Revolutionary communists are opposed to the concept of the minimum-maximum programme.
Such programmes necessarily imply a stagiest conception of class struggle in which
minimum and maximum demands stand at opposite poles. The minimum-maximum programme is
characterised by the rigid separation of the minimum demands (economic or political
reforms achievable within the framework of capitalism) and the maximum goal of
socialism.

The concept of a minimum-maximum programme is an expression of a way of conceiving of
struggle so as to suggest that there are demands and corresponding struggles
independent of the struggle for communism. It is an ideology that seeks to divorce the
day-to-day struggle of the working class from the struggle for communism by
bifurcating demands into minimum and maximum demands. What it fails to indicate is
that the struggle for communism is reduced to mere abstraction when bifurcated into
minimum and maximum demands. All struggles form an integral part of the struggle for
communism. Consequently demands cannot be bifurcated into minimum and maximum demands.

To bifurcate demands into minimum or maximum is to change the character of these very
demands and thereby eviscerate them of their inherent revolutionary dynamic. The
metamorphosis of the demands of the working class into minimum and maximum forms
changes the context in which these demands exist. It is to opportunistically shift the
struggle from a revolutionary context to a reactionary context. Consequently the
struggle over the character of the demands of the working class movement is a struggle
over the context in which the struggles of the working class are to take place. It is
a struggle concerning the programmatic basis of their struggles. The only demands
supported by the communist programme are communist demands. Minimum and maximum
demands are ideological constructs designed to disarm the working class movement.

Karl Carlile

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