Ferdinand Lassalle

Ferdinand Lassalle (German: [laˈsal]; 11

April 1825 – 31 August 1864) was a
Prussian-German jurist, philosopher,
socialist and political activist best
remembered as the initiator of the social
democratic movement in Germany.[1]
“Lassalle was the first man in Germany,
the first in Europe, who succeeded in
organising a party of socialist action”,[2]
or, as Rosa Luxemburg put it: “Lassalle
managed to wrestle from history in two
years of flaming agitation what needed
many decades to come about.”[3] As
agitator he coined the terms night-
watchman state and iron law of wages.[4]

Biography

Early life …

Lassalle was born Ferdinand Johann

Gottlieb Lassal on 11 April 1825 in
Breslau, Silesia (now Wrocław, Poland).
His father Heyman Lassal was a Jewish
silk merchant and intended his son for a
business career, sending him to the
commercial school at Leipzig. However,
Lassalle soon transferred to university,
studying first in the University of Breslau
and later at the
Ferdinand
University of
Lassalle
Berlin. There,
Lassalle studied
philology and
philosophy and
became a devotee
of the
philosophical
Lassalle in 1860
system of Georg
Hegel. Lassalle Born Ferdinand

changed his name Johann

Gottlieb
at a young age to
Lassal
disassociate
11 April
himself from
1825
Judaism.[5] Breslau,
Province
Lassalle passed of Silesia,
his university Kingdom

examinations with of
Prussia
distinction in 1845
(now
and thereafter
Wrocław,
traveled to Paris to
Poland)
write a book on
Heraclitus.[6]
There, Lassalle Died 31 August

met the poet 1864

(aged 39)
Heinrich Heine,
Carouge,
who wrote of his
Switzerland
intense young
Resting Old
friend in 1846: "I
place Jewish
have found in no
Cemetery,
one so much
Wrocław
passion and
clearness of Nationality German
Political General
intellect united in party German
action. You have Workers'
good right to be Association
audacious – we
Philosophy career
others only usurp
this divine right, Era 19th-
this heavenly century
privilege".[7] philosophy

Region Western
Back in Berlin to
philosophy,
work on his book, German
Lassalle met philosophy
Countess Sophie School Social
von Hatzfeldt, a democracy
woman in her early Main Political
40s who had been interests
philosophy,
separated from her economics,
husband of many history
Notable Iron law of
years and who had ideas
wages,
an ongoing dispute Lassallism
with him regarding
Signature
the disposition of
the couple's
property. Lassalle
volunteered himself to her cause and the
offer was readily accepted.[8] Lassalle
first challenged her husband to a duel,
but his challenge was rejected.[8]

An eight-year legal battle followed in

which Lassalle defended Countess von
Hatzfeldt's interests in 36 different
courtrooms.[9] Ultimately, a settlement
was made in her favor, bringing her a
substantial fortune. In her gratitude, she
agreed to pay Lassalle an annual income
of 5,000 thalers (about £750) for the rest
of his life.[10]

1848 Revolution and its aftermath …

Lassalle was a committed socialist from

an early age. During the German
Revolutions of 1848, he spoke at public
meetings in favor of the revolutionary-
democratic cause and urged the citizens
of Düsseldorf to prepare themselves for
armed resistance in advance of the
violence that was expected after the
decision of the Prussian government to
dissolve the National Assembly.[11]
Lassalle was subsequently arrested for
his involvement in this activity and he
was charged with inciting armed
opposition to the state.[12]

Although Lassalle was acquitted of this

serious charge, he was kept in prison
until he could be tried on a lesser charge
of inciting resistance against public
officials.[13] He was convicted of this
lesser charge and the 23-year-old
Lassalle served a sentence of six months
in prison.[13]

Banned from residence in Berlin in the

aftermath of his conviction, Lassalle
moved to the Rhineland, where he
continued to pursue the lawsuit of the
Countess von Hatzfeldt (settled in 1854)
and finished his work on the philosophy
of Heraclitus, (completed in 1857 and
published in two volumes the following
year).[14] Reaction to the book was mixed
as some declared the work seminal while
others, including Karl Marx, considered it
a mere recitation of Hegelian axioms.[15]
However, even the book's detractors had
to admire the scope of the work and the
publication gave Lassalle lasting status
among German intellectuals.[15]

