Lassalleanism

Lassalleanism (also Lassallism) was a state socialist political tendency developed by the Prussian-German jurist and socialist activist Ferdinand Lassalle. Lassalleanism viewed the state as a neutral, eternal institution above class society, which could be captured by workers through universal suffrage to bring about socialism. Its central practical demand was for state aid to be provided for the establishment of producer cooperatives. Proponents of this strategy advocated an alliance between the workers' movement and the Prussian state against the liberal bourgeoisie.

The ideology was most prominent in the General German Workers' Association (ADAV), which Lassalle founded in 1863. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were Lassalle's contemporaries, were vociferous critics of Lassalleanism, which they described as "Royal Prussian government socialism" and a form of "social Bonapartism". They argued that it was an opportunist tendency that abandoned independent class action in favour of a single dogmatic "panacea" and tied the nascent workers' movement to the existing aristocratic-bureaucratic state. The conflict culminated in Marx's 1875 Critique of the Gotha Programme, which opposed the fusion of the Marxist Social Democratic Workers' Party with the Lassallean ADAV on the basis of a program heavily influenced by Lassallean ideas.

Although Lassalleanism as a distinct current declined with the rise of industrial society in Germany, its principles—particularly its focus on achieving socialism through the existing state rather than through revolutionary action from below—persisted as a major influence on reformism and social democracy.