KARL MARX
THE
CIVIL WAR
IN
FRANCE
FOREIGN LANGUAGES PRESS
PEKING
First Edition 1966
Second Edition 1974
Third Edition 1977
Prepared ©for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, djr@cruzio.com (January 1998)
PDF created by dudeman5685@yahoo.com
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
The present English edition of Karl Marx's The Civil War in France is compiled according to the
Chinese edition of the same book, published by the People's Publishing House, Peking, in May
1964. Engels' introduction and the three Addresses of the General Council of the International
Working Men's Association on the Franco-Prussian War and on the Civil War in France are
reprinted from the text given in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, English edition,
Moscow, 1951, Vol. I. The two drafts of The Civil War in France follow the English text in the
Archives of Marx and Engels, Moscow, 1934, Vol. Ill (VIII). Obvious corrections of spelling or
grammar are not indicated. Necesrary additions of words and translations of French and German
words and passages which appeared in Marx's manuscript are put in square brackets.
The footnotes and notes at the end of the book are compiled by us from various sources.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION by Frederick Engels 1
FIRST ADDRESS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF
THE INTER-
NATIONAL WORKING MEN'S ASSOCIATION ON 1 9
THE
FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR
SECOND ADDRESS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
OF THE INTER-
NATIONAL WORKING MEN'S ASSOCIATION ON 27
THE
FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR
THE CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE Address of the
General 39
Council of the International Working Men's Association
I 41
n 55
III 66
IV 87
NOTES 104
I 104
n 105
THE DRAFTS OF THE CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE 1 09
{Transcriber's Note: This will be prepared as a separate file at a LATER date. - DJR]
The First Draft of THE CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE 1 1 1
The Government of Defence 111
The Commune 156
1 Measures for the Working Class 1 - .
" Measures for [the] Working Class, but Mostly for the 1 - 8
' Middle Classes 1 - Q
' General Measures 1 ^ 1
' Measures of Public Safety .^ A
Financial Measures
La Commune 164
The Rise of the Commune and the Central Committee 164
The Character of the Commune 169
Peasantry Union (J Ague) Renuhlicaine 179
The Communal Revolution as the Representative of All 184
Classes of Society Not Living upon Foreign Labour 185
Republic Only Possible as Avowedly Social Republic 186
The Commune (Social Measures) 188
Decentralization by the Ruraux and the Commune 193
[Fragments] 199
The Second Draft of THE CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE 21 1
1)
Government of Defence. Trochu, Favre, Picard, Ferry, as
the
5)
[Transcriber's Note: There is no section 4. - DJR]
Opening of the Civil War. [The] 18 March Revolution.
211
Deputies of Paris
* Thiers, Dufaure, Pouyer-Quertier
The Rural Assembly
224
. Clément Thomas. Lecomte. The Vendome Affair
The Commune .„
Schluss 1A
[Fragments]
NOTES 261
INTRODUCTION
by Frederick Engels
I did not anticipate that I would be asked to prepare a new edition of the
Address of the General Council of the International on The Civil War in France,
and to write an introduction to it. Therefore I can only touch briefly here on the
most important points.
I am prefacing the longer work mentioned above by the two shorter Addresses
of the General Council on the Franco-Prussian War. In the first place, because the
second of these, which itself cannot be fully understood without the first, is
referred to in The Civil War. But also because these two Addresses, likewise
drafted by Marx, are, no less than The Civil War, outstanding examples of the
author's remarkable gift, first proved in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte ^] for grasping clearly the character, the import and the necessary
consequences of great historical events, at a time when these events are still in
progress before our eyes or have only just taken place. And, finally, because today
we in Germany are still having to endure the
page 2
consequences which Marx predicted would follow from these events.
Has that which was declared in the first Address not come to pass: that if
Germany's defensive war against Louis Bonaparte degenerated into a war of
conquest against the French people, all the misfortunes which befell Germany
after the so-called wars of liberation^] would revive again with renewed intensity?
Have we not had a further twenty years of Bismarck's rule, the Exceptional Law
and Socialist baiting taking the place of the prosecutions of "demagogues, "[4] with
the same arbitrary action of the police and with literally the same staggering
interpretations of the law?
And has not the prediction been proved to the letter, that the annexation of
Alsace-Lorraine would "force France into the arms of Russia," and that after this
annexation Germany must either become the avowed servant of Russia, or must,
after some short respite, arm for a new war, and, moreover, "a war of races - a
war with the combined Slavonian and Roman races" ?[5j Has not the annexation of
the French provinces driven France into the arms of Russia? Has not Bismarck for
fully twenty years vainly wooed the favour of the Czar, wooed it with services
even more lowly than those which little Prussia, before it became the "first Power
in Europe," was wont to lay at Holy Russia's feet? And is there not every day still
hanging over our heads the Damocles' sword of war, on the first day of which all
the chartered covenants of princes will be scattered like chaff; a war of which
nothing is certain but the absolute uncertainty of its outcome; a race war which
will subject the whole of Europe to devastation by fifteen or twenty million armed
men, and which is not raging already only because even the strongest of the great
military
page 3
states shrinks before the absolute incalculability of its final result?
All the more is it our duty to make again accessible to the German workers
these brilliant proofs, now half-forgotten, of the far-sightedness of international
working-class policy in 1870.
What is true of these two Addresses is also true of The Civil War in France. On
May 28, the last fighters of the Commune succumbed to superior forces on the
slopes of Belleville; and only two days later, on May 30, Marx read to the General
Council the work in which the historical significance of the Paris Commune is
delineated in short, powerful strokes, but with such trenchancy, and above all
such truth, as has never again been attained in all the mass of literature on this
subject.
Thanks to the economic and political development of France since 1789, Paris
has been placed for the last fifty years in such a position that no revolution could
break out there without assuming a proletarian character, that is to say, without
the proletariat, which had bought victory with its blood, coming forward with its
own demands after the victory. These demands were more or less unclear and
even confused, corresponding to the state of development reached by the workers
of Paris at the particular period, but in the last resort they all amounted to the
abolition of the class antagonism between capitalists and workers. It is true that no
one knew how this was to be brought about. But the demand itself, however
indefinitely it still was couched, contained a threat to the existing order of society;
the workers who put it forward were still armed; therefore, the disarming of the
workers was the first commandment for the bourgeois, who were at the helm of
the state. Hence, after every
page 4
revolution won by the workers, a new struggle, ending with the defeat of the
workers.
This happened for the first time in 1848. The liberal bourgeois of the
parliamentary opposition held banquets for securing a reform of the franchise,
which was to ensure supremacy for their party. Forced more and more, in their
struggle with the government, to appeal to the people, they had gradually to yield
precedence to the radical and republican strata of the bourgeoisie and petty
bourgeoisie. But behind these stood the revolutionary workers, and since 1830
they had acquired far more political independence than the bourgeois, and even
the republicans, suspected. At the moment of the crisis between the government
and the opposition, the workers began street-fighting; Louis Philippe vanished,
and with him the franchise reform; and in its place arose the republic, and indeed
one which the victorious workers themselves designated as a "social" republic. No
one, however, was clear as to what this social republic was to imply; not even the
workers themselves. But they now had arms and were a power in the state.
Therefore, as soon as the bourgeois republicans in control felt something like firm
ground under their feet, their first aim was to disarm the workers. This took place
by driving them into the insurrection of June 1848 by direct breach of faith, by
open defiance and the attempt to banish the unemployed to a distant province. The
government had taken care to have an overwhelming superiority of force. After
five days' heroic struggle, the workers were defeated. And then followed a blood-
bath among the defenceless prisoners, the like of which has not been seen since
the days of the civil wars which ushered in the downfall of the Roman republic. It
was the first time that the bourgeoisie showed to what insane cruelties of
page 5
revenge it will be goaded the moment the proletariat dares to take its stand against
the bourgeoisie as a separate class, with its own interests and demands. And yet
1848 was only child's play compared with the frenzy of the bourgeoisie in 1871.
Punishment followed hard at heel. If the proletariat was not yet able to rule
France, the bourgeoisie could no longer do so. At least not at that period, when
the greater part of it was still monarchically inclined, and it was divided into three
dynastic parties[6] and a fourth, republican party. Its internal dissensions allowed
the adventurer Louis Bonaparte to take possession of all the commanding points -
army, police, administrative machinery - and, on December 2, 1851,m to explode
the last stronghold of the bourgeoisie, the National Assembly. The Second
Empire^ began - the exploitation of France by a gang of political and financial
adventurers, but at the same time also an industrial development such as had
never been possible under the narrow-minded and timorous system of Louis
Philippe, with the exclusive domination of only a small section of the big
bourgeoisie. Louis Bonaparte took the political power from the capitalists under
the pretext of protecting them, the bourgeois, from the workers, and on the other
hand the workers from them; but in return his rule encouraged speculation and
industrial activity - in a word, the upsurgence and enrichment of the whole
bourgeoisie to an extent hitherto unknown. To an even greater extent, it is true,
corruption and mass thievery developed, clustering around the imperial court, and
drawing their heavy percentages from this enrichment.
But the Second Empire was the appeal to French chauvinism, was the demand
for the restoration of the frontiers of the First Empire, which had been lost in
1814, or at least
page 6
those of the First Republic. A French empire within the frontiers of the old
monarchy and, in fact, within the even more amputated frontiers of 1815 - such a
thing was impossible for any length of time. Hence the necessity for occasional
wars and extensions of frontiers. But no extension of frontiers was so dazzling to
the imagination of the French chauvinists as the extension to the German left bank
of the Rhine. One square mile on the Rhine was more to them than ten in the Alps
or anywhere else. Given the Second Empire, the demand for the restoration of the
left bank of the Rhine, either all at once or piecemeal, was merely a question of
time. The time came with the Austro-Prussian War of 1866;[9] cheated of the
anticipated "territorial compensation" by Bismarck and by his own over-cunning,
hesitant policy, there was now nothing left for Napoleon but war, which broke out
in 1870 and drove him first to Sedan, and thence to Wilhelmshohe.[io]
The necessary consequence was the Paris Revolution of September 4, 1870.
The empire collapsed like a house of cards, and the republic was again
proclaimed. But the enemy was standing at the gates; the armies of the empire
were either hopelessly encircled at Metz or held captive in Germany. In this
emergency the people allowed the Paris deputies to the former legislative body to
constitute themselves into a "Government of National Defence." This was the
more readily conceded, since, for the purposes of defence, all Parisians capable of
bearing arms had enrolled in the National Guard and were armed, so that now the
workers constituted a great majority. But very soon the antagonism between the
almost completely bourgeois government and the armed proletariat broke into
open conflict. On October 31, workers' battalions stormed the town hall and
captured part
page 7
of the membership of the government. Treachery, the government's direct breach
of its undertakings, and the intervention of some petty-bourgeois battalions set
them free again, and in order not to occasion the outbreak of civil war inside a
city besieged by a foreign military power, the former government was left in
office.
At last, on January 28, 1871, starved Paris capitulated. But with honours
unprecedented in the history of war. The forts were surrendered, the city wall
stripped of guns, the weapons of the regiments of the line and of the Mobile
Guard were handed over, and they themselves considered prisoners of war. But
the National Guard kept its weapons and guns, and only entered into an armistice
with the victors. And these did not dare enter Paris in triumph. They only dared to
occupy a tiny corner of Paris, which, into the bargain, consisted partly of public
parks, and even this they only occupied for a few days! And during this time they,
who had maintained their encirclement of Paris for 131 days, were themselves
encircled by the armed workers of Paris, who kept a sharp watch that no
"Prussian" should overstep the narrow bounds of the corner ceded to the foreign
conqueror. Such was the respect which the Paris workers inspired in the army
before which all the armies of the empire had laid down their arms; and the
Prussian junkers, who had come to take revenge at the home of the revolution,
were compelled to stand by respectfully, and salute precisely this armed
revolution!
During the war the Paris workers had confined themselves to demanding the
vigorous prosecution of the fight. But now, when peace had come after the
capitulation of Paris, nu now Thiers, the new supreme head of the government,
was compelled to realize that the rule of the propertied classes - big
page 8
landowners and capitalists — was in constant danger so long as the workers of
Paris had arms in their hands. His first action was an attempt to disarm them. On
March 18, he sent troops of the line with orders to rob the National Guard of the
artillery belonging to it, which had been constructed during the siege of Paris and
had been paid for by public subscription. The attempt failed; Paris mobilized as
one man for resistance, and war between Paris and the French government sitting
at Versailles was declared. On March 26 the Paris Commune was elected and on
March 28 it was proclaimed. The Central Committee of the National Guard,
which up to then had carried on the government, handed in its resignation to the
Commune after it had first decreed the abolition of the scandalous Paris "Morality
Police." On March 30 the Commune abolished conscription and the standing
army, and declared the sole armed force to be the National Guard, in which all
citizens capable of bearing arms were to be enrolled. It remitted all payments of
rent for dwelling houses from October 1870 until April, the amounts already paid
to be booked as future rent payments, and stopped all sales of articles pledged in
the municipal loan office. On the same day the foreigners elected to the Commune
were confirmed in office, because "the flag of the Commune is the flag of the
World Republic. "[12] On April I it was decided that the highest salary to be
received by any employee of the Commune, and therefore also by its members
themselves, was not to exceed 6,000 francs (4,800 marks). On the following day
the Commune decreed the separation of the church from the state, and the
abolition of all state payments for religious purposes as well as the transformation
of all church property into national property; as a result of which, on April 8, the
exclusion from the schools of all
page 9
religious symbols, pictures, dogmas, prayers - in a word, "of all that belongs to
the sphere of the individual's conscience" - was ordered and gradually put into
effect. [in On the 5th, in reply to the shooting, day after day, of captured Commune
fighters by the Versailles troops, a decree was issued for the imprisonment of
hostages, but it was never carried into execution. On the 6th, the guillotine was
brought out by the 137th Battalion of the National Guard, and publicly burnt,
amid great popular rejoicing. On the 12th, the Commune decided that the Victory
Column on the Place Vendôme, which had been cast from captured guns by
Napoleon after the war of 1809, should be demolished as a symbol of chauvinism
and incitement to national hatred. This was carried out on May 16. On April 16 it
ordered a statistical tabulation of factories which had been closed down by the
manufacturers, and the working out of plans for the operation of these factories by
the workers formerly employed in them, who were to be organized in co-
operative societies, and also plans for the organization of these co-operatives in
one great union. On the 20th it abolished night work for bakers, and also the
employment offices, which since the Second Empire had been run as a monopoly
by creatures appointed by the police - labour exploiters of the first rank; these
offices were transferred to the mayoralties of the twenty arrondissements of Paris.
