The Paris Commune, the First International, and the origins of anarchism
Notes for a workshop at the London AWL "Paris Commune" event on 30 April 2011 The Paris Commune of March-May 1871 was the high point of the surge of the workers' movement also expressed in the First International, founded in 1864. But the backlash following the defeat of the Paris Commune also broke up the International in 1872, splitting it into two factions, "Marxist" and "anarchist", neither of which survived long. The Paris Commune is thus also the background to the origins of the anarchist movement. Click here: the First International . The leading figures on the two sides of the split...