Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. (Fredrick Engels, Introduction to The Civil War in France)On March 18th, 1871, the first great proletariat uprising began. The workers of Paris, overwhelmed by their oppression and the atrocities committed against them on a daily basis, revolted, took power, and established the Paris Commune. The working class, seeing that if they merely stole a piece of bread they would be proclaimed criminals and punished dearly, while the bourgeoisie stole the hard-won fruits of their labor daily without the least bit of punishment, decided that they must revolt against the system that allowed this sort of hypocrisy. The product of that revolt was the Commune. Both the anarchists and communists praised it, and adopted it as their own. The Commune was the most brilliant display of the socialist ideal which they both shared. Despite this, today it has largely been forgotten, overshadowed by the Russian and Spanish Revolutions. While in some ways it is true that the Commune does pale in comparison to those two events, it was the event that first showed the way in which mankind could finally be emancipated from the his social slavery. Though these lessons were dearly paid for, they are priceless.
The workers of Paris had been suffering greatly. On top of the normal burdens of wage slavery they had been in a bloody war with the Prussians, and lost. The Prussians, lead by Bismarck, now held part of France and refused to relinquish it unless the French paid a huge indemnity. Adolphe Thiers, the new head of the French government agreed to pay the indemnity, but both he and the Prussians saw one obstacle ahead of them: the workers of Paris.
During the Franco-Prussian War, the French government had desperately needed people to fight, and had been forced to create the National Guard. The National Guard was a part of the Army consisting of all Parisians who could fight. With the majority of the populace comprised of workers, the majority of the National Guard were of course also workers. With the Franco-Prussian War having destroyed most of the professional army, only the Parisians were armed. Shifts in power have traditionally come from a change in the availability of weapons. When in ancient times weapons became harder to produce, and thus available to only a small part of the populace, there was a shift in power to that part of the populace. When it was necessary to arm the majority of the populace, there was a movement towards democracy, the empowerment of all, and in France the government had been forced to do just that.
Of course, things have changed, in that time there was no direct exploitation of the poor (the small farmers) by the rich, only of the slaves by the rich, and no one would dare arm the slaves. It was known that if the small farmer was armed he would only demand more land, and he would do that only if his condition was incredibly desperate. Although it would be harmful to the rich, who would have to give some of their land up, they would, more than likely, be keeping the majority of it, and it was not really an attack on the system itself. The slaves, however, would overthrow the whole system, and for them there was less fear in risking their lives in revolution - their daily life was worse than death could possibly be. Although it depended on the circumstances, about half the populace was enslaved during this time.
In modern times the vast majority of the populace are wage slaves, who see their advancement not in reform of the system, but in destruction of the system altogether. Therefore, as much as the capitalists despise it, if they want to fight their imperialist wars, which they must, they must arm the working class, the slaves of modern day society. Though they try to bribe this soldier class as much as possible, to make them separate from the rest of the working class, they could not bribe the entire working class of Paris.
The city of Paris was armed, militant, and demanding things the capitalists would never give. There was going to be conflict.
Paris was at that time feared by both the Prussians and Thiers. The Prussians would not dare enter the city even after they had won the war. Thiers needed to pay the indemnity and to do that he needed to get the money from the Parisians, but the Parisians weren't willing to pay. He decided that he needed to destroy the National Guard, to disarm Paris, and March 18th he tried:
On March 18th, the soldiers were ordered by M. Thiers, the head of the reactionary government, to transport the cannon of Paris to Versailles. The milkmaids, who were on the streets before dawn, saw what was afoot and thwarted the treacherous plans of the reactionary government. They surrounded the soldiers and prevented them from carrying out Theirs' orders. Although the men had not yet come into the streets on this early morning, and although the women were not armed, they held their own. As in every real peoples' revolution, new strata of the population were awakened. This time it was the women who were to act first. When reveille was sounded, all of Paris was in the streets. Theirs' spies barely escaped with the information that it was impossible to inform on who the leaders of the uprising were, since the entire population was involved. (Raya Dunayevskya, Marxism and Freedom)Then came the first casualty of the Revolution:
On the first day of the Commune, 18 March, women played a crucial role in neutralizing the troops sent by Theirs to seize the cannons of the National Guard. At Montmartre General Lecomte gave the order to fire. At this the women spoke to the soldiers: "Will you fire upon us? On your brothers? Our husbands? Our children?" Faced with this unexpected intervention, the soldiers hesitated. A warrant officer stood in front of his company and shouted: "Mutiny!" Thereupon the 88th battalion fraternized with the crowd. The soldiers arrested their general. (Tony Cliff, Class Struggle and Women's Liberation)Claude Martin Lecomte, the general who ordered soldiers to shoot at civilians, was the first casualty of the Revolution. The second was General Jacques Leonard Clement Thomas, killed shortly after by the same group of soldiers who killed Claude Martin Lecomte. With that Thiers left in defeat and fled to Versailles with what was left of the army, the "Professionals", and the bourgeoisie, leaving the city to the workers.