During this period, Lassalle was not

politically active, although he remained
interested in labor affairs. He left his
legal practice and philosophy in favor of
drama, authoring a play called Franz von
Sickingen, a Historical Tragedy.[16] Sent
anonymously to the Royal Theatre, the
play was rejected by a manager, causing
Lassalle to publish it under his own name
in 1859.[16] The work was characterized
by Edward Bernstein, an early and
sympathetic biographer, as awkward and
prone to excessive oratory, unsuited for
the stage despite several effective
scenes.[16]

Lasalle wanted to live in Berlin and

despite the ban in 1859 made his return
disguised as a wagon driver.[17] Lassalle
appealed to his friend, the aging scholar
Alexander von Humboldt, to intercede on
his behalf before the king to rescind the
ban and allow his return.[17] The appeal
was successful and Lassalle was again
officially allowed to live in the Prussian
capital.[17]

Lassalle avoided revolutionary activity for

several years thereafter. [17] He became a
political commentator and wrote a short
book on the war in Italy in which he
warned Prussia against rushing to the aid
of the Austrian Empire in its war with
France. Lassalle followed this with a
larger work on legal theory, published in
two volumes in 1861 as Das System der
erworbenen Rechte (The System of
Acquired Rights).[18] According to
Bernstein, Lassalle wanted the book "to
establish a legal and scientific principle
which shall once for all determine under
what circumstances, and how far laws
may be retroactive without violating the
idea of right itself"; that is, determining
the circumstances under which laws may
be made retroactive when they come into
conflict with previously established
laws.[19]

Political activism …
Photo of Ferdinand Lassalle on a carte de visite

Only briefly engaged in the revolutionary

struggle during 1848, Lassalle reentered
public politics in 1862, motivated by a
constitutional struggle in Prussia.[18] King
Wilhelm I, who became king on 2 January
1861, had repeatedly clashed with the
liberal Chamber of Deputies, resulting in
multiple dissolutions of the Diet.[18] As a
recognized legal scholar, Lassalle was
asked to make public addresses dealing
with the nature of the constitution and its
relationship to the social forces within
society.[20]

Lassalle replied by giving a speech

wherein he set out that constitutional
matters are merely questions of power.
The liberal press was enraged by his
speech. Lassalle reacted by holding the
same lecture twice again.[21]

In another speech, delivered in Berlin on

12 April 1862, later known as the
Workers' Program, Lassalle assigned
moral primacy in society to the working
class over the bourgeosie, an assertion
regarded as dangerous by the Prussian
censorship.[22] The entire print run of
3,000 copies of the pamphlet of
Lassalle's speech was seized by the
authorities, who issued a legal charge
against Lassalle for allegedly
endangering the public peace.[22]

Lassalle was brought to trial to answer

this accusation in Berlin on 16 January
1863.[22] Lawsuits would continue to
interfere with his political activity for the
rest of his life. After a widely publicized
trial at which he presented his own
defense, Lassalle was convicted of the
charges levied against him, sentenced to
four months' imprisonment and
assessed the costs of the trial.[23] This
term was later replaced by a fine upon
appeal.[23]

Foundation of the socialist party …

On 22 october 1862, a few worker

delegates that had visited London that
had come back with left-wing ideas,
published an open letter about the
political and economic situation of the
working class. Lassalle was delighted to
find workers whose ideas went even
further than the socialist statements
which he made in public, and replied with
his own open letter in which he called for
a workers party, independent of the
liberal German Progress Party.[24]

By arguing that the working class had

nothing to gain from the liberal party, he
was in a state of war with the liberal
party and newspapers for the next
months until his death.[25] Lassalle soon
began a new career as a political agitator,
traveling around Germany, giving
speeches and writing pamphlets in an
attempt to organise and rouse the
working class. As he tried to make the
working class break with the liberals, this
would eventually led to an alliance with
the reactionary Prince Bismarck.
In 1864, Lassalle made several secret
appeals to Bismarck, later the main
proponent of the Anti-Socialist Laws, in
favor of the immediate implementation
of progressive policies such as universal
suffrage. He also asked for the
protection of his own publications from
police seizure.[26] Lassalle attempted to
make common cause with the
conservative Bismarck in his book Herr
Basitat-Schulze, declaring that he "must
inform Your Excellency that this work will
bring about the utter destruction of
Liberals and the whole Progressive
bourgeoisie".[27] Lassalle asked Bismarck
to exert his influence at the Ministry of
Justice to prevent the seizure of the
book.[27] The book subsequently
appeared without police interference, but
Bismarck, occupied with other matters,
refused a request by Lassalle for another
meeting and no further direct contacts
between the pair were made.[28]

