DOI: 10.4324/9780203802328-6
The Soviet Republic of 1917, like the Paris Commune of 1871, was the result of war and military defeat, and had to be borne by the revolutionary proletariat. Apart from that, a comparison with these two is at an end. The Bolsheviks succeeded in gaining political power because they, of all the political parties of Russia, were the one party which most energetically demanded peace, a peace at any price, even a separate peace. They did not worry about the general situation that might thereby arise, or whether the victory and the world supremacy of the German military monarchy might thereby be assisted or not. For a considerable time tihe Bolsheviks constituted themselves hirelings of the German militarists as much as the Indian or the Irish rebels and the Italian anarchists. Quite different was the attitude of French radicalism in the war of 1870, after the downfall of Napoleon and the proclamation of the Republic, and after the Germans began to make their claims of annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. In this struggle of the Third Republic against the united monarchs of Germany it seemed that the situation of 1793, with its struggle of the First Republic against the allied monarchies of Europe, would again come to life. The traditions of that earlier time again came into force, and again the proletariat of Paris formed the most warlike elements, which pursued the war in the most energetic and determined manner, for the salvation of the one and indivisible Republic.
Meanwhile the peasants of 1870 were no longer the same as those of 1798. Those of 1870 hated Paris and her (supremacy. Nevertheless, they were convinced of the necessity of repelling the common enemy, since the victory of the latter would bring them again feudal exploitation, and would threaten to take from them the ecclesiastical and other property that they had acquired for themselves. The peasants of 1870, on the other hand, had nothing of a similar kind to fear from the victory of the Prussians. For them the ecclesiastical question was paramount, so that the loss of Alsace-Lorraine seemed to be the lesser evil, compared with the devastation and burden of war. Apart from the people of Alsace-Lorraine, who in desperation fought to the last moment against separation, the thought of peace gained rapid ground among the peasants and the people of the provinces as war continued. This clamour for peace arose in opposition to the radical and war-like elements of Paris, which represented the war-cry of the reactionaries and the monarchists. As in 1917 in Russia, the peace party of 1871, the party which was wearied of war, gained the upper-hand over those who wanted to continue the war. But the peace ideas in 1871 did not assist the most radical of the radicals, but on the other hand, the most reactionary among the reactionaries.
On February 8, 1871, a National Assembly was elected to conclude peace. It numbered only two hundred Republicans, and on the other hand over four hundred monarchists. “Almost the whole province demanded peace at any price. Paris, on the other hand, cried for war to the knife. She elected only those men who were pledged to the continuation of war, and who opposed a peace purchased at the price of yielding up territory.” (M. Louis Bebreuilh, “La Commute,” Paris.)
On February 12th the National Assembly met in Bordeaux, and on March 1st it voted for the Peace Treaty by 516 against 117. Nearly the half of these 117 votes represented the delegates from Paris. The National Assembly was elected only with a view to the conclusion of peace. Only in consideration of this had the electors given their votes. The great majority of reactionaries in that Assembly was attributable not to the dislike of the Eepublic, but to the insuperable demand for peace. After this event the mandate of the National Assembly came to an end. In its place a new one had to be elected, which should decide on all matters in connection with the constitution. These votes might have turned out other than did those in the Assembly at Bordeaux, for the Eepublic met with less opposition than did the continuation of the war. As a matter of fact, however, the elections which took place throughout France on April 30th, 1871, gave a great Eepublican majority. But just because the ‘junkers’ of that Party feared the National Assembly, they clung all the more tenaciously to their mandates. They formed themselves into a Constitutional Assembly, and without any doubt would have reinstated the monarchy, if they had not been split into two halves, the one half among them consisting of the legitimate supporters of the dynasty, which up to 1830, in France, had been regarded as the legitimate dynasty; and the other half being the Orleanists, the opposers of the dynasty, who, as a result of the Revolution of 1830, were placed in the position of the hereditary rulers. This split saved the Eepublic, yet it did not prevent Paris from being the object of the combined hatred of both factions. The French Eepublic had no other strong support outside Paris, but the strength of this support had proved itself on numberless occasions since 1789. There was no possibility of restoring the monarchy so long as Paris was not overcome. Provincials fought with more and more fury against Paris, against the immoral, godleiss, war-like Eepublican Paris, quite apart from its Socialism. From the very beginning of its sittings, the National Assembly gave loudest expression to its horror. Heroic Paris, which had sustained a fearful siege of over five months in the service of land defence, was now the object of the most scandalous vituperation on the part of its sublime patricians. To humiliate Paris, to deny it all self-government, to rob it of its position as the capital, and finally to disarm it in order with greater security to carry out a monarchic coup d’état—this was the chief concern of the National Assembly and of Thiers, its chosen Chief of Executive.
We see how utterly different this was from the coup d’état of the Bolsheviks, who derived their power from the desire for peace, who had the support of the peasants behind them, and who found no monarchist opposition to them in the National Assembly, but only the opposition of social revolutionaries and Mensheviks. The immediate causes of the Bolshevik Revolution and of the Second Paris Commune were as different as the results of these two movements. The Bolsheviks acquired power through a well-prepared coup d’état, which in one stroke yielded to them the entire State machinery, which they immediately proceeded to exploit in the most energetic and reckless manner possible, with a view to depriving their opponents of all political and economic power—of all their opponents, including the proletariat. On the other hand, at the time of the suspension of the Commune, nobody was more surprised than the revolutionaries themselves, and to a very large number of them this conflict was anything but desirable. Certainly, as the result of revolutionary tradition, the tactics of the armed insurrection, which received due preparation, were strongly supported by the Parisians. The Blanquistes were their chief representatives among the Socialists. At different times during the siege they and other elements of a Jacobin character tried to promote riots; but they could not find sufficient support, so that these attempts invariably came to nothing. As a consequence of the impression made by the capitulation of Metz on October 31st they rose and demanded the election of a Paris Representative Council, namely, the Commune, on socialist but not on patriotic grounds, in order to carry on the war more energetically than the First Paris Commune had done from 1792 to 1794. That part of the National Guard faithful to the Government succeeded in quelling this revolt without shedding blood, since the Government troops found so little opposition to overcome. In order to strengthen their position, the Government had a General Election of the people in Paris on November 3rd. As the result, there were 558,000 votes for the Government, and not quite63,000 against. The “men of action at any price” fared no better on January 22nd. Although they opposed at the time the highly popular and patriotic voting for the continuation of the war, the Government had announced that capitulation was inevitable; and, as a result, there was an outburst of fury among the revolutionaries, which had bloodier results than the revolt of October 31st, but which, likewise, was soon crushed without difficulty.
These failures had wearied, deceived and weakened these men of action. They were not yet prepared on March 18th to call for a new revolt. On the other hand, the men of the Socialist International were, from the outset, opposed to any attempt at revolt. Immediately after the downfall of Napoleon, during the September revolution, Karl Marx wrote to Engels (September 6, 1870): —
“I had just sat down to write to you when Seraillier came in, and informed me that he would leave London for Paris on the morrow, where in any case he will stay only a day or two. His object is to arrange affairs there with the International Federal Council of Paris. This is all the more neceseary, ßince at the present moment the whole ‘French Section, is streaming into Paris, in order to perpetrate some folly in the name of the International. They want to overthrow the provisional Government, to establish the Commune of Paris, and to appoint Pyat as French Ambassador to London, etc. I received to-day a proclamation of the Federal Council of Paris to the German people, which I will send you to-morrow. It contains an urgent request to the General Council to issue a new and special manifesto to the Germans. I had already intended to make the same proposal this evening. Be so kind as to send me, as soon as possible, in English, military information about Alsace Lorraine, which will be useful for this manifesto. I have already answered in detail the Federal Council in Paris, and at the same time have undertaken the disagreeable business of opening their eyes to the real state of affairs.”—(Correspondence between Engels and Marx, I. IV., p. 330.)
I have been reproved for being merely a “degenerate Epigone” of Marx. It is certain that Marx’s revolutionary nature and his volcanic temperament at the time would have driven him straight into the camp of the Bolsheviks. We see from his letter how his volcanic temperament, at the time of the Revolution, made him regard it as his first duty to undertake the disagreeable duty of opening the eyes of his comrades as to the actual state of affairs; and that this same temperament, in spite of all its volcanic character, was capable, under circumstances, of carrying out a revolutionary action, even though it was a stupid action. Engels replied to Marx on September 7th as follows:
“Dupont has just gone. He was here this evening and is furious over the wonderful Paris proclamation! The fact that Seraillier is going to Paris, and that he has already spoken to you, has pacified him. His views of the whole affair are perfectly clear and right, namely, to turn to account the freedom which the Republic has granted for the organisation of the party in France; to take action when opportunity shall present itself after the organisation has been formed; and to restrain the International in France until peace has been made.”
To this Marx replied on September 10:
“Tell Dupont that I am in entire agreement with his views.”
In other words, it was organisation, and not action, which appeared the more important to his volcanic temperament. In the very fact of maintaining reserve the International in France was pursuing nothing less than a plan for precipitate action.
Let us give an example. On February 22nd, at the sitting of the Paris Federal Council of the International, a member proposed that a peaceful demonstration on February 24th should be made, on the anniversary of the Revolution of 1848. Even this peaceful demonstration appeared to the majority of the Federal Council, in view of the tense situation, highly inopportune. Frankell, in particular, opposed this suggestion. He demanded that they should devote all their strength for the moment to the organisation of the proletariat, to the stu‘dy of the most important economic problems, and above all, to the payment of the wages that had become overdue during the siege, and also to the question of unemployment.
The representatives of the International in the National Assembly, Malon and Tolain, were to give expression to the will of the people. As the result of Frankell’s proposal, the Federal Council decided not to arrange a demonstration, but to leave it to each individual member to decide whether he should take part in such demonstration or not. This shows no very strong leanings towards insurrection. Indeed this insurrection was engineered, not by the revolutionaries but by their opponents. As a result of the exigencies of the war, the proletariat of Paris was being formed into the National Guard, and had become armed. This state of affairs appeared to those elements that had formed round Thiers—junkers, financiers, the heads of bureaucracy and of the army —as a very grave danger. After the signature of peace, it seemed to them that nothing was so imperative as the disarmament of the proletarian section of the Paris National Guard. This was begun by their being deprived of cannon. The German rulers had caused the Paris National Guard to come into possession of these cannon; since they, the Germans, hoped that this National Guard “would be the spark to set lire to the powder magazine,” as Bourgin has rightly said. (Georges Bourgin’s “Histoire de la Commune,” Paris, 1917, page 43.)
The thorough exploitation of victory is of the very essence of military action and science. It is part of a general’s duty not only to conquer, but also to bring about the complete demobilisation and breaking up of the conquered enemy. Of a different order, however, are the aims of a statesman. He must look beyond the victory, in order to discover what conditions are possible for future relations with the momentary enemy. These two conceptions are found in opposition to one another in every crusade. The results are fatal when the military idea gains influence on politics, outside the actual prosecution of war. In the year 1866 Bismarck had already mastered and acquired the military way of thinking, if, however, with great difficulty. Yet it was the very successes of 1866 that had given the Prussian General Staff such enormous prestige, which, through the victory of 1870, increased still more. Bismarck could not oppose the Prussian General Staff. He had to yield to the military way of thinking, and as a result his own political understanding wai3 disturbed and blinded. Hence the demand for the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, which lengthened the war by months, which drove France into the arms of Russia, and prepared the present disruption of Germany. Nevertheless, Alsace-Lorraine was still economically and strategically a very tangible gain for the moment. But they were not content with that, but in addition tried to bring about the humiliation of Paris, that centre which the Germans so hated, because of its opposition to their armies; and they compelled France on February 26th to grant that German troops from March 1st should invade Paris and take possession of the Champs Elysées. When on February 27th this information became known to the Parisians, there arose a general cry of indignation and a call to arms, in order to throw back the common enemy by means of force. Nearly all the battalions of the National Guard declared themselves ready to follow. It was only the Internationalists who kept quiet. However disastrous for them at the moment an insurrection against an internal enemy appeared to be, no less disastrous was a rising against the enemy from without. They implored the Central Committee of the National Guard to abstain from every attempt at armed resistance, which they said would only lead to a repetition of the slaughter of the June before, and to the drowning of the Republic in the blood of the Paris workmen. They proposed that the National Guard, instead of offering armed resistance, should surround the Germans with a cordon, which would cut them off completely from the Paris population, and keep them in isolation.
