The Paris Commune in Pictures

[quirk]

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune11-600.jpg

In the summer of 1870, the French bourgeoisie drew their country into a war with Prussia.
The government and leaders of the army were corrupt. There was a series of defeats.
Finally, in September, 80.000 untrained and ill-equipped men were thrown against the great Prussian war machine. The French were surrounded and defeated.
Napoleon III and nearly half his army were captured, as were the Paris defences; and the Prussians swept on to the capital.

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune12-600.jpg

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune13-600.jpg

But the city's masses had organized a National Guard.
They already felt the shortage of food: long lines of the hungry stood about the bakeries waiting for bread.
But they procured a number of cannon for their defence and placed them on the Paris ramparts.

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune1415-600.jpg

In this move the wealthy saw a danger to themselves, no less than to the Prussians.
The masses were aroused to a revolutionary fervor: their guns could be swung toward the bourgeoisie within the walls as easily as against the foe without.

An attempt was made to capture the cannon. The alarm was given: the whole city of workers, women as well as men, turned out to their defence. And the Government troops rather fraternized than attacked the defenders

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune16-600.jpg

On March 18 the Commune was proclaimed.
The Government withdrew with its troops to Versailles. The Communards allowed the departure, though the troops could have been won over; and the city's rich who swarmed out of Paris should have been held as hostages.

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune17-600.jpg

The city, organized into arrondissements, or districts, was now headed by groups of Communards -- men and women, workers and intellectuals -- who were, says Lenin,
creating "a new type of state -- the Workers' State."

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune18-600.jpg


And in the streets the crowds stood to read the proclamations of this new State: separation of the church;


no more night work in bakeries;


no back rent for the poor;


the arrest of priests;


the re-opening of abandoned factories;


the abolition of fines against workers.


http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune19-600.jpg

In the meantime, in Versailles, Thiers and his reactionary government, aided by Prussian officers, were planning an attack on the Paris Commune.
Thousands of captured French soldiers were to be returned and armed for the onslaught
-- for which, however, the Communards were also preparing.

[quirk]

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune20-600.jpg

Barricades were erected in the streets. Men and women labored to construct and man them. But the whole city could not be held. The bourgeois who remained in Paris communicated its vulnerable places to Versailles; and from May 22 to May 28, a bloody week, the troops poured through undefended gates.
The Communards, fighting valiantly, were driven to a last stand in one small section of Paris. Every pavement was a battlefield; every house a fort.
The Communards, worn and exhausted, were falling back before an advance that spared neither woman nor child.

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune22-600.jpg

Still fighting among the flaming ruins of the city, they were captured.
Thousands were killed where they stood; other thousands -- children, the old and sick --
were herded to open places to be shot.
Each detachment of the maddened Versailles troops was an executioner's gang,
summarily killing every suspected sympathizer.
The Commune was being drowned in its own blood.

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune23-600.jpg

And the wealthy, many of whom had now returned, stood on the curbs to watch the ghastly parade and congratulate themselves on their victory.

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune2425-600.jpg

The White Terror knew no bounds. At Pere Lachaise Cemetery, at a dozen other points, thousands of Communards were herded together and shot.
General Gallifet, the Butcher of the Communards, stood by and watched while the troops fired into the defiant crowds massed against the walls.
Huge mounds were formed of corpses and those not yet dead.

A part of "The Wall of the Communards" still stands; and the sculptured faces that peer from it are at once a challenge to capitalist rule and a monument to the martyrs of the Commune.

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune26-600.jpg

In that one week 40,000 workers were slaughtered.
Then those Communards who had so far escaped were herded together and given mock trials. With monotonous regularity they were found guilty and executed or shipped to the tropical colonies.

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune27-600.jpg

There they were forced to slave at the most difficult labor.
They had helped found the first government of workers; and in revenge the victorious bourgeoisie sent them to die of fever, overwork and inattention, under the tender ministrations of the French foreign troops

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune28-600.jpg

With the greatest care and understanding Karl Marx had followed the fortunes of the Commune. Immediately after its fall, he spoke to the workers of the world on the lessons of its rise and fall.
«Workingmen's Paris, he said, with its Commune, will forever be celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society.»

March 18, anniversary of the Paris Commune, is one of the milestones of the advancing working class. Since 1871, it has been a day of celebration and re-dedication of the workers in every country.

http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-images/commune3031-600.jpg

The Commune lives again!
In October, 1917, forty-six years after the Paris Commune, the workers of Russia under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, with Lenin at its head, established the first workers' state rooted in permanence. These Russian Communards directed from Smolny by Lenin--troops of workers from the factories, the Aurora steaming up the Neva, and the soldiers and sailors who joined the Proletarian Revolution--defeated the bourgeois government under the slogan:
"All Power to the Soviets."

"The Paris Commune," said Lenin, "was the first step." The Socialist Society now being built in the Soviet Union is the beginning of the workers' march to a World Proletarian Commune.

[bay]

I lived in a commune in my younger days. it sucked. My spirit is way too solitary and independent for that. It might work well for some people, but not for me.

[Enver]

Thanks for this comrade, great stuff.

