The Paris Commune and the Heroic Communards

It has been just over a year since Trump was sworn into office and the anniversary of that day is now being considered as a day of mourning. The press is taking great delight in pointing out the lies and hypocrisy of this self proclaimed great deal maker, a task which may be pleasant but is by no means challenging, as the man lies constantly. Then there is the not so little matter of his tweets, which reveal that this man, who is no less than a head of state, has the mentality of an adolescent. All self respecting Americans are ashamed and embarrassed by his behaviour.
That is one side of the coin, while the other side is that the revolutionary motion is continuing to grow. The class distinctions are becoming ever more sharp and clear. The battle lines are being drawn. On one side we have the working class, the proletariat, and on the other side we have the capitalists, the bourgeoisie. There is no middle ground. Most of the middle class people, the small business owners, the petty bourgeois, have been ruined, forced to join the ranks of the working class, the proletariat.
People are either with us or they are against us. Very soon the class struggle will break out into open warfare and those who try to straddle the fence could well find themselves caught in the crossfire.
As an indication of the strength of the revolutionary movement, we have only to consider the fact that the latest allegations of sexual improprieties of Trump, such as his alleged affair with a porn star, is being met with complete indifference by the members of the working class. It should be noted that these allegations are coming from one of the most prestigious publications in the country, one which has never been accused of any left leaning bias. The working class is no longer capable of being shocked by anything Trump is alleged to have done.
Now there are people who think that the way out of this boondoggle is through the midterm elections, in that later on this year, each and every member of the House of Representatives and one third of the Senators will be seeking re-election. As Trump is a member of the Republican party and that same party has a majority in the House and the Senate, these same well meaning people are of the opinion that electing members of a different party, most likely the Democratic Party or at least an independent party, will strip Trump of his power. Peace and tranquility will reign. The age of Aquarius is right around the corner. Workers and capitalists will soon be exchanging hugs and kisses. Trump and the other members of his class will soon see the error of their ways and insist on becoming responsible, honourable, tax paying members of society, or at least paying their fair share. Fat chance! That is not about to happen, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a starry eyed optimist, about to receive a rude awakening.
It is absolutely necessary to drive the point home to the working class that we are members of a class whose scientific term is proletariat and further, our interests are diametrically opposed to those of the class which is our antipode, the class opposite to ours, the capitalist class, the bourgeoisie. They, the capitalists, are the class of parasites which contribute nothing to society but leach off of us, the members of the working class, the proletarians. The harder they work us and the less they pay us, the higher their profit. It does not take a genius to figure out that our interests are diametrically opposed and in fact they are antagonistic. In short, we are in a constant state of war with the capitalists. Sometimes this war is concealed and sometimes this war breaks out into open battle. Any day now, this war will break out into open rebellion.
The point must be driven home to members of the working class that we are all members of the same working class, a class of proletarians, and any and all differences are completely superficial. Our skin colour, religious beliefs, and ancestry are a matter of no importance. We all have the same class interests and the only way to achieve our goals is to unite against our common enemy, the capitalists, the bourgeoisie.
The current leader of the capitalists, in the form of Trump, is merely a typical capitalist. He is by no means exceptional. On the contrary, he is an average, ordinary, garden variety, dime a dozen, run of the mill, typical capitalist. The only difference between Trump the Clown and the other members of his class is that Trump is an entertainer. The Three Stooges were also entertainers, but the Stooges did a far better job.
As far as Trump is concerned, the White House is merely another stage on which he can perform. Just as all entertainers crave applause and praise, so too Trump
longs for praise.
The difference between Trump and the other capitalists is merely superficial. As members of a ruling class, most of them are too lazy to take any part in running the country. They merely allow the members of the working class to choose a particular member of the ruling class, a flunky, to go to the nations capital, in this case Washington, and misrepresent them. To remove Trump from office would not change anything. The capitalists would merely replace him with another figurehead.
