The two were bound to clash as soon as Lassalle began the development of his practical political programme.  Marx was not only sceptical of the wisdom of Lassalle’s campaign for manhood suffrage, but he was even strongly opposed to the campaign for the establishment of producers’ associations with the aid of subventions from the Prussian monarchy.  That programme represented all that was odious to Marx:  organization of the wage-earners on purely national instead of international lines, conversion of private ownership of capital into corporate instead of public ownership, establishment of a social monarchy instead of a cooeperative commonwealth.  Obviously Marx could not endorse Lassalle’s proposals to make the socialist movement a factor in contemporary German politics, nor did Lassalle endorse the Marxian policy presently embodied in the “International.”

In the matter of programme and tactics neither Marx nor Lassalle has been altogether justified by the verdict of history.  In the beginning the followers of Lassalle and the followers of Marx pursued their common ends by independent roads.  Brought together by the logic of events, they composed their differences, taking what seemed best to serve their purpose from the ideas of each.  It is known that Marx was harshly critical of the programme adopted at Gotha in 1875.  It may be guessed that Lassalle, had he lived, would not altogether have approved of the tactics pursued by those in charge of the united party’s affairs.  Today, the Social Democratic party, having grown strong and great, can recognize its obligations to both Marx and Lassalle.

Lassalle and Marx had entirely different functions to perform in the socialist movement.  Marx’s part was to be the prophet of socialism, not a prophet in the vulgar sense of a mere prognosticator, but in the old Hebrew sense of an inspired voice crying in a wilderness of unbelief.  Lassalle was no prophet.  His function was to reduce principles to action, to engage the forces of the times in the spirit of the times, and by combat with such weapons as lay to hand to urge the cause forward.  The word “agitator” might have been invented for him.  He was the first great warrior of socialism.  It is no reflection upon Marx to indicate that the present need of the Social Democracy is for warriors rather than for prophets.

Lassalle was one of the great figures of modern German history.  Bismarck’s judgment of men was of the keenest and his opinion of Lassalle, expressed in a speech before the Reichstag (September 16, 1878) is well known:  “In private life Lassalle possessed an extraordinary attraction for me, being one of the most brilliant and most agreeable men I have ever met, and ambitious in the biggest sense of the term.”  The eminent classical historian, Boeckh, who knew Lassalle well, compared him to Alcibiades.  Heine, in a letter introducing Lassalle to a friend, wrote:  “I present to you a new Mirabeau.”  There is much that is striking in either of these parallels.