Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

practice, a minimum programme consists of a series of demands for immediate reforms 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 (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defende ...

and thus culminate in the strictly political

dictatorship of the proletariat In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the ...

. One of the first examples of a minimum programme is in the 1880 programme drawn up for the

French Workers' Party The French Workers' Party (french: Parti Ouvrier Français, POF) was the French socialist party created in 1880 by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, Karl Marx's son-in-law (famous for having written '' The Right to Be Lazy'', which criticized work ...

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- Haitian revolutionary Marxist socialist, political writer, economist, journalist, literary critic, and activist; he was Karl Marx's son-in-law having married his second dau ...

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

.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 Paul Brousse (; 23 January 18441 April 1912) was a French socialist, leader of the '' possibilistes'' group. He was active in the Jura Federation, a section of the International Working Men's Association (IWMA), from the northwestern part of Swit ...

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 The Erfurt Program was adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Germany during the SPD Congress at Erfurt in 1891. Formulated under the political guidance of Eduard Bernstein, August Bebel, and Karl Kautsky, it superseded the earlier Gotha P ...

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. It consists mostly of socialist and labour-oriented political parties and organisation ...

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

maximum programme In 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 Programme of the German SPD, later mirrored by much of the Socialist Internation ...

, which will achieve

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes th ...

. 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 operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...

. 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 (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...

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

democratic socialist Democratic socialism is a left-wing 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-management within ...

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