A history of socialism

by Thomas Kirkup

Ferdinand Lassalle was born at Breslau in 1825.

Like Karl Marx, the chief of international socialism, he was of Jewish extraction. His father, a prosperous merchant in Breslau, intended Ferdinand for a business career, and with this view sent him to the commercial school at Leipsic; but the boy, having no liking for that kind of life, got himself transferred to the university, first at Breslau, and afterwards at Berlin. His favourite studies were philology and philosophy; he became an ardent Hegelian, and in politics was one of the most advanced. Having completed his university studies in 1845, he began to write a work on Heracleitus from the Hegelian point of view; but it was soon interrupted by more stirring interests, and did not see the light for many years.

From the Rhine country, where he settled for a time, he went to Paris, and made the acquaintance of his great compatriot Heine, who conceived for him the deepest sympathy and admiration. In the letter of introduction to Varnhagen von Ense, which the poet gave Lassalle when he returned to Berlin, there is a striking portrait of the future agitator. Heine speaks of his friend Lassalle as a young man of the most remarkable endowments, in whom the widest knowledge, the greatest acuteness, and the richest gifts of expression are combined with an energy and practical ability which excite his astonishment; but adds, in his half-mocking way, that he is a genuine son of the new era, without even the pretence of modesty or self-denial, who will assert and enjoy himself in the world of realities. At Berlin, Lassalle became a favourite in some of the most distinguished circles; even the veteran Humboldt was fascinated by him, and used to call him the Wunderkind.

Here it was also, early in 1846, that he met the lady with whom his life was to be associated in so striking a way, the Countess Hatzfeldt. She had been separated from her husband for many years, and was at feud with him on questions of property and the custody of their children. With characteristic energy Lassalle adopted the cause of the countess, whom he believed to have been outrageously wronged, made a special study of law, and, after bringing the case before thirty-six tribunals, reduced the powerful count to a compromise on terms most favourable to his client.

The process, which lasted eight years, gave rise to not a little scandal, especially that of the Cassettengeschichte. This ‘affair of the casket’ arose out of an attempt by the countess’s friends to get possession of a bond for a large life-annuity settled by the count on his mistress, a Baroness Meyendorf, to the prejudice of the countess and her children. At the instigation of Lassalle, two of his comrades succeeded in carrying off a casket, which was supposed to contain the document in question (but which really contained her jewels), from the baroness’s room at a hotel in Cologne. They were prosecuted for theft, one of them being condemned to six months’ imprisonment. Lassalle himself was accused of moral complicity, but was acquitted on appeal.

His intimate relations with the countess, which continued till the end, certainly did not tend to improve Lassalle’s position in German society. Rightly or wrongly, people had an unfavourable impression of him, as of an adventurer. Here we can but say that he claimed to act from the noblest motives; in the individual lot and suffering of the countess he saw the social misery of the time reflected, and his assertion of her cause was a moral insurrection against it. While the case was pending, he gave the countess a share of his allowance from his father; and after it was won, he received according to agreement, from the now ample resources of the lady, an annual income of four thousand thalers (£600). Added to his own private means, this sum placed the finances of Lassalle on a sure footing for the rest of his life. His conduct was a mixture of chivalry and business, which every one must judge for himself. It was certainly not in accordance with the conventionalities, but for these Lassalle never entertained much respect.

In 1848 Lassalle attached himself to the group of men, Karl Marx, Engels, Freiligrath, and others, who in the Rhine country represented the socialistic and extreme democratic side of the revolution, and whose organ was the New Rhenish Gazette. But the activity of Lassalle was only local and subordinate. He was, however, condemned to six months’ imprisonment for resisting the authorities at Dusseldorf. On that occasion Lassalle prepared the first of those speeches which made so great an impression on the men of his time; but it was not delivered. It contains the first important statement of his social and political opinions. ‘I will always joyfully confess,’ he said, ‘that from inner conviction I am a decided adherent of the Social Democratic republic.’

Till 1858 Lassalle resided mostly in the Rhine country, prosecuting the suit of his friend the countess, and afterwards completing his work on Heracleitus, which was published in that year. He was not allowed to live in Berlin because of his connection with the disturbances of 1848. In 1859 he returned to the capital disguised as a carter, and finally, through the influence of Humboldt with the king, received permission to remain.

In the same year he published a remarkable pamphlet on The Italian War and the Mission of Prussia, in which he came forward to warn his countrymen against going to the rescue of Austria in her war with France. He argued that if France drove Austria out of Italy she might annex Savoy, but could not prevent the restoration of Italian unity under Victor Emmanuel. France was doing the work of Germany by weakening Austria, the great cause of German disunion and weakness; Prussia should form an alliance with France in order to drive out Austria and make herself supreme in Germany. After their realisation by Bismarck, these ideas have become sufficiently commonplace; but they were nowise obvious when thus published by Lassalle. In this, as in other matters, he showed that he possessed both the insight and foresight of a statesman.

In the course of the Hatzfeldt suit Lassalle had acquired no little knowledge of law, which proved serviceable to him in the great work, System of Acquired Rights, published in 1861. The book professes to be, and in a great measure is, an application of the historical method to legal ideas and institutions; but it is largely dominated also by abstract conceptions, which are not really drawn from history, but read into it. The results of his investigation are sufficiently revolutionary; in the legal sphere they go even farther than his socialistic writings in the economic and political. But with one important exception he made no attempt to base his socialistic agitation on his System of Acquired Rights; it simply remained a learned work.