On April 30 it ordered the closing of the pawnshops, on the ground that they were
a private exploitation of the workers, and were in contradiction with the right of
the workers to their instruments of labour and to credit. On May 5 it ordered the
razing of the Chapel of Atonement, which had been built in expiation of the
execution of Louis XVI.
page 10
Thus from March 18 onwards the class character of the Paris movement, which
had previously been pushed into the background by the fight against the foreign
invaders, emerged sharply and clearly. As almost only workers, or recognized
representatives of the workers, sat in the Commune, its decisions bore a decidedly
proletarian character. Either these decisions decreed reforms which the republican
bourgeoisie had failed to pass solely out of cowardice, but which provided a
necessary basis for the free activity of the working class - such as the realization
of the principle that in relation to the state, religion is a purely private matter - or
the Commune promulgated decrees which were in the direct interest of the
working class and in part cut deeply into the old order of society. In a beleaguered
city, however, it was possible to make at most a start in the realization of all this.
And from the beginning of May onwards all their energies were taken up by the
fight against the armies assembled by the Versailles government in ever-growing
numbers.
On April 7 the Versailles troops had captured the Seine crossing at Neuilly, on
the western front of Paris; on the other hand, in an attack on the southern front on
the 1 1th they were repulsed with heavy losses by General Eudes. Paris was
continually bombarded and, moreover, by the very people who had stigmatized as
a sacrilege the bombardment of the same city by the Prussians. These same people
now begged the Prussian government for the hasty return of the French soldiers
taken prisoner at Sedan and Metz, in order that they might recapture Paris for
them. From the beginning of May the gradual arrival of these troops gave the
Versailles forces a decided superiority. This already became evident when, on
April 23, Thiers broke off the negotiations for the exchange, proposed by the
Commune, of the Archbishop of
page 11
Parism and a whole number of other priests held as hostages in Paris, for only one
man, Blanqui, who had twice been elected to the Commune but was a prisoner in
Clairvaux. And even more from the changed language of Thiers; previously
procrastinating and equivocal, he now suddenly be came insolent, threatening,
brutal. The Versailles forces took the redoubt of Moulin-Saquet on the southern
front, on May 3, on the 9th, Fort Issy, which had been completely reduced to ruins
by gunfire; on the 14th, Fort Vanves. On the western front they advanced
gradually, capturing the numerous villages and buildings which extended up to
the city wall, until they reached the main defences; on the 21st, thanks to
treachery and the carelessness of the National Guards stationed there, they
succeeded in forcing their way into the city. The Prussians, who held the northern
and eastern forts, allowed the Versailles troops to advance across the land north of
the city, which was forbidden ground to them under the armistice, and thus to
march forward, attacking on a wide front, which the Parisians naturally thought
covered by the armistice, and therefore held only weakly. As a result of this, only
a weak resistance was put up in the western half of Paris, in the luxury city
proper; it grew stronger and more tenacious the nearer the incoming troops
approached the eastern half, the working-class city proper. It was only after eight
days' fighting that the last defenders of the Commune succumbed on the heights
of Belleville and Ménilmontant; and then the massacre of defenceless men,
women and children, which had been raging all through the week on an increasing
scale, reached its zenith. The breechloaders could no longer kill fast enough; the
vanquished were shot down in
* Georges Darboy.
page 12
hundreds by mitrailleuse fire. The "Wall of the Federals''^] at the Pere-Lachaise
cemetery, where the final mass murder was consummated, is still standing today,
a mute but eloquent testimony to the frenzy of which the ruling class is capable as
soon as the working class dares to stand up for its rights. Then, when the slaughter
of them all proved to be impossible, came the mass arrests, the shooting of
victims arbitrarily selected from the prisoners' ranks, and the removal of the rest
to great camps where they awaited trial by courts martial. The Prussian troops
surrounding the northeastern half of Paris had orders not to allow any fugitives to
pass; but the officers often shut their eyes when the soldiers paid more obedience
to the dictates of humanity than to those of the Supreme Command; particular
honour is due to the Saxon army corps, which behaved very humanely and let
through many who were obviously fighters for the Commune.
If today, after twenty years, we look back at the activity and historical
significance of the Paris Commune of 1871, we shall hnd it necessary to make a
few additions to the account given in The Civil War in France.
The members of the Commune were divided into a majority, the Blanquists,
who had also been predominant in the Central Committee of the National Guard;
and a minority, members of the International Working Men's Association, chiefly
consisting of adherents of the Proudhon school of Socialism. The great majority
of the Blanquists were at that time Socialists only by revolutionary, proletarian
instinct; only a few had attained greater clarity on principles, through Vaillant,
who was familiar with German scientific Socialism. It is therefore
comprehensible that in the economic sphere
page 13
much was left undone which, according to our view today, the Commune ought to
have done. The hardest thing to understand is certainly the holy awe with which
they remained standing respectfully outside the gates of the Bank of France. This
was also a serious political mistake. The bank in the hands of the Commune - this
would have been worth more than ten thousand hostages. It would have meant the
pressure of the whole of the French bourgeoisie on the Versailles government in
favour of peace with the Commune. But what is still more wonderful is the
correctness of much that nevertheless was done by the Commune, composed as it
was of Blanquists and Proudhonists. Naturally, the Proudhonists were chielly
responsible for the economic decrees of the Commune, both for their
praiseworthy and their unpraiseworthy aspects; as the Blanquists were for its
political commissions and omissions. And in both cases the irony of history
willed - as is usual when doctrinaires come to the helm - that both did the
opposite of what the doctrines of their school prescribed.
Proudhon, the Socialist of the small peasant and master craftsman, regarded
association with positive hatred. He said of it that there was more bad than good
in it; that it was by nature sterile, even harmful, because it was a fetter on the
freedom of the worker; that it was a pure dogma, unproductive and burdensome,
in conflict as much with the freedom of the worker as with economy of labour;
that its disadvantages multiplied more swiftly than its advantages; that, as
compared with it, competition, division of labour and private property were
economic forces. Only in the exceptional cases - as Proudhon called them - of
large-scale industry and large establishments, such as railways, was the
page 14
association of workers in place. (See General Idea of the Revolution, 3rd
sketch.)[i5]
By 1871, large-scale industry had already so much ceased to be an exceptional
case even in Paris, the centre of artistic handicrafts, that by far the most important
decree of the Commune instituted an organization of large-scale industry and
even of manufacture which was not only to be based on the association of the
workers in each factory, but also to combine all these associations in one great
union; in short, an organization which, as Marx quite rightly says in The Civil
War, must necessarily have led in the end to Communism, that is to say, the direct
opposite of the Proudhon doctrine. And, therefore, the Commune was also the
grave of the Proudhon school of Socialism. Today this school has vanished from
French working-class circles; here, among the Possibilist[i6] no less than among
the "Marxists," Marx's theory now rules unchallenged. Only among the "radical"
bourgeoisie are there still Proudhonists.
The Blanquists fared no better. Brought up in the school of conspiracy, and
held together by the strict discipline which went with it, they started out from the
viewpoint that a relatively small number of resolute, well-organized men would
be able, at a given favourable moment, not only to seize the helm of state, but also
by a display of great, ruthless energy, to maintain power until they succeeded in
sweeping the mass of the people into the revolution and ranging them round the
small band of leaders. This involved, above all, the strictest, dictatorial
centralization of all power in the hands of the new revolutionary government. And
what did the Commune, with its majority of these same Blanquists, actually do?
In all its proclamations to the French in the provinces, it appealed to them to form
a free federation of all
page 15
French Communes with Paris, a national organization which for the first time was
really to be created by the nation itself. It was precisely the oppressing power of
the former centralized government - the army, political police and bureaucracy
which Napoleon had created in 1798 and which since then had been taken over by
every new government as a welcome instrument and used against its opponents —
it was precisely this power which was to fall everywhere, just as it had already
fallen in Paris.
From the very outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the
working class, once come to power, could not go on managing with the old state
machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this
working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive
machinery previously used against itself, and, on the other, safeguard itself
against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception,
subject to recall at any moment. What had been the characteristic at tribute of the
former state? Society had created its own organs to look after its common
interests, originally through simple division of labour. But these organs, at whose
head was the state power, had in the course of time, in pursuance of their own
special interests, transformed themselves from the servants of society into the
masters of society. This can be seen, for example, not only in the hereditary
monarchy, but equally so in the democratic republic. Nowhere do "politicians"
form a more separate and powerful section of the nation than precisely in North
America. There, each of the two major parties which alternately succeed each
other in power is itself in turn controlled by people who make a business of
politics, who speculate on seats in the legislative assemblies of the Union as well
as of the separate states, or
page 16
who make a living by carrying on agitation for their party and on its victory are
rewarded with positions. It is well known how the Americans have been trying for
thirty years to shake off this yoke, which has become intolerable, and how in spite
of it all they continue to sink ever deeper in this swamp of corruption. It is
precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the
state power making itself independent in relation to society, whose mere
instrument it was originally intended to be. Here there exists no dynasty, no
nobility, no standing army, beyond the few men keeping watch on the Indians, no
bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions. And nevertheless we
find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession
of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most
corrupt ends — and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of
politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality dominate and plunder it.
Against this transformation of the state and the organs of the state from
servants of society into masters of society - an inevitable transformation in all
previous states - the Commune made use of two infallible means. In the first
place, it filled all posts — administrative, judicial and educational — by election on
the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, subject to the right of recall at any
time by the same electors. And, in the second place, all officials, high or low,
were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by
the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to
place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to
delegates to representative bodies which were added besides.
page 17
This shattering [Sprengung ] of the former state power and its replacement by a
new and truly democratic one is described in detail in the third section of The
Civil War. But it was necessary to dwell briefly here once more on some of its
features, because in Germany particularly the superstitious belief in the state has
been carried over from philosophy into the general consciousness of the
bourgeoisie and even of many workers. According to the philosophical
conception, the state is the "realization of the Idea," or the Kingdom of God on
earth, as translated into philosophical terms, the sphere in which eternal truth and
justice is or should be realized. And from this follows a superstitious reverence
for the state and everything connected with it, which takes root the more readily
since people are accustomed from childhood to imagine that the affairs and
interests common to the whole of society could not be looked after otherwise than
as they have been looked after in the past, that is, through the state and its
lucratively positioned officials. And people think they have taken quite an
extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in
hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however,
the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and
indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil
inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose
worst sides the victorious proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having
to lop off at once as much as possible until such time as a generation reared in
new, free social conditions is able to throw out the entire lumber of the state.
Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with
wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship
page 18
of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this
dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of
the Proletariat. .
F. Engels
London, on the twentieth anniversary
of the Paris Commune, March 18, 1891
Published in Die Neue Zeit, No. 28 The original text is in German
(Vol. II), 1890-91, and in the sep-
arate edition of Marx's The Civil Translated from German
War in France, Berlin, 1891
page 19
FIRST ADDRESS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN'S
ASSOCIATION
ON THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WARmi
To the Members of the International Working Men's
Association in Europe and the United States
In the Inaugural Address of the International Working Men's Association, of
November 1864, we said: "If the emancipation of the working classes requires
their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfil that great mission with a foreign
policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices, and
squandering in piratical wars the people's blood and treasure?" We defined the
foreign policy aimed at by the International in these words: "Vindicate the simple
laws of morals and justice, which ought to govern the relations of private
individuals, as the laws paramount of the intercourse of nations. "[is]
No wonder that Louis Bonaparte, who usurped his power by exploiting the war
of classes in France, and perpetuated
page 20
it by periodical wars abroad, should, from the first, have treated the International
as a dangerous foe. On the eve of the plebiscite he ordered a raid on the members
of the Administrative Committees of the International Working Men's Association
throughout France, at Paris, Lyons, Rouen, Marseilles, Brest, etc., on the pretext
that the International was a secret society dabbling in a complot for his
assassination, a pretext soon after exposed in its full absurdity by his own
judges. [19] What was the real crime of the French branches of the International?
They told the French people publicly and emphatically that voting the plebiscite
was voting despotism at home and war abroad. It has been, in fact, their work that
in all the great towns, in all the industrial centres of France, the working class rose
like one man to reject the plebiscite. Unfortunately the balance was turned by the
heavy ignorance of the rural districts. The stock exchanges, the cabinets, the
ruling classes and the press of Europe celebrated the plebiscite as a signal victory
of the French emperor over the French working class; and it was the signal for the
assassination, not of an individual, but of nations.
The war plot of July 1870[20] is but an amended edition of the coup d'etat of
December 1851.[2y At first view the thing seemed so absurd that France would
not believe in its real good earnest. It rather believed the deputy* denouncing the
ministerial war talk as a mere stock-jobbing trick When, on July 15th, war was at
last officially announced to the Corps législatif, the whole opposition
refused to vote the preliminary subsidies - even Thiers branded it as "de-
* Jules Favre.
page 21
testable"; all the independent journals of Paris condemned it, and, wonderful to
relate, the provincial press joined in almost unanimously.
Meanwhile, the Paris members of the International had again set to work. In the
Reveil \m of July 12th they published their manifesto "to the workmen of all
nations," from which we extract the following few passages:
"Once more," they say, "on the pretext of the European equilibrium, of national honour, the
peace of the world is menaced by political ambitions. French, German, Spanish workmen! Let our
voices unite in one cry of reprobation against war! . . . War for a question of preponderance or a
dynasty can, in the eyes of workmen, be nothing but a criminal absurdity. In answer to the warlike
proclamations of those who exempt themselves from the impost of blood, and find in public
misfortunes a source of fresh speculations, we protest, we who want peace, labour and liberty! . . .
Brothers of Germany! Our division would only result in the complete triumph of despotism on
both sides of the Rhine. . . . Workmen of all countries! Whatever may for the present become of
our common efforts, we, the members of the International Working Men's Association, who know
of no frontiers, we send you, as a pledge of indissoluble solidarity, the good wishes and the
salutations of the workmen of France."
This manifesto of our Paris section was followed by numerous similar French
addresses, of which we can here only quote the declaration of Neuilly-sur-Seine,
published in the Marseillaise \m of July 22nd:
"The war, is it just? - No! The war, is it national? - No! It is merely dynastic. In the name of
humanity, of democracy, and the true interests of France, we adhere completely and energetically
to the protestation of the International against the war."
