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Critique of the Gotha Programme


Critique of the Gotha Programme
Why does the Critique of the Gotha Programme come in here? What does it have to do with the NDR?
Because: The Gotha Programme was a Unity Programme. It was supposed to be the basis upon which the separate factions of the German Social Democrats were going to unite and go forward together.
The National Democratic Revolutionary Alliance must also be a “united front” or unity-in-action. This one that Marx criticised was founded on a false basis. It needed to be an honest programme.
If you skip over Engels’ foreword and the letter to Bracke, you will find that the actual “Critique” is only eight pages long. It is a short read but it contains a lot. Some of it is controversial, even today – for example Marx’s remarks about co-operatives (p. 9).
The person called Lasalle who Marx refers to was the energetic leader of the politically weaker faction, by this point in time deceased, leaving his followers to be still called the “Lasalleans”.
The South African National Democratic Revolutionary Alliance does not require the creation of a monolithic Party. Perhaps this is one reason why we are approaching the centenary of the ANC, without the collapse of the essential class alliance.
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Click here to download and read Karl Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha Programme”

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