Paris Commune 1871

The Paris Commune of 1871: the first workers' government

The following text is from Karl Marx’s The Civil War in France . It is an account of the events leading up to and during the Paris Commune of March-May 1871 when a radical democratic government of the people (in the main working class) held power. It is a militant defence of the Paris Commune — it caused a stir at the time — and was written for the “First International” (the International Working Men’s Association), the socialist and labour movement grouping in which Marx was a leading member. The French members of the IWMA played important roles in the Commune. In this extract, Marx develops...

Women in the Paris Commune

Women’s role in the Paris Commune was not limited to the morning of March 18 when a crowd of working class women put themselves between the cannons in possession of the National Guard (the citizen’s militia) and the troops of the National Assembly, led by Adolphe Thiers; the action which sparked the revolution. Throughout the 72-day reign of the Commune, women organised, argued, theorised and fought alongside men to defend and develop the revolution. The Clubs Women discussed ideas, argued about demands and expressed their hatred of the church and the state and the role these institutions...

"Storming heaven", the Paris Commune of 1871

The Paris Commune came out of the Franco-Prussian war (July 1870-January 1871). After the defeat of the French forces by the Prussian army at Sedan on 1 September 1870 the French Emperor, Napoleon III resigned and a Republic was set up after mass demonstrations in Paris, calling for the Third Republic. With the Prussians marching upon Paris, a newly established “Government of National Defence” was organised. On 20 September 1870, the Prussians began a siege of Paris which would last for four months. When, in October, the French government began negotiations with the Prussians, the Parisian...

Vive la Commune! 140 years since the workers' revolution in Paris

In 1871, the workers and poor people of Paris organised to take power and create the world's first workers' government - the Paris Commune. The result was an explosion of democracy, freedom and human creativity unparalleled in history up to that point. Although the Commune lasted less than three months and was drowned in blood by the French ruling class, its example has inspired workers in revolutionary struggle across the world ever since. Between March 18, the day the Commune began, and 28 May, the day it fell, Workers' Liberty will be organising a series of events to celebrate and try to...

Workers film and video

“Workers Film and Video” is a new website which aims to bring together into a single site links to footage of key events in working-class history. Material already accessible through the site, which was set up only earlier this year, includes both historical material, such as the 1905 Russian Revolution and the German Spartakist Uprising in 1919, and also more contemporary material, such as last year’s workers’ protests in Egypt. Not all of the footage to which is the site links is unedited footage of events. The site also links to debates and documentaries about topics such as the French...

Lenin on the Paris Commune

On 18 March 1871 the workers of Paris took power in their city. For nine weeks, until they were crushed by the French army after 28 May, they formed the world's first workers' government. Karl Marx wrote a pamphlet at the time about the Commune, The Civil War in France . In it he focused on defending the Commune against its enemies. He claimed it showed, for the first time, "the political form under which to work out the economic emancipation of labour". "Its true secret was this. It was essential a working-class government". The standing army had been replaced by the armed people; the...

What is the Bolshevik-Trotskyist tradition?

What follows is a summary of the political and ideological traditions on which Workers’ Liberty and Solidarity base ourselves. Isaac Newton famously summed up the importance of studying, learning, and building on forerunners. “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”, he wrote, referring to René Descartes, his contemporary Robert Hooke, and presumably also to his direct predecessor Isaac Barrow. In science few people think they can neglect the “tradition” and rely on improvisation. In politics, alas, too many. The summary here, written in 1995, starts as...

Lessons of the Commune

In 1884 Ernest Belfort Bax, one of the pioneer British Marxists, wrote a long series of articles on the Commune in Justice, the paper of the first British Marxist group, the Social Democratic Federation. In the last two issues of Solidarity we have published an abridged and adapted version of Bax’s narrative and also incorporated a few pages from a mid-1880s Socialist League pamphlet, written by Bax and William Morris. This is the final instalment. We have seen that the Commune had one special fault, that of a fatuous moderation in all its doings. We have seen that probably never since history...

The fall of the Commune

In 1894 Ernest Belfort Bax, one of the pioneer British Marxists, wrote a long series of articles on the Commune in Justice, the paper of the first British Marxist group, the Social Democratic Federation. We have abridged and adapted Bax’s narrative account of the Commune and also incorporated a few pages from a mid-1880s Socialist League pamphlet, written by Bax and William Morris. Sunday 21 May, was one of those glorious spring days in which the avenues of the Champs Elysées and the Tuilleries Gardens show up in the clear air a splendour of young foliage, to which hardly another capital in...

The workers of Paris triumph (2)

The Commune had organised itself into nine Commissions or delegations. The Department of public or municipal services involved the general superintendence of public offices such as the Post Office, the Telegraphs, the Mint, the official printing press, the hospitals. Theisz, a workman, took the direction of the Post Office. The wages of all employees were at once raised, and the hours shortened. In well-nigh all these services the “superior officials” had made off, thus leaving the work of directing them in the hands of the workmen administrators placed there by the Commune. Camelinat, bronze...

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