These protestations expressed the true sentiments of the French working
people, as was soon shown by a curious incident. The Band of the Tenth of
December, xm first organ-
page 22
ized under the presidency of Louis Bonaparte, having been masqueraded into
blouses and let loose on the streets of Paris, there to perform the contortions of
war fever, the real workmen of the faubourgs came forward with public peace
demonstrations so overwhelming that Pietri, the Prefect of Police, thought it
prudent to at once stop all further street politics, on the plea that the feal Paris
people had given sufficient vent to their pent-up patriotism and exuberant war
enthusiasm.
Whatever may be the incidents of Louis Bonaparte's war with Prussia, the death
knell of the Second Empire has already sounded at Paris. It will end, as it began,
by a parody. But let us not forget that it is the governments and the ruling classes
of Europe who enabled Louis Bonaparte to play during eighteen years the
ferocious farce of the Restored Empire.
On the German side, the war is a war of defence; but who put Germany to the
necessity of defending herself? Who enabled Louis Bonaparte to wage war upon
her? Prussia! It was Bismarck who conspired with that very same Louis
Bonaparte for the purpose of crushing popular opposition at home, and annexing
Germany to the Hohenzollern dynasty. If the battle of Sadowa[25] had been lost
instead of being won, French battalions would have overrun Germany as the allies
of Prussia. After her victory, did Prussia dream one moment of opposing a free
Germany to an enslaved France? Just the contrary. While carefully preserving all
the native beauties of her old system, she superadded all the tricks of the Second
Empire, its real despotism and its mock democratism, its political shams and its
financial jobs, its high flown talk and its low legerdemains. The Bonapartist re-
page 23
gime, which till then only flourished on one side of the Rhine, had now got its
counterfeit on the other. From such a state of things, what else could result but
war ?
If the German working class allow the present war to lose its strictly defensive
character and to degenerate into a war against the French people, victory or defeat
will prove alike disastrous. All the miseries that befell Germany after her war of
independence will revive with accumulated intensity.
The principles of the International are, however, too widely spread and too
firmly rooted amongst the German working class to apprehend such a sad
consummation. The voices of the French workmen have re-echoed from
Germany. A mass meeting of workmen, held at Brunswick on July 16th,
expressed its full concurrence with the Paris manifesto, spurned the idea of
national antagonism to France, and wound up its resolutions with these words:
"We are enemies of all wars, but above all of dynastic wars. . . . With deep sorrow and grief we
are forced to undergo a defensive war as an unavoidable evil; but we call, at the same time, upon
the whole German working class to render the recurrence of such an immense social misfortune
impossible by vindicating for the peoples themselves the power to decide on peace and war, and
making them masters of their own destinies."
At Chemnitz, a meeting of delegates, representing 50,000 Saxon workers,
adopted unanimously a resolution to this effect:
"In the name of the German Democracy, and especially of the workmen forming the
Democratic Socialist Party, we declare the present war to be exclusively dynastic. . . . We are
happy to grasp the fraternal hand stretched out to us by the workmen of France. . . . Mindful of the
watch word of the International Working Men's Association: Proletarians of all countries, unite,
we shall never forget that the workmen of all countries are our friends and the despots of all
countries our enemies. 1 '[ 26]
page 24
The Berlin branch of the International has also replied to the Paris manifesto:
"We," they say, "join with heart and hand your protestation. . . . Solemnly we promise that neither the sound of the trumpet, nor
the roar of the cannon, neither victory nor defeat, shall divert us from our common work for the union of the children of toil of all
countries."
Be it so!
In the background of this suicidal strife looms the dark figure of Russia. It is an ominous sign that the signal for the present war
should have been given at the moment when the Moscovite government had just finished its strategic lines of railway and was
already massing troops in the direction of the Pruth. Whatever sympathy the Germans may justly claim in a war of defence against
Bonapartist aggression, they would forfeit at once by allowing the Prussian government to call for, or accept, the help of the
Cossacks. Let them remember that, after their war of independence against the first Napoleon, Germany lay for generations
prostrate at the feet of the Czar.
The English working class stretch the hand of fellowship to the French and German working people. They feel deeply convinced
that whatever turn the impending horrid war may take, the alliance of the working classes of all countries will ultimately kill war.
The very fact that while official France and Germany are rushing into a fratricidal feud, the workmen of France and Germany send
each other messages of peace and goodwill; this great fact, unparalleled in the history of the past, opens the vista of a brighter
future. It proves that in contrast to old society, with its economical miseries and its political delirium, a new society is springing up,
whose international rule will be Peace, because its national ruler will be everywhere the same — Labour ! The
page 25
Pioneer of that new society is the International Working Men's Association.
THE GENERAL COUNCIL
Robert Applegarth George Milner
Martin J. Boon Thomas Mottershead
Fred. Bradnick Charles Murray
Cowell Stepney George Odger
John Hales James Parnell
William Hales Pfänder
George Harris Rühl
Fred. Lessner Joseph Shepherd
Legreulier Stoll
W. Lintern Schmutz
Zévy Maurice W. Townshend
CORRESPONDING SECRETARIES
Eugène Dupont, for France
Karl Marx, /br Germany
A. Serraillier,/br Belgium, Holland and Spain
Hermann Jung, for Switzerland
Giovanni Bora, for Italy
Antoni Zabicki, for Poland
James Cohen, for Denmark
J. G. Eccarius, /br the United States of America
Benjamin Lucraft, Chairman
John Weston, Treasurer
J. George Eccarius, General Secretary
page 26
Office: 256, High Holborn, London, W.C.
July 23, 1870
Written by Marx on July 19-23, 1870 The original text is in English
Published in leaflet form in English in Printed according to the text
July 1 870, and both in leaflet form of the English leaflet of 1 870
and in periodicals in German, French
and Russian in August-September
1870
page 27
SECOND ADDRESS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL
OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING MENS
ASSOCIATION
ON THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR[27]
To the Members of the International Working Men's
Association in Europe and the United States
In our first Manifesto of the 23rd of July we said: "The death knell of the Second Empire has already sounded at Paris. It will
end, as it began, by a parody. But let us not forget that it is the governments and the ruling classes of Europe who enabled Louis
Napoleon to play during eighteen years the ferocious farce of the Restored Empire."*
Thus, even before war operations had actually set in, we treated the Bonapartist bubble as a thing of the past.
If we were not mistaken as to the vitality of the Second Empire, we were not wrong in our apprehension lest the German war
should "lose its strictly defensive character and
* See above, p. 22.
page 28
degenerate into a war against the French people. "[*] The war of defence ended, in point of fact, with the surrender of Louis
Bonaparte, the Sedan capitulation, and the proclamation of the Republic at Paris. But long before these events, the very moment
that the utter rottenness of the imperialist [ff] arms became evident, the Prussian military camarilla had resolved upon conquest.
There lay an ugly obstacle in their way — King William's own proclamations at the commencement of the war. In his speech from
the throne to the North German Diet, he had solemnly declared to make war upon the emperor of the French, and not upon the
French people. On the 1 1th of August he had issued a manifesto to the French nation, where he said:T ***l
"The Emperor Napoleon having made, by land and sea, an attack on the German nation, which desired and still desires to live in
peace with the French people, I have assumed the command of the German armies to repel his aggression, and I have been led by
military events to cross the frontiers of France."
Not content to assert the defensive character of the war by the statement that he only assumed the command of the German
armies "to repel aggression," he added that he was only "led by military events" to cross the frontiers of France. A defensive war
does, of course, not exclude offensive opera tions, dictated by "military events."
Thus, this pious king stood pledged before France and the world to a strictly defensive war. How to release him from
* See above, p. 23.
** Imperialist: used throughout the book as an adjective for the Second Empire.
*** In the German edition of 1870, Marx omitted this sentence, the quotation below and the paragraph following. The first three
sentences of the last paragraph (continued overleaf) were condensed.
page 29
his solemn pledge? The stage-managers had to exhibit him as giving, reluctantly, way to the irresistible behest of the German
nation. They at once gave the cue to the liberal German middle class, with its professors, its capitalists, its aldermen, and its
penmen. That middle class, which in its struggle for civil liberty had, from 1846 to 1870, been exhibiting an unexampled spectacle
of irresolution, incapacity and cowardice, felt, of course, highly delighted to bestride the European scene as the roaring lion of
German patriotism. It revindicated its civic independence by affecting to force upon the Prussian government the secret designs of
that same government. It does penance for its long-continued and almost religious faith in Louis Bonaparte's infallibility, by
shouting for the dismemberment of the French Republic. Let us for a moment listen to the special pleadings of those stout-hearted
patriots !
They dare not pretend that the people of Alsace and Lorraine pant for the German embrace; quite the contrary. To punish their
French patriotism, Strasbourg, a town with an independent citadel commanding it, has for six days been wantonly and fiendishly
bombarded by "German" explosive shells, setting it on fire, and killing great numbers of its defenceless inhabitants I Yet, the soil
of those provinces once upon a time belonged to the whilom German empire. Hence, it seems, the soil and the human beings grown
on it must be confiscated as imprescriptible German property. If the map of Europe is to be remade in the antiquary's vein, let us by
no means forget that the Elector of Brandenburg, for his Prussian dominions, was the vassal of the Polish Republic. [ 28]
The more knowing patriots, however, require Alsace and the German-speaking part of Lorraine as a "material guar-
page 30
antee" against French aggression. As this contemptible plea has bewildered many weak-minded people, we are bound to enter more
fully upon it.
There is no doubt that the general configuration of Alsace, as compared with the opposite bank of the Rhine, and the presence of
a large fortified town like Strasbourg, about half way between Basle and Germersheim, very much favour a French invasion of
South Germany, while they offer peculiar difficulties to an invasion of France from South Germany. There is, further, no doubt that
the addition of Alsace and German-speaking Lorraine would give South Germany a much stronger frontier, inasmuch as she would
then be master of the crest of the Vosges mountains in its whole length, and of the fortresses which cover its northern passes. If
Metz were annexed as well, France would certainly for the moment be deprived of her two principal bases of operation against
Germany, but that would not prevent her from constructing a fresh one at Nancy or Verdun. While Germany owns Coblentz,
Mainz, Germersheim, Rastadt, and Ulm, all bases of operation against France, and plentifully made use of in this war, with what
show of fair play can she begrudge France Strasbourg and Metz, the only two for tresses of any importance she has on that side?
Moreover, Strasbourg endangers South Germany only while South Germany is a separate power from North Germany. From 1792
to 1795 South Germany was never invaded from that direction, because Prussia was a party to the war against the French
Revolution; but as soon as Prussia made a peace of her own in 1795, [29] and left the South to shift for itself, the invasions of South
Germany with Strasbourg for a base began and continued till 1809. The fact is, a united Germany can always render Strasbourg and
any French army in
page 31
Alsace innocuous by concentrating all her troops, as was done in the present war, between Saarlouis and Landau, and advancing, or
accepting battle, on the line of road between Mainz and Metz. While the mass of the German troops is stationed there, any French
army advancing from Strasbourg into South Germany would be outflanked, and have its communications threatened. If the present
campaign has proved anything, it is the facility of invading France from Germany.
But, in good faith, is it not altogether an absurdity and an anachronism to make military considerations the principle by which the
boundaries of nations are to be fixed ? If this rule were to prevail, Austria would still be entitled to Venetia and the line of the
Mincio, and France to the line of the Rhine, in order to protect Paris, which lies certainly more open to an attack from the northeast
than Berlin does from the southwest. If limits are to be fixed by military interests, there will be no end to claims, because every
military line is necessarily faulty, and may be improved by annexing some more outlying territory; and, moreover, they can never
be fixed finally and fairly, because they always must be imposed by the conqueror upon the conquered, and consequently carry
within them the seed of fresh wars.
Such is the lesson of all history. Thus with nations as with individuals. To deprive them of the power of offence, you must
deprive them of the means of defence. You must not only garotte, but murder. If ever a conqueror took "material guarantees" for
breaking the sinews of a nation, the first Napoleon did so by the Tilsit Treaty, [30] and the way he executed it against Prussia and
the rest of Germany. Yet, a few years later, his gigantic power split like a rotten reed upon the German people. What are the
"material guaran-
page 32
tees" Prussia, in her wildest dreams, can or dare impose upon France, compared to the "material guarantees" the first Napoleon had
wrenched from herself? The result will not prove the less disastrous. History will measure its retribution, not by the extent of the
square miles conquered from France, but by the intensity of the crime of reviving, in the second half of the 19th century, the policy
of conquest !
But, say the mouthpieces of Teutonic patriotism, you must not confound Germans with Frenchmen. What we want is not glory,
but safety. The Germans are an essentially peaceful people. In their sober guardianship, conquest itself changes from a condition of
future war into a pledge of perpetual peace. Of course, it is not Germans that invaded France in 1792, for the sublime purpose of
bayoneting the revolution of the 18th century. It is not Germans that be fouled their hands by the subjugation of Italy, the
oppression of Hungary, and the dismemberment of Poland. Their present military system, which divides the whole adult male
population into two parts - one standing army on service, and another standing army on furlough, both equally bound in passive
obedience to rulers by divine right — such a military system is, of course, a "material guarantee" for keeping the peace, and the
ultimate goal of civilizing tendencies ! In Germany, as everywhere else, the sycophants of the powers that be poison the popular
mind by the incense of mendacious self-praise.
Indignant as they pretend to be at the sight of French fortresses in Metz and Strasbourg, those German patriots see no harm in the
vast system of Moscovite fortifications at Warsaw, Modlin, and Ivangorod. While gloating at the terrors of imperialist invasion,
they blink at the infamy of autocratic tutelage.
page 33
As in 1865 promises were exchanged between Louis Bonaparte and Bismarck, so in 1870 promises have been exchanged
between Gorchakov and Bismarck. \ 3 11 As Louis Bonaparte flattered himself that the War of 1866, resulting in the common
exhaustion of Austria and Prussia, would make him the supreme arbiter of Germany, so Alexander flattered himself that the War of
1870, resulting in the common exhaustion of Germany and France, would make him the supreme arbiter of the Western Continent.