The Central Committee allowed itself to be persuaded at the last moment, and so we have the International to thank that the vain arrogance of the German conquerors did not provoke the most fearful street fighting in the world’s history. It was not the German but the French soldiery, which a few weeks later let loose the bloody slaughter among the Parisian proletariat.
According to the capitulation of Paris on January 28th, all war material of the troops in the town had been made over to the victor, excepting the arms of the National Guard; not only their weapons, but also their cannons, which were provided, not by the State but by the city of Paris. When, therefore, the Germans entered Paris, the Government took no steps whatever to remove to safety those cannons which, by contract, the victors had left in their care. The Government probably wished that the enemy had taken them, and thus weakened the strength of the enemy within. But the National Guard were well prepared, and brought these cannons, four hundred in number, in good time to those parts of the town to which the Germans had no access. To get back these cannons into their possession was, the great anxiety of the Government after the conclusion of peace. In this way they hoped to disarm the proletarian section of the Paris National Guard. The National Guard had threatened to decapitate and decapitalise (décapiter et décapitaliser) Paris. With this end in view, they decided not to sit in Paris. With great difficulty Thiers persuaded them to make the seat of their Conference in Versailles, in the neighbourhood of Paris, instead of in Bordeaux, as had been the case up till then. On March 20th they proposed to meet there. Beforehand they had to be reassured that they had nothing to fear from Paris. Therefore it was decided to confiscate these cannon on March 18th. Thiers thought it the wisest course to steal these cannon secretly, instead of openly by force. At three o’clock in the morning, while all Paris was asleep, several regiments took possession of Montmartre, where the cannon were standing unguarded, and endeavoured to remove them. But, strangely enough, they had forgotten to bring with them the necessary horses. These therefore had first of all to be fetched; in the meantime the Parisians “smelt a rat” and, quickly gathering together, formed a continually increasing group, which finally compelled the soldiers to leave the cannon alone. They were successful. The soldiers who had lived among the Paris populace, who had fought with it against the common enemy, and had joined with it in despising the incapable generals, now fraternised with the people and the National Guard. General Lecomte, who ordered the troops to fire on unarmed crowds, merely succeeded in causing his own soldiers to turn against him, and arrest and shoot him. This shooting affray belongs to those terrorist atrocities, which one is inclined to lay to the blame of the Commune. This is also true of the shooting of General Thomas, who was seized on the morning of March 18th in civilian dress, as he was taking notes among the crowd. He was executed for being a spy. Already on the 28th of February a police agent, who was caught in the act of espionage, was thrown into the Seine and cruelly drowned.
Those people who attribute these deeds to the Commune forget that, at the time when such things happened, the Commune was not yet in existence. On the other hand, one should not lay the blame to the civil population of Paris. Each one of these executions was carried out by the soldiers, and not by the civilians. They were the outcome of the ideas, not of the proletariat but of the militarists who do not attach much importance to human life. And those friends of humanity, who wax indignant over the soldiers because they shot their bloodthirsty generals, would not have a word to say if those same soldiers had shot down women and children. “Instead of his shooting women and children, his own people shot him.” (Lecomte). “Deep-rooted habits, which soldiers acquire as the result of training given them by the enemies of the working classes, do not suddenly lose their power at the moment when these same soldiers go over to the working people, and join them.”—Marx, “Civil War in France,” p. 38.)
Whatever action the National Guard took in these events was undertaken only with a view to prevent further bloodshed. They succeeded, in fact, sometimes at the risk of their own lives, in rescuing from the indignant soldiers the officers they had arrested, so that only those mentioned were killed. On March 19th the Central Committee of the National Guard at last protested against any participation whatever in this slaughter. In its declaration, which was published in the official journal of the Commune of March 20th, is the following statement:
“We declare with indignation that the bloody disgrace with which our honour has been besmirched is a shocking infamy. Never did we decide on an execution, and never has the National Guard taken part in any such crime.”
This was a strong denunciation, not only of the accusers but also of those cruel deeds which were ascribed to the National Guard. In view of the secession of the troops to the people, the Government had only two courses open to pursue—either to make Concessions to the enraged masses, to bargain with them, or else to retire in flight. Thiers would, on no account, engage in discussions, but took a headlong flight with his Government out of Paris, and hurried to gather round him all those troops that, as yet, were untainted with the spirit of mutiny. He even abandoned the forts round Paris, including the prominent fort of Mont Valarien. If the Parisians had kept to the heels of Thiers, they would perhaps have succeeded in overcoming the Government. The troops which were withdrawing from Paris would not have been able to offer the least opposition. That is what their general later on declared. Then it would have been possible to introduce a new Government, which, however, would not have been able to carry out a Socialist programme. For that the conditions were not ripe enough. But they could have dissolved the National Guard, and have elected a new one with the following programme, namely, the strengthening of the Eepublic, self-determination for the various districts, Paris included, and the substitution of militia in place of the standing army. More than this, at that time, the Commune did not demand, and this programme was possible at the time on account of the conditions in France. But Thiers continued to retire. They allowed him to take his troops and to reorganise them in Versailles, to fill them with fresh spirit and to strengthen them. Nobody was more surprised at the retreat of the Ministers than the Parisians themselves. There was no organisation at hand that could take over the guidance of affairs in place of the rulers, who had taken flight. Even on the morning of March 19th Paris was entirely without any Government. Force of circumstances made it necessary for the Central Committee of the National Guard to take their place, and thus was formed a body without a fixed programme and without any clear purpose. They discharged their responsibility, in the first place, by delegating their power to a single individual, Lullier, to whom they confided the supreme command over Paris. He was the most unsuitable man conceivable, a drunkard and one who did not know whether he was “more of a fool than traitor, or vice versa. This man succeeded within the space of forty-eight hours in making the most terrible blunders possible—blunders that could not be remedied. But this unfortunate choice of Lullier was at bottom merely a sign and indication of the situation at that time.”—(Dubreuilh “La Commune,” page 283.)
It was not till April 3rd that it was decided to make an attack on Versailles. But what might have brought success on March 19th was on April 3rd a cause of failure. The expectation that the soldiers would again go over to the Parisians as on March 18th ended in bitter disappointment. The Parisian National Guard stumbled upon most obstinate and determined opposition, which they could not overcome. From that moment they were put on the defensive against the whole of France, and in consequence, from that time onwards their downfall was certain. And from that time onwards the Paris rising was exclusively proletarian. Up to that moment many of the supporters of the bourgeois hesitated as to whether or not they should go over to the proletariat, but henceforth they let the proletariat alone go on with the fight.
How very differently things proceeded in the insurrection of March 7th, 1917, in Petersburg, as compared with that of March 18tli, 1871, in Paris Î This Eussian insurrection was prepared by the Revolutionary Committee, which organised the working classes and the soldiers, and urged them to attack the Government, which at that time was in Petersburg, and had as little strength behind it as had Thiers in 1871 in Paris. But it is certain that the immediate occupation of all posts of power in the capital would not have determined the victory of the Bolsheviks, had not the condition of things in the whole Empire been far more favourable to them than they were for Paris in 1871. At the time when Kerensky fled to Gatschina, as formerly Thiers fled to Versailles, he could not reckon on a peasantry which would uphold him. The peasantry, and along with it the armed rising in Eussia, all went to the side of the revolutionaries, who were in power in the capital. This gave their regime a force and permanent character, which was denied the Paris regime. On the other hand, it brought about an economic reactionary element from which the Paris Commune was saved. The Paris Dictatorship of the Proletariat was never founded on Peasants’ Councils as was the case in Eussia.
The Paris Commune and the Soviet Eepublic were fundamentally different in their starting point, no less different also in their organisation and the methods then employed. It is true that the Paris Commune had an organisation which might easily be compared to the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Council. Indeed, it was in a similar position to the Eussian Revolution, since it followed, like the Eussian, a despotic regime which prohibited every kind of open political organisation of the masses, and also forbade the organisation of Trade Unions only shortly before its downfall. Just as little as in the case of the Eussian workmen in 1905 and 1907, the French workmen, after September 4th, 1870, found no strong political and Trade Union organisation ready to hand, which would have enabled them to make a united fight. This was one of the reasons, as we have seen, which led Marx to desire so sincerely that the workers should, in the first place, utilise the new Eepublic for their own organisation and instruction, and by this means make it ready and well equipped to act as a ruling power, and not waste its strength in little skirmishes, which even in the most favourable circumstances could never give them any lasting supremacy. But since they came into power by means of a contest that was forced upon them, and not by a mere skirmish, they had to be careful to provide, in the absence of any political and Trade Union organisation, some substitute which they found ready to hand. For the Eussian workmen there was such a substitute to be found in the organisation of gross industry.
“Modem industry has changed the small workshop of the patriarchal master of former days into the large factory of the industrial capitalist. Groups of workmen herder together in a factory become organised like soldiers. Like all ordinary industrial soldiers they are placed under the supervision of a thorough-going hierarchy of officers and under officers.” (Engels to Marx, “Communist Manifesto.”)
“The industrial soldiers” of the factory had only to substitute for the officers and under-officers, placed in command by the capitalists, similar officers of their own choice, and hence organisation in the factory became in reality a close organisation of factory workers. Thus arose the institution of the Workmen’s Councils among the proletariat of Eussia. As against the organisation of party and Trade Unions of countries more advanced than Eussia, these Workmen’s Councils do not represent any higher form of proletarian organisation, but merely an emergency measure to supply what was lacking. But Paris workmen had no such measure. Parisian industry was, for the most part, industry for the leisured, and not industry for the masses. Even up to the time of the Second Commune, the “small workshop of the patriarchal master” was paramount, since the great factory of the industrial capitalist was almost entirely lacking, the contrary being the case with the industry of Eussia, especially in St. Petersburg. The Eussian Empire shows its economic backwardness in its lack of industry, and in the small number of industrial workers as against the peasantry. Whatever there is, however, of capitalist industry bears the stamp of modern manufacture on a large scale. The Parisian workmen had to furnish some other substitute for the political and economic organisation of the masses, which at that time was lacking, and this substitute was found in the National Guard. The Revolution of 1789 had as a result the arming of the people everywhere in France, but especially in Paris. This arming served a double purpose. The lower classes, the proletariat and the small middle class took to arms, and organised themselves for insurrection. The Revolution had not brought them what they wanted, and could not bring it them, as the result of the conditions then prevailing. Hence their persistent impulse, by means of an armed rising, to push the Revolution still further forward. The situation was quite different for the bourgeoisie, the capitalists and the well-to-do middle classes, and the intellectuals who were in quite comfortable circumstances. The Revolution of 1789 brought them exactly what they wanted. They armed and organised themselves in order to defend that which they had won, and they fought on two sides—against the reactionary powers, which strove to restore the ancient feudal absolutism, and also against the lower strata of the people, who were impatiently pursuing their object and pressing forward. Their armed organisation was that of the National Guard. The bourgeoisie remained the victor in the revolutionary struggle, and along with the bourgeoisie the National Guard was established as an institution for the protection of the propertied classes, who themselves nominated their officers and who possessed a certain degree of independence, as against the Government.
