Critique of the Gotha Program

The Critique of the Gotha Program is a document based on a letter by Karl Marx written in early May 1875 to the Eisenach faction of the German social democratic movement, 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.

The Critique is also notable for elucidating the principle of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" as the basis for a communist society. He also mentions that in socialism "the individual receives from society exactly what he gives to it." Indicating that while communism would be a state where payment is based on needs, socialism being immature and incomplete would have its wages based on deeds. The Critique of the Gotha Program, published after his death, was one of Marx's last major writings.

The letter is named for the town of Gotha, where a forthcoming party congress was to take place. At the party congress, the Eisenachers planned to unite with the Lassallean faction to form a unified party later to become the powerful German Social Democratic Party. The Eisenachers sent the draft program for a united party to Marx for his comments. Marx found the program negatively affected by the influence of Ferdinand Lassalle, whom Marx regarded as an opportunist willing to limit the demands of the workers' movement 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.

The letter was published much later, in 1891, when the German Social Democratic Party had declared its intention of adopting a new program and Engels got Marx's programmatic letter published.