The third tendency had nothing in common with the other two. It was the revolt of the proletarians, led by men of great ability. It was the democratic movement. It abhorred both the idea of feudal prerogative in government, as expressed by king and noble, and the vulgar trade patriotism, as expressed by the National Liberals, the bourgeoisie. It took its inspiration from France and its example from England. From France came the political platitudes of equality and liberty with which we are familiar in America; from England, the example of strongly organized trade unions. In Germany these two movements, economic and political, were blended into one.
Not that the workingman's movement was a unity. Schultze-Delitsch, the founder of the German co-operative movement, contended that labor should keep out of politics and devote itself to economic activities alone. Rodbertus, the distinguished economist, who was potent in shaping economic and political thought in Germany, wrote Lassalle, when he was entreated to join the brilliant agitator's propaganda, that he could "tolerate no political agitation which would excite the working classes against the existing executive power."[6]
There was no unity in the theories of the workingman's movement. The first organizations, the "Workingmen's Associations," were founded soon after 1848, as soon as the laws gave a limited right of association to the working class. The government looked with suspicion on every political act of labor, and especially upon organizations for political purposes. The ban of the law was put upon those organizations in July, 1854, and the right of public meeting was greatly restricted; police autonomy increased, giving them arbitrary power to stop meetings; and the right of free press was virtually denied. Democracy became a movement of silent intrigue and occasional rough outbreak.
At this juncture a new political party was organized, to absorb what was "legal" in the democratic workingman's movement and what was truly liberal in the National Liberal Party. The new party was called Progressist ("Fortschrittler"). It was a German party, devoted to the Manchester doctrine: Free commerce, free trade, free press, free speech; freedom of expression in every phase of human activity. It was laissez-faire to the uttermost plunged into the reactionary mass of German politics. The economic issue became freedom of contract versus feudal status; the political issue, freedom of ballot versus hereditary prerogative.
The new party began to appeal for the workingman's support. Their lure of free speech and freedom of organization was not without effect. The older workingmen, who were not familiar with the teachings of Marx and Engels, and who had not even read Weitling's communistic idealizations, were brought, in some numbers, into the new party.
The younger and more radical element in the workingmen's clubs were restless. In 1862 some of them had visited the International Exposition in London and had talked with Marx. The fire of the "International" was kindled. A movement for calling a national workingman's convention was started among these radicals. The Progressists tried to check the agitation, saying that every effort should be directed toward establishing a new Constitution. But it was in vain. In Leipsic a group of radicals seceded from the Workingman's Union (Arbeiter Bildungs-Verein), and formed a new organization, which they called "Vorwärts" (Progress). These now invited Lassalle to address them on his views of the labor situation.
The movement was opportune, and Lassalle's answer is the basic document of present-day Social Democracy.[7]
There is no salvation for the workingman except through "political freedom," he says. This freedom demands laws, and to secure laws united action is essential. They must be powerful enough to get laws to their liking. This power they will not get by being an appendix to the Progressists, for they are dominated by a trade doctrine, not by altruistic ideals for the oppressed.
With a clearness that has not been excelled, he showed the dependence of economic upon political power and influence. His economic program was none other than Louis Blanc's state-subsidized workshops. It made no great impression and soon faded away. But his bold plan of a workingman's party fighting fiercely for democracy, and for the betterment of the "normal conditions of the entire working classes," has been developed to surprising perfection.
The state, he says, must be the instrument of their power, not the object of their striving. They are in politics, not as politicians, but as proletarians. "The state is nothing but the great organization, the all-embracing association of the working classes." No "sustaining and helping hand" will be their guide. Political supremacy is the "only way out of the desert." And how win the state? There is only one way: through universal suffrage, democracy. "Universal suffrage is not only your political but also your social foundation principle, the condition precedent of all social help. It is the only means for bettering the material conditions of the working classes."