Today (March 18th) is the 140th anniversary of the start of the Paris Commune of 1871. We mark the event by re-publishing Greg Oxley’s account of this important event, first published in 2001. Greg is a supporter of La Riposte, the French Marxist paper.
The Paris Commune of 1871 was one of the greatest and most
inspiring episodes in the history of the working class. In a
tremendous revolutionary movement, the working people of Paris
replaced the capitalist state with their own organs of government and
held political power until their downfall in the last week of May.
The Parisian workers strove, in extremely difficult circumstances, to
put an end to exploitation and oppression, and to reorganise society
on an entirely new foundation. The lessons of these events are of
fundamental importance for socialists today.
Twenty years before the advent of the Commune, following the
defeat of the workers uprising in June 1848, the military coup of 2nd
December 1851 brought Emperor Napoleon III to power. Initially, the
new bonapartist regime seemed unshakeable. The workers were defeated,
their organisations outlawed. By the late 1860’s, however, the
exhaustion of the economic upswing, combined with the revival of the
labour movement, had seriously weakened the regime. It was clear that
only a new – and rapidly successful – war would allow it to survive
for any length of time. In August 1870, the armies of Napoleon III
marched against Bismarck. The war, he claimed, would bring
territorial gains, weaken France’s rivals, and put an end to the
crisis in finance and industry.
It often happens that war leads to revolution. This is not
accidental. A war wrenches the working people out their daily
routine. The actions of the state, of generals, of politicians, of
the press, come under the scrutiny of the mass of the population to
an infinitely higher degree than is normally the case in times of
peace. This is particularly the case in the event of defeat. The
attempted invasion of Germany by Napoleon III came to a rapid and
inglorious end. On 2nd September, near Sedan on France’s eastern
border, the Emperor was captured by Bismarck’s army together with
100,000 troops. In Paris, mass demonstrations poured through the
streets of the capital, demanding the overthrow of the Empire and
declaration of a new democratic republic.
The so-called republican opposition was terrified by this
movement, but was nonetheless forced to inaugurate the republic on
the 4th September. A new "Government of National Defence" was
installed, in which the key figure was general Trochu. Jules Favre,
also in the government and a typical representative of capitalist
republicanism, proclaimed that "not one inch of territory, nor one
stone of our fortresses" would be ceded to the Prussians. The German
troops rapidly encircled Paris and placed the city under siege. The
people initially supported the new government in the name of "unity"
against the foreign enemy. But this unity would very soon break down.
In spite of its public declarations, the Government of National
Defence did not believe it was possible to defend Paris. Besides the
regular army, a 200,000-strong peoples militia, the National Guard,
declared itself ready to defend Paris, but the armed workers within
Paris were a far greater threat to class interests of the French
capitalists than the foreign army at its gates. The government
decided it would be best to capitulate to Bismarck as soon as
possible. However, given the patriotic fervour of the Parisians and
of the National Guard, it was impossible for the government to state
this openly. Trochu had to gain time. He counted on the social and
economic effects of the siege to dampen the resistance of the
Parisian workers. In the meantime, the government opened secret
negotiations were with Bismarck.
As the weeks went by, hostility to the government grew. Rumours
about negotiations with Bismarck were rife. On 8th October, the fall
of Metz sparked off a new mass demonstration. On the 31st, several
contingents of National Guards, led by the Blanquists, attacked and
temporarily occupied the building. At this stage, the mass of the
workers was not yet ready to act against the government. The
insurrection was therefore isolated. Blanqui fled into hiding and
Flourens, the courageous commander of the Belleville battalions, was
imprisoned.
In Paris the famine and poverty brought on by the siege was having
disastrous consequences, and the need to break the siege was felt all
the more acutely. The sortie aimed at taking the village of Buzenval
on 19th January ended in yet another defeat. Trochu resigned. He was
replaced by Vinoy, who, in his first proclamation, wrote that
Parisians should be "under no illusions" as to the possibility of
defeating the Prussians. It was now clear that the government
intended to capitulate. The political clubs and the Vigilance
Committees called on the National Guards to arm themselves and march
on the Hôtel de Ville. Other detachments went to the prisons to
free Flourens. Under growing pressure from below, the middle class
democrats of the Alliance Républicaine demanded a "popular
government" to organise effective resistance against the Prussians.
