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 maximum programme consists of a series of demands aiming to 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 ...

. The concept of a maximum programme comes from the 1891

Erfurt Programme The Erfurt Program was adopted by the Social Democratic Party of Germany during the SPD Congress at Erfurt in 1891. Drafted by theorists Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein, the program set out a Marxist view and superseded the party's Gotha Pro ...

of the German

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together wi ...

, 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 ...

of 1889–1916. The maximalist line is contrasted with a

minimum programme In Marxist 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 meas ...

of immediate social demands. In the short term, Marxist parties were to pursue only the minimum programme of achievable demands, which would improve the lives of workers 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 ...

. "Minimalist" groups believed that the achievement of a minimum programme would enable them to become mass parties and pursue the maximum programme. 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 ...

(Comintern) of 1919–1943 initially developed the alternative idea of transitional slogans, seeing the minimum/maximum division as leaving

social democratic Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...

parties always campaigning only for their minimum programme and not clearly planning a route to achieve their maximum programme, though the eventual programme of the 1928

6th World Congress of the Comintern The Sixth Congress of the Communist International was held in Moscow from July 17 to September 1, 1928. The Congress was attended by 515 delegates from 65 organizations (including 50 Communist Parties) from 57 countries. Adopting the theory of the ...

was more in line with a maximum programme than with transitional slogans.

References

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External links

The Erfurt Programme Explained In Its Basic Part

Marxist theory Social Democratic Party of Germany Party platforms

See also

References

External links