[Gareth]

Horrible... sounds like a subtle version of what happened a century previous in the Dechristianisation of France.

Why does being leftist mean destroying religion? It's absurd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianisation_of_France

[quirk]

Why does being leftist mean destroying religion? It's absurd.

It doesn't mean destroying religion and shouldn't although things like that have happened in the past. We should learn from them.

[Enver]

Horrible... sounds like a subtle version of what happened a century previous in the Dechristianisation of France.

Why does being leftist mean destroying religion? It's absurd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianisation_of_France

It's not absurd.

There isn't a single tendency of Socialism, bar perhaps Liberation Theology, which is compatible, in my view, with religious institutions. Why should Marxists, Anarchists or any other kind of Socialist shy away from the fact that theirs is a materialist worldview and stands diametrically opposed to superstitious belief. Religion is a cop out.

[quirk]

It's not absurd.

There isn't a single tendency of Socialism, bar perhaps Liberation Theology, which is compatible, in my view, with religious institutions. Why should Marxists, Anarchists or any other kind of Socialist shy away from the fact that theirs is a materialist worldview and stands diametrically opposed to superstitious belief. Religion is a cop out.

But I dont think socialists should try to crush religion as has happened to a certain degree before and I think thats what Gareth was saying. Challenge it yes but not use force.

[Gareth]

....


Awe came among everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the Apostles. All who believed were together and had things in common. They would sell their posessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all as they had need.

Bear in mind this is nearly two millenia before Marx. Who says religion and socialism are not compatible? There are dozens of Biblical verses supporting sharing among others.

Christians used socialism?? That can't happen says Enver, but yes it did :)

Preconceptions of Christianity much Enver?

[Enver]

....



Bear in mind this is nearly two millenia before Marx. Who says religion and socialism are not compatible? There are dozens of Biblical verses supporting sharing among others.

Christians used socialism?? That can't happen says Enver, but yes it did :)

Preconceptions of Christianity much Enver?

The early Christians and Gnostics lived in communes, as did some of the Jesuits who set up missions in the Amazonian basin. Fair enough. The problem, however, with religion is twofold. Firstly; the inextricable links religious institutions have to the establishment. Secondly; the concept of a God promotes the idea of unquestionable and unaccountable authority.

As one famous (not sure who it was to be honest, might have been Gramsci) Marxist said, and I paraphrase here; "even if there is a God, we must oppose him". The ultimate goal of Anarchists and Marxists is to dissolve all structures of authority. I think a good comparison is monarchism. Having a monarch suggests that the inequalities in society are natural and that it is the birth right of some to have wealth that they did not produce or exchange services for themselves.

[Gareth]

What are you talking about? I have explored my religion by questioning and by responding to debate. This only has seemed to make me stronger in my beliefs. One must be willing to be challenged in relation to their religious views and I recognise that.

I couldn't care about some Marxists, opposing God for the sake of opposing God is just as illogical or worse than following God without fail or without questioning. Didn't Thomas not come to believe that Jesus was risen through doubting? Didn't Miriam question Mose's authority when He had taken a wife from a different tribe? Moses was a prophet of God, and Miriam was his sister. That means that this authority was questioned even in the Bible.

Monarch? I see Christians as being a group that are a self existing group in society (with divine assistance), even during times of persecution there will be groups of believers praying and coming to worship God together. I don't feel restricted by God, I feel liberated in a sense. God is not really a monarch, He plays far more roles than Law giver. He is Father, He is friend, He is Son, He is Holy Spirit, He also is referred to in female imagery in some regards in the Old Testament.

[bay]

opposing God for the sake of opposing God is just as illogical or worse than following God without fail or without questioning.

I gotta agree with you there Gareth! OMG we agree on something!

[donquixote99]

"Even if there is a God, we must oppose him."

Sounds like opposition for the hell of it. :)

[Enver]

"Even if there is a God, we must oppose him."

Sounds like opposition for the hell of it. :)

No it's opposition to all unaccountable and (therefore) illegitimate forms of authority.

[Gareth]

Have you never wondered that there is more to life than this Enver?

[Enver]

Have you never wondered that there is more to life than this Enver?

Than what?

[donquixote99]

No it's opposition to all unaccountable and (therefore) illegitimate forms of authority.

That's the reason to oppose religious authority. But opposing God, if there is one, is another matter. The call to do THAT is ironic revolutionary wit, or even machismo, and thus akin to the Yippie slogan.

[Enver]

That's the reason to oppose religious authority. But opposing God, if there is one, is another matter. The call to do THAT is ironic revolutionary wit, or even machismo, and thus akin to the Yippie slogan.

It's not really important anyway as there is no god or gods.

[BlackBaron]

. Having a monarch suggests that the inequalities in society are natural and that it is the birth right of some to have wealth that they did not produce or exchange services for themselves.

The Monarch bares the greatest responsibility imaginable and will be held accountable before God for so many souls. His cross is so much heavier than that of a farmer or shopkeeper.

God created the world out of nothing....when Marxists can create entire universes out of nothing than they will have earned the right to challenge God. If people would only pause and ponder seriously the creation before them and their souls within them away from the great debate than very few would be "materialists".