Rereading “Critique of the Gotha Program”

Marx’s View of Our Future

Sunday, February 7, 2010 10:30 am - 12:30 pm

Location: NPML 6501 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA 94609

Written in 1875 as a critique of Lassallean economic principles and tactics, Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha Program” has become a classic of socialist thought. Like so much of Marx’s work, it has been interpreted in various ways, most notably by Lenin in State and Revolution. Accordingly it deserves to be not only read but re-read. This panel discussion will include presentations by Gene Ruyle and Ron Kelch as well time for questions, discussion, and debate. Both Marx’s Critique (1875) and Lenin’s State and Revolution (1917) are available online at the Marxist Internet Archive.

Notes for Rereading Critique

NOTE: This is essentially my talk with a few modifications in light of our discussion. I’m hoping to add some further thoughts on the Critique within a week or so, probably linking it to the actual history of the Soviet Union. See also my last talk at NPML. I would appreciate any further comments people may wish to make. Email me at mailto:eruyle@csulb.edu.

The Critique of the Gotha Program has played an important role in the history of the working class movement. Perhaps it is best known for the phrase which many have seen as the true goal of communism: from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

I’ve always read the Critique somewhat differently, not so much as a statement of this goal, which, after all, is taken almost verbatim from the New Testament, as a postponement for the realization of this goal. I see the Critique as a statement against setting unrealistic goals for the working class movement. The revolution cannot give us perfect equality and justice immediately, nor can it abolish the state overnight. These can emerge only after a long historical period, almost geological in duration. This was also the point of an amusing little article which appeared on the web a few years ago, titled “Critique of the Golgotha Program,” Golgotha being the place where Jesus was crucified.

To avoid unnecessary controversy, I’ve kept my peace on all this. But then a Japanese comrade sent me a copy of this little book, Rereading Critique of the Gotha Program, by Tetsuzo Fuwa, head of the Japan Communist Party and member of Japan’s House of Representatives for over thirty years (Japan has a system of proportional representation).

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0XPQ/is_2003_Feb_18/ai_97790857/

This little book inspired me to look more closely at the Critique. This important work has been variously interpreted and has played an important role in the history of our movement. It is worthwhile to read, re-read, and study it. In doing so, it is important to place the Critique in context. It is one important source for Marx’s thoughts about the future, but not the only source as his insights are scattered throughout his work.. Unlike Capital, Critique was not written for publication, nor was it a systematic presentation of his ideas about the future. Rather, it was a letter sent by Marx in 1875 to be circulated among five of his supporters, with instructions that it be returned to him. It was not until 15 years later, in 1891, well after Marx’s death, that Engels decided it should be published.

Let me review the circumstances of its writing, publication, and subsequent history.

The occasion for writing the Critique was a conference to be held a Gotha in May 1875, to unify the two parts of the German workers movement. The General Association of German Workers was organized by Ferdinand Lassalle in 1863. Lassalle apparently was a charismatic organizer but lacked Marx’s theoretical depth and was overly given to phrase-mongering and opportunism, The second was the German Social-Democratic Workers Party, founded by William Liebknecht in 1869 in the city of Eisenach. Marx and Engels were close to the Eisenach group but maintained cordial relations with the other.

In March, 1875, without the knowledge of Marx and Engels, the two groups decided to merge and hold a congress in Gotha. They published a draft program for the combined party, known as the Gotha Programme. Marx and Engels did not oppose unification but saw the program as filled with empty phraseology. At the request of one of his supporters, William Bracke, Marx wrote a Critique, which he sent to Bracke with the request that it be circulated to four other leaders and returned to Marx.

Thus, Marx’s critique was known to very few people and did not prevent the Gotha Program from being adopted by the newly unified German Social Democratic Party.

Marx’s critique was not published until after his death. In 1891, the GSDP decided to draw up a new party program, which became the Erfurt Program. Engels, worried that the same mistakes would be repeated, published Marx’s critique, saying that it “will eliminate all possibility of prevarication and phrase-mongering in the next program and will provide irrefutable arguments.” The publication of Critique is said to have caused quite an uproar among the Party leadership.

I should note that in the interval, in 1880, had been Marx asked to write a Preamble to The Programme of the French Workers Party. He did so, writing a preamble in which the aim of the French socialist workers is described simply as “the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production.” Engels described this as “a masterpiece of cogent argumentation rarely encountered, clearly and succinctly written for the masses; I myself was astonished by this concise formulation.” Engels later recommended this draft to the German Social Democrats in his critique of an early draft of the 1891 Erfurt Programme.

