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{{Short description|Practice in Marxist politics}}
In [[Marxist]] practice, a '''minimum programme''' consists of a series of demands for immediate [[Reform movement|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]] 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]] with [[Paul Lafargue]], [[Friedrich Engels]] and [[Karl Marx]].<ref name="David Stafford pp. 158-172">David Stafford, "From Anarchism to Reformism" pp. 158-172, LSE Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1971</ref> 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)

<blockquote>
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.<ref>"Marx, First International and After" pp. 376-377, Penguin, London, 1974. NB the translation from the French at http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm translates the last phrase as "immediate demands"</ref>
</blockquote>

This programme was adopted at the Le Havre conference of the Party in November 1880 against the opposition of the [[Possibilism (politics)|''possibilists'']] like [[Paul Brousse]] and [[Benoit Malon]] and became known as the "minimum programme".<ref name="David Stafford pp. 158-172"/> Engels recommended the economic part of the minimum section to the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|SPD]] drafters of the Erfurt programme.<ref>Engels, 'A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891", in Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1983, Vol.3, p.438.</ref>

It is through later interpretations of the [[Erfurt Programme]] that the [[Orthodox Marxism|orthodox]] concept of a minimum programme becomes widespread and later mirrored by much of the [[Socialist International]]{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}}. The minimum is contrasted with a [[maximum programme]], which will achieve [[socialism]]. 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]]. Other groups believed that the achievement of a minimum programme enabling them to become [[mass party|mass parties]] and pursue their maximum programme.

Within the orthodox framework, the [[Communist International]] developed the alternative idea of a [[transitional programme]], seeing the minimum/maximum division as leaving [[democratic socialist]] parties always campaigning only for their minimum programme and not clearly planning a route to achieve their maximum programme.

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm Programme of the French Workers' Party (1880)]
*[http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm Erfurt Programme]
*[http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/index.htm The Social Revolution]

[[Category:Marxist theory]]

Minimum programme - Revision history

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