LASSALLE, FERDINAND. - Socialist agitator and philosopher, b. of a Jewish family at Breslau on 11 April 1825, d. at Geneva on 31 Aug. 1864 (the true name of his family was Lasel, or Lassel, which he later Frenchified during his stay in France). Through his ideological and political activity he prepared the ground in Germany for the penetration of Marxism. He studied at Berlin; he came under the influence of Hegel; subsequently he entered into relations with Karl Marx; during the agitations of 1848-49 he served several months in prison. Among his writings mention must be made first of all of the youthful Franz von Sickingen (Berlin 1859), a drama which, although it refers to the time of the Lutheran "Reformation," is pervaded by modern revolutionary aspirations. In the System der erworbenen Rechte (Leipzig 1861) socialist aspirations and Hegelian suggestions are reflected. His Arbeiter-Programm (Berlin 1862) occupies a notable place in the development of the German workers' movement and in the attempts to break the "iron law" of wages. Important, on the economic plane, is his work entitled Herr Bastiat-Schulze von Delitzsch (ibid. 1864).
Still very young, L. had struck men like Heine and Humboldt by the liveliness and precocity of his genius. Wholly taken up with economic and social problems in an age of widespread positivism and materialism, he retained certain unmistakably romantic traits: Countess Sophie Hatzfeld, whom he defended against her husband, exercised a notable intellectual and sentimental influence on him. During the war of 1859 he sympathized with the Italian Risorgimento, was anti-Austrian and, in a certain sense, a German nationalist. An advocate of universal suffrage, he was nevertheless a proud opponent of the liberals; for tactical purposes, he attempted a political rapprochement with Bismarck. Diverse and sometimes contrasting political and philosophical moments intersected in his thought which, nevertheless, must first of all be linked to the traditions of German idealism. Mehring acutely noted how the uncertainties and imprecisions of L.'s idealism constituted at one and the same time his weakness and his polemical strength.
Mondolfo thus summarized the significance of his figure and his work: "An energetic and combative spirit, he wanted to stir up masses and stir up ideas... philosophy was to provide the weapons for social struggles, theory was to be the instrument of praxis... The consistency of his work was harmed... by his having linked his studies with practical aims." A temperament very different from Marx, he nevertheless was among the first to wish for an independent proletarian party. Aspirations of the early and the later nineteenth century seemed to have met in his work in an attractive and disconcerting way.
Bibliography7 works
Wolf Giusti