The height of importance was attained by the National Guard in the July monarchy, 1830 to 1848. Nevertheless, it could not save that monarchy, and proved itself in 1848 to be very unreliable. Napoleon III., after his coup d’état, took from the National Guard its independence, namely, the right to elect its own officers, but he dared not dissolve it completely. Then came the war of 1870 and the speedy defeat. Once again the Fatherland was in danger, and once again the spirits of 1913 were incited to continue the traditions of the victorious fight against Europe, by means of the “levée en masse,” through the armed rising of the whole people. Under pressure of this situation, the legislative Body in Paris on August 11th proclaimed a law, on the proposal of Jules Favres, that the National Guard, from being a citizen Guard, should be converted into a universal Guard for the whole nation. To the sixty old battalions of the National Guard, which were drawn from the propertied classes, were attached two hundred new battalions from the poorer classes, who even had the privilege of nominating their own officers. In this way the new battalions? of the National Guard of Parie became in reality the organisation of the proletariat. The whole law over the extension of the National Guard was really due to sudden fright rather than to mature reflection. The fathersi feared their children, eo they decided to do all in their power to prevent these children from gaining strength. But they could not hinder the Paris proletariat from arming itself; the military authorities of Paris, however, under the command of Trocus, omitted everything which could have helped towards the National Guard’s developing into troops of any use. In this way they betrayed their Fatherland, but they feared the Parisi workmen more than the soldiers of Wilhelm. In Paris, at the beginning of the siege, one hundred thousand troops were to be found, and in addition a hundred thousand Guards. If one assumes that, of the more than three hundred thousand National Guards, two hundred thousand were fit for active service, that makes altogether an army of four hundred thousand men, to which the Germans, when they were outside Paris, could not have opposed more than half the number, which, moreover, were scattered over a very wide area. But from August onwards the National Guard was given ample time to get into shape. As a consequence, the authorities in Paris had a large majority at their disposal to oppose the Germans. If they should succeed in breaking through at any point the iron ring that enclosed Paris, the outlook for the German army of ever winning the war wasi extremely small. But that would have been possible only if the National Guard could become militarily organised at once. Before this eventuality they shrank. They preferred to lose the war, and to hand over Alsace-Lorraine to the enemy. That is what the Parisians felt, and hence their fury against those rulers who had betrayed France. When Paris had capitulated, and the whole Assembly had been elected, and when the hatred of this latter body against the Republic and the capital had come to light in the most provocative way, the Parisians realised that they were involved in a serious conflict. The only power on which they could rely was the National Guard. The Revolutionary battalions had already, during the siege, kept in close contact with one another. They now joined into a federation. Hence they were called the Federalists. It was on February 15th that the delegates of the revolutionary battalion(r) first met together, in order to discuss the federation. They appointed a commission to draw up the Statutes, which were then laid before the new Assembly on February 24th; but the Assembly was at that time too excited to deliberate, because a German invasion was feared. They broke up the meeting, in order to take part in a revolutionary demonstration on the Place de la Bastille. During the following days, a provisional Central Committee of the National Guard came into being; which was in the highest degree necessary, in view of the imminent incursion of the Germans, and in order to guard against panic. It was not until March 3rd that the delegates’ Assembly came to anything like a definite organisation. It was decided that a Central Committee of the National Guard should be appointed, consisting of three delegates for each of the twenty districts (arondissements) of Paris. Two of the three were elected by the Council of the Legion, and the third by the Chief of the Battalion of the Legion. On March 15th the men chosen as the definite Central Committee met together, and so dissolved the Provisional Committee, which had functioned hitherto. One might regard this Central Committee, since it was elected from among the National Guard, as a Soldiers’ Council; but it was chosen from among the proletariat and from the National Guard, who stood in close relation with the proletariat, since the battalion of the leisured classes took no part in these deliberations. According to the information received by the Central Committee, this latter had supporting it, on March 18th, 215 of the 260 battalions of the Paris National Guard. So far, therefore, it was a kind of Workmen’s Council. One can therefore quite well compare it with the Central Committee of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Councils. Nevertheless, the Paris Commune was by no mean3 a Soviet Republic. When on March 18th the Government took to flight, there was none to occupy public office. This very naturally fell to the Central Committee, for it was the only organisation in Paris that was held in universal esteem, although all its members were wholly unknown people. On March 10th they met together, in order to deliberate what was to be done. As is so often the case, they formulated the problem on this occasion as an “either, or” whereas a “both, and” would have been more to the point. Thus the Socialists repeatedly discussed the question whether there should be reform or revolution, instead of saying that the (striving for reform and the struggle for revolution should be so conducted, that neither one of these movements should exclude the other, but rather support it.
On March 19t’h some members of the Central Committee demanded that a march should be made against Versailles. Others wanted to appeal to the electors then and there, and again, others wanted first of all to take revolutionary measures. As if each one of these steps was not equally necessary, and as if any of them could exclude the other! The Central Committee decided, in the first place, to take only one of these steps, and one that seemed to be the most imperative. It wished to show that behind the Paris rising the majority of the electors wag to be found, and it wished in this way to give the insurrection the greatest moral support. That was perfectly right; only it would have been more advantageous to strengthen, by means of revolutionary power, the moral authority of the General Election as against the enemy, who himself was undoubtedly endeavouring to get the support of the army. The immediate election of a communal administration for Paris, based on universal suffrage, which the Empire had hitherto withheld from the Parisians, was certainly inevitable. Immediately after the downfall of the Empire in September,1870, the Paris workmen had obtained from the new provisional Government the assurance that the election of a commune would soon be undertaken. The failure to fulfil this promise contributed not a little to the disorders that arose during the siege. The insurrections of October 31st and of January 22nd took place amid the cries of “Long live the Commune” Hence it was necessary to make at once a complete list of the electors for the Commune. It was arranged first for the 22nd, and then for the 26th of March. The Central Committee regarded itself merely as a temporary body to hold places in reserve for those who should be elected by universal and equal suffrage. In the Journal Officiel de la République Française de la Commune of March 20th, the following announcement was made to the citizens of Paris:
“In three days you will be called upon, in perfect freedom, to elect members for district representation of Paris. Those who have seized power as the result of necessity will then hand over their provisional authority into the hands of the elected of the people.”
But they did not stick to their promise. After the Commune had been constituted the Central Committee delegated its power to that body on March 28th. It even went so far as to give signs that it would dissolve completely; but the Commune did not insist on this, and so this Central Committee continued ta function under the Commune as a part of the military machinery. This did not serve to facilitate the carrying on of business, nor the conduct of war. But the Central Committee never attempted to upset the principle that the supreme power belonged to those elected by universal suffrage. This Central Committee never claimed that all power should fall to the Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Councils, that is, in the present case, to the Central Committee of the workmen’s battalions. In this point also, therefore, the Paris Commune was the exact contrary to the Russian Republic, and yet Freiderich Engels wrote on March 18th, 1891, on the twentieth anniversary of the Paris Commune: “Gentlemen, do you want to know what the dictatorship of the proletariat looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the dictatorship of the proletariat.” We see that Marx and Engels, under the title of dictatorship, in no way understood the withholding of universal and equal suffrage, or the suppression of democracy.
At the election on March 26, ninety members of the Commune were elected. These included fifteen Government supporters, and six citizen radicals who were in opposition to the Government, but who nevertheless condemned the insurrection. A Soviet Republic would never have allowed such elements of the counter-revolutionaries to appear as candidates, let alone to be elected as members. The Commune, out of its respect for democracy, never hindered its civil opponents from election. If their activity in the Commune came to a sudden end, this was their own fault. The company in which they found themselves was not to their liking, and they very soon took their departure. Some, indeed, retired before the election candidates met together, and others, a few days after the Commune was established. These resignations, as well as certain mandates, made a re-election imperative, and this took place on April 16th. The great majority of the members of the Commune were on the side of the insurrection. Moreover, among the revolutionary members of the Commune, not all were Socialists. The majority consisted simply of revolutionaries. Most of them were guided by the principles laid down in 1793, and by the traditions of the Jacobins. Some had already shown their allegiance in 1848 to the “Mountain,” for instance, Delescluse and Pyat, and not a few were forced out of their private professional life as the result of their political struggle, and became conspirators and revolutionaries by profession. The older members among them lived according to the traditions of the past, and had no real interest for new developments and conceptions.
“The others, that is the younger ones, were to a large extent men who resorted to force without any sound foundation. They were often merely heroes in word, and were now playing with the insurrection just as, a few months before, they had played with wars —men who talked a great deal and contented themselves with mere talking. Their revolutionary ideas were confined to mere externalities. They were superficial, and even the very best of them were actuated by feeling rather than by reason.” This is the criticism of these men given by that great revolutionary, Dubreuilh. (“La Commune,” page 332.)
Most of them understood nothing about Socialism. Not a few of them were directly against it, especially Delescluse. One could not call them bourgeoise politicians in the sense that they at all represented the interests of the propertied classes. On the contrary they stood side by side with the lower classes and fought for them as much as the people of the “Mountain” of 1793 had done. But just like these latter, they could not escape from the questions of property and privilege belonging to the bourgeois classes, and for this reason they may be said to have formed a bourgeois element. This applies to the majority of the revolutionaries in the Commune. Only a few of them belonged to the working classes. Among them were to be found ordinary officials, apothecaries, investors, lawyers, and, above all, journalists. Different from the Jacobins were the Blanquistes, seven in number, among them Blanqui himself, who, however, could not take his seat. It shows how little the Blanquistes expected the insurrection of March 18th, for Blanqui, shortly before the outbreak, in order to recuperate his health, had left Paris. On March 17th he was arrested in Figeac (Department Lot). Blanqui agreed with the Jacobins on one point, namely, in their endeavour, by means of an insurrection on the part of the lower classes in Paris, to govern Paris; and through Paris, by means of a regime of force, the whole of France. But they went further than the Jacobins, since they recognised that this method of government would not suffice to liberate the exploited, unless that government could be used to create a new social order. In other words they were Socialists. Yet in their case it was always the political rather than the economic interest that weighed most with them. They did not study economic life, nor did they endeavour to gain any systematic economic knowledge. They betrayed this characteristic by frequently excusing ignorance, saying that they wished to be entirely untrammelled by dogma. They did not want to be “bewildered” by prejudices and “academic discussion.” When the proletariat came into power, they said, it would very soon know what it had to do. Their chief concern was to give the proletariat this power, and they regarded the insurrection, which was being prepared, as a means towards this end.
They were unfortunate, however, since the insurrections which they carefully prepared always came to grief, and the one that was successful found them unprepared. Moreover the Blanquiste teaching made no great claims on the intelligence, but contented itself with immediate action. Indeed, this teaching had enormous attraction for men of action. In spite of this fact, however, it found more acceptance among the intellectuals, especially students, than among the workmen.
The following is a tabulation of the elements which constituted the Blanquiste Party at that time. On November 17th, 1866, a secret meeting of the Blanquiste group was surprised by the police in a Paris café and the members were arrested. There were forty-one, and each one’s occupation was given. These included fourteen artisans, four shop assistants, thirteen students, six journalists, one lawyer, one foreman, one landowner, and one independent merchant. The number of students would have been far greater, only on November 7th the holidays were not yet at an end, and so many students were absent from Paris.
This meeting throws a light upon Blanquism, not only on the manner of its constitution but also on its aims. In September, 1866, the International Congress met in Geneva, and the Blanquistes were invited to attend. Blanqui refused, but two of the chosen delegates, namely, the lawyer Protot and the employee Humbert, nevertheless, went. In consequence there was great excitement in the Blanquiste camp; for, according to its traditions, the dictatorship belonged, not only to the proletariat, but also to the leader of their party. Both kinds of dictatorship were closely connected. For the first time since the existence of the Blanquiste organisation an order from the head of the party had been disobeyed. Up to that time they had followed in blind obedience, and even later they adhered to this principle. A meeting was held on November 7th in order to bring Protot to judgment; but this meeting was dissolved before any conclusion was reached. A few were able to take to flight, among them Protot himself. The others, as we have said, were arrested. (Charles Da Costa, “Les Blanquistes,” Paris, 1912, pages 17-22).
