Our goal is to draw attention to the history and research relating to The Commune of Paris, the Communes of the Province and the movements around The Commune which developed in France in 1871. We hope this will open new paths of knowledge and expand the geographical and temporal scope of the Commune so that lessons from the Commune may inform modern forms of activism and social struggle. Martyrs of the Paris Commune. Theses on the Paris Commune (Debord, Kotanyi & Vaneigem) “The classical workers movement must be reexamined without any illusions, particularly without any illusions regarding its various political and pseudotheoretical heirs, because all they have inherited is its failure. The apparent successes of this movement are actually its fundamental failures (reformism or the establishment of a state bureaucracy), while its failures (the Paris Commune or the 1934 Asturian revolt) are its most promising successes so far, for us and for the future” (Internationale Situationniste #7).
The Commune was the biggest festival of the nineteenth century. Underlying the events of that spring of 1871 one can see the insurgents’ feeling that they had become the masters of their own history, not so much on the level of “governmental” politics as on the level of their everyday life. (Consider, for example, the games everyone played with their weapons: they were in fact playing with power.) The Commune had no leaders. 1. 3. [Other Situationist Texts] The Paris Commune. First Published in 1871 Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY. This work, like all my published work, of which there has not been a great deal, is an outgrowth of events. It is the natural continuation of my Letters to a Frenchman (September 1870), wherein I had the easy but painful distinction of foreseeing and foretelling the dire calamities which now beset France and the whole civilized world, the only cure for which is the Social Revolution.
My purpose now is to prove the need for such a revolution. I shall review the historical development of society and what is now taking place in Europe, right before our eyes. Thus all those who sincerely thirst for truth can accept it and proclaim openly and unequivocally the philosophical principles and practical aims which are at the very core of what we call the Social Revolution. I know my self-imposed task is not a simple one.
Well, then, who am I, and what is it that prompts me to publish this work at this time? The Paris Commune of 1871 and the Bibliotheque Nationale | Library Trends. In Search of..... - TV.com www.tv.com/shows/in-search-of Narrarated by Leonard Nimoy, In search of was a 30 minute syndicated show that covered a wide range of paranormal topics. It pioneered a lot of the methodology that ... Search Engine - Download.com download.cnet.com/s/search-engine search engine free download - GSA Search Engine Ranker, Nomao - The personalized search engine, Zoom Search Engine, and many more programs Google Search - Download.com download.cnet.com/s/google-search google search free download - Google Search, Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer, Google Search, and many more programs Star Search - Episode Guide - TV.com www.tv.com/shows/star-search-2003/episodes Star Search episode guides on TV.com.
Boron on Spain’s “Indignant” and the Paris Commune | Machetera. Spain: The “Indignant” and the Paris Commune - español By Atilio Boron Translation: Machetera Perhaps it’s one of history’s surprises that the popular uprising surging through Spain today (and which is beginning to reverberate throughout the rest of Europe) was sparked on the 140th anniversary of the Paris Commune, a heroic moment in which the fundamental demand was also that of democracy.
But a democracy conceived as a government by, for, and of the people, and not as a regime serving corporate interests of the propertied classes while the people’s interests are inexorably subordinated to the imperative of business profits. The Commune did not believe in bourgeois institutions, viewing them as incurably deceitful, because it knew that this cumbersome framework of laws, norms and governmental agencies was solely concerned with consolidating the wealth and privileges of the dominant classes and with keeping the people under submission. Now nothing in Spain will be the same again. Like this: La Commune. Glorious Paris Commune , Glorieux Commune de Paris 1871. La Commune trailer - a Film & TV video. Theses on the Paris Commune - Situationist International. The Situationists reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of a great revolutionary moment; "the biggest festival of the nineteenth century".
"...it is time we examine the Commune not just as an outmoded example of revolutionary primitivism, all of whose mistakes can easily be overcome, but as a positive experiment whose whole truth has yet to be rediscovered and fulfilled. " “The classical workers movement must be reexamined without any illusions, particularly without any illusions regarding its various political and pseudotheoretical heirs, because all they have inherited is its failure.
The apparent successes of this movement are actually its fundamental failures (reformism or the establishment of a state bureaucracy), while its failures (the Paris Commune or the 1934 Asturian revolt) are its most promising successes so far, for us and for the future” (Internationale Situationniste #7). The Commune was the biggest festival of the nineteenth century. The Commune had no leaders. 1. The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State - Mikhail Bakunin. Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin on the Paris Commune and the idea of government and the state. This work, like all my published work, of which there has not been a great deal, is an outgrowth of events. It is the natural continuation of my Letters to a Frenchman (September 1870), wherein I had the easy but painful distinction of foreseeing and foretelling the dire calamities which now beset France and the whole civilized world, the only cure for which is the Social Revolution.
