the personal and the political.Eventhe salaciousgossip about his privatelife, by
validatingthe power of emotions, helped to strengthen the workers’emotional
ties to socialism as the ultimate object of desire. Similarly, the endless specula-
tion about Lassalle’spsychological problems becameameasure of the depth of
his own commitment–aconnection that appealed especiallytomiddle-class
readers whose interest in socialist causes was often drivenbypity for the
lower classes.
Lassalle’sself-fashioning playedacrucial role in his celebrity status even if
it cannot account for its adaptability to changingpolitical and culturalcontexts.
From the beginning,heconceivedofhis relationship to socialism in the highly
personal terms that includedadeep need to be loved and admired.Alreadyin
“Confessions ofaTwenty-YearOld,”he drawsonhis ownexperiencesofdiscrim-
ination when he describes the denial of the workers’humanityrather than their
lack of property as the real curse of the times–acurseto be broken by the mod-
erngods ofvengeance,the proletarians,and their future leader,Lassalle.⁵His
often-cited characterization of the workers in the 1862Workers’Program as
“therock on which the Church of the present isto be built”⁶establishes his
self-chosen role as the messiahtotheir St.Peter in unmistakablyreligious
terms.Doingaway with anypretenseofclass analysis,Lassalle describes the
workers as all of us“in so faraswehaveeventhewillto make ourselvesuseful
in anyway to the community.”⁷Offering themadream of themselves, he praises
the members of the fourth estateasborn democrats, exemplars of community,
and heralds ofaflowering of cultureand science. The proletariat,hedeclares,
is“synonymouswith thewhole humanrace.Itsinterest is in truth the interest
of thewhole of humanity,its freedom is the freedom of humanity itself, and its
domination is the domination ofall.”⁸
AccordingtoFranz Mehring,the SPD’smost influential culturaltheorist,it
was Lassalle’s“burning passion”thatheld togetherall these disparate influen-
ces and ideas.⁹In a14October 1863address to the workers ofBerlin, the party
leader had famouslydeclared,“Without passion in history no stone is ever lifted
Ferdinand Lassalle,“DerBekenntnisbrief des Zwanzigjährigen,”(1864), in lettertoBaronHu-
bertvonStücker,reprinted inKonrad Haenisch,Ferdinand Lassalle.Der Mensch und Politiker in
Selbstzeugnissen(Leipzig: Kröner,1925), 48. The original reference isto the Eumenides.
Ferdinant Lassalle,TheWorking Man’sProgramme(Arbeiterprogramm),trans. EdwardPeters
(London: The Modern Press,1884),59.
Lassalle,TheWorkingMan’sProgramme,46.
Lassalle,TheWorkingMan’sProgramme,44.
Franz Mehring, Introduction toFerdinand Lassalle,Arbeiter-Programm(Berlin:Vereinigung
InternationalerVerlagsanstalten, 1923), 8.
124 Chapter 6