(Originally published in PL Magazine, 'Special Issue' Vol 8, No. 3, November 1971, pp. 89-94. Seventh article in the original PL Magazine publication)
March 18, 1971, was the 100th anniversary of the Paris Commune. It was the first attempt of the working class to take over and hold state power. It was the first notice for the bourgeois class that their ownership of wage slaves was not eternal.
There is a habit among all of us to idealize working class history. This is bad and erroneous. Real men, and women fought and died for the Paris Commune. Twenty thousand people daily were involved in heated political discussion over how the commune should be run. Many mistakes were made just as there were many triumphs. That was because it was real. No dream. No figment of imagination. Real lessons could be learned that would and did advance the working class towards power and their aspirations all over the world.
Masses of working class people were involved in the running of government and in the destruction of the hold of religion over their minds. Women were involved in fighting male chauvinism. And the working class was learning how to grow into the only class. Internationalism took a real form -- French, Polish, Italian, German fighters and workmen stood side by side and defended what was called the "International Republic." The working class ran almost all the service functions of government from the top down. No super specialists were needed. These were all real things. The anger and fear of the bourgeoisie was also real. They destroyed half a city the so-called "heart of western culture" -- in order to crush the working class and smash their state.
They held no quarter. There was no discussion about whether to have workers' power or not. The ruling class, no matter what their differences, when it came to either they or the workers owning state power were of one opinion. The so-called radicals, Liberals and Rurals all said, "Smash them so they may become once more cattle, so we can represent and suppress them."
In this article it is not necessary to go into the Revolution of 1917, the Revolution of 1949, the Chinese Cultural Revolution. But the history and lessons of the Paris Commune were carried on by communists and the anger of the working class for their situation has grown worldwide from that small start in Paris 100 years ago.
The New Napoleonic Empire of 1851-70 had been one of depravity and profit. The many orgies were known to all far and wide in France. Many bourgeoisie had grown fat wringing profits out of wage slavery. It was surely the best of times for these bosses. Many new, wide boulevards had been constructed in Paris not so much for their beauty, but rather in memory of June of 1848 when the working class had consciously become aware of their won demands and tried to grasp the government for their own. The narrow streets of Paris had been easy to barricade, so a lot of ruling class lackeys' blood had fallen. Not that the bosses cared about that, but they came close to losing power -- and that was something to more than think about. Baron Haussman had made a fortune on the boulevards as others had made it in metal, food, garment (306,567 workers -- 208,383 women) and construction (125,371 workers -- 63,675 women). Over the period 1857-67 real wages had dropped because, though wages 'ere steady, food, clothing and rent had risen. The Parisian working class had not sat back idly but ad been involved in the International Workingmen's Association. In 1867 the metalworkers union won strike victory, with the help of the International hen it was only 600 strong. So the prestige of the International quickly grew until by 1870 it had 70,000 members in Paris alone. As the depression worsened working class anger rose.
In Germany Bismarck had a need to finally tie the country in one united nation, so that the bourgeoisie could really get down to sucking all of the German workers' blood. A war with France would be just the answer -- a real unifying force, heady nationalism would be in the air, and the working class and small shopkeepers could forget their problems. Bosses' militarism and nationalism was the thing. So, too, in France, Napoleon realized as the anger of the lasses grew that he would need a few square miles n the other side of the Rhine -- a thought to send icy tingles up the spine of any nationalist Frenchman -- in point of fact most bosses. So the two godfathers f their own national bourgeois interests, Napoleon '1 and Bismarck, blew the trumpets of nationalism I1d money.
The workers of France and Germany and England, seeing well what was the intent of their lords, sent cries of international brotherhood. July 12 the International Workingmen's Assoc. sent the following manifesto from the Paris International: "Once lore, on the pretext of European equilibrium, of national honour, the peace of the world is menaced by political ambitions. French, German, Spanish workmen! Let our voices unite in one cry of reprobation against war! ...In answer to the warlike proclamations of those who exempt themselves from the blood tax, and find in public misfortunes a source of fresh speculations, we protest, we who ant peace, labour and liberty! ...Brothers in Germany! Our division would only result in the complete triumph of the despotism on both sides of the Rhine ...Workmen of all countries! Whatever may for the present become of our common efforts, we, the members of the International Workingmen's Association, who know of no frontiers, we send you, as pledge of indissoluble solidarity, the good wishes and the salutations of the workmen of France."
By July 16th, answers had come by masses of workmen from Brunswick, Chemnitz and Berlin, Germany. In Chemnitz a meeting of delegates representing 50,000 Saxon workers adopted unanimously a resolution to this effect: "In the name of the German Democracy, and especially of the workmen forming the Democratic Socialist party, we declare the present war to be exclusively dynastic... le are happy to grasp the fraternal hand stretched out to us by the workmen of France...Mindful of the watchword of the International Workingmen's Assoc.: Proletarians of all countries, unite, we shall never forget that the workmen of all countries are our friends and the despots of all countries our enemies."
