differences of spiritual constitution between the so-called Germanic
peoples and the peoples of antiquity are today questioned at more than
one point. And quite legitimately so. Considered as peoples simply,
the Greeks or Romans were scarcely less capable of development than
the Germanic peoples. That their States, their political
organizations, collapsed because of the decay of certain institutional
arrangements peculiar to the social life of the times, that is a
fortune in which the states of antiquity quite impartially have shared
with the various States of the Germanic world. Political structures in
general are capable of but a moderate degree of development. If the
development proceeds beyond this critical point the result, sooner or
later, is a historical cataclysm, whereby the old State is supplanted
by a new form of social organization resting on a new foundation. As
elements in this new foundation there may be comprised new religious
or new ethical notions, but, in a general way, it is to be said that,
except in the theocratic States, the rôle played by religion is only
of secondary importance even in antiquity.
Socrates was not the first nor the only one in Greece who had taught
"new gods." That he in particular was called on to drink the hemlock
was due to reasons of State policy, which had but a very slight and
unessential relation to the acts of sacrilege of which he was accused.
It may be added that this Greek promulgator of new gods is among the
German peoples fairly matched by John Huss and thousands of other
victims of religious persecution.
Lassalle's mistake lies in this, that he seeks the motor force of
development in the "spirit" of the nations, instead of looking for an
explanation of their spiritual life in the peculiar circumstances
which condition their development. But, in spite of this, it must be
said that his conclusions as bearing upon the modern situation are for
the most part substantially sound.--TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 50: According to this doctrine, the motions of the
"Monads"--animistically conceived units of which the entire universe,
organic or inorganic, was held to be constituted--were (by the fiat of
God at the creation of the world) bound in a preordained sequence, in
such a manner that all these motions constitute a comprehensive,
harmonious series. Wherefore, all events whatever that may take place,
take place as the necessary outcome of the constitution of these
monads moving independently of one another.--TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 51: Permission to teach.]
[Footnote 52: I have fought not without glory.]
[Footnote 53: Don't disturb my circles.]
[Footnote 54: A new and unheard-of-crime.]
[Footnote 55: In case it becomes necessary.]
[Footnote 56: Confusion of one thing with another.]
[Footnote 57: Honor to whom honor belongs!]
[Footnote 58: Hear also the other side.]
[Footnote 59: That is, for high treason.]
[Footnote 60: Calumniate boldly, some of it will always stick.]
* * * * *
OPEN LETTER TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE (1863)
FOR THE SUMMONING OF A GENERAL GERMAN WORKINGMEN'S CONGRESS AT LEIPZIG
BY FERDINAND LASSALLE
TRANSLATED BY E.H. BABBITT, A.B.
Assistant Professor of German, Tufts College
Gentlemen:--You have asked me in your letter to express my opinion,
in any way that seems suitable to me, on the workingmen's movement
and the means which it should use to attain an improvement of the
condition of the working class in political, material, and intellectual
matters--especially on the value of associations for the class of
people who have no property.
I have no hesitation in following your wishes, and I choose the form
which is simplest and most suitable to the nature of the matter--the
form of a public letter of reply to your communication.
Last October in Berlin, at a time when I was absent from here, during
your first preliminary discussion concerning the German Workingmen's
Congress--a discussion which I followed in the newspapers with
interest--two opposing views were brought forward in the meeting.
One was to the effect that you have no concern whatever with political
agitation and that it has no interest for you.
The other, in distinction from this, was that you were to consider
yourselves an appendix to the Prussian Progressive party, and to
furnish a sort of characterless chorus or sounding-board for it.
If I had attended that meeting, I should have expressed myself against
both views. It is utterly narrow-minded to believe that political
agitation and political progress do not concern the workingman. On the
contrary, the workingman can expect the realization of his legitimate
ambitions only from political liberty.
Even the question to what extent you are allowed to meet, discuss your
interests, form general and local unions for their consideration,
etc., is a question which depends upon the political situation and
upon political legislation, and therefore it is not worth the trouble
even to refute such a narrow view by further consideration.
No less false and misleading was the other view which was placed
before you, namely, to consider yourselves politically a mere annex of
the Progressive party.
It would certainly be unjust not to recognize that the Progressive
party, in its struggle with the Prussian Government, performed at that
time a certain service, though a moderate one, in behalf of political
liberty, by its insistence upon the right of granting appropriations
and its opposition to the reorganization of the army in Prussia.
