![Critique of the Gotha Program Cover of Critique of the Gotha Program by Karl Marx, as published by Foreign Languages Press](https://www.proleacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Critique-of-the-Gotha-Program-FLP.png)
NOTE: This is a classic work of literature and a foundational part of Marxism, one of the most important political and economic theories ever. I don’t think a traditional review where I critique the author’s writing is going to be of much value to anyone. It’s a product of its place and time, and a part of our history. Since it’s in the public domain, I’ll attempt to summarize the key ideas, clarify its importance, and will also attach my notes so you can read them yourself to either enjoy or criticize my doodles.
Alternate title: “How I Learned that Social Democrats Won’t Do Shit About Shit” by Karl Marx
This manuscript is a collection of comments by German philosopher Karl Marx. He wrote them on the draft platform of the German Social-Democratic Party (SPD) in 1875 at their Gotha Congress. The SPD is still a major party in Germany. It was the most popular one in the country in the 1890s, through the 1919 German Revolution. This lasted up to the dawn of Hitler’s Third Reich when the Nazi party, which had a very different ideology, seized power.
The SPD was influenced by Marx. They wanted his thoughts on their new platform, so they sent it over for his comments. Karl Marx, true to form as a very blunt critic, just trashed it. He called it a “thoroughly objectionable program that demoralizes the Party”. This piece is full of super-harsh old-timey insults. They had to tone them down in the final published version, which didn’t circulate until after Marx’s death in 1891.
Marx structures these notes by quoting a selection of the platform. He then follows it with his nitpicks, rebuttals, or hammer-blows. Reading these criticisms can give you a good idea of how Marx believes labor, capital and value interact with each other.
Some of the key takeaways include:
- First stage socialist society wouldn’t involve everyone getting an equal amount of everything, or getting it in abundance.
- Workers in that stage will get the equivalent of the work they do in goods, maybe through labor vouchers.
- We can’t go from capitalist inequality to communist equality and plenty in one step, Marx argues. We first have to go through a transitional socialist period. This period maybe a very long one. In it, workers may get unequal distributions of goods if they perform unequal amounts of labor.
- After class distinctions have gone, we’ve built up our capacity to produce things, and we’ve removed the tension between physical and mental work, then we can truly give birth to communism.
- Marx sums up this final stage in the phrase “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”
- Marx criticizes nationalists, including some nationalist factions among his own socialist movement. This recalls The Communist Manifesto and its note that “the working men have no country.”
- Marx also points out that labor is not the only source of value (nature is as well). He follows that wages are not the price of labor so much as labor power. The distinction between the two is something I will go into in my briefing series on Marxism 101.
- The state, Marx says, is a tool of the ruling class. Currently, that’s the wealthy capitalist class. When the working class revolution occurs, it will become their instrument instead. This is the meaning of the term dictatorship of the proletariat. The term “dictatorship” didn’t have the same connotation as we understand it now.
- Marx didn’t want to be held responsible or associated with this program. He believed that social democratic parties which want to institute gradual, peaceful reforms were doomed to fail.
- Marx criticizes his opponents in the movement that formed the SPD as too timid and anti-revolutionary. He denounced them as nationalistic. Additionally, he called them willing to accommodate capitalists. They’d settle for superficial and doomed reforms. And, in 19th century terms, they’re poopy-headed dum-dums.
READ THIS IF:
You want a further explanation of core Marxist concepts like labor, value and the way that a transition to communism might take place. It’s also helpful if you want to understand why Marx and later communists criticized social democratic and even democratic socialist parties as doomed to failure. It’s useful context when considering modern American politicians like Bernie Sanders and AOC).
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