France and Germany went to war, "and in a few weeks the German army had routed the French at Metz and Sedan. The Parisian working class was not told the news immediately. The government knew well what would happen. A few days later on September 4th, 1870 the masses found out and went into the streets in the hundreds of thousands. "We must defend Paris for now we must build the Republic." As the 'Prussian armies marched on Paris with the pressure of civil war on the ruling class, they formed the Government of National Defense. The Liberals: Jules Favre, Gambetta and Co., assumed office and answered some of the demands of the masses.
The masses demanded weapons for all who could handle them and so almost the whole able-bodied male population of Paris was enrolled in the National Guard. Sheep, cattle and other livestock were brought into the city from all around. A collection for the production of cannons was made among the masses. Food was grown in Paris parks and the city prepared itself for siege, The government of national defense chose Trochu, a Napoleonic sympathizer and general, to lead the defense of Paris. He made quite clear what he thought about the defense. He' said, "I will try my best, but Paris can't be defended." During the siege the working class National Guard became more despondent with the government and the leadership of the Guard. So, throughout the 20 sections of Paris the Guard started to form their own committee. This became known as the Central Committee of the National Guard and started to wrest leadership from the bosses' flunkies. They soon became a most formidable group and automatically ran the National Guard from below.
With the Prussians around Paris the Govt. of National Defense, besides, sending out a few badly prepared sorties against the encircling army, did nothing but wait until hunger and thirst and cold would destroy the strength of the people of Paris. For the bosses this would mean a weakened working class. However, when this sellout government capitulated owing Bismarck and Co. millions of francs, the working class' strength was not sapped; rather, their anger grew. Elections for a new assembly, to collect the millions, were called for with much haste so that many of the people of France did not know the situation in Paris and many did not vote. Thiers, the dwarf, became premier, and rubbed his hands in glee. As he later said about the working class takeover in Paris, "We do not want it to come to a fight, but if it does we'll hit them without mercy." Thus was the "representative government of the people" ready to deal with the masses. Meanwhile the real government of the workers, the Central Committee, arranged a silent, rigid, strong city for the, entering Prussians who soon breached forts on the north and west of Paris. The government fled Paris silently, feeling as they did the tremendous militancy of the Parisian workingmen. They fled to rural Versailles there to enact such bills as immediate payment of back rents from a weak and food-starved city. However, in their hasty dash, they had forgotten the arms caches and cannon.
March 18th at three in the morning the bosses' army marched stealthily into Paris to grab the cannons and other weapons of the workers paid for by the workers from subscriptions. It was a cold foggy morning. General Lecomte had to capture 171 guns in the Montmartre district. The army took its position in the morning, surrounding the weapons. The army was one of raw provincial levies. The young men stood awkwardly in the morning and had no real idea what their mission was. The working class women of Paris came to the communal pump in the morning for water, saw the soldiers and were very friendly with them. However, when they realized that they were there to take away the weapons, they begged the soldiers not to. After some time a crowd of women, children and National Guardsmen swept around the Montmartre hill breaking the troops' half-hearted resistance. Lecomte ordered his men to shoot into the crowd. There was silence. He ordered them again to shoot into the crowd. The troops turned the butts of their rifles and handed them to the people shouting "Long live the Republic!" Later Lecomte and another general were shot by the angry masses.
The Central Committee of the National Guard had taken over the Hotel de Ville (town hall) and ran up the red flag. The red flag was the blood of the workers that had been spilled for many years in fighting the ruling class -- it was the flag of revolution. It was to be the communist flag. The rest of the army of Thiers was chased out of the city. Those who wanted to join the workers' army stayed. The Central Committee's first proclamation to the people: "Citizens, the people of Paris have shaken off the yoke which it was attempted to impose upon them...Thanks be to all and may Paris and -France together lay the foundations of a republic acclaimed in all its consequences, the only government which will close forever the era of invasions and civil wars...The people of Paris is summoned in its sections to hold its communal elections."
Thousands of people were conscious that a great step forward had been made in the freeing of the working man from kings, princes, bankers and politicians. The Central Committee called for elections for the Commune on the 26th of March. In the meantime the Central Committee started to put the city in order. Most of the regular civil servants had run to Versailles, which meant the total disruption of most of the essential services of the city. Six thousand sick were abandoned in the hospitals. The post office was left. The cleaning of the city had not been done in months and there was much debris left over from the, siege. The sewers were overflowing. The Central Committee reorganized all of these services by using regular workingmen to fill these posts.
