On March 28, 1871, Parisian socialists and radicals rose up to proclaim the Paris Commune. The movement took place in the wake of France's humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, and proved to be one of the first large-scale experiments in creating a socialist state.
The Enlightenment of the 18th century had brought many gifts to Europeans, not the least of which was a new political self-awareness for the masses. These new ideas had unintended consequences, however — while the French Revolution of 1789 succeeded in spreading the ideals of Liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality and fraternity), it also led to the Terror, in which perhaps tens of thousands of innocent French men, women and children went to the guillotine, and ultimately ended in the military despotism of Napoleon.
The French Revolution also saw the first modern socialist thinkers emerge like Claude-Henri de Saint Simon (1760-1825), who fought in the American Revolution and claimed that he was responsible for Washington's victory at Yorktown. A Christian, Saint Simon placed Jesus Christ at the center of his political philosophy and believed large banks and vocational training were all that were needed to end poverty. Charles Fourier (1772-1837) believed that poverty could be eliminated by simply creating a minimum wage. Etienne Cabet (1788-1856) wrote a novel called “Voyage to Icaria” in which he advocated nationalization of all industry, identical wages for all workers — no matter their job, and families handing over their 5-year-old children to be raised by the state. (Cabet also set up a small socialist community in Nauvoo, Illinois, after the departure of the Mormons.)
Modern, democratic socialism took a step forward with Louis Blanc (1811-1882), who set up commissions to study labor and advocated government interference in the economy — but only to a degree. Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881) was the prototype for the professional revolutionary — Lenin would follow in his footsteps. When Blanqui died at 76, he had spent a total of 33 years in jail.
Socialism evolved over the course of the early 19th century outside of France as well. Scotsman Robert Owen (1771-1858) was himself a factory owner who believed that society’s elites must be the ones to effect social change, and who also founded a socialist colony at New Harmony, Indiana. But it was German Karl Marx (1818-1883) who became the most influential socialist, so much so that his own views on the ordering of society became known as Marxism. This philosophy borrowed elements from philosopher Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's idea of dialectic, Adam Smith's emphasis on materialism, and the concept of revolution, which the French had seen several times since 1789.
Because of these various philosophies and ideas, most French socialists were fairly divided by mid-century. Many of them joined the First International, or similar international socialist movements. These groups held that a German worker, a French worker, an English worker, etc., had more in common with each other than they did with elites in their own countries. Therefore, the workers should unite in common cause, and in the case of Marxists and some other socialists, foment a revolution to topple the existing power structure.
1870 proved to be an important year for Europe. Prussia had won wars against Denmark in 1864 and Austria in 1866, in the hopes of unifying all of Germany under Berlin's leadership. France, however, ruled by Emperor Louis Napoleon, would never tolerate the creation of a such a large nation right next door. Prussia's iron chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, engineered a war between France and Prussia in the summer of 1870 and within a few months the French army was defeated.
Paris, however, refused to give up. As the Prussian army under Gen. Helmuth von Moltke laid siege to the city and began raining artillery shells down randomly on its populace, Prussia's king set up court at Versailles. In January 1871, Prussia's Bismarck proclaimed the creation of the German empire. The next month the head of the French provisional government, the liberal Adolphe Thiers, was able to convince the deputies that peace must be negotiated. By the beginning of March, the humiliated French agreed to harsh peace terms from the Germans.
On March 18, however, a major insurrection broke out in the bruised and battered city and Thiers withdrew the government and most of the regular army to Versailles, out of harm's way. Many socialists and other political radicals who did not favor the provisional government met at the Hôtel de Ville. Approximately 20,000 citizen soldiers of the National Guard camped in front of the hotel, apparently recognizing its authority instead of those at Versailles. What followed were several days of arguments and negotiations, bickering and agreements, as the radicals debated policy. There had already been instances of violence. A mob had attacked and killed two generals. One issue hotly debated was whether the radicals should approve of the murders as legitimate acts of revolution, or should they disown them as an act of mob frenzy?
