Lassalle met Countess Sophie Hatzfeld of Dusseldorf, Gernmany in 1846. He lived with her the rest of his life. Her financial support of him made him financially independent and allowed him the leisure of working on his political activities on a fulltime basis. Involvement in the revolutionary unpsurge of 1848-49 followed and then in 1864 as president German Workers Association he became one of the leaders of the International Working Men's Association (First International) with Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Later in 1864 his life was ended when he was shot in a duel.

If Bakunin and Proudhon were criticized by Marx and Engels as being too far to the left ideologically, then Lassalle was criticized for being to far to the ideological right. Therefore, it is significant that the author of this book originally published in 1893, was Edward Bernstein, founder of the Second International, who himself was accused revisionism during his lifetime.