Nevertheless the realization of that suggestion is completely out of
the question, for the following reasons:
In the first place, such a position was in no way fitting for a
powerful independent party with much more important political
purposes, such as the German Workingmen's party should be, with
reference to a party which, like the Prussian Progressive party, has
set up as its standard, in the matter of principle, only the
maintenance of the Prussian constitution, and, as the basis of its
activity, only the prevention of the one-sided organization of the
army--which is not even attempted in other German countries; or the
insistence upon the right of granting appropriations--which is not
even disputed in other German countries.
In the second place, it was in no way certain that the Prussian
Progressive party would carry on its conflict with the Prussian
Government with that dignity and energy which alone are appropriate
for the working class, and which alone can count upon its warm
sympathy.
In the third place, it was also not certain that the Prussian
Progressive party, even if it had won a victory over the Prussian
administration, would use this victory in the interest of the whole
people, or merely for the maintenance of the privileged position of
the _bourgeoisie_; in other words, that it would apply this victory
toward the establishment of the universal equal and direct franchise,
which is demanded by democratic principles and by the legitimate
interests of the working class. In the latter case it evidently could
not make the slightest claim to any interest on the part of the German
working class.
That is what I should have said to you at that time with reference to
that suggestion.
Today I can add furthermore that in the meantime it has been shown by
facts--a thing which at that time would not have been very difficult
to foresee--that the Progressive party is completely lacking in the
energy which would have been required to carry to a conclusion, in a
dignified and victorious manner, even such a limited conflict between
itself and the Prussian administration.
And since it continues, in spite of the denial by the Government of
the right of granting appropriations, to meet and to carry on
parliamentary affairs with the ministry, which has been declared by
the party itself criminally liable, it humiliates, by this
contradiction, itself and the people through a lack of force and
dignity without parallel.
Since it continues to meet, to debate, and to arrange parliamentary
affairs with the administration itself--in spite of the violation of
the constitution which it has declared to exist--it is a support to
the administration and aids it in maintaining the appearance of a
constitutional situation.
Instead of declaring the sessions of the Chamber closed until the
administration has declared that it will no longer continue the
expenditures refused by the Chamber, instead of thus placing upon the
administration the unavoidable alternative either of respecting the
constitutional right of the Chamber or of renouncing every appearance
of a constitutional procedure, of ruling openly and without
prevarication as an absolute government, of taking upon itself the
tremendous responsibility of absolutism, and thus of precipitating the
crisis which must necessarily come, in time, as the result of open
absolutism, this party by its own action enables the administration to
unite all the advantages of absolute power with all the advantages of
an apparently constitutional procedure.
And since, instead of forcing the administration into open and
unconcealed absolutism and by that action enlightening the people as
to the non-existence of constitutional procedure, it consents to
continue to play its part in this comedy of mock constitutionalism, it
helps maintain an appearance which, like every system of government
based on appearances, must have a confusing and debasing effect upon
the intelligence of the people.
Such a party has in this way shown that it is, and always will be,
utterly impotent against a determined administration.
Such a party has shown that it is for this very reason entirely
incapable of accomplishing even the slightest genuine development of
the interests of liberty.
Such a party has shown that it has no claim to the sympathies of the
democratic classes of the population, and that it has no realization
and no understanding of the feeling of political honor which must
permeate the working class.
Such a party has, in a word, shown by its action that it is nothing
else than the resurrection of the unsavory Gotha idea, decked out with
a different name.
I can add today also the following facts: Today, as at that time, I
should have been obliged to say to you that a party which compels
itself through its dogma of Prussian leadership to see in the Prussian
administration the chosen Messiah for the German renaissance--while
there is not a single German administration (even including Hesse),
which is more backward than the Prussian in political development,
and while there is hardly a single German government (and
this includes Austria) which is not far ahead of Prussia--for this
reason alone loses all claim to representing the German working class;
for such a party shows by this alone a depth of illusion,
self-conceit, and incompetence drunken with the sound of its own
words, which must dash all hope of expecting from it a real
development of the liberty of the German people.
From what has been said we can now understand definitely what position
the working class must take in political matters and what attitude
toward the Progressive party it must maintain.
The working class must establish, itself as an independent political
party, and must make the universal, equal, and direct franchise the
banner and watchword of this party. Representation of the working
class in the legislative bodies of Germany--nothing else can satisfy
its legitimate interests from a political point of view. To begin a
peaceful and law-abiding agitation for this by all lawful means is and
must be, from a political point of view, the programme of the
workingmen's party.
It is self-evident what attitude this workingmen's party is to take
toward the German Progressive party.
