Drawing on Marx's doctrines but without Marx's approval, he awakened German workers to class consciousness and to the need to struggle for their rights. After his premature death Lassalle became a legend as a larger-than-life personality with an extraordinary ability to give his all to a cause and to fill the masses with revolutionary fervor. He wrote scholarly volumes and a play, but it was his political writings, mostly long, fervent speeches published as pamphlets, which made a mark: they inspired generations of socialists despite, or because of, the suspicion with which he was regarded by orthodox Marxists. His
Arbeiterprogramm (1863; translated as
The Working Men's Programme, 1884) was an important historical document and remains a classic of political literature.
Ferdinand Johann Gottlieb Lassal (he adopted the more aristocratic spelling Lassalle later) was born in Breslau, Silesia (now Wroclaw, Poland), on 11 April 1825 into a relatively prosperous Jewish family--his father, Heyman Lassal, was a silk merchant--assimilated into German culture in almost all ways but religious belief and observance. The boy soon learned of anti-Semitic prejudice and violence and was determined to stand up for the rights of his people, whose passivity he despised.
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