[D66] [JD: 20] Insurgent Communards: The Road to Revolution

[R.O.]

https://www.leftvoice.org/insurgent-communards-the-road-to-revolution


  Insurgent Communards: The Road to Revolution

Post on: March 14, 2021
Doug Enaa Greene <https://www.leftvoice.org/author/doug-greene>

The Paris Commune was founded on March 18, 1871. A few days before the 
150th anniversary, we look at how the ground was prepared for the first 
working-class government in history.

An illustration from "Le Cri Du Peuple" by Jacques Tardi


    *Part I* | Part II | Part III

In June 1871, the French poet Eugène Pottier wrote a poem entitled 
“L’Internationale” to commemorate the fallen Paris Commune. That poem 
contains the following lines, calling the working class to revolution:

    Arise, ye prisoners of starvation!
    Arise, ye wretched of the earth!
    For justice thunders condemnation:
    A better world’s in birth! …
    ’Tis the final conflict;
    Let each stand in his place.
    The International working class
    Shall be the human race!

In 1888, Pierre De Geyter set “L’Internationale” to music. Since then, 
the song has become one of the most well-known leftist anthems in the 
world. Whenever and wherever the “L’Internationale” is sung, the cause 
of the Paris Commune lives on.

It is not only in song that the Paris Commune is remembered, however. 
The Paris Commune is a necessary reference point for revolutionaries, 
since it was the first time in history that the working class was 
victorious, took command of its destiny, and began constructing a better 
world. The lessons of the Commune were not lost on socialists; Lenin is 
said to have danced in the snow when the soviets had managed to last 
just a day longer than the Commune. On the 150th anniversary of the 
Commune’s birth, it is worth remembering its heroism, history, mistakes, 
and lessons for our forthcoming struggles.


    *The Second Empire and the First International*

In 1851, it seemed that the era of revolution had ended in France. 
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte had just overthrown the unstable Second 
Republic. He proclaimed himself Emperor Napoleon III, and his regime 
promised stability, prosperity, and order. The bourgeoisie seemed all 
too willing to exchange democratic freedoms for a police state, since 
they grew quite wealthy under the Second French Empire.

But the working class did not share in this good fortune. During the 
Second Empire, it labored without political freedoms or labor unions. 
The police kept a close watch, arresting 4,000 workers for violating 
anti-union laws from 1853 to 1866. Repression did not work, however, and 
the emperor sought to co-opt the proletariat. In 1864 a series of 
reforms were passed that legalized unions and strikes along with 
relaxing the censorship. While Napoleon III hoped to win over the 
working class with his benevolence, he instead provided space for a 
revolutionary opposition to grow.

One opposition group was the French section of the International 
Workingmen’s Association. The International was formed in 1864 after 
meetings between French and English workers. The guiding spirit of the 
organization was Karl Marx, whose inaugural address proclaimed, “To 
conquer political power has, therefore, become the great duty of the 
working classes.”^1

In France, many members of the International were originally followers 
of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865). One of the founders of anarchism, 
Proudhon argued that workers should refrain from politics and strikes, 
and instead that they should establish cooperatives and mutual aid. For 
many workers, Proudhon’s vision of decentralized communes was an 
attractive alternative to the bureaucratic and repressive Second Empire.

Since they avoided politics, Proudhonist activists were initially 
tolerated by Napoleon III. Nonetheless, cooperatives and mutual aid did 
not save workers from feeling the brunt of the 1867 economic crisis. 
Thus, they began organizing labor unions and strikes, making French 
workers open to the International’s language of class struggle.

It wasn’t long before the Second Empire linked working-class militancy 
to the International. In March 1868, the police arrested members of the 
International and broke up its Paris branch. But the International 
quickly reorganized. By 1870, its Paris section numbered 70,000 members, 
or a seventh of all workers in the capital.^2 The leading figure in 
Paris was the book-binder and syndicalist Eugène Varlin (1839-1871). 
Later, Varlin would play a major role in the National Guard and the 
Paris Commune.

Another source of leftist opposition came from the Blanquist Party. 
These revolutionaries were followers of Louis-Auguste Blanqui 
(1805–1881), one of the most legendary figures in 19th-century France.^3 
Unlike the Proudhonists, Blanqui was a proponent of revolutionary 
political action. He believed that success depended on a small, tightly 
organized conspiracy. Through force of arms, this revolutionary band 
would rise up to topple the old regime. Blanqui himself practiced what 
he preached, participating in many conspiracies and abortive coups. 
Despite living more than half his life in jail, his revolutionary 
determination remained unbent and unbroken.

In line with this vision, the Blanquist party was an elite corps that 
numbered no more 2,500. These militants drilled and trained in 
preparation for the revolution. The Blanquists, however, were not a 
totally underground group; they conducted public atheist and republican 
agitation among workers and students. Among their ranks was Raoul 
Rigault, Émile Eudes, and the brothers Gaston and Charles Da Costa. All 
of them would play prominent roles in the Paris Commune.


[...]

↑1 	“Inaugural Address,” in /Marx and Engels Collected Works/, vol. 21, 
331. (henceforth /MECW./)
↑2 	Frank Jellinek, /The Paris Commune of 1871/ (New York: Grosset and 
Dunlap, 1965), 39.
↑3 	For more background on Blanqui, see my /Communist Insurgent: 
Blanqui’s Politics of Revolution/ (Chicago: Haymarket, 2017).
↑4 	Jellinek,/Paris Commune/, 57.
↑5 	Louis-Auguste Blanqui “La Patrie en Danger,” in /Communards: The 
Story of the Paris Commune of 1871 as Told by Those Who Fought for It/, 
ed. Mitchell Abidor (Pacifica, CA: Marxists Internet Archive, 2010), 40.
↑6 	Quoted in Donny Gluckstein, /The Paris Commune: A Revolution in 
Democracy/ (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2011), 86.
↑7 	Gluckstein, /Paris Commune/, 86–87.
↑8 	Gluckstein, /Paris Commune/, 101.
↑9 	“Excerpts from the Minutes of Meetings of the Federal Council of 
Paris Sections of the International,” in /The Paris Commune of 1871: The 
View from the Left/, ed. Eugene Schulkind (New York: Grove Press, 1974), 
95.
↑10 	“Resolutions Voted by General Assemblies of Vigilance Committees,” 
in Schulkind, /Paris Commune of 1871/, 90–91.
↑11 	“Formation of a Revolutionary Socialist Party,” in /The Communards 
of Paris, 1871/, ed.//Stewart Edwards (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University 
Press, 1973), 55.
↑12 	“Proposal Submitted to the Republican Central Committee of the 
Twenty Arrondisements,” in Schulkind, /Paris Commune of 1871/, 78.
↑13 	Robert Tombs, /The Paris Commune 1871/ (New York: Longman, 1999), 65.
↑14 	Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, /History of the Paris Commune of 1871 
/(St. Petersburg, Florida: Red and Black Publishers, 2007), 67.
↑15 	Lissagaray, /History of the Paris Commune,/ 72. Other firsthand 
accounts of the March 18 uprising can be found in Edwards, /Communards 
of Paris/, 56–65. For the role of women in the March 18 revolution, see 
Edith Thomas, /The Women Incendiaries/ (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2007), 
52–69.
↑16 	“The Civil War in France,” in /MECW/, vol. 22, 328.

Tags: France <https://www.leftvoice.org/tag/france>History 
<https://www.leftvoice.org/tag/history>Karl Marx 
<https://www.leftvoice.org/tag/karl-marx>Paris Commune 
<https://www.leftvoice.org/tag/paris-commune>
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