As the Second Empire thought the North German Confederation incompatible with its existence, so autocratic Russia must think
herself endangered by a German empire under Prussian leadership. Such is the law of the old political system. Within its pale the
gain of one state is the loss of the other. The Czar's paramount influence over Europe roots in his traditional hold on Germany. At a
moment when in Russia herself volcanic social agencies threaten to shake the very base of autocracy, could the Czar afford to bear
with such a loss of foreign prestige? Already the Moscovite journals repeat the language of the Bonapartist journals after the War
of 1866. Do the Teuton patriots really believe that liberty and peace* will be guaranteed to Germany by forcing France into the
arms of Russia? If the fortune of her arms, the arrogance of success, and dynastic intrigue lead Germany to a dismemberment of
France there will then only remain two courses open to her. She must at all risks become the avowed tool of Russian
aggrandisement,** or, after some short respite,
* In the German edition of 1870, "liberty and peace" reads "independence, liberty and peace."
** In the German edition of 1870, a clause is added here: "a policy which corresponds to the tradition of the Hohenzollern
dynasty."
page 34
make again ready for another "defensive" war, not one of those new-fangled "localized" wars, but a war of races — a war with the
combined Slavonian and Roman races. [*]
The German working class have resolutely supported the war, which it was not in their power to prevent, as a war for German
independence and the liberation of France and Europe from that pestilential incubus, the Second Empire. It was the German
workmen who, together with the rural labourers, furnished the sinews and muscles of heroic hosts, leaving behind their half-starved
families. Decimated by the battles abroad, they will be once more decimated by misery at home.** In their turn they are now
coming forward to ask for "guarantees" — guarantees that their immense sacrifices have not been brought in vain, that they have
conquered liberty, that the victory over the imperialist armies will not, as in 1815, be turned into the defeat of the German
people;[32] and, as the first of these guarantees, they claim an honourable peace for France, and the recognition of the French
Republic.
The Central Committee of the German Socialist-Democratic Workmen's Party issued on the 5th of September a manifesto,
energetically insisting upon these guarantees.
* In the German edition of 1870, another sentence is added here: "This is the perspective of peace which is 'guaranteed' to
Germany by the addlepated patriots of the middle class."
** In the German edition of 1870, two sentences are added here: "And the patriotic ranters will tell them, as consolation, that
capital has no fatherland and that workers' wages are regulated by the unpatriotic international law of supply and demand. Is it not,
therefore, high time for the German working class to speak up and no longer allow the gentlemen of the middle class to speak in
their name?"
page 35
"We" they say, "we protest against the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. And we are conscious of speaking in the name of the
German working class. In the common interest of France and Germany, in the interest of peace and liberty, in the interest of
Western civilization against Eastern barbarism, the German workmen will not patiently tolerate the annexation of Alsace and
Lorraine. . . . We shall faithfully stand by our fellow-workmen in all countries for the common international cause of the
Proletariat! "[33]
Unfortunately, we cannot feel sanguine of their immediate success. If the French workmen amidst peace failed to stop the
aggressor, are the German workmen more likely to stop the victor amidst the clangour of arms? The German workmen's manifesto
demands the extradition of Louis Bonaparte as a common felon to the French Republic. Their rulers are, on the contrary, already
trying hard to restore him to the Tuileries as the best man to ruin France. However that may be, history will prove that the German
working class are not made of the same malleable stuff as the German middle class. They will do their duty.
Like them, we hail the advent of the Republic in France, but at the same time we labour undermisgivings which we hope will
prove groundless. That Republic has not subverted the throne, but only taken its place become vacant.* It has been proclaimed, not
as a social conquest, but as a national measure of defence. It is in the hands of a Provisional Government composed partly of
notorious Orleanists,[34] partly of middle-class Republicans, upon some of whom the insurrection of June 1848 has left its
indelible stigma. The division of labour amongst the members of that government looks awkward. The Orleanists have seized the
strongholds of the army and the police, while to the professed Republicans
* In the German edition of 1870, the rendering is: ". . . taken its place which was made vacant by German bayonets."
page 36
have fallen the talking departments. Some of their first acts go far to show that they have inherited from the empire not only ruins,
but also its dread of the working class. If eventual impossibilities are in wild phraseology demanded from the Republic, is it not
with a view to prepare the cry for a "possible" government? Is the Republic, by some of its middle-class managers, not intended to
serve as a mere stopgap and bridge over an Orleanist Restoration? The French working class moves, therefore, under circumstances
of extreme difficulty. Any attempt at upsetting the new government in the present crisis, when the enemy is almost knocking at the
doors of Paris, would be a desperate folly. The French workmen must perform their duties as citizens;[*] but, at the same time, they
must not allow themselves to be deluded by the national souvenirs of 1792, as the French peasants allowed themselves to be
deluded by the national souvenirs of the First Empire. They have not to recapitulate the past, but to build up the future. Let them
calmly and resolutely improve the opportunities of Republican liberty, for the work of their own class organization. It will gift them
with fresh herculean powers for the regeneration of France, and our common task - the emancipation of labour. Upon their
energies and wisdom hinges the fate of the Republic.
The English workmen have already taken measures to overcome, by a wholesome pressure from without, the reluctance of their
government to recognize the French Republic. [35] The present dilatoriness of the British government is probably intended to atone
for the Anti-Jacobin war and its former
* In the German edition of 1870, after "citizens" are added "and that is what they are doing."
page 37
indecent haste in sanctioning the coup d'etat. [36] The English workmen call also upon their government to oppose by all its power
the dismemberment of France, which part of the English press is so shameless enough to howl for.[*] It is the same press that for
twenty years deified Louis Bonaparte as the providence of Europe, that frantically cheered on the slaveholders' rebellion. [37] Now,
as then, it drudges for the slaveholder.
Let the sections of the International Working Men's Association in every country stir the working classes to action. If they
forsake their duty, if they remain passive, the present tremendous war will be but the harbinger of still deadlier international feuds,
and lead in every nation to a renewed triumph over the workman by the lords of the sword, of the soil, and of capital.
Vive la Republique!
THE GENERAL COUNCIL
Robert Applegarth Martin J. Boon
Fred. Bradnick Caihil
John Hales William Hales
George Harris Fred. Lessner
Lopatin B. Lucraft
George Milner Thomas Mottershead
Charles Murray George Odger
James Parnell Pfänder
Rühl Joseph Shepherd
Cowell Stepney Stoll
Schmutz
* In the German edition of 1870, the latter part of the sentence reads: ". . . which naturally is quite as noisily heralded by a part of
the English press as by the German patriots."
page 38
CORRESPONDING SECRETARIES
Eugène Dupont,/br France
Karl Marx, /br Germany
A. Serraillier, for Belgium, Holland and Spain
Hermann Jung, for Switzerland
Giovanni Bora, for Italy
Zévy Maurice for Hungary
Antoni Zabicki, for Poland
James Cohen, for Denmark
J. G. Eccarius, /br the United States of America
William Townshend, Chairman
John Weston, Treasurer
J. George Eccarius, General Secretary
Office: 256 High Holborn, London, W.C.
September 9, 1870
Written by Marx on September 6-9, 1870 The original text is in English
Published in leaflet form in English on Printed according to the text
September 11-13, 1870, and in Ger- of the English leaflet of 1870
man between September and December
1870, and in French and German per-
iodicals in September-December 1870
page 39
THE CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE
Address of the General Council
of the International Working
Men's Association^]
Written by Marx in April-May 1 87 1 The original text is in English
Published as a separate pamphlet in Printed according to the third
London, mid-June 1871 and in Eur- English edition of 1871
ope and America, 1871-72.
page 40 [blank]
page 41
To All the Members of the Association in Europe
and the United States
On the 4th of September, 1870, when the working men of Paris proclaimed the
Republic, which was almost instantaneously acclaimed throughout France,
without a single voice of dissent, a cabal of place-hunting barristers, with Thiers
for their statesman and Trochu for their general, took hold of the Hôtel de
Ville.* At that time they were imbued with so fanatical a faith in the mission of
Paris to represent France in all epochs of historical crisis, that, to legitimate their
usurped titles as governors of France, they thought it quite sufficient to produce
their lapsed mandates as representatives of Paris. In our second address on the late
war, five days after the rise of these men, we told you who they were.**
* The Town Hall.
** See above, p. 35.
page 42
Yet, in the turmoil of surprise, with the real leaders of the working class still shut
up in Bonapartist prisons and the Prussians already marching upon Paris, Paris
bore with their assumption of power, on the express condition that it was to be
wielded for the single purpose of national defence. Paris, however, was not to be
defended without arming its working class, organizing them into an effective
force, and training their ranks by the war itself. But Paris armed was the
Revolution armed. A victory of Paris over the Prussian aggressor would have
been a victory of the French workman over the French capitalist and his State
parasites. In this conflict between national duty and class interest, the Government
of National Defence did not hesitate one moment to turn into a Government of
National Defection.
The first step they took was to send Thiers on a roving tour to all the courts of
Europe, there to beg mediation by offering the barter of the Republic for a king.
Four months after the commencement of the siege, when they thought the
opportune moment come for breaking the first word of capitulation, Trochu, in the
presence of Jules Favre and others of his colleagues, addressed the assembled
mayors of Paris in these terms:
"The first question put to me by my colleagues on the very evening of the 4th of September was
this: Paris, can it, with any chance of success, stand a siege by the Prussian army? I did not
hesitate to answer in the negative. Some of my colleagues here present will warrant the truth of my
words and the persistence of my opinion. I told them, in these very terms, that, under the existing
state of things, the attempt of Paris to hold out a siege by the Prussian army would be a folly.
Without doubt, I added, it would be an heroic folly; but that would be all. The events (managed by
himself) have not given the lie to my prevision."
page 43
This nice little speech of Trochu was afterwards published by M. Corbon, one
of the mayors present.
Thus, on the very evening of the proclamation of the Republic, Trochu's "plan"
was known to his colleagues to be the capitulation of Paris. If national defence
had been more than a pretext for the personal government of Thiers, Favre and
Co., the upstarts of the 4th of September would have abdicated on the 5th -
would have initiated the Paris people into Trochu's "plan," and called upon them
to surrender at once, or to take their own fate into their own hands. Instead of this,
the infamous impostors resolved upon curing the heroic folly of Paris by a
regimen of famine and broken heads, and to dupe her in the meanwhile by ranting
manifestoes, holding forth that Trochu, "the governor of Paris, will never
capitulate," and Jules Favre, the Foreign Minister, will "not cede an inch of our
territory, nor a stone of our fortresses." In a letter to Gambetta, that very same
Jules Favre avows that what they were "defending" against were not the Prussian
soldiers, but the working men of Paris. During the whole continuance of the siege
the Bonapartist cut-throats, whom Trochu had wisely intrusted with the command
of the Paris army, exchanged, in their intimate correspondence, tibald jokes at the
well-understood mockery of defence. (See, for instance, the correspondence of
Alphonse Simon Guiod, supreme commander of the artillery of the Army of
Defence of Paris and Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, to Suzanne, general
of division of artillery, a correspondence published by the Journal officiel of the
Commune.)[39] The mask of imposture was at last dropped on the 28th of January,
1871. [40] With the true heroism of utter self-debasement, the Government of
National Defence, in their capitulation, came out as the government of France
page 44
by Bismarck's prisoners - a part so base that Louis Bonaparte himself had, at
Sedan, shrunk from accepting it. After the events of the 18th of March, on their
wild flight to Versailles, the capitulards [4jj left in the hands of Paris the
documentary evidence of their treason, to destroy which, as the Commune says in
its manifesto to the provinces, "those men would not recoil from battering Paris
into a heap of ruins washed by a sea of blood. "[42]
To be eagerly bent upon such a consummation, some of the leading members of
the Government of Defence had besides, most peculiar reasons of their own.
Shortly after the conclusion of the armistice, M. Milliere, one of the
representatives of Paris to the National Assembly, now shot by express order of
Jules Favre, published a series of authentic legal documents in proof that Jules
Favre, living in concubinage with the wife of a drunkard resident at Algiers, had,
by a most daring concoction of forgeries, spread over many years, contrived to
grasp, in the name of the children of his adultery, a large succession,* which
made him a rich man, and that, in a law-suit undertaken by the legitimate heirs, he
only escaped exposure by the connivance of the Bonapartist tribunals. As these
dry legal documents were not to be got rid of by any amount of rhetorical horse
power, Jules Favre, for the first time in his life, held his tongue, quietly awaiting
the outbreak of the civil war, in order, then, frantically to denounce the people of
Paris as a band of escaped convicts in utter revolt against family, religion, order,
and property. This same forger had hardly got into power, after the 4th of
September, when he sympathetically let loose upon society Pic and Taillefer, con-
* Succession: inheritance.
page 45
victed, even under the Empire, of forgery, in the scandalous affair of the
Etendard.m] One of these men, Taillefer, having dared to return to Paris under the
Commune, was at once reinstated in prison; and then Jules Favre exclaimed, from
the tribune of the National Assembly, that Paris was setting free all her jailbirds!
Ernest Picard, the Joe Millers of the Government of National Defence, who
appointed himself Finance Minister of the Republic after having in vain striven to
become the Home Minister of the Empire, is the brother of one Arthur Picard, an
individual expelled from the Paris Bourse as a blackleg (see report of the
Prefecture of Police, dated the 31st of July, 1867), and convicted, on his own
confession, of a theft of 300,000 francs, while manager of one of the branches of
the Sociéte générale,[U] Rue Palestro, No. 5 (see report of
the Prefecture of Police, 1 1th December, 1868). This Arthur Picard was made by
Ernest Picard the editor of his paper, VElecteur litre. m] While the common run of
stock-jobbers were led astray by the official lies of this Finance Office paper,
Arthur was running backwards and forwards between the Finance Office and the
Bourse, there to discount the disasters of the French army. The whole financial
correspondence of that worthy pair of brothers fell into the hands of the
Commune.
Jules Ferry, a penniless barrister before the 4th of September, contrived, as
Mayor of Paris during the siege, to job a fortune out of famine. The day on which
he would
* "Joe Miller" reads "Karl Vogt" in the German editions of 1871 and 1891, and "Falstaff" in the
French edition of 1871. Joe Miller was a celebrated English actor of the 18th century.
page 46
have to give an account of his maladministration would be the day of his
conviction.
These men, then, could find, in the ruins of Paris only their tickets of leaver*]
they were the very men Bismarck wanted. With the help of some shuffling of
cards, Thiers, hitherto the secret prompter of the Government, now appeared at its
head, with the ticket-of-leave men for his ministers.
