public intellectuals (e.g.,NapoleonBonaparteasrevolutionary-dictator,Frie-
drich Schiller as revolutionary-poet). In fact,the Schiller cult was equallypro-
nounced among Social Democrats and members of the bourgeoisie, reached
new height duringthe centennial of his death in 1905,and acquired even
more frenzied qualities duringthe ThirdReich asacult of revolutionarygenius.
Lassallewasone of the first to takeadvantage of the emotionalization of pol-
itics that fueled the parallel projects of nation and democracy when he visited
the hero of therisorgimento,GiuseppeGaribaldi, and laterwroteabook about
theItalianWarofIndependence.However,Lassalle could not have known
how Garibaldi’srole asacharismatic leader in the fight for national unification
and his own posthumous celebrity status would be used in thevery different
constellations of nationalism, socialism, and the cultureindustry emerging in
the late nineteenth century.Seen in this light,the Lassalle cult had much in com-
mon with the frenzied fandom known as Lisztomania and the mass adoration
showered on the“divine Sarah”(i.e.,Bernhardt). All three celebrities promised
to compensate for the privatization ofreligion in the ageofsecularization and
profoundlychanged thedynamics of aesthetic experience and public emotion,
not least by making bothavailable to the process of commodification. In the fic-
tional worlds inhabited by Lassalle and his lovers and followers,sexuality
henceforth providedamodel of political attraction, and romancebecameacon-
duit to new social and socialist commitments.Not surprisingly,Wilhelmine-era
Social Democrats, despite their attacks on the so-called trash and smut produced
by the cultureindustry,depended heavily on massculturalpractices in imagin-
ingasimultaneouslysocialist and populist politics of identification.
Beingacelebritymeans being recognizable.Forthat reason, it makes sense
to return to the recognition scenes discussed earlier and consider in greater de-
tail the overdetermined function of Lassalle’sface in thegendered andracialized
scenarios of political mobilization. Most literary treatments contain one or more
scenes in which he is recognized by the workers or,astheir stand-in,abeautiful
woman. All involvesome form of personal introduction (“IamLassalle”)fol-
lowed by externalverification (“Youare Lassalle”). Crossingliterarygenres
and styles,this dialogic structure not onlyfacilitates the semiotic slippagebe-
tween romanceand revolution that immortalizesLassalle asaromantic revolu-
tionary,italso keepsalive the dream ofrevolution, even if onlyinterms of reli-
gious faith and romantic love. Undoubtedly, the resultantsubject positions
depend on the repeated reenactment of the conditions that produce the need
for the socialist redeemer in the first place. Narrative motivation and dramatic
tension are sustained through individual stories of exploitation and oppression
that can onlybemade right through the promise of salvation–that is, deliver-
ance from the evils of capitalism. The choice of religious conversion and erotic
134 Chapter 6