From Marx to Lenin

Interrogating the Critique of the Gotha Program

The Critique of the Gotha Program, as with almost everything related to Marx, has become a divisive piece of literature. By some, including Lenin, it is held up to great heights as elucidating the clarity of Marxism and its practicality. For others, the text is a blimp compared to the volumes of Marx’s work and, as such, cannot be taken as a specific signifier.

The text itself is not a long one, coming in at about 20 pages. Nor is it too insightful. It is written, as the title suggests, as a quick refutation to a program put together by two socialist parties in the process of merging. Their meeting, where the merger was to be consummated, took place in Gotha, Germany — hence the name of this infamous document.

The reason that some ascribe to the critique a wealth of importance is because it is the only text in which Marx hints at what a communist society may look like, or, more accurately, what a transition to a communist society may look like.

Lenin later based much of his transitional theories on the few lines found in the critique. The ideas expressed in his most commonly read book, The State and Revolution, found their seed in this small text and were pushed to the limits of their possible development. For this reason, and from an academic perspective, this text presents an interesting demarcation point between Marx and Lenin.

For some, this may look like splitting hairs; and in some way it is. However, this is a prime example of how the (mis)interpretation of a few political ideas can result in a wide cleavage penetrating to the core of political movements and the longstanding result of their activities.

For those unfamiliar with Marxism beyond its presentation in popular political discourse as a singular cohesive ideology, this analysis may provide a small glimpse into the plurality of ‘Marxism’ and the various actors within it.

The Significance of the Text

The significance of the critique lies in the core idea that communism is not something that will be achieved immediately, but that communism will have to evolve out of capitalism and as such will continue to be tainted by it when it first emerges. Marx says:

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.

This revelation is provided during a discussion in which Marx states that the maxim “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”, can only be achieved after a system in which equal amounts of resource can be extracted by individuals based on how much labour they have contributed.

the individual producer receives back from society — after the deductions have been made — exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Marx makes it clear that this is a ‘defect’ and will lead to inequality as the needs of individuals and families differ. However, “these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society”.

Marx goes on:

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly — only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

Through this analysis, Marx makes it clear that communism is not to be achieved immediately after a revolution and that there is indeed a ‘transitionary phase’. He makes this even clearer when, later in the text, he gives this transitionary phase a name:

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.

Lenin’s Interpretation

The confusion that this produces is quite profound. What is “The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat”? How long does it last? When do we know when it has begun and when it will end? What other markers will let us know we’re there? Is the dictatorship of the proletariat part of the revolutionary phase or is it a distinctive phase that can stand on its own?

Here, Lenin steps in and develops the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat into a clearly defined phase between capitalism and “the higher phase of communist society”. In State and Revolution, he says:

The first fact that has been established most accurately by the whole theory of development, by science as a whole … is that, historically, there must undoubtedly be a special stage, or a special phase, of transition from capitalism to communism.

But what history is Lenin referring to? Surely he cannot be conflating evolutionary change, Darwinism, with revolution. The evolutionary process is dictated by nature and by random and unexplainable changes in biology. A revolution is manufactured, planned, and intended. The change it aspires too depends on the breaking of previous systems not their continuation.

Secondly, if Lenin plans on using history to prove that there must “undoubtedly be a special stage, or a special phase, of transition” to communism then he must show us where that special stage of transition between feudalism and capitalism was and why it “undoubtedly” was there, or if not why it wasn’t.

If here we want to speak of historical certainty and necessity what is Lenin to say about the transformation of Russia under his leadership directly from feudal kingdom to ‘communism’ (he would argue in its lower stage). Something counter to the clarity of Marxist theory of communism rising from capitalism. We would see here that Lenin is suddenly no longer concerned with the need for transitionary steps.

Now that Lenin has proved the necessity of this “lower stage of communism” he must provide it with a function. He provides it with two.

For the first, he leans on the words of Engles quoting him saying “the proletariat needs the state, not in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist”. Lenin elaborates on this by saying that:

Only in communist society, when the resistance of the capitalists have disappeared, when there are no classes (i.e., when there is no distinction between the members of society as regards their relation to the social means of production), only then “the state… ceases to exist”, and “it becomes possible to speak of freedom”.