. Thiers, that monstrous gnome, has charmed the French bourgeoisie for almost
half a century, because he is the most consummate intellectual expression of their
own class corruption. Before he became a statesman he had already proved his
lying powers as an historian. The chronicle of his public life is the record of the
misfortunes of France. Banded before 1830, with the Republicans, he slipped into
office under Louis Philippe by betraying his protector Laffitte, ingratiating
himself with the king by exciting mob-riots against the clergy, during which the
church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the Archbishop's palace were plundered,
and by acting the minister-spy upon, and the jail-accoucheur of, the Duchess de
Berry.[46] The massacre of the Republicans in the Rue Transnonain, and the
subsequent infamous laws of September against the press and the right of
association, were his work. [47] Reappearing as the chief of the Cabinet in March
1840, he astonished France with his plan of fortifying Paris. [48] To the
Republicans, who denounced this plan as
* In England common criminals are often discharged on parole after serving the greater part of
their term, and are placed under police surveillance. On such discharge they receive a certificate
called ticket of leave, their possessors being referred to as ticket-of-leave men. [Note by Engels to
the German edition of 1871.]
page 47
a sinister plot against the liberty of Paris, he replied from the tribune of the
Chamber of Deputies:
"What! To fancy that any works of fortification could ever endanger liberty! And first of all you
calumniate any possible Government in supposing that it could some day attempt to maintain itself
by bombarding the capital; . . . but that government would be a hundred times more impossible
after its victory than before."
Indeed, no Government would ever have dared to bombard Paris from the forts
but that Government which had previously surrendered these forts to the
Prussians.
When King Bomba tried his hand at Palermo, in January 1848, [49] Thiers, then
long since out of office, again rose in the Chamber of Deputies:
"You know, gentlemen, what is happening at Palermo. You, all of you, shake with horror (in the
parliamentary sense) on hearing that during forty-eight hours a large town has been bombarded -
by whom? Was it by a foreign enemy exercising the rights of war? No, gentlemen, it was by its
own Government. And why? Because that unfortunate town demanded its rights. Well, then, for
the demand of its rights it has got forty-eight hours of bombardment. . . . Allow me to appeal to
the opinion of Europe. It is doing a service to mankind to arise, and to make reverberate, from
what is perhaps the greatest tribune in Europe, some words (indeed words) of indignation against
such acts. . . . When the Regent Espartero, who had rendered services to his country (which M.
Thiers never did), intended bombarding Barcelona, in order to suppress its insurrection, there
arose from all parts of the world a general outcry of indignation."
Eighteen months afterwards, M. Thiers was amongst the fiercest defenders of
the bombardment of Rome by a French army.[50] In fact, the fault of King Bomba
seems to have consisted in this only, that he limited his bombardment to forty-
eight hours.
A few days before the Revolution of February, fretting at the long exile from
place* and pelf to which Guizot had
* place: government office.
page 48
condemned him, and sniffing in the air the scent of an approaching popular
commotion, Thiers, in that pseudo-heroic style which won him the nickname of
Mirabeau-mouche,[*] declared to the Chamber of Deputies:
"I am of the party of Revolution, not only in France, but in Europe. I wish the Government of
the Revolution to remain in the hands of moderate men . . . but if that Government should fall into
the hands of ardent minds, even into those of Radicals, I shall, for all that, not desert my cause. I
shall always be of the party of the Revolution."
The Revolution of February came. Instead of displacing the Guizot Cabinet by
the Thiers Cabinet, as the little man had dreamt, it superseded Louis Philippe by
the Republic. On the first day of the popular victory he carefully hid himself,
forgetting that the contempt of the working men screened him from their hatred.
Still, with his legendary courage, he continued to shy the public stage, until the
June massacres[5jj had cleared it for his sort of action. Then he became the leading
mind of the "Party of Order" [52] and its Parliamentary Republic, that anonymous
interregnum, in which all the rival factions of the ruling class conspired together
to crush the people, and conspired against each other to restore each of them its
own monarchy. Then, as now, Thiers denounced the Republicans as the only
obstacle to the consolidation of the Republic; then, as now, he spoke to the
Republic as the hangman spoke to Don Carlos: "I shall assassinate thee but for thy
own good." Now, as then, he will have to exclaim on the day after his victory:
"L'Empire est fait " - the Empire is consummated. Despite his hypocritical
homilies about necessary liberties and his personal grudge against Louis
Bonaparte, who had made a dupe of him, and kicked
* Mirabeau the fly.
page 49
out parliamentarism - and outside of its factitious atmosphere the little man is
conscious of withering into nothingness — he had a hand in all the infamies of the
Second Empire, from the occupation of Rome by French troops to the war with
Prussia, which he incited by his fierce invective against German unity - not as a
cloak of Prussian despotism, but as an encroachment upon the vested right of
France in German disunion. Fond of brandishing, with his dwarfish arms, in the
face of Europe the sword of the first Napoleon, whose historical shoeblack he had
become, his foreign policy always culminated in the utter humiliation of France,
from the London convention of 1840[53] to the Paris capitulation of 1871, and the
present civil war, where he hounds on the prisoners of Sedan and Metz against
Paris by special permission of Bismarck. [54] Despite his versatility of talent and
shiftiness of purpose, this man has his whole lifetime been wedded to the most
fossil routine. It is self-evident that to him the deeper undercurrents of modern
society remained forever hidden; but even the most palpable changes on its
surface were abhorrent to a brain all the vitality of which had fled to the tongue.
Thus he never tired of denouncing as a sacrilege any deviation from the old
French protective system. When a minister of Louis Philippe, he railed at railways
as a wild chimera; and when in opposition under Louis Bonaparte, he branded as
a profanation every attempt to reform the rotten French army system. Never in his
long political career has he been guilty of a single - even the smallest - measure
of any practical use. Thiers was consistent only in his greed for wealth and his
hatred of the men that produce it. Having entered his first ministry under Louis
Philippe poor as Job, he left it a millionaire. His last ministry under the same king
(of the
page 50
1st of March, 1840) exposed him to public taunts of peculation in the Chamber of
Deputies, to which he was content to reply by tears - a commodity he deals in as
freely as Jules Favre, or any other crocodile. At Bordeaux[*] his first measure for
saving France from impending financial ruin was to endow himself with three
millions a year, the first and the last word of the "Economical Republic," the vista
of which he had opened to his Paris electors in 1869. One of his former colleagues
of the Chamber of Deputies of 1830, himself a capitalist and, nevertheless, a
devoted member of the Paris Commune, M. Beslay, lately addressed Thiers thus
in a public placard:
"The enslavement of labour by capital has always been the cornerstone of your policy, and from
the very day you saw the Republic of Labour installed at the Hôtel de Ville, you have never
ceased to cry out to France: 'These are criminals!'"
A master in small state roguery, a virtuoso in perjury and treason, a craftsman
in all the petty stratagems, cunning devices, and base perfidies of parliamentary
party-warfare; never scrupling, when out of office, to fan a revolution, and to
stifle it in blood when at the helm of the State; with class prejudices standing him
in the place of ideas, and vanity in the place of a heart; his private life as infamous
as his public life is odious - even now, when playing the part of a French Sulla,
he can not help setting off the abomination of his deeds by the ridicule of his
ostentation.
The capitulation of Paris, by surrendering to Prussia not only Paris, but all
France, closed the long-continued intrigues of treason with the enemy, which the
usurpers of the 4th of
* In the German edition of 1891 "At Bordeaux" reads "At Bordeaux, 1871."
page 51
September had begun, as Trochu himself said, on that very same day. On the
other hand, it initiated the civil war they were now to wage, with the assistance of
Prussia, against the Republic and Paris. The trap was laid in the very terms of the
capitulation. At that time above one-third of the territory was in the hands of the
enemy, the capital was cut off from the provinces, all communications were
disorganized. To elect under such circumstances a real representation of France
was impossible, unless ample time were given for preparation. In view of this, the
capitulation stipulated that a National Assembly must be elected within eight
days; so that in many parts of France the news of the impending election arrived
on its eve only. This Assembly, moreover, was, by an express clause of the
capitulation, to be elected for the sole purpose of deciding on peace or war, and,
eventually, to conclude a treaty of peace. The population could not but feel that
the terms of the armistice rendered the continuation of the war impossible, and
that for sanctioning the peace imposed by Bismarck, the worst men in France
were the best. But not content with these precautions, Thiers, even before the
secret of the armistice had been broached to Paris, set out for an electioneering
tour through the provinces, there to galvanize back into life the Legitimist
party,[55] which now, along with the Orleanists, had to take the place of the then
impossible Bonapartists. He was not afraid of them. Impossible as a government
of modern France, and, therefore, contemptible as rivals, what party were more
eligible as tools of counter-revolution than the party whose action, in the words of
Thiers himself (Chamber of Deputies, 5th January, 1833), "had always been
confined to the three resources of foreign invasion, civil war, and anarchy"? They
verily believed in the advent of their long-expected retrospective millennium.
There were the heels
page 52
of foreign invasion trampling upon France; there was the downfall of an Empire,
and the captivity of a Bonaparte; and there they were themselves. The wheel of
history had evidently rolled back to stop at the Chambre introuvablemm] of 1816.
In the Assemblies of the Republic, 1848 to 1851, they had been represented by
their educated and trained parliamentary champions; it was the rank and file of the
party which now rushed in - all the Pourceaugnacs[57] of France.
As soon as this Assembly of "Rurals"[58] had met at Bordeaux, Thiers made it
clear to them that the peace preliminaries must be assented to at once, without
even the honours of a parliamentary debate, as the only condition on which
Prussia would permit them to open the war against the Republic and Paris, its
stronghold. The counter-revolution had, in fact, no time to lose. The Second
Empire had more than doubled the national debt, and plunged all the large towns
into heavy municipal debts. The war had fearfully swelled the liabilities, and
mercilessly ravaged the resources of the nation. To complete the ruin, the Prussian
Shylock was there with his bond for the keep of half a million of his soldiers on
French soil, his indemnity of five milliards, and interest at 5 per cent on the
unpaid instalments thereof.[59] Who was to pay the bill? It was only by the violent
overthrow of the Republic that the appropriators of wealth could hope to shift on
the shoulders of its producers the cost of a war which they, the appropriators, had
themselves originated. Thus, the immense ruin of France spurred on these
patriotic representatives of land and capital, under the very eyes and patronage of
the invader, to graft
* The German editions of 1871 and 1891 have "(Sub-prefects' and Junkers' Chamber)" after
"Chambre introuvable."
page 53
upon the foreign war a civil war - a slaveholders' rebellion.
There stood in the way of this conspiracy one great obstacle — Paris. To disarm
Paris was the first condition of success. Paris was therefore summoned by Thiers
to surrender its arms. Then Paris was exasperated by the frantic anti-Republican
demonstrations of the "Rural" Assembly and by Thiers' own equivocations about
the legal status of the Republic; by the threat to decapitate and decapitalize Paris;
the appointment of Orleanist ambassadors; Dufaure's laws on overdue commercial
bills and house rents, [60] inflicting ruin on the commerce and industry of Paris,
Pouyer-Quertier's tax of two centimes upon every copy of every imaginable
publication; the sentences of death against Blanqui and Flourens; the suppression
of the Republican journals; the transfer of the National Assembly to Versailles;
the renewal of the state of siege declared by Palikao,[6jj and expired on the 4th of
September; the appointment of Vinoy, the Décembriseur,m\ as Governor
of Paris - of Valentin, the imperialist gendarme, as its Prefect of Police - and of
Aurelle de Paladines, the Jesuit general, as the commander-in-chief of its National
Guard.
And now we have to address a question to M. Thiers and the men of National
Defence, his under- strappers. It is known that, through the agency of M. Pouyer-
Quertier, his Finance Minister, Thiers had contracted a loan of two milliards.
Now, is it true or not -
1 . That the business was so managed that a consideration of several hundred
millions was secured for the private benefit of Thiers, Jules Favre, Ernest Picard,
Pouyer-Quertier, and Jules Simon? and —
2. That no money was to be paid down until after the "pacification" of Paris?[63]
page 54
At all events, there must have been something very pressing in the matter, for
Thiers and Jules Favre, in the name of the majority of the Bordeaux Assembly,
unblushingly solicited the immediate occupation of Paris by Prussian troops.
Such, however, was not the game of Bismarck, as he sneeringly, and in public,
told the admiring Frankfort philistines on his return to Germany.
page 55
II
Armed Paris was the only serious obstacle in the way of the counter-
revolutionary conspiracy. Paris was, therefore, to be disarmed. On this point the
Bordeaux Assembly was sincerity itself. If the roaring rant of its Rurals had not
been audible enough, the surrender of Paris by Thiers to the tender mercies of the
triumvirate of Vinoy the Décembriseur, Valentin the Bonapartist
gendarme, and Aurelle de Paladines the Jesuit general, would have cut off even
the last subterfuge of doubt. But while insultingly exhibiting the true purpose of
the disarmament of Paris, the conspirators asked her to lay down her arms on a
pretext which was the most glaring, the most barefaced of lies. The artillery of the
Paris National Guard, said Thiers, belonged to the State, and to the State it must
be returned. The fact was this: From the very day of the capitulation, by which
Bismarck's prisoners had signed the surrender of France, but reserved to
themselves a numerous bodyguard for the express purpose of cowing Paris, Paris
stood on the watch. The National Guard reorganized themselves and intrusted
their supreme control to a Central Committee elected by their whole body, save
some fragments of the old Bonapartist formations. On the eve of the entrance of
the
page 56
Prussians into Paris, the Central Committee took measures for the removal to
Montmartre, Belleville, and La Villette of the cannon and mitrailleuses
treacherously abandoned by the capitulards in and about the very quarters the
Prussians were to occupy. That artillery had been furnished by the subscriptions
of the National Guard. As their private property, it was officially recognized in
the capitulation of the 28th of January, and on that very title exempted from the
general surrender, into the hands of the conqueror, of arms belonging to the
Government. And Thiers was so utterly destitute of even the flimsiest pretext for
initiating the war against Paris that he had to resort to the flagrant lie of the
artillery of the National Guard being State property!
