GERMAN 1890 Jewish JUDAICA Token KARL MARX FERDINAND LASALLE \" Coin \"

$GERMAN 1890 Jewish JUDAICA Token KARL MARX FERDINAND LASALLE \$

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GERMAN 1890 Jewish JUDAICA Token KARL MARX FERDINAND LASALLE \" Coin \":
$450.00

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[ 6170]GERMAN Judaica Token ca. 1890-1900
KARL MARX / FERDINAND LASSALLE

Lasalle founded the Gen. German workers Association which became the GermanSocial Democratic Party.

Provided with certificate of authenticity.

CERTIFIED AUTHENTIC
by Sergey Nechayev, PhD -
Numismatic Expert

FerdinandJohann Gottlieb Lassalle (German pronunciation:[laˈsal]; 11 April 1825 – 31 August1864), also known as Ferdinand Lassalle-Wolfson,[1]was a German-Jewishjurist,philosopher, andsocialist politicalactivist. Lassalle is best remembered as aninitiator of international-style socialism in Germany.

BiographyEarly life

Ferdinand Lassalle was born on 11 April 1825 inBreslau (Wrocław),Silesia. Ferdinand\'s father was asilk merchant and intended his son for a business career, sending himto the commercial school atLeipzig.[2]However, Lassalle soon transferred to university, studying first in theUniversity of Breslau and later at theUniversity of Berlin.[2]There Lassalle studiedphilology andphilosophy and became a devotee of thephilosophical system ofGeorg Hegel.

Lassalle passed his university examinations with distinction in 1845 andthereafter traveled toParis to write a book onHeraclitus.[2]There Lassalle met the poetHeinrich Heine, who wrote of his intense youngfriend in 1846: \"I have found in no one so much passion and clearness ofintellect united in action. You have good right to be audacious – we others onlyusurp this divine right, this heavenly privilege.\"[3]

Back in Berlin to work on his book, Lassalle soon foundhimself ceasing his project in favor of a different mission. Lassalle metCountess Sophie vonHatzfeldt, a woman in her early 40s who hadbeen separated from her husband for many years, and had ongoing difficultieswith him regarding an equitable division of property. Lassalle volunteeredhimself to the countess\'s cause, an offer which was accepted readily.[4]Lassalle first challenged the nobleman to aduel, an offer which was rejected immediately.[4]

An extensive legal case ensued in which Lassalle represented Countess vonHatzfeldt\'s interests, performed in 36 courtrooms during the period of 8 years.[5]Ultimately, a compromise was negotiated, bringing the countess a substantialfortune, from which she paid Lassalle an annual income of 5000 thalers (about£750) for the rest of his life.[6]

The1848 revolution and its aftermath

Lassalle was a committedrepublican from an early age and during theGerman Revolutions of 1848 he spoke at publicmeetings for the revolutionary-democratic cause and urged the citizens ofDüsseldorf to prepare themselves for armedresistance to the November decision of thePrussian government to dissolve the NationalAssembly.[7]Lassalle was subsequently arrested in conjunction with this activity and chargedwith inciting armed opposition to the state.[8]

While Lassalle was ultimately acquitted of this serious charge, he was keptin prison until he could be tried on a lesser charge of inciting resistanceagainst public officials.[9]Lassalle was ultimately convicted of this subsidiary charge, for which the23-year-old served a sentence of six months in prison.[9]

Banned from residence in Berlin in the aftermath of his conviction, Lassallebegan residence in theRhineland, where he continued to pursue thelawsuit of the Countess von Hatzfeldt (settled in 1854) and finished his work onthe philosophy of Heraclitus, which was completedin 1857 and published in two volumes the next year.[10]Reaction to the book was mixed, with some declaring the work seminal whileothers considered it as a recitation of Hegelian axioms.[11]Even the book\'s detractors admired the scope of the work, however, and thepublication gave Lassalle lasting cachet among the German intelligentsia.[11]