Capitalism has to be overthrown and replaced with socialism. The current form of government, which is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, can and must be replaced with the dictatorship of the proletariat. The capitalists must first be overthrown and then crushed under the iron boot of the proletariat. This is the only way in which a socialist, workers revolution can possibly be successful. This is another way of saying that without a proper revolutionary theory, there can be no successful revolution.
The fact of the matter is that no one wakes up one day and decides to take part in a revolution. No, the discontent of millions of people builds up, usually over a period of many years, and then frequently something rather minor, such as a burglary, may serve as a spark to ignite a major uprising. When this happens, countless people take to the streets and lash out at their enemies, or at least those who are perceived to be their enemies. In the excitement and the heat of the moment, mistakes are sometimes made. This is where a revolutionary theory comes into play. As long as the people who are taking part in the revolt are aware of themselves as a class, then they will know the importance of attacking their class enemies, the capitalists. They will also know the importance of being friendly with their friends. There is no more sure way of leading a revolution to failure than by giving your enemies a break and attacking your friends.
Most working people are aware that the best way to kill a snake is to cut off its head. With that in mind, they should be reminded that the White House is the lair of the president and his boot licking belly crawlers, Capital Hill is home to the democratically elected politicians who are sent to Washington by the voters and do a fine job of misrepresenting the very people who placed them in office, and they can be found in the Senate and House of Representatives, the Pentagon is the vipers nest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where the finest military minds of the country plan all the wars in which the working class is expected to fight and die. Then there is Wall Street, the financial headquarters of the capitalists, where the geniuses of money management plan their great robberies of the working class.
Workers should also be reminded of the fact that the three richest men in America have more wealth than half the working people in the rest of the continent, which is to say that these three capitalists have more wealth than two hundred million working people. These are the people and institutions which should be the primary target of the revolution. This awareness can only come from an outside source, as the working class is not aware of itself as a class.
With that in mind, workers should be encouraged to read revolutionary literature by Marx and Engels such as The Communist Manifesto and Wage-Labor and Capital. As well, several books of Lenin are especially relevant, such as Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, State and Revolution, and What Is To Be Done?
This current revolutionary movement is distinctive in that it is world wide, with the headquarters in America and for possibly the first time in history, led by women. These women have every reason to be proud. They are following in the footsteps of other great revolutionary women.
So in the spirit of international working class solidarity, it is perhaps best to examine the revolutionary history of our class, the proletariat.
Before the industrial revolution of the early seventeen hundreds, which began in Great Britain, there was no working class, the proletariat. Of course people worked hard, but not as wage labourers. Many worked as peasants or as artisans, which is to say tradesman, but as there were no capitalists, there was no one to hire workers and pay them for their labor power. That all changed with the advent of the industrial revolution. The former burgers, or merchants of the middle ages, took advantage of the opportunities presented by this newly discovered source of wealth, invested in capital and hired labourers to work their machines. Almost overnight, two new classes were created. The burghers became capitalists or bourgeois, and the people they hired became wage labourers or proletarians. Ever since then, the war has been raging, sometimes open and sometimes concealed, between the capitalists and the workers.
For the purposes of this article, we are mainly focused on this class struggle which raged in the country of France, as in that country the conflict was very sharp and clear.
It was the opinion of Marx and Engels that France was the country where, more than any other, the class struggle was fought to a conclusion. So in this country we will begin our investigation, starting with the the creation of the new classes of capitalists and proletarians in the early seventeen hundreds.
These new classes immidiately came into conflict with the other existing classes, those which had been around for hundreds of years. The workers, or proletarians, were mainly drawn from the ranks of the peasantry and artisans. The burghers turned capitalists, or bourgeois, came into conflict with the nobility and the church, as at that time the nobility and church owned a great deal of land. As capitalism is incompatible with the feudal system, the war was immediately engaged. This resulted in a rather strange alliance of capitalists, workers, peasants and artisans against the landlords, those who were determined to uphold the old feudal system which had been in place for hundreds of years.
