describes individuals with exceptional qualities, the celebrityphenomenon de-
pends toalarge degree on public fantasies about privatelives and is sustained
by the active contribution of devotees,followers,and enthusiasts.
The notion of celebrity–and, more specifically, of posthumous celebrity–
sheds new light on the emotional functions of the Lassalle cult and its presumed
incompatibility with the collective narratives of class. The widespread preoccu-
pation with his personal life long after his death falls outside standard defini-
tions of charisma but should not bereduced to the psychological mechanisms
of masscontagion (examined in chapter 1). Moreover,belief in his individual
greatness seems entirelyatodds with the realities of working-class life and
the collective virtues promoted in socialist party programs. Instead the Lassalle
cult bearswitness to the growinginfluenceofmass culturaldiversions on the
workers’movementand the enduringappeal of emotional socialism (discussed
in chapter 3), and that despite repeated socialist campaignsagainst both phe-
nomena and their continued devaluation in the historiographyofworking-
class culture. In this chapter,these continuities will be reconstructed through
aforgottenKolportageroman(pulp novel) by Heinrich Büttner with the lengthy
titleFerdinand Lassalle, Der Helddes Volkes oder: Um Liebegetödtet! Socialer
Roman(1892, The Heroofthe People, or: Killed for Love! Social Novel) and
the sensationalist literarytreatments of Lassalle’slife and work published before
and after his death.
urations of charisma in nineteenth-century Europe, see EdwardE.Berenson and Eva Giloi, eds.,
Constructing Charisma: Celebrity,Fame, and Power in Nineteenth-CenturyEurope(NewYork: Ber-
ghahn,2010).
Ferdinand Lassalle, the First SocialistCelebrity 121