BACKGROUND OF THE PROGRAMME
The Critique of the Gotha Programme was written 150 years ago. It provides us with some of Marx’s most detailed statements on revolutionary strategy, the meaning of the term “dictatorship of the proletariat”, the nature of the transitional period from capitalism to communism and the importance of internationalism.
The document is based on a letter written by Marx in early May 1875 to the German Social Democratic Workers’ Party, with which Marx and Engels had close ties. The letter is named after the Gotha Programme, a draft manifesto for an upcoming party congress to be held in the city of Gotha in Thuringia, Germany. At the congress, the party planned to merge with the General German Workers’ Association (ADAV), whom were supporters of Ferdinand Lassalle, in order to form a united party.
Lassalle was a socialist activist and a politician who regarded the state as an expression of “the people” and not as a construct of any social class. He adopted a form of state socialism and discarded the class struggle of workers by way of trade unions. Instead, he embraced the Malthusian theory of the “iron law of wages”, which claims that if wages rise above the level of subsistence or necessity in an economy, the population would grow to the point where workers would have to compete, forcing wages down again. Marx and Engels had long since rejected this theory of wages.
Members of the party sent the draft programme for a united party to Marx for his opinions. He found that the programme was strongly influenced by Lassalle and therefore responded with the aforementioned critique. The congress held in Gotha at the end of May 1875 adopted the programme with only minor changes despite Marx’s protests. Marx’s letter of critique was only made public much later when the party declared its intention to replace the Gotha Programme with the new Erfurt programme of 1891. This programme, drafted by Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein, was much closer ideologically to the views of Marx and Engels. Compared to the Gotha Programme, it was a big step forward, but contrary to Engels’ explicit demand, it ignores the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the basic requirement for a democratic republic during the transitional period.
FERDINAND LASSALLE
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864) was a German writer and politician who played a major role in the history of the German labor movement. In the early 1860s, Lassalle founded the aforementioned ADAV, thereby creating the first political mass organization of German workers that was independent of the bourgeois-democratic parties. This is where his historical significance lies. Lassalle, who was initially influenced by Marx, maintained personal and written contact with him and described himself as his disciple. It would later become apparent that Lassalle disagreed with the foundations of the proletarian revolution when he led the ADAV down an opportunistic path. He put forward reformist slogans and propagated that the path to socialism would transition from the “free” bourgeois state with universal suffrage, to cooperative production associations supported by the Prussian state. On the most important political question of the time, the question of German unification, which either could be solved through revolution or through Prussian dynastic wars, Lassalle played directly into the hands of the Prussian Junkers government by concluding an agreement with Bismarck.
Lassalle and the Lassalleans, Lenin wrote in 1913, saw the slim chances of the proletarian and democratic path to uniting the country, so they embarked on a vacillating tactic and adapted to the hegemony of the Junker Bismarck. Their mistake was that they led the workers’ party down the Bonapartist-state socialist path. Lenin, who was not known for mincing his words, wrote that Lassalle was an opportunist in his flirting with Bismarck.
Lassalle adapted his position after the victory of Prussia and Bismarck, after the failure of the democratic national movements of Italy and Germany. This led him to waver toward a national liberal labor policy, while Marx and Engels, on the other hand, demanded and developed an independent, consistent democratic policy that stood in sharp contrast to national liberal cowardice (Prussia’s intervention against Napoleon in 1859 had given the popular movement in Germany a boost). Throughout the history of the German labor movement, Lassalleism has always been the banner of the opportunists. During and after the World War, the social chauvinists and opportunists have repeatedly put forward the slogan: “Back to Lassalle!”
THE CRITIQUE AGAINST LASSALLE
When Critique of the Gotha Programme was written, Marx sharply opposed these ideas borrowed from Lassalle. Although Lassalle himself was not alive when the Gotha Programme was drafted, Lassalleism existed within the German movement. In his critique, Marx attacked, among other things, Lassalle’s proposal for “state support” instead of public ownership and the abolition of commodity production. Marx also noted that there was no mention of the organization of the working class as a class:
“Fifthly, there is absolutely no mention of the organisation of the working class as a class through the medium of trade unions. And that is a point of the utmost importance, this being the proletariat’s true class organisation in which it fights its daily battles with capital, in which it trains itself and which nowadays can no longer simply be smashed, even with reaction at its worst (as presently in Paris). Considering the importance this organisation is likewise assuming in Germany, it would in our view be indispensable to accord it some mention in the programme and, possibly, to leave some room for it in the organisation of the party.”
