The Origin of the Commune

The Soviet Republic of 1917, like the Paris Commune of 1871, was the result of war and military defeat, and had to be borne by the revolutionary proletariat. Apart from that, a comparison with these two is at an end. The Bolsheviks succeeded in gaining political power because they, of all the political parties of Russia, were the one party which most energetically demanded peace, a peace at any price, even a separate peace. They did not worry about the general situation that might thereby arise, or whether the victory and the world supremacy of the German military monarchy might thereby be assisted or not. For a considerable time the Bolsheviks constituted themselves hirelings of the German militarists as much as the Indian or the Irish rebels and the Italian anarchists. Quite different was the attitude of French radicalism in the war of 1870, after the downfall of Napoleon and the proclamation of the Republic, and after the Germans began to make their claims of annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. In this struggle of the Third Republic against the united monarchs of Germany it seemed that the situation of 1793, with its struggle of the First Republic against the allied monarchies of Europe, would again came to life. The traditions of that earlier time again came into force, and again the proletariat of Paris formed the most warlike elements, which pursued the war in the most energetic and determined manner, for the salvation of the one and indivisible Republic.

Meanwhile the peasants of 1870 were no longer the same as those of 1793. Those of 1870 hated Paris and her supremacy. Nevertheless, they were convinced of the necessity of repelling the common enemy, since the victory of the latter would bring them again feudal exploitation, and would threaten to take from them the ecclesiastical and other property that they had acquired for themselves. The peasants of 1870, on the other hand, had nothing of a similar kind to fear from the victory of the Prussians. For them the ecclesiastical question was paramount so that the loss of Alsace-Lorraine seemed to be the lesser evil, compared with the devastation and burden of war. Apart from the people of Alsace-Lorraine, who in desperation fought to the last moment against separation, the thought of peace gained rapid ground among the peasants and the people of the provinces as war continued. This clamour for peace arose in opposition to the radical and war-like elements of Paris, which represented the war-cry of the reactionaries and the monarchists. As in 1917 in Russia, the peace party of 1871, the party which was wearied of war, gained the upper-hand over those who wanted to continue the war. But the peace ideas in 1871 did not assist the most radical of the radicals, but on the other hand, the most reactionary among the reactionaries.

On February 8, 1871, a National Assembly was elected to conclude peace. It numbered only two hundred Republicans, and on the other hand over four hundred monarchists. “Almost the whole province demanded peace at any price. Paris, on the other hand, cried for war to the knife. She elected only those men who were pledged to the continuation of war, and who opposed a peace purchased at the price of yielding up territory.” (M. Louis Debreuilh, La Commune, Paris.)

On February 12th the National Assembly met in Bordeaux, and on March 1st it voted for the Peace Treaty by 516 against 117. Nearly the half of these 117 votes represented the delegates from Paris. The National Assembly was elected only with a view to the conclusion of peace. Only in consideration of this had the electors given their votes. The great majority of reactionaries in that Assembly was attributable not to the dislike of the Republic, but to the insuperable demand for peace. After this event the mandate the National Assembly came to an end. In its place new one had to be elected, which should decide on matters in connection with the constitution. The votes might have turned out other than did those the Assembly at Bordeaux, for the Republic met with less opposition than did the continuation of the war. As a matter of fact, however, the elections which took place throughout France on April 30th, 1871, gave great Republican majority. But just because the ‘junkers’ of that Party feared the National Assembly they clung all the more tenaciously to their mandates. They formed themselves into a Constitutional Assembly, and without any doubt would have reinstated the monarchy, if they had not been split into two halves, the one half among them consisting of the legitimist supporters of the dynasty, which up to 1830, in France had been regarded as the legitimate dynasty; and other half being the Orleanists, the opposers of the dynasty, who, as a result of the Revolution of 1830, were placed in the position of the hereditary rulers This split saved the Republic, yet it did not prevent Paris from being the object of the combined hatred both factions. The French Republic had no other strong support outside Paris, but the strength of this support had proved itself on numberless occasions since 1789. There was no possibility of restoring monarchy so long as Paris was not overcome. Provincials fought with more and more fury against Paris, against the immoral, godless, warlike Republican Paris, quite apart from its Socialism. From the very beginning of its sittings, the National Assembly gave loudest expression to its horror. Heroic Paris, which had sustained a fearful siege of over five months in the service of land defence, was now the object of the most scandalous vituperation on the part of its sublime patricians. To humiliate Paris, to deny it all self-government, to rob it of its position as the capital, and finally to disarm it in order with greater security to carry out a monarchic coup d’état – this was the chief concern of the National Assembly and of Thiers, its chosen Chief of Executive.

