LASSALLE'S LIFE AND DEEDS
BERNSTEIN, JACOB
LASSALLE'S LIFE AND DEEDS The Accomplishments of One of The Pillars of German Socialism, Whose Centenary Is Now Being Celebrated By JACOB BERNSTEIN ONE of the great truths established by history...
...As to whether he met Marx, who had been living in Paris at this time, is not definitely known...
...hut, on the other hand, it was the cause of many fatal mistakes, and tin.ill...
...He starts hit theoretical point of view with hit ."Iron Law of Wages," which it limply th* law promulgated by the classical school of political economy, particularly by Ricardo, and to which he adds, for agitational effect, the adjective "iron" and often "the cruel iron" law, which he shows that at long as the capitalist mode of production exists, it it hopelettly impossible to raise permanently the standard of living for the workers, because wafts are controlled by the relations of supply and demand...
...It was only after he was acquitted on the charge of "inciting to the theft of a casket" that he found some leisure, and at once he threw himself into the fight on the side of the Radical Democrats whose official paper was the Ncue Rhei-neische Zeitung, of which Marx was the editor...
...It is impossible to point out the varied and manifold activities of this remarkable man, nor to indicate tome of his theoretical and many tactical mistakes...
...By training them to understand their historical mission, by drilling and t'lsciptining them...
...After spending six months in jail the trial came up before a jury, and Lassalle was ac...
...They, the overwhelming majority, must Aght for direct, universal suffrage so a* to gain control of th* Stat...
...He urges the formation of a new party, with a definite programme...
...Lassalle now carried on a most vigorous, fiery and stormy propaganda in Berlin, Frankfort, Dues-seldorf, and in the industrial centres on the Rhine...
...Briefly, he urged the formation of self-help co-operative societies, credit and raw material as-sociations...
...One thing is certain, Lassalle wat one of the moet unique and extraordinary men, a real genius, the type of which probably only one in centuries is given to mankind...
...of the workers supported the Liberal party, but it lacked backbone to take and maintain a militant attitude towards the Government...
...He was convicted, but the conviction was reversed on appeal...
...This clats eventually, due to it* class, condition in modern society, must develop into a revolutionary class 'destined to place civilization on a new basis...
...The Count referred to him as a "stupid young Jew" after he had heard of it This fight took the better part of ten years of Lassalle's life...
...When the Revolution of '48 broke out, Lassalle's activity in the Hatzfeld case had almost condemned him to political inactivity...
...At the trial he delivered another masterly and brilliant speech, full of erudition and breadth of vision, reprinted, "Science and the Workers...
...Don't look either to the right or to the left, be deaf to all that is not called universal and direct suffrage, or that is not related thereto, and may lead to it...
...And so it wat that later on he accepted Marxism and worked for it in his latter years during the heroic stages of German...
...For that their characters and temperaments were fundamentally different, besides differences in points of view on some theoretical and practical questions...
...the enormous increase in productive wealth, due to the revolutionary progress of induttry, gradually brings to tha fore a new economic clam...
...Lassalle bad been aching for some time for a wider sphere of life than the Rhenish province could afford him...
...This boundless self-confidence was the bane of his life...
...the latter recognized the ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, as his forerunner, and so it would be quite natural for Lassalle to have hie interest aroused in this ancient thinker...
...The worker* •ufftr at producer!, end not a* consumers ; therefore, to improve their condition permanently, they mutt start large, voluntary productive associations, for which the State should furnish the necessary capital...
...quitted, as was also Marx...
...The school was Keitingt.no uncomfortable for him, with the result that, at the age of 16, and contrary to the wishes of his father, who intended for him a university training, he insisted upon a transfer to the Commercial School at Leipzig, where he remained for about a year, when he realized that the life of a tradesman would be distasteful to him...
...A revi lution in the actual conditions of society haa already taken place which i.ow require...
...Social Democracy...
...And during a short period of a little over two years he had to resist about a dozen criminal charges...
...Phont Lenox 8569...
...Membership 44,000, Main office for New York and vicinity at 211 I.hm 84th St...
...He spoke for four hours at this gathering on May 19, 1863...
...This masterly speech, which may be regarded as an introduction to the realm of Socialist philosophy, resulted in a prosecution on the charge of inciting the nropertyless to hatred and contempt for the propertied class...
...Bad marks, followed by worse reports, led Ferdinand to forge these reports with his mother's signature...
...It is an attemJnMo apply the historical method to legal ideas and institution...