Élie Halévy would later write on this

situation:

Lassalle was the first man in

Germany, the first in Europe,
who succeeded in organising a
party of socialist action. Yet he
viewed the emerging bourgeois
parties as more inimical to the
working class than the
aristocracy and hence he
supported universal manhood
suffrage at a time when the
liberals preferred a limited,
property-based suffrage which
excluded the working class and
enhanced the middle classes.
This created a strange alliance
between Lassalle and
Bismarck. When in 1866
Bismarck founded the
Confederation of Northern
Germany on a basis of
universal suffrage, he was
 acting on advice which came
directly from Lassalle. And I
am convinced that after 1878,
when he began to practise
"State Socialism" and
"Christian Socialism" and
"Monarchial Socialism," he had
not forgotten what he had
learnt from the socialist
leader.[1]

The only stated purpose of the his party

was the winning of equal, universal and
direct suffrage by peaceful and legal
means.[29]
Personality …

Lassalle was remembered by

biographers as a contradictory
personality, earnestly committed to the
benefit of the masses, but driven by
personal ambition and possessing
extreme vanity. Indeed, one early
biographer declared:

[His vanity] was one of the

most striking, though at the
same time most harmless
traits of his character. His
vanity was of the kind that
neither hurts nor offends.
Vanity seemed natural to him
as it is to the peacock, and if he
had been less vain he would
have been less interesting.
Even in his manhood, when at
the head of a popular
agitation, he was excessively
fond of dressing well. He
appeared both on the platform
and in the Court of Law attired
like a fop. He was in the habit,
too, of comparing himself with
great men. Now it was
Socrates, now Luther, or
Robespierre, or Cobden, or Sir
 Robert Peel, and once he found
his parallel by going to Faust.
Heine told him that he had
good reason to be proud of his
attainments, and Lassalle took
Heine at his word.[30]

Bertrand Russell said about Lassalle: "No

one has ever understood the power of
agitation and organisation better than
Lassalle … The secret of his influence lay
in his overpowering and imperious will, in
his impatience of the passive endurance
of evil, and in his absolute confidence in
his own power. His whole character is
that of an epicurean god, unwittingly
become man, awakening suddenly to the
existence of evil, and finding with
amazement that his will is not
omnipotent to set it right."[31]

Death and legacy …

Lassalle's tomb in Breslau, now the Old Jewish

Cemetery, Wrocław
In Rigi Kaltbad, Lassalle met a young
woman named Helene von Dönniges and
during the summer of 1864 they decided
to marry. She was the daughter of an
historian then living in Geneva, who
wanted nothing to do with Lassalle. The
father prevented Helene from seeing him
and Lassalle protested vehemently.
Apparently under duress, she soon
renounced Lassalle in favour of another
suitor, a Wallachian prince named Iancu
Racoviță, to whom she had previously
been betrothed.[32]

Lassalle sent dueling challenges both to

Helene's father von Dönniges and to
Racoviță, who accepted. Lassalle had no
experience in the use of pistols and only
one day to exercise. At the Carouge, a
suburb of Geneva, a duel was held on the
morning of 28 August. Lassalle was shot
in the abdomen by Racoviță and died
three days later on 31 August 1864.[32]

At the time of his death, Lassalle's

political party had 4,610 members and no
detailed political program.[29] The ADAV
continued after his death, going on to
help establish the Social Democratic
Party of Germany in 1875.

Ferdinand Lassalle is buried in Breslau

(now Wrocław, Poland), in the old Jewish
cemetery.
Political relations

Relations with Marx …

Lassalle and Marx became friends during

the Revolutions of 1848. When the
protests were crushed, Lassalle was
imprisoned and Marx fled Germany. They
continued correspondence through
letters, and would not meet again until
1861. In the meantime Marx grew to
distrust Lassalle under influence of
Engels, who had never much sympathy
for him. Marx often responded to
Lassalle's warm letters by mirroring this
tone, but in his letters to Engels he
expressed antipathy towards Lassalle,
including anti-Semitic and racist
language. Lassalle continued to believe
that their friendship was genuine until at
least 1862.[33]

The difference in character between the

two men, presented itself in a clear
manner when they had to defend
themselves for their support of 1848
revolutions, in front of a jury:[34]

Marx refrains from all

oratorical flourish; he goes
straight to the point, in simple
and terse language; sentence
by sentence he develops
incisively, and with ruthless
logic, his own standpoint, and,
without any peroration, ends
with a summary of the political
situation. Anyone would think
that Marx’ own personality
was in no wise concerned, and
that his only business was to
deliver a political lecture to the
jury. Lassalle’s peroration, on
the other hand, lasts almost
from beginning to end; he
exhausts himself in images –
often very beautiful – and
superlatives. It is all sentiment,
and whether he refers to the
 cause he represented or to
himself, he never speaks to the
jury, but to the gallery, to an
imaginary mass meeting, and
after declaring a vengeance
that should be “as
tremendous” as “the insult
offered the people,” he ended
with a recitation from
Schiller’s Tell.