It must feel and organize itself everywhere as an independent party
completely separate from the latter, although the Progressive party is
to be supported on points and questions in which the interest of the
two parties is a common one; it must turn its back decidedly upon the
Progressive party and oppose it whenever it departs from that
interest, and thus force the Progressive party either to develop
progressively and to rise above its own level or to sink deeper and
deeper into the mire of insignificance and weakness in which it
already stands knee deep; these must be the straightforward tactics of
the German workingmen's party with reference to the Progressive party.
So much as to what you must do from a political point of view.
Now for the social question which you raise, a question which rightly
interests you to a still greater extent.
I have read in the papers, not without a sad smile, that part of the
program for your Congress consists in debates concerning freedom of
choosing places of residence and of employment for the workingman.
What, Gentlemen, are you going to debate about the right of choosing
places of residence, the right of settling down anywhere without being
specially taxed!
I can answer you on this point with nothing better than Schiller's
epigram:
Jahre lang schon bedien' ich mich meiner Nase zum Riechen: Aber
hab' ich an sie auch ein erweisliches Recht?
(Year after year I have used the nose God gave me to smell with:
But can I legally prove any such right to its use?)
And is not the situation the same as to freedom of employment?
All these debates have at least one mistake--they come more than fifty
years too late. Freedom of moving about and freedom of employment are
things which nowadays are decreed in a legislative body in silence,
but no longer debated.
Should the German working class repeat again the spectacle of
assemblies whose enjoyment consists in giving themselves over to long
purposeless speeches and applauding them? The seriousness and the
energy of the German working class will know how to protect it from
such a pitiable spectacle.
But you propose to establish institutions for savings, funds for
retiring pensions, insurance against accidents and sickness? I am
willing to recognize the relative usefulness of these institutions,
although it is a subordinate one and hardly worth notice.
But let us make a complete distinction between two questions which
have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Is it your object to make the misery of individual workingmen more
endurable; to counteract the effects of thoughtlessness, sickness, old
age, accidents of all kinds, through which by chance or necessity
individual workingmen are forced even below the normal condition of
the working class? For such objects all these institutions are
entirely appropriate means. Only it would not be worth while in that
case to begin a movement for such a purpose throughout all Germany, to
stir up a general agitation in the whole working class of the nation.
You must not bring mountains into labor in order that a ridiculous
mouse appear. This so extremely limited and subordinate purpose can
better be left to local unions and local organizations, which can
always handle it far better.
Or is this your object: To improve the normal condition of the whole
working class and elevate it above its present level? In truth this is
and must be your purpose, but this sharp line of distinction is
necessary, which I have drawn between these two objects, which must
not be confused with each other, in order to show you, better than I
could through a long exposition, how utterly powerless these
institutions are to attain this second object, and therefore how
utterly outside the scope of the present workingmen's movement.
Permit me to adduce the testimony of a single authority--the admission
of a strict conservative, a strict royalist, Professor Huber--a man
who has likewise devoted his studies to the social question and the
development of the workingmen's movement.
I like to call on the testimony of this man (in the course of this
letter I shall do it now and then again) because he is politically
entirely opposed to me, and in regard to economic questions differs
radically from me, and must accordingly be the best person to remove,
through his testimony, the suspicion that the slight advantage which I
attach to those institutions is only the consequence of previously
formed political tendencies; furthermore because Professor Huber,
who stands as far from liberalism as from my political views, has for
this very reason the necessary impartiality to make in the field of
political economy admissions which are in accordance with the truth;
whereas all adherents of the liberal school of political economy are
forced to deceive the workingmen, or, in order to deceive them better,
first to deceive themselves, in order to bring the facts into harmony
with their tendencies.
"Without underestimating," says Professor Huber, "the relative
usefulness of savings banks, accident and sickness insurance, etc., as
far as it really goes, these good things may nevertheless carry great
negative disadvantages with them, in that they stand in the way of
improvement."
And surely never would these negative disadvantages persist and stand
in the way of improvement more than if they took up the attention of
the great German workingmen's movement, or divided its forces.
It was stated in various newspapers, and your letter itself states,
that you have been recommended from almost all sides to take into
consideration the Schulze-Delitzsch organizations--credit associations,
raw material associations, and consumers' associations--for the
improvement of the situation of the working class. Allow me to ask you
for still closer attention.
