Critique of the Gotha Programme

The Critique of the Gotha Programme 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 Critique of the Gotha Programme discusses the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, the period of transition from capitalism to communism, proletarian internationalism, and the party of the working class. This work has played an important role in the history of the working-class movement. 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.”