May 9, 2012 - “paper laws” and “real laws,” orginally made by Ferdinand Lasalle in. See FERDINAND LASALLE, QUE ES UNA CONSTITUCION (1964);. Ferdinand Lassalle born as Ferdinand Johann Gottlieb Lassal was a Prussian-German jurist. Create a book Download as PDF Printable version.

Photo of Ferdinand Lassalle on a. Only briefly engaged in the revolutionary struggle during 1848, Lassalle reentered public politics in 1862, motivated by a struggle in Prussia., who became king on 2 January 1861, had repeatedly clashed with the liberal Chamber of Deputies, resulting in multiple dissolutions of the Diet. As a recognized legal scholar, Lassalle was asked to make public addresses dealing with the nature of the constitution and its relationship to the social forces within society. In a published speech delivered in Berlin on 12 April 1862, entitled 'Concerning the particular Connection between the Present Period of History and the Idea of the Working Class', later known as the Workers' Program. Lassalle assigned primacy in society to the press over the state itself in the aftermath of the 1848 revolution – an assertion regarded as dangerous by the Prussian censorship.

The entire print run of 3,000 copies of the of Lassalle's speech was seized by the authorities, who issued a legal charge against Lassalle for allegedly endangering the public peace. Lassalle was brought to trial to answer this accusation in Berlin on 16 January 1863. After a widely publicized trial at which he presented his own defense, Lassalle was convicted of the charges levied against him, sentenced to four months' imprisonment and assessed the costs of the trial. This term was later replaced by a fine upon appeal. Lassalle soon began a new career as a political agitator, traveling around Germany, giving speeches and writing pamphlets, in an attempt to organise and rouse the working class.

Lassalle considered as 'one of the mightiest thinkers of all peoples and ages', praising Fichte's in a May 1862 speech as 'one of the mightiest monuments of fame which our people possesses, and which, in depth and power, far surpass everything of this sort which has been handed down to us from the literature of all time and peoples'. Although Lassalle was a member of the, his politics were strongly opposed by and; indeed Marx's essay is written in part as a reaction to Lassalle's conception of the socialist state.

Marx and Engels thought that Lassalle was not a true Communist as he directly influenced Bismarck's government (albeit in secret) in favor of, among other issues. In February 1864, Lassalle wrote to Engels, that despite being a republican since infancy, 'I have never found anything as ridiculous, corrupt, and in the long run impossible as.I have come to the conviction that nothing could have a greater future or a more beneficent role than the monarchy, if it could only make up its mind to become a social monarchy. In that case I would passionately bear its banner, and the constitutional theories would be quickly enough thrown into the lumber room'. Would later write on this situation: Lassalle was the first man in Germany, the first in Europe, who succeeded in organising a party of socialist action.