We see how utterly different this was from the coup d’état of the Bolsheviks, who derived their power from the desire for peace, who had the support of the peasants behind them and who found no monarchist apposition to them in the National Assembly, but only the opposition of social revolutionaries and Mensheviks. The immediate causes of the Bolshevik Revolution and of the Second Paris Commune were as different as the results of these two movements. The Bolsheviks acquired power through a well-prepared coup d’état, which in one stroke yielded to them the entire State machinery, which they immediately proceeded to exploit in the most energetic and reckless manner possible, with a view to depriving their opponents of all political and economic power – of all their opponents, including the proletariat. On the other hand, at the time of the suspension of the Commune, nobody was more surprised than the revolutionaries themselves, and to a very large number of them this conflict was anything but desirable. Certainly, as the result of revolutionary tradition, the tactics of the armed insurrection, which received due preparation, were strongly supported by the Parisians. The Blanquists were their chief representatives among the Socialists. At different times during the siege they and other elements of a Jacobin character tried to promote riots; but they could not find sufficient support, so that these attempts invariably came to nothing. As a consequence of the impression made by the capitulation of Metz on October 31st they rose and demanded the election of a Paris Representative Council, namely, the Commune, on socialist but not on patriotic grounds, in order to carry on the war more energetically than the First Paris Commune had done from 1792 to 1794. That part of the National Guard faithful to the Government succeeded in quelling this revolt without shedding blood, since the Government troops found so little opposition to overcome. In order to strengthen their position, the Government had a General Election of the people in Paris on November 3rd. As the result, there ware 558,000 votes for the Government, and not quite 63,000 against. The “men of action at any price” fared no better on January 22nd. Although they opposed at the time the highly popular and patriotic voting for the continuation of the war, the Government had announced that capitulation was inevitable; and, as a result, there was an outburst of fury among the revolutionaries, which had bloodier results than the revolt of October 31st, but which, likewise, was soon crushed without difficulty.

These failures had wearied, deceived and weakened these men of action. They were not yet prepared on March 18th to call for a new revolt. On the other hand, the men of the Socialist International were, from the outset, opposed to any attempt at revolt. Immediately after the downfall of Napoleon, during the September revolution, Karl Marx wrote to Engels (September 6, 1870):–

I had just sat down to write to you when Seraillier came in, and informed me that he would leave London for Paris on the morrow, where in any case he will stay only a day or two. His object is to arrange affairs there with the International Federal Council of Paris. This is all the more necessary, since at the present moment the whole ‘French Section,’ is streaming into Paris, in ardor to perpetrate same folly in the name of the International. They want to overthrow the provisional Government, to establish the Commune of Paris, and to appoint Pyat as French Ambassador to London, etc. I received to-day a proclamation of the Federal Council of Paris to the German people, which I will send you to-morrow. It contains an urgent request to the General Council to issue a new and special manifesto to the Germans. I had already intended to make the same proposal this evening. Be so kind as to send me, as soon as possible, in English, military information about Alsace Lorraine, which will be useful for this manifesto. I have already answered in detail the Federal Council in Paris, and at the same time have undertaken the disagreeable business of opening their eyes to the real state of affairs. ( Correspondence between Engels and Marx, I. IV., p.330.)