On the 25th, the day before the polls, the Central Committee put out its working class advice, "Citizens our mission is ended; we are about to yield our place in your Hotel de ville to your new representatives, your regular mandatories. ". If our advice' may claim some weight in your resolutions, permit your most zealous servants to tell you, before the ballot, what they expect of the day's voting. Do not lose sight of the fact that the men who will serve you best are those whom you choose from amongst yourselves, living your life, suffering your ills. Distrust the ambitious no less than the upstart: both consult only their own interests and always end by finding themselves indispensable. Distrust also talkers, incapable of translating words into action they sacrifice everything to a speech, an oratorical effect, an empty phrase. Avoid, too, those whom fortune has too highly favoured, for only too rarely is he who possesses fortune disposed to look upon the workingman as his brother. …In short, seek men of sincere conviction, men of the people, men resolute and active, men of sense and' recognized honesty. Give your preference to those who do not ostentatiously solicit your suffrages; true merit is modest, and it is for the voters to recognize their men."
Almost half the people who could vote, voted which was considered to be a very heavy vote. On the 28th, red flags were everywhere. The working class had Paris. The first act of the Commune was to smash the use of a standing army replacing it with the National Guard. Anyone who was fit to serve would join the National Guard. The bourgeois battalions of the National Guard were disbanded by the Commune. The bosses' army cannot stand without the workers' army. The Commune decreed that the Versailles government's orders were null and void, that the working class government of Paris would now administer. The next thing the Commune attacked was the binding of state and religion. From now on, religion would be a purely private matter.
"In their revolutionary practice the insurgents of the Paris Commune repudiated the views of Proudhonism and Blanquism on the question of the state. Instead of striving for a state of anarchy as advocated by Proudhonism, they established the state organs of the proletariat. Instead of building up a dictatorship of a few revolutionaries as advocated by Blanquism, they took the first steps in exercising the dictatorship of the proletariat by relying on the revolutionary enthusiasm and the initiative of the proletariat."
The Commune made 6,000 francs the highest salary of anyone who worked for it. This was to stop careerism and place hunting so that it would be close to a worker's wage. The rents that the Landlords and the Versailles government had tried to collect were suspended. Gambling was suppressed. The religious budget was suppressed and all clerical estates declared national properties. The Commune ordered both the old and the new guillotines to be burnt publicly on the 6th of April. The Commune pulled down the column of Bonaparte at the Place Vendôme, symbol of national chauvinism, -- bosses' militarism, and the negation of international rights. The Commune abolished political and professional oaths. The Commune elected Frankel, Hungarian-German member of the International saying that the flag of the commune was that of the universal republic and that foreigners could have a seat in it. All things pawned -- work tools, bedding, furniture, were redeemed free so that workers could work with their tools. The Commune gave orders to make no distinction between ladies called illegitimate or legitimate. The Commune passed a law that bosses' fines against workers' wages, deductions, etc. as punishments were to be abolished. The manufacturers had always controlled the judges, executors, and arbitrators. Many workshops that had been closed because of the depression were handed over to cooperative workmen's societies with some small indemnity for the capitalist deserters. Prostitutes were swept away and became workers. The hospitals were run by the Commune. In the schools, though no time was given for them to change the education, with the removal of religion, the school children breathed working class ideas. There were no multiple salaries for concurrently held posts. The Commune in ten short weeks virtually changed the complete idea of what a government was. Marx, in explaining in the Civil War In France, the necessity of this form of government in order to bring about the working class as the only class said this: "The multiplicity of interpretations to which the Commune has been subjected, and the multiplicity of interests which construed it in their favor, 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 product 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 labor. Except on this last condition, the Communal Constitution would have been impossibility and a delusion. The political rule of the producer cannot coexist with the perpetuation of his social slavery. The Commune was therefore to serve as a lever for uprooting the economical foundations upon which rests the existence of classes, and therefore of class rule. With labor emancipated, every man becomes a workingman, and productive labor ceases to be a class attribute."
In The Great Lessons of the Paris Commune Engels explained how the Commune made the first exploratory steps to prevent the degeneration of working class state power. They had a most profound and far-reaching significance.
Engels said: " Against this transformation of the state and the organs of the state from servants of society into masters of society -- an inevitable transformation in all previous states -- the Commune made use of two infallible means. In the first place, it filled all posts -- administrative, judicial and educational -- by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, subject to the right of recall at any time by the same electors. And, in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this was an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates to representative bodies which were added besides!
"The masses were the real masters in the Paris Commune. While the Commune was in being the masses were organized on a wide scale and they discussed important state matters within their respective organizations. Each day around 20,000 activists attended club meetings where they made proposals or advanced critical opinions on social and political matters great and small. They also made their wishes and demands known through articles and letters to the revolutionary newspapers and journals. This revolutionary enthusiasm and initiative of the masses was the source of the Commune's strength.