...Kstablithcd 1872...
...30 p, m , at 1211 Third av«n», corner Tremont avenue, for a fuller and critical exposition of (h* aubjact...
...The threshold of a period is now approaching when Lassalle was about to enter his career as an agitator, the results of which made him famous the world over...
...by hit knowledge and understanding how to bring about a Labor movement whore none existed...
...The great jurist and founder of the historical school of law, Karl Frederick Savigny, pronounced it the ablest legal work written since the sixteenth century...
...For addresses of Branch Secretaries, write to our main office...
...Schultze, refused the invitation, and so Lassalle had the field to himself...
...And what attracted Lassalle even more than the teaching of Heraclitus . . . was the conviction that here only by brilliant achievement could laurels be won...
...The growth of this third estate the capitalist class, -carries with it the germs of a new class—the fourth estate—the proletariat...
...by arousing the workers, imbuing them with independence, strengthening their sense of bono., and Inspiring them i with confidence in'their own inter-ests, he laid tht hat ia out of whlei subsequently grew the German Social Democracy...
...An intimate friendship, however, never developed...
...A great leader who could arouse, inspire and enthuse large masses was the great need of the hour, and such a man was the now immortal Ferdinand Lassalle...
...A resolution was adopted by a vote of 400 to 1 to form the General German Work-ingmen's Association along his linen...
...However, it was apparently a personal tribute...
...The writer will leclure on t.asaalle, m April Hlli...
...Mos...
...He then points nut the factors and events which gradually developed commerce and industry, the division of labor, tha tteadily decreasing cott of production, th* replacing of local by world maikets...
...that an increase in wagea mutt tend to increase marriage* and birth, and thus increase the working population...
...The power which the ownership of Land bestowed, with all its concomitants, is gradually, but steadily, pushed to tha background, sinking the owners, the lords and baron* to a subordinate position, now replaced by the third estate—the bourgeois class...
...Lassalle was elected president and thus became the leader of the new movement...
...nurce and industiy had* not yet been developed to any extent, and the great bulk of the wealth of nations consisted of landed property...
...When, in November, 1848, the Government proclaimed a state of siege, and the reaction broke loose, Lassalle, like Marx, and the party behind them, took an attitude which in the eyes of the Government amounted to treason...
...There were scattered, here and there, individuali and small groups of workers who had been imbued with revolutionary Klin.', and who would have welcomed an opportunity to sever all connections with that party...
...A new era requires help at its birth, and those who render such aid are spoken of later in history as its heralds...
...To him, for many generations to come, will belong the laurel* of having done great things for the German worker...
...The fact that he was difficult to understand, that ,his own cot.temporaries and the later Greek philosophers were never sure whether they understood him correctly, and by reason of which difficulty and uncertainty Heraclitus wan nicknamed the Obscure, did not at all keep Lassalle from an Unoertaking to write a treatise on "The Philosophy of Heraclitus the Obscure," which was completed and brought out in 1868...
...Marx, outside of the agitator and revolutionist, was the quiet, reserved thinker, and system builder...
...He thus had frequent opportunities to get in close touch with Marx„and through such associations Lassalle was probably thus converted to Socialism...
...The committee invited Lassalle and Schultze to appear before the District Workers' Congress at Frankfort-on-Main...
...This is, generally, the cue with all revolution...
...He contributed to the famous "German-French Annuals" (1844) and the "Gesellschaftsspiegel" (1846-46...
...During the four critical year* preceding th* Revolution of 1848, Hess, together with Marx and Engels, helped in the publication of several revolutionary review...
...Lassalle contributed occasional articles to the Rheiniache Zeitung which brought him to the editorial office...
...At this time ' the workers in Germany were almost completely disorganized...
...industrial development, widening the gulf between the (lasses and intensifying the dependence and the uncertainty of life of the workers...
...This is probably the greatest speech of his many able and brilliant addresses...
...It is not the man that makes the time, but the time i that makes the man...
...While in his ultimate goal Lassalle was, of course, a Socialist, his practical programme, as well as his iron law of wages, will bear no critical analysis...
...Marx was also a member of tht District Committee, with which Lassalle frequently communicated...
...The middle \» riod of the nineteenth century saw in Prussia, during the reign of Frederick William IV, and that of his successor, his brother, William I, growing political unrest followed by revolution...
...Already in his early youth he displayed unusual mental strength and independence, so that he soon incurred the displeasure of his teachers at school...
