The Critique of the Gotha Programme (German: Kritik des Gothaer Programms) 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.
[1] Offering perhaps Marx's most detailed pronouncement on programmatic matters of revolutionary strategy, the document discusses the "dictatorship of the proletariat", the period of transition from capitalism to communism, proletarian internationalism and the party of the working class.
In describing the lower phase, he states that "the individual receives from society exactly what he gives to it" and advocates remuneration in the form of non-transferable labour vouchers as opposed to money.
He found the programme negatively influenced by Lassalle, whom Marx regarded as an opportunist willing to limit the demands of the workers' movement in exchange for concessions from the government.
However, at the congress held in Gotha in late May 1875 the draft programme was accepted with only minor alterations by what was to become the powerful Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).