The civil war had begun. Throughout the whole affair, the Versailles government killed any supporters of the Commune it could find. In contrast, the Parisians did not like to, and rarely did use violence. The Parisians even publicly burned the guillotine. Thiers hoped that without the skilled workers and the bourgeoisie Paris would fall, but in fact it flourished, and became a prime example of socialism. With the French state gone, the National Guard created the Central Committee, then, when it thought it had finished its job, it handed power over to the Commune.
During the Franco-Prussian War the workers of Paris had suffered greatly, and to cope with these problems they created local organizations to handle their problems. These organizations were places where anyone could speak their mind. They were places for open debate by anyone, and when it came to making decisions, no decision could be made without the general consensus of all involved. They were local organizations, where all were equal and could speak their mind, and which handled the problems that occured far better than the central bureaucratic state ever did or possibly could. These organizations, to some degree or another, find counter parts in both the Soviets of Russia and early tribal societies.
What the Commune did was unite these organizations, creating one of the greatest examples of true democracy in modern times. The Commune was composed of delegates from each one of these organizations, rightly called delegates and not representatives, because they themselves had little power. They could be recalled immediately, and were chosen by consensus. Because of this they represented the will of all of the people in the organization. They were not powerful members of the bureaucracy, but instead merely vehicles for the information and opinions of the groups they represented. Also, unlike the bureaucracy of today, they received wages only equal to around the average wage of a worker, and because in the organizations all were equal and could speak their mind, no matter what income or social status they had, in the Commune most of delegates were either workers or middle class.
When it was founded, the Commune did not take over the power of the local groups, instead it organized them, and united them. The real executive power always lay in these groups. They were the ones that carried out the orders of the Commune and made sure they came to fruition. So, instead of giving power to the ineffective central state, the local, less bureaucratic organizations, composed of the whole of the populace, kept the real power. Because of this the Commune was one of the most effective and efficient states ever created.
In the short amount of time it had, the Commune began to revolutionize French society. It gave control of the means of production to the workers. It destroyed the standing army and replaced it with a militia composed of everyone who could fight, thus taking power away from a small group of armed individuals and giving it to the whole populace. It put the police under the power of the people. Declaring that "The flag of the Commune is the flag of the World Republic," the Commune allowed foreigners to take positions in the Commune, thus proving it was internationalist. The Commune also finally broke the relationship between church and state, a relationship that had been strong in France since the times of the Holy Roman Empire a millennium ago. All of this given only two months and in the middle of a civil war!
But, contrary to popular belief, the Commune was not really a socialistic entity. It was a democratic entity, and with most of the populace being class conscious workers, it, of course took on a socialist leaning. Even that doesn't explain in full the actions of the Commune, because, though most of its members were socialists, they did take measures that would seem against their particular beliefs. This can be explained by the fact that the Commune took measures which they thought would be most effective and beneficial to the economy. For example, when the bourgeoisie fled, and the factories were not operating, the Commune gave the workers control of the means of production, or because of the fact that the workers had to sell their tools in order to feed themselves during the Franco-Prussian war, the Commune had their tools returned so that they could continue work. Marx said this about the Commune:
The multiplicity of interpretation to which the Commune has been subjected, and the multiplicity of interests which construed it in their favour, show that it was a thoroughly expansive political form, while all previous forms of government had been emphatically repressive. Its true secret was this: It was essentially a working class government, the produce of the struggle of the producing against the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labour.