It should be noted that at the time, no one was aware of this alliance.
The ever increasing wealth of this upstart capitalist class posed a threat to the nobility in particular, and eventually led to their defeat.
It is worth mentioning that this was by no means the intention of the newly minted capitalists. On the contrary, their overriding ambition was to join the nobility. They tended to assume, rather reasonably, that the nobility would welcome some fresh blood, as well as a massive infusion of capital. After all, the nobility was, at that time, becoming ever more strapped for cash. The capitalists could not possibly have been more mistaken.
Impoverished or not, the nobility look upon all members of all other classes as contemptible, regardless of the amount of wealth we may have. As far as they are concerned, we are all commoners, peasants, artisans, workers and capitalists, it makes no difference.
This in no way changed the fact that times had changed. The industrial revolution had done more than create new classes, it had also changed conditions, which in turn led to new ideas, that of liberty, equality and fraternity. Just as the nobility was not about to embrace the new class of capitalists, so too it was not about to embrace these new ideas. On the contrary, they were determined to have nothing to do with this. As far as they were concerned, everything could stay as it had been for hundreds of years.
The lesson here is that the nobility were typical in the sense that as the ruling class, they were determined that nothing would change. They wanted everything to stay precisely the way it was. The fact that conditions had changed did not impress them in the slightest.
In much the same way, our current class of rulers, the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, are also determined that nothing must change. Just as the nobility of France had to be persuaded to part with their wealth and power, so too our current rulers, the capitalists, must also be persuaded to part with their wealth and power.
As a result of this, forces came into play which were beyond the control of human understanding or intervention. At that time, no one knew just what was happening. The newly created classes came into conflict with the land owners, the old guard, so to speak, and the war was underway.
In short, a revolutionary movement developed against the nobility and the church, both landlords, and in 1789, broke out into open revolt. The nobility were overthrown and many of them were killed, including the king and queen.
Strangely enough, this did not result in the end of the French nobility. Many of the capitalists who took part in the revolution were not satisfied with overthrowing the nobility. They merely wanted to replace the nobility with themselves, to set themselves up as the new rulers. This too is typical of revolution, in that some of those who take part in a revolution will attempt to replace the old rulers with new rulers, themselves. This too we can expect in this, our current revolution.
In the case of France, a certain young military commander who claimed to be of noble birth, by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte, decided to seize power and restore the nobility, and set himself up, not as king but as emperor. The difference is that the emperor is king of kings, so that once he crowned himself emperor, he appointed his relatives and friends as kings and queens of other countries. This lasted from 1804 to 1815, when he was overthrown and other nobles, those who were closely related to the king who was executed in the revolution, took to the throne.
In this case, King Louis Philippe ruled France until 1848, and as he was preoccupied with restoring the power of the monarchy, this meant a time of terrible reaction on his part, with all citizens deprived of ever more democratic rights. He and his closest advisors were preoccupied with squabbling among themselves and with curtailing the power of the ever more wealthy bourgeois. In the confusion, they forgot about the working class. This led to the revolution of 1848.
This revolution was one of the greatest revolutions in the world, and in fact the world has still not seen anything quite like it, at least up until now. The revolution spread across Europe and the various governments were shaken but not toppled. The revolution was supremely powerful but not coordinated, as the working class of Europe was still unaware of itself as a class, with its own class interests, which transcended national borders. In addition, the working class was far outnumbered by the peasants and middle class, or petty bourgeois, who also had their own class demands. Then there was the bourgeoisie, which resented the power of the monarch, in the form of King Louis Philippe, and all of these classes came together in February of 1848 to force the abdication of the king. This led to the formation of the French Second Republic.
This also led to the dissolution of the alliance of the workers, peasants, petty bourgeois and bourgeoisie. The French workers were on their own.
