Inaugural Congress of the General German Workers’ Association

Inaugural Congress of the General German Workers’ Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, ADAV), held on 23 May 1863, in Leipzig. Twelve delegates from 11 German cities and more than 200 workers from Leipzig attended the Congress. At the meeting, Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–1864) was elected chairman of the Association, and Vahlteich its secretary. A constitution drafted under the auspices of Lassalle was adopted, but no program was formulated, and Lassalle's Open Letter in Response to the Central Committee for the Calling of a General German Workers’ Congress in Leipzig was considered to be the program of the Association. The programme and the constitution required the workers' party to maintain its independence at all times, and stipulated that the immediate aim and goal of struggle of the workers' party's was to oppose the three-tier electoral law and authoritarian dictatorship by fighting for universal suffrage and legislative power. However, the program and the constitution regard the struggle of the working class for universal suffrage and legislative power as the only means of struggle of the working class.

The General German Workers’ Association was the first independent workers' political organization established after ten years of reactionary rule in Germany. It freed the German workers' movement from the control of the liberal bourgeoisie organizationally and ideologically, and took the economic struggle onto the track of political struggle, marking the emergence of the German working class as an independent force. However, which was under the influence of Lassalleanism from its inception, caused harm to the German workers' movement by limiting the workers' struggle to the fight for universal suffrage and parliamentary activity alone, and by denying the significance of the daily economic and political struggles of the working class. After the establishment of the General German Workers’ Association, Marx and Engels were invited to write for its journal, Der Sozialdemokrat. Marx used his influence on the General German Workers’ Association to stand with the German workers and insist on the struggle against Lassalleanism.