The Revolutionary Age VOL I, No. 22 Price Cents Chronicle and Interpretation of International Events Saturday, March 15, 1919 The Paris Commune, 1871 1919 old IIE agonizing but inspiring struggle of the op inted the machinery of the old state its army, its police MARX ON THE COMMUNE history. It is as brutal and tragic, as human and The working class cannut simply lay hold of the ready and its bureaucracy, independent of and imposed madestate machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.
upon the masses, the instruments. of repression used magnificent, as life itself. It is a struggle in which The Commune was formed of the various municipal coun by the state to coerce the working class; and the Comcillors, chosen by universal suffrage in various wards of the and through which man finest instincts have been town, responsible and revocable at short terms. The major mune, morcover, abolished legislative and executive expressed, have tried to break the shackles imposed ity of its members were natur WO nen, or acknow functions as separate functions, these being united upon life by oppression and inequality.
ledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to working. not a parliamentary, body, executive democratically in the Commune. The Paris Commune All through history there are the scars of this great and legislative at the same time. Instead of continuing to demonstrated in actual practice that the first task of struggle. They are proletarian scars, transfigured by once stripped of its political attributes and turned into the be the act of the central Government, the police was at the militant proletariat is the conquest of power by the beauty of aspiration. In one form or another the responsible and at all times revocable agent of the Commune. the revolutionary proletariat the annihilation of the So were the officials of all other branches of the administrastruggle flared up, and was beaten down. Always tion. From the members of the Commune downwards, the old bourgeois state and the construction of a new beaten down the cross and the prison, the rack, the public service had to be done at workmen wages. The proletarian state On this head, Lenin wrote in fire and the gallows being the answer of the oppress high dimitaries of state disappearedio along with the high April 1917: As to the revolutionary organization and ors to the rebels. Always beaten down but arising clignitaries themselves. Public functions ceased to be the its task, the conquest of the power of the state and to inspire new struggles, again to arouse the masses private proverty of the tools of the central Government. Not militarism: From the experience of the Paris Comonly municiral administration, let the whole initiative hitherto to action, to teach the new rebels the more effective exercised lw the State was laid into the hands of the Com mune, Marx shows that the working class cannot mune methods of struggle. The early Christian Communa model to all the great induetrial centers of Francetvrhe simply lay hold of the ready made machinery of the ists, crushed by the unity of feudal church and state commural regime once established in Paris and the second state and wield it for its purposes. The proletariat were the ideologic inspiration of the Communist moveary centres, the old centralized Government would in the rovinces, ton, have to give way to the self government of must break down this machinery. And this has been mnents of the middle ages. The great Spartacus, in the producers. In a rongh sketch of national organization either concealed or denied by the opportunists. But placable but human, a slave who towered infinitely which the Commnine had no time to develop, it is clearly it is the most valuable lesson of the Paris Commune stated that the Commune was to be the political form of above his masters, lives again in our day in the rev ven the smallest country hamlet, ant that in the rural dis and of the Revolution in Russia of 1905. The difolutionary movement of Germany the Spartacans. militia. with an extremely short term of service. The rural tricts the standing army was to he renlaced hy a national ference between us and the Anarchists is, that we Despised but inconquerable, overwhelmed but irres communes of delegates in the central town, and these district admit tlre state is a necessity in the development of istible, the rebel slaves struggle, and each new strugassemblies were avain to send deputies to the National De our Revolution. The difference with the opportunists tegration in Paris, each delegate to he at any time revocable gle inspires the future and is born again.
and Irund hv the mandat. imperatif (formal instructions anil the disciples of Karl Kautsky is, that we claim The Paris Commune was crushed, completely. But of his constituents. The few important functions which still vuld remain for a central povernment were not to be 11we do not need the bourgeois state inachinery as comit did not die. It is alive in our day, active and in:plac essed as has intentionally feen misstated, but were to he pleted in the democratic bourgeois republic, but the able. The Commune! The Communists! They are discharged l» communal, and therefore strictly responsible.
cents. The inity of the nation was not to be broken: hut, direct power of armed and organized workers. Such the terror of the bourgcois reaction. The Commune the contrary to lie organized hy the Coinmunal Constiis the state we nee Such was the character of the controls iu Russia that terrible mystery to the ur ition, and to promr a reality by the destruction of the Commune of 1871 and of the Soviets of Workmen State power which claimed to be the embodiment of that pressors, that flaming star of hope to the oppressed. Which it was fint parasitic encrescinco matrime communal build. Ths. new proletarian state of the Paris Com.