Among the Blanquistes of the Commune were found the lawyer Protot again, and also two of the members who were arrested on November 7th. They were the lawyer Tridon and the student Raoul Rigault. Among the others elected were Blanqui, a lawyer and a doctor (who had studied both faculties), Eudes, an apothecary, and Ferré, an accountant. In the whole Blanquiste faction was found only one single working man, the coppersmith Chardon. Of the elected members of the International who were found in the Commune two had relations with the Blanquistes, namely, a smith, Duval, and the student Vaillant. We see how much the intellectuals preponderated amongst them. Even within the Commune itself, the Jacobins, like the Blanquistes, troubled little about economic questions. The war against Versailles, the policing of Paris, and the struggle against the Church— these were the questions to which they devoted their energies. This last struggle also, like the military struggle against Versailles and the police struggle against the Versailles associates in Paris, was carried out by means of force, and by an attack on persons and externalities.
The third of the groups in the Commune was formed by members of the International, seventeen in number, almost exclusively Proudhonistes. Proudhonism was in sharp contrast to Blanquism- and Jacobinism. The Regiment of Terror of 1793 was for Proudhonism something to be avoided, not to be imitated. It saw very clearly the weaknesses of this regiment and the un a voidability of its failure. It realised that the mere acquirement of political power on the part of the proletariat could alter nothing in its social position, and that it could not abolish the system of exploitation from which the proletariat suffered. It realised further that the change could be reached, not by political disturbances but only through an economic reorganisation. This, therefore, made the Proudhonistes suspicious of the Blanquiste methods, suspicious of the insurrection and of Terrorism, and none the less opposed to democracy. In the February Revolution of 1848 the Parisian Proletariat had conquered the democracy; but what had it gained by its action? A growing mistrust of the proletarian struggle for political freedom, and of the participation of the proletariat in matters of policy animated the Proudhonistes.
To-day similar ideas have arisen, and are offered as the latest products of Socialistic thought, as the product of experience, which Marx neither knew nor could know of. These are merely variations of ideas that are over half a century old, but they have not for that reason become more correct. Proudhonism showed how a policy for the liberation of the proletariat, undertaken by means of an economic transformation alone, is doomed to failure. To-day we preach about the powerlessness of democracy to free the proletariat, so long as this proletariat is held bound in the chains of capitalism. But if economic liberation must precede the political, then, logically, every kind of political activity on the part of the proletariat is equally useless, of whatever kind it may be. Whereas the Blanquistes devoted their attention exclusively to the political struggle against the existing powers of State, Proudhonism, equally exclusively, sought means to give the proletariat economic freedom, without any assistance from the State. As a consequence, the Blanquistes reproached the Proudhonistes for discouraging the working classes in their struggle against the Second Empire, under which they lay bleeding. Even Marx accused Proudhon, saying that “he coquetted with Louis Bonaparte and endeavoured to justify him in the eyes of the French working-men.” (In his article of January, 1865, which appeared m the German edition of “Misery of Philosophy,” second edition, page 32.) On the other Hand, the Proudhonistes were conscious of the class antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeois, for the good reason that, with the Proudhonistes, the economic question was of first importance. They realised, further, that the proletariat would have to trust to its own strength to gain its freedom. They realised this far more than the Blanquistes; for these latter were to a large extent a student party, whereas the Proudhonistes formed the real Labour Party in France under the Second Empire.
When in the ’sixties the Labour Movement everywhere awoke from the death-sleep into which it fell, as a, result of the reaction after 1848, and at the time when the International of the working party was being formed, it was the Proudhonistes in France who joined up with them. This was reason enough for Blanqui to forbid his followers to attach themselves also. In the International, however, they learnt to know of a new order of theory and practice, which made them turn away all the more from one-sided Proudhonism. For just at the time of the foundation of the International Labour League, their leader, Proudhon, died on January 19th, 1865, and in France a new condition arose for the continuation of the class struggle. Proudhon wished to inaugurate a purely labour movement without politics, but that was possible only by renouncing all attempts at a struggle that would involve their coming into conflict with State authority. Quite peaceful means were to be employed to free the working classes, namely, guilds, banks of exchange, a mutual system of insurance. These ideas were possible in Paris where industry, as has been shown before, had very little of the character of manufacture on a large scale, and where the exploiting capitalist appeared to the workman much more as the monied capitalist, taking all the profits, than as a real industrial contractor.
In the International the French Proudhonistes learnt something of English industrial capitalism, and of a Labour Movement corresponding to this capitalism, which laid most emphasis, in economic matters, on the importance of the organisation of their struggle, on Trade Unions and strikes, with which the Proudhonist would have nothing to do. Over and above this system of practice, there arose a theory which shed the clearest light upon the laws, underlying modern society and social life, a theory which was still unknown to the majority of the International, and was not rightly understood even by those who knew. The creator of this theory, however, by his immense superiority, inspired the International in all its activity with his spirit and ideas. In Marx’s theory, the one-sidedness of Proudhonism and of Blanquism also was overcome. Like the Proudhonistes, Marx recognised that the economic relations were of the first importance, and that without some alteration of these relations no political change of whatever kind could possibly emancipate the proletariat. But, none the less, he recognised that the possession of State power and authority was absolutely necessary in order to break the domination of capital, and in order to carry out the emancipation of the proletariat by economic changes. The fundamental importance of the economic factor received at the hands of Marx an utterly different character from that given by Proudhon. Economics in the eyes of Marx made politics not superfluous, but necessary. The character and outcome of political struggle and its very effect depended, to a large extent, on the economic question. But he realised that economic conditions themselves form a steadily progressing process, which makes a political result possible, to-day and inevitable to-morrow, whereas yesterday it seemed impossible. The relation between economics and politics consisted for him in studying the economic conditions and tendencies, and in attempting to make political aims and methods fit in with them. The Blanquistes and Proudhonistes, on the other hand, entirely neglected the historical aspec.t. Their chief endeavour was not at any given moment to find out what was possible and necessary from an economic point of view, but to find the means which, under all conditions and in all historical and economic circumstances, should give the desired result. If the Socialists have found the right means, they are then in a position to carry out their Socialism exactly as they wish. It was believed that these ideas had been superseded by Marxism, but we find them still in existence even to-day. Once again we find men in Moscow and Budapest who, instead of asking what policy is possible and necessary in the present economic conditions, are proceeding from the standpoint that, since Socialism is desired by the Proletariat, the Socialists have a duty to carry out their Socialism, wherever they have the power to do so. Their duty consists not in examining whether, and how far, this scheme is possible, but in discovering where the Philosopher’s stone is to be found, that universal remedy which Socialism, in all circumstances and in all conditions, undertakes to provide. And people of the present day believe that this problem has been solved by the proclamation of the dictatorship on the basis of the Council system. In the Second French Empire the Blanquistes thought to discover the Philosopher’s stone in a revolt, the Proudhonistes, in the banks of exchange.
Even at the present day Marx has been little understood. He demanded far too great mental energy and far too great subordination of personal desires and needs. But, in a general way, all the aims, ways, and means adopted by him, as well as by Engels, were successful, because the logic of things was on their side. In consequence, the Marxist ideas gradually ousted the Proudhonist ideas from the French Internationalists. As soon as the Labour movement again came to life in France, Trade Unions and strikes were inevitable. The Empire endeavoured to lead the movement on legal and non-political lines, and sanctioned the formation, in 1864, of Trade Unions, as well as the carrying out of strikes—in the very year in which the International was founded. The members of this International, including the Proudhonistes, not only were forced to take part in this spontaneous Labour movement, but circumstances forced them, as the best representatives of the economic interests of the Labour classes, to come to the head of the organisation and the movement. It was inevitable that they should thus come into conflict with the State authority, and in this way they were drawn into the political struggle, into the struggle against the Empire. Under these circumstances the ideas of the French Internationalists, which at the start had been Proudhonist in character, became more and more Maixist in colour. Yet, at the outbreak of the revolt of the Commune, not one of them could be described as a Marxist. They had lost their old Proudhonist foundation, but had not yet gained new ground. Their ideas were still lacking in clearness. Nevertheless they were the members of the Commune who took the most trouble to examine economic life, and who best understood the vital needs of the time. They formed the real Labour representatives in the Commune. Li&sagaray says about them_ —
“People have said that the Commune was a Government of the working classes. That is a great mistake. The working classes took part in the struggle, in the administration, and their breath alone made the movement great; but they were very little engaged in actual government. The election of March 26th gave the workers only 25 votes as against 70, which went to the revolutionaries.” (“History of the Commune,” second edition, page 145.)
But of these 25, the majority, 13, belonging to the International, had all told only 17 representatives in the Commune. Only four of the International were not Labour members and of these one of them, the student, Vaillant, had leanings towards the Blanquistes. Out of the 13 members of the Labour group among the Internationals we find the most important men in the Commune, namely the bookbinder, Varlin, the carpenter, Theiss, the painter, Malon, and the jeweller, Frankel. In accordance with their Party standpoint they left all direct action, the conduct of the war, and the organisation of the police, to the Jacobins and Blanquistes, and turned their attention to the question of peace, to the administration of the districts, and to economic changes. Only one of them showed any warlike spirit, namely, the metal worker, Duval, and he was inclined, as we know, like Vaillant, to Blanquism. He was one of those in the Commune who, at the outbreak of April 3rd, was captured and shot by order of General Vinoy. Thus he was one of the first martyrs of the Commune.
His comrades in the International confined their attention almost entirely to the economic problems, and they did remarkably good work, namely, in administration. For instance, Theiss in postal arrangements, Varlin and Avrial in other important positions of command, in spite of the enormous difficulties, which arose from the fact that the higher officials having fled from Paris, or at least from their positions, the working classes had suddenly to take over and carry on work to which they were wholly strangers. Along with the Internationalists of the Commune there were other members of the Paris International who were successful in their labours, for instance, the bronze worker, Camelinat, who, in the month of April, took over the coinage, and in a very few weeks made vast improvements, which, after the fall of the Commune, were still maintained. Then there was Bastelica who undertook the direction of customs, and Combault, Director of Indirect Taxation. Both were workmen.
One of the first actions on the part of the Commune consisted in handing over the separate districts of the Executive, not to individual ministers but to special commissions. The Commission for Labour, Industry and Exchange, also the Commission representing the Socialist side of the Commune consisted of the Internationalists Malin, Theiss, Dupont (basket maker), and Avrial (mechanic), Gerardin and one single Jacobin, whose occupation I could not find. Of the five members of the Commission for Finance, three belonged to the International, the painter, Victor Clément Varlin. and the rather wealthy philanthropist, Beslay, one of the few bourgeois in the International. Besides these men there were the Jacobin, Regère, a veterinary surgeon, but an old fighter against the Empire, as well as the cashier, Jourdes, who had no particular tendencies, and who was the real head of finance, through whose hands millions of francs had to pass, while his wife continued to carry on the family washing in the Seine, he himself never dining at a higher cost than 1.60 fr. In both the Commissions for labour and finance utterly different methods were employed from those in the Commissions for the army and police. The contrast in these methods has been very well characterised by Mendlessohn, in his appendix to Lissagaray’s, “History of the Commune” (second German edition).
The war administration in the Commune had very little satisfactory means to hand. Here we find incapacity, ignorance, vanity, absence of all feeling for responsibility, etc. Here we find the reflection of all the unfortunate disorganisation of the conditions under which the Socialist movement had to suffer during the Empire, and we need only go from the Place Vendôme to the Prefecture of Police, in order to find the second reflection of these conditions.
“We certainly find a peaceful change from the noisy self-importance of the new Hebertists, who formed the general staff of police at the time, when we pass over to the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Exchange. The name itself shows the influence of the Proudhonist doctrine. Apart from this, however, the conscientious and modest members of the International were so occupied in their labour, that they put aside all that was impossible and fantastic. Regarding themselves as a committee of the working-classes, they did not look for signs of their power in orders and badges. They formed a commission out of the members of the Trade Unions and Labour Commissions. As a result, this Ministry so carried on its work, that one can say it did what it could (according to the conditions then prevailing, and never undertook anything that it could not carry out.”
