social-democratic minimum program remained relevant, but the
Comintern posed them not in a reformist spirit, but in ways that promoted awareness of the
necessity for workers’ power:
“In place of the minimum programme of the centrists and reformists,
the Communist International offers a struggle for the concrete demands of the
proletariat which, in their totality, challenge the power of the bourgeoisie, organize
the proletariat and mark out the different stages of the struggle for its dictatorship.
Even before the broad masses consciously understand the need for the dictatorship of the
proletariat, they can respond to each of the individual demands. As more and more people
are drawn into the struggle around these demands and as the needs of the masses come
into conflict with the needs of capitalist society, the working class will come to
realize that if it wants to live, capitalism will have to die. This realization will be
the main motivation in their struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat. The tasks
of the Communist Parties is to extend, deepen and unify the struggle around these
concrete demands.”[16]
Fourth Congress Endorses ‘Transitional Demands’
The Fourth Congress was supposed to discuss and adopt a program for the Comintern.
Three draft programs were prepared for discussion: one by the Bulgarian party, one by the
Germans and one by Nikolai Bukharin on behalf of the Soviet leadership. While the adoption
of a program was to have been one of the main political tasks of the Fourth Congress, the
delegates felt that they lacked the time to properly consider the drafts and voted to
postpone a consideration of the question to the next congress.
(The question was again postponed by the Fifth Congress in 1924. Finally, at the Sixth
Congress in 1928, where Trotsky was expelled, the Stalinized Comintern adopted a very
different program, also written by Bukharin, in which the task of organizing the World
Revolution was replaced with that of building “Socialism in One Country.”
Trotsky’s critique of this program is contained in his book The Third
International After Lenin.)
In place of adopting a program, the presidium of the Fourth Congress proposed a motion
on the question which was introduced by Grigory Zinoviev. This short five-point motion,
which passed unanimously, indicates the centrality of the concept of transitional demands in Lenin’s time. It thus vividly illustrates the political continuity between the Third and Fourth Internationals:
“3. The programmes of the national sections must clearly and
decisively establish the necessity of the struggle for transitional demands, making the
necessary reservations about the dependence of these demands on the concrete
circumstances of time and place.
“4. The theoretical basis for all transitional and partial demands
must be clearly stated in the general programme, and the fourth congress likewise
decisively condemns the attempt to depict the inclusion of transitional demands in the
programme as opportunism, as well as all attempts to gloss over or replace the
fundamental revolutionary tasks by partial demands.
“5. The general programme must clearly explain the basic historical
types of the transitional demands of the national section, in accordance with the basic
differences in the economic and political structure of the different countries, for
example England on the one hand, and India on the other.”[17]
In terms that were later echoed in Trotsky’s 1938 draft program, the
“Theses on Comintern Tactics” approved by the Fourth Congress declared that
world capitalism had:
“…fulfilled its mission of developing the productive forces
and…reached a stage of irreconcilable contradiction with the requirements not only
of modern historical development, but also of the most elementary conditions of human
existence. This fundamental contradiction was reflected in the recent imperialist
war….
· · ·
“Capitalism to its very end will be at the mercy of cyclical
fluctuations. Only the seizure of power by the proletariat and a world socialist
revolution can save humanity from permanent catastrophe, caused by the existence of the
modern capitalist system.
“What capitalism is passing through today is nothing other than
its death throes. The collapse of capitalism is inevitable.”[18]
The “death throes” of world capitalism have proved considerably more
protracted than either the Comintern or the Fourth International anticipated. But, as the
current “globalization” offensive by capital against the past gains of the
working class reminds us, “if [the working class] wants to live, capitalism will
have to die.”
Notes
1 Leon Trotsky,
“’Trotskyism’ and the PSOP,” Leon Trotsky On France (New
York: Monad Press, 1979), pp 242–43
2 Jean van
Heijenoort reported:
“In February 1933 in Prinkipo [Trotsky] had asked Pierre
Frank and me to put together all the theses and resolutions adopted by the first four
congresses of the Communist International. His plan was to use them exactly as they
were, so that they would constitute a kind of chart for the international Trotskyite
organization. Once the texts had been collected, it became obvious that, besides
dealing with broad political perspectives, they covered so many narrow, out-of-date
problems that it would be impossible to use them unchanged for a new program. The
project had to be abandoned.”
—With Trotsky in
Exile (Harvard University Press, 1978), p 63
Trotsky did not entirely abandon the project, as is evident from the
programmatic “chart” he produced five years later for the Fourth
International. His attachment to the traditions of the Leninist Comintern is also
reflected in his remarks on selecting a name for the new revolutionary international, as
reported by van Heijenoort (p 54) from a 27 July 1933 discussion:
“There is the secondary and subordinate question of a name.
Fourth International? It is not very pleasant. When we broke with the Second
International, we changed our theoretical foundations. Now, no; we remain based on the
first four congresses [of the Communist International]. We could also proclaim: the
Communist International is us! And call ourselves the Communist International
(Bolsheviks-Leninists). There are pros and cons. The title of Fourth International is
neater. This may be an advantage as far as large masses are concerned.”
3 Leon Trotsky,
“The School of Revolutionary Strategy,” The First Five Years of the
Communist International, Vol. 2, (New York: Monad Press, 1972), p 8
4 “Extracts from the Theses on the Trade Union
Movement, Factory Councils, and the Communist International,” The Communist
International 1919–1943 Documents, Vol. 1, (London: Frank Cass and Company,
1971), p 147
5 Ibid., p 148
6 Ibid., p 149
7 “Theses
of the Third World Congress on the International Situation and the Tasks of the
Comintern,” Theses, Resolutions & Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the
Third International, (London: Ink Links, 1980), p 184
8 Leon Trotsky,
“Report on the Fourth World Congress,” The First Five Years of the
Communist International, Vol. 2, (New York: Monad Press, 1972), pp 312–13
9 “Theses
of the Third World Congress on the International Situation and the Tasks of the
Comintern,” Theses, Resolutions & Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the
Third International, (London: Ink Links, 1980), p 202, emphasis in original
10 “The
Communist International and the Red International of Trade Unions—The Struggle
Against the Amsterdam (scab) Trade-Union International,” Theses, Resolutions &
Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the Third International, (London: Ink
Links, 1980), p 273
11 Ibid., p
270
12 Ibid., pp
270–71
13 Ibid., p
272
14 “On
Tactics,” Theses, Resolutions & Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the
Third International, (London: Ink Links, 1980), pp 284–86, emphasis in
original
15 Ibid., pp
286–87
16 Ibid., p
286
17 “Resolution
of the Fourth Comintern Congress on the Programme of the Communist International,”
The Communist International 1919–1943 Documents, Vol. 1, (London: Frank
Cass and Company, 1971), p 446
18 “Theses on
Comintern Tactics,” Theses, Resolutions & Manifestos of the First Four
Congresses of the Third International, (London: Ink Links, 1980), pp 388–89,
emphasis in original