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This question <1593|1593> overall <1591|1594> Thelonius: <1485|1636>.

Question 838: Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme

[1593] Thelonius, Nazgul, and Overlord: According to Karl Korsch, Marx's letter titled Critique of the Gotha Programme of 1875 (originally titled, Randglossen zum Programm der deutschen Arbeiterpartei), is amongst his most complete and forceful expressions of his social and economic theory. The Critique of the Gotha Programme is characterized as being equally pertinent to a study of Marxist theory as is his Communist Manifesto of 1847-1848, and the ‘General Introduction’ to the Critique of Political Economy of 1857. The critique was written not for formal publication as were his other works, but was written in the margins of a rough draft copy of the programme and mailed to a group of his German friends. For this reason, the critique is not tacitly comprehensible, but represents a deeply significant expression of Marx's theories.

The details outlining the historical background that led up to the Congress held at Gotha in 1875 comprise a significant sample of German political history. The Congress at Gotha in 1875 is significant today in that it was the birthplace of Germany's modern Socialist Democratic Party (SPD) resulting from the union of two forceful socialist organizations. The two organizations who met at Gotha in May of 1875 held contrasting opinions of how socialism was to be brought about. The older socialist party, the ADAV (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeierverein) were considered to be staunch revolutionary socialists. Their counterpart, the SDAP (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei) regarded themselves as a component of Karl Marx's I.W.A. (International Workingman's Association) and believed in a less violent transition from capitalism into social democracy.

The ideologies of the SDAP and the IWA are regarded as being evolutionary socialist. The two parties were divided in their methods and means of achieving the political goals of social democracy. The story of Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme begins appropriately with a man named Ferdinand Lassalle, who is credited with founding Germany's very first labor party, the ADAV (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, German Workers Association). Karl Marx and his fellow advocates of evolutionary socialism denounced Lassalle as being an opportunist with insincere motivations in the Socialist movement. The ADAV was founded in May of 1863 with Ferdinand Lassalle as acting president from the organization's inception until August of 1864. Lassalle had hoped that the organization would flourish, but by 1864 membership in the organization had grown to only 4,600 members. LaSalle's leadership in the ADAV would have likely continued along with his political career, but a conflict with Count von Racowitza over his would-be bride, Hélène von Dönniges, led to a duel at LaSalle's request at Carouge, a suburb of Geneva. The duel which took place on August 28, 1864, left Ferdinand Lassalle mortally wounded until he died 3 days later.

Opinion was divided within the ADAV between strict socialism and democracy. Wilhelm Liebknecht, a friend of Karl Marx, was a member of the ADAV until 1865. But as the ADAV tried to co-operate with Bismarck's government amongst other actions made, Liebknecht became discouraged with the organization and disavowed his membership to the movement. In early August of 1869, Liebknecht created the SDAP (Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany), along with his and Marx's associate August Bebel, among others. The SDAP was founded in Eisenach, Germany and was otherwise referred to as the Eisenachers. Despite the ideological disparity which existed between the two parties, the magnitude of their political influences was negligible given their lesser memberships as two distinct parties. In order to garner stronger influence, both parties concluded that unification would be favorable to the goals of socialism. A new unifying charter was authored and intended as a compromise to the ideological Lassallean Programm of the ADAV, and the Eisenacher Programme of the SDAP. This unifying charter was called the Gotha Programme. Marx was sent a draft of the programme, and returned the draft to his friends having written harsh critiques in the margins outlining the many fallacies, contradictions and erroneous Lassallean ideologies. This returned copy of the drafted Gotha Programme, has come to be known as Marx's famous Critique of the Gotha Programme.

“Labour is the source of all wealth and all culture, and since useful labour is possible only in society and through society, the proceeds of labour belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society.” This opening statement of the Gotha Programme sets the tone for what Engels refers to as a “flatly and flaccidly written programme”. There is vagueness to the programme as a whole, which accounts for Marx's harsh critique of it. On glancing upon it one could say that it sounds viable perhaps even admirable, however, upon dissection of it the structural weakness is revealed.

The weakness is most apparent in the final section of the Gotha Programme, The German workers party demands as the intellectual and ethical basis of the state. For the purpose of this paper this shall be the starting point for the dissection of the critique, after which the opening statement of the Gotha Programme shall be revisited.

Six demands are stated on behalf of the German workers party, the first being “Universal and equal elementary education by the state. Universal compulsory school attendance. Free instruction.” Marx is very methodical in his breakdown of a statement taking it piece by piece. To start with he asks the question what do these words (equal elementary education) suggest? The meaning itself can vary and by doing so can denature the intention of the demand.

A large part of the reason Marx is so specific in his definitions and breaking down every idea to its simplest component is so that there is no misunderstanding or artistic interpretation of his teachings. This is essential in the presentation of any composition.

The second demand is “Normal working day.” In leaving the demand as stated with no determinant value assigned to what constitutes “normal” the workers leave themselves open to exploitation. Chapter 10 of Capital is devoted solely to determining the parameters of a working day any one who has studied Capital should be familiar with the statement, “The working-day is therefore capable of being determinable, but in and for itself indeterminate. (pg 341)” The programme would do well to specify what a normal working day is.

“Restriction of female labour and prohibition of child labour” is the third demand. Hopefully by now you begin to see the vagueness in these demands, for example the restriction of female labour. Does this mean we restrict the number of hours females are allowed to work? Are restrictions placed upon the types of jobs they are allowed to work? Marx questions if this means “the exclusion of female labour from branches of industry that are especially unhealthy for the female body or are objectionable morally for the female sex?”