In this Ministry the Socialists stood well concentrated. It was Marxist in character. It represented the actual revolutionary elements in the Commune, and yet it showed a measure of caution, which was perfectly amazing. The reason for this caution, which was also noticeable in the Ministry of Finance, was given by Jourde on the occasion of a debate on pawnbrokers’ shops. It was ordered that pledged clothes, household furniture and utensils up to twenty francs in value should be returned to their original owners without payment from May 12th onwards. The State undertook the compensation. In the course of this debate Avrial proposed that in the place of these pawnbrokers’ shops a better kind of Labour institute should be established, whereupon Jourde replied:
“They say form an institute. But that is all very well. We must first have time in order to study the question before we do anything. If Avrial was told to manufacture cannons he would demand more time. I demand that also” (Sitting of May 6th, Officiel Journal of May 7th, page 493.)
The Commune found no time to do anything on a large scale on the social question, and the best people among them would not undertake anything, without thoroughly studying the question first. Most of their social measures would to-day seem trivial. For instance, the suspension of night labour among the bakers, and the prohibition of fines in business houses. The most important conclusion never got beyond mere examination. During the siege and after March 18th there was a large number of factories in Paris closed down by their owners, who fled and escaped. On the proposal of Avrial an inquiry into this very serious question for the working classes was made, and the conclusion ran as follows:
“In consideration of the fact that numerous factories have been closed down by those who hitherto ran them, in order that the owners might avoid their civil duties, and without taking into consideration the interests of the workmen; further, in consideration of the fact that, through this cowardly flight from their positions, much important labour for the communal life has been interrupted, and that the working nan is thus endangered, the Commune of Paris makes the following declaration:
“The Trade Unions of the workmen shall be called together, in order to form commissions of inquiry with the following object in view:
“(1) To gather statistics of the businesses thus closed down, as well as an exact description of the state in which they are at present, as well as of the machinery contained therein:
“(2) To provide a report as to the practical measures to be taken in order to put these factories into working order, not through those who have deserted them, but through associations of workmen who were employed in them;
“(3) To form a scheme of action for these associations;
“(4) To set up a court of arbitration, which shall settle under what conditions these factories shall be definitely handed over to the possession of these Labour associations, when the owners who have fled shall return to Paris; and further, to decide on the compensation that these associations shall make to the original owners. This Commission of Inquiry must lay its report before the Commune Commission for Labour and Exchange. Furthermore, and in the shortest possible time, a synopsis of this decree, which shall serve the interests of the Commune and of the workmen, is to be laid before the Commune”
This Order is dated April 16th and the Journal Officiel, April 17th.
This Commission of Inquiry met together on May 10th and 19th. Soon after that came the defeat of the Commune. That socialising Commission therefore came to no practical result. Nevertheless, its formation was of importance, for it pointed the way which the Socialists of the Commune would have been forced to go, if the proletariat regime had been of longer duration. There could be no question of a complete socialising or of an immediate elimination of the whole system of capitalistic enterprise. On the contrary, these very men were reproached for abandoning their factories in such a cowardly manner, and for leaving the working man without employment. At the same time, however, the contrary reproof was hurled at them.
The Central Committee of the twenty arondissements (districts) (not to be confused with that of the National Guard, which had been formed during the Siege), complained that the employers had kept the workmen in the factories, and in this way prevented them from fulfilling their duty as members of the National Guard. Only those concerns which had been abandoned by their owners were to be socialised, in the first place, according to the plan of the Commune; and only these after very careful and exact consideration. Another step in the direction of socialisation was planned in connection with supplies for army uniforms and ammunition. These supplies were, as far as possible, to be made through the workmen’s associations on the basis of Treaties of Supplies, which were to be drawn up by the Director, in common with the Guards and the Minister of Labour. There is to hand a scheme of Labour Order, which was submitted by the workers to the Commune, and which was concerned with the factories employed in repairing arms, and demanded a fixed ten-hours day. This Order, which contains some twenty-two paragraphs, was printed in the Journal Officiel de la Commune on May 21st (pages 628-629). It shows very well the socialising tendencies of the Socialist workers of the Commune. In accordance with this Order, the workers elected their own representatives of workshops in the Commune, their own superintendent, as well as their foremen. A Management Council was formed consisting of the above officials, to which a workman from each worker’s bench was allowed to come. On the part of the Commune a Supervisory Council was to be formed, which should be duly informed of all that was done, and which had free access to inspect the books and ledgers. The workmen showed themselves to bô very anxious to uphold the interests of the Commune. In Article 15 the scheduled time was fixed at ten hours per day, and not at eight, which the International Congress of Geneva in 1866 had demanded. In special cases of urgency overtime was permitted, if the Management Council agreed. For any overtime no increased pay was granted. Apart from this, the wages at that time were very low. The Director received 250 francs a month, the manager 210, the foreman 70 cents, an hour. For the ordinary worker there was no minimum wage fixed, but a maximum wage. He could not receive more than 60 cents, an hour. Interesting also is the declaration contained in Article 16, which ordains that there should always be a night watchman in the workshops in case of weapons being needed. Every workman was bound to take his turn at night duty. The conclusion ran as follows:
“As imder the present circumstances it is absolutely necessary to be as economical as possible with every farthing of the Commune, the night watchman will not be paid.” (Journal Officiel, page 629.)
Truly these workmen did not regard the time of their “dictatorship” as an opportune moment for demanding an increase of wages. The great ana general cause for good, in their estimation, had a higher claim than their own personal interests.
In spite of his volcanic temperament, Marx did not find anything in these precautionary measures to which he could not agree. He said in his “Civil War in France,” page 53:
“The great social measure adopted by the Commune was one for the existence of the working element. This special measure could only point the way in which a government of the people, through the people, could f unction”
After Marx had so described the dictatorship of the proletariat as the government of the people through the people, in other words, as democracy, he continues, and praises the financial measures adopted by the Commune as “excellent both in their wisdom and moderation” (page 54).
Shortly before, Marx shows in the same work the principles on which a period of transition from capitalism to Socialism must proceed: —
“The working classes did not demand any miracle from the Commune. It had no ready-made Utopias to introduce, as a result of popular decision. It knew that, in order to obtain its own freedom, and to fashion along with that some better standard of living, which the present state of society had made impossible through the economic complications then existing, the working class would have to go through a long process of preparation, and sustain many fights before men, as well as circumstances, could be completely transformed. It had no ideals to realise. It had merely to give the elements of the new society freedom to expand, the elements which were already latent in tho crumbling bourgeois society” (page 50).
From the sentence, “the working class had no ideals to realise” it has been concluded that Marx contributed to the Social movement no set aim and no definite programme. Blit this is disproved by the fact that he himself drew up the Socialistic programmes from “The Communist Manifesto” of 1847 onwards to the time of the programme of the French Labour Party, which he finished in 1880 with the collaboration of Guesde and Lafargue. In the above-cited paragraph he already gives the aims of the Social movement, namely, emancipation of the working class by means of victory and progressive class war, and the creation of a better standard of living, which would follow from the coming into power of the working class, and which would be based on the results of modern science.
It might be urged against Marx that these aims were nothing else but ideals, and therefore that the working class had still ideals to realise, but among the ideals which were not realisable Marx clearly understands all transcendental ideas, such as lie beyond the spheres of time and place, such, for instance, as the ideas of eternal justice and freedom. The aims of the workers’ movement were provided by the economic development that was then in progress. The special forms of their realisation are in a continuous state of development, and are indeed dependent on time and space. Socialism is for him no ready-made Utopia, but a process which promises a lengthy development of economic relations and also of the working class itself, a development which should not come to an end after a political victory, but which could only continue by setting at liberty “the elements of the new society”
Already two decades before Marx had prescribed a lengthy preparation on the part of the working class, and the knowledge of the actual state of affairs as conditions necessary for the social revolution. After the breaking up of the Revolution of 1848, he recognised, as a result of his study of the economic conditions, that the Revolution for the time being had come to an end. This brought him into conflict with many of his comrades, who saw in this mere treachery towards the Revolution. The masses had need of a revolution, and they had the will for it; and therefore it was inevitable, so they said. But Marx replied in September, 1850, in the following words: —
“In place of a critical examination the minority (the League of the Communists) sets up the dogmatic; instead of the materialistic conception of things, the idealistic. Instead of the actual condition of things being the driving force of the Revolution, they seek for that driving force in mere will; whereas we say to the workmen, ‘you have to go through twenty or fifty years of civil wars and struggles, not only to change conditions but also to change yourselves, and to make yourselves capable of political government’ You say to the workmen, on the contrary, ‘we must at once seize power or we might as well lie down and sleep’ Whereas we point out, specially to the German workers, the undeveloped state of the German proletariat, you flatter in the crudest manner possible their national feelings and the class prejudice of the German artisan, which is naturally much more popular. “Just as the democrats have converted the word ‘people’ into something almost sacred, you have done the same with the word ‘proletariat.’ Like the democrats you substitute the word ‘revolution’ for “revolutionary development” Marx: (“Dis closures in connection with the Communist Congress in Cologne,” new issue, 1885).
When Marx protested against the idea that mere will should be made the driving force of the Revolution, he did not mean to say, of course, that the will had nothing to do with the matter. Without will-power no conscious’action is possible. Without the will, no revolution is possible, indeed no history. The first condition of every social movement lies in the strong will, which social endeavour engenders, and which arises from a deeply felt need. But with the will alone nothing can be achieved If the movement is to have any success, there must be something more than the mere will and mere need. I may have the will to live for ever, and this will may be unusually strong in me, nevertheless it cannot preserve me from death. If then the movement is to have success, the will must confine itself to what is possible, and the need must find the means to secure its own satisfaction. Moreover, those who will to do anything must possess the power to overcome any opposition that may arise. It is the purpose of discussion to distinguish, as a result of the examination of actual conditions, the possible from the impossible, and to show the mutual relation of strength. In this way the latent powers in humanity can be concentrated on what is practicable at the time. In this way all waste of energy may be avoided, and the existing power may be turned to better use, and operate more intensively.
This discernment in social matters is, however, by no means easy to obtain; for the economic foundations of society are in a state of continuous development and change, and, in addition, social needs change also, as well as the means by which these needs shall be satisfied, and the forces which shall accomplish what is practically possible. Moreover, society becomes more complicated, wider in its embrace, and ever more difficult to penetrate. Certainly human intelligence, ib is true, increases, and the methods of knowledge improve, but the human mind is not always fashioned to recognise actual relations as they are. It always tries to satisfy the needs of the time. But wherever the actual condition of things renders the satisfaction of these needs impossible, the human mind is only too inclined, from sheer imagination, to read into these conditions a very friendly aspect in accordance with what it desires. Man does not wish to die, but knowledge of actual conditions tells him that he must die. Yet human penetration has managed to discover in these very conditions some sign that we continue in existence after death. The proletariat of the Roman Empire lived in wretched poverty. Nevertheless they felt most strongly the need for a joyous life of pleasure without work; but actual conditions excluded such a life from the bounds of possibility. Despite all, their human instincts promised them such a life in the direction in which they thought they were going.
The idea of the deity was the means to make the weak strong, and the impossible possible. It was to raise the small, ill-treated Jewish people to be lords of the earth. It would give the indignant band of defenceless peasants, at the time of the Reformation, the victory over the well-equipped and well-disciplined armies of the potentates of that time. In the nineteenth century the proletariat discontinued to believe in a deity that would thus come to the rescue; but the picture of the great French Revolution, in which at certain times the proletariat of Paris was able to challenge the whole of Europe, caused a new belief in miracles to arise, which made them believe in the wondrous powers of the Revolution and the revolutionary proletariat. They needed merely to will in order to achieve what they willed. If nothing came of it, that was due merely to the fact that they had not willed. As against this idealistic conception, Marx championed the materialistic view, which insisted that the actual conditions of things should always be taken into account. Certainly these conditions made the emancipation of the working classes and a higher standard of living one of its aims which “the present state of society, as the result of its development, absolutely possesses.” These aims were not, however, to be immediately achieved, like some “ready made Utopia.” They did not form a complete scheme applicable to all times, but engendered merely a new form of social movement and development.
