Commune of Paris

The Paris Commune  was an insurrectionary movement that from March 18 to May 28, 1871, briefly governed the city of Paris, establishing the first government of the working class in the world whose spirit was the self-managed socialism. There is no consensus regarding the type of society that the Paris Commune was, because for the Marxist socialists the Paris Commune was the first dictatorship of the proletariat in history, but the anarchosocialists do not agree and instead consider it an anarchosocialist society.

 

The Commune (the term commune then designated and still designates the city council in French) governed for 60 days promulgating a series of revolutionary decrees, such as the self-management of factories abandoned by their owners, the creation of nurseries for the children of female workers, the secularism of the State, the obligation of churches to host neighborhood assemblies and join in social work, the remission of unpaid rent and the abolition of interest on debts. Many of these measures responded to the need to alleviate the widespread poverty that the war had caused. Almost immediately subjected to siege by the provisional government, the Commune was repressed extremely harshly.

 

"Bloody Week"

The Commune was stormed from April 2 by the government forces of the Versailles army and the city was constantly bombarded. The government's advantage was such that from mid-April they denied the possibility of negotiations.

 

The area outside Courbevoie was captured, and a belated attempt by Commune forces to march on Versailles failed ignominiously. Defense and survival became the main considerations. Working-class women in Paris were part of the National Guard and even formed their own battalion, with which they later fought to defend the Palais Blanche, a cornerstone of Montmartre.

 

Great help also came from the foreign community of refugees and political exiles in Paris: one of them, the Polish ex-officer and nationalist Jaroslaw Dombrowski, became a leading general of the Commune. The Council was influenced by internationalism, so the Vendôme Column, which celebrated the victories of Napoleon I and was considered by the Commune as a monument to chauvinism, was torn down.

 

Abroad, there were meetings and messages of goodwill sent by trade unions and socialist organizations, including some in Germany. But hopes of getting concrete help from other cities in France were soon abandoned. Thiers and his ministers at Versailles managed to prevent almost all information from leaving Paris; and in the provincial and rural sectors of France there had always been a skeptical attitude towards the activities of the metropolis. The movements in Narbonne, Limoges and Marseilles were quickly crushed.

 

As the situation deteriorated, a section of Congress won a vote (opposed by Eugène Varlin—a Marx correspondent—and other moderates) to create a "Committee of Public Salvation," modeled on the Jacobin body of the same name. formed in 1792. Its powers were extensive. But the time was almost past when a strong central authority could have helped.

 

On May 21 a gate was forced in the western part of the walls of Paris and the reconquest of the city began by the troops of Versailles, first occupying the prosperous western districts, where they were well received by the neighbors who had not left. Paris after the armistice.

 

The strong local loyalties that had been a positive feature of the Commune turned into a certain handicap: instead of a globally planned defense, each neighborhood fought for its survival and was defeated when its turn came. The narrow street networks that made entire districts impregnable in previous revolutions had largely been replaced with wide boulevards. Those of Versailles enjoyed a central command and had modern artillery.