During this interval Lassalle was not active politically, although heretained an interest in labour affairs. Instead his interests changed again,abandoning legal practice and philosophy in favor of drama, authoring a playcalled \"Franz von Sickingen, a Historical Tragedy.\"[12]Sent in anonymously to the Royal Theatre, the play was rejected by a manager,causing Lassalle to publish it by his own name in 1859.[12]The work was characterized byEdward Bernstein, an early and sympatheticbiographer, as awkward and prone to excessive oratory – unsuited for the stagedespite several effective scenes.[12]

Lasalle longed to reside in Berlin and in 1859 he surreptitiously made hisreturn, disguised as a wagon driver.[13]Lassalle appealed to his friend the aging scholarAlexander von Humboldt to intercede with theking on his behalf to formally permit his return.[13]This was successfully accomplished and Lassalle was again officially allowed toreside in the Prussian capital.[13]

Lassalle avoided revolutionary activity for several years thereafter, seekingto avoid official repercussions.[13]Instead Lassalle next became political commentator in writing a short work onthe war in Italy in which he warned Prussia againstrushing to the aid of theAustrian Empire in its war withFrance.

Lassalle followed this with a hefty work on legal theory, a two volumetreatise published in 1861 entitled Das System der erworbenen Rechte (TheSystem of Acquired Rights).[14]In this book Lassalle sought, in the words of Edward Bernstein, \"to establish alegal and scientific principle which shall once for all determine under whatcircumstances, and how far laws may be retroactive without violating the idea ofright itself\" – that is, determining the circumstances under which laws may bemade retroactive when they come into conflict with previously established laws.[15]

In the 1850s and \'60s,Karl Marx was in regular contact with Lassalle.Their relationship was superficially cordial, and Marx asked for a loan of £30.[16]Yet in letters toFriedrich Engels, Marx made disparaging andracist comments about Lassalle, speculating that his dark complexion and coarsehair were evidence that \"he is descendant from the negroes who joined in theflight of Moses from Egypt (unless his mother or grandmother on the father\'sside was crossed with anigger)\" and declaring that \"the importunity ofthe fellow is also niggerlike.\"[17]

Political activism Photo of Ferdinand Lassalle on a carte de visite.

Only briefly engaged in the revolutionary struggle during 1848, Lassallereentered public politics in 1862, motivated by aconstitutional struggle in Prussia.[14]King Wilhelm I, who became king on 2 January 1861, had repeatedly clashed withthe liberal Chamber of Deputies, resulting in multiple dissolutions of the Diet.[14]As a recognized legal scholar, Lassalle was asked to make public addressesdealing with the nature of the constitution and its relationship to the socialforces within society.[18]

In a published speech delivered in Berlin on 12 April 1862, entitled‘Concerning the particular Connection between the Present Period of History andthe Idea of the Working Class’, later becoming known as the Workers\' Program.Lassalle assigned primacy in society to the press over the state itself in theaftermath of the 1848 revolution – an assertion regarded as dangerous by thePrussian censorship.[19]The entire print run of 3000 copies of thepamphlet of Lassalle\'s speech was seized by theauthorities, who issued a legal charge against Lassalle for allegedlyendangering the public peace.[19]

Lassalle was brought to trial to answer this accusation in Berlin on 16January 1863.[19]After a widely publicized trial at which he presented his own defense, Lassallewas convicted of the charges levied against him, sentenced to four months\'imprisonment and assessed the costs of the trial.[20]This term was later replaced by a fine upon appeal.[20]

Lassalle soon began a new career as a political agitator, traveling aroundGermany, giving speeches and writing pamphlets, in an attempt to organise androuse the working class. Lassalle consideredFichte as \"one of the mightiest thinkers of allpeoples and ages\" and in a speech given in May 1862, he praised Fichte\'s Addresses to the German Nation \"whichconstitute one of the mightiest monuments of fame which our people possesses,and which, in depth and power, far surpass everything of this sort which hasbeen handed down to us from the literature of all time and peoples\".[21]