Except on this last condition, the Communal Constitution would have been an impossibility and a delusion. The political rule of the producer cannot co-exist with the perpetuation of his social slavery. The Commune was therefore to serve as a lever for uprooting the economical foundation upon which rests the existence of classes, and therefore of class rule. With labor emancipated, every man becomes a working man, and productive labor ceases to be a class attribute. (Karl Marx, The Civil War In France)With the French government now sure that the Commune could survive it knew that it would have to take Paris back with violence. The French government killed supporters of the Commune whenever it could, but at first only on a small scale. When it was sure that there was no alternative the Prussians began rebuilding the French army, and preparing to use its own.
On May 21, they attacked. The onslaught was known as "La semaine sanglante", the Week of Blood. The Parisians held out for a while but had no real chance, and after their defeat the massacres began. Between 30,000 and a 100,000 were killed in the Week of Blood, they tried to block all exits to the city so that none could escape, though some sympathetic guards let a few out. One report describes the Week of Blood:
The column of prisoners halted in the Avenue Uhrich, and was drawn up, four or five deep, on the footway facing to the road. General Marquis de Gallifet and his staff dismounted and commenced an inspection from the left of the line. Walking down slowly and eyeing the ranks, the general stopped here and there, tapping a man on the shoulder or beckoning him out of the rear ranks. In most cases, without further parley, the individual thus selected was marched out into the centre of the road, where a small supplementary column was thus soon formed.... It was evident that there was considerable room for error. A mounted officer pointed out to General Gallifet a man and woman for some particular offence. The women, rushing out of the ranks, threw herself on her knees, and, with outstretched arms, protested her innocence in passionate terms. The general waited for a pause, and then with most impassible face and unmoved demeanor, said: "Madame, I have visited every theatre in Paris, your acting will have no effect on me." (ce n'est pas la peine de jouer la comedie).... It was not a good thing on that day to be noticeably taller, dirtier, cleaner, older, uglier than one's neighbors. One individual in particular struck me as probably owing his speedy release from the ills of this world to his having a broken nose.... Over a hundred being thus chosen, a firing party told off, and the column resumed its march, leaving them behind. A few minutes afterwards a dropping fire in our rear commenced, and continued for over a quarter of an hour. It was the execution of the summarily-convicted wretches. (Paris Correspondent, Daily News , June 8. )Another report describes the horrifying conditions of Paris during the week of blood:
The Temps, which is a careful journal, and not given to sensation, tells a dreadful story of people imperfectly shot and buried before life was extinct. A great number were buried in the Square round St. Jacques-la-Bouchiere; some of them very superficially. In the daytime the roar of the busy streets prevented any notice being taken; but in the stillness of the night the inhabitants of the houses in the neighborhood were roused by distant moans, and in the morning a clenched hand was seen protruding through the soil. In consequence of this, exhumations were ordered to take place.... that many wounded have been buried alive I have not the slightest doubt. One case I can vouch for. When Brunel was shot with his mistress on the 24th ult. in the courtyard of a house in the place Vendome, the bodies lay there until the afternoon of the 27th. When the burial party came to remove the corpses, they found the woman still living, and took her to an ambulance. Though she had received four bullets she is now out of danger. (Paris Correspondent, Evening Standard, June 8.)Paris was crushed, drowned in blood, and seemingly destroyed. With that, both her workers and the idea of the Commune were thought to be vanquished, victims of one of the most brutal acts of repression to date, though the Commune lives on, its martyrs remembered, and highly valued. The Commune helped to make the International, along with names like Marx, Engels, Bakunin, and Kropotkin, famous, so that even today they and their works are remembered. But on top of that, the Commune influenced the thought of the entire socialist movement, the way in which man would be emancipated from both his economic and political oppressors had finally been discovered. No amount of philosophizing ever did or possibly could create the idea of the Commune as it appeared in Paris, the Commune was a child of practice, created by necessity. Though it was paid for in the blood of thousands of workers, the Paris Commune taught the socialist movement lessons vital for its success, and finally exposed the capitalist system for what it was, as Marx said:
That, after the most tremendous war of modern times, the conquering and the conquered hosts should fraternize for the common massacre of the proletariat -- this unparalleled event does indicate, not, as Bismarck thinks, the final repression of a new society up heaving, but the crumbling into dust of bourgeois society. The highest heroic effort of which old society is still capable is national war; and this is now proved to be a mere governmental humbug, intended to defer the struggle of classes, and to be thrown aside as soon as that class struggle bursts out into civil war. Class rule is no longer able to disguise itself in a national uniform; the national governments are one as against the proletariat! (Karl Marx, The Civil War in France)
~*~Chris
