MIA > Archive > Lassalle > Voices of Revolt
Written: As a speech in German, delivered April 12th, 1862.
Published in English: 1927.
Translated by: Jakob Altmeier (presumed).
Source: Voices of Revolt: Speeches of Ferdinand Lassalle. International Publishers, first edition, 1927, New York, USA. 94 pages.
Transcription and Markup: Bill Wright for marxists.org, February, 2023
The thing that was unable to maintain itself in France, the thing that at that time really went to pieces, was not the Republic as such, but the Republic that abolished the universal suffrage by the Election Law of May 30, 1850, and set up a disguised property qualification in order to exclude the workers; in other words, it was the bourgeois Republic which wished to impress even upon the Republican state the image of the bourgeoisie, the domination of capital. It was this which afforded the French usurper an opportunity to overthrow the Republic under the pretext of establishing the universal suffrage, and yet this Republic under other circumstances would have found an insurmountable bulwark in the breast of the French workers.
The thing, therefore, which was then really not able to maintain itself in France and was, therefore, overthrown, was not the Republic as such, but the bourgeois Republic, and, therefore, an honest study of this situation will show, precisely by means of this example, that the period of history in which we have lived since February, 1848, will no longer tolerate a state which, either in monarchic or republican form, aims to maintain the dominant political imprint of the third (bourgeois) estate of society.[a]
From the high watch-towers of science, gentlemen, one can discern the red dawn of the new day sooner than if one is situated in the turmoil of daily life.
Gentlemen, have you ever witnessed a sunrise from a high mountain top?
A purple border tinges the extreme horizon with a red and bloody glow that announces the new light; mist and fogs rise and contract into great mounds, attacking the rosy dawn, and for the moment concealing its rays; but no power on earth is capable of hindering the slow and majestic ascent of the sun itself, which, but a single hour later, will stand shining bright and warm in the sky, visible to all the world.
And this single hour in such a great spectacle of nature, which is repeated every day, is equivalent to one or two decades in the far more imposing spectacle of a sunrise in history.
—From Arbeiter-Programm.
[a] Third Estate: The commons (communitas, communitatis), as distinguished from the nobles and the clergy.
Last updated on 15 February 2023