This, the most celebrated, defining example of a commune, saw the City of Paris run as a revolutionary proto-socialist state for two months in 1871. It followed the messy endgame of the Franco-Prussian War, when, after French defeat at the Battle of Sedan in September 1870, the Third Republic was proclaimed, and fighting continued, only to see Paris besieged for four months, its residents reduced to eating rats. Finally in January 1871, the provisional French government sued for peace.
In the power vacuum that followed, the National Guard in Paris, dominated by left-wing revolutionaries, seized power and a red flag was hoisted over the Hotel de Ville. Elections held in March, resulted in a new Commune Council consisting of nine committees and with no single leader. A flurry of decrees followed, abolishing the death penalty, dividing Church and State, regulating working hours and establishing free schooling, while steps towards the emancipation of women began, with demands for gender and wage equality.
However, in late May the army moved to reconquer Paris, and in “the Bloody Week” that followed at least 7,000 “communards” were summarily executed. But though the Paris Commune collapsed quickly in failure, it was hailed by Karl Marx as a “dictatorship of the proletariat” – a step towards the hoped-for classless society to come. I (rgw)