Marx objected to the programme’s reference to a “free people’s state”. For Marx, “since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one’s enemies by force, it is utter nonsense to speak of a free people’s state”. As soon as there can be talk of freedom, the state as such ceases to exist. This was (and is) a crucial difference between Marx and Engels’ view of the state in a post-capitalist society and the apologetic views of social democracy.
The same theoretical disputes would play out in Russia before the revolution, as well as in China. It happened again in Peru before the start of the people’s war, and it will need to happen within all communist movements, nationally and internationally, in order to do away with reformism and revisionism—to believe otherwise is idealism and the highest form of naivety. We let Lenin speak in an example from What Is To Be Done?.
“Thus, we see that high-sounding phrases against the ossification of thought, etc., conceal unconcern and helplessness with regard to the development of theoretical thought. The case of the Russian Social-Democrats manifestly illustrates the general European phenomenon (long ago noted also by the German Marxists) that the much vaunted freedom of criticism does not imply substitution of one theory for another, but freedom from all integral and pondered theory; it implies eclecticism and lack of principle. Those who have the slightest acquaintance with the actual state of our movement cannot but see that the wide spread of Marxism was accompanied by a certain lowering of the theoretical level. Quite a number of people with very little, and even a total lack of theoretical training joined the movement because of its practical significance and its practical successes. We can judge from that how tactless Rabocheye Dyelo is when, with an air of triumph, it quotes Marx’s statement: “Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes. ” To repeat these words in a period of theoretical disorder is like wishing mourners at a funeral many happy returns of the day. Moreover, these words of Marx are taken from his letter on the Gotha Programme, in which he sharply condemns eclecticism in the formulation of principles. If you must unite, Marx wrote to the party leaders, then enter into agreements to satisfy the practical aims of the movement, but do not allow any bargaining over principles, do not make theoretical “concessions”. This was Marx’s idea, and yet there are people among us who seek-in his name to belittle the significance of theory!”
WHAT WILL SOCIETY LOOK LIKE AFTER CAPITALISM?
Many new comrades and sympathizers often ask themselves the question: how did Marx and Engels envision society under communism? Even though we do not always discuss this question when faced with the challenges directly before us, it is a very important question to ask. Communism, the classless society, is our ultimate goal. In Critique of the Gotha Programme, we perhaps come closest, in an easily accessible way, to how Marx and Engels viewed communist society.
Both Marx and Engels referred to themselves as communists in order to distinguish themselves from earlier forms of socialism. They defined communism simply as the dissolution of the exchange value-based mode of production and social form. The most fundamental feature of communism in Marx’s critique is the overcoming of capitalism’s separation of producers (labor) from control of production. The implication of this is that labor ceases to exist as a commodity. Communist production is to be planned and carried out by the producers and societies themselves, without the class-based intermediaries of wage labor, the market, and the state.
In Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx outlines two stages of communism after the capitalist mode of production has been replaced. In the first stage of communism:
“What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society — after the deductions have been made — exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.”
Not even in the lower stage of communism is there any market, no exchange value, no money. During the lower phase of the new society, producers can receive paper coupons that entitle them to withdraw from the social supply of consumer goods as a quantity corresponding to their working time. But these coupons are not money. They do not circulate. The work coupons are like tickets – to be used only once. Furthermore, Marx assumed that even during the first phase of communism, most of the total social product will not be distributed to people according to the labor time performed in the form of work certificates, but will be deducted for common use from the outset. There will be expanded social services (education, health care, public services, and old-age pensions) financed by deductions from the total product before it is distributed among individuals. What the producer is deprived of in his capacity as a private individual thus benefits him directly or indirectly in his capacity as a member of society.