— Eduard Bernstein

Also on theoretical and political matters,

their opinions diverged. Indeed, Marx's
essay Critique of the Gotha Program is
written in part as a reaction to Lassalle's
ideas within the socialist party of
Germany. Lassalle was a German patriot,
and supported Prussia in its quest for
German unification. In February 1864,
Lassalle wrote to Engels that despite
being a republican since infancy, "I have
come to the conviction that nothing
could have a greater future or a more
beneficent role than the monarchy, if it
could only make up its mind to become a
social monarchy. In that case I would
passionately bear its banner, and the
constitutional theories would be quickly
enough thrown into the lumber room".[35]
Marx was international,
Lassalle was national. Marx
regards social equivalence as
only feasible in his Social
Democratic Republic, from
which religion was banned,
and his idea is a federation of
European Republics. Lassalle
saw that the European
nationalities were still firmly
established, that national ideas
were a factor of supreme
importance, and that religion
would long retain an influence
which no one could afford to
 neglect, and he thought it
possible, even under existing
political circumstances, to give
the initial impulse to a
movement for transforming
social conditions.[36]

— Georg Morris Brandes

Relations with Bismarck …

Minister President of Prussia Otto von Bismarck,
with whom Lassalle started political relations

On 11 May 1863, Otto von Bismarck,

Minister President of Prussia, wrote a
letter to Lassalle. This letter was
delivered and the two met face to face
within 48 hours.[37] This was the first of
several such meetings, during which
Bismarck and Lassalle freely exchanged
views on matters of common concern.
This Bismarck-Lassalle correspondence
was not made public until 1927 and was
therefore not mentioned by earlier
biographers.[37]
In September 1878, Bismarck was
pressed by Social Democratic
representative August Bebel in the
Reichstag to provide details about his
past relationship with Lassalle,
prompting the Chancellor to make the
following statement:

I saw him, and since my first

conversation I have never
regretted doing so. [...] I saw
him perhaps three or four
times altogether. There was
never the possibility of our
talks taking the form of
political negotiations. What
could Lassalle have offered
me? He had nothing behind
him. [...] But he attracted me as
an individual. He was one of
the most intelligent and likable
men I had ever come across.
He was very ambitious and by
no means a republican. He was
very much a nationalist and a
monarchist. His ideal was the
German Empire, and here was
our point of contact. As I have
said he was ambitious, on a
large scale, and there is
perhaps room for doubt as to
 whether, in his eyes, the
German Empire ultimately
entailed the Hohenzollern or
the Lassalle dynasty. [...] Our
talks lasted for hours and I
was always sorry when they
came to an end.[38]

Bernstein noted that it is highly unlikely

that Bismarck was telling the truth about
their relation.[39]

Political ideas …

Owing to his premature death by a duel

at age 39, just two years after his serious
entry into German radical politics,
Lassalle's actual contributions to
socialist theory are modest. He was
remembered by Richard T. Ely, one of the
earliest serious scholars of international
socialism, as a popularizer of the ideas
of others rather than an innovator:

Lassalle's writings did not

advance materially the theory
of social democracy. He drew
from Rodbertus and Marx in
his economic writings, but he
clothed their thoughts in such
manner as to enable ordinary
laborers to understand them,
and this they never could have
done without his help. [...]
Lassalle's speeches and
pamphlets were eloquent
sermons on texts taken from
Marx. Lassalle gave to
Ricardo's law of wages the
designation the iron law of
wages, and expounded to the
laborers its full significance.
[...] Laborers were told that
this law could be overthrown
only by the abolition of the
wages system. How Lassalle
really thought this was to be
 accomplished is not so
evident.[40]

State …

In contrast with Marx and his adherents,

Lassalle rejected the idea that the state
was a class-based power structure with
the function of preserving existing class
relations and destined to wither away in a
future classless society. Instead,
Lassalle considered the state as an
independent entity, an instrument of
justice essential for the achievement of
the socialist program.[41]
Iron law of wages …

