Ferdinand Lassalle

Ferdinand Johann Gottlieb Lassalle (born Lassal; 11 April 1825 – 31 August 1864) was a German jurist, philosopher, and socialist activist. Best remembered as an initiator of the social democratic movement in Germany, in 1863 he founded the General German Workers' Association (ADAV), the first independent German workers' party. His political theories included state socialism and the popularisation of the iron law of wages.

Born in Breslau to a prosperous Jewish family, Lassalle became a follower of Hegelian philosophy in his youth. During the 1840s and 1850s, he gained public renown for his involvement in a long and sensational legal case to vindicate the rights of Countess Sophie von Hatzfeldt. Active in the revolutions of 1848, he formed a complex and often antagonistic relationship with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Lassalle also authored several major intellectual works, including the philosophical treatise ''Heraclitus the Obscure'' (1857) and the legal study ''The System of Acquired Rights'' (1861).

Lassalle's political career began in the early 1860s during the Prussian constitutional conflict. Breaking with the liberal progressives, he began a public campaign to establish an independent political party for the working class. His agitation led to the founding of the ADAV, whose platform called for the achievement of socialism through state-aided producers' co-operatives, to be won by universal suffrage. Lassalle's political strategy focused on electoral politics and co-operation with the state, and he entered into secret negotiations with Prussian Minister President Otto von Bismarck in an attempt to forge an alliance between the workers' movement and the conservative Prussian state against the liberal bourgeoisie.

Lassalle's political career was cut short when he was killed in a duel at the age of 39 following a dispute over a young woman he wished to marry. Although the ADAV had only a few thousand members at the time of his death, it grew to become a major political force in the German Empire. In 1875, it merged with the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany to form what eventually became the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Lassalle's ideas, particularly his statist and nationalist tendencies, exerted a lasting influence on German social democracy, often in conflict with the theories of Marxism. Provided by Wikipedia