The working class, therefore, is not always, and in all circumstances, mature enough to take over control. It must everywhere go through a period of development, in order to become capable. Furthermore, it cannot choose the moment when it shall come into power. If the working class does take over control, then it must not simply destroy the means of production which it finds in existence. It must rather seek to carry on what is already existent, to develop it further in accordance with the needs of the proletariat, and to “liberate the elements of the new society,” all which in different circumstances requires very different treatment. It will thus at any given moment more easily find what is attainable the more clearly it understands the actual conditions and takes them into account.
When, after the downfall of Napoleon, the possibilities of a proletarian Revolution arose, Marx gave it a good deal of serious thought. Certainly the Parisian workers were the most intelligent workers in the world at that time. They were not living in vain in the very heart of the world, in the very home of enlightenment and revolution. Nevertheless, the Empire had denied them a good school-system, freedom of the Press, as well as political, and for a long time also industrial, organisation. Therefore, to make use of the Eepublic for the better education and organisation of the working classes, to uphold and defend the Eepublic with every means in power, seemed to Marx to be the most imperative need of the time. There was one circumstance which rendered acquisition of political power by the workers at the time impossible, namely, the fact that the greater part of the country was still agrarian, and the population of Paris itself still largely small bourgeois. Moreover, the world’s history does not depend upon our mere will power. It can just as little postpone the coming of revolution as it can hasten it. The rising of the Paris workers and their victory on March 18th were inevitable. From henceforth it was for the people to become clear as to what the actual state of affairs permitted the victorious proletariat to carry out, and to concentrate all their strength upon this design.
Marx did not regard it as the chief duty of the Paris Commune at that time to do away with all capitalistic means of production. He wrote to Kugelmann about this on April 12th, 1871:
“If you will turn up the last chapter of my ‘18th Brumère’ you will find that I proposed, as the next attempt for the French Revolution, to undertake that they should not endeavour to wrest the bureaucratic military machine out of the hands of one man and give it to another, but smash it up completely. This is the necessary condition of every real popular revolution on the Continent. This is also what our heroic comrades in Paris are attempting.” (“The New Times,” No. 20, 1, page 709.)
There is no word of Socialism in this letter. Marx proclaims that the chief duty of the Commune is to destroy the power then in the hands of the bureaucrats, the militarists. Obviously the proletariat can never come to the head of affairs without striving, along with the changes in the organisation of the State, to realise also the changes in the. organisation of the means of production, which should ameliorate its position. If we characterise all such attempts at political power with this end in view as Socialism, then certainly there was Socialism in the Commune, but State Socialism was far removed from what we to-day understand as Socialism. Naturally that was due in part to want of time. The whole rising lasted only a few weeks. For the most part this was due to the fact that this rising was confined to the small industrial elements in Paris. As the result of the existing economic basis, little more could be achieved than the transformation of single workshops into associations of productive workers.
The organisation of a complete branch of industry into a unified system of production and control of its exports, as well as of its raw materais, was hardly possible at that time. If the Commune had been successful, it might have acquired for itself the whole of the State and Government machinery. It might also have introduced nationalisation of railways, perhaps also of mines and ironworks. But all this would not have done away with capitalism, for it was already in operation to a large extent, or at least in preparation, in neighbouring Germany. But under a proletarian and democratic regime it would nevertheless have greatly raised the social position of the working-class. In addition to lack of time and to the economic backwardness of the country, there came a further serious hindrance to “socialisation,” namely, the ignorance of the men who were in the Commune. The Jacobins and Blanquistes cared not one farthing for economic matters. The Internationalists, as we have seen, attributed to them the greatest importance; yet just at the time of the Commune they were theoretically untenable. These Internationalists had the intention of abandoning the Proudhonist basis, but they were not prepared to go so far and deliberately put themselves on the side of the Marxists. In the meanwhile, in spite of their fears, Marx agreed with the method of the Commune, namely, first of all to examine the economic question before making any changes, and not to introduce hasty decrees, which would fail of their object, cause confusion, and finally discouragement. Even if this caution arose more from theoretic uncertainty than from theoretic discernment, it agreed with all that Marx, in consequence of his materialistic conception of things, regarded as necessary, namely, that in the Revolution we must be guided not by mere will alone, but by a knowledge of the actual state of affairs. Debreuilh has characterised this feature of the Paris rising extraordinarily well in his “Commune,” page 419.
“The policy of methodic expropriation, quite apart from the opposition of the other classes, was impossible, for the very good reason that the day labourers in the mass had no idea of the constitution of society other than the traditional one, and because they had not developed any institutions or trade guilds, which are absolutely necessary to ensure the normal working of production and exchange after all capitalistic-organisation has been removed. It is impossible to improvise a new regime, especially a Socialistic regime, by means of decrees. Decrees and laws should rather make secure the relations already existing. If in this matter the Commune had attempted to act prematurely, probably the sole result would have been to cause a section of its own best powers to turn against it, without causing among the daily workers any appreciable disposition in their favour. They could not do otherwise than prepare the way for a general social provision, under the pretence of democratising the political machinery then in existence; and that is what they did.” (Debreuilh.)
In this way the Marxian idea of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was realised on the social plane. This Marxian method of socialisation, which was so very much like that of the Commune, must be our method to-day. That does not mean to say that this same method and this same reserve must be employed in present day Germany, as was the case in the Commune of 1871 in Paris. Since then half a century of the most powerful capitalistic development has elapsed. The enormous progress that was made is shown by the fact that, at that time, it was Paris alone which rose in an insurrection that was not purely proletarian, without any support from the country; and that it had to succumb to the superiority of agrarianism, which was intimately bound up with bureaucracy and higher finance. In the year 1918 the German Revolution broke out throughout the entire Empire, and it was everywhere led by the proletariat. German agriculture constitutes hardly more than a quarter of the population (1907—29 per cent.), and industry has made enormous progress and has advanced to the formation of Trade Unions comprising whole branches of industry.
The Parisian proletariat in 1871 had only just emerged from the Bonaparte regime, which had hitherto prevented it from acquiring any means of education or of organisation. The German proletariat entered on this Revolution with the political and corporate experience of half a century, with political and economic organisation, which embraced millions of people. And finally, the Socialists of Paris in 1871 were on the point of giving up an economic theory that had proved to be unsatisfactory. But they had not gone so far as to evolve another and superior theory. German Socialism has at its command the historical and economic insight and the clear methods of a theory, which has been recognised by the Socialists of all countries as the highest and best, and which even the bourgeois classes accept, thanks to its enormous superiority over any other conception of economics now prevailing. In these circumstances Socialism can proceed much more rapidly, more energetically and with quicker results than was ever possible in 1871.
We have already spoken of an economic method of the Commune. But we have shown that such a method in the real sense of the word was not to be found. It is impossible to speak of a well-considered and well-planned method in the Commune. For this reason alone, that in the Commune so many opposing forces were endeavouring to work together. The method of procedure in the Commune was the result of opposition, and not of a definite theory. The Socialists themselves in the Commune were not very clear and definite, and they represented only the minority. Nevertheless their spirit and conception of things ruled the economic ideas of Paris at the time. Whereas, however, the majority attached little importance to economics, and felt themselves even more insecure than did the minority, with politics in the Commune it was different. The opposition that arose in the Commune over politics was far greater. This opposition seriously influenced and almost destroyed the capacity of the Commune for work, but the general tendencies arising therefrom gradually found a middle course, which Marx also accepted, as he did the methods of procedure in regard to economics. We know already that the majority of the Commune consisted of Jacobins and Blanquistes. When they entered the Commune of Paris they hoped to influence the whole life of France similar to the manner of 1793. They were Radical Republicans and freethinkers; they wished to destroy the whole apparatus of monarchy, of the clerical system as well as the bureaucracy, and the standing army; and yet they could have arrived at the supreme command of Paris only by means of a State organisation, which would have made one of the central positions in Paris a strong means of force. They forgot that the Paris Commune of 1793, by means of the centralised power which was thereby developed, actually prepared the way for Bonaparte and the Empire. They hoped to get salvation by means of dictatorial power, without realising that a dictatorship, which is not supported by sternly disciplined armies and organised administration, is the mere shadow of a dictatorship. In strong opposition to the centralising Jacobins were the Proudhonistes, who were extremely critical of the traditions of 1793, which they in fact abhorred. They realised the illusions which led to the Reign of Terror, and which befooled the proletariat and made it bloodthirsty and brutal, without in the least aiding it towards freedom. But they were not less critical towards democracy. Universal suffrage in 1848 had helped to create the reactionary National Assembly, and had become the main support of the Empire. Indeed, in the economic conditions of France at that time the State policy, whether of the dictatorship or of the democracy, could offer no hope for the immediate emancipation of the proletariat. A means towards, this end was sought by the Socialists. The idea of development in general, as well as of the significance which democracy might have for the development of political insight and the organising capacity of the proletariat, and ultimately for its emancipation—to this idea they were completely strange. For the immediate emancipation of the proletariat at that time neither the dictatorship nor the democracy was very hopeful. This the Proudhonistes understood very well; but the consequences they drew from this were not good. Entirely without a policy such as they wished, they found it was impossible for them to proceed. At this time the communal policy in certain industrial municipalities offered the proletariat quite other prospects than those offered by the State policy in ia country which was preponderantly agrarian. Democracy in the districts was of great importance; in the State it was of small account. The bitter critics of the State Parliaments, of these “talking shops,” as they called them, had nothing to say against the communal talking shops and Parliaments. The sovereignty of the municipality became the ideal of the Proudhonistes. Their idea is shown already in the status of industry as they regarded it. Moreover, they did not intend to do away with exchange; for even at that time there were business concerns, whose economic importance extended far beyond the single community. In order to control such concerns, it was necessary for the different municipalities to combine. In this way the Proudhonistes hoped to emancipate the industrial proletariat and agrarian France. But they forgot one small thing, namely, that the idea of dissolving the State into sovereign municipalities was also a State idea, to carry out which the overthrow of the existing State was necessary, which was exactly what the proletariat wished to avoid. The idea of the Commune, in the Proudhonist sense, was therefore the direct contrary to the idea such as the Jacobins held. For the Jacobin, the Commune of Paris was a metans to obtain State power for the control of the whole of France. For the Proudhonist, the sovereignty of each Commune was a means to putting an end to State power as such.
Arthur Amould characterises very well this contrast of the revolutionary Jacobins and the “Socialist Federalists” in his book, “Histoire Populaire et Parliamentaire de la Commune de Paris.” The same words were often understood by the different members of the Assembly in two quite different ways. “For one group, the Commune of Paris represented the first application of anti-government principle, the war against the old conception of the centralised despotic single State. The Commune represented for them the triumph of the principle of autonomy, of the free federation of groups, and of the most direct form of government ‘of the people by the people’; but in their eyes the Commune formed the first stage of a great revolution, social as well as political, which had nothing to do with the old methods of procedure. It was the very negation of the idea of a dictatorship. It was the seizure of power by the people themselves, and therefore the destruction of every power that stood outside the people or over them. The people, who so felt and thought and willed, represented that group which afterwards was called the Socialist Group, or the Minority. For the others, on the other hand, the Commune of Paris was the continuation of the old Commune of 1793. In their eyes it represented dictatorship in the name of the people, an enormous concentration of power in the hands of a few, and the destruction of the old system through the setting up of new men at the head of the system, whom, for the moment, they provided with arms to fight a war in the service of the people against the enemy of the people.