Lassalle accepted the idea first posited

by the classical economist David Ricardo
that wage rates in the long term tended
towards the minimum level necessary to
sustain the life of the worker and to
provide for his reproduction. In accord
with the law of rent, Lasalle coined his
own iron law of wages. Lassalle argued
that individual measures of self-help by
wage workers were destined to failure
and that only producers' cooperatives
established with the financial aid of the
state would make economic
improvement of the workers' lives
possible.[42] From this, it followed that
the political action of the workers to
capture the power of the state was
paramount and the organization of trade
unions to struggle for ephemeral wage
improvements is more or less a diversion
from the primary struggle.

Philosophy …

Lassalle considered Johann Gottlieb

Fichte as "one of the mightiest thinkers
of all peoples and ages", praising Fichte's
Addresses to the German Nation in a May
1862 speech as "one of the mightiest
monuments of fame which our people
possesses, and which, in depth and
power, far surpass everything of this sort
which has been handed down to us from
the literature of all time and peoples".[43]

Works …

German editions …

Die Philosophie Herakleitos des

Dunklen von Ephesos. Vol. 1 | Vol. 2
(The Philosophy of Heraclitus the Dark
Philosopher of Ephesus) Berlin: Franz
Duncker, 1858.
Der italienische Krieg und die Aufgabe
Preussens: eine Stimme aus der
Demokratie (The Italian War and the
Tasks of Prussia: A Voice of
Democracy). Berlin: Franz Duncker,
1859.
Das System der erworbenen Rechte
(The System of Acquired Rights). Two
volumes. Leipzig: 1861.
Über Verfassungswesen: zwei Vorträge
und ein offenes Sendschreiben (On
Constitutional Systems: Two Lectures
and an Open Letter). Berlin: 1862.
Offenes Antwortschreiben an das
Zentralkomitee zur Berufung eines
Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeiter-
Kongresses zu Leipzig (Open Letter
Answering the Central Committee on
the Convening of a General German
Workers' Congress in Leipzig). Zürich:
Meyer and Zeller, 1863.
Zur Arbeiterfrage: Lassalle's Rede bei
der am 16. April in Leipzig
abgehaltenen Arbeiterversammlung
nebst Briefen der Herren Professoren
Wuttke und Dr. Lothar Bucher. (On the
Labor Problem: Lassalle's Speech on
the 16th of April [1863] at a Leipzig
Workers' Meeting, Together with the
Letters of Professor Wuttke and Dr.
Lothar Bucher). Leipzig: 1863.
Herr Bastiat-Schulze von Delitzsch, der
ökonomische Julian, oder Kapital und
Arbeit (Mr. Bastiat-Schulze von
Delitzsch, the Economic Julian, or,
 Capital and Labour). Berlin: Reinhold
Schlingmann, 1864.
Reden und Schriften (Speeches and
Writings). In three volumes. New York:
Wolff and Höhne, n.d. [1883].
Gesammelte Reden und Schriften
(Collected Speeches and Writings). In
12 volumes. Berlin: P. Cassirer, 1919–
1920.
vol. 1 | vol. 2 | vol. 3 | vol. 4 |
vol. 5 | vol. 6 | vol. 7 | vol. 8 |
vol. 9 | vol. 10 | vol. 11 | vol. 12

English translations …

The Working Man's Programme: An

Address. Edward Peters, trans.
London: The Modern Press, 1884.
What is Capital? F. Keddell, trans. New
York: New York Labor News Co., 1900.
Lassalle's Open Letter to the National
Labor Association of Germany. John
Ehmann and Fred Bader, trans. New
York: International Library Publishing,
1901. Originally published in US in
1879.
Franz von Sickingen: A Tragedy in Five
Acts. Daniel DeLeon, trans. New York:
New York Labor News, 1904.
Voices of Revolt, Volume 3: Speeches
of Ferdinand Lassalle with a
Biographical Sketch. Introduction by
Jakob Altmaier. New York:
International Publishers, 1927.
See also …

Friedrich Engels, German

contemporary who explicitly
references Lassalle in his preface to
the 1890 German edition of The
Communist Manifesto
General German Workers' Association
International Workingmen's
Association
Iron law of wages
Lassallism
Night-watchman state
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French
contemporary anarchist theorist