The seizure of her artillery was evidently but to serve as the preliminary to the
general disarmament of Paris, and, therefore, of the Revolution of the 4th of
September. But that Revolution had become the legal status of France. The
Republic, its work, was recognized by the conqueror in the terms of the
capitulation. After the capitulation, it was acknowledged by all the foreign
powers, and in its name the National Assembly had been summoned. The Paris
working men's Revolution of the 4th of September wvas the only legal title of the
National Assembly seated at Bordeaux, and of its Executive. Without it, the
National Assembly would at once have to give way to the Corps législatif,
elected in 1869 by universal suffrage under French, not under Prussian, rule, and
forcibly dispersed by the arm of the Revolution. Thiers and his ticket-of-leave
men would have had to capitulate for safe conducts signed by Louis Bonaparte, to
save them from a voyage to Cayenne. [64] The National Assembly, with its power
of attorney to settle the terms of peace with Prussia, was but an incident of that
Revolution, the true embodiment of which was still armed Paris, which had
initiated it, undergone for it a five months' siege, with its horrors of famine, and
made her prolonged resistance, despite Trochu's plan, the basis of an obstinate
war of defence in the provinces. And Paris was now either to lay down her arms
at the insulting behest of the rebellious slaveholders of Bordeaux, and
acknowledge that her Revolution of the 4th of September meant nothing but a
simple transfer of power from Louis Bonaparte to his Royal rivals; or she had to
stand forward as the self-sacrificing champion of France, whose salvation from
ruin, and whose regeneration were impossible, without the revolutionary
overthrow of the political and social conditions that had engendered the Second
Empire, and, under its fostering care, matured into utter rottenness. Paris,
emaciated by a five months' famine, did not hesitate one moment. She heroically
resolved to run all the hazards of a resistance against the French conspirators,
even with Prussian cannon frowning upon her from her own forts. Still, in its
abhorrence of the civil war into which Paris was to be goaded, the Central
Committee continued to persist in a merely defensive attitude, despite the
provocations of the Assembly, the usurpations of the Executive, and the menacing
concentration of troops in and around Paris.
Thiers opened the civil war by sending Vinoy, at the head of a multitude of
ser gents de ville * and some regiments of the line, upon a nocturnal expedition
against Montmartre, there to seize, by surprise, the artillery of the National Guard.
It is well known how this attempt broke down before the resistance of the
National Guard and the fraternization of the line with the people. Aurelle de
Paladines had printed be forehand his bulletin of victory, and Thiers held ready
the
* Police constables.
page 58
placards announcing his measures of coup d'etat. Now these had to be replaced by
Thiers' appeals, imparting his magnanimous resolve to leave the National Guard
in the possession of their arms, with which, he said, he felt sure they would rally
round the Government against the rebels. Out of 300,000 National Guards only
300 responded to this summons to rally round little Thiers against themselves.
The glorious working men's Revolution of the 18th March took undisputed sway
of Paris. The Central Committee was its provisional Government. Europe seemed,
for a moment, to doubt whether its recent sensational performances of state and
war had any reality in them, or whether they were the dreams of a long bygone
past.
From the 18th of March to the entrance of the Versailles troops into Paris, the
proletarian revolution remained so free from the acts of violence in which the
revolutions, and still more the counter-revolutions, of the "better classes" abound,
that no facts were left to its opponents to cry out about but the execution of
Generals Lecomte and Clément Thomas, and the affair of the Place
Vendôme.
One of the Bonapartist officers engaged in the nocturnal attempt against
Montmartre, General Lecomte, had four times ordered the 81st Line Regiment to
fire at an unarmed gathering in the Place Pigalle, and on their refusal fiercely
insulted them. Instead of shooting women and children, his own men shot him.
The inveterate habits acquired by the soldiery under the training of the enemies of
the working class are, of course, not likely to change the very moment these
soldiers change sides. The same men executed Clément Thomas.
"General" Clément Thomas, a malcontent ex-quarter-master-sergeant,
had, in the latter times of Louis Philippe's
page 59
reign, enlisted at the office of the Republican newspaper Le Nationals there to
serve in the double capacity of responsible man of straw (gerant responsable )[*]
and of duelling bully to that very combative journal. After the Revolution of
February, the men of the National having got into power, they metamorphosed
this old quartermaster- sergeant into a general on the eve of the butchery of June,
of which he, like Jules Favre, was one of the sinister plotters, and became one of
the most dastardly executioners. Then he and his generalship disappeared for a
long time, to again rise to the surface on the 1st November, 1870. The day before,
the Government of Defence, caught at the Hôtel de Ville, had solemnly
pledged their parole to Blanqui, Flourens, and other representatives of the
working class, to abdicate their usurped power into the hands of a Commune to be
freely elected by Paris. [66] Instead of keeping their word, they let loose on Paris
the Bretons of Trochu, who now replaced the Corsicans of Bonaparte.[67] General
Tamisier alone, refusing to sully his name by such a breach of faith, resigned the
commandership-in-chief of the National Guard, and in his place Clément
Thomas for once became again a general. During the whole of his tenure of
command, he made war, not upon the Prussians, but upon the Paris National
Guard. He prevented their general armament, pitted the bourgeois battalions
against the working men's battalions, weeded out the officers hostile to Trochu's
"plan," and disbanded, under the stigma of cowardice, the very same proletarian
battalions whose heroism has now astonished their most inveterate enemies.
Clément Thomas felt quite proud of having reconquered his June pre-
eminence as the personal
* In the German editions of 1871 and 1891, there is an insertion after " gérant
responsable ": "whose task it was to serve prison sentences."
page 60
enemy of the working class of Paris. Only a few days before the 18th of March,
he laid before the War Minister, Le Flo a plan of his own for "finishing off la fine
fleur [the cream] of the Paris canaille. " After Vinoy's rout, he must needs appear
upon the scene of action in the quality of an amateur spy. The Central Committee
and the Paris working men were as much responsible for the killing of
Clément Thomas and Lecomte as the Princess of Wales was for the fate of
the people crushed to death on the day of her entrance into London.
The massacre of unarmed citizens in the Place Vendôme is a myth which
M. Thiers and the Rurals persistently ignored in the Assembly, intrusting its
propagation exclusively to the servants' hall of European journalism. "The men of
Order," the reactionists of Paris, trembled at the victory of the 18th of March. To
them it was the signal of popular retribution at last arriving. The ghosts of the
victims assassinated at their hands from the days of June 1848, down to the 22nd
of January 1871, [68] arose before their faces. Their panic was their only
punishment. Even the ser gents de ville, instead of being disarmed and locked up,
as ought to have been done, had the gates of Paris flung wide open for their safe
retreat to Versailles. The men of Order were left not only unharmed, but allowed
to rally and quietly to seize more than one strong hold in the very centre of Paris.
This indulgence of the Central Committee - this magnanimity of the armed
working men - so strangely at variance with the habits of the "Party of Order,"
the latter misinterpreted as mere symptoms of conscious weakness. Hence their
silly plan to try, under the cloak of an unarmed demonstration, what Vinoy had
failed to perform with his cannon and mitrailleuses. On the 22nd of March a
riotous mob of swells started from the quarters of luxury,
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all the petits crevés [*] in their ranks, and at their head the notorious
familiars of the Empire — the Heeckeren, Coëtlogon, Henri de Pène,
etc. Under the cowardly pretence of a pacific demonstration, this rabble, secretly
armed with the weapons of the bravo, fell into marching order, ill-treated and
disarmed the detached patrols and sentries of the National Guard they met with on
their progress, and, on debouching from the Rue de la Paix, with the cry of
"Down with the Central Committee! Down with the assassins! The National
Assembly forever!" attempted to break through the line drawn up there, and thus
to carry by a surprise the headquarters of the National Guard in the Place
Vendôme. In reply to their pistol-shots, the regular sommations (the French
equivalent of the English Riot Act)[69] were made, and, proving ineffective, fire
was commanded by the general of the National Guard.** One volley dispersed
into wild flight the silly coxcombs, who expected that the mere exhibition of their
"respectability" would have the same effect upon the Revolution of Paris as
Joshua's trumpets upon the wall of Jericho. The runaways left behind them two
National Guards killed, nine severely wounded (among them a member of the
Central Committee),*** and the whole scene of their exploit strewn with
revolvers, daggers, and sword-canes, in evidence of the "unarmed" character of
their "pacific" demonstration. When, on the 13th of June, 1849, the National
Guard made a really pacific demonstration in protest against the felonious assault
of French troops upon Rome, Changarnier, then general of the Party of Order, was
* Fops.
** Jules Bergeret.
*** Maljournal.
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acclaimed by the National Assembly, and especially by M. Thiers, as the saviour
of society, for having launched his troops from all sides upon these unarmed men,
to shoot and sabre them down, and to trample them under their horses' feet. Paris,
then, was placed under a state of siege. Dufaure hurried through the Assembly
new laws of repression. New arrests, new proscriptions - a new reign of terror set
in. But the lower orders manage these things otherwise. The Central Committee of
1871 simply ignored the heroes of the "pacific demonstration"; so much so that
only two days later they were enabled to muster under Admiral Saisset for that
armed demonstration, crowned by the famous stampede to Versailles. In their
reluctance to continue the civil war opened by Thiers' burglarious attempt on
Montmartre, the Central Committee made themselves, this time, guilty of a
decisive mistake in not at once marching upon Versailles, then completely
helpless, and thus putting an end to the conspiracies of Thiers and his Rurals.
Instead of this, the Party of Order was again allowed to try its strength at the
ballot-box, on the 26th of March, the day of the election of the Commune. Then,
in the mairies of Paris,* they exchanged bland words of conciliation with their too
generous conquerors, muttering in their hearts solemn vows to exterminate them
in due time.
Now, look at the reverse of the medal. Thiers opened his second campaign
against Paris in the beginning of April. The first batch of Parisian prisoners
brought into Versailles was subjected to revolting atrocities, while Ernest Picard,
with his hands in his trousers pockets, strolled about jeering them, and while
Mesdames Thiers and Favre, in the midst
* Town halls of the arrandissements of Paris.
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of their ladies of honour (?), applauded, from the balcony, the outrages of the
Versailles mob. The captured soldiers of the line were massacred in cold blood;
our brave friend, General Duval, the iron-founder, was shot without any form of
trial. Galliffet, the kept man of his wife, so notorious for her shameless
exhibitions at the orgies of the Second Empire, boasted in a proclamation of
having commanded the murder of a small troop of National Guards, with their
captain and lieutenant, surprised and disarmed by his Chasseurs. Vinoy, the
runaway, was appointed by Thiers Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour for his
general order to shoot down every soldier of the line taken in the ranks of the
Federals. Desmaret, the gendarme, was decorated for the treacherous butcher-like
chopping in pieces of the high-souled and chivalrous Flourens, who had saved the
heads of the Government of Defence on the 31st of October, 1870.[70] "The
encouraging particulars" of his assassination were triumphantly expatiated upon
by Thiers in the National Assembly. With the elated vanity of a parliamentary
Tom Thumb, permitted to play the part of a Tamerlane, he denied the rebels
against his littleness every right of civilized warfare, up to the right of neutrality
for ambulances. Nothing more horrid than that monkey allowed for a time to give
full fling to his tigerish instincts, as foreseen by Voltaire.mj (See note, p. 35.)*
After the decree of the Commune of the 7th April, ordering reprisals and
declaring it to be its duty "to protect Paris against the cannibal exploits of the
Versailles banditti, and to demand an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, "[72] Thiers
did not stop the barbarous treatment of prisoners, moreover
* See below, pp. 104-05 .
page 64
insulting them in his bulletins as follows: "Never have more degraded
countenances of a degraded democracy met the afflicted gazes of honest men" -
honest, like Thiers himself and his ministerial ticket-of-leave men. Still the
shooting of prisoners was suspended for a time. Hardly, however, had Thiers and
his Decembrist generals become aware that the Communal decree of reprisals was
but an empty threat, that even their gendarme spies caught in Paris under the
disguise of National Guards, that even sergents de ville taken with incendiary
shells upon them, were spared - when the whole sale shooting of prisoners was
resumed and carried on uninterruptedly to the end. Houses to which National
Guards had fled were surrounded by gendarmes, inundated with petroleum (which
here occurs for the first time in this war), and then set fire to, the charred corpses
being afterwards brought out by the ambulance of the Press at the Ternes. Four
National Guards having surrendered to a troop of mounted Chasseurs at Belle-
Epine, on the 25th of April, were afterwards shot down, one after another, by the
captain, a worthy man of Galliffet's. One of his four victims, left for dead,
Scheffer, crawled back to the Parisian outposts, and deposed to this fact before a
commission of the Commune. When Tolain interpellated the War Minister upon
the report of this commission, the Rurals drowned his voice and forbade Le Flo to
answer. It would be an insult to their "glorious" army to speak of its deeds. The
flippant tone in which Thiers' bulletins announced the bayoneting of the Federals
surprised asleep at Moulin-Saquet, and the wholesale fusillades at Clamart
shocked the nerves even of the not over- sensitive London Times. But it would be
ludicrous today to attempt recounting the merely preliminary atrocities committed
by the bombarders of Paris and the fomenters of a slaveholders'
page 65
rebellion protected by foreign invasion. Amidst all these horrors, Thiers, forgetful
of his parliamentary laments on the terrible responsibility weighing down his
dwarfish shoulders boasts in his bulletin that VAssemblée siège
paisiblement (the Assembly continues meeting in peace), and proves by his
constant carousals, now with Decembrist generals, now with German princes, that
his digestion is not troubled in the least, not even by the ghosts of Lecomte and
Clément Thomas.
page 66
III
On the dawn of the 18th of March, Paris arose to the thunderburst of "Vive la
Commune!" What is the Commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois
mind?
"The proletarians of Palis," said the Central Committee in its manifesto of the 18th March,
"amidst the failures and treasons of the ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for
them to save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of public affairs. . . . They
have understood that it is their imperious duty and their absolute right to render themselves
masters of their own destinies, by seizing upon the governmental power. "[73]
But the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready made State machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.