But when the National Guards arrived at the Hôtel de Ville,
Chaudry, representing the government, shouted furiously at the
delegates from the Alliance. This was enough to make the republicans
agree to disperse immediately. Breton guards on the side of the
government shot down national Guards and demonstrators who tried to
oppose this betrayal. The National Guards returned fire, but were
eventually forced to retreat.
This first armed clash with the government meant the collapse of
the Alliance Républicaine. However, the movement against the
government temporarily subsided. On the 27th January, the Government
of National Defence was now able to go ahead with the capitulation it
had planned since the beginning of the siege.
Rural France was in favour of peace, and the votes of the
peasantry in the elections to the National Assembly in February gave
a massive majority to the monarchist and conservative candidates. The
Assembly nominated a hardened reactionary, Adolphe Thiers, as head of
government. A clash between the Paris, and the "rural" majority in
the Assembly was inevitable. Open counter-revolution had raised its
head, and acted as a spur to the revolution. Prussian soldiers would
soon enter the capital. The lull in the movement now gave way to a
new and more powerful upsurge of protest. Armed demonstrations of the
National Guard took place, massively supported by the workers and the
poorer sections of the population, denounced Thiers and the
monarchists as traitors and called for "a fight to the death" in
defence of the republic. The events of 31st October and of 22nd
January were but mild foretastes of the new movement underway. The
Parisian working class as a whole was now in open revolt.
The reactionary National Assembly constantly provoked the
Parisians, referring to them as cut-throats, criminals. It cancelled
the already very low pay of the National Guards unless they could
prove that they were "incapable of work". The siege had made many
workers unemployed, and their allowance for service in the National
Guard was all that stood between them and starvation. Arrears in
rents and all debts were declared to be payable within 48 hours. This
threatened small businessmen with immediate bankruptcy. Paris was
deprived of its status as capital city of France, which was
transferred to Versailles. This measures, and many others, hit the
poorest sections of society particularly hard, but also led to a
radicalisation of middle class Parisians, whose only real hope of
salvation was now in the revolutionary overthrow of Thiers and the
National Assembly.
The surrender to the Prussians and the threat of monarchist
restoration led to a transformation in the National Guard. A "Central
Committee of the Federation of National Guards" was elected,
representing 215 battalions, equipped with 2000 canons and 450,000
firearms. New statutes were adopted, stipulating "the absolute right
of the National Guards to elect their leaders and to revoke them as
soon as they loose the confidence of their electors." Essentially,
the Central Committee and the corresponding structures at battalion
level were a forerunner of the soviets of workers and soldier’s
deputies, which arose in the course of the revolutions of 1905 and
1917 in Russia.
The new leadership of the National Guard was to rapidly test its
authority. When the Prussian army was to enter Paris, tens of
thousands of armed Parisians gathered with the intention of attacking
the invader. The Central Committee intervened to prevent an unequal
struggle for which it was not yet prepared. The success of the
Central Committee firmly established its authority as the recognised
leadership of the mass of the people. Clément Thomas, the
commander nominated by the government, had no alternative but to
resign. The Prussian forces occupied part of the city for two days,
and then withdrew.
Thiers had promised the Rurals in the Assembly to restore the
monarchy. His immediate task was had to put an end to the situation
of "dual power" in Paris. The canons under the command of the
National Guard – and particularly those on the heights of Montmartre
overlooking the city – symbolised the threat the capitalist "law and
order". At 3 o’ clock in the morning, on March 18th, 20,000 regular
soldiers were sent to seize these canons under the command of general
Lecomte. The canons were seized without difficulty. However, the
expedition had set off without thinking of the need for harnesses to
haul the canons away. At 7 o’clock, still no harnesses had arrived.
