Ferdinand Lassalle As a Social Reformer

220 Pages·1893·5.623 MB·English

by  Edward Bernstein

Ferdinand Lassalle
as a Social Reformer
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FERDINAND LASSALLE
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FERDINAND LASSALLE
AS A SOCIAL REFORMER
EDWARD BERNSTEIN
FORMERLYEDITOR OF DER SOZIAL DEMOCRAT.
TRANSLATED BY ELEANOR MARXAVELING
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO
NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
:
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PREFACE.
The short account of Lassalle here submitted to the
English reader is, with some slight alterations, a transla-
tion of my Introduction to the complete edition of Las-
salle's Speeches and Works. I was asked to edit these by
the executive of the German Social-Democratic Party of
Germany in the spring of 1891. In the German this In-
troduction bears the title Ferdinand Lassalle and his
Significance in the History ofSocial-Democracy. I did not
adopt the same title for the English edition in order to
avoid confusion between my own and other works already
published in England under similar titles. Indeed, this
sketch is not intended to competewith elaborate workslike
that of Mr. W. H. Dawson. It is intended rather to act as
a complement to Mr. Dawson's book and other works
dealing with Lassalle and German Social-Democracy. For
a full treatment ofthe subject it is far too incomplete, and
its constituent parts are of purpose unequally balanced.
Thus many important statements and criticisms were in
the original reserved for the special introductions to the
variousworks of Lassalle,and these I havenot incorporated
in the English volume. But, on the other hand, it deals
with questions almost ignored by other writers, and after I
have had access to documents hitherto unknown to them.
Further, it is written at the same time from a Social-
Democratic and a critical standpoint, whilst other critics of
Lassalle have mostly been more or less opposed to Social-
Democracy, or, in the case of Socialists who have written
about him, they either did not criticise him at all, or criti-
cised only his acts, and did not enter into any analysis of
—
vi Preface.
his theories. But such treatment of the subject is indis-
pensable now that Lassalle is being exploited by the
enemies ofSocialism against Social-Democracy.
It is undeniable that Socialism in Germany to-day has
no resemblance to the special characteristics of Ferdinand
Lassalle's Socialism. The more this became evident, the
more Lassalle became the hero of the middle-class littera-
teur, and was held up as the "good" Socialist, as opposed
by the middle-class politician to the "bad" Social-Demo-
crats ofto-day. Was he not a nationalpatriot, in contrast
totheunpatrioticinternationalists, destituteof"fatherland "
—
the followers of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels ?
Was henot a real statesman, as compared with these mere
demagogues or abstract theorists ? Had he not, at least, a
scheme, even though it may have been wrong, for bringing
about the peaceful socialisation ofsociety,whilst these men
do nothing but draw bills on a future revolution ?
With all this cant we have had to deal in Germany, and
that it has been imported into England is only too evident.
This is why I have allowed passages dealing with this
point to remain unabridged in the translation.
The reader will at once see that my standpoint is that of
Karl Marx and Fr. Engels, whose doctrines are to-day ac-
—
ceptedbytheSocialist Parties with some fewexceptions
allovertheworld. Many misrepresentations and misunder-
standings have been circulated as to the relation of Fer-
dinand Lassalle's Socialism to these doctrines, and as to
his personal relations with the author of Das Kapital. To
some Lassalle is a disciple of Marx and Engels, who only
differed from them on the question of productive co-opera-
tive associations ; to others he is an original Socialist
thinker, who merely took a few details of his criticism
of capitalist production from Marx. Neither view holds