...Upon his return home, Lassalle met the Countess von Hatzfeld, who was engaged in an uphill fight, against the Count, for a divorce and the restitution of a fortune...
...9 a. m.-8 p. m. Sat., 9 a. m.-1 p. m. Closed on Sundays and Holidays ' Brooklyn Office open only Mondays siul Thursdays, from 6:3fl to 8:30 p. 111., Labor Lyceum, 949-957 Willoughby Ave...
...It was, therefore, a period of great political upheavals, and still greater social and economic unrest...
...Among other prominent persons he met here was Heine, who, subsequently christened him "the Messiah of the nineteenth century...
...Upon the completion of the Hatzfeld case, Lasselle devoted himself to literary and scientific work...
...Workmen's Furniture Fire Insurance Society INCORPORATED New York and Vicinity and 49 Branches in tht United States...
...George Brandea, in his book on Lassalle, well says: "That a distinguished scholar should have made occasional mistakes it nothing to the purpose...
...The vices of th' oppressed, the idle indifference of the thoughtless, and even the harmless frivolity of the petty-minded, no longer behoove you now...
...of his unhappy end" (Ferdinand Laiwalle, as a .Social Reformer...
...A Contemporary of Lassalle The celebration of the centenary of Ferdinand Lassalle in Germany this month is also occasion of celebrations in memory of Moses Hess, who today is not so well remembered a* th* brilliant Lassalle, but who, nevertheless, wat working in the Labor movement a long time before kttra and for twelve years after hi* death., liess died in Pari* on April 6, 1876, at tha age of 63, after a life dedicated'to the Worker*' cause...
...the Countess, almost 39, cultured and still attractive...
...He then issued hi:, famous "The Open Reply...
...He appealed to the ! workers and small artisans, and petty tradesmen, many of whom really believed by these means the social problems could be solved...
...2ft 1864, Lassalle fought a duel with Count von Rack-owitz, in a .suburb of Geneva, for-the hand of Helene von Dewiinges, receiving a mortal wound, of which ha died three days later...
...At the same time, the man upon whom the attention of most workers and artisans had been riveted was the Liberal member of the Prussian Parliament, Bastiat Schaltze, an economist am' philanthropist...
...In these latter, as missionary of the new gospel, his carriage would often be followed by many cheering thousands with flowers, wreaths and flags resembling triumphal processions...
...showed that about 96 per cent of th* population of Prussia lived in wretched conditions...
...He saw the misery of the people and found the ground fertile for his re-' form schemes which he had worked out...
...With iron, trenchant logic he' refute* the ideas and views of Schultze von Delitzsch, showing the utter impossibility of permanently improving the worker*' condition by meant of his self-help and credit-loan scheme...
...this is what tie French Revolution meant...
...The principal work by Lassalle, brought out in 1861, is his "System of Acquired Rights," the sub-title of whu-h gives the key to its scope—"A Reconciliation of Positive Rights with tbe Philosophy of Law...
...Lassalle, a bare youth of twenty...
...niflcance and because of them hi* memory will forever be cherished and his virtues emulated...
...Lassalle was temperamental, emotional, a born agitator, a natural leader of men, possessed of an indomitable, unbounded, unlimited and arrogant will-power and supreme «elf-cofidence...
...Lassalle points out hoev in the Middle Ages the (feudal) ownership of land made its imprint upon all social institutions and the entire life of that epoch, because com...
...Office Hours...
...The art of practical success consists in concentrating all forces upon the most important point...
...The stream of time sweep* away the errors and leaves the truth for the Inheritance of humanity.'" I On Aug...
...One of his article* published in Volksstaat in the early seventies and dealing with social revolution played an important part in.the famous treason trial of Bebel and Liebknecht...
...Yet, to quote Mehring, hit "somewhat narrow and .unimaginative mind, sophistical rather than clearsighted, would never have led him so far astray but that his great heart would not lead him back to the genuine interest* of the working classes...
...The organization, according to the by-laws prepared by Lassalle, waa strictly centralized, giving th* president almost dictatorial powers with a term of office for Ave year...
...His premature death caused a veritable consternation among his followers, and for years to come gave birth to a Lassalle cult, if not a religion...
...It is idle to specalate as to what he might have accomplished were it not for his early death...
...He became one,of the leaders of the so-called "true Socialism" movement so strongly opposed by Marx and Engels and so sharply criticized by them in the "Communist Manifesto...
...Eventually he" brought the Count to his knees, securing to the Countets her freedom afed a fortune, and to himself, under an agreement with her, an income of some twenty thousand marks per year for life...