Now, it becomes apparent, not only do we need a transitionary phase to help keep enemies/resistance at bay, but that this transitionary phase manifests itself in the image of a State as understood under capitalism. We are also told that once the resistance of the capitalists has disappeared, the state simply “ceases to exist”.

This is a gross misinterpretation of Engels’ quote who was not claiming that the proletariat needs the state during or after a revolutionary period. But that the state itself is a battleground of the proletariat and revolutionary activity — this as it relates to larger labour struggles, nationalization of industry etc. Once the revolutionary window is entered, however, the proletariat has no use of the state especially as their goal is to abolish it. This is made clear by the first half of Engels’ quote which Lenin conveniently leaves out. “the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle”. Engles goes on to say that the use of the term state is so absurd that it should be replaced altogether with a German word of “commonality”.

The second function of the lower stage of communism is to help people acclimate to the new social order and get rid of the capitalist hangover. People need to forget how they act under capitalism and realise that their chains have been broken. In a sense, the lower stage of communism is a paternalistic ‘safe space’ presented to the proletariat so they may ‘mature’.

people will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of social intercourse that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands of years in all copy-book maxims. They will become accustomed to observing them without force, without coercion, without subordination, without the special apparatus for coercion called the state…Only habit can, and undoubtedly will, have such an effect.

Of course, such an idea is absurd as it is and it must be the proletariat themselves who overthrow capitalism and for them to do so they must be aware of the pitfalls of it and the emancipatory nature of communism. Otherwise, why have the revolution? If it is the proletariat who are throwing themselves into the jaws of revolution then they have no need for a ‘transitionary phase’ for they themselves have willed the transition!

The absurdity of this function of the transitionary phase becomes all the more clear when Lenin describes with clear totalitarianism when one can advance to the higher stage of communism.

when all have learned to administer and actually to independently administer social production, independently keep accounts and exercise control over the parasites, the sons of the wealthy, the swindlers and other “guardians of capitalist traditions”, the escape from this popular accounting and control will inevitably become so incredibly difficult, such a rare exception, and will probably be accompanied by such swift and severe punishment (for the armed workers are practical men and not sentimental intellectuals, and they scarcely allow anyone to trifle with them), that the necessity of observing the simple, fundamental rules of the community will very soon become a habit. Then the door will be thrown wide open for the transition from the first phase of communist society to its higher phase, and with it to the complete withering away of the state.

A side note on Trotsky

Lenin was not the only one who subscribed to this interpretation of Marx. Trotsky, although originally wrote against Lenin, eventually joined him once the Russian revolution began and became the leader of the Red Army. In his book Communism and Terrorism, he mirrors Lenin’s thoughts on the state but with a qualifier, that the transitional period should not be set with the preconceived notion that it will be around for a long time.

And it is quite clear that, if our problem is the abolition of private property in the means of production, the only road to its solution lies through the concentration of State power in its entirety in the hands of the proletariat, and the setting up for the transitional period of an exceptional regime — a regime in which the ruling class is guided, not by general principles calculated for a prolonged period, but by considerations of revolutionary policy.

This leads Trotsky to the paradoxical conclusion that even though the goal of socialism is to ‘smash the state’ “the road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the State.”

Marx and the broader interpretation

So far we have argued that Lenin and Trotsky’s interpretation has been misleading. However, we still find ourselves stuck with the words of Marx who makes it clear that, as per his thoughts, there must be a transitionary state between capitalism and communism known as the dictatorship of the proletariat. More than that, he distinctively demarcates this transitionary phase procedurally, in that when it comes to the transition from capitalism to communism there will be a point where a sense of accountability for production, in the form of labour hours, needs to be maintained.

Here, the words of Karl Kautsky, another Marxist, come into use.

Kautsky was a socialist leader in Germany during the interwar period and close friend to Engels. So much so that he became the principal literary executor of Marx and Engels’ work after their death and knew them both personally. However, Kautsky is also seen as a “Renegade” by Lenin, and to a certain extent, rightfully so. Kautsky believed strongly that Communism can be achieved through the government and through electoral politics (parliamentarianism) thus turning his back on revolutionary Marxism. This, along with his strong criticism of Bolshevism (the branch of Marxism associated with the Russian revolution of 1917 under the leadership of Lenin) lead to a figurative excommunication.

