A short clip from the BBC documentary "Lefties", interviewing members of the International Marxist Group, British Section of the Fourth International.
I think that Trotskyist notions of transitional demands is an interesting and helpful concept. I hate Trotsky too much to worship the butcher of Kronstadt and describe myself as a trotskyite, but still, it's an neat idea that should be explored.
September 29, 2009 at 9:16 PM
The problem with the "transitional program" summed up...
The 'transitional program' suffers from exactly the same fault as Trotsky himself did personally. Many reports claim that Trotsky would have won over Stalin. Stalin's later economic program was, after all, nothing but Trotsky's 'militarization of labour'. Trotsky's problem, however, was that his vanity provoked him to endlessly prove himself smarter than his Party friends and endlessly treat them with contempt. The result...he definitely lacked allies, and those he made he was likely to alieniate in short order.
The essense of the 'transitional program' is to advance demands that the intellectual elite of the Party KNOWS(more or less) cannot be fulfilled under the present system. This will supposedly lead those who think that such demands are really great things to "see the need for revolution" once such demands are not fulfilled.
It all seems very cunning and Machiavellian except for one fatal flaw.Insofar as a Trotskyist party doesn't abandon its revolutionism entirely, contenting itself to be the left wing rump of a social democratic party, it has ALWAYS felt the overwhelming urge to prove what a brilliant party it is by publishing in public view the exact details of what it is planning to do by these maneuvers ie "we are so smart because we have this 'transitional program'".
The result...simple. People DON'T learn any such things as "the need for revolution". They do, however, learn the lesson that Trotskyists are a collection of rather smart liars who hold to a stupid doctrine that violates common sense. If you intend to con somebody DON'T tell them all about it while you are doing it. In the social democratic parties the Trots are usually held as objects of ridicule, and this is one of the many reasons.