According to Marx, such social consumption will increase significantly compared to current society, and it will increase in proportion to the development of the new society. And with a radical reduction in the working day, thanks to rapid technological development, the scope of work certificates would decrease significantly over time. “In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly — only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”
Lenin would later write the following regarding the difference between socialism and communism: “If we ask ourselves what communism means as opposed to socialism, we must say that socialism is a society that emerges directly from capitalism, the first form of the new society. Communism, on the other hand, is a higher form of society, and it can only develop when socialism has completely triumphed. Socialism presupposes work without the help of capitalists, social work under the strictest accountability, control, and supervision of the organized vanguard, the most advanced part of the working class; and, of course, both the scope of the work and its remuneration must be determined. This is absolutely necessary, since capitalist society has left us with such remnants and habits as fragmented work, distrust of social management, and the ingrained habits of small farmers, which are prevalent in all agrarian countries. All this is in direct opposition to a truly communist economy. By communism, on the other hand, we mean a system in which people have become accustomed to fulfilling their social duties without any coercive apparatus, where unpaid work for the common good has become a common phenomenon.”
Further reading regarding this subject can be found in chapter 5 of Lenin’s The State and Revolution.
THE PATH TOWARD THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
The theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat was put forward by Marx and Engels. The Paris Commune was the first heroic attempt by the proletariat as a class to seize power. The Paris commune failed, but as Marx put it, the principles of the Commune were eternal and could never be destroyed. Here we highlight a statement by Engels on the question of the withering away of the state under communism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, taken from a letter written the 18th of April, 1883, to the American socialist van Patten:
“Since 1845 Marx and I have held the view that one of the ultimate results of the future proletarian revolution will be the gradual dissolution of the political organisation known by the name of state. The main object of this organisation has always been to secure, by armed force, the economic oppression of the labouring majority by the minority which alone possesses wealth. With the disappearance of an exclusively wealth-possessing minority there also disappears the necessity for the power of armed oppression, or state power. At the same time, however, it was always our view that in order to attain this and the other far more important aims of the future social revolution, the working class must first take possession of the organised political power of the state and by its aid crush the resistance of the capitalist class and organise society anew. This is to be found already in The Communist Manifesto of 1847, Chapter II, conclusion.
The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organisation of the state. But after its victory the sole organisation which the proletariat finds already in existence is precisely the state. This state may require very considerable alterations before it can fulfil its new functions. But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and in a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris Commune.”
The dictatorship of the proletariat can begin in individual nations and socialism can be built, but it is more difficult to develop towards communism, that is, the withering away of the state apparatus into “the administration of things”, unless the revolution spreads internationally—hence we speak of the international proletarian world revolution. Communism can only be entered by all of the world’s countries simultaneously.
Communist production is not simply a legacy of capitalism that only needs to be signed into law by a new socialist government. It requires long struggles, through a series of historical processes that change circumstances and people. Among these changed circumstances, there will be not only a change in distribution but a new organization of production, or rather the introduction (liberation) of the social forms of production, of their current class character and their national and international coordination. This means that imperialism must be brought to an end and replaced by an association of nations based on democratic planning and common ownership.
The critique of the programme was presented in a short letter that was written 150 years ago. In 2025 it is just as clear and relevant for us to understand communism.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST REFORMISM
An important part of Critique of the Gotha Program is Marx and Engels’ stubborn struggle against reformism, which would later take over Germany’s Social Democratic Workers’ Party. Those of you who know the history of this party know how it succumbed to parliamentary cretinism, emphasizing the line of “conquering democracy” by transforming the proletarian party into an election machine. It thus adapted its entire apparatus to function within the system of the wealthy, to operate within its parliament, and so on. The party was transformed into a bourgeois workers’ party—a party that soon became indistinguishable from other bourgeois parties. Marx and Engels criticize the basis for this development in the document. For example, they write:
“Instead of arising from the revolutionary process of transformation of society, the “socialist organization of the total labor” “arises” from the “state aid” that the state gives to the producers’ co-operative societies and which the state, not the workers, “calls into being”. It is worthy of Lassalle’s imagination that with state loans one can build a new society just as well as a new railway!”
Here, they explain how the authors of the programme place their faith in the “improvement” of the bourgeois state and how it can be proletarianised and thus build socialism without the participation of the workers. The writers argue that socialism should be built by the bourgeois state. This is an evolutionary view of social development, where development takes place gradually, in small steps rather than leaps. This is the basic view of reformism and revisionism. Marx and Engels do not accept this:
“The German Workers’ party — at least if it adopts the program — shows that its socialist ideas are not even skin-deep; in that, instead of treating existing society (and this holds good for any future one) as the basis of the existing state (or of the future state in the case of future society), it treats the state rather as an independent entity that possesses its own intellectual, ethical, and libertarian bases.”