Although Lassalle was a member of theCommunist League, his politics were stronglyopposed by Karl Marx andFriedrich Engels; indeed Marx\'s essay Critique of the Gotha Program is written inpart as a reaction to Lassalle\'s conception of the socialist state. Marx andEngels thought that Lassalle was not a true Communist as he directly influencedBismarck\'s government (albeit in secret) in favor ofuniversal manhood suffrage, among other issues.In February 1864 Lassalle wrote to Engels, claiming that he although had been arepublican since infancy \"I have never found anything as ridiculous, corrupt,and in the long run impossible asconstitutionalism ... I have come to theconviction that nothing could have a greater future or a more beneficent rolethan the monarchy, if it could only make up its mind to become a socialmonarchy. In that case I would passionately bear its banner, and theconstitutional theories would be quickly enough thrown into the lumber room\".[22]Élie Halévy would later write on thissituation:

Lassalle was the first man in Germany, the first in Europe, who succeeded in organising a party of socialist action. Yet he viewed the emerging bourgeois parties as more inimical to the working class than the aristocracy and hence he supported universal manhood suffrage at a time when the liberals preferred a limited, property-based suffrage which excluded the working class and enhanced the middle classes. This created a strange alliance between Lassalle and Bismarck. When in 1866 Bismarck founded the Confederation of Northern Germany on a basis of universal suffrage, he was acting on advice which came directly from Lassalle. And I am convinced that after 1878, when he began to practise \"State Socialism\" and \"Christian Socialism\" and \"Monarchial Socialism,\" he had not forgotten what he had learnt from the socialist leader.\"[23]

As a result, when Lassalle initiated the Allgemeiner DeutscherArbeiterverein (GeneralGerman Workers\' Association, ADAV) on 23 May 1863, Marx\'s devotees inGermany did not join it. Lassalle was the first president of this first Germanlabour party, retaining the job from its formation on 23 May 1863 until hisdeath on 31 August 1864. The only stated purpose of this organization was thewinning of equal, universal, and directsuffrage by peaceful and legal means.[24]

Relations withBismarck Otto von Bismarck, Minister President of Prussia, as he appeared in the 1860s.

On 11 May 1863Otto von Bismarck, Minister President ofPrussia, initiated written correspondence with Lassalle. The Bismarck-Lassallecorrespondence was discovered only in 1927 and is therefore not mentioned byearlier biographical works.[25]A hand-written note was delivered to Lassalle personally, and the pair metface-to-face within 48 hours thereafter.[25]This proved to be the first of several such meetings, during which Bismarck andLassalle freely exchanged views on matters of common concern.

Bismarck was pressed by Social Democratic representativeAugust Bebel in theReichstag in September 1878 to provide detailsabout his relationship with the by then long-deceased Lassalle, prompting theChancellor to make an extended statement:

I saw him, and since my first conversation I have never regretted doing so. ...I saw him perhaps three or four times altogether. There was never the possibility of our talks taking the form of political negotiations. What could Lassalle have offered me? He had nothing behind him.... But he attracted me as an individual. He was one of the most intelligent and likable men I had ever come across. He was very ambitious and by no means a republican. He was very much a nationalist and a monarchist. His ideal was the German Empire, and here was our point of contact. As I have said he was ambitious, on a large scale, and there is perhaps room for doubt as to whether, in his eyes, the German Empire ultimately entailed the Hohenzollern or the Lassalle dynasty.... Our talks lasted for hours and I was always sorry when they came to an end.[26]

