Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

practice, a minimum programme consists of a series of demands for immediate

reforms Reform refers to the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The modern usage of the word emerged in the late 18th century and is believed to have originated from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement, which ...

and, in far fewer and less orthodox cases, also consists of a series of political demands which, taken as a whole, realise key democratic-republican measures enacted by the

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (, ) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard (France), Nation ...

and thus culminate in the strictly political dictatorship of the proletariat. One of the first examples of a minimum programme is in the 1880 programme drawn up for the French Workers' Party by

Jules Guesde Jules Bazile, known as Jules Guesde (; 11 November 1845 – 28 July 1922) was a French socialist journalist and politician. Guesde was the inspiration for a famous quotation by Karl Marx. Shortly before Marx died in 1883, he wrote a letter ...

with

Paul Lafargue Paul Lafargue (; ; 15 January 1842 – 25 November 1911) was a Cuban-born French political writer, economist, journalist, literary critic, and activist; he was Karl Marx's son-in-law, having married his second daughter, Laura. His best known ...

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

.David Stafford, "From Anarchism to Reformism" pp. 158-172, LSE Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1971 The introductory Preamble, also known as the "maximum section" was given to Guesde by Marx and concludes with the following paragraph (according to the Penguin translation from the German in MEW)

The French socialist workers, who have set themselves in the economic arena the goal of the return of all means of production to collective ownership, have decided, as the ''means of organisation and struggle'', to enter the elections with the following minimum programme.

This programme was adopted at the Le Havre conference of the Party in November 1880 against the opposition of the ''possibilists'' like Paul Brousse and Benoit Malon and became known as the "minimum programme". Engels recommended the economic part of the minimum section to the SPD drafters of the Erfurt programme.Engels, 'A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891", in Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1983, Vol.3, p.438. It is through later interpretations of the Erfurt Programme that the orthodox concept of a minimum programme becomes widespread and later mirrored by much of the

Socialist International The Socialist International (SI) is a political international or worldwide organisation of political parties which seek to establish democratic socialism, consisting mostly of Social democracy, social democratic political parties and Labour mov ...

{{Citation needed, date=October 2009. The minimum is contrasted with a

maximum programme In Marxist theory, Marxist practice, a maximum programme consists of a series of demands aiming to achieve socialism. The concept of a maximum programme comes from the 1891 Erfurt Program, Erfurt Programme of the German Social Democratic Party of ...

, which will achieve

socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

. In the short term, parties were to pursue only the minimum programme of achievable demands, which would improve workers' lives until the inevitable collapse of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

. Other groups believed that the achievement of a minimum programme enabling them to become mass parties and pursue their maximum programme. Within the orthodox framework, the

Communist International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internationa ...

developed the alternative idea of a transitional programme, seeing the minimum/maximum division as leaving

democratic socialist Democratic socialism is a left-wing economic and political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-mana ...

parties always campaigning only for their minimum programme and not clearly planning a route to achieve their maximum programme.

References

External links

Programme of the French Workers' Party (1880)
Marxist theory