The Paris Commune of March to May 1871 is an event of monumental importance in the Revolutionary
History of class struggle, and specifically for the liberation of the working class.
The Commune was the first time that the workers seized the reins of power for themselves and
began to democratically administer the affairs of Paris in an embryonic Dictatorship of the
Proletariat. The response from France’s supposedly revolutionary Republican state was to crush the
commune violently through force of arms just two months after its establishment. But through its
short existence, the Paris Commune demonstrated that the working class can seize power through
its own disciplined action, and can organise society on a socialist basis for the benefit
of all. It is for that reason that revolutionaries continue to celebrate and study the Paris Commune.
Socialists today can significantly develop their understanding of Revolution and the construction
of socialist society and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat by studying the Paris Commune.
Rather than being any kind of comprehensive history of the events of the Commune, this video
will hopefully provide an analytical overview: an assessment of its triumphs and a look at its
failures, as well as outlining how the lessons of the Commune can be put into action today for
the revolutionary seizure of power by the working class and oppressed masses, and – crucially – how
to maintain that path without getting crushed by the forces of armed counter-revolution.
Before diving into it, this video has been made possible by Leftwingbooks.net, a radical left-wing
distributor based in Montreal, where you can find Kersplebedeb’s publications, as well as numerous
other anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, feminist, and other left-wing texts.
Now, the Paris Commune is a piece of revolutionary history that’s shared by
both Marxists and Anarchists alike. And while this video provides a Marxist perspective on
the Commune, it’s important to study and learn from other progressive perspectives,
too, so as to avoid falling into one-sided analyses. Leftwingbooks.net offers a selection
of texts on the Paris Commune that you’ll find linked in the description box below,
many of which provide this Anarchist perspective into what happened.
The selection includes texts like The Commune, Paris: 1871, which includes writings by prominent
revolutionary anarchists like Louise Michel, Bakunin, and Kropotkin; The Paris Commune:
A Revolution in Democracy by Donny Gluckstein; and the excellent Communist Insurgent: Blanqui's
Politics of Revolution by Doug Enaa Greene. Leftwingbooks.net is currently offering a
10% discount to viewers of this channel, by using the Coupon Code “DESTROYCAPITALISM”.
This Coupon Code works not only on the Paris Commune selection, but applies to everything
available on Leftwingbooks.net – but get over there ASAP as this offer expires on the 15th
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A massive thanks to Leftwingbooks.net for sponsoring this video and making
its production possible, as well as for helping to spread the revolutionary political message
through their work. And now back to the video. The Paris Commune began on the 18th of March,
1871, when the Parisian National Guard, supported by the workers of the city, rose up against
attempts by the government of France to disarm them in order to stop them taking revolutionary
action. The background to this event centres on the increasing radicalism of the Parisian
National Guard during the Franco-Prussian War when the regiments had become deeply influenced
by radical working-class ideals and particularly the positions being advocated by Karl Marx and
Louis Auguste Blanqui, who were openly preaching the need for proletarian revolution. In fact,
it was due to the October 31st 1870 Parisian uprising, led by Blanqui - which the French state
were keen to avoid a repeat of - that they now were so intent on disarming the National Guard.
With the revolutionary intent rising in the lead up to the 18th of March, the French state had also
moved to arrest Blanqui so as to deprive the Parisian Revolutionaries of one of their key
leaders, a move that would certainly have strong implications for the commune as Marx would later
point out. What this early action by the Parisian Revolutionaries demonstrated is that the working
class must be armed for the purpose of revolution, and must have their own independent fighting
organisations to wage that revolution and defend its gains. Drawing on the experience of the Paris
Commune and the proletarian revolutions that have taken place since that time,
Marxism today advocates that the working class needs its own revolutionary proletarian Party,
its People’s Army, and its United Front to successfully defeat the forces of reaction and
carry forward the construction of socialism. With the attempts to disarm the National Guard
successfully resisted, the Parisian workers found themselves in control of the city, and quickly
began to organise themselves to take control of the reins of power. The ammunition stores in the
city were quickly taken under workers control, as well as key strategic buildings in the city,
where the Red Flag was hoisted and the demand for a socialist republic was heard. As Marx and
Engels later stated, the workers of Paris soon found that they would not be able to administer
power by using the old organs of the reactionary state, simply taking hold of the “ready-made state
machinery, and wield[ing] it for [their] own purposes”, but would instead need to develop
new ones. Effectively, the Paris commune was the first successful, though short-lived, attempt of
the working class to build New Power. In order to wield this new power then, the workers of Paris
quickly elected a Commune leadership, by universal male suffrage, each delegate representative of
20,000 citizens and recallable at any time if found to be failing in their role. Despite major
shortcomings that are clear in hindsight today from the 2020s, such as the lack of women’s
ability to vote, the commune was beginning to carve out the makings of proletarian democracy.
Blanqui, though imprisoned by the French State, was elected the honorary President of the Commune,
a symbol of the widespread understanding that it was by revolutionary action that the working
class would come to power. The repressive arms of the French State, mainly the police and the army,
were disbanded. Barricades and the People’s militia were built to defend the gains of
the Commune, and public services were reorganised to serve the needs of the citizens. In this way,
the commune showed what new power could be. The working class was organising itself
through proletarian democracy, was defending its gains through an armed People’s militia and was
organising centrally and collectively to meet the needs of all citizens. The programme of the
commune was radical, progressive and secular. In rejecting the government of the third
French Republic, and striking out for its own working-class Government, the Commune declared:
The Separation of church and State Remission of rents owed from the siege of Paris.
