Gotha Program
The Gotha Program was the name given to the party platform adopted by the nascent German Social Democratic Party (SPD) at its initial party congress, held in the town of Gotha in 1875. The program called for universal suffrage, freedom of association, limits on the working day, and for other laws protecting the rights and health of workers.[1] The Gotha Program was explicitly socialist, stating that "the socialist labor party of Germany endeavors by every lawful means to bring about a free state and a socialistic society, to effect the destruction of the iron law of wages by doing away with the system of wage labor, to abolish exploitation of every kind, and to extinguish all social and political inequality."[1]
Karl Marx famously attacked the platform, which he had read in draft form, in his Critique of the Gotha Program.[2] The SPD's platform would become more explicitly Marxist toward the end of the century, as indicated in its Erfurt Program of 1891.
History
The socialists of Germany in the mid-18th century were sharply divided between radicals (often referred to as “Marxists,” though the term was not well defined during Marx’s lifetime) and moderates.[3] The primary difference between the two had to do with the role of the state in bringing about socialism. Ferdinand Lassalle, the founder of the General German Workers' Association, sought to reform the electoral system in hopes that the working class would vote for a socialist state. Marx and his followers, on the other hand, believed that true socialism could only come from “the revolutionary process of transformation of society.” In the “Critique,” Marx mocked Lassalle’s “imagination that with state loans one can build a new society just as well as a new railway.”
Wilhelm Liebknecht, who with August Bebel had founded the Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei (SDAP, Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany), though a close associate of Marx, wanted to create a party with the widest appeal possible. He was therefore willing to include some key elements of Lassalleanism, such as the focus on voting and the use of only “lawful means,” in the Gotha Platform. This led to dissent among radicals, including Bebel, but Liebknecht's compromise would prevail, with the platform being accepted at Gotha with only minor modifications.
References
- ^ a b Hanover Historical Texts Project (ed.). "The Gotha and Erfurt Programs: Excerpts from the Original Electronic Text at the web site of the Hanover Historical Texts Project". Hanover College. Retrieved January 28, 2013.
- ^ Marx, Karl. "Critique of the Gotha Program". marxists.org. Retrieved January 28, 2013.
- ^ Draper, Hal. "The Two Souls of Socialism". marxists.org. Retrieved October 7, 2016.
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