The troops now found themselves surrounded by a thickening crowd of
workers, including women and children. National Guards now arrived on
the scene. The unarmed crowd, the National Guards and Lecomte’s men
were pressed against one another in the dense gathering. Some of the
soldiers openly fraternised with the guards. Lecomte ordered his men
to fire on the crowd. Nobody fired. The soldiers and the National
Guards threw up a cheer and embraced each other. Apart from a brief
exchange of fire at Place Pigalle, the army collapsed without
offering any resistance to the Guards. Lecomte and with
Clément Thomas, the former commander of the National Guard who
had fired on workers back in 1848, were arrested. Angry soldiers
executed them shortly afterwards.
Thiers had not foreseen the defection of the troops.
Panic-stricken, he fled from Paris and ordered the army and the civil
services to completely evacuate the city and the surrounding forts.
Thiers wanted to save what he could of the army by taking them away
from "contagion" by revolutionary Paris. The remnants of his forces,
many of them openly insubordinate, chanting revolutionary songs and
slogans, were marched off to Versailles.
With the old state apparatus out of the way, the National Guard
took over all the strategic points in the city without meeting any
significant resistance. The Central Committee had not played any role
in the events of the day. And yet, on the evening of the 18th, it
discovered, that in spite of itself it was now in effect the
government of a new revolutionary regime based on the armed power of
the National Guard!
The first task that the Central Committee set itself was to
relinquish the power that was in its hands. They had no "legal
mandate" to govern! After much discussion, it was agreed to stay in
the Hôtel de Ville for "a few days" during which municipal
(communal) elections could be organised. With the cry of "Vive la
Commune!", the members of the Central Committee were greatly relieved
that they would not have to exercise power for any length of time!
The problem immediately before them was that of Thiers and the army
on its way to Versailles. Eudes and Duval proposed that the National
Guard pursue them in order to shatter what remained of the forces in
Thiers’ hands. Their appeals fell on deaf ears. The Central Committee
was composed for the most part of very moderate men, completely
unprepared in temperament and in ideas for the tasks which history
had placed upon them.
The Central Committee began long negotiations with the former
Mayors and with various "conciliators" over the date of the
elections. This absorbed its attention right up until the election
finally took place on 26th March. Thiers put this valuable time to
great use. A campaign of lies and vicious propaganda against Paris
was conducted in the provinces, and, with the help of Bismarck, the
numbers, the arms and the morale of the soldiers were strengthened in
readiness for an attack against Paris.
The newly elected Commune replaced the leadership of the National
Guard as the official government of revolutionary Paris. It was
mainly composed of people associated with the revolutionary movement
in one way or another. The majority might be described as "left
republicans", steeped in idealised nostalgia for the Jacobin regime
at the time of the French Revolution. Out of its 90 members, 25 were
workers, and 13 were members of the Central Committee of the National
Guard, and 15 or so were members of the International Workingmens’
Association. Between them the Blanquists – energetic men always ready
for dramatic and extreme measures but with only the vaguest political
ideas – and the Internationalists made up about one quarter of the
Commune. Blanqui himself was in a provincial prison. The few
right-wing members who were elected resigned their positions on
various pretexts. Others were arrested on the discovery of their
names in police files identifying them as former spies for the
imperial regime.
Under the Commune, all privileges for state functionaries were
abolished, rents were frozen, abandoned workshops were placed under
the control of the workers, measures were taken to limit night-work,
to guarantee subsistence to the poor and the sick. The Commune
declared its aim as "ending the anarchic and ruinous competition
between workers for the profit of the capitalists", and the
"dissemination of socialist ideals". The National Guard was open to
all able-bodied men, and organised, as we have seen, along strictly
democratic lines. Standing armies "separate and apart form the
people" were declared illegal. The Church was separated from the
state. Religion was declared "a private matter". Homes and public
buildings were requisitioned for the homeless. Public education was
opened to all, as were the theatres and places of culture and
learning. Foreign workers were considered as brothers and sisters, as
soldiers for the "universal republic of international labour".