History, so far, has taught us that Kautsky’s theory that communism can be established through parliamentarianism is wrong. Nevertheless, his critiques of Bolshevism stand on their own and his pamphlet written in 1917, titled The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, tackles the exact topic of our conversation.

In The Dictatorship of the Proletariat Kautsky asserts that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not some prolonged period of transition, and certainly not one that requires a state. He says:

to find out what Marx thought about the dictatorship of the proletariat, we need not have recourse to speculation. If in 1875 [when the critique was written] Marx did not explain in detail what he understood by the dictatorship of the proletariat, it might well have been because he had expressed himself on this matter a few years before, in his study of the Civil War in France. In that work, he wrote: “The Commune was essentially a government of the working class, the result of the struggle of the producing class against the appropriating class, the political form under which the freedom of labour could be attained being at length revealed.” Thus the Paris Commune was, as Engels expressly declared in his introduction to the third edition of Marx’s book, “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat”.

To understand what is meant by this, we need to briefly explore the history of France during the Prussian war, where, in 1871 a vacuum of power alongside revolutionary activity left Paris in the hands of radical socialists who from March to May 1871 established and ran the Paris Commune. The commune was later violently re-captured and most radicals were killed in the fighting, executed, or exiled.

During those few months, however, the commune was run under a completely egalitarian democracy where universal suffrage was instilled, all elected officials were subject to immediate recall by the general public, and the salary of elected officials was equal to most other professions. Additionally, the commune cancelled rent payments under the siege and allowed workers to take over the ownership and running of factories, mills, etc. that have been abandoned.

These conditions make it clear that the commune was a far cry from an established or ‘higher’ form of communism or the maxim of “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”. This is not to mention the wartime conditions that were prevalent during the time of the commune and their overarching struggle with the French Government.

Nevertheless, for all intents and purposes, the commune was run and governed by and for the proletariat as revolutionary activities and the struggle for the legitimization of the commune took place — it was the dictatorship of the proletariat and it was established through and as part of the revolutionary process; not after, as Lenin claims, and not for the intention of suppressing others for it was established under democratic rule.

Here, Kautsky clarifies the use of the term ‘dictatorship’ saying that:

dictatorship as a condition must not be confused with dictatorship as a form of government… If by dictatorship we do not merely signify a state of sovereignty, but a form of government, then dictatorship comes to mean that of a single person, or of an organisation, not of the proletariat, but of a proletarian party. The problem is then complicated so soon as the proletariat itself is divided into various parties. The dictatorship of one of these parties is then no longer in any sense the dictatorship of the proletariat, but a dictatorship of one part of the proletariat over the other.

Furthermore, and as it relates to the dictatorship being used to suppress others, we have also but to look at Marx’s words in the Manifesto where he makes it clear that the goal is not that the proletariat simply becomes the ‘ruling class’ but that the notion of class altogether be abolished.

If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

If there is no need for the “State”, as Lenin has described it, to carry out the dictatorship of the proletariat, then it becomes easy to also explain Marx’s sense for the need of accountability during a transitionary period not as a call for the establishment of the state and an overarching bureaucratic body to manage ‘labour exchange’, but as a simple extension of proletarian management as the transition is completed. In other words, the procedural aspects of transition can and should be carried out by the proletariat themselves not a party or an accounting segment of them.

Impact on History

Irrespective of what Marx did or didn’t mean, it is clear that his ambiguity on the matter, at least in the Critique of the Gotha Program, and the extreme forms of interpretation it has encouraged, do not work — or at least do not work to the extent that they seek to establish equality under socialism.

The impact of such ambiguity manifested itself during the Soviet Union with the use of labour chits as a form of currency. The absurdity of which is elaborated on by Anarcho-Communist Peter Kropotkin in his book The Conquest of Bread (which I have previously reviewed here).

The idea of transitionary phases to communism also continues to play a role in the interpretation that a country like China is still ‘on the path to communism’ and is passing through further intensifications of the state until, finally, it reaches the point where the state simply ‘whithers away’.

This cleavages in Marxist thought may be one of the most important ones there. Through it, we have been able to explore not just the works of Marx but also Lenin and Kautsky and even a cursory nod to Kropotkin. All of this, again, to dispell any notion that ‘Communism’ or ‘Marxism’ is one concrete Thing.