Lassalle made multiple secret appeals from 1864 to Bismarck – later the mainproponent of theAnti-Socialist Laws – both in favor of theimmediate implementation of progressive policies such asuniversal suffrage as well as for theprotection of his own publications from police seizure.[27]With respect to the latter, the ambitious Lassalle attempted to make commoncause with the conservative Bismarck by his new book Herr Basitat-Schulze,declaring: that he \"must inform Your Excellency that this work will bring aboutthe utter destruction of Liberals and the whole Progressive bourgeoisie.\"[28]Lassalle sought Bismarck to exert influence through the Ministry of Justice toprevent seizure of the book.[28]The book subsequently appeared without police interference but Bismarck,occupied with other matters, refused a request by Lassalle for another meetingand no further direct contacts between the pair were made.[29]

Personality

Lassalle was remembered by biographers as a contradictory personality –earnestly committed to the benefit of the masses, but driven by personalambition and possessing extreme vanity. Indeed, one early biographer declaredthat vanity was

... one of the most striking, though at the same time most harmless traits of his character. His vanity was of the kind that neither hurts nor offends. Vanity seemed natural to him as it is to the peacock, and if he had been less vain he would have been less interesting. Even in his manhood, when at the head of a popular agitation, he was excessively fond of dressing well. He appeared both on the platform and in the Court of Law attired like a fop. He was in the habit, too, of comparing himself with great men. Now it was Socrates, now Luther, or Robespierre, or Cobden, or Sir Robert Peel, and once he found his parallel by going to Faust. Heine told him that he had good reason to be proud of his attainments, and Lassalle took Heine at his word.\"[30]

Death and legacy Lassalle\'s tomb in Breslau (now Wrocław

In Berlin, Lassalle had met a young woman, Helene von Dönniges, and duringthe summer of 1864 they decided to marry. She, however, was the daughter of aBavarian diplomat then resident atGeneva, who would have nothing to do withLassalle. Helene was imprisoned in her own room, and soon, apparently underduress, renounced Lassalle in favour of another suitor, aWallachian count namedBajor von Racowitza.

Lassalle sent a challenge toduel both to the lady\'s father and to Count von Racowitza, which wasaccepted by the latter. At theCarouge, a suburb ofGeneva, a duel occurred on the morning of 28August 1864. Lassalle was wounded mortally, and he died on August 31.

At the time of his death, Lassalle\'s political party had only 4,610 membersand no detailed political program.[24]The Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein continued after his death, however,going on to help establish theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in1875.

Lassalle is buried in Breslau (nowWrocław, Poland), in the old Jewish cemeterythere.

He was the subject of a 1918 silent film Ferdinand Lassalle in which he wasportrayed byErich Kaiser-Titz.

Political ideas

Owing to his premature death by a duel at age 39, just two years after hisserious entry into German radical politics, Ferdinand Lassalle\'s actualcontributions to socialist theory are modest. He was remembered byRichard T. Ely, one of the earliest seriousscholars of international socialism, as a popularizer of the ideas of othersrather than an innovator:

Lassalle\'s writings did not advance materially the theory of social democracy. He drew from Rodbertus and Marx in his economic writings, but he clothed their thoughts in such manner as to enable ordinary laborers to understand them, and this they never could have done without his help. ... Lassalle\'s speeches and pamphlets were eloquent sermons on texts taken from Marx. Lassalle gave to Ricardo\'s law of wages the designation the iron law of wages, and expounded to the laborers its full significance. ...

Laborers were told that this law could be overthrown only by the abolition of the wages system. How Lassalle really thought this was to be accomplished is not so evident.[31]

The state

In contrast with Karl Marx and his adherents, Lassalle rejected the idea thatthe state was a class-based power structure with the function of preservingexisting class relations and destined to \"wither away\" in a future classlesssociety. Instead, Lassalle considered the state as an independent entity, aninstrument of justice essential for the achievement of the socialist program.[32]

Iron law of wages

Lassalle accepted the idea, first posited by the classical economist DavidRicardo, that wage rates in the long term tended towards the minimum levelnecessary to sustain the life of the worker and to provide for his reproduction.In accord with this \"Ironlaw of wages\", Lassalle argued that individual measures of self-helpby wage workers were destined to failure and that only producers\'cooperatives established with the financial aidof the state would make economic improvement of the workers\' lives possible.[33]From this, it followed that thepolitical action of the workers to capture thepower of the state was paramount and the organization oftrade unions to struggle for ephemeral wageimprovements more or less a diversion from the primary struggle.