The centralized State power, with its ubiquitous organs of standing army, police, bureaucracy, clergy, and judicature - organs
wrought after the plan of a systematic and hierarchic division of labour - originates from the days of absolute monarchy, serving
nascent middle-class society as a mighty weapon in its struggles against feudalism. Still, its development remained clogged by all
manner of medieval rubbish, seignorial rights, local privileges, municipal and guild monopolies and provincial constitutions. The
gigantic broom of the French
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Revolution of the eighteenth century swept away all these relics of bygone times, thus clearing simultaneously the social soil of its
last hindrances to the superstructure of the modern State edifice raised under the First Empire, itself the offspring of the Coalition
wars [74] of old semi-feudal Europe against modern France. During the subsequent régimes the Government, placed under
parliamentary control - that is, under the direct control of the propertied classes - became not only a hotbed of huge national debts
and crushing taxes; with its irresistible allurements of place, pelf, and patronage, it became not only the bone of contention between
the rival factions and adventurers of the ruling classes; but its political character changed simultaneously with the economic
changes of society. At the same pace at which the progress of modern industry developed, widened, intensified the class
antagonism between capital and labour, the State power assumed more and more the character of the national power of capital over
labour, of a public force organized for social enslavement, of an engine of class despotism.* After every revolution marking a
progressive phase in the class struggle, the purely repressive character of the State power stands out in bolder and bolder relief. The
Revolution of 1830, resulting in the transfer of government from the landlords to the capitalists, transferred it from the more remote
to the more direct antagonists of the working men. The bourgeois Republicans, who, in the name of the Revolution of February,
took the State power, used it for the June massacres, in order to convince the working class that "Social" Republic meant the
Republic ensuring their social
* In the German edition of 1871, the latter part of the sentence reads: ". . . the State power assumed more and more the character
of a public force for the suppression of labour, a machine of class rule."
page 68
subjection, and in order to convince the royalist bulk of the bourgeois and landlord class that they might safely leave the cares and
emoluments of government to the bourgeois "Republicans." However, after their one heroic exploit of June, the bourgeois
Republicans had, from the front to fall back to the rear of the "Party of Order" — a combination formed by all the rival fractions and
factions of the appropriating class in their now openly declared antagonism to the producing classes. The proper form of their joint-
stock government was the Parliamentary Republic, with Louis Bonaparte for its President. Theirs was a regime of avowed class
terrorism and deliberate insult towards the "vile multitude." If the Parliamentary Republic, as M. Thiers said, "divided them (the
different fractions of the ruling class) least," it opened an abyss between that class and the whole body of society outside their spare
ranks. The restraints by which their own divisions had under former régimes still checked the State power, were removed by
their union; and in view of the threatening upheaval of the proletariat, they now used that State power mercilessly and
ostentatiously as the national war-engine of capital against labour. In their uninterrupted crusade against the producing masses they
were, however, bound not only to invest the Executive with continually increased powers of repression, but at the same time to
divest their own parliamentary stronghold — the National Assembly — one by one, of all its own means of defence against the
Executive. The Executive, in the person of Louis Bonaparte, turned them out. The natural offspring of the "Party-of-Order"
Republic was the Second Empire.
The Empire, with the coup d'état for its certificate of birth, universal suffrage for its sanction, and the sword for its
sceptre, professed to rest upon the peasantry, the large mass
page 69
of producers not directly involved in the struggle of capital and labour. It professed to save the working class by breaking down
parliamentarism, and, with it, the undisguised subserviency of Government to the propertied classes. It professed to save the
propertied classes by upholding their economic supremacy over the working class; and, finally, it professed to unite all classes by
reviving for all the chimera of national glory. In reality, it was the only form of government possible at a time when the bourgeoisie
had already lost, and the working class had not yet acquired, the faculty of ruling the nation. It was acclaimed throughout the world
as the saviour of society. Under its sway, bourgeois society, freed from political cares, attained a development unexpected even by
itself. Its industry and commerce expanded to colossal dimensions; financial swindling celebrated cosmopolitan orgies; the misery
of the masses was set off by a shameless display of gorgeous, meretricious and debased luxury. The State power, apparently
soaring high above society, was at the same time itself the greatest scandal of that society and the very hotbed of all its corruptions.
Its own rottenness, and the rottenness of the society it had saved, were laid bare by the bayonet of Prussia, herself eagerly bent
upon transferring the supreme seat of that régime from Paris to Berlin. Imperialism is, at the same time, the most prostitute
and the ultimate form of the State power which nascent middle-class society had commenced to elaborate as a means of its own
emancipation from feudalism, and which full-grown bourgeois society had finally transformed into a means for the enslavement of
labour by capital.
The direct antithesis to the Empire was the Commune. The cry of "Social Republic," with which the Revolution of February was
ushered in by the Paris proletariat, did but express a
page 70
vague aspiration after a Republic that was not only to supersede the monarchical form of class rule, but class rule itself. The
Commune was the positive form of that Republic.
Paris, the central seat of the old governmental power, and, at the same time, the social stronghold of the French working class,
had risen in arms against the attempt of Thiers and the Rurals to restore and perpetuate that old governmental power bequeathed to
them by the Empire. Paris could resist only because, in consequence of the siege, it had got rid of the army, and replaced it by a
National Guard, the bulk of which consisted of working men. This fact was now to be transformed into an institution. The first
decree of the Commune, therefore, was the suppression of the standing army, and the substitution for it of the armed people.
The Commune was formed of the municipal councillors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town,
responsible and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally working men, or acknowledged
representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the
same time. Instead of continuing to be the agent of the Central Government, the police was at once stripped of its political
attributes, and turned into the responsible and at all times revocable agent of the Commune. So were the officials of all other
branches of the Administration. From the members of the Commune downwards, the public service had to be done at workmen's
wages. The vested interests and the representation allowances of the high dignitaries of State disappeared along with the high
dignitaries themselves. Public functions ceased to be the private property of the tools of the Central Government. Not only
municipal administration,
page 71
but the whole initiative hitherto exercised by the State was laid into the hands of the Commune.
Having once got rid of the standing army and the police, the physical force elements of the old government, the Commune was
anxious to break the spiritual force of repression, the "parson-power," by the disestablishment and disendowment of all churches as
proprietary bodies. The priests were sent back to the recesses of private life, there to feed upon the alms of the faithful in imitation
of their predecessors, the Apostles. The whole of the educational institutions were opened to the people gratuitously, and at the
same time cleared of all interference of Church and State. Thus, not only was education made accessible to all, but science itself
freed from the fetters which class prejudice and governmental force had imposed upon it.
The judicial functionaries were to be divested of that sham independence which had but served to mask their abject subserviency
to all succeeding governments to which, in turn, they had taken, and broken, the oaths of allegiance. Like the rest of public
servants, magistrates and judges were to be elective, responsible, and revocable.
The Paris Commune was, of course, to serve as a model to all the great industrial centres of France. The Communal
régime once established in Paris and the secondary centres, the old centralized Government would in the provinces, too,
have to give way to the self-government of the producers. In a rough sketch of national organization which the Commune had no
time to develop, it states clearly that the Commune was to be the political form of even the smallest country hamlet, and that in the
rural districts the standing army was to be replaced by a national militia, with an extremely short term of service. The rural
Communes of every district were
page 72
to administer their common affairs by an assembly of delegates in the central town, and these district assemblies were again to send
deputies to the National Delegation in Paris, each delegate to be at any time revocable and bound by the mandat impératif
(formal instructions) of his constituents. The few but important functions which still would remain for a central government were
not to be suppressed, as has been intentionally mis-stated, but were to be discharged by Communal, and therefore strictly
responsible agents. The unity of the nation was not to be broken, but, on the contrary, to be organized by the Communal
Constitution, and to become a reality by the destruction of the State power which claimed to be the embodiment of that unity
independent of, and superior to, the nation itself, from which it was but a parasitic excrescence. While the merely repressive organs
of the old governmental power were to be amputated, its legitimate functions were to be wrested from an authority usurping pre-
eminence over society itself, and restored to the responsible agents of society. Instead of deciding once in three or six years which
member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people, constituted in
Communes, as individual suffrage serves every other employer in the search for the workmen and managers in his business. And it
is well known that companies, like individuals, in matters of real business generally know how to put the right man in the right
place, and, if they for once make a mistake, to redress it promptly. On the other hand, nothing could be more foreign to the spirit of
the Commune than to supersede universal suffrage by hierarchic investiture. [75]
It is generally the fate of completely new historical creations to be mistaken for the counterpart of older and even defunct forms
of social life, to which they may bear a certain likeness.
page 73
Thus, this new Commune, which breaks the modern State power, has been mistaken for a reproduction of the medieval Communes,
which first preceded, and afterwards became the substratum of, that very State power. The Communal Constitution has been
mistaken for an attempt to break up into a federation of small States, as dreamt of by Montesquieu and the Girondins,[76] that unity
of great nations which, if originally brought about by political force, has now become a powerful coefficient of social production.
The antagonism of the Commune against the State power has been mistaken for an exaggerated form of the ancient struggle against
over-centralization. Peculiar historical circumstances may have prevented the classical development, as in France, of the bourgeois
form of government, and may have allowed, as in England, to complete the great central State organs by corrupt vestries, jobbing
councillors and ferocious poor-law guardians in the towns, and virtually hereditary magistrates in the counties. The Communal
Constitution would have restored to the social body all the forces hitherto absorbed by the State parasite feeding upon, and clogging
the free movement of, society. By this one act it would have initiated the regeneration of France. The provincial French middle
class saw in the Commune an attempt to restore the sway their order had held over the country under Louis Philippe, and which,
under Louis Napoleon, was supplanted by the pretended rule of the country over the towns. In reality, the Communal Constitution
brought the rural producers under the intellectual lead of the central towns of their districts, and there secured to them, in the
working men, the natural trustees of their interests. The very existence of the Commune involved, as a matter of course, local
municipal liberty, but no longer as a check upon the, now superseded, State power. It could only enter into the head of a Bismarck,
page 74
who, when not engaged on his intrigues of blood and iron always likes to resume his old trade, so befitting his mental calibre, of
contributor to Kladderadatsch (the Berlin Punch), [77] it could only enter into such a head, to ascribe to the Paris Commune
aspirations after that caricature of the old French municipal organization of 1791, the Prussian municipal constitution which
degrades the town governments to mere secondary wheels in the police machinery of the Prussian State. The Commune made that
catchword of bourgeois revolutions cheap government, a reality, by destroying the two greatest sources of expenditure - the
standing army[*] and State functionarism. Its very existence presupposed the non-existence of monarchy, which, in Europe at least,
is the normal incumbrance and indispensable cloak of class rule. It supplied the Republic with the basis of really democratic
institutions. But neither cheap government nor the "true Republic" was its ultimate aim; they were its mere concomitants.
The multiplicity of interpretations to which the Commune has been subjected, and the multiplicity of interests which construed it
in their favour, show that it was a thoroughly expansive political form, while all previous forms of government had been
emphatically repressive. Its true secret was this. It was essentially a working-class government,** the produce of the struggle of the
producing against the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation
of labour.
Except on this last condition, the Communal Constitution would have been an impossibility and a delusion. The political
* In the German editions of 1871 and 1891, "the standing army" reads "the army."
** In the German editions of 1871 and 1891, the words "working-class government" are italicized.
page 75
rule of the producer cannot coexist with the perpetuation of his social slavery. The Commune was therefore to serve as a lever for
uprooting the economical foundations upon which rests the existence of classes, and therefore of class rule. With labour
emancipated, every man becomes a working man, and productive labour ceases to be a class attribute.
It is a strange fact. In spite of all the tall talk and all the immense literature, for the last sixty years, about emancipation of labour,
no sooner do the working men anywhere take the subject into their own hands with a will than up rises at once all the apologetic
phraseology of the mouthpieces of present society with its two poles of Capital and Wages Slavery (the landlord now is but the
sleeping partner of the capitalist), as if capitalist society was still in its purest state of virgin innocence, with its antagonisms still
undeveloped, with its delusions still unexploded, with its prostitute realities not yet laid bare. The Commune, they exclaim, intends
to abolish property, the basis of all civilization! Yes, gentlemen, the Commune intended to abolish that class property which makes
the labour of the many the wealth of the few. It aimed at the expropriation of the expropriators. It wanted to make individual
property a truth by transforming the means of production, land and capital, now chiefly the means of enslaving and exploiting
labour, into mere instruments of free and associated labour. But this is communism, "impossible" communism! Why, those
members of the ruling classes who are intelligent enough to perceive the impossibility of continuing the present system — and they
are many - have become the obtrusive and full-mouthed apostles of co-operative production. If co-operative production is not to
remain a sham and a snare; if it is to supersede the capitalist system;
page 76
if united co-operative societies are to regulate national production upon a common plan, thus taking it under their own control, and
putting an end to the constant anarchy and periodical convulsions which are the fatality of capitalist production — what else,
gentlemen, would it be but communism, "possible" communism?
The working class did not expect miracles from the Commune. They have no ready-made Utopias to introduce par décret
du peuple. [*] They know that in order to work out their own emancipation, and along with it that higher form to which present
society is irresistibly tending by its own economical agencies, they will have to pass through long struggles, through a series of
historic processes, transforming circumstances and men. They have no ideals to realize, but to set free the elements of the new
society with which old collapsing bourgeois society itself is pregnant. In the full consciousness of their historic mission, and with
the heroic resolve to act up to it, the working class can afford to smile at the, coarse invective of the gentlemen's gentlemen with the
pen and inkhorn, and at the didactic patronage of well-wishing bourgeois doctrinaires, pouring forth their ignorant platitudes and
sectarian crotchets in the oracular tone of scientific infallibility.
When the Paris Commune took the management of the Revolution in its own hands; when plain working men for the first time
dared to infringe upon the governmental privilege of their "natural superiors,"** and, under circumstances of unexampled
difficulty, performed their work modestly conscientiously, and efficiently — performed it at salaries the
* By decree of the people.
** In the German editions of 1871 and 1891, '"natural superiors'" reads '"natural superiors,' the propertied class."
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highest of which barely amounted to one-fifth of what, according to high scientific authority, [*] is the minimum required for a
secretary to a certain metropolitan school-board - the old world writhed in convulsions of rage at the sight of the Red Flag, the
symbol of the Republic of Labour, floating over the Hôtel de Ville.
And yet, this was the first revolution in which the working class was openly acknowledged as the only class capable of social
initiative, even by the great bulk of the Paris middle class - shopkeepers, tradesmen, merchants - the wealthy capitalists alone
excepted. The Commune had saved them by a sagacious settlement of that ever-recurring cause of dispute among the middle
classes themselves - the debtor and creditor accounts. [78] The same portion of the middle class, after they had assisted in putting
down the working men's insurrection of June 1848, had been at once unceremoniously sacrificed to their creditors by the then
Constituent Assembly. [79] But this was not their only motive for now rallying raond the working class. They felt that there was but
one alternative — the Commune, or the Empire — under whatever name it might reappear. The Empire had ruined them
economically by the havoc it made of public wealth, by the wholesale financial swindling it fostered, by the props it lent to the
artificially accelerated centralization of capital, and the concomitant expropriation of their own ranks. It had suppressed them
politically, it had shocked them morally by its orgies, it had insulted their Voltairianism by handing over the education of their
children to the frères ignorantins, [80] it had revolted their national feeling as Frenchmen by precipitating them
* In the German editions, the words "(Professor Huxley)" are added after "authority."