The newly formed Second Republic wasted no time in attacking the workers, the same people who had helped place them in power. They had a real problem with the idea of guaranteed paid work for all citizens, and the right of workers to ”combine in order to enjoy the legitimate benefits of their labor.”
This is another way of saying that the capitalists were dead set against trade unions, as they are now. They are well aware that there is strength in numbers.
The workers of France did not take this lying down, and once again, as in February of 1848, the barricades were placed on the streets of Paris. This has gone down in history as the June Days Uprising.
Of course, the capitalists, the bourgeoisie of France, took a dim view of these shenanigans. They decided that the workers needed to learn to respect their ”natural superiors”, to put them in their place. The French National Guard was called out and the rebellion in Paris was crushed with great brutality and considerable loss of life. Possibly ten thousand workers were either killed or wounded and thousands of others were banished to Algeria. Louis Napoleon, the nephew of the former emperor, came to power and reaction set in, as it always does after the successful suppression of all revolutions.
It should be noted that Marx and Engels followed that revolution very closely, and were able to draw the lessons from that first great European uprising, even though it was not successful.
Now we have a similar situation to that of 1848, in that a revolution in one country, in this case America, is spreading around the world. Very soon it will break out into open class warfare around the world.
After the revolution of 1848 was crushed, the capitalists of Europe breathed a sigh of relief. They thought that their greatest nightmare, that of a working class uprising, was properly dealt with, and they could now get back to the serious business of making a profit. The workers had been taught a lesson they would never forget and had been put in their place, that of being servants of the capitalists. In this, the capitalists were completely mistaken.
Within several years, the revolutionary motion of the working class picked up again. Once again, the workers were on the offensive, demanding better wages and working conditions, as well as more democratic rights.
At the same time, the class of people who are known as the nobility were not about to accept their new lot in life. They refused to accept the fact that the common people had spoken up very loud and clearly in the revolution of 1789, had overthrown the nobility and killed a great many of them. They were convinced that they had been granted the divine right to rule and with their superior intellect, it was just a matter of seizing power and exercising that divine right. With that in mind, the nephew of the first emperor, Napoleon I, named Louis Napoleon III, came to power in 1852 and declared himself to be Emperor of the Second French Republic. He was determined to restore France to the former glory as had been enjoyed under his uncle. At least, that is what he thought.
His rule as Emperor was that of the last rule of the nobility in the country of France. It mercifully came to an end in 1870, when France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian war and the emperor was deposed.
We can learn from this the lesson that a class which has formerly been in power tends not to accept the fact that they have been overthrown. After the current revolution, after the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, have been overthrown, they will make every effort to return to power. We can expect their resistance to increase ten fold as try to regain their ”paradise lost”. They will stoop to any level, any subterfuge, to return to power, just as they did in the Soviet Union and China. We must not allow that to happen here, in America. We must learn from the mistakes of previous revolutions, just as Marx and Engels learned from those revolutions.
Just as Louis Napoleon tried to restore the nobility to power and regain the respect and honour of bygone days, so too Trump the Clown is preaching ”make America great again”. He refuses to accept the fact that the American empire is in decline, on the verge of collapse. He is determined to restore it to its former state of ”greatness”.
This brings us to the eve of the first socialist revolution in France, in the city of Paris.
After the defeat of France in the Franco – Prussian War of 1870, Thiers became the new president and realized that the supremacy of the propertied classes, which was the large land owners and capitalists, was in constant danger as long as the workers of Paris were armed. Not only were they armed, but the workers were well armed, with a great deal of cannon. The workers formed a National Guard which was separate from the regular French army, and was well respected, if not feared.
With that in mind, Theirs sent units of his regular army into Paris in the early hours of March 18, 1871, with orders to capture the cannons of the National Guard, which is to say the cannons belonging to the workers of Paris. Things did not go quite the way he had planned.