The impact was immediate. The Erfurt Program, as adopted, dropped the Lassallean phraseology and clearly formulated the objective of “socialization of the means of production” and said nothing about the principle of distribution in future society. Engels approved, writing to Sorge on Oct 24, 1891 that “We have had the satisfaction of seeing Marx’s critique win all along the line.”

As one historian has noted, “While the orthodox Marxism of the Erfurt Program remained the official program of the SPD, the majority within the Party became in practice increasingly ‘revisionist.’ Together with the German labor unions, the SPD came to embrace a moderate, democratic, evolutionary approach to socialism. By 1914, the SPD had become the single largest political party in the German Reichstag.” But it choose not to oppose German preparations for the Great War.

By the time of the Erfurt Program in 1891, the SPD had become Marxist. It was predicated on orthodox Marxist assumptions and called for sweeping radical change (such as the nationalization of the economy). While the orthodox Marxism of the Erfurt Program remained the official program of the SPD, the majority within the Party became in practice increasingly "revisionist."

http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111gotha.html

As we know, the revisionist Social Democrats did not prevent the outbreak of the Great War.

In the summer of 1917, between the February and October Revolutions, Lenin decided to re-read Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program, and drew extensively from it in writing State and Revolution and preparing himself to lead the impending social revolution.

Lenin’s re-reading of Critique formed the basis for the two-stage theory of communism and the withering away of the state.

Now, Fuwa devotes some attention to examining what he calls the “established” textbook interpretation” of the Critique.

According to Fuwa, Lenin saw three phases in the development of future society:

1. the revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism, during which time the state can be nothing other than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, as indicated by Marx.

2. the first phase of communist society, although there is no more class struggle, unequal distribution (bourgeois right) prevails. This period is characterized by “not only bourgeois right, but even the bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie!” (in Lenin, p. 82) and

3. the higher phase of communist society, when the state is “withering away” and the principle is “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” (Fuwa 2004: 77)

NOTE: I’m not happy with the above either as a characterization of Lenin or Marx. I’m hoping to add some further thoughts on the Critique within a week or so, probably linking it to the actual history of the Soviet Union. See also my last talk at NPML.

Fuwa saw “some major problems in Lenin’s study” (p. 74ff)

The first problem lies in Lenin’s assumption that the Critique represented “Marx’s full-fledged theory” of the development of future society. As Lenin said, p. 69

The polemical part of this remarkable work, which contains a criticism of Lassalleanism, has, so to speak, overshadowed its positive part, namely, the analysis of the connection between the development of communism and the withering away of the state.

Now, of course, if Marx had considered the Critique to be his “full fledged theory,” he would have prepared it for publication instead of restricting its distribution to half a dozen people.

The second was how Lenin developed his own theory by combining two parts of Marx, on distribution and on the state

And, as Fuwa writes:

The third problem is that Lenin’s theory of a two-stage development turned the theory of future society into one centered on the mode of distribution above all else.

The result was that the goal of the communist movement, or “emancipation of humanity” was virtually shifted from the total development of human beings based on which human society would make a major breakthrough, to a goal in terms of distribution or consumption “according to his/her needs.” (p. 77)

Fuwa’s book raises some very important questions about the Critique and about our view of the future, question which I hope we can explore in greater depth during the question period.

Let me close by giving my own view of the message of the Critique.

Obviously, the reason Marx wrote the Critique was to clarify his opposition to “Lassalle’s economic principles and tactics” (Engels, 1891, 41), which consisted of empty phases and catchwords. It is not as if the Gotha Program had been written by a schoolboy in his first enthusiasm of understanding that another world is possible. The Gotha Program was the political statement for the German working class which had already reached a certain theoretical level of understanding of capitalism and socialism. Therefore, the Gotha Program represented a step backward and any unity based on it was, in Marx’s words, “being bought at too high a price.” (cover letter to Bracke)

I’ve always seen the Critique as a cautionary tale in which Marx is telling us not to worry overmuch about idealistic dreams of perfect equality and justice, about the fine old Christian ideal of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” as well about the anarchist demand for the immediate abolition of the state. Such things cannot be implemented in the foreseeable future. In Marx’s view, we need to concentrate on organizing in the present rather than arguing about this distant future.

Marx himself of course wrote some very interesting things about possible developments in the future, but the Gotha Program is not the only source of Marx’s ideas about the future, and perhaps it is not even the best source. It must be read against the entire corpus of Marx’s work, especially Capital.

Marx did not believe that such speculations belonged in a party program. As he wrote to Domela Nieuwenhuis on Feb 22, 1881: “The doctrinaire and necessarily fantastic anticipations of the programme of action for a revolution of the future only divert us from the struggle of the present.”