“Among the men of this authoritative group, the idea of the centralised individual State had by no means disappeared. If they accepted the principle of municipal autonomy and the free federation of groups, and even proclaimed this on their banners, they did so solely because the will of Paris forced them. They remained slaves to old habits and thoughts. As soon as they came into power, they continued in their old habits and allowed themselves, certainly with the best of intentions, to employ old methods to new ideas. They did not realise that in such cases the former always gains the victory in the struggle, and that those who try to establish freedom by means of the dictatorship, or of mere arbitrariness, generally destroy that which they would save. Thi3 group, which consisted of many various elements, formed the majority, and they were called ‘The Revolutionary Jacobins.’”
Debreuilh has quoted these comments with the remark that they referred only to the two extreme tendencies. That is true. It is equally true that in all such tendencies many new shades of opinion are to be found. Still, if we wish to have a clear idea of them we must regard the most pronounced characteristic as if it were the classical characteristic. The opposition that existed was enormous. It might never have been overcome had the Commune been victorious. But it was not victorious, and that forced the contending parties to strike out some fresh line. From April 3rd onwards the Commune found itself on the defensive, and had to surrender all idea of conquering France and ruling it. In this way all the Jacobin hopes fell to the ground. Far from hoping to rule through the Commune, they had to be content if they succeeded merely in preventing the new-found liberties of Paris from being crushed by reactionary France. But in those circumstances there was just as little hope that the Proudhonist dreams would be fulfilled, that the French State would crumble to pieces, and that complete sovereignty would be bestowed on the separate municipalities. The Centralising Jacobins, like the Federalist Proudhonistes, were obliged by the force of circumstances to work for the same object, which would be realisable under favourable circumstances, which became of paramount importance for the whole of France, and was even demanded by many of its citizens and politicians. This object was, namely, the self-control of the municipalities, their independence within limits drawn by the State democracy, and the limitation of the power of State bureaucracy, as well as the setting up of a militia in place of the standing army. The Internationalists recognised this democratic State all the more readily, because, as we have seen, they were drawn into a fight against the Empire in those latter years, and therefore were involved in a State policy and had begun to carry out strict Proudhonism mingled with Marxist ideas.
The final result was a policy, which Marx himself would have recognised and sanctioned if he had been in Paris; but he would not have been able to join either the one or the other party. He would have been quite isolated. Nevertheless, force of circumstances and the wisdom of the best heads of the Commune, who really took into consideration the actual ‘circumstances” and were not driven by “mere will,” resulted in the striking out of a line of policy, which showed much resemblance to that of Marx himself. To this policy, still more than to its economic measures, Mendelssohn’s remark well applies (in his appendix to Lissagaray, page 525): “The creators of the Commune seem not to know what they have created.”
The political order of things newly created by the Commune, amidst the bitterest internal struggles, proceeded on lines between the two extremes. The great misfortune from which the Commune suffered was its lack of organisation. It was the natural outcome of the lack of organisation, routine and ability in the Parisian proletariat at the time, which had really only just broken away from the Empire. The Commune, from the very beginning, stood in a state of war with Versailles. Nowhere are organisation and discipline more necessary than in war. They were completely failing in the Commune. The battalions of the Commune were commanded by officers whom those battalions themselves had elected. In this way the officers were independent of the supreme command, but were dependent on those who had chosen them. On these lines it is impossible to organise a real fighting army, for such an army is only possible where internal disorganisation is forbidden.
This is what the Bolsheviks in Russia have seen, for they very soon put an end to the powers of the Soldiers’ Councils and of the election of officers through the men, when they found themselves involved in a really serious war. Whether or not the different battalions of the National Guard obeyed the orders of the supreme command depended entirely upon their mood. Small wonder, therefore, that the number of actual fighters in the Commune was very small. Pay was made to 162,000 men and 6,500 officers, but the number of those who went into the fire and fought varied after those fatal days of April 3rd from 20,000 to 30,000. These brave fellows had to sustain the whole fearful burden of battle against a well-disciplined and well-equipped superior force, which in the second half of the month of May numbered at least 120,000 men. Disorganisation from below was still more increased by disorganisation from above. Alongside of the Commune, the Central Committee of the National Guard continued to exist. It had formally handed over all its power to the Commune. Nevertheless, it continued to intervene in all orders given to the National Guard. Marx, in a letter to Kugelmann, on the Commune of April 12th, 1871, regarda it as a mistake that the Central Committee so early abandoned its power in order to make room for the Commune (“Neue Zeit, Marx., page 709). He does not give the ground for this statement, and we therefore cannot tell why this seemed to him to be a mistake—apparently on account of the reaction of the conduct of the war. He regards this mistake as the second one made by the Parisians. The first mistake, according to him, consisted in itheir not having marched against Versailles immediately after March 18th. These two mistakes may have been the cause of defeat. In the meantime, unfortunately, all these fundamental mistakes, which made the military situation of the Commune from the very start so hopeless, were made already, before the Commune ever assembled. Nothing can show that the conduct of the war, under the command of the Central Committee, would have met with any more success than it had under the Command of the Commune. On the contrary, that Committee showed itself to be more vacillating even than the Commune. The conduct of war is not the proletariat’s strongest point.
The worst that happened, however, was the existence of two simultaneous independent supreme powers, to which was added yet a third, which interfered with the carrying on of the war, namely, the “Committee of Artillery.” The Committee of Artillery, which was formed on March 18th, made trouble with the Ministry of War over the cannons. The Ministry of War was in possession of the cannons of Marsfeld, whereas the Artillery Committee had those of Montmartre. (Lissagaray, “History of the Commune,” page 205.)
Everywhere an attempt was made to minimise the general organisation, by strengthening the power of the Government. In place of the Executive Commissions, of which we have already spoken, there was formed, on April 20th, an Executive Council consisting of nine men, each of whom was a delegate from each of the nine Commissions. But the evil was too deep-rooted to be removed by such a measure. The Jacobins, mindful of the traditions of 1793, demanded a Committee of Public Safety with dictator’s powers, which would reduce the Commune to nothing. The continuous adventures of the Versailles troops caused the member of the Commune, Miot, “who had one of the finest beards of 1848” (Lissagaray, page 273) to demand on April 28th the formation of a Committee of Public Safety, in other words, of a new Commission, which should be over all other Commissions. As to the necessity for a powerful executive everybody was in agreement, although the question of a name for that executive caused heated debate. The Revolutionary Jacobins thought that if this Commission was called the Committee of Public Safety, it would bestow on that Committee the victorious power of the French Republic of 1793, with its Committee of Public Safety. But this very tradition, which brought into remembrance the Regiment of Terror, repelled the Proudhonistes. With 34 votes against 20 it was decided on May 1st to form this Committee. In the election, which led to its formation the greater part of the minority, 23, abstained, giving the following explanation:
“We have not set up any candidate. We did not want anybody who appeared to us to be as injurious as he would be useless; for we see in this Committee of Public Safety the denial of the principles of Social reform, out of which the Communal Revolution of March 18th arose.”
This Committee of Public Safety, which was to lead to increased energy on the part of the Commune, at the same time prepared the way for its disorganisation. In fact, it split the Commune. For this reason alone the Committee lost all moral power, and further, those who alone performed any serious work in the Commune, namely the Nationalists, held aloof from it. Its members were all, with the exception of one, “bawlers,” as Lissagaray expressed it. On May 9th this futile Committee was disposed of, in order that a new one might be elected. This time the Minority took part in the election, after it had seen that behind the much-feared name there was lurking nothing less than an actual dictatorship. But meanwhile the opposition between the Majority and the Minority had become so acute, that the Majority made the extraordinary mistake of not electing one member of the Minority to the Committee. The second Committee of Public Safety proved to be as incapable as the first. It even went further than the first, by actively rising against the Minority, and removing a certain number of the Minority from office, thus robbing the Commune of some of its best men. This led to an open breach. On May 16th the Minority published in the papers a declaration, in which they protested against the abdication of the Commune in favour of an irresponsible dictatorship, and announced that, from that time onwards, they would no longer take part in the work of the Commune, and would confine their activities solely to the districts and to the National Guard. In this wayr they said, in conclusion, they hoped to save the Commune from internal strife, which they wished to avoid, because the Majority and the Minority were both working towards the same purpose. In spite of this conciliatory conclusion, it seemed that this declaration implied a complete rupture.
Nevertheless, although the Minority, for administrative work as well as for the solution of economic problems, was a good deal more capable than the Majority, in its politics it was not very decisive or logical. Against the dictatorship of the first Committee of Public Safety it had protested by abstaining from voting on May 1st, But on May 9th it had already recognised the dictatorship by proposing candidates for the Second Committee. On the 15th, again, they decided to make public protest against this same dictatorship, by stopping all collaboration in the Commune. On the 16th, the day of the publication of their protest, they yielded to the pressure of their friends, namely, of the Federal Council of the International, who urged them not to destroy the unity of the Commune in face of the insistent enemy; and so on the 17th fifteen of the twenty-two subscribers to the manifesto were again in their places in the Committee. But the majority was not by this means appeased, in spite of the attempt at reconciliation made by some of the more reasonable of their members, including Vaillant. A resolution, conciliatory in character, was refused, and a proposal of Miot’s was accepted, which ran as follows:
“The Commune will forget the attitude of every member of the Minority, who withdraws his signature from the declaration. It blames this declaration.” Debreuilh remarks in connection with this, (page 440): “Thus Jacobins and Federalists stood together as enemy brothers at the last battle before their death.”
On May 21st the Versailles troops entered Paris. On the 22nd the last sitting of the Commune took place.
The policy of the Commune offers us a remarkable spectacle. Of the two tendencies which are represented in the Commune each was guided by a programme, which, had it been applied, could never have been carried out, and which only led its disciples to actions that were purposeless. But in spite of all this, the action and reaction of these two programmes on one another, as the result of the force of circumstances, produced a political programme, which was not only capable of being carried out, but which corresponded to the needs of France at the time, and which even to-day has latent within it the most fruitful possibilities. This programme consisted of a demand for self administration of the municipalities, as well as for the dissolution of the standing army. These two fundamental demands of the Commune are to-day no less important for the welfare of France than they were at the time of the Second Paris Commune.
We cannot speak of the Committee of Public Safety without thinking of the Regiment of Terror, which represented the very soul of that body in 1798. It was only natural that the opposition arising over the dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety should find its continuation in the question of terrorism. The Jacobins were, from the very start, as much in favour of recognising terrorism as a fighting means as the Internationalists were of repudiating it. Even in tbe very first meeting of the Commune its opposition was noticeable. A member proposed the abolition of the death penalty. “He wants to save the head of Yenoy” (the General of Versailles), was the retort they levelled at him.
Before the federation of the International, Frankel formulated on April 29th the policy of the International, saying: “We wish to establish the rights of the workers, and that is only possible by persuasion and moral force.”
On the other side were people like the dramatic critic Pyat, the accountant Ferré, and the student Raoul Rigault, who in their bloodthirsty demands were insatiable. In principle all Jacobins had to support Terrorist measures, but in actual practice there was little of these measures to be seen. Few could escape the humanitarian spirit which inspired the whole of democracy, bourgeois as well as proletarian. Moreover, the conditions which obtained at the time cf the Second Paris Commune were not those that produced Terrorism at the time of the First Commune.
The Second Commune did not set about the impossible task of erecting a communal system on bourgeois lines which should serve the interests of the proletariat, and, further, it confined the application of its power to Paris, of which city the majority were certainly on its side. Thus it was not necessary for them to intimidate their opponents by resorting to forceful measures. The enemy who was really dangerous to the Commune stood outside the confines of their communal life, and was not to be affected by recourse to Terrorism. Thus the motive for putting Terrorist tradition into practice was lacking. What Raoul Rigault and Ferré in the Committee of Public Safety accomplished by their suppression of the Press and by their arrests was much more a mere bad imitation of the Empire than of the Reign of Terror, which proceeded on entirely different lines. The Blanquiste student, Rigault, gained his laurels under the Empire in a continuous fight with the police, whose tricks he knew perfectly well.
