Open reply letter

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The open reply is Ferdinand Lassalle's reply , written in 1863 , to a request from the Central Committee for the appointment of a general German workers' congress in Leipzig . It is considered to be the founding document of the Social Democratic Party of Germany .

What was the Open Reply Letter?

On February 11, 1863, the Leipzig Committee asked several economists, including Ferdinand Lassalle, for their opinion on the labor movement and its future political path.

Lassalle then wrote the 37-page Open Reply Letter , which - dated March 1, 1863 - was published in 12,000 copies and sold to the workers. This reply, which was discussed on May 23, 1863 in a meeting in Leipzig sent by representatives from 11 cities, is the birth certificate of the General German Workers' Association (ADAV), the first supraregional social democratic organization and thus a forerunner of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Lassalle was elected its first president with a relatively large volume of power.

Historical background

Ferdinand Lassalle's political appearance came at a time when democratic participation was inextricably linked with the social question in the course of the industrial revolution and with the socio-economic position of those entitled to vote ( census suffrage ). The party landscape at that time was characterized by four main currents, to which social democracy later joined as the fifth.

content

The content of the letter was addressed to the " working class ". According to Lassalle, the workers must unite to form their own party, bundle their interests and form so-called associations (productive associations or “ cooperatives ”) in order to be able to satisfy their “legitimate interests”. The demands of the working class should first aim at an improvement of its overall situation and its political equality.

In Lassalle's view, the free workers' associations must be supported by the state. That means: The state should provide the capital for machines, factory buildings, etc. that individual workers' associations cannot raise. Only with the help of the state could there be workers' associations able to compete with the enterprises of the bourgeoisie . These state-supported alliances could at the same time improve the situation of the working class, since living conditions would fundamentally improve through a fair income.

In order to achieve this goal, Lassalle saw it as essential to introduce universal, equal and direct suffrage in a parliamentary (not revolutionary) way. Lassalle ruled out a revolution. “Gentlemen, there is no power that would resist this for a long time!” Lassalle wrote, relying on a changed right to vote.

Lassalle rejected trade unions because of his thesis of the iron wage law , which was derived from the economic theories of Thomas Robert Malthus and David Ricardos . In his view, a fundamental improvement could only be achieved through the participation of workers in productive wealth and through political participation.

The special role of the right to vote in the reply letter

In his open reply, Lassalle assigned an overriding role to extended voting rights . It is not only the "political" but also the "social" basic principle of the working class - "the basic condition of all social aid". For him, the introduction of the new electoral law was also associated with an improvement in the material situation of the working class. His basic assumption was that a legislature, largely provided by the working class, could force the state to carry out its “duty” - which includes the provision of capital for productive cooperatives.

Lassalle speculated that if the electoral system changed, a high voter turnout could initially put pressure on the monarchy. In a very quick process, the people would then fight for their right to political freedom. Lassalle referred to the actions of the English people against the “ Corn Laws ”, which lasted around five years and changed the state through reforms. Only in this way would the working class, which Lassalle also saw as the “actual state”, emancipate itself and become a decisive power factor in parliament .

From Lassalle's point of view, the right to vote must therefore be seen as an instrument of the working class: it should act as a “lever” in order to achieve an appropriate participation in political power - assuming the same weighting of all votes. This participation can only be realized if the workers are sufficiently represented in parliament by elected officials .

The response to the open reply letter

After Lassalle had written the open reply , he wrote in a letter to Countess Hatzfeldt : “If the German working class is not sluggish and sleepy to the point of horror, then this manifesto, since it falls into an already existing practical movement, must have about an effect evoke like the theses at the Wittenberg Castle Church . ” The initial response was actually more modest. The plans for the workers' congress fell far short of expectations. The press reactions against the open reply letter reinforced this tendency. In this situation, the majority of the Central Committee decided to cancel the originally planned congress. A newly formed committee was given the task of calling for the establishment of a workers 'association , the program of which was to be based on Lassalles' reply.

The founding of the ADAV in May 1863 and its program met with rejection from part of the socialist movement , above all from Karl Marx . In 1875 - at the end of a unification party conference from May 22nd to 27th in Gotha - the ADAV and the Social Democratic Workers 'Party (SDAP) founded by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht in Eisenach in 1869 to form the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAP). After the Socialist Act was repealed in the autumn of 1890, the party changed its name to "Social Democratic Party of Germany".

Historical meaning

According to Lassalle, the new party should fight for more rights in a “legal and peaceful, but indefatigable, incessant” agitation. Even if some of his ideas - for example on the trade union question - did not gain acceptance in the labor movement , his attempt to win the workers over to democratic participation must be valued as highly. A change should not be brought about by a revolution , but by legal means. In this sense, the open reply is an important document of German history as it shows the peaceful path of reform as a realistic perspective.

literature

  • Lassalle, Ferdinand, The Workers Program (1862) and The Open Letter of Answer (1863), from: Friedrich Jenaczek: Ferdinand Lassalle Reden und Schriften , Munich 1970
  • Paul Kampffmeyer: Lassalle, awakening the working-class culture movement . Publishing house JHW Dietz, Weimar 1925
  • Stefan Heym: Lassalle , Btb bei Goldmann, 1998, ISBN 3442723523
  • Franz Osterroth, Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German social democracy. Vol. I: Until the end of the First World War (= International Library, Vol. 83) . Berlin, Bonn: Dietz, 1975 (especially p. 22 f. "Open reply letter")
  • Franz Osterroth, Dieter Schuster: Chronicle of the German Social Democracy 1. From the beginnings to 1945. Data - facts - background . Bonn: Dietz, revised. u. supplementary edition, 2005