They are instead quite clear as to where they stand. The path for them is just as clear as it is revolutionary:
“Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”
THE PEOPLE’S WAR’S ROAD TO POWER
The path to the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, Marx believed, could only be achieved through armed revolution, an irreconcilable struggle between the classes. He himself said that “Violence is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.” Lenin continued this tradition of struggle against ‘reformists’ and “pacifists” after the deaths of Marx and Engels. Lenin was clear when he wrote about the revolution being about power in The Dual Power:
“The basic question of every revolution is that of state power. Unless this question is understood, there can be no intelligent participation in the revolution, not to speak of guidance of the revolution.”
Lenin was clear when he explained that power could not be seized by any means other than arms. To those who condemned armed action and guerrilla warfare as anarchism, Blanquism, or terrorism, Lenin revealed its true character. In the text Guerrilla Warfare from 1906, Lenin writes about these self-proclaimed Marxists:
“[…] But when I see a Social-Democratic theoretician or publicist not displaying regret over this unpreparedness, but rather a proud smugness and a self-exalted tendency to repeat phrases learned by rote in early youth about anarchism, Blanquism and terrorism, I am hurt by this degradation of the most revolutionary doctrine in the world.”
He counters these objections by laying the foundation for the Marxist understanding of war:
“It is not guerrilla actions which disorganize the movement, but the weakness of a party which is incapable of taking such actions under its control.”
“But such an objection would be a purely bourgeois-liberal and not a Marxist objection, because a Marxist cannot regard civil war, or guerrilla warfare, which is one of its forms, as abnormal and demoralizing in general. A Marxist bases himself on the class struggle, and not social peace. In certain periods of acute economic and political crises the class struggle ripens into a direct civil war, i.e., into an armed struggle between two sections of the people. In such periods a Marxist is obliged to take the stand of civil war. Any moral condemnation of civil war would be absolutely impermissible from the standpoint of Marxism.”
Lenin thus draws a clear line between two different approaches to revolutionary war. He explains how the outbreak of revolutionary war is an inevitable historical law. He explains this by writing:
“It is therefore absolutely natural and inevitable that in such a period, a period of nation-wide political strikes, an uprising cannot assume the old form of individual acts restricted to a very short time and to a very small area. It is absolutely natural and inevitable that the uprising should assume the higher and more complex form of a prolonged civil war embracing the whole country, i.e., an armed struggle between two sections of the people. Such a war cannot be conceived otherwise than as a series of a few big engagements at comparatively long intervals and a large number of small encounters during these intervals. That being so—and it is undoubtedly so—the Social-Democrats must absolutely make it their duty to create organizations best adapted to lead the masses in these big engagements and, as far as possible, in these small encounters as well.”
Lenin also emphasized the importance of Marxists understanding and grasping the truth of revolutionary war. The only logical conclusion, according to Lenin, was that revolutionaries should build organizations capable of leading and waging armed struggle.
“In a period when the class struggle has become accentuated to the point of civil war, Social-Democrats must make it their duty not only to participate but also to play the leading role in this civil war. The Social-Democrats must train and prepare their organizations to be really able to act as a belligerent side which does not miss a single opportunity of inflicting damage on the enemy’s forces.”
He continues to emphasize the importance of the leading role of the proletarian party:
“In a period of civil war the ideal party of the proletariat is a fighting party.”
One of Lenin’s important concerns that was passed on to the international communist movement was precisely the question of the theory, strategy, and tactics of revolutionary war. This is a task that was left unresolved, even though the foundations were laid, and which was later taken up by Chairman Mao Zedong. Chairman Mao is the one who develops the military theory of the international proletariat. He emphasizes the inevitability of war and hence the need to master it in Strategic Problems in China’s Revolutionary War in 1936 with the quote:
“War is the highest form of struggle for resolving contradictions, when they have developed to a certain stage, between classes, nations, states, or political groups, and it has existed ever since the emergence of private property and of classes. Unless you understand the actual circumstances of war, its nature and its relations to other things, you will not know the laws of war, or know how to direct war, or be able to win victory.”