I have been reproved for being merely a “degenerate Epigone” of Marx. It is certain that Marx’s revolutionary nature and his volcanic temperament at the time would have driven him straight into the camp of the Bolsheviks. We see from his letter how his volcanic temperament, at the time of the Revolution, made him regard it as his first duty to undertake the disagreeable duty of opening the eyes of his comrades as to the actual state of affairs; and that this same temperament, in spite of all its volcanic character, was capable, under circumstances, of carrying out a revolutionary action, even though it was a stupid action. Engels replied to Marx on September 7th as follows:

Dupont has just gone. He was here this evening and is furious over the wonderful Paris proclamation! The fact that Seraillier is going to Paris, and that he has already spoken to you, has pacified him. His views of the whole affair are perfectly clear and right, namely, Republic has turn to account the freedom which the Republic has granted for the organisation of the party in France ; to take action when opportunity shall present itself after the organisation has been formed; and to restrain the International in France until peace has been made.

To this Marx replied on September 10:

Tell Dupont that I am in entire agreement with his views.

In other wards, it was organisation, and not action, which appeared the more important to his volcanic temperament. In the very fact of maintaining reserve the International in France was pursuing nothing less than a plan for precipitate action.

Let us give an example. On February 22nd, at the sitting of the Paris Federal Council of the International, a member proposed that a peaceful demonstration on February 24th should be made, on the anniversary of the Revolution of 1848. Even this peaceful demonstration appeared to the majority of the Federal Council, in view of the tense situation, highly inopportune. Frankell, in particular, opposed this suggestion. He demanded that they should devote all their strength for the moment to the organisation of the proletariat, to the study of the most important economic problems, and above all, to the payment of the wages that had became overdue during the siege, and also to the question of unemployment.

The representatives of the International in the National Assembly, Melon and Tolain, were to give expression to the will of the people. As the result of Frankell’s proposal, the Federal Council decided not to arrange a demonstration, but to leave it to each individual member to decide whether he should take part in such demonstration or not. This shows no very strong leanings towards insurrection. Indeed this insurrection was engineered, not by the revolutionaries but by their opponents. As a result of the exigencies of the war the proletariat of Paris was being formed into the National Guard, and had become armed. This state of affairs appeared to those elements that had formed round Thiers – junkers, financiers, the heads of bureaucracy and of the army – as a very grave danger. After the signature of peace, it seemed to them that nothing was so imperative as the disarmament of the proletarian section of the Paris National Guard. This was begun by their being deprived of cannon. The German rulers had caused the Paris National Guard to come into possession of these cannon; since they, the Germans, hoped that this National Guard “would be the spark to set fire to the powder magazine,” as Bourgin has rightly said. (Georges Bourgin’s Histoire de la Commune, Paris 1917, p.43.)

The thorough exploitation of victory is of the very essence of military action and science. It is part of a general’s duty not only to conquer, but also to bring about the complete demobilisation and breaking up of the conquered enemy. Of a different order, however, are the aims of a statesman. He must look beyond the victory, in order to discover what conditions are possible for future relations with the momentary enemy. These two conceptions are found in opposition to one another in every crusade. The results are fatal when the military idea gains influence on politics, outside the actual prosecution of war. In the year 1866 Bismarck had already mastered and acquired the military way of thinking, if, however, with great difficulty. Yet it was the very successes of 1866 that had given the Prussian General Staff such enormous prestige, which, through the victory of 1870, increased still more. Bismarck could not oppose the Prussian General Staff. He had to yield to the military way of thinking, and as a result his own political understanding was disturbed and blinded. Hence the demand for the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, which lengthened the war by months, which drove France into the arms of Russia, and prepared the present disruption of Germany. Nevertheless, Alsace-Lorraine was still economically and strategically a very tangible gain for the moment. But they were not content with that, but in addition tried to bring about the humiliation of Paris, that centre which the Germans so hated, because of its opposition to their armies; and they compelled France on February 26th to grant that German troops from March 1st should invade Paris and take possession of the Champs Elysées. When on February 27th this information became known to the Parisians, there arose a general cry of indignation and a call to arms, in order to throw back the common enemy by means of force. Nearly all the battalions of the National Guard declared themselves ready to follow. It was only the Internationalists who kept quiet. However disastrous for them at the moment an insurrection against an internal enemy appeared to be, no less disastrous was a rising against the enemy from without. They implored the Central Committee of the National Guard to abstain from every attempt at armed resistance, which they said would only lead to a repetition of the slaughter of the June before, and to the drowning of the Republic in the blood of the Paris workmen. They proposed that the National Guard, instead of offering armed resistance, should surround the Germans with a cordon, which would cut them off completely from the Paris population, and keep them in isolation.

