Paris Commune

[Dóchas]

I have just been reading about the Paris Commune of 1871 and it seemed to have been a great victory for the left. so why did it fall apart over the different polcie sbetween the socialists and anarchists. surely they could have put aside their differences and kept their common idea in mind, the well being of the proletariat? :confused: maybe its just me but dont you think that they could have been less selfish about certain ideas and tried to keep it going because it only lasted for the best of two months? :crying:

[Tower of Bebel]

I have just been reading about the Paris Commune of 1871 and it seemed to have been a great victory for the left. so why did it fall apart over the different polcie sbetween the socialists and anarchists. surely they could have put aside their differences and kept their common idea in mind, the well being of the proletariat? :confused: maybe its just me but dont you think that they could have been less selfish about certain ideas and tried to keep it going because it only lasted for the best of two months? :crying:
It did not fall over internal differences. It fell because of a bloody, counterrevolutionary war waged against the Commune. Indeed, there was some conflict between different socialist views, and it may have kept the Commune from driving the landlords out of Versailles; but the democratic reforms which made it an example of a proletarian class dictatorship need to be admired. An appointed organ of bourgeois class dictatorship became an organ of the democratic rule of the working class (through its petty bourgeois representatives). It were these reforms that made it possible for different socialist views to compete instead of being suppressed.

[Dóchas]

Who fought it? was it just the bougeoisie in general or was it a certain group or organistion?

[Tower of Bebel]

The commune was erected in reaction to the fall of the 2nd empire during the Franco-Prussian war. The Commune was defeated by the combined efforts of the German army and French troops released from the Germans.

[Dóchas]

man i always wonder what it would be like if it still existed today?

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

The worst people that fought the Commune were the so-called "Versaillers", ultraconservative monarchist bourgeois and noblemen who had their headquarters in the Versailles Palace.

[Dóchas]

The worst people that fought the Commune were the so-called "Versaillers", ultraconservative monarchist bourgeois and noblemen who had their headquarters in the Versailles Palace.

it figures, the most extravegant and arrogant people in the country have their HQ in the most extravegant and arrogant place possible.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Indeed.
I've been there twice. It's disgusting if you're there and realise that most of the French People were starving in filthy streets in those days.

[Dóchas]

Indeed.
I've been there twice. It's disgusting if you're there and realise that most of the French People were starving in filthy streets in those days.

ye i can imagine iv seen pictures of it, its actually revolting how much money louis the xiv (i think) spent on his palace (i think it was roughly about $300 billion) when there was people a couple of hundred metres away starving

[Hessian Peel]

This might interest you comrade:

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-text/comparis-strip.html

[Holden Caulfield]

I've been there twice. It's disgusting if you're there and realise that most of the French People were starving in filthy streets in those days.
i've got a 19th centuary book about French revolution and the commune etc and it describes Versailles brilliantly, basically that it is a vulgar monument of the opression of the toilers and that the cement was mixed with the tears of the proletariat etc

[Dóchas]

This might interest you comrade:

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-text/comparis-strip.html

thanks thats really interesting!! i always found it easier to learn with pictures!!

[Kassad]

It's visible every time. The bourgeosie and the owners of the means of production oppress and exercise colonialist policies against the vast majority of attempted socialist states. They cannot allow the world to see that socialism works and can satisfy the needs of humanity. If that fact is realized, it's all over for them and they will not let that happen.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

i've got a 19th centuary book about French revolution and the commune etc and it describes Versailles brilliantly, basically that it is a vulgar monument of the opression of the toilers and that the cement was mixed with the tears of the proletariat etc
Some thousands of Workers died during the bulding, and it wasn't even a real building, more of a monument. It was hardly possible to live there, it was only a magnificent monument to show how rich France was.
There were for example no toilets in the palace, so the people, including King Louis XIV, did what they had to do on the floor.:blink:

[Wanted Man]

This might interest you comrade:

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-text/comparis-strip.html
That website is always good stuff. It has an interesting piece where it calls the Dutch uprising against the Spanish "the first bourgeois-capitalist revolution", it has the full text of a great book on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (in Dutch only :(), and all sorts of pictures. I haven't seen this Commune in pictures yet, I'll check it out.

[Junius]

The Paris Commune of 1871 is fairly important for Marxists, least of all because it led to Marx making some reassessments of his earlier writings, particularly his ideas expressed in the Communist Manifesto, of the working class seizing state power via 'a battle of democracy' and controlling the means of production in the hands of the former state. As Marx later noted in the preface to the German edition in 1872 of the Communist Manifesto (note the importance of that year):

However much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes." (See The Civil War in France: Address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association 1871, where this point is further developed.) Further, it is self-evident that the criticism of socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, because it comes down only to 1847; also that the remarks on the relation of the Communists to the various opposition parties (Section IV), although, in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the Earth the greater portion of the political parties there enumerated. But then, the Manifesto has become a historical document which we have no longer any right to alter.
Who would have thought that Marx could change his mind when the circumstances changed too? I'd recommend reading the Civil War in France. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/index.htm)

[ZeroNowhere]

I have just been reading about the Paris Commune of 1871 and it seemed to have been a great victory for the left. so why did it fall apart over the different polcie sbetween the socialists and anarchists. surely they could have put aside their differences and kept their common idea in mind, the well being of the proletariat? :confused:
It wasn't a common idea. The anarchists had it, but not the Blanquists and Jacobins who had power.


maybe its just me but dont you think that they could have been less selfish about certain ideas and tried to keep it going because it only lasted for the best of two months? :crying:
It was eventually crushed, but would have probably just descended into a Jacobin or Blanquist dictatorship if left alone. It was "merely the rising of a town under exceptional conditions", as Marx said, and thus there wasn't much hope that it would actually lead to a dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Die Neue Zeit]

particularly his ideas expressed in the Communist Manifesto, of the working class seizing state power via 'a battle of democracy' and controlling the means of production in the hands of the former state.

I'm not sure you got the idea behind the phase "battle of democracy." Back then, that word had a much different meaning:

http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/ope/archive/0809/att-0160/leadershipconcepts.pdf


But more surprisingly, the raising of the proletariat to the position of ruling class is identified with with the winning of democracy.

Needless to say, respectable opinion today sees democracy as being very different from proletarian rule. But 160 years ago words had a rather different meaning. To the upper classes, democracy and mob rule were synonymous. What educated people then thought of democracy was still heavily influenced by the ancient Greek authors, who were more widely read than they are now. Aristotle had said that democracy did not mean majority rule. Instead it meant rule by the poor! Marx, key author of the Manifesto and holder of a Doctorate in classical philosophy, well aware of Aristotle’s definition, is using it in practice.

More:


What is now called ‘representative democracy’ is, in classical terms, an amalgum of two principles:
• The democratic principle of universal suffrage
• The aristocratic principle of selection

Why do we use the term ’aristocratic’ here?

It is a matter of the original meaning of words. In classical political science, aristocracy meant rule by the aristoi, or the best people.


The ancient Greeks, after long experience, developed key mechanisms to prevent aristocratic domination of the state:
• All major political decisions had to be taken by the people as a whole in a plebiscite. Note that this is just what the Erfurt programme had demanded.
• The executive functions of the state were implemented in a randomly selected council. This randomly selected council had among its duties the selection of issues that were to be put to plebiscite. Note that random selection is, as every polling organisation knows, the only scientific way of getting a representative sample of the population.