Finally, elections were held on March 26. Paris boasted 485,569 registered voters, and nearly half showed up to make their voice heard. The people voted for the socialists, revolutionaries and radicals — quite a difference from the elections of the previous November, which had resulted primarily in the election of liberals such as Thiers. The radicals dubbed their new government/movement “Commune de Paris,” signifying their socialist and revolutionary leanings. In the book, “The Fall of Paris: The Siege and The Commune 1870-71,” historian Alistair Horne wrote:
“On Tuesday, March 28th, amid immaculate spring sunshine, the Commune officially installed itself at the Hôtel de Ville. … All Paris seemed to be there, and cheering wildly. In front of the Hôtel de Ville had been erected a platform decked in scarlet cloth on which stood the members of the newly elected Commune, also wearing red scarves, taking the salute as the massed units of the National Guard marched past. Never had this semi-trained militia, which had given so poor an account of itself during the Siege, marched better.”
The Commune, however, represented only the wishes of the people of Paris, and had no interest at all in the rest of the country. In fact, the creation of the Paris Commune was nothing less than the secession of the city of Paris by socialists and revolutionaries from the nation of France — something Thiers and other liberals found as intolerable as Abraham Lincoln found Southern secession in the United States Civil War only 10 years earlier. Still reeling from the defeat against the Prussians, however, Thiers needed a few weeks to cobble together a force to take on the Paris National Guard.
The Commune, like Cabet's experiment in Nauvoo and Owen's experiment in Indiana, was heavy on theory and light on results. In fact, like those earlier socialist colonies, the residents of Paris spent so much time arguing and debating about an ideal society that little real work got done at all — leading to shortages in food and goods.
In Horne's book “La Belle France: A Short History,” he wrote: “The Commune was overloaded, indeed overwhelmed, by personalities, ideologies, and interests. … The Communards had still failed to establish any effective chain of command. Everybody gave orders, few obeyed them.”
By the end of April, Thiers had assembled his force, bolstered by reinforcements from all over France. Just as the Prussians had done months earlier, now the loyalist French generals began bombarding Paris. The army noted that the Commune's defenses were weakest at the southwest of the city, at the Point du Jour. When Louis Rossel, the commander of the Communard's National Guard units ordered his troops to prepare defenses under heavy fire near the bridge, they refused, and Rossel himself soon resigned.
By May 26, the French army was invested in the city, and atrocities began occurring on both sides. The whole operation was a bloodbath, with possibly as many as 20,000 Communards killed, many of them executed after being taken prisoner. Many more would be executed for treason in subsequent trials, and others would be sent to Algeria or other French colonies.
The Commune was a total failure. While it was the first truly large scale experimentation with workers' owning factories, and equitable division of labor and resources, none of it worked to the degree the Communard's hoped. Certainly little was actually produced by the workers, and when threatened by an outside force, the Communard's were unwilling and/or unable to defend themselves. The Commune proved that when such revolutionary worker's governments appeared, the only thing that would make them work is coercion — the same kinds of coercion that took place in Soviet Russia, China, Cuba and North Korea.
Still, socialists throughout the world spun the Paris Commune as a great and noble undertaking that would have worked eventually if only Thiers' government had not intervened. There was no greater champion of the Commune than Marx himself. In the book “The Red Flag: A History of Communism” historian David Priestland wrote:
“Marx and Engles … described (the Commune) as the model of their 'proletarian dictatorship.' For them, the Commune had proved that the old state bureaucracy could be smashed, and all areas of government democratized. Elected deputies ruled directly, both legislators and executives, while all officials received workers' wages and were subject to dismissal by the people.”
The reality of the experiment, however, was ultimately death and destruction.
Cody K. Carlson holds a master's in history from the University of Utah and has taught at SLCC. He is currently a salesman at Doug Smith Subaru in American Fork. Email: ckcarlson76@gmail.com