We must expect this struggle to be protracted. In critique, Marx stresses that the communism of the future will only emerge “after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society.” Quoting:

The question then arises: What transformation will the state undergo in communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain in existence there that are analogous to present state functions? This question can only be answered scientifically, and one does not get a flea-hop nearer to the problem by a thousand-fold combination of the word 'people' with the word 'state'.

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. (p. 18)

As Lenin stressed and experience shows, this period of revolutionary transformation will require an “entire historical epoch.” Until this period is over, it doesn’t make sense to call or abolition of the state or perfect equality. In 1850, Marx criticized those who “substitute the catchword of revolution for revolutionary development” as follows:

Whereas we say to the workers: ‘You will have to go through 15, 20, 50 years of civil wars and national struggles not only to bring about a change in society but also to change yourselves, and prepare yourselves for the exercise of political power’, you say on the contrary: ‘Either we seize power at once, or else we might as well just take to our beds.’ (as quoted in Marx 1853)

Marx also criticized the Gotha Program for its “repudiation of internationalism” (pp. 12-13) and stressed “the international brotherhood of the working classes in the joint struggle against the ruling classes and their governments” (p. 13). Again, the Gotha Program did give some lip service to the international conn

Already in The German Ideology, Marx and Engels stressed that communism, like capitalism, must be a global system.

Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples “all at once” and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with communism. ... communism ... can only have a “world-historical” existence. [M&E, The Germany Ideology, 1945, I.A.5)

But what can we say about the future, about the communist society that will emerge from the dictatorship of the proletariat? As Marx stresses, the question can only be answered scientifically. Engels provides insight on this question is his work, Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Speaking of the future of sexual relations, Engels writes

What we can now conjecture about the way in which sexual relations will be ordered after the impending overthrow of capitalist production is mainly of a negative character, limited for the most part to what will disappear. But what will there be new? That will be answered when a new generation has grown up: a generation of men who never in their lives have known what it is to buy a woman’s surrender with money or any other social instrument of power; a generation of women who have never known what it is to give themselves to a man from any other considerations than real love, or to refuse to give themselves to their lover from fear of the economic consequences. When these people are in the world, they will care precious little what anybody today thinks they ought to do; they will make their own practice and their corresponding public opinion about the practice of each individual – and that will be the end of it. (Engels 1884, p. 145 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch02d.htm

What Engels says about sexual relations can be extended to every area of social life. How will the society of the future be ordered after the impending overthrow of capitalism? That can only be answered scientifically, and therefore must wait until a new generation of men and women have grown up, a generation who have known neither hunger nor poverty, nor the luxury of living off the surplus value extracted from wage slavery. When these people are in the world, they will care precious little about what we think they ought to do. They will simply “make their own practice and their corresponding public opinion about the practice of each individual”

Engels says “and that will be the end of it,” but it will also be the beginning of our history as human beings.

Our task is to bring this new generation into the world.

Sources:

De Leon, Daniel/ 1911. “Did Marx err?” Daily People, July 9, 1911. In The Gotha program, by Karl Marx Reprinted 1922,New York: New York Labor News Co., 1935. Also in above: Socialist Labor Party, 1922. “Preface.” http://www.socialistlabour.com/pdf/marx/gotha_prgm.pdf

Dunayevskay, Raya. 1991. Rosa Luxemburg, women's liberation, and Marx's philosophy of revolution. Urbana: University of Illinois Press; 2 edition, with a Forward by Adrienne Rich. (from Ron Kelch)

Engels, Frederick. 1884. Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. International Publishers ed,

Fuwa, Tetsuzo. 2005 Rereading ‘Critique of the Gotha Program.’ Marx’s/Engels’s View of a Future Society. Tokyo: Japan Press Service. (Tetsuzo Fuwa is Chair of the Japan Communist Party)

Lenin. 1915. State and Revolution. International Publishers edition, 1932.

Marquit, Erwin . 2009. “Is a Political-Economic Distinction Between Socialism and Communism Necessary?” Political Affairs April 2009

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/8330/

Karl Marx. 1875. Critique of the Gotha Program. International Publishers edition, 1938.

Marx, Karl. 1880 Preamble to the Programme of the Workers Party. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm

More, Tom. 2009. “The moment Lenin missed: what kind of labor?” by, News & Letters, December 2008-January 2009. http://www.newsandletters.org/issues/2009/Dec-Jan/essayDecJan_09.asp

Social Democratic Party of Germany. 1891. The Erfurt Program:

Programme of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1891erfurt.html

Waldmann, Robert. “The Critique of the Golgotha Program: on Karl Marx, Arthur Laffer and Simon Peter.” Angry Bear: Slightly left of center economic commentary on news, politics, and the economy. Posted by Robert 7/15/2009 06:46:00 PM http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2009/07/karl-marx-arthur-laffer-and-st-peter.html