Part one: This article is the first part of a project concerned with developing a Marxist critical pedagogy that moves beyond a critique of capital and toward a communist future. The article begins with a brief survey of and intervention in the contemporary historical and political moment as it pertains to the potentiality of a communist pedagogy, which entails a historical-materialist reading of the Soviet Union and actually-existing socialism. The article then introduces Marx's "Critique of the Gotha Programme," before situating the text within its historical moment and its position in Marx's (and Engels') overall body of thought. In order to do so, some historical and theoretical groundwork is laid, which sets the stage for the second part of the project, which entails an educational reading of Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme.