Commune (La) of Paris

COMMUNE (La) of Paris. - Revolutionary movement (18 March-27 May 1871) directed by the "Central Committee of the National Guard." It is linked to the events of the Franco-Prussian War, which caused the fall of Napoleon III (4 Sept. 1870) and ended with the humiliating armistice of 28 Jan. 1871. Its ideological roots, however, lie deep in the revolutionary motives of 1848 and in the anti-religious and patriotic Jacobin traditions of 1789-93. Much contributed to creating the revolutionary psychosis: 1) the violent periodical publications, such as Le Venguer of Pyat, La patrie en danger of Blanqui, the Père Duchesne of Vermersch, and others of the kind; 2) the "Central Vigilance Committee," which carried out its capillary propaganda by means of the "Vigilance Committees," composed for the most part of affiliates of the International and arising alongside the twenty Parisian mairies.

Within Paris besieged by the Germans, a vigorous spirit of resistance had been taking shape in all strata of the population: in this resistance, moreover, demands and postulates of a social character came to interweave, with ever greater intensity, with patriotic aims and military plans of defense. The definitive clash between Paris and Versailles, where the French government resided, caused dangerous extremist aims to prevail among the workers and national guards of the capital, aims that then resolved into a fratricidal struggle and a heap of moral and material ruins.

The revolutionaries, in a famous proclamation of 18 March 1871, affirm: "The proletarians of Paris, amid the defeats and the treason of the ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck in which they must save the situation, taking into their own hands the direction of public affairs." But the forces that were stirring were diverse and confused; in the C. figured men most different in character, temperament and ideologies: from the representatives of a vaguely liberal, republican and generically lay bourgeoisie, one passed to muddled and confused radical lawyers, to the most extravagant ideologues, to the extremist and combative Blanquist group, to the active nucleus of the representatives of the International. On one side there were the federalists, resting on old and new libertarian states of mind, on a romantic individualism, instinctively fearful of the words "discipline" and "authority"; on the other there were the Blanquists and nuclei akin to them, who marked military and political centralization and tended to transform the "free municipality" of Paris into the center of a great social revolution. Blanqui, being interned, was absent from Paris, but his figure and his ideologies exercised a great fascination.

The anticlerical tradition, deeply anchored in the revolutionary camp, had as its consequence the unleashing of a violent campaign against the clergy, accused as an enemy of the people. "Les prêtres sont les bourreaux du peuple. Il faut les fusiller" (Fabre, p. 51).

If the Communards committed errors and excesses, especially in the massacres of hostages, it must also be said that the repression by the forces of order was summary and ruthless, divorced as it was from any understanding of the problems of a better social justice, by then matured in the conscience of vast strata of the nation. The defeated extremists developed the myth of the C.: the "wall of the federates" (near which numerous executions had taken place) became in time a destination of pilgrimages by workers' and revolutionary organizations.

Marxism in general, and revolutionary Marxism in particular, subsequently "assimilated" the C. of P. In reality, into that movement flowed memories of the great Revolution, Saint-Simonian and Fourierist echoes, Blanquist and Proudhonian tendencies. There are very clear signs that, had it had the possibility of surviving longer, the C. would have ended by collapsing through its intimate contradictions. The victory of Versailles over Paris was at bottom the victory of the French "province" and of its wary spirit, hostile to doctrinaire extremism.

Karl Marx had in a certain sense warned the French workers against leaps in the dark as early as Sept. 1870. An insurrection of that kind appeared to him as madness, and his entire ideological orientation was repugnant to the "nationalist and petty-bourgeois illusion" of reviving the spirit of 1792. According to Marx, a modern proletariat capable of directing a classist, anti-bourgeois revolution was still lacking in France. The Parisian proletariat itself was in fact predominantly made up of artisans and largely dominated by the "radical" spirit of bourgeois lawyers. Nevertheless, although he had defined the insurrection as "madness," Marx, in Apr. 1871, devoted notable attention to it, recognizing in it a great step forward on the road of revolution. Lenin summarized, in broad outline, Marx's judgment concerning the C., and declared that "the memory of the fighters of the C. is venerated not only by the French workers, but by the proletariat of all countries."