Meetings took place day and night, were thousands of ordinary men and
women debated how various aspects of social life should be organised
in the interests of the "common good".
The social and political character of the society that was
gradually taking shape under the aegis of the National Guard and the
Commune was unmistakably socialist. The lack of any historical
precedent, the absence of clear, organised leadership, of a clear
program, combined with the social and economic dislocation of a
besieged city, necessarily meant that the workers fumbled cautiously
forwards in dealing with the concrete requirements of organising
society in their own interests. A great deal has been written about
the incoherence, the half-measures, the wasted time and energy and
the mistaken priorities of the Parisian people during their ten weeks
of power within the walls of a beleaguered city. All of this, and
more, is true. The communards made many mistakes. Marx and Engels
were particularly critical of their failure to take control of the
Bank of France, which continued to pay millions of francs to Thiers
with which he was arming against Paris. However, fundamentally, all
the most important initiatives taken by the workers pointed in the
direction of complete social and economic emancipation of the
wage-working population as a class. Above all, the Commune lacked
time. The process in the direction of socialism was cut short by the
return of the Versailles army and the terrible bloodbath that put an
end to the Commune.
The threat from Versailles was clearly underestimated by the
Commune, which not only did not attempt to attack them, but did not
even seriously prepare to defend itself. From the March 27th onwards,
occasional exchanges of fire between the forward positions of the
Versailles army and the ramparts around Paris had occurred. On April
2nd, a communard detachment moving in the direction of Courbevoie,
was attacked and pushed back. The prisoners taken by Thiers’ forces
were summarily shot. The following day, under pressure from the
National Guard, the Commune finally launched a three-pronged
offensive against Versailles. However, in spite of the enthusiasm of
the communard battalions, lack of serious political and military
preparation (clearly it was thought that, as on March 18th, the
Versailles army would come over to the Commune at the sight of the
National Guard) condemned this belated sortie to dismal failure.
This defeat cost not only the dead and wounded, who included
Flourens and Duval, both slaughtered upon their capture by the
Versailles army, but also the fainter-hearted elements within Paris.
The fatalistic optimism of the first weeks gave way to a sense of the
imminent danger of defeat, accentuating the divisions and rivalry at
all levels of the military command.
Finally, the Versailles army entered Paris on 21st May 1871. At
the Hôtel de Ville, having failed to organise any serious
military strategy, now, at the decisive hour, the Commune simply
ceased to exist, abdicating all responsibility to a completely
ineffective "Committee of Public Safety". The National Guards were
left to fight "in their localities", a decision which, together with
the absence of any centralised command, prevented any serious
concentration of communard forces capable of holding out against the
thrust of the Versailles troops. The communards fought with
tremendous courage, but were gradually pushed towards the east of the
city and finally defeated on the 28th May. Thiers forces conducted a
terrible slaughter of anything up to 30,000 men, women and children,
with perhaps another 20,000 killed in the following weeks. Firing
squads were at work well into the month of June, killing anyone
suspected of having cooperated in any way with the Commune.
Marx and Engels followed the Commune closely and drew many lessons
from this first attempt at the construction of a workers’ state.
Their conclusions are contained in the writings published under the
title "The Civil War in France", with a particularly remarkable
introduction by Engels. Before the 18th March, they had declared
that, given the unfavourable circumstances, seizing power would be "a
desperate folly". Nevertheless, the events of March 18th left the
workers with power thrust upon them, as it were. The working people
of Paris saw themselves as fighting not only for immediate aims. They
struggled, as they termed it, for a "universal social republic", free
of exploitation, of class divisions, of reactionary militarism and
national antagonisms. In modern France, as in all the industrialised
countries in the world, the material conditions for the realisation
of these great aims are incomparably more favourable now than they
were in 1871. We must now establish on a firm foundation the society
for which the men and women of the Commune fought and died.
Paris, 16th May 2001.