Abolition of child labour Abolition of night work in bakeries
Granting pensions to unmarried companions and children of National
Guardsmen killed on active service Free return by pawnshops of workers’
tools to the value of 20 francs Postponement of commercial debt and
the abolition of interest on such debt The right of workers to take over and
run businesses abandoned by employers With these developments the Paris Commune
was showing that the Proletarian Revolution doesn’t end with the seizure of power, but in
fact only truly begins. Revolutionary principles must be implemented to cement the Dictatorship of
the Proletariat and advance the construction of socialism. The gains of the Revolution must be
defended through force of arms by the People’s army and the forces of reaction must not be
allowed to organise. New power must build the structures of the new revolutionary state and
must put these structures to work for the benefit of all citizens. Despite only having two months,
the communards were beginning their attempt at implementing such a strategy, and it was
for this reason that the forces of reaction needed to crush the commune so violently before
its revolutionary ideals brought the working class to power across the entire country.
With this brief overview, it’s important to emphasise once more the revolutionary
significance of the commune, before moving on to criticism. Through their own organised and
disciplined Revolutionary Action, the workers of Paris seized control of power and organised
a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, utilising proletarian democracy. In embryonic form, for its
two-month existence, the commune began to build new power, the genesis of a proletarian state,
partially defeating the old reactionary state within Paris by successfully disbanding their
enemy’s armed forces, bringing freedom to the citizens of the commune. The gains of the commune
were defended by the armed People’s Militia who also kept revolutionary order and the new system
allowed revolutionary ideals to flourish and the international working class gained massive
experience in revolutionary action. However, the commune also had considerable failings,
many of which contributed to its short life. So our analysis will now turn to critique of
some of these failings to show what workers can learn from and do differently moving forwards.
One of the major failings of the commune was its isolation. Inspired by the growing revolutionary
tide, the Blanquists in the leadership of the Commune proposed marching on the French
Government at Versailles to overthrow them and to spread the rule of the working class to all
of France. Others in the leadership, primarily anarchists, opposed this plan, believing that for
the time being they should instead concentrate on Paris and establish a federation with other cities
to build nationally later. Marx and Engels would later classify this as one of the main mistakes of
the commune because when it had the Revolutionary momentum, it faltered by deciding to play it
somewhat safe. Despite this criticism, Marx and Engels recognised the commune as the first
example of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, imperfect though it may have been. The Blanquists
had more or less been correct and their plan, if implemented, could have strengthened the commune
by building the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and working-class power base across the country.
This failure would later lead Marx and Engels to assert that despite their differences, Blanqui was
the leader that the Commune and the Revolution lacked. This failing should teach the working
class today that the fighting organisations of our class must always seize the revolutionary
momentum and strike while the iron is hot. Linked to this failure, though somewhat different,
is that the commune, while a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, was not ideologically united,
and was effectively a United Front, with ideological contradictions within it.
While the new power will come from such a United Front, Marxists understand that an
ideologically cohesive core, such as the proletarian revolutionary party,
is needed to drive the revolutionary process. There was no communist party at the centre
of the commune and it was instead led by Blanquists and Anarchists with ideological
differences between them. This allowed for less revolutionarily advanced members of the commune to
come to the fore and make incorrect decisions that affected the very existence of the commune itself.
From this we learn that the United Front must always be carefully guided under the leadership
of the Revolutionary Party - the United Front alone being a poor substitute for the leadership
of an ideologically cohesive proletarian revolutionary party where one is lacking.
One such failing arising from this was the failure to establish a concrete People’s Army,
relying instead on an informal people’s militia, that - while dedicated and heroic in its own
right - lacked the structure and military level of organising to stand against the national army
when the counter offensive came, with the result being that the Commune was crushed
and at least 6,000 Communards were massacred. As Marxists we know that without power all is
an illusion, and that power must be won by the proletariat and defended by the force of arms
of the Revolutionary People’s Army. A further failing of the Commune was
allowing non-revolutionary elements to control the finance of the commune and
to leave intact the gold reserves of the French national bank in Paris. Instead,
the commune sought loans to pay debts in the way of the old system rather than breaking with the
old financial ideas and spending the gold for the good of the commune and its citizens. Again,
this is one of the most significant failings of the commune pointed out by Marx and Engels, and it
demonstrates to revolutionaries today that we owe nothing to the bourgeois system and should never
have revolutionary finances tempered by trying to remain within the bourgeoisie’s confines.
There are many lessons to be drawn from the experience of the Paris Commune for
revolutionaries today. As this short video has shown, Marxists correctly recognise it as the
first successfully established Dictatorship of the Proletariat in history, indeed the first attempted
proletarian democracy. For this reason alone, it is a world-historic event. The commune shows
that the proletariat can seize power through disciplined action and can defend it through
force of arms. It shows that the working class can organise itself through the Dictatorship
of the Proletariat for the building of new power, the construction of socialism and the
transition to communism. It shows that through the implementation of scientific socialist principles,
society can be organised cooperatively and collectively for the benefit of all,
instead of the profits of the few. The triumph and failures of the Commune give revolutionaries
real-world experience to learn from for the decades ahead when we carry forward the fight
against the reactionary capitalist system for the seizure of power and the inevitable triumph
of the proletariat in our world-historic task of the establishment of communism.
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