The working women of Paris, or at least the wives of the workers of Paris, stumbled upon the army troops who were attempting to steal the cannon, surrounded them, and sounded the alarm. The soldiers were ordered to open fire upon the unarmed women but refused to do so. Instead, they went over to the side of the workers, to the Communards.
This too is characteristic of revolution, in that as the revolutionary motion gains strength, those who are sent to crush the revolution tend to join the rebels instead.
The day of March 18, 1871, is celebrated as the first workers government in history. Possibly after the successful completion of this, our current revolution, we will be honouring the memory of the heroic Paris Communards by celebrating the day of March 18 as a holiday.
The workers of Paris immediately seized the city hall and hoisted the red flag of socialism over it. The revolution was truly under way. Thiers and his generals fled to Versailles, which was a palace ten miles or 16 kilometres from Paris, and his regular army and government officials joined him there. The workers of Paris then made the huge mistake of not attacking them immediately.
Instead, the workers set about building a new society, starting with elections, and universal suffrage, if only for the men. The women were not allowed to vote and had no part in the decision making process, this despite the fact that they played a very important role in the commune. It is entirely possible that if the workers had listened to their wives, the outcome would have been far different.
It was Marx who was following developments very closely from England, and advised the workers to march immediately on Versailles. At that time, the government of Thiers was at its weakest, and could easily have been overthrown if the workers had mobilized, possibly with their cannons and attacked. They did not.
Marx was of the opinion that this magnanimous attitude of the communards was one of the reasons for their defeat. For those who are not familiar with the meaning of the word, it means ”generous or forgiving, especially towards a rival”.
Perhaps the communards regarded the capitalists as their rivals, and decided to be generous. Such noble sentiments have no place in the class war, as the capitalists are not our rivals but our enemies, and implacable enemies at that. It is very likely that the women of the commune sensed this, but then they were not in charge.
This stands in sharp contrast to the revolution we are currently experiencing. The women of today are absolutely not content to sit back and remain passive, helping out as best they can, whether tending the wounded or running errands, as the women of the Paris Commune did. The fact that the Communards did not grant them the right to vote or take part in any decision making process was completely understandable in 1871, but now times have changed. A great many women are now members of the workforce, which is to say that they are proletarians, and are demanding equal rights. Not only that, but they are leading the revolutionary motion which is based in America but is spreading around the world.
We can expect these women, our sisters and comrades, to not repeat the mistake the Communards made in being magnanimous, in being generous and forgiving towards our class enemies, the capitalists, the bourgeoisie. Women tend to be more practical than men, if only because they have more to lose.
In the case of the Paris Commune of 1871, this failure on the part of the Communards to act immediately and decisively was a huge mistake. It allowed the Thiers government at Versailles to immediately regroup and go on the offensive.
Perhaps the Communards felt that Thiers was no longer a threat as he did not have sufficient troops to pose a threat to the Commune. While that may have been true, it was also true that Thiers knew precisely where to find them.
At that time France had just fought, and lost, a war with Prussia, which is to say Germany. The Germans had captured a great many French soldiers and were quite fully prepared to lend a helping hand to a worthy cause. As far as the capitalists are concerned, there is no more worthy cause than crushing a working class uprising. So the Germans quite generously released one hundred thousand French prisoners, on condition that these prisoners be used to crush the Paris Commune. This is precisely what they did.
The Communards fought a ferocious battle, but on May 28, 1871, after a week of fierce fighting, a mere two months after the birth of the first socialist workers republic, the workers were overcome and surrendered. There followed a massacre such as has not been seen since the time of the Romans. Defenceless men, women and children were shot down as fast as the breach loading rifles could be loaded. As this method of slaughter was not fast enough, mitrailleuse were put to work, an early model crank operated machine gun. Almost immediately, thirty thousand workers were slaughtered. The bodies were hastily thrown into a mass grave, even though some of them were still alive when buried. Many thousands of others were sent to prison.
