The Transitional Programme¶
Core Argument¶
The objective prerequisites for socialist revolution have reached their highest point under capitalism, yet the crisis of mankind is reduced to a crisis of revolutionary leadership. Productive forces stagnate, new inventions no longer raise material wealth, and the bourgeoisie sees no way out—fascist regimes toboggan toward catastrophe while democratic ones remain paralysed. Opportunist parties block the proletariat at every turn. The Fourth International must overcome this contradiction by advancing a system of transitional demands that bridge today's struggles to the conquest of power, superseding the old minimum programme because systematic reforms are impossible under decaying capitalism.
Against unemployment and high prices, the Fourth International demands a sliding scale of wages and hours with guaranteed minimums. Trade unions remain essential mass organisations but must not be fetishised; they cannot replace the revolutionary party. Factory committees, arising from sit-down strikes, establish de facto dual power in the factory and open the pre-revolutionary period. Workers' control of industry is necessary against the sabotage of big capital, exposing the business 'secrets' that are not about competition but constitute monopoly capitalism's plot against society. The abolition of these secrets is the first step toward actual control. Banks, heavy industry and transport must be scrutinised, with workers' control exposing the share of national income appropriated by capitalists and the squandering of labour caused by capitalist anarchy. Only factory committees, not bourgeois state officials, can break the exploiters' resistance.
The demand for expropriation of key branches or parasitic groups—such as the '60 Families'—is advanced, rejecting indemnification and linking expropriation to workers' seizure of power. Private banks must be expropriated and the credit system state-ised to provide material resources for planning. Armed workers' detachments and a workers' militia are necessary to fight fascism, as the bourgeoisie maintains private armies. The alliance of workers and farmers must be based on free consent, with a programme of transitional demands for the petty bourgeoisie excluding compulsory collectivisation.
The Fourth International rejects abstractions like 'honour', 'blood' and 'race', insisting on concrete criteria. 'Disarmament' means the bourgeoisie must be disarmed by an armed working class. 'Defence of the fatherland' is a bourgeois cover for plunder; the proletariat defends only a workers' state. The chief enemy is in one's own country; defeat of one's own imperialist government is the lesser evil. The slogan 'workers' and farmers' government' is acceptable only in the Bolshevik sense of 1917: an anti-capitalist bridge to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Soviets crown the transitional programme, arising in revolutionary stages to create dual power, culminating either in fascist dictatorship or proletarian dictatorship. In backward colonial countries, the democratic programme retains full force and must be tied to national liberation and agrarian reform, following the formula of permanent revolution demonstrated by Russia's three revolutions. The Fourth International declares war on the bureaucracies of the Second, Third, Amsterdam and Anarcho-syndicalist Internationals, standing on Marxism as the sole revolutionary doctrine and continuing the tradition of Bolshevism.