LASSALLE, FERDINAND (1825-1864), German So cialist, of Jewish extraction, was born at Breslau on April 11, 1825. He took a keen interest in public affairs, and early resolved to devote himself to the realization of democratic liberty ; but after studying at Berlin university, where his brilliance gained for him the name of Das Wunderkind, he joined the group of Young Hegelians, and settled down to a scholastic career. His meeting with the Countess Sophie von Hatzfeldt in 1846, however, plunged him into a life of activity, and his prosecution of her suit through out the next II years, in a trial for separation and alimony against her husband, Edmund von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg, constitutes one of the most dramatic episodes in Lassalle's meteoric career. His only other entrance into public life during this earlier period was in 1848, when he suffered imprisonment for his revolutionary activities. For the most part these years were spent in study and the completion of his three most famous works. In 1857, he pub lished Die Philosophie Herakleitos dargestellt, a study of Hera clitus from the Hegelian point of view; this was followed in 1859 by a pamphlet on The Italian War and Prussia's Mission, in which Bismarck's policy is foreshadowed; while in 1861 appeared Die System des erworbenen Rechts, a brilliant treatise on property. In the following year began the short-lived activity which was to give Lassalle an historical significance. At that time, when political life in Germany was paralysed by the opposition of the Prussian Liberals to Bismarck's constitutional changes, Lassalle came forward as the antagonist of both Government and Opposi tion. Seeing an opportunity to realize his youthful ideals, and to fight for democracy, he called on the German workers to form their own party and to concentrate on their political and eco nomic emancipation. The two main points in his programme were universal suffrage and a form of State Socialism, but he regarded the latter as the more important, the former being merely a means to that end. For two and a half years he struggled to arouse the workers from their apathy, and by means of pamphlets and speeches, succeeded in inflaming the country, particularly in the .Rhineland area, where he was received with enthusiasm. His most important publications at this time were The Working Man's Programme (1862), and The Open Letter (1863), a succinct statement of the principles which should guide the workers in their establishment of a new era. In 1863, Lassalle founded the Allge meiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, the embryo of the German So cial Democratic Party, a permanent memento of his work.
He died on Aug. 31, 1864, from a wound received in a duel at Carouge, Geneva. The duel arose from a love affair, which is familiar to English readers from its treatment by George Mere dith in the Tragic Comedians. Although a champion of the
working classes, Lassalle was a great figure in society. In the summer of 1864 he met in Switzerland Fraulein von Donniges, for whom he had had earlier in Berlin a passion which was fully reciprocated. She was the daughter of the Bavarian envoy at Geneva, who would not hear of Lassalle as a suitor, and she was married, under pressure, to the Wallachian Count von Racowitza. Thereupon Lassalle challenged the father and the husband. The challenge was accepted by Racowitza, and the duel proved fatal.
Lassalle left no clear exposition of his theories, and it was only after his death that an examination of his letters and writings revealed his capacity both as a thinker and an agitator. During his years of study (1848-62), he worked out his philosophy of life, but as a propagandist he subordinated his philosophy to the needs of the moment. His investigations into the history of man led him to conceive of three stages of development : the ancient and feudal, which, through the subjection of the labourer, sought soli darity without freedom ; the reign of capital and the middle classes, established in 1789, which sought freedom by destroying solidar ity; and the new era, beginning in 1848, which would reconcile both by the introduction of the principle of association. But by association, Lassalle meant productive associations of working men under the benevolent guidance of the State, not the co operative institutions which were then being organized by Schulze Delitzsch, to which he was bitterly opposed.
But if, as a propagandist, Lassalle merely accepted the orthodox political economy, as a thinker he made several valuable contri butions to economic theory. His explanation of trade cycles, or, as he called them, conjunctures, though incomplete, is yet worthy of consideration ; while his discussion of property, which he main tained is an historical category, and of capital, was developed by later socialist writers. It must be admitted, however, that Las salle's greatest work is in the political sphere, and it is as a propagandist who successfully placed a socialist programme be fore the German workers, and who succeeded in forming the first effective socialist party, that he will chiefly be remembered.
Lassalle's most important works, apart from those already men tioned are : fiber V erfassungswesen; Arbeiterprogramm; Zur Ar beiterfrage; Arbeiterbesebuch; Herr Bastiat-Schulze von De litzsch, oder Kapital and Arbeit. His Collected Works appeared at Leipzig ( 899—I 90 ) The best biography of Lassalle is H. Oncken's Lassalle (Stuttgart, 1904) ; another excellent work on his life and writings is George