Notes …
1. Halévy, Élie; Wallas, May, "The Age of
Tyrannies", Economica, 8 (29): 77–
93, doi:10.2307/2549522 ,
JSTOR 2549522 .
2. Shlomo (2019). Karl Marx:
Philosophy and Revolution. Yale
University Press. p. 125. ISBN 978-
0300211702.
3. Luxemburg, Rosa; Lewis, Ben (1913).
"Lassalle's Legacy" . Marxists.org.
18. Die Gleichheit. pp. 275–77.
4. Marian Sawer, The Ethical State?:
Social Liberalism in Australia,
Melbourne University Publishing,
2003, p. 87 , ISBN 0-522-85082-0,
ISBN 978-0-522-85082-6
 5. Dawson 1891, pp. 114–116.
6. Dawson 1891, p. 116.
7. Dawson 1891, p. 115.
8. Dawson 1891, p. 117.
9. Dawson 1891, p. 118.
10. Dawson 1891, pp. 118–9.
11. Dawson 1891, p. 120.
12. Dawson 1891, pp. 120–1.
13. Dawson 1891, p. 121.
14. Dawson 1891, p. 123.
15. Bernstein 1893, p. 29.
16. Bernstein 1893, p. 33.
17. Dawson 1891, p. 125.
18. Dawson 1891, p. 127.
19. Bernstein 1893, p. 80.
20. Dawson 1891, p. 128.
21. Russell, Bertrand (1896). German
Social Democracy . London, New
York and Bombay. pp. 52–53.
22. Dawson 1891, p. 129.
23. Dawson 1891, p. 131.
24. Bernstein, Eduard. "Gesammelte
Reden und Schriften" .
25. Bernstein, Eduard. "Ferdinand
Lassalle as a social reformer" .
26. Footman 1994, pp. 193–4.
27. Footman 1994, p. 194.
28. Footman 1994, pp. 194–5.
29. Berlau 1949, p. 22.
30. Dawson 1891, pp. 189–90.
31. Russell, Bertrand (1896). German
Social Democracy . London, New
York and Bombay. p. 42.
32. Fetscher, Iring (1982), "Lassalle,
Ferdinand" , Neue Deutsche
Biographie (NDB) (in German), 13,
Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 661–
669; (full text online )
33. Mayer, Gustav. Nachgelassene Briefe
und Schriften . 3. Stuttgart-Berlin.
pp. 1–27.
34. Bernstein, Eduard. "Ferdinand
Lassalle as social reformer" .
35. Butler, p. 134.
36. Brandes, Georg Morris Cohen.
Ferdinand Lassalle . p. 190.
37. Footman 1994, p. 175.
38. Footman 1994, pp. 175–6.
39. Bernstein, Eduard. "Ferdinand
Lassalle as social reformer" .
40. Ely, Richard T (1883), French and
German Socialism in Modern Times,
New York: Harper and Brothers,
p. 191.
41. Berlau 1949, p. 21.
42. Berlau 1949, pp. 21–22.
43. Rohan Butler, The Roots of National
Socialism, 1783–1933 (London:
Faber and Faber, 1941), p. 130.
References …

Berlau, A Joseph (1949), The German

Social Democratic Party, 1914–1921,
New York: Columbia University Press.
Bernstein, Edward (1893), Ferdinand
Lassalle as a Social Reformer, London:
Swan Sonnenschein & Co.
Dawson, WH (1891), German Socialism
and Ferdinand Lassalle , London: Swan
Sonnenschein.
Footman, David (1994), The Primrose
Path: A Biography of Ferdinand
Lassalle, London: Cresset Press.
Sourcing note: an earlier incarnation
of this article incorporated text from
a publication now in the public
 domain Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911).
"Lassalle, Ferdinand"  .
Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.).
Cambridge University Press..

Further reading …

Eduard Bernstein, Ferdinand Lassalle

as a Social Reformer. Eleanor Marx
Aveling, trans. London: Swan
Sonnenschein, 1893.
William Harbutt Dawson, German
Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle.
London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1891.
David Footman, The Primrose Path: A
Biography of Ferdinand Lassalle.
London: Cresset Press, 1946.
Arno Schirokauer, Lassalle: The Power
of Illusion and the Illusion of Power.
Eden and Cedar Paul, trans. London:
George Allen and Unwin, 1931.

External links …

Wikimedia Commons has media

related to Ferdinand Lassalle.

Ferdinand Lassalle (archive), Marxists

Internet Archive
Newspaper clippings about Ferdinand
Lassalle in the 20th Century Press
Archives of the ZBW
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