Ferdinand Lassalle on revolution

The article explores the evolution of views on the revolutionary process expressed by the founder of German social democracy Ferdinand Lassalle. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the works in which Lassalle enunciates his conception of revolution. The importance of this research is determined by the demand for understanding the revolution by politicians with different views. In his student days, being strongly influenced by Hegel’s philosophy, Lassalle considered the revolution a leap that brings the historical process to a new stage of development. While taking part in the revolution of 1848, he called to defend the interests of a popularly elected parliament with arms and acted as a supporter of a democratic republic. Lassalle analyzed the consequents of the 1848 failures in his tragedy Franz von Sickingen, in which he said that the revolution can win only in the case of self-sacrifice of the masses following a leader with “realistic wisdom”, who will be able to precisely choose the revolutionary force that will prevail. In his monograph The System of Acquired Rights, the revolution is interpreted as a legal process for citizens to cancel their old rights and acquire new ones. In the early 1860s, when Lassalle started his ambitious political activity, his attitude towards the revolution changed. Now he was against an armed uprising and advocated class cooperation and reforms that were to be implemented by the existing state. Instead of a revolutionary leap, he proposed gradual peaceful transformations. He formulated his conception of “social monarchy” as a transitional period on the way to building a legal democratic state. Fundamental changes in Lassalle’s views on the revolution resulted from the balance of the class forces in the country, underdevelopment of the labor and democratic movements, and the desire to create a mass people’s party and achieve universal suffrage as soon as possible.