WorksGerman editions

Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen von Ephesos. Vol. 1 | Vol. 2 (The Philosophy of Heraclitus the Dark Philosopher of Ephesus) Berlin: Franz Duncker, 1858.
Der italienische Krieg und die Aufgabe Preussens: eine Stimme aus der Demokratie (The Italian War and the Tasks of Prussia: A Voice of Democracy). Berlin: Franz Duncker, 1859.
Das System der erworbenen Rechte (The System of Acquired Rights). Two volumes. Leipzig: 1861.
Über Verfassungswesen: zwei Vorträge und ein offenes Sendschreiben (On Constitutional Systems: Two Lectures and an Open Letter). Berlin: 1862.
Offenes Antwortschreiben an das Zentralkomitee zur Berufung eines Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeiter-Kongresses zu Leipzig (Open Letter Answering the Central Committee on the Convening of a General German Workers\' Congress in Leipzig). Zürich: Meyer and Zeller, 1863.
Zur Arbeiterfrage: Lassalle\'s Rede bei der am 16. April in Leipzig abgehaltenen Arbeiterversammlung nebst Briefen der Herren Professoren Wuttke und Dr. Lothar Bucher. (On the Labor Problem: Lassalle\'s Speech on the 16th of April [1863] at a Leipzig Workers\' Meeting, Together with the Letters of Professor Wuttke and Dr. Lothar Bucher). Leipzig: 1863.
Herr Bastiat-Schulze von Delitzsch, der ökonomische Julian, oder Kapital und Arbeit (Mr. Bastiat-Schulze von Delitzsch, the Economic Julian, or, Capital and Labour). Berlin: Reinhold Schlingmann, 1864.
Reden und Schriften (Speeches and Writings). In three volumes. New York: Wolff and Höhne, n.d. [1883].
Gesammelte Reden und Schriften (Collected Speeches and Writings). In 12 volumes. Berlin: P. Cassirer, 1919–1920.
- vol. 1 | vol. 2 | vol. 3 | vol. 4 | vol. 5 | vol. 6 | vol. 7 | vol. 8 | vol. 9 | vol. 10 | vol. 11 | vol. 12

English translations

The Working Man\'s Programme: An Address. Edward Peters, trans. London: The Modern Press, 1884.
What is Capital? F. Keddell, trans. New York: New York Labor News Co., 1900.
Lassalle\'s Open Letter to the National Labor Association of Germany. John Ehmann and Fred Bader, trans. New York: International Library Publishing, 1901. Originally published in US in 1879.
Franz von Sickingen: A Tragedy in Five Acts. Daniel DeLeon, trans. New York: New York Labor News, 1904.
Voices of Revolt, Volume 3: Speeches of Ferdinand Lassalle with a Biographical Sketch. Introduction by Jakob Altmaier. New York: International Publishers, 1927.

GERMAN 1890 Jewish JUDAICA Token KARL MARX FERDINAND LASALLE \" Coin \":
$450.00

GERMAN 1890 Jewish JUDAICA Token KARL MARX FERDINAND LASALLE \" Coin \"

GERMAN 1890 Jewish JUDAICA Token KARL MARX FERDINAND LASALLE \" Coin \": $450.00

GERMAN 1890 Jewish JUDAICA Token KARL MARX FERDINAND LASALLE \" Coin \": $450.00

GERMAN 1890 Jewish JUDAICA Token KARL MARX FERDINAND LASALLE \" Coin \":
$450.00

GERMAN 1890 Jewish JUDAICA Token KARL MARX FERDINAND LASALLE \" Coin \":
$450.00