Synopsis
Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher, a political economist, and a revolutionary. Marx addressed a wide range of issues; he is most famous for his ysis of history, summed up in the opening line of the introduction to the Communist Manifesto (1848): "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. " Marx believed that capitalism would be replaced by communism. He was both a scholar and a political actit, often called the father of communism. While Marx was a relatively obscure figure in his own lifetime, his ideas began to exert a major influence on workers' movements shortly after his death. This influence was given added imus by the victory of the Marxist Bolsheviks in the Russian October Revolution. His most famous works include: The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), Capital (1867) and The Civil War in France (1871).
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Présentation de l'éditeur
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.
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.
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