Even before March 9, that is, before the insurrection, Lauser said of him_ “Those who know him have told me the most astonishing things about his mad ways, and the cunning with which he spied out the police to frustrate all their persecutions, and indeed himself to play the part of the Prefect of Police of Pans.” “Under the Paris Commune—a Diary,” Leipsig, 1878, page 18.)
On March 18 he had received official orders to act as the Prefect of Police of Paris. His first act was to take up a position at the Prefecture of Police on the night of March 18. His police system very soon met with lively opposition from all parties, but especially from the Internationalists. This system had little to do with the principles of 1793, although at the time he was working on a History of the Commune of 1793.
On the other hand, we must not attribute the execution of Generals Thomas and Clement to the Commune. As we have already shown, these executions took place before the Commune existed and in spite of the opposition of the Central Committee.
There was only one measure adopted by the Commune which can be described as Terrorist, and that was the arresting of hostages, undertaken to intimidate the enemy by oppressing the defenceless. That the taking of hostages is a hopeless method of procedure, which seldom prevents cruelties from taking place, and more often increases the barbarity of the fight which caused it, has often enough been proved in experience.
But it was difficult for the Commune to do anything else, unless it wished to suffer patiently and without protest that the men at Versailles should shoot the prisoners they had taken. In numerous cases this actually took place after April 3rd.
“As the result of the indignation, which arose on account of the execution of the prisoners Puteaux and Chatillon, as well as of Duval, who was one of the officers of the National Guard taken prisoner by the Versailles troops during the attack on April 3, several members of the Commune insisted that one should forthwith shoot a number of the reactionaries, who, for the most part, were taken from the clergy of Paris. Other Jacobins, and particularly Delescluse, indignant at these excesses, proposed the decree concerning hostages. It was decided to oppose the Versailles elements on the bloody way into which they had blindly stumbled. By means of an implicit understanding, however, it was agreed that this decree should not be carried out.” (Fiautx, “Civil War of 1871,” page 246.)
This decree, therefore, arose not out of an attempt to destroy human life, but to save it. On the one hand, to force the Versailles commanders to stop all further executions, and on the other, to make the Prussians renounce the idea of immediate reprisals.
“Ever noble and righteous even in its anger,” so ran the proclamation of the Commune of April 5th, “the people view with horror the shedding of blood as well as civil war. But it is its duty to defend itself from barbaric attacks of its enemies; it must therefore act on the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” (Journal Officiel, April 6th, page 169.)
In reality the Commune showed itself to be very noble and righteous, but it did not act in accordance with the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!
The decree issued by the Commune concerning hostages determined that any persons accused of being in agreement with Versailles should be immediately denounced and arrested. A court of justice was to be set up within the space of twenty-four hours to hear the accused, and within forty-eight hours pass judgment on him. No accused person was to be shot, but kept as hostage. Likewise all prisoners of war were to be brought before this same tribunal, which would thereupon decide whether they were to be set free or detained as hostages. Finally, it was decided that every execution practised on a fighter or follower of the Commune, who had been caught by the Versailles command, should be followed by the execution of three times the number of hostages. This last and most terrible decision of the decree really remained a dead letter. It was never put into practice by the Commune, although those in command at Versailles, after short interruptions, continued to shoot the prisoners they had caught, and seemed quite unconcerned by the fact that, by their action, they had jeopardised the lives of their friends, who had been kept as hostages in Paris. Thiers did his best to incite the Commune to slaughter. He knew perfectly well that every hostage shot rendered a service, not to the Commune, but to himself; because it roused public opinion at large, which was still governed by bourgeois thought and feeling, and coolly accepted the shooting of numberless prisoners at Versailles, whereas it waxed violently indignant over the mere arresting of hostages in Paris. This miserable attitude was shown by Tniers in the affair of the exchange of hostages.
After the decree of April 5th, there were taken as hostages in Paris a number of the clergy, a banker, Jecker, the originator of the Mexican Expedition, as well as the President of the Cour de Cassation, Bon jean. But the Commune proposed an exchange. They wished to set at liberty the arrested clergy, among them the Archbishop Darboy, the Pastor Deguerry, and the Vicar-General Lagarde, as well as President Bonjean, provided the Versailles Government would deliver up Blanqui, who was then under arrest. They were good-natured enough to allow the Vicar-General Lagarde to proceed to Versailles on April 12th with a letter of Darboy’s to Thiers, after he had sworn to return if the deliberations should come to grief. But before that, on April 8th, Darboy had already addressed a letter to Thiers, and implored him to shoot no more prisoners. Thiers remained silent. On April 13th a Paris newspaper, L’Affranchi, published this letter. Whereupon Thiers replied; but with a lie, since he characterised all news about executions as being mere libel. The answer to the second letter, which Lagarde had handed in, was not received until the end of April. But the Vicar-General, in spite of his oath, was cautious enough not to return to brave the vengeance of the lion. In this answer Blanqui’s release was refused, but the Archbishop was comforted with the assurance that the lives of hostages were not in danger. Further attempts on the part of the Papal Nuncio and of the American Ambassador, Washburn, to intervene in favour of an exchange remained equally without success. Therefore Thiers was responsible for the fact that the above-named, with the exception of Lagarde, were still to be found as hostages in the prisons of Mazas, when the Commune broke up and lost the power to protect them. He was quite right in his assertion which, by the way, entirely disproved his libellous statement about the brutality of the Commune, that the lives of the hostages in the Commune were not in danger. But it was he himself who laboured to overthrow the protecting bodyguard of the hostages, namely the regiment of the Commune, indeed, under circumstances which placed the lives of these hostages in the gravest danger. Through some treacherous act, the Versailles troops forced their way into Paris on a Sunday, May 21st, quite by surprise, at the very time when a popular concert was in full swing in the Garden of the Tuileries, and at the conclusion of which concert an officer of the General Staff invited the audience to come again the following Sunday, adding:
“Thiers promised to march into Paris yesterday. He did not come, nor will he ever come.” At that very moment the Versailles troops entered Paris. The inhabitants were so panic stricken, and the troops of the Commune so exhausted, that the Versailles army would probably have succeeded, by means of a rapid and determined advance, in occupying the whole of Paris without any serious opposition. But they entered very slowly, and this gave the defenders of the Commune time to gather together for a furious street fight, which lasted the whole of the week, the famous “terrible May week.” This succeeded all the more in bringing passions to fever heat, since the Versailles commanders gave no pardon, and not only shot down all those who were arrested with weapons in their hands, but even all the suspects. Many historians of the Commune point out that this slow advance of the Versailles troops had the result of increasing the opposition, and likewise the number of those who fell, thus enhancing the immensity of the defeat. “Paris could have been taken in twenty-four hours if the army had proceeded along the quays of the left bank. It would have met with opposition only from the Ministry of Marine at Montmartre and at Ménilmontant. By means of its slow advance into Paris it gave time for the opposition to organise. They made eight and ten times as many prisoners as there were fighters, and they shot more men than actually stood behind the barricades, whereas the army lost only 600 dead and 7,000 wounded.” (G. Bourgin, “L’Histoire de la Commune,” page 106.)
The number of dead on the side of the Commune exceeded 20,000, put by some at 30,000. The Chief of Military Justice, General Appert, counted 17,000 dead. The number of victims who did not come to the knowledge of the authorities cannot be fixed, but amounted to at least 3,000.
It is not to be wondered at that, in this fearful storm, the thirst for vengeance in many cases gained the upper hand. It became the more furious the more power it lost and the less able it was to avoid defeat. It was only after the Commune had ceased to exist that the execution of hostages began. On May 21st the Versailles troops entered Paris; on the 22nd street fighting beg£tn; on the 24th the last shot was fired. In this respect, although the executions were more the result of desperate rage and blind revenge than of premeditated action, the opposition be Ween Jacobins and the Internationalists became obvious. The beginning of the executions was made by the fanatic Bl&nquist, Raoul Rigault. He ordered a number of gendarmes, who were arrested on March 18, along with an editor, by name Chaudey, caught in the middle of April, to be executed on the night of May 23. Chaudey had caused the crowd to be fired upon on January 22, during which affray Sapia, a friend of Rigault, was killed by his side. On the 24th Rigault himself was arrested and shot. At the same time the old Blanquist, Genton, demanded the execution of six hostages, among them the Archbishop Darboy, President Bon jean, and Pastor Dugeurry, already known to us. The Blanquist, Ferré, gave him the authority.
“The firing party of the execution was composed almost exclusively of young people, practical ly children. In most cases those taking part in these crimes were hardly more than adolescent young men, excited through the vice rampant in the towns, and whose passions, which had grown faster than their beards, left no place open for the feeling of responsibility.” (Fiaux, “Civil War,” page 528.)
Unfortunately we cannot make the same observation to-day in Germany in the case of those who would justify by practice the right of war.
On the 26th it was again the Blanquist, Ferré, who arranged that forty-eight hostages, mostly priests, secret police, and gendarmes, who had fired on the crowd on March 18th, should be handed over to Colonel Gois, likewise a Blanquist. He took them along with him, followed by an armed crowd who were in utter disorder, since they could hope for no pardon, and since they were themselves doomed to death. In desperate rage they fell upon the hostages and killed them one after the other. In vain the Internationalists, Varlin and Serailler, tried to rescue them. They themselves were very nearly lynched by the furious crowd, who accused them of belonging to the Versailles Party. On May 28th this same Varlin, who had risked his life to save the hostages, was arrested by the Versailles command as a result of the denunciation of a priest, who had recognised him in the street, and he was forthwith shot.
Of the countless victims who succumbed to the murderous lusts of the victors, both during the fight and after it, those bourgeois elements that waxed indignant over the terrorism of the Commune had nothing to say. On the contrary, they had not words enough to express their furious condemnation, when they came to speak of the five dozen hostages who, after the downfall of the Commune, fell victims to the vengeance and irresponsibility of some of the Versailles Party.
It is this very account of the affair with the hostages that proves most clearly how far removed the Commune was from any form of terrorism. In the whole of history there is no mention of a civil war, hardly of a national war, in which one side, in spite of the murderous inhumanity of the other side, upheld in practice the principles of humanity with such noble determination, and in such contrast to the bloodthirsty phrases of a few of the “Radicalinskis,” such as appeared in the French Civil War of 1871. This is the reason why the Second Paris Commune ended quite differently from the First, which had formed such a fearful Regiment of Terror.
The Regiment of Terror of the First Commune fell to pieces, without the workers of Paris offering any opposition. Indeed, its fall was felt as a relief by some, and by many even greeted with satisfaction. When, on the Ninth Thermidor, 1794, the forces of the two opposing parties came into contact, the followers of Robespierre turned tail before a single shot was fired, and fled. On the other hand, the Parisians clung to the Second Paris Commune with fanatical tenacity to the very end. The fiercest street fighting, was necessary for a whole week, before it could be overcome. The number of. victims, of dead, wounded, prisoners and escaped, which resulted from the death struggle of the Commune, reached the number of 100,000. (In July, 1871, the number was put at 90,000—Bourgin, “La Commune,” page 188.)
The Second Commune was tom asunder by violent opposition. We have seen this in the enmity of the two parties engaged in the last struggle. But never did one of these parties ever oppress the other by terrorist means. The Maximalists (“Bolshevik” means Maximalist in English) and the Minimalists (Eussian “Mensheviks”) fought together, in spite of all, to the bitter end; and so all factions of Socialism in the Commune foresaw the necessity of common representation of the whole of the fighting proletariat. In recognising this they combined the views of Marx and Bakunin, Lassalle and Eisenach. The first government of the proletariat has engraved itself deep in the hearts of those who craved for the emancipation of humanity. The powerful effect of this “dictatorship of the proletariat” on the fight for emancipation in all countries was due, not a little, to the fact that it was. inspired throughout with a spirit of humanity, which animated the working classes of the nineteenth century.