Storming Heaven: 150 year anniversary of the Paris Commune
Article originally published in Issue 3 of Rupture, Ireland’s eco-socialist quarterly, buy the print issue:
by Nicole McCarthy
On 18 March 1871, the Paris Commune was born. For 72 days the workers organised themselves democratically and laid down principles that continue to guide socialist revolutionaries to this day, including all elected representatives subject to recall at any time and paid a worker’s wage. Nicole McCarthy discusses some of the revolutionary changes they implemented and the lessons of this brief moment in history when workers ‘stormed heaven’ and attempted to establish a truly egalitarian society.
The workers of Paris united to form the first truly democratic government in France shortly after an armistice signed between France and Prussia (a northern German state). The Prussian army had surrounded Paris from September 1870 through January 1871.[1] The surrender had been enacted by the French government but the National Guard (volunteers that worked to protect the city and its people during the siege), along with the people of Paris refused to give up. They refused to disarm and when the French Army and Government vacated Paris on 18 March, the National Guard seized power. As the news of the uprising spread, about 100,000 well off citizens fled Paris and about 200,000 refugees from neighbouring areas joined the efforts to fight back.
‘A model of revolutionary, participatory government’
On 26 March 1871, around 200,000 male Parisians elected a General Council to organise the Commune. A third of those elected were members of the International Working Men’s Association (also known as the First International) which had only recently been cofounded by Karl Marx along with other socialists and trade unionists in 1864, with the aim of uniting workers of all nations in the struggle against capitalism. There was no elected head of government nor mayor. All elected delegates to the General Council were subject to recall and only received a workers’ wage.
The Commune sought to level the existing social scales which afforded privileges to the upper classes with money and exploited the downtrodden. They favoured the rights of workers, ruling that if a business was abandoned by its owner that the workers could take control. They also ensured that the families of those who were killed defending the commune received a pension.[2] In their short time, they also decreed the separation of church and state, cancellation of rent, and outlawed child labour.
Evictions were banned and anyone foreign to Paris was granted citizenship. Eugène Pottier, who had been elected mayor of one of the districts of Paris, coined the phrase ‘Communal luxury’ when describing a programme for beautiful art to be made available to the general public and not just a private commodity owned by the wealthy. Public assistance schemes were established that distributed tokens to the poor, providing food through communal canteens. Any houses left empty by the rich who fled the city would now be redistributed for the use of those without accommodation.
Women in the Commune
The already established political debate clubs were used as a link between the leadership of the commune and the workers of Paris, but also for the women fighting for an equal role in the new society. Historians often have overlooked the role of socialist women who were at the core of the Parisian working-class networks. They used these clubs to organise and gain support for reforms they championed, such as the demand for the wife’s allowance received by married partners of the National Guard to be extended to unmarried partners too and was approved by the Commune at a later date.
The Commune took steps towards completely reforming the education system, making it free, secular and available to girls. The question of girls’ education was a step towards equality and the formation of a future socialist society for many women in the Paris Commune. Priests and nuns were released into private life which meant hiring more teachers, with female teachers finally receiving equal pay to their male counterparts. There were also plans to create day nurseries that would have been Commune-run instead of the burden of child care falling to the individual families. There was a big push for teacher, parental and community involvement in education with meetings twice a week to discuss curriculum and style of teaching and how they could reform this.
The role played by the women of the Commune also inspired a challenge to the view of women as ‘physically weak, incapable of abstract thought and naturally immoral, fit only for marriage or prostitution’. These disgusting points of view were even argued from within the Commune by Proudhon who was very influential in the French section of the International. But they were challenged by others, including revolutionary women like Paule Mink. She declared that “By ceasing to make [a] woman a worker, you deprive her of her liberty and, thereby, of her responsibility so that she no longer will be a free and intelligent creature but will merely be a reflection, a small part of her husband.” Mink was the editor of a radical newspaper and she, along with other campaigners, pushed for civil rights for women, women’s right to work, and demanded that the International supported this cause.
The fall of the Commune & lessons for today
On 21 May 1871, the French army stormed the city. The National Guard and members of the Commune fought back, but by 28 May the Commune had fallen to their brutal force. During this ‘Bloody Week’, there were at least 20,000 men, women and children horrifically slaughtered.
Marx argued that the Commune’s separation from the rest of France proved lethal for its existence. The small French villages did not receive their updates and the people did not understand that the Commune represented their interests as workers because they had no real communication from the Communards. Lenin and Mink also felt there should have been more focus on a defence against the old order (the French government and its army) as they will always return for vengeance in an attempt to return life to the previous way of existence.
The Paris Commune is an example of how the ruling class will ruthlessly attempt to crush and punish all those who fight for a complete revolution in society. In order for a socialist revolution to succeed it must understand that although you may have gained power, as Lenin points out in The State and Revolution, “It is still necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and crush their resistance.”[3]
It is not possible to scrap the capitalist class in one fell swoop everywhere. While taking power could occur relatively quickly, it is completely unrealistic to think you can abolish the capitalist class’s ‘interests’ overnight and that the bourgeoisie will let you do this without fighting back. Revolutionary socialists need to learn the lessons from the Paris Commune: spread the revolution, consolidate it among all those yearning for a better world, and prepare to defend it against those who would tear it down. We need to build on the example of the Commune, which was a new kind of state in the hands of workers, to ensure we have the power to crush the capitalist class, creating the basis for a society that allows for a good quality of life for all.
‘The Internationale’ was written in May 1871, after the Paris Commune had fallen. It’s author, Eugène Pottier, was now in hiding and wrote it as an appeal to workers internationally to follow the example set by the Paris Commune. This song is still providing inspiration to revolutionaries worldwide, as we hope to fulfil the dreams of the communards and establish an ecosocialist society today.[4]
Notes
1. Cole, N. L, Ph.D. What You Need to Know About the Paris Commune of 1871. ThoughtCo, 2019. www.thoughtco.com/paris-commune-4147849
2. Cox, J. Genderquake: socialist women and the Paris Commune. International Socialism, 2021. www.isj.org.uk/genderquake-paris-commune
3. Lenin, V. I. The State and Revolution, Chapter 3. www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch03.htm#fw01
4. Miller, P. The Internationale, Part I. 2000. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUs2g24pvzk&ab_channel=communistapprentice