Schulze-Delitzsch may be considered from three points of view: First,
from the political point of view, he belongs to the Progressive party,
which has already been discussed. Second, he claims to be a political
economist. In this respect--as a theoretical economist--he stands
entirely on the ground of the Liberal school: he shares all its
mistakes, fallacies, and self-deceptions. The addresses which he has
made so far to the Berlin workingmen are a striking proof of
this--misrepresentations of fact and conclusions which in no way
follow from his premises. However, it will not help your purpose, and
it is not my intention, to go into a criticism here of the economic
views and the speeches of Schulze-Delitzsch and to point out these
self-deceptions and fallacies which, in matters of theoretical
economics, he has in common with the whole Liberal school to which he
belongs. I shall be compelled later, in any case, to come back to the
essential content of these doctrines.
But Schulze-Delitzsch has, in the third place, a practical nature,
which is of more importance than his theoretical economic viewpoint.
He is the only member of his party, the Progressive party--and all the
more credit is due him just for this reason--who has done anything for
the people. Through his tireless activity, even though he stands alone
at a most unfavorable time, he has become the father and founder of
the German associations, and so has given an impulse, of the most
far-reaching importance, to the cause of associations in general, a
service for which, however I may be opposed to him in theory, I shake
his hand warmly in spirit as I write this. Truth and justice even
toward an adversary (and for the working class above all it is
befitting to take this deeply to heart)--this is the first duty of
man.
That the question whether associations are to be understood according
to his or my interpretation is under discussion today is in large part
due to him, and that is a real service which cannot be too highly
esteemed.
But the warmth with which I recognize this service must not prevent us
from stating the question with critical clearness: "Are the
Schulze-Delitzsch associations for credit and for raw materials, and
are the consumers' leagues able to accomplish the improvement of the
situation of the working class?"
The answer to this question must be a most decided "no." It will be
easy to show this briefly. As to the credit and raw material
associations, these both agree in that they exist only for those who
are carrying on business on their own account--that is, only for
artisan production. For the working class in the narrower sense--the
hands employed in factory production, who have no business of their
own for which they can use credit and raw materials--neither kind
of association exists. Their help can therefore reach only the artisan
producers.
But, even in this respect, please notice and impress upon your minds
two essential circumstances:
In the first place the inevitable tendency of our industrialism is to
put factory production more and more from day to day in place of
artisan production, and, in consequence, to drive the workmen of a
constantly increasing number of trades into the laboring class proper,
which finds work in the factories. England and France, which are ahead
of us in economic development, show this in a still greater degree
than Germany, which is, however, taking tremendous strides in the same
direction. Your own experience will confirm this sufficiently.
It follows from this that the Schulze-Delitzsch credit and raw
material associations, even if they could help the artisans, could be
of advantage only to a very small number of people, a number which is
constantly decreasing and tends to disappear, through the inevitable
development of our manufacturing system--people who through the
progress of our culture are, in constantly increasing numbers, forced
into the class of workingmen who are not affected by this aid. That
is, nevertheless, only the first conclusion. A second, of still
greater importance, is the following: In competition with factory
production, which is in constantly increasing scope taking the place
of small artisan production, even the artisans who remain in the
latter are in no way certain of being protected by the credit and raw
material associations. I will again cite Professor Huber as a witness
on this point. "Unfortunately," says he, after speaking in praise, as
I have done, of the Schulze-Delitzsch credit and raw material
associations, "unfortunately, however, the assumption that the
competition of production on a small scale with factory production
would be made possible seems by no means sufficiently established."
But, better than any testimony, the easily explained internal reasons
of what I say will convince you.
How far can the credit associations accomplish the procuring of cheap
and good raw materials? It can place the artisan without capital in a
position to compete with the artisan who has sufficient small capital
for his small artisan production. It can, therefore, at most put the
artisan without capital on an equality and in the same situation with
the master workman who has sufficient capital of his own for his
production. But now the fact is just here--even the master workman
with sufficient capital of his own cannot stand the competition of
large capitalists and of factory production, both on account of the
smaller cost of production of all kinds made possible by the factory
system, and on account of the smaller rate of the profit which in
wholesale production is to be reckoned on each single piece, and,
finally, on account of other advantages connected with it. Since, now,
the credit and raw material associations can at most bring the small
producer without capital into the same general position as the one who
has sufficient capital for his small production, and since the latter
cannot stand the competition of the wholesale production of the
factories, this result is still more certain for the small producer
who carries on his business with the help of these associations.
These associations can, therefore, with reference to the artisan, only
prolong the death struggle in which artisan production is destined to
succumb and give place to factory production; can only increase
thereby the agony of this death struggle and hold back in vain the
development of our culture--that is the whole result which they have
with reference to the artisan class, while they do not touch at all
the real laboring class occupied, in constantly increasing numbers, in
factory production.