MARCH-APRIL 2006
The People, official organ of Socijalist Labor Party of America
135TH ANNIVERSARY OF PARIS COMMUNE 1871
A Landmark in Working-Class History
To many workers, the Paris Commune may seem like nothing more than a vague and distant event in the history of another country. It would be a mistake to think that the ruling class thinks of it the same way. Their memory of the Commune still burns because it shattered a myth that lays at the very founda¬tion of capitalist society: the myth that capital¬ists are indispensable to production, and that production would cease and anarchy would reign without them. The Commune of 1871 ex¬posed the myth, not by design, but by the foroe of circumstances that compelled the workers of the city to take matters into their own hands.
During its brief life, the Commune so organ¬ized and ran Paris as to prove beyond doubt that the working class is capable of establishing and operating a government "of, for and by the people" in the most meaningful sense . of those words. Most officials and func¬tionaries in the public services deserted Paris at a signal from their superiors at Versailles, where the bourgeois govern¬ment had established itself. They carried off seals, cash, records, committed vandal¬ism and otherwise attempted to disrupt and destroy public services. Similarly, the owners and managers of hundreds of pri¬vate enterprises and factories locked their doors and headed for Versailles. With the "brains" of the enterprises absent, the | Versaillese believed the workers would be stymied and that production would remain interrupted until the masters returned.
How the workers reorganized the services and reopened vital factories, and how they drew upon their own numbers for "directive ability," forms a heroic chaptcr of the heroic story of the Commune. They had no plan for industrial union administration, or, indeed, any conception of the administrative organ and social form developed by the SLP and Daniel De Leon more than a quarter of a cen¬tury later. The insurrection itself burst upon them like a storm and literally thrust respon¬sibility and a host of urgent and gigantic prob¬lems in their hands. Yet the manner in which they accepted these responsibilities and grap¬pled with the problems was the common sense manner implicit in the Socialist Industrial Union program.
The telegraph workers reorganized the telegraphs; the public markets were closed only a few hours; from their own ranks the workers who kept the streets lighted drew their super¬visors; even the cemeteries, which French pres¬ident Adolph Thiers and his agents had tried to disorganize, were soon "functioning" under the direction of employees. An example of the actu¬al procedure of these workingmen, suddenly thrown upon their own, could be found in the postal services.
Before the postal officials fled to Versailles, they hid or carried off stamps, seals, equipment, carte, etc., and posted placards instructing employees to proceed to Versailles on pain of dis¬missal. Many did. Others might have followed but for the fact that they were not forewarned. When they came to organize the mail service, Lissagaray relates in his History of the Commune of 1871, they were addressed by Theisz, ua chas¬er" who was appointed to direct the post office by the Central Committee, little by littie they gave way," writes Lissagaray. "Some functionar¬ies who were Socialists also lent their help, and the direction of the various services was intrust¬ed to head-clerks. The divisionary bureaus were opened, and in forty-eight hours the collection and distribution of letters for Paris reorgan¬ized... A superior council was instituted, which raised the wages of postmen, sorters, porters, caretakers of the bureaus, shortened the time of service as supernumeraries, and decided that the ability of employees should be tested for the future by means of teste and examinations."
No similar problem of ^persuasion" arose in the case of privately owned enterprises. However,
here the Parisian workmen's failures to prepare to "take over," plus the handicap arising from lack of time and the necessity to defend against military attack, prevented a full-scale assump¬tion of industrial administration and operation. For the most part, only factories turning out urgently needed items were opened.
Overshadowing these failures was the action of the Commune iteelf in its decrees on the disposi¬tion of deserted workshops. These decrees, issued less than a month after the insurrection of March 18, called for an inventory of abandoned factories, and ordered trade councils "to present a report on the practical means of exploiting again at once these deserted shops, not by the renegades who have left them, but by a coopera-tive association of the workers once employed therein." There was also to be a "final cession" of the proprietors in question "to the workers' soci¬eties," but only when "the amount of the indem¬nity the societies shall pay the employers" was determined by arbitration boards! The proposal to indemnify the employers betrays a lack of clar¬ity. However, the wonder is not that the Com¬munards betrayed ignorance of the full implica¬tions of the upheaval, but that they compre¬hended them as fully as they did.