He also explains the political character of war with the following quote:
““War is the continuation of politics.” In this sense war is politics and war itself is a political action; since ancient times there has never been a war that did not have a political character. […] But war has its own particular characteristics and in this sense it cannot be equated with politics in general. “War is the continuation of politics by other . . . means.” When politics develops to a certain stage beyond which it cannot proceed by the usual means, war breaks out to sweep the obstacles from the way. […] When the obstacle is removed, our political aim will be attained and the war concluded. But if the obstacle is not completely swept away, the war will have to continue till the aim is fully accomplished. […] It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.”
Since the highest form of struggle is war and the contradiction between exploiters and exploited is by definition antagonistic, the proletariat and its party should pay close attention to the laws of revolutionary war. This is what Chairman Mao does during China’s revolutionary war. He laid the foundation for the people’s war, the military theory of the proletariat, by developing an understanding of the role of the support bases in war, the leading role of the party, the united front, and the strategic role of guerrilla warfare in the transition from mobile to regular warfare. This military theory was confirmed by the success of the Chinese revolution, starting with the founding of the Communist Party of China, the Autumn Harvest Uprising, the Long March, the War of Resistance Against Japan, and the transition to a strategic offensive against the domestic reactionaries.
These experiences were later systematized and elevated in the same process that defined Maoism in Peru after Chairman Mao’s death. In Peru, the people’s war was creatively applied, thereby establishing its general features and definition. The Communist Party of Peru put forward four conditions for the people’s war:
1. The ideology of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism that must be specified to the particular conditions of the country in question and take the form of a guiding thought, such as Gonzalo’s Thought, or in China’s case, Mao Zedong’s thought.
2. The need for the Communist Party that leads the People’s War.
3. The path of the revolution must be determined, as in China, by surrounding the cities from the countryside, or in Peru: a unified people’s war with the countryside as the main force and the cities as a complement, where the cities are surrounded from the countryside but the work in the cities becomes of great importance, especially in preparing for the uprising in these cities when the time is ripe.
4. A new power must be established. Hence, the people’s war is both constructive and destructive, in that it builds a new state while fighting the old one.
The People’s War overcomes the problem Lenin raised with the stereotypical party, incapable of leading the war. It is clear that the revolutionary war must be led by the proletarian party and must follow a scientifically defined path—otherwise, the war will go astray. For without a compass and a map, how will you find your way?
Furthermore, the question of new power is indispensable. New power means the demolition of the old state and the establishment of the new. This inevitably means that the guns of the people’s war must be directed against the old state, the apparatus of violence of the ruling classes, destroy its armed forces and establish its own, which defend the new power. New power is thus the power of the proletariat or the people, under the leadership of the proletariat. This power is based on armed forces under the leadership of the Communist Party.
People’s war cannot therefore mean war only against fascist storm troops, paramilitaries, individual companies, criminal networks, etc. The people’s war is an extension and development of the heroic struggle of the Paris Commune, which means that the proletariat cannot rely on the mercy of the bourgeois state but must crush it and establish the proletarian state. The people’s war thus means the overthrow of the dictatorship of the exploiting classes and its armed forces by means of armed action, and the establishment of a new state based on armed forces with a monopoly on the use of force. This is the people’s war.
CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAMME 150 YEARS LATER
Critique of the Gotha Programme demonstrates how Marx and Engels consistently followed a revolutionary line. They were extremely clear that the bourgeois state could not be taken over by the proletariat, but could only be smashed on the road to communism. They then emphasized the importance of the dictatorship of the proletariat during the transition period between capitalist and communist society. Although no people’s war existed in Marx and Engels’ time, we can understand from their consistently revolutionary line that they would proudly support Chairman Mao’s legendary thesis that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
Being an advocate of a consistent revolutionary line, which is for the dictatorship of the proletariat, the smashing of the old state and the building of the new, means being for the theory of the universality of people’s war – which is an answer to how the Paris Commune could have been defended and developed and a continuation of “the war of the enslaved against their enslavers, the only justifiable war in history,” as Marx explained in The Civil War in France in 1871.
Despite being 150 years old, the Critique of the Gotha Programme remains a document of particular importance for communists in imperialist countries. Parliamentary cretinism and legalism—where communists adapt to the prevailing system and subordinate the goal of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat to petty daily demands or seats in the bourgeois parliament—are shackles for the working class. A genuine revolutionary transformation of society requires going beyond the framework established by the bourgeoisie, working mainly illegally, with legal work serving only as a complement, and applying revolutionary violence directed against its state.
We encourage all interested readers to study Critique of the Gotha Programme in its entirety.