The Central Committee allowed itself to be persuaded at the last moment, and so we have the International to thank that the vain arrogance of the German conquerors did not provoke the most fearful street fighting in the world’s history. It was not the German but the French soldiery, which a few weeks later let loose the bloody slaughter among the Parisian proletariat.

According to the capitulation of Paris on January 28th, all war material of the troops in the town had been made over to the victor, excepting the arms of the National Guard; not only their weapons, but also their cannons, which were provided, not by the State but by the city of Paris. When, therefore, the Germans entered Paris, the Government took no steps whatever to remove to safety those cannons which, by contract, the victors had left in their care. The Government probably wished that the enemy had taken them, and thus weakened the strength of the enemy within. But the National Guard were well prepared, and brought these cannons, four hundred in number, in good time to those parts of the town to which the Germans had no access. To get back these cannons into their possession was the great anxiety of the Government after the conclusion of peace. In this way they hoped to disarm the proletarian section of the Paris National Guard. The National Guard had threatened to decapitate and decapitalise (décapiter et décapitaliser) Paris. With this end in view, they decided not to sit in Paris. With great difficulty Thiers persuaded them to make the seat of their Conference in Versailles, in the neighbourhood of Paris, instead of in Bordeaux, as had been the case up till then. On March 20th they proposed to meet there. Beforehand they had to be reassured that they had nothing to fear from Paris. Therefore it was decided to confiscate these cannon on March 18th. Thiers thought it the wisest course to steal these cannon secretly, instead of openly by force. At three o’clock in the morning, while all Paris was asleep, several regiments took possession of Montmartre, where the cannon were standing unguarded, and endeavoured to remove them. But, strangely enough, they had forgotten to bring with them the necessary horses. These therefore had first of all to be fetched; in the meantime the Parisians “smelt a rat” and, quickly gathering together, formed a continually increasing group, which finally compelled the soldiers to leave the cannon alone. They were successful. The soldiers who had lived among the Paris populace, who had fought with it against the common enemy, and had joined with it in despising the incapable generals, now fraternised with the people and the National Guard. General Lecomte, who ordered the troops to fire on unarmed crowds, merely succeeded in causing his own soldiers to turn against him, and arrest and shoot him. This shooting affray belongs to those terrorist atrocities, which one is inclined to lay to the blame of the Commune. This is also true of the shooting of General Thomas, who was seized on the morning of March 18th in civilian dress, as he was taking notes among the crowd. He was executed for being a spy. Already on the 28th of February a police agent, who was caught in the act of espionage, was thrown into the Seine and cruelly drowned.

Those people who attribute these deeds to the Commune forget that, at the time when such things happened, the Commune was not yet in existence. On the other hand, one should not lay the blame to the civil population of Paris. Each one of these executions was carried out by the soldiers, and not by the civilians. They were the outcome of the ideas, not of the proletariat but of the militarists who do not attach much importance to human life. And those friends of humanity, who wax indignant over the soldiers because they shot their bloodthirsty generals, would not have a word to say if those same soldiers had shot down women and children. “Instead of his shooting women and children, his own people shot him.” (Lecomte). “Deep-rooted habits, which soldiers acquire as the result of training given them by the enemies of the working classes, do not suddenly lose their power at the moment when these same soldiers go over to the working people, and join them.” – Marx, Civil War in France, p.38.)

