What was the Commune De Paris

[Bostana]

I know what it was, but Marx refereed to it as not as total Communism but a step to Communism or something like that.

Can you guys help me elaborate on this?

[bricolage]

I'm almost certain there is no such quote.

What Marx said was, 'It was essentially a working class government, the produce 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 labour'.

Engels said 'Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.'

Neither of them, as far as I know, refer to it as socialist or communist and Marx stated 'the majority of the Commune was in no wise socialist, nor could it be'.

[Ostrinski]

The Paris Commune was a worker's government that existed in Paris from March until May of 1871, during which the workers seized the means of production and operated them cooperatively. This was recognized by Marx as the correct expression of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

"If socialism wasn't born of the Commune, it is from the Commune that dates that portion of international revolution that no longer wants to give battle in a city in order to be surrounded and crushed, but which instead wants, at the head of the proletarians of each and every country, to attack national and international reaction and put an end to the capitalist regime." - Edouard Vaillant, a Communard

[bricolage]

The Paris Commune was a worker's government that existed in Paris from March until May of 1871, during which the workers seized the means of production and operated them cooperatively. This was recognized by Marx as the correct expression of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
This is extremely debatable, I mean they didn't even take the national bank that was sitting in the middle of the city. The nearest they got was a decree on the 16th April to form cooperatives but this only referred to workshops that had been abandoned and they proposed to pay the former owners compensation. I don't even think many happened, as they ran out of time.

The Commune was one of the most revolutionary events ever, but it certainly wasn't socialist.

[l'Enfermé]

Marx's The Civil War in France (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/index.htm)deals with the Paris Commune.

In short, Marx and Engels considered the Paris Commune to be the example of what they called the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. He wrote:

The Commune was formed of the municipal councilors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town, responsible, and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally workers, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive, and legislative at the same time. This form of popular government, featuring revocable election of councilors and maximal public participation in governance, resembles contemporary direct democracy.

The Commune was thus a revolutionary socialist government.

[bricolage]

They don't actually say it was a 'revolutionary socialist government'. Hopefully someone more versed on the intricacies of Marx and Engels could come in here, but instead I believe it shows the distinction they make between socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The key thing is that it was 'the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labour', this emancipation of labour hadn't actually happened but the Commune had put forward the structure under which it could, in another time, take place.

[l'Enfermé]

They don't actually say it was a 'revolutionary socialist government'. Hopefully someone more versed on the intricacies of Marx and Engels could come in here, but instead I believe it shows the distinction they make between socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The key thing is that it was 'the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labour', this emancipation of labour hadn't actually happened but the Commune had put forward the structure under which it could, in another time, take place.
Not in my quote, but they do.

[bricolage]

Not in my quote, but they do.
Do you know where?
It's not in the Civil War in France and there aren't many other writings on the Commune.

[Rooster]

Not in my quote, but they do.

Where? I can't find it.

The closest I can find at the very end of the postscript by Engels:

"Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat."

Still doesn't say anything about it being socialist though.

[Rooster]

Rooting around a bit more, I've found this:

In 1881 the Dutch socialist Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis wrote to Marx asking him what
measures a workers' state should take if it came to power unexpectedly.

Part of Marx's response said:

"Perhaps you will point to the Paris Commune; but apart from the
fact that this was merely the rising of a town under exceptional conditions,
the majority of the Commune was in no sense socialist, nor could it be.
With a small amount of sound common sense, however, they could have reached
a compromise with Versailles useful to the whole mass of the people -- the
only thing that could be reached at the time. The appropriation of the
Bank of France alone would have been enough to dissolve all the pretensions
of the Versailles people in terror, etc., etc. ... The doctrinaire and
necessarily fantastic anticipations of the programme of action for a revolution
of the future only divert us from the struggle of the present."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/letters/81_02_22.htm

So there, I guess you have it; according to Marx and Engels the Paris Commune was the DotP and it wasn't socialist. I think if you take this in conjunction with the critique of the Gotha program then I think it should be pretty clear as to what the DotP is and how that relates to socialism/communism.

[NewLeft]

But since we are dealing with specifics–and you seem to be fond of quotes, if somewhat selective–here is what Marx said about the State, quoted approvingly by Lenin in his State and Revolution, p. 29: “One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz. that the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made State machinery and wield it for its own purpose.”

The commune borrowed money from the Bank of France and they used the old state for their own purpose.. So it wasn't 'socialist' in that respect.

[Rooster]

during which the workers seized the means of production and operated them cooperatively

I'm not sure that that was entirely the case. I think the main economic structure was maintained in the whole, especially considering as the small capitalists were still there, sort of supporting the commune. It has been a while since I've read anything about it though.