and conclude that“cult and kitsch”wereanintegralpart of socialist festivities
andmythologies.²⁶The comparison to idolatry in some of these studies, howev-
er,ignores not onlythe discursivefunction ofreligiosity in socialist massculture
but also perpetuates the denunciation of emotionstarted byAugustBebel and
others eager to leave behind the utopianism of the earlysocialistmovement.
The characterization of socialism as secularreligion indicatesthatreligious
traditions had indeedremained an important part of working-class life. Progres-
sive Catholic andLutherangroups in theWilhelmine erabecame actively in-
volved in social reform projects,and Catholic labor organizations in some
areas of the country competed openlywith Social Democratic initiatives. In un-
derstandingthe connections on the level of symbolic practices,however,we
must distinguish between religion and religiosity and consider the growingsig-
nificance of the latter asalingua franca for oppositional social movements and
alternative visions of community.Itisonlyasashared emotional and cultural
tradition that religiousreferences survivedinthe similarities between messianic
socialism and chiliastic Christianityand the reclamation ofUrchristentum(Early
Christianity) asaprecursor of socialism.²⁷
Giventhe appropriation of the habitus of religiosity by the discourses of sec-
ular humanism and socialist massculture, it would indeed be simplistictointer-
pret the religious elements of the Lassalle cult as evidence of the enduinginflu-
ence of Christianity.Faith and community since the Enlightenment had emerged
as important reference points in interrelatedstruggles for social, political, and
culturalrights that,among other things, resulted in the parallel processes of de-
mocratization and secularization. TheFrench Revolution and its aftereffects had
released the emotional attachments, which until then had concentrated on the
absoluteruler and, in the place of these stable identifications, introduced the
more elusive attachments embodied by new types of popularpoliticians and
Forreferences in chronological order,see Colberg,Die Erlösung derWelt durchFerdinand
Lassalle(see fn. 11); ArnoHerzig,“Die Lassalle-Feiern in der politischenFestkultur der frühen
deutschen Arbeiterbewegung,”inÖffentlicheFestkultur.PolitischeFeste in Deutschland von
derAufklärung bis zum ErstenWeltkrieg,ed. Dieter Düding, PeterFriedemann, and Paul
Münch (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1988), 321–333;Sebastian Prüfer,Sozialismus stattReligion. Die deut-
sche Sozialdemokratie vor der religiösen Frage1863– 1890 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht,
2002), 287–294;and FranzWalter,“Fe rdinand Lassalle. ZwischenKult und Kitsch,”inMythen,
Ikonen, Märtyrer. Sozialdemokratische Geschichten,ed. FranzWalter andFelix Butzlaff (Berlin:
Vorwärts,2013), 15–25.
ForanearlyCatholic studyonthe so-calledworkerquestion, seeWilhelm EmmanuelFrei-
herrvonKetteler,Die Arbeiterfrageund das Christentum(Mainz:Franz Kirchheim, 1864). On the
religious dimension of social movements ingeneral, see GottfriedKorff,“PolitischerHeiligen-
kult im 19.und 20.Jahrhundert,”ZeitschriftfürVolkskunde71 (1975): 202–220.
Ferdinand Lassalle, the First SocialistCelebrity 133