History of Europe

Commune of Paris:the insurgent capital (1871)


The Commune of Paris designates the movement and the insurrectionary government set up by the Parisians at the end of the Franco-German war, from March 18 to May 28, 1871. After the siege of Paris and the signing of the Franco-German armistice, the Parisians , whom Adolphe Thiers wanted to disarm, rose up and established a revolutionary government dominated by Blanquists and anarchists. For three months, from March to the end of May 1871, the Paris Commune resisted the attacks of Versailles troops, before being repressed during Bloody Week.

Origins of the Paris Commune

At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, two major events definitively changed the face of France. On the one hand, the Revolution of 1789 marks the beginning of a revolutionary tradition which, in 1871, appears almost secular. On the other hand, the industrial revolution leads to the creation of the proletariat, a new social class which includes the workers subjected to the industrial organization of work. In the course of the 19th century, the development of numerous companies considerably swelled the proletariat which, on the political level, remained non-existent.

The population of Paris is approximately 1,850,000. Nearly 450,000 of them belong to the working class. The proletarians work on behalf of the great liberal bourgeois. Their working and living conditions are deplorable. Yet the ruling class completely ignores their demands. This is why the discontent grows from decade to decade. In Paris, around 1870, the working class dreamed of having a voice, even of imposing its dictatorship through a revolutionary movement. It represents about a quarter of the population of the capital.

From 1860, the workers demonstrated more and more often, so much so that they were granted the right to strike in 1864. In addition, the same year, the First International was born in London. Strikes multiplied until 1870. In 1868, the government adopted a law favorable to the right of assembly. Socialists take advantage of this to spread their political ideas. They want to nationalize private companies in the fields of banking, public transport and mining.

Why did the Parisians revolt in 1871?

The winter of 1870-1871 of the Franco-German war seems decisive. On September 18, 1870, the Prussians besieged the capital. The lack of supplies began to be felt and the Prussians bombed the city in January 1871. As no large-scale military operation was carried out, the inhabitants demanded the election of a Commune to defend the capital, relying on the National Guard. The armistice signed on January 28 provoked the indignation and anger of a starving and exhausted people. On February 8, bourgeois republicans, including Thiers, are sent to the National Assembly to represent the city.

After the humiliation of defeat, the Parisians suffered the procession of the Prussians on March 1. The anger that this military parade causes precipitates the events. From the first days of March, the Parisians opposed the National Assembly still located in Bordeaux. They protest against the measures taken, such as the transfer of the Assembly to Versailles or the disarmament of the National Guard. On March 18, 1871, they prevented the application of this last decision by blocking the access of Thiers' troops to the cannons, gathered in Montmartre and Belleville.

After fraternizing with the soldiers, they launch a general insurrection and take control of the city, not without having massacred Generals Lecomte and Clément Thomas. Mayor Jules Ferry then liberates the town hall, the future heart of the Commune. Once free, the Parisians think of the election of a Council as Organized by the National Guard Central Committee, it takes place on the 22nd and the Council takes office six later. The names of the deputies are cheered by the crowd.

A Divided Movement

Many communards formed the intention of administering France with the necessary firmness to prevent any foreign invasion. They hope that the inhabitants of each commune openly reject the power of Thiers, considered a traitor, to adhere to their project of a fraternal and egalitarian Republic. They create ten commissions for this purpose. But Thiers strives to isolate the capital from the rest of France. In addition, he held the leader Auguste Blanqui prisoner.

Shortly after its election, the council is already going through a serious political crisis. It has 90 deputies, but is quickly reduced to 70 members following the resignation of the moderates. The other MPs come from a variety of backgrounds. a third comes from the proletariat, the others are craftsmen, merchants or employees. A third large group is made up of men from the petty bourgeoisie (journalists, doctors, engineers, painters, etc.).

In addition to these social disparities, MPs have political ideals that are difficult to reconcile. Some refer to Blanqui, who advocates direct action. Others want to be Jacobins and ignore the changes of their time. The workers adopt an ideology inspired by the ideas of Marx and Proudhon. As for the remaining deputies, they proclaim themselves “independent revolutionaries”. They are also called “radicals”. Unable to come to an agreement, they pursue no centralizing policy. The vast majority of Parisians do not follow their movement. In the provinces, their movement arouses concern, except in a few working-class towns such as Saint-Étienne or Lyon. On the other hand, they obtain successes at the level of the trade unions, clubs within which one carries out instructive debates and within the press.