My purpose now is to prove the need for such a revolution. I shall review the historical development of society and what is now taking place in Europe, right before our eyes. Thus all those who sincerely thirst for truth can accept it and proclaim openly and unequivocally the philosophical principles and practical aims which are at the very core of what we call the Social Revolution. I know my self-imposed task is not a simple one. This divergence leads to a difference in tactics. A workers' cooperative during the Paris Commune - Robert Tombs. Storming Heaven: The Paris Commune. Saturday, 28 May 2011 16:59 Written by Charles Brown P√®re Lachaise cemetery in Paris’s 20th arrondissement is a place of silent, crumbling beauty and a destination for those seeking the last resting places of political and cultural figures from Wilde and Balzac to Jim Morrison. 140 years ago this week it was far from silent.
In the last days of May 1871 its avenues of tombs, gravestones were the macabre setting for a battle and provided the last line of defence of the world’s first experiment in workers’ self-government. P√®re Lachaise is where the Paris Commune was finally crushed by the Versailles government. But for a little over two months, the Commune saw the working class take the tiller of history and begin to offer a concrete vision of what a society without exploitation might look like. Karl Marx grasped the significance of the Commune. From war to revolution From their positions in the outskirts of Paris, the Prussians subjected the city to continual shelling. The Paris Commune. Le 18 mars 1871 commençait la Commune de Paris. Il y a 118 ans, le 18 mars 1871, tandis qu'Adolphe Thiers, chef du gouvernement provisoire de la République, s'enfuiyait à Versailles avec tous les corps constitués, commençait la Commune : les artisans, ouvriers et femmes du peuple prenaient le pouvoir à Paris.
"Le Comité central de la Garde nationale prit alors les choses en main. Il décida de relever le défi, d'assurer le ravitaillement et de diriger la cité jusqu'à l'organisation d'élections de nouveaux représentants à la tête de la Commune. Lors de ces élections, le 26 mars, de nombreux militants connus pour leurs idées révolutionnaires furent élus. Pendant les deux mois de liberté qui allaient suivre, une intense vie démocratique anima les quartiers, la population intervint librement dans les clubs. Les services publics (postes, monnaie, éclairage, pompiers, santé) furent réorganisés grâce au bon sens et au dévouement des volontaires. Pour se documenter sur cette insurrection, voici quelques liens : Montels, Jules, 1843-1916. A short biography of anarchist, Paris Communard and tutor to Leo Tolstoy's children, Jules Montels. Jules Montels was born in France at Gignac in the Herault department, on 25th March 1843.
As a young boy he experienced the uprising in 1851 against the coup of Louis Napoleon, which was followed by savage repression. These left bitter memories for him. Working either as a clerk or commercial traveller, he was in Paris when the Commune broke out. It is possible that he may have been a member of the First International at the time, although there is no solid evidence of this. He served as a colonel in the 12th Federated Legion of the Commune (Montels always harboured deep resentment against Karl Marx and his followers for Marx’s maligning of the Communards). With Emile Digeon, he participated in the short-lived Narbonne Commune.
He was one of the few French exiles to take this work seriously. He attended the Geneva Congress of the International in September 1873. Nick Heath. Bastelica, André, 1845-1884. A short biography of First International member, brilliant agitator and organiser of the Marseilles working class, André Bastelica. Born at Bastia in Corsica on 28th November 1845, Bastelica was from an early age, extremely curious. He was an autodidact par excellence, like so many other workers found in the revolutionary movement. An anarchist even before the term had been properly applied, he started his working life as a shop assistant and then as a typesetter. He joined the First International at the age of 23, and already demonstrated a great culture and knowledge. From the beginning of his membership, he showed his awareness of the need for an anti-authoritarian socialism. Writing to his comrade, the Lyons worker, Albert Richard, he said “We want non-government because we want non-property and vice versa.
Richard was to later comment on Bastelica that he “needed to live, to act, to produce… and to defend, in the light, the idea that was incarnated in him”. Nick Heath. Brocher-Rouchy, Victorine, 1838-1921. Biography of French anarchist Victorine Brocher-Rouchy, who fought in the Paris Commune and, in making her escape from the repression, was forced to leave her husband behind.
