Critique of the Gotha Programme
Letter to Wilhelm Bracke (5 May 1875)
Section summary
Marx’s covering letter asks Bracke to pass the notes to the Eisenach party’s leaders. He writes because he will not give the programme even the recognition of silence, and because Bakunin and others wrongly believe he directs the party from London. A programme of principles is a public landmark; if unity required compromise, an agreement for common action would have been better than conceding Lassallean articles of faith. The programme, he concludes, is worthless.
Would you be so good, when you have read them, as to pass on the following critical marginal notes on the coalition programme to Geib and Auer, Bebel and Liebknecht for their inspection. I am overloaded with work and already have to go far beyond the amount of work the doctors allow me. So it was by no means a “pleasure” to write such a long screed. It was necessary, however, so that steps I shall have to take later will not be misinterpreted by the party friends for whom this communication is intended.
. . . This is indispensable, because abroad the view is held — the entirely mistaken view, most carefully nourished by enemies of the party — that we secretly direct the movement of the so-called Eisenach party from here. In a Russian book that has only just appeared, for example, Bakunin still makes me . . . responsible for all the programmes etc. of that party.
Apart from that, it is my duty not to give recognition, not even by diplomatic silence, to a programme which in my conviction is thoroughly objectionable and demoralising for the party.
Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes. If, therefore, it was not possible — and the circumstances of the time did not allow it — to go beyond the Eisenach programme, one should simply have concluded an agreement for action against the common enemy. But if one draws up programmes of principle (instead of putting this off until the ground had been prepared by a longer period of common activity), one sets up before the whole world landmarks by which it measures how far the party movement has advanced. The Lassallean chiefs came because circumstances forced them to. Had they been told from the outset that there would be no haggling over principles, they would have had to content themselves with a programme of action or a plan of organisation for common action. Instead, they are allowed to turn up armed with mandates, one recognises these mandates as binding on one’s own side, and so surrenders unconditionally to those who are themselves in need of help. To crown it all, they are holding a congress of their own before the compromise congress, while one’s own party holds its congress after the event.
. . . Everyone knows how the mere fact of unification satisfies the workers, but it is a mistake to think that this momentary success has not been bought too dearly.
Besides, the programme is worthless, even apart from its canonisation of the Lassallean articles of faith.
The Volksstaat bookshop has ways of its own. For example, up to this moment I have not been sent a single copy of the reprint of the Cologne Communist Trial.