Repression and failure of the Paris Commune

Thiers fires back quickly. From April 2, the first shells of the regular year rained down on the city. The Communards appoint Cluseret, a former officer without experience, War Delegate. On April 5, they voted the "decree of hostages":any man suspected of sympathy with the Versailles regime was arrested. For each execution of a sympathizer of the Commune, three hostages are executed.

In concrete terms, this decree does not come into effect. It mainly benefits Thiers who uses it as an argument to scandalize public opinion. Communard deputies, however, ordered the arrest of lawyers and clerks. Busy defending their new regime, they voted for few reforms. They decree the separation of Church and State, the secularization of religious schools and free education and justice. They are also taking steps to empower women.

Troops from Versailles enter Paris on May 21. Then begins a week of struggle called the "bloody week" during which 20,000 communards are killed. On May 24, the trained troops seized the town hall. The communards retaliated with the massacre of hostages and the setting on fire of the Tuileries, the Court of Auditors, the Council of State, etc. The fighting ended on May 28 at Père-Lachaise. The survivors of these last fights are executed against the surrounding wall of the cemetery. Since 1880, the Communards' Wall has been the place of commemoration of the victims of the repression of the Paris Commune.

After order was restored, 38,000 Parisians were arrested and a hundred death sentences were handed down. Other sympathizers of the Commune were forced into exile until 1880. This was the case of Louise Miche (nicknamed "the Red Virgin"), an anarchist activist and writer who actively participated in the Parisian insurrection. The Paris Commune appears both as the last revolution of the 19th century and as the first attempt to seize power by the working class, politically non-existent until then. It ended in failure.

A report paints the typical portrait of the communard

In 1875, General Appert submitted an "overall report on military justice operations relating to the 1871 Insurrection". It reports 36,309 cases examined. This figure, corroborated by the analysis of other studies, seems plausible. The report helps to know the range of convictions and paint the portrait of the communard.

The councils of war — instituted to try crimes and misdemeanors committed during the insurrectionary period — are said to have condemned 93 individuals to the death penalty, 251 to forced labor, 1,159 to deportation in a compound and 3,417 in deportation in New Caledonia. The judges reportedly pronounced 2,445 acquittals and 22,727 dismissal orders. The typical communard is a young adult:58% are under the age of thirty-five, 49% remain single. He serves in the National Guard. The illiterate and the semi-illiterate represent 69% of the whole, a characteristic denoting their belonging to the humble classes.

On the other hand, the cadres of the insurrection can read and write; they belong to the "worker elite" of crafts or shops. One in four is a native of Paris. The majority of them are workers of the old trades and not proletarians of modern industry (there are only 13% of metallurgists). 79.5% have no criminal record. In addition, 1,051 women and 651 children were put on trial. Of these, 150 are under the age of fifteen and 30% are on their own.

The women arrested belong to the working class (71% of them). On the other hand, the “red virgin” Louise Michel exercises the profession of teacher. A minority lives off prostitution. These data make it possible to rectify, or even to invalidate, the fallacious portrait of the communeux or the petroleuse drawn up by the Versaillese and a large number of contemporaries led astray by their fear of the communard movement.

Despite the Commune, the Republic imposes itself in France

Paradoxically, the Republic emerged stronger from the fight against the Paris Commune and other insurrectionary movements. She has shown her ability to resist anarchy and defend order. The by-elections of July 2, 1871 send 99 Republicans out of 113 elected to the Assembly. A month later, the Rivet law consecrates the republican regime, decreeing that Thiers, "head of the executive power, will take the title of President of the French Republic".

Conservative, he reassures:only municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants can elect their mayor, the establishment of compulsory military service is tempered by exemptions from which students and seminarians benefit . The “liberator of the territory”, thanks to three loans which meet with great success, pays, in advance, the indemnity due to Germany. Thus, the last German soldier left France in August 1873. Outvoted, Thiers had to resign on May 24, 1873 and Marshal de Mac-Mahon was immediately elected President of the Republic.

The Paris Commune, which will also have great international repercussions, will become a reference period for part of the French left. The tragedy of the “bloody week” and the harshness of the repression will give substance to a unifying myth magnified by the labor movement, as well as to a place of memory, the wall of the Federated States, in the Père-Lachaise cemetery.

- The Paris Commune 1871:The actors, the event, the places. Workshop, 2021.

- Insurgent Paris:The Commune of 1871, by Jacques Rougerie. Gallimard, 1995.

- The Paris Commune (1871), by William Serman. Fayard, 1986.