and Soldiers of 1905 and 1917. On this basis we The Communists are shaking the Government of the Constitutin rrught the rural producers onder the intelPeople Butchery in Germany, and the world of Caplectual lead of the central towns of their districts and therr mune functioned as a revolutionary dictatorship of secured to theen, in the workingmen, the natural trustees of italism unites against the Cominwnists. The Comthe proletariat. precisely as in Soviet Russia in 1917their interests. It was essentially a working class governmune! The Communists! Everywhere they are the ment, the product of the strugele of the producing against 1919.
inspiration of the proletarian revolution: everywhere under which to work on the economic emarcipation of The Commune was the final magnificent act of the they are the rallying cry of the ntost resolute elements Talwr. Karl Marx. The Civil War in France.
first revolutionary period of the proletarian movement, of the Socialist proletariat.
while it simultaneously, through its practice of proThe Paris Commune was cruslied. It was the revamid the indifference or applause of the world. The letarian dictatorship and the new state, projected the olt of the proletarian masses against class mastery it nomards, falsely and vilely, of savagery acted as savmasters knew no mercy: they who accused the Com phase of the final revolution of the proletariat. But the International Socialist movement that developed was the attempt to use the collapse of Bonapartism for action and the conquest of power by the proktariat.
ages even would not act. It was the vengeance of the after the crushing of the Commune was pacific, moIt challenged equally Thiers and Bismarck bourgemaster class the vengeance of the master class at all derate, reformistic and nationalistic. It repudiated ois France and Junker Prussia. The Commune was times against its slaves who rebel. Today, the bour the lessons of the Commune, became a wholly parlialife striving to realize life, its majesty and inviolit int they say nothing about the thousands of men, be introduced loy means of parliamentary activity on geois etill froth about the savagery of the Commune; mentary movement, imagining that Socialism could Lility: to complete the struggle of the ages, to end woman and chillren who were massacred at Pere la the basis of the hourgeois state, that this state could class rule. And Thiers and Bismarck bourgeois (hais. wio were often lurried alive, who were trans be used as the instrument for the emancipatiou of the rance and Junker Prussia, united against this menace.
The former enemies becanre allies against the rev about savagery in Russia. but they are quiet about ported to French Guiana. Today, the bourgeois froth working class, The rough shock of the accomplished proletarian olutionary proletariat and communism. Are not the the blusely actions of the Bourgeois White Guards in revolution in Russia and of the developing proktarian Jourgeois enemies of yesterday an indivisible unity to Finland, about the savagery of the masters in Gor revolution in Germany is awakening Socialism from day against the Comniune in Russia, against the demany. Shout on sight that is the order of the its parliamentary dreams, from its acceptance of the veloping Commune in Germany?
bourecois Socialist government in Germany, ap. bourgeois state. The practice of the proletarian rev.
It was a tragic struggle. The Compiunards met proved by the world of Capitalism. Capitalism olution in Russia and in Germany is the practice of the cannon with their bodies and starvation with a trembles at the nr:nace of Bolshevism; but what a the Paris Commune amplified and organised in accord cst. Thunderbolts of iron were answered with the 1:unlerbolts of proletarian courage and the revoluvengeance will be their should Bolshevism collapse! avith the never forces of today. Tlre amplification But it won consists largely in making industry the organized tionary icleal. Isolated. starved, overwhelmed, the The Paris Conmune was the most mature expres producers the basis of the new state. The Commune struggle went on against Thiers and Bismarck physic sion of th. proletarian revolution up to that time. The is again in action. in its final form, inplacable and lis, against the world spiritually. There were 110 tendency of the French Revolution, among the masses, iconquerable. The Commune! Proletarian Dictatinen, there were no women, there were no childrenwas to go beyond the bourgeois parliamentary state, orship! The Revolution. just rebels. When the walls were conquered, the with its division between legislative and executive. The Paris Commune was isolated. The internaCommunards held the streets: conquered off the and to organize a conpletely new state, the federated tional proletariat was not awake, did not respond to strects, they inade each house a fortress and every communes, uniting all functions of government in the the call of the Commune. But the Commune in Rusperson an army. Driven back. always back, they hell lasses. That was the immature tendency of the sia has sent the Aaming call to proletarian revolution the corners and the alleys and the cellars, until over rcctions and coummes of the French Revolution, throughout the world. And there is answer to the lielmeel by sheer physical exhaustion and the numer which the Paris Commune established in practice. call! The Russian Commune has its natural ally in ical superiority of the enemy. And they were all The contribution of the Commune to revolutionary the awakening international proletariat. The final made prisoners. Prisoners? No, they were mads viet luory and ta:ties consisted in developing a neri type struggle is om! Hut. Socialism must reconstruct itinss. They were tortured. Men, women and children sile, lax means of which the proletariat could ac self in harmony with the experience of the ComMere shot in roves, mercilessly and systematically complish its emancipation. The Commune annihil MC 1871 1914.