BRIEF CHRONICLE

(18 March 1871) The revolutionary movement, which was to break out simultaneously in other parts of France, begins in Paris with the summary execution at Montmartre of Generals Thomas and Lecomte by national guards and the people. (19) The "Central Committee" replaces the government of Thiers, who has withdrawn to Versailles; the National Guard (the so-called fédérés) occupies the Hôtel de Ville, the prefecture and the Palace of Justice. (20) The "Central Committee" appoints the young R. Rigault, an atheist revolutionary, as prefect of police. (26) Elections by universal suffrage; 50% of the voters; triumph of the list of the "Central Committee." The new council of Paris thus elected decides on 29 March to call itself the Commune de Paris. The assembly of the Commune transformed itself into a "Secret Committee" when its deliberations were to remain secret. (End of March - 19 May) Freedom of the press is progressively curtailed; about 28 newspapers and reviews are suppressed. (2 April) Beginning of hostilities between the federates and the regular troops. At Neuilly the federates get the worst of it. The Commune then thinks of taking hostages for possible reprisals against Versailles. (2 and 3) Decree of separation of Church and State; nationalization of mortmain property. (4) Arrest of the Archbishop of Paris, Msgr. G. Darboy, decreed by the Executive Commission and the Central Committee. Until 15 April the anticlerical campaign intensifies: slanderous accusations circulated by the press, imprisonment of priests, closing and desecration of churches, suppression and dispersal of religious houses. The campaign assumes a fitful character. (5) Publication of the decree on hostages; for every Communard killed by the Versaillais, three hostages. The decree was not put into practical effect until the end of the Commune. (During April) attempts to reach a peaceful solution of the conflict between the Commune and Versailles, but the two sides harden their positions. The Communards demand to be considered as belligerents and have Thiers proposed the liberation of Blanqui in exchange for that of Msgr. Darboy, but in vain. (1 May) Constitution of the "Committee of Public Safety." (4) The old republican calendar is restored. (8) Violent anticlerical attack, especially against the Picpus religious and against the priests of the churches of St. Lawrence and of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. (10) The members of the "Committee of Public Safety" are replaced; the committee arrogates full powers to itself. (21) The regular troops of General MacMahon begin to penetrate into Paris. (22) Rigault is charged with carrying out the decree on hostages. (23) The Communard Bergeret blows up the Tuileries and the petroliers set to work and set fire to the principal buildings of Paris. (24) In the evening the hostages: Msgr. Darboy, the president of the Court of Cassation Bonjean, Fr. Allard, the priest Daguerre, parish priest of the Madeleine, the Jesuit Fathers Clerc and Ducoudray are shot at the "Grande-Rouette." (25) Massacre of the 12 Dominicans of the Albert the Great college of Arcueil in the disciplinary prison of the 9th sector, avenue Italie, no. 38. (26) Massacre of 50 hostages of the Grande-Rouette (36 gendarmes, 3 Jesuits [Fr. Olivaint], 4 Picpus, 2 secular priests, a seminarian and 4 companions in conspiracy, traitors), which took place in rue Haxo, at the will of Colonel Gois, president of the court-martial of the Commune, a Blanquist. An act of indescribable bloodthirsty brutality. (27) The regular troops occupy Paris. The military tribunals, for a week, then the Councils of War (until 21 March 1872), condemn to death and to various penalties a huge number of Communards. The leaders of the insurrectionary movement are for the most part condemned in absentia.

from the French, Turin 1872; Sac. Vidieu, Histoire de la Commune de Paris en 1871, Paris 1876 (interesting chapter on the men of the Commune, pp. 134-53); G. Da Costa, La Commune vécue, 3 vols., Paris 1903-1904; M. Vuillaume, Mes cahiers rouges, 5 fasc. of the Cahiers de la quinzaine, ibid. 1908 ff.; M.-A. Fabre, Les drames de la Commune, ibid. 1937; 16th ed., ibid. 1944; G. Bourgin, La Commune, ibid. 1939; A. Dansette, Les origines de la Commune de 1871, ibid. 1944; G. Perticone, Storia del socialismo, Rome 1946; M. Dommaget, La Commune et les Communards, ibid. 1947; B. Revel, La C., [Verona] 1948; E. Dolleana, Storia del movimento operaio, Italian trans. by R. Pignatari, 2 vols., Rome 1948, especially vol. I. Wolf Giusti-A, Pietro Frunz