The prohibition of child labour is another abstraction. Here it is necessary to state at what age one is no longer a child, or under what circumstances constitute labor for children. The continual elusive nature in which the Gotha Programme is worded is one of the major drawbacks to it.

The remaining three demands are as follows: “State supervision of factory, workshop and domestic industry”, “Regulation of prison labour”, and finally “An effective liability law”. At one point during Marx's critique he states, “If that was what was meant, it should have been said.” In reading the critique you can feel Marx's overwhelming frustration with it, this is due in large part to the fact that although he did not write the Gotha Programme, his position in Germany is such that he will be associated with it.

In a letter written by Engels to August Bebel, just two months prior to Marx's critique he said, “You must remember that abroad we are made responsible for any and every utterance and action of the German Social-Democratic Workers' Party… People like to imagine that we run the whole business from here… a new programme is after all a banner publicly raised, and the outside world judges the party by it… what impression will be produced by this bending of the knee to Lassalleanism on the part of the whole German socialist proletariat… our Party will have lost its political virginity…” This guilty by association implication is a large part why Marx was so harsh in his critique, aside from the fact that the programme itself is flawed.

“Labour is the source of all wealth and all culture.” Returning to the opening statement of the Gotha Programme a blatant contradiction is made; labour is not the source of all wealth. On page 55 of the annotations to Capital, exam question 107 asked this very question. Nature is a huge source of use values, and therefore a source of wealth. Right from the outset Marx's teachings have been thrown out the window so to speak. One of the basic tenets of Capital is ignored, a pattern that would follow throughout the document. It is easy to imagine Marx's furrowed brow and constant mutterings throughout his reading of the Gotha Programme.

The third part of the opening sentence quite possibly caused Marx to throw his hands up in the air, “the proceeds of labour belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society.” This sentence begs several questions, namely what are the proceeds of labor? What is considered a fair distribution? Do all members of society include those who do not work? A large emphasis of the programme was that every laborer should receive an “undiminished part of their labor”, however the terms by which this is done or what part of their labor is “undiminished” is never clearly outlined.

Provided with the foundation of Marx's Capital, the numerous contradictions and imprecisions that are present throughout the Gotha Programme are palpable. Upon completion of his critique Marx wrote one last sentence, “Dixi et salvavi animam mean (I have spoken and saved my soul).”

According to Karl Korsch, “The Critique of the Gotha Programme of 1875 is, of all Karl Marx's shorter works, the most complete, lucid and forceful expression of the bases and consequences of his economic and social theory.” One major problem with the critique was not the content or the arguments themselves, but no one could understand what Marx was trying to convey. Korsch writes “It is not among the master's most easily comprehensible works. One obvious reason for this is that it is not written as a unified presentation, but is made up of loosely assembled ‘marginal notes’ on individual paragraphs of a draft programme that itself was not structured in a rigorously logical way.” If his thoughts were structured and logically presented the assumption could be made that his critique would have had much more success earlier on in the process. A second problem with Marx's critique is the fact that it was not written for the general public. It was written in such a fashion that those who read it must have historical knowledge and an understanding of Marxism in general. In a society in which the majority believes, “Ignorance is bliss” we see the problems with this. It is possible that the majority, including their leaders, in Marx's society had the same approach when reading his critique, “Ignorance is bliss”.

Korsch makes a point to bring this possibility to the surface, “Otherwise what may happen is what occurred to those to whom Marx originally sent his letter in 1875. They totally failed to understand the theoretical and practical importance of Marx's critique.” This complete lack of understanding gave those that received the critique the green light to do nothing. If Marx had taken the fact that they had no understanding of Marxism and the historical knowledge, he could have created his critique in such a way that would have had much more impact. The end result is stated here by Korsch, “As a result, the definitive version of the Programme adopted by the Gotha Party Congress in the same month, May 1875, varied so little from the draft which Marx criticized that not one of his criticisms ceased to apply to it.” He goes on to say “The recipients of the letter did not even understand the minor points he made. This is shown, for example, by the fact that they even failed to cross out ‘the regulation of prison labour’, although Marx criticized it at the end of his text as a ‘petty demand in a general worker's programme’. They did not even improve it in the way Marx suggested.” Marx's reply to this, “The least one might have expected from socialists”

One possible reason for the disorganization of the Critique was the fact that Marx was not as healthy as he would have liked to be. In his letter to Bracke in 1875 he makes this obvious. “I am extremely busy and have to far exceed the amount of work the doctors allow me. Hence it was in no way a ‘pleasure’ to write such a lengthy screed.” It is possible that he had pushed aside the possibility that his critique would have been received with blind eyes.

In any case the final draft of the Programme that was adopted by Gotha should have been accepted with great opposition. Instead it was taken quite seriously. As Engels writes, “Instead of this, the donkeys of the bourgeois papers took this programme quite seriously and read into it what it does not contain. They interpreted it in a communist way, and the workers appear to be doing the same. It is this circumstance alone that made it possible for Marx and myself not to dissociate ourselves publicly from such a programme. As long as our opponents, and likewise the workers, view the programme as embodying our intentions we may allow ourselves to keep quiet about it.”

Hans: This is an excellent paper.

Regarding the educational demands, Marx was much more specific than just saying one has to define things better. Regarding the demand “equal education for the people” (“Volkserziehung” means education for the people, not “elementary” education), Marx remarked that the program must contain demands for today's class society, not a future goal. The only feasible way to get equal education today would be to bar the higher classes from attending anything other than elementary school. Clearly, this is not what is meant. Which leaves the question: what do they mean with this point? Marx's preference would have been to demand that technical schools would be attached to the free and compulsory elementary schools.

A general question in the background, which every political organization has to grapple with: what kinds of demands should one raise in a society in which those things which one really wants are not feasible?