Ferdinand Lassalle and lassalleanism in German historiography of XIX and XX centuries

A review of some research literature on Lassalle’ heritage published in Germany starting from the middle of the 19th century up to the end of the 20th century is presented in the article. In the second half of the 19th century there existed no in-depth research on Lassalleian legacy. Some Lassalle’s biographies were published, which were in turn written by his followers. The first attempts to estimate the significance of Lassalle’s contribution into the history of German social democracy were made only at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the mid-1920s, a great number of publications devoted to his 100th anniversary were published. They were written by the socialist-oriented authors who highlighted Lassalle’s invaluable investment into the labor movement development. After the Second World War, some historians of the German Democratic Republic criticized Lassalle’s doctrine but favored his activities as a propagandist. As a result of the study, two research trends had been developed by the western German historians: the social democratic and the so called totalitarian. S. Na’aman was a bright representative of the latter trend. He believed that Lassalle was an opponent of parliamentary democracy, and that his theory acted as a basis for subsequent totalitarian regime development. In the 1980-90s no significant works on Lassalle legacy were published in Germany.