Critique of the Gotha Program

Marxism
Part of a series on

Theoretical works Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 Theses on Feuerbach The German Ideology The Communist Manifesto The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Das Kapital Dialectics of Nature
Philosophy Dialectical logic Dialectical materialism Economic determinism Historical determinism Historical materialism Marx's method Philosophy of nature
Economics Capital (accumulation) Asiatic mode of production Capitalist mode of production Crisis theory Commodity Exploitation Mode of production Law of value Scientific socialism Socialist mode of production Surplus product Surplus value Value-form Wage labor
Sociology Alienation Base and superstructure Bourgeoisie Class Class consciousness Class struggle Commodity fetishism Communist society Cultural hegemony Dictatorship of the proletariat Exploitation Human nature Ideology Immiseration Proletariat Private property Relations of production Reification Working class
History Anarchism and Marxism Philosophy in the Soviet Union Primitive capital accumulation Proletarian revolution Proletarian internationalism World revolution Communist society Young Marx
Aspects Aesthetics Archaeology Criminology Film theory Geography Historiography Literary criticism
Schools of thought Analytical Austro Autonomist Budapest School Classical De Leonist Marxist feminism Frankfurt School Freudian Marxist humanism Impossibilism Instrumental Left communist Leninist Libertarian Luxemburgist Neo-Marxism Neue Marx-Lektüre Open Orthodox Post-Marxism Praxis School Structural Western
People Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Daniel De Leon Georgi Plekhanov Eduard Bernstein James Connolly Rosa Luxemburg Clara Zetkin Karl Liebknecht Karl Kautsky Vladimir Lenin Leon Trotsky Alexandra Kollontai Antonio Gramsci Joseph Stalin Walter Benjamin Antonie Pannekoek György Lukács Ho Chi Minh Mao Zedong Josip Broz Tito Theodor W. Adorno Herbert Marcuse Erich Fromm Jean-Paul Sartre Enver Hoxha Simone de Beauvoir Che Guevara Raya Dunayevskaya Maximilien Rubel Kim Il-sung Louis Althusser Guy Debord Nelson Mandela Fidel Castro Slavoj Žižek
Socialism portal Communism portal Philosophy portal

The Critique of the Gotha Program (German: Kritik des Gothaer Programms) is a document based on a letter by Karl Marx written in early May 1875 to the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP), with whom Marx and Friedrich Engels were in close association.^[1]

Offering perhaps Marx's most detailed pronouncement on programmatic matters of revolutionary strategy, the document discusses the "dictatorship of the proletariat", the period of transition from capitalism to communism, proletarian internationalism, and the party of the working class.

It is notable also for elucidating the principles of "To each according to his contribution" as the basis for a "lower phase" of communist society directly following the transition from capitalism, and "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" as the basis for a future "higher phase" of communist society. In describing the lower phase, he states that "the individual receives from society exactly what he gives to it" and advocates remuneration in the form of labour vouchers, as opposed to money. The Critique of the Gotha Program, published after his death, was among Marx's last major writings.

The letter is named for the Gotha Program, a proposed party platform manifesto for a forthcoming party congress that was to take place in the town of Gotha. At the party congress, the SDAP ("Eisenachers", based in Eisenach) planned to unite with the General German Workers' Association (ADAV, "Lassalleans", from Ferdinand Lassalle) to form a unified party. The Eisenachers sent the draft program for a united party to Marx for comment. He found the program negatively influenced by Lassalle, whom Marx regarded as an opportunist willing to limit the demands of the workers' movement in exchange for concessions from the government. However, at the congress held in Gotha in late May 1875, the draft program was accepted, with only minor alterations, by what was to become the powerful Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Engels had Marx's programmatic letter only in 1891, when the SPD had declared its intention of adopting a new program.

The Gotha Program presented a moderate, evolutionary way to socialism, as opposed to the revolutionary approach of the "orthodox" Marxists. As result, the latter accused it of being "revisionist" and ineffective.^[2]