Die Neue Zeit
16th February 2011, 04:06
http://books.google.ca/books?id=8AVUvEUsdCgC
By Lars Lih
In Italy at the turn of the century, so we are told, Italian socialists named their sons Lassalo and their daughters Marxina. Some informed observers were ready to give Ferdinand Lassalle top billing: 'To Lassalle, even more than to Marx, modern Socialists are deeply indebted; Marx set the world of culture thinking and arguing, Lassalle set the people organising.
[...]
These days, in contrast, Lassalle has more or less dropped off the historical radar screen. A recent 600-page book on the history of the European Left in the last 150 years does not even mention him.
[...]
Lassalle's career as a leader of nascent German Social Democracy was incredibly short, given its impact on the rest of the century. In 1863, he was asked by a German worker group to give his opinion on the best political course for the workers. In his Open Letter (also known as his Manifesto), Lassalle advised them to organise an independent political party aimed at achieving universal suffrage. He then plunged into a whirlwind round of setting up just such an organized party. Only a year and a half after the start of his campaign, he was killed in a duel that rose out of his love affair with a German countess. His death was probably a good career move, since his organising efforts had achieved little in concrete results and his flirtation with conservatives such as Bismarck might soon have sorely discredited him. As it was, he remained a martyr and an icon of the cause.
[...]
Lassalle's legacy to German Social Democracy was a very mixed bag indeed and the movement spent many years shedding many of his policy nostrums as well as his proclivities toward dictatorial party organisation. In our discussion, however - with one important exception - we are going to focus on the permanent contribution that even otherwise suspicious Marxists were prepared to grant.
[...]
Lassalle was also remembered because he 'showed the path', that is, he set out the fundamentals of the party's political strategy. This strategy was first announced in the Open Letter: 'The working class must constitute itself an independent political party and make universal, equal and direct suffrage the primary watchword and banner of this party.' Thus Lassalle called for an independent political organization: all three terms have equal emphasis. At the time that Lassalle put forth his strategy, all of its facets were innovative, not to say outrageous. By insisting on a political organization, Lassalle was fying in the face of an opinion widespread even among the workers themselves that (as Lassalle put it in his Open Letter) 'you have no business to trouble yourselves about a political movement, for this is something in which you have no interest'.
[...]
Lassalle also insisted on political independence, a goal which in 1861 had a very concrete meaning: to break away from the liberal Progressive Party that to a large extent had summoned up the workers societies in the first place in order to recruit followers in its struggle for a liberal constitution.
[...]
Finally, Lassalle insisted on effective organisation. One aspect of this theme was a rather dictatorial and 'cult of personality' mode of inner-party organisation. What I want to stress here is rather how Lassalle's ideal of organisation followed from the fundamental aim of spreading the good news of the 'idea of the Fourth Estate'.
[...]
Lassalle wanted a party of agitation that openly inscribed its sentiments on its banners. In order to succeed in this aim, the new party had to set up treasuries based on membership dues. These treasuries will support a powerful agitation force [...]
By Lars Lih
In Italy at the turn of the century, so we are told, Italian socialists named their sons Lassalo and their daughters Marxina. Some informed observers were ready to give Ferdinand Lassalle top billing: 'To Lassalle, even more than to Marx, modern Socialists are deeply indebted; Marx set the world of culture thinking and arguing, Lassalle set the people organising.
[...]
These days, in contrast, Lassalle has more or less dropped off the historical radar screen. A recent 600-page book on the history of the European Left in the last 150 years does not even mention him.
[...]
Lassalle's career as a leader of nascent German Social Democracy was incredibly short, given its impact on the rest of the century. In 1863, he was asked by a German worker group to give his opinion on the best political course for the workers. In his Open Letter (also known as his Manifesto), Lassalle advised them to organise an independent political party aimed at achieving universal suffrage. He then plunged into a whirlwind round of setting up just such an organized party. Only a year and a half after the start of his campaign, he was killed in a duel that rose out of his love affair with a German countess. His death was probably a good career move, since his organising efforts had achieved little in concrete results and his flirtation with conservatives such as Bismarck might soon have sorely discredited him. As it was, he remained a martyr and an icon of the cause.
[...]
Lassalle's legacy to German Social Democracy was a very mixed bag indeed and the movement spent many years shedding many of his policy nostrums as well as his proclivities toward dictatorial party organisation. In our discussion, however - with one important exception - we are going to focus on the permanent contribution that even otherwise suspicious Marxists were prepared to grant.
[...]
Lassalle was also remembered because he 'showed the path', that is, he set out the fundamentals of the party's political strategy. This strategy was first announced in the Open Letter: 'The working class must constitute itself an independent political party and make universal, equal and direct suffrage the primary watchword and banner of this party.' Thus Lassalle called for an independent political organization: all three terms have equal emphasis. At the time that Lassalle put forth his strategy, all of its facets were innovative, not to say outrageous. By insisting on a political organization, Lassalle was fying in the face of an opinion widespread even among the workers themselves that (as Lassalle put it in his Open Letter) 'you have no business to trouble yourselves about a political movement, for this is something in which you have no interest'.
[...]
Lassalle also insisted on political independence, a goal which in 1861 had a very concrete meaning: to break away from the liberal Progressive Party that to a large extent had summoned up the workers societies in the first place in order to recruit followers in its struggle for a liberal constitution.
[...]
Finally, Lassalle insisted on effective organisation. One aspect of this theme was a rather dictatorial and 'cult of personality' mode of inner-party organisation. What I want to stress here is rather how Lassalle's ideal of organisation followed from the fundamental aim of spreading the good news of the 'idea of the Fourth Estate'.
[...]
Lassalle wanted a party of agitation that openly inscribed its sentiments on its banners. In order to succeed in this aim, the new party had to set up treasuries based on membership dues. These treasuries will support a powerful agitation force [...]