Whatever action the National Guard took in these events was undertaken only with a view to prevent further bloodshed. They succeeded, in fact, sometimes at the risk of their own lives, in rescuing from the indignant soldiers the officers they had arrested, so that only those mentioned were killed. On March 19th the Central Committee of the National Guard at last protested against any participation whatever in this slaughter. In its declaration, which was published in the official journal of the Commune of March 20th, is the following statement:

We declare with indignation that the bloody disgrace with which our honour has been besmirched is a shocking infamy. Never did we decide on an execution, and never has the National Guard taken part in any such crime.

This was a strong denunciation, not only of the accusers but also of those cruel deeds which were ascribed to the National Guard. In view of the secession of the troops to the people, the Government had only two courses open to pursue – either to make concessions to the enraged masses, to bargain with them, or else to retire in flight. Thiers would, on no account, engage in discussions, but took a headlong flight with his Government out of Paris, and hurried to gather round him all those troops that, as yet, were untainted with the spirit of mutiny. He even abandoned the forts round Paris, including the prominent fort of Mont Valerien. If the Parisians had kept to the heels of Thiers, they would perhaps have succeeded in overcoming the Government. The troops which were withdrawing from Paris would not have been able to offer the least opposition. That is what their general later on declared. Then it would have. been possible to introduce a new Government, which, however, would not have been able to carry out a Socialist programme. For that the conditions were not ripe enough. But they could have dissolved the National Guard, and have elected a new one with the following programme, namely, the strengthening of the Republic, self-determination for the various districts, Paris included, and the substitution of militia in place of the standing army. More than this, at that time, the Commune did not demand, and this programme was possible at the time on account of the conditions in France. But Thiers continued to retire. They allowed him to take his troops and to reorganise them in Versailles, to fill them with fresh spirit and to strengthen them. Nobody was more surprised at the retreat of the Ministers than the Parisians themselves. There was no organisation at hand that could take over the guidance of affairs in place of the rulers, who had taken flight. Even on the morning of March 19th Paris was entirely without any Government. Force of circumstances made it necessary for the Central Committee of the National Guard to take their place, and thus was formed a body without a fixed programme and without any clear purpose. They discharged their responsibility, in the first place, by delegating their power to a single individual, Lullier, to whom they confided the supreme command over Paris. He was the most unsuitable man conceivable, a drunkard and one who did not know whether he was “more of a fool than traitor, or vice versa. This man succeeded within the space of forty-eight hours in making the most terrible blunders possible – blunders that could not be remedied. But this unfortunate choice of Lullier was at bottom merely a sign and indication of the situation at that time.” – (Dubreuilh, La Commune, p.283.)

It was not till April 3rd that it was decided to make an attack on Versailles. But what might have brought success on March 19th was on April 3rd a cause of failure. The expectation that the soldiers would again go over to the Parisians as on March 18th ended in bitter disappointment. The Parisian National Guard stumbled upon most obstinate and determined opposition, which they could not overcome. From that moment they were put on the defensive against the whole of France, and in consequence, from that time onwards their downfall was certain. And from that time onwards the Paris rising was exclusively proletarian. Up to that moment many of the supporters of the bourgeois hesitated as to whether or not they should go over to the proletarian, but henceforth they let the proletariat alone go on with the fight.

How very differently things proceeded in the insurrection of March 7th, 1917, in Petersburg, as compared with that of March l8th, 1871, in Paris! This Russian insurrection was prepared by the Revolutionary Committee, which organised the working classes and the soldiers, and urged them to attack the Government, which at that time was in Petersburg, and had as little strength behind it as had Thiers in 1871 in Paris. But it is certain that the immediate occupation of all posts of power in the capital would not have determined the victory of the Bolsheviks, had not the condition of things in the whole Empire been far more favourable to them than they were for Paris in 1871. At the time when Kerensky fled to Gatschina, as formerly Thiers fled to Versailles, he could not reckon on a peasantry which would uphold him. The peasantry, and along with it the armed rising in Russia, all went to the side of the revolutionaries, who were in power in the capital. This gave their regime a force and permanent character, which was denied the Paris regime. On the other hand, it brought about an economic reactionary element from which the Paris Commune was saved. The Paris Dictatorship of the Proletariat was never founded on Peasants’ Councils as was the case in Russia.