...A copy of the-"Workers' Programme" reached it* committee, which decided to invite Lassalle for an expression of his views...
...this, in turn, enlarges the supply of labor, and is followed by a corresponding fall in wages, with the result that the workers' condition can ..«'!¦( permanently rise above the subsistence level required to maintain the laborer and hit family...
...In 1846 he visited Pans to study and see the world-city...
...2, "Politiker nnd National - Oekonomen"), speaking of Lassalle's "Philosophy of Heraclitus," says: "It was still jutt a ! time when a profoundly erudite philosophic philological work would assure its author a place in Berlin society...
...A loving and inspiring child, he received a good deal of care and attention from hit parents, particularly from the mother, who gave him constant thought and love...
...Despite his mistakes, and he undoubtedly made many, history has never yet brought forth a great thinker, or leader, in any line of human endeavor who was free therefrom...
...Through the instrumentality of Humboldt, who admired, and on one occasion referred to him as "the wonder-child," Lassalle obtained permission to settle in Berlin, whose aristocracy of culture and intellect opened its door to him...
...Meanwhile, the Leipzig Working-men's Association was planning a call for a universal German Labor congress...
...In these undying merits lay his great historical tig...
...This was actually formed at Leipzig on May 23...
...Hh "Workers' Programme," "The Open Reply" "The Workers' Reader," and other pamphlets, it has been said, have converted hundreds of thousands in Germany to the cause of Socialism...
...She accepted his offer to conduct her litigation, aK though Lassalle was not a lawyer,' and had never studied law...
...In 1860 this movement had reached the high water-mark, when these associations had a .membership of over 200,000, and its volume of business exceeded 120,000,000 j marks (W...
...In broad outline, it follows the Communist Manifesto, adapted to his time and prevailing conditions, developing in detail what the Manifesto laid down in broad lines...
...Then came the great industrial crisis of 1867, lasting a few years, with poverty and untold misery in its trail, followed, a few years later, by the great constitutional conflict of the early sixties, between the Crown and the Parliament...
...Neither did he care for the professions, since "the doctor and the lawyer are both tradesmen who traffic with their knowledge.'' He studied at the universities of Berlin and Breslau, giving his main attention to philosophy and philology...
...By meant of income statistics, Lattall...
...H. Dawton, "German ' Socialism and P'erdinand Lassalle...
...The high honor of this, your universal-historical, mission will now require your best thoughts...
...22 Lassalle delivered a speech for which he was indicted on a charge of urging the people to armed resistance and to refrain from paying taxes...
...he wanted intercourse with notable personalities...
...external recognition and legal sane tion...
...A detailed biography of this untiring champion has been written by Theodor Zlocisti...
...In April, 1862, Lassalle delivered a lecture before the Artizans' Club, in Berlin, "On the Special Connection Between th* Idea of the Working Class Estate and the Present Historical Period," subsequently pubjished under the title, "The Workers' Programme...
...Herman Onken, in hit Biography of Lassalle (Vol...
...It helped him, indeed, to undertake and to carry through things from which thousands, even though with Lassalle's intellectual gifts, would have shrunk...
...that revolutions cannot be made, and to try to make one "is the folly of undeveloped people who have no conception of the laws of history...
...You are the rock upon which the church of the present must be built...
...And with this longing to dazzle all men by some extraordinary achievement . . Lassalle was convinced that he was equal to any task he might set himself...
...Lassalle was born on April 11, 1826, irt Brcalau, the son of a prosperous Jewish silk merchant...
...th* enthusiasm was shortlived at the practical results were insignificant, the workers being apathetic and Indifferent...
...A warm friendship thus ensued between the two men which there-, after led to frequent correspondence, when Marx had gone to London, and to occaeional meetings...
...In commenting upon this undertaking, Edward Bernstein says: "That he (Lassalle) should have chosen this thinker of all others as the subject for his researches . . . is strikingly characteristic of Las-1 salre...
...the constitutional struggle had been going on, and the condition of the masses had been appalling...
...LASSALLE'S LIFE AND DEEDS The Accomplishments of One of The Pillars of German Socialism, Whose Centenary Is Now Being Celebrated By JACOB BERNSTEIN ONE of the great truths established by history is the common aphorism that the age produces the men it requires...
...Its principal trend of thought follows...
...He was an ardent disciple of Hegel...
...On Nov...
Vol. 2 • April 1925 • No. 15