In his Civil War in France, Karl Marx sum¬marized the capitaliste' reaction to the workers' demonstration of administrative ability. "When the Paris Commune took the management of the revolution in its own hands," he wrote, "when plain workingmen for the first time dared to infringe upon the governmental privilege of their 'natural superiors,' and, under circum¬stances of unexampled difficulty, performed their work modestly, conscientiously, and effi¬ciently—performed it at salaries the highest of which barely amounted to one-fifth of what, according to high scicntific authority, is the min¬imum required for a secretary to a certain met¬ropolitan school board—the old world writhed in convulsions of rage at the sight of the Red Flag, the symbol of the Republic of Labor, floating over the Hotel de Ville."
The Commune overcame the most menacing problems of the administration of services and production with common sense and energy. However, the revolution of the 21st century will require more than common sense and energy if vital services and other economic processes are not to be disrupted. The nature of the revolution, and the magnitude, complexity and ramifica¬tions of modern industry, require the prerevolu- tionary economic organization of the workers, and their appreciation of the economic organiza¬tion's pootrevolutionary role as the organ of industrial administration, lb the Socialist Industrial Union, power, responsibility and the problems of production and distribution will not come as an unexpected storm. They will come, rather, as the fruit of conscious struggle. What the Communards extemporized with such effi-ciency as to enrage their "natural superiors," the SIU will accomplish in a planned, organized assumption of control and power.
How the Workers Took Paris
On March 18, workers the world over have cause to commemorate the Paris Commune of 1871. The first workers'government the world had known, the Commune governed Paris for just two brief months before it was savagely suppressed by the bourgeoisie. Yet that short period marked a turning point in the history of labor s struggle to free itself from the shackles of class rule.
Karl Marx called the Commune the most tremendous event in the history of European civil wars. After the June 1848 uprising in Prance, Marx had noted that henceforth "every revolution in France would bring up the question of'overturning bourgeois socie¬ty,' while before February, 1848, it could be a J question only of overturning the form of gov¬ernment."
In June of 1848, the proletariat was "still incapable of carrying through its own revo¬lution." But in the next 18 years economic 1 and political conditions in France devel¬oped considerably, as did the consciousness of the French proletariat. With the Paris Commune of 1871, the overthrow of capi¬talist class rule was placed on the social agenda as a real possibility and socialism was posited as a practical alternative.
Imperialist War
As with so many uprisings since, impe- rialist war set the stage for revolution. In 1870, the adventurer Louis Bonaparte (Emperor Napoleon III) declared war against Prussia, a strategy he thought would help him keep his throne and solve France's domestic problems. Instead, the Prussians soundly de-feated the French troops and laid siege to Paris. Louis Bonaparte abdicated.
With the collapse of the Second French Empire, a bourgeois republic was proclaimed on Sept. 4, 1870. Under the leadership of Louis Adolphe Thiers, a "Government of National Defense" was formed to guard Paris against the invaders. But the army, riddled with corruption and treachery, was less than fully committed to the city s defense.
The military leaders had to keep one eye on the invaders and the other on the restless Parisian workers, whom they rightly regarded as the paramount enemy. On Oct 31, workers stormed City Hall, but withdrew, leaving Thiers and Co. to rule for another four months.
During this period. Paris remained under a state of siege, surrounded by Prussian soldiers. The French armies suffered defeats at Metz and Sedan and many were taken prisoner by the Prussians. Consequently, the defense of Paris fell more and more to citizen-soldiers enrolled in the National Guard. The majority of these guardsmen were workers who demanded the fight against the invaders be continued.
After a 131-day siege, the Republic capitulated to the Prussians on Jan. 28,1871. The Prussian army entered the city, but finding themselves surrounded by armed workers, they limited their occupation of Paris to one small symbolic area. Forts were surrendered and federal army troops were disarmed, but the Prussians made no attempt to confiscate the cannon and arms of the national guardsmen.
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Part one, (1/3)
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