"Members of the Commune paid much attention to the views of the masses, attending their various meetings and studying their letters. The general secretary of the Commune's Executive Committee, writing to the secretary of the Commune, said: 'We receive many proposals every day, both orally and in writing; some are from individuals and some are sent in by the clubs or sections of the International. These are often excellent proposals and they should be considered by the Commune.' The Commune, in fact, seriously studied and adopted proposals from the masses. Many great decrees of the Commune were based on proposals by the masses, such as abolishing the system of high salaries for state functionaries, cancelling arrears of rent, instituting secular education, abolishing night work for bakers, and so on and so forth.
"The masses also carefully checked up on the work of the Commune and its members. One resolution of the Communal club of the third arrondissement said: The people are the masters...if men you have elected show signs of vacillation or stalling, please give them a push forward to facilitate the realization of our aim -- that is, the struggle for our own rights, the consolidation of the Republic, so that the cause of righteousness shall triumph. The masses criticized the Commune for not taking resolute measures against the counter-revolutionaries, deserters and renegades, for not carrying out immediately the decrees it passed, and for disunity among its members. For example, a letter from a reader appeared in the April 27 issue of .Le Pere Duchene saying: 'Please give members of the Commune a jolt from time to time, ask them not to fall asleep, not to procrastinate in carrying out their own decrees. Let them make an end to their private bickering because only by unanimity of view can they, with greater power, defend the Commune!"
The battle of the working class in Paris to bring to life socialism was mirrored by attempts in other cities of France (Marseilles, Toulouse, Narbonne, Lyons, etc.) -- to also bring this dictatorship of the working class to power with some success. However the bosses' government at Versailles played a waiting game until they had plenty of arms to attack Paris. The Commune made only one attempt to smash the bosses' government and this, because of no overall party leadership, failed.
Here we can point to the mistake of not having a party to lead the work -- plenty of democracy but not much centralism. While the central committee was the main tactician of the Revolution things moved forward fast. They should have maintained power longer.
The Versailles bosses' state attacked the workers' state with an army to be bought in taxes of the workers' sweat. Later, the German bourgeoisie releasing the prisoners of Sedan and Metz the army attacked and the workers thought the Central Committee put out this exhortation to the working class:
Workers, do not be deceived. It is the great struggle. Parasitism and labour, exploitation and production are at death grips. If you are sick of vegetating in ignorance and squatting in the muck; if you want your children to be men gaining the reward of their labour, not a sort of animal trained for the workshop and for war, fertilizing with their sweat the fortune of an exploiter or pouring out their blood for a despot; if you want the daughters whom you cannot bring up and watch over as you would to be no longer instruments of pleasure in the arms of the aristocracy of wealth; if you want debauchery and poverty no longer to drive men to the police and women to prostitution; if finally you desire the reign of justice, workers, be intelligent. Arise! and let your stout hands fling beneath your feet the foul reaction. Citizens of Paris, merchants, industrialists, shopkeepers, thinkers, all of you that labour and seek in good faith the solution of social problems, the Central Committee adjures you to march united in progress. Take your inspiration from the destinies of our country and its universal genius.
The Central Committee firmly believes that the heroic, people of Paris is about to immortalize itself and regenerate the world. Long live the Republic! Long live the commune!"
The communards fought heroically but against unbelievable odds, when the bosses' army came to the main working class section of Paris, Belleville and near the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. The workers fought to a standstill.
Much of Paris was destroyed by the paraffins and gunnery of the bosses but Thiers, the bosses' head man, could look forward to an end of working class struggle. Of course this was bunk. The main lessons that a Marxist-Leninist party must remember from the commune are:
1. The need to smash the bosses' state completely and set up a workers' dictatorship. Had the commune been organized to pursue the retreating bosses' army to Versailles, destroy it and spread the revolt far beyond Paris, it would have been more able to maintain its power.
2. The need for the equality in pay between state functionaries and working people.
3. Immediate recall of leadership if they do not carry out workers' demands.
4. The need to destroy the bosses' standing army. All arms distributed to the masses who can guard their interests without being repressed.
5. The need for a communist party led by workers to organize class war.
Sources
V.I. Lenin, State and Revolution
V.I. Lenin, The Paris Commune
Marx, Engels and Lenin, Dynamics of Social Change
Peking Review, April 1, 8, 15, 1966
Marx and Engels -- Writings on the Paris Commune. edit. Hal Draper
Monthly Review -- The Paris Commune Then and Now. Nov. 1968
Frank Jellinek -- The Paris Commune of 1871
Lissagaray -- History of the Commune of 1871
William Morris -- The Pilgrims of Hope
Marx, Engels and Lenin -- Civil War in France: The Paris Commune