The workers of the world should be advised that this response is typical of all capitalists of the world, to be expected when workers stand up to them, to challenge their authority, to threaten their power and wealth.
In 1871, the capitalists thought it best to teach the workers a lesson they would never forget.
It is not too often that I agree with the capitalists, but this is one such occasion. I too think that this is a lesson the workers should never forget. With that in mind, and in view of the fact that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the people of America, I can only suggest that the workers of North America take up a collection and send a gift to the workers of France, possibly in the form of a statue, in honour of the great sacrifice the workers of Paris made many years ago. A local artist can be asked to design an appropriate figure.
The heroism of the Communards can be compared to the heroism of the three hundred Spartans of hundreds of years ago, those who stood at Thermopalae, against the whole army of invading Persians. Those men performed their duty, and died at their posts. Since that time, they have served as an inspiration for countless others.
The Communards also did their duty, and serve as an inspiration for working people around the world. May their sacrifice never be forgotten.
There are further parallels we can make between the revolution of Paris in 1871 and the revolution which is currently gathering strength around the world, and we can learn from this.
In the Commune, there were various factions among the leaders. At that time, as now, the workers had spontaneously gravitated towards socialism and the leaders agreed on setting up a socialist society. They just could not agree on the best way to set up that society. Some of the leaders were anarchists, followers of Prondhon and Bakunin, while other were middle class, called petty bourgeois, reformists who thought capitalism could be patched up and made to work. Very few of them were followers of Marx. This lack of a correct scientific theory was one of the reasons the Commune was defeated. The battle of the workers, the Communards, against the capitalists, lacked focus, and they became complacent.
We trust that with the working women leading the revolution, this feeling of complacency will never set in. We further trust that with working people encouraged to read works of Marx and Lenin, including The Civil War in France, by Marx, which covers the Paris Commune, we will all learn the correct scientific theory, which is to say the theories of Marx, as all other theories have been proven to be faulty.
The point must be driven home to the working class that it is not enough to simply overthrow the capitalists, they must then be crushed under the iron boot of the proletariat. We must exercise dictatorship over them, absolutely preclude any effort on their part to return to power, as they will most certainly try.
The spontaneous nature of the current revolution is the biggest obstacle to its ultimate victory. It currently lacks focus and workers are thrashing around in much the same manner as a boxer who is blindfolded. To bring to workers the awareness of themselves as a class is equivalent to removing the blindfold from the boxer. Then with the theories of Marx and Lenin as our guide we can toss aside superficial differences such as skin colour, race, religion and background, and focus on defeating our common enemy, the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, and follow in the footsteps of the heroic Communards.
We should add that in the Paris Commune there were a great many middle class people, or petty bourgeois, which is to say small business owners, shopkeepers. For the most part, they took part in the revolution until it was clear that it was doomed to failure. Then they ran for their lives, leaving the working class people to fight on alone. This is typical of middle class people, those who vacillate. It is only the working class, the proletarians, who are consistently revolutionary. In this revolution, we can expect similar behaviour on the part of the middle class.
At present, there are very few political parties or organizations which are truly Marxist, although there is no shortage of groups who refer to themselves as Marxist or Marxist-Leninist or even Communist, where the word Communist is possibly a corruption of the word Communard. With that in mind, as any groups form which are truly Marxist and wish to distinguish themselves from those which are revisionist, which is to say phoney Marxists, I can suggest using the word Communard.
That is hardly the ideal solution, but there are no ideal solutions. Still, the problem has to be faced, as the members of the working class are bound to be confused when faced with so many groups who claim to be Marxist. Another possibility is to use the word Marxist followed by DOP in parentheses, in that DOP stands for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. As all phoney Marxist groups are dead set against that dictatorship, as it is the worst nightmare of their lords and masters, the capitalists, it is safe to assume they will not have anything to do with that title. So Marxist(DOP) is my suggestion. Or possibly better yet, Marxist-Leninist(DOP).
I am looking forward to any and all feedback.

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