German tailor who stood by Marx from the Communist League to the General Council of the International
A tailor born at Blankenhain near Weimar in 1825, he joined the League of the Just and then the Communist League in London, where he came to know Marx and Engels. Back in Germany for the revolution of 1848–1849, he worked for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung and the Cologne Workers' Association, and at the Cologne Communist Trial of 1852 was sentenced to three years' fortress imprisonment. Emigrating to England in 1856, he sat on the General Council of the International from 1864 to 1872 and took Marx's side against Bakunin. He was a co-founder of the Independent Labour Party in 1893, and in the revisionism dispute in German Social Democracy he sided with orthodox Marxism, becoming a symbol of the movement's "old guard". He died in London in 1910.
Also known as: Frederick Lessner · Friedrich Christian Eduard Lessner
Activities and affiliations
-
1847–1852
Social movements and organizing
-
1864–1872
International Workingmen's Association (First International)Main
Social movements and organizing -
1893–
Independent Labour Party (ILP)
Social movements and organizing
Career Timeline
- 1852Sentenced to three years' fortress imprisonment at the Cologne Communist Trial
- 1856Emigrated to England
- 1864–1872Member of the General Council of the International
- 1893Co-founded the Independent Labour Party