Victorine Brocher-Rouchy Born Paris, France 1838. Died Lausanne, Switzerland 1921 Victorine Malenfant was born in Paris in 1838, into a family with a long revolutionary tradition. Her father was a republican shoemaker and freemason. She became involved in republican and socialist activities in the 1850s. She married Jean Rouchy, an artisan shoemaker, in 1861 and participated with him in that decade in Orleans and Paris in several socialist groups, becoming involved in the First International from very early on. In 1867 she participated in the founding of a cooperative bakery and a cooperative shop. With her husband she was active in the Paris Commune (pictured above with a toppled statue of Napoleon), joining the Battalion for the Defence of the Republic with her husband on 20th March 1871. Luce, Maximilien, 1858-1941. Short biography of Neo-impressionist painter and anarchist Maximilien Luce. Maximilien Luce was born into a modest family in 1858 in Paris. From early youth he mixed with impoverished artisans and workers constructing the major roads and other works.
At the age of thirteen, he was an appalled witness of the massacres carried out by government forces against the revolutionaries of the Paris Commune of 1871. This was to haunt him for all his life. It was in 1887 that he began to reveal his talent. Luce was no theoretician but he absorbed the ideas of Seurat on painting, which became known as neo-impressionism. From 1897 he moved away from this “divisionist” style towards a more classic impressionism., whilst retaining his use of vibrant colours and thickly crowded spaces. He had contempt for the art dealers and journalists who he felt were totally ignorant of the aims of the neo-impressionists. This article appeared in issue 76 of Organise! Michel, Louise, 1830-1905. A short biography of French anarchist, Paris Communard, and national hero at the time, Louise Michel. Louise Michel was born on 29th May 1830. She was raised by her mother and paternal grandparents.
Her love and understanding of everything downtrodden, human and animal alike, developed from her empathy with her childhood world. Her compassion and sensitivity to suffering grew, as she grew. This, along with her instinct to rebel against social inequalities, led her along the revolutionary path. In January 1853 she took a position as a schoolmistress at Audelancourt. I have seen criminals and whores And spoken with them. You to whom all men are prey Have made them what they are today. War with Prussia On 14th July 1870, war broke out between France and Germany.
On 27th September, she was released, but Strasbourg had just fallen to the Prussians. In January 1871, Paris surrendered to the Prussians. The Paris Commune This became known as the Paris Commune. 1. Deported from France Arrested again. Pindy, Jean Louis, 1840-1917. A short biography of Jean Louis Pindy: Paris Communard, anarchist and inventor of the Paindy. “Authority, in whatever hands it is placed, is always pernicious to the advancement of humanity” Pindy, writing in La Revue Blanche.
Jean Louis Pindy was born on June 3rd at Brest in western France. A carpenter-joiner, he became a member of the Brest section of the First International in 1867. Moving up to Paris in the same year, he became heavily involved in workers organisation, and in a strike supported by the International where according to Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, he distinguished himself with his “vigour and bright intelligence”. He attended the Brussels Congress of the International in 1868 and the Basle Congress in 1869.
Here he formulated the idea that the groupings of societies of resistance (workers organisations) would form the Paris Commune of the future and government would be replaced by the council of trades bodies. Nick Heath. La Commune de Paris. Paris Commune. Chants de la Commune de Paris. La commune de Paris avec Monsieur Ferrat. Commune de Paris. La Commune: a lesson in audacity | Agnès Poirier. In France, the scandal surrounding Dominique Strauss-Kahn has unfortunately overshadowed a momentous celebration, the 140th anniversary of La Commune, mother of all rebellions. It only lasted two months and ultimately failed, yet its resonance has proved unequal, inspiring generations of thinkers, public policy makers, philosophers, economists and dreamers.
La Commune started on 18 March 1871 and ended in a bloodbath on 28 May. With the first (1792-99) and the second (1848-52) republic as models, La Commune meant to go further. And it did, with the most audacious public policies France had ever known. Insurrection sprang from Paris to put an end to Napoleon III's second empire, which had declared war against Prussia three months earlier.
Eventually, an armistice was signed in Versailles with a transitional government. Then came the general elections in February 1871. While the country elected a conservative assembly, Paris voted for radical republican leftists. Paris Commune Archive. The Paris Commune and Marx' Theory of Revolution. Paris Commune. History of the Paris Commune.
Timeline of the Paris Commune. History of the Paris Commune of 1871 by Lissagaray. The Civil War in France. Le site de la Commune de Paris (1871) Internet History Sourcebooks.