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headlong into a war which left only one equivalent for the ruins it made - the disappearance of the Empire. In fact, after the exodus
from Paris of the high Bonapartist and capitalist bohème,[*] the true middle-class Party of Order came out in the shape of
the "Union républicaine,"[81_] enrolling themselves under the colours of the Commune and defending it against the wilful
misconstruction of Thiers. Whether the gratitude of this great body of the middle class will stand the present severe trial, time must
show.
The Commune was perfectly right in telling the peasants that "its victory was their only hope. "[82] Of all the lies hatched at
Versailles and re-echoed by the glorious European penny-a-liner, one of the most tremendous was that the Rurals represented the
French peasantry. Think only of the love of the French peasant for the men to whom, after 1815, he had to pay the milliard of
indemnity ! [83] In the eyes of the French peasant, the very existence of a great landed proprietor is in itself an encroachment on his
conquests of 1789. The bourgeois, in 1848, had burdened his plot of land with the additional tax of forty-five cents in the franc;[ 84]
but then he did so in the name of the Revolution; while now he had fomented a civil war against the Revolution, to shift on to the
peasant's shoulders the chief load of the five milliards of indemnity to be paid to the Prussians. The Commune, on the other hand,
in one of its first proclamations, declared that the true originators of the war would be made to pay its cost. The Commune would
have delivered the peasant of the blood-tax — would have given him a cheap government, transformed his present blood-suckers,
the notary, advocate, executor, and other judicial
* Bohemians
page 79
vampires, into salaried Communal agents, elected by, and responsible to, himself. It would have freed him of the tyranny of the
garde champ être,[*] the gendarme, and the prefect; would have put enlightenment by the schoolmaster in the place of
stultification by the priest. And the French peasant is, above all, a man of reckoning. He would find it extremely reasonable that the
pay of the priest, instead of being extorted by the tax gatherer, should only depend upon the spontaneous action of the parishioners'
religious instincts. Such were the great im mediate boons which the rule of the Commune — and that rule alone — held out to the
French peasantry. It is, therefore, quite superfluous here to expatiate upon the more complicated but vital problems which the
Commune alone was able, and at the same time compelled, to solve in favour of the peasant, viz., the hypothecary debt, lying like
an incubus upon his parcel of soil, the prolétariat fancier (the rural proletariat), daily growing upon it, and his expropriation
from it enforced, at a more and more rapid rate, by the very development of modern agriculture and the competition of capitalist
farming.
The French peasant had elected Louis Bonaparte President of the Republic; but the Party of Order created the Empire. What the
French peasant really wants he commenced to show in 1849 and 1850, by opposing his maire ** to the Government's prefect, his
schoolmaster to the Government's priest, and himself to the Government's gendarme. All the laws made by the Party of Order in
January and February 1850[85] were avowed measures of repression against the peasant. The peasant was a Bonapartist, because
the great Revolution, with
* Village policeman.
** Mayor of an arrondissement.
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all its benefits to him, was, in his eyes, personified in Napoleon. This delusion, rapidly breaking down under the Second Empire
(and in its very nature hostile to the Rurals), this prejudice of the past, how could it have withstood the appeal of the Commune to
the living interests and urgent wants of the peasantry?
The Rurals — this was, in fact, their chief apprehension — knew that three months' free communication of Communal Paris with
the provinces would bring about a general rising of the peasants, and hence their anxiety to establish a police blockade around
Paris, so as to stop the spread of the rinder pest.
If the Commune was thus the true representative of all the healthy elements of French society, and therefore the truly national
Government, it was, at the same time, as a working men's Government, as the bold champion of the emancipation of labour,
emphatically international. Within sight of the Prussian army, that had annexed to Germany two French provinces, the Commune
annexed to France the working people all over the world.
The Second Empire had been the jubilee of cosmopolitan blacklegism, the rakes of all countries rushing in at its call for a share
in its orgies and in the plunder of the French people. Even at this moment the right hand of Thiers is Ganesco, the foul Wallachian,
and his left hand is Markovsky, the Russian spy. The Commune admitted all foreigners to the honour of dying for an immortal
cause. Between the foreign war lost by their treason, and the civil war fomented by their conspiracy with the foreign invader, the
bourgeoisie had found the time to display their patriotism by organizing police-hunts upon the Germans in France. The Commune
made a German
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working man[*] its Minister of Labour. Thiers, the bourgeoisie, the Second Empire, had continually deluded Poland by loud
professions of sympathy, while in reality betraying her to, and doing the dirty work of, Russia. The Commune honoured the heroic
sons of Poland [^] by placing them at the head of the defenders of Paris. And, to broadly mark the new era of history it was
conscious of initiating, under the eyes of the conquering Prussians, on the one side, and of the Bonapartist army, led by Bonapartist
generals, on the other, the Commune pulled down that colossal symbol of martial glory, the Vendôme Column. [86]
The great social measure of the Commune was its own working existence. Its special measures could but betoken the tendency of
a government of the people by the people. Such were the abolition of the nightwork of journeymen bakers the prohibition, under
penalty, of the employers' practice to reduce wages by levying upon their workpeople fines under manifold pretexts — a process in
which the employer combines in his own person the parts of legislator, judge, and executor, and filches the money to boot. Another
measure of this class was the surrender, to associations of workmen, under reserve of compensation, of all closed workshops and
factories, no matter whether the respective capitalists had absconded or preferred to strike work.
The financial measures of the Commune, remarkable for their sagacity and moderation, could only be such as were compatible
with the state of a besieged town. Considering the colossal robberies committed upon the City of Paris by the great financial
companies and contractors, under the protection
* Leo Frankel.
** Jaroslaw Dombrowski and Walery Wróblewski.
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of Haussmann,[*] the Commune would have had an incomparably better title to confiscate their property than Louis Napoleon had
against the Orleans family. The Hohenzollern and the English oligarchs, who both have derived a good deal of their estates from
Church plunder, were, of course, greatly shocked at the Commune clearing but 8,000/. out of secularization.
While the Versailles Government, as soon as it had recovered some spirit and strength, used the most violent means against the
Commune; while it put down the free expression of opinion all over France, even to the forbidding of meetings of delegates from
the large towns; while it subjected Versailles and the rest of France to an espionage far surpassing that of the Second Empire; while
it burned by its gendarme inquisitors all papers printed at Paris, and sifted all correspondence from and to Paris; while in the
National Assembly the most timid attempts to put in a word for Paris were howled down in a manner unknown even to the
Chambre introuvable of 1816; with the savage warfare of Versailles outside, and its attempts at corruption and conspiracy inside
Paris — would the Commune not have shamefully betrayed its trust by affecting to keep up all the decencies and appearances of
liberalism as in a time of profound peace? Had the Government of the Commune been akin to that of M. Thiers, there would have
been no more occasion to suppress Party-of-Order papers at Paris than there was to suppress Communal papers at Versailles.
* During the Second Empire, Baron Haussmann was Prefect of the Department of the Seine, that is, of the City of Paris. He
introduced a number of changes in the layout of the City for the purpose of facilitating the crushing of workers' insurrections. [Note
to the Russian translation of 1905 edited by V. I. Lenin.]
page 83
It was irritating indeed to the Rurals that at the very same time they declared the return to the Church to be the only means of
salvation for France, the infidel Commune unearthed the peculiar mysteries of the Picpus nunnery, and of the Church of Saint
Laurent. [87] It was a satire upon M. Thiers that, while he showered grand crosses upon the Bonapartist generals in
acknowledgement of their mastery in losing battles, signing capitulations, and turning cigarettes at Wilhelmshöhe, [ 1 0] the
Commune dismissed and arrested its generals whenever they were suspected of neglecting their duties. The expulsion from, and
arrest by, the Commune of one of its members who had slipped in under a false name,[*] and had undergone at Lyons six days'
imprisonment for simple bankruptcy, was it not a deliberate insult hurled at the forger, Jules Favre, then still the Foreign Minister
of France, still selling France to Bismarck, and still dictating his orders to that paragon Government of Belgium? But indeed the
Commune did not pretend to infallibility, the invariable attribute of all governments of the old stamp. It published its doings and
sayings, it initiated the public into all its shortcomings.
In every revolution there intrude, at the side of its true agents, men of a different stamp; some of them survivors of and devotees
to past revolutions, without insight into the present movement, but preserving popular influence by their known honesty and
courage, or by the sheer force of tradition; others mere bawlers, who, by dint of repeating year after year the same set of
stereotyped declamations against the Government of the day, have sneaked into the reputation of revolutionists of the first water.
After the 18th of March, some such men did also turn up, and in some cases contrived
* Blanchet.
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to play pre-eminent parts. As far as their power went, they hampered the real action of the working class, exactly as men of that sort
have hampered the full development of every previous revolution. They are an unavoidable evil: with time they are shaken off; but
time was not allowed to the Commune.
Wonderful, indeed, was the change the Commune had wrought in Paris ! No longer any trace of the meretricious Paris of the
Second Empire. No longer was Paris the rendezvous of British landlords, Irish absentees, [88] American ex-slaveholders and
shoddy men, Russian ex-serf owners, and Wallachian boyards. No more corpses at the Morgue, no nocturnal burglaries, scarcely
any robberies; in fact, for the first time since the days of February 1848, the streets of Paris were safe, and that without any police
of any kind.
"We," said a member of the Commune, "hear no longer of assassination, theft, and personal assault; it seems indeed as if the
police had dragged along with it to Versailles all its Conservative friends."
The cocottes had refound the scent of their protectors — the absconding men of family, religion, and, above all, of property. In
their stead, the real women of Paris showed again at the surface — heroic, noble, and devoted, like the women of antiquity.
Working, thinking, fighting, bleeding Paris — almost forgetful, in its incubation of a new society, of the cannibals at its gates —
radiant in the enthusiasm of its historic initiative!
Opposed to this new world at Paris, behold the old world at Versailles — that assembly of the ghouls of all defunct regimes,
Legitimists and Orleanists, eager to feed upon the carcass of the nation — with a tail of antediluvian Republicans, sanctioning, by
their presence in the Assembly, the slaveholders' rebellion, relying for the maintenance of their Parliamentary
page 85
Republic upon the vanity of the senile mountebank at its head, and caricaturing 1789 by holding their ghastly meetings in the Jeu
de Paume.[^\ There it was, this Assembly, the representative of everything dead in France, propped up to the semblance of life by
nothing but the swords of the generals of Louis Bonaparte. Paris all truth, Versailles all lie; and that lie vented through the mouth of
Thiers.
Thiers tells a deputation of the mayors of the Seine-et-Oise: "You may rely upon my word, which I have never broken!" He tells
the Assembly itself that it was "the most freely elected and most liberal Assembly France ever possessed"; he tells his motley
soldiery that it was "the admiration of the world, and the finest army France ever possessed"; he tells the provinces that the
bombardment of Paris by him was a myth:
"If some cannon-shots have been fired, it is not the deed of the army of Versailles, but of some insurgents trying to make believe
that they are fighting, while they dare not show their faces."
He again tells the provinces that "the artillery of Versailles does not bombard Paris, but only cannonades it." He tells the
Archbishop of Paris that the pretended executions and reprisals (!) attributed to the Versailles troops were all moon shine. He tells
Paris that he was only anxious "to free it from the hideous tyrants who oppress it," and that, in fact, the Paris of the Commune was
"but a handful of criminals."
The Paris of M. Thiers was not the real Paris of the "vile multitude," but a phantom Paris, the Paris of th& francs-fileurs, [S9] the
Paris of the Boulevards, male and female — the rich, the capitalist, the gilded, the idle Paris, now thronging with its
* Jeu de Paume : The tennis court where the National Assembly of 1789 adopted its famous decisions. [Note by Engels to the
German edition of 1871.]
page 86
lackeys, its blacklegs, its literary bohème, and its cocottes at Versailles, Saint-Denis, Rueil, and Saint-Germain; considering
the civil war but an agreeable diversion, eyeing the battle going on through telescopes, counting the rounds of cannon, and
swearing by their own honour and that of their prostitutes, that the performance was far better got up than it used to be at the Porte-
Saint-Martin. The men who fell were really dead; the cries of the wounded were cries in good earnest; and, besides, the whole thing
was so intensely historical.
This is the Paris of M. Thiers, as the Emigration of Coblenz[90] was the France of M. de Calonne.
page 87
IV
The first attempt of the slaveholders' conspiracy to put down Paris by getting the Prussians to occupy it; was frustrated by
Bismarck's refusal. The second attempt, that of the 18th of March, ended in the rout of the army and the flight to Versailles of the
Government, which ordered the whole administration to break up and follow in its track. By the semblance of peace negotiations
with Paris, Thiers found the time to prepare for war against it. But where to find an army? The remnants of the line regiments were
weak in number and unsafe in character. His urgent appeal to the provinces to succour Versailles, by their National Guards and
volunteers, met with a flat refusal. Brittany alone furnished a handful of Chouans [91] fighting under a white flag, every one of
them wearing on his breast the heart of Jesus in white cloth, and shouting "Vive le Roil " (Long live the King!). Thiers was,
therefore, compelled to collect, in hot haste, a motley crew, composed of sailors, marines, Pontifical Zouaves, [92] Valentin's
gendarmes, and Pietri's sergents de ville and mouchards.* This army, however, would have been ridiculously ineffective with
* Police informers.
page 88
out the instalments of imperialist war-prisoners, which Bismarck granted in numbers just sufficient to keep the civil war a-going,
and keep the Versailles Government in abject dependence on Prussia. During the war itself, the Versailles police had to look after
the Versailles army, while the gendarmes had to drag it on by exposing themselves at all posts of danger. The forts which fell were
not taken, but bought. The heroism of the Federals convinced Thiers that the resistance of Paris was not to be broken by his own
strategic genius and the bayonets at his disposal.
Meanwhile, his relations with the provinces became more and more difficult. Not one single address of approval came in to
gladden Thiers and his Rurals. Quite the contrary. Deputations and addresses demanding, in a tone anything but respectful,
conciliation with Paris on the basis of the unequivocal recognition of the Republic, the acknowledgement of the Communal
liberties, and the dissolution of the National Assembly, whose mandate was extinct, poured in from all sides, and in such numbers
that Dufaure, Thiers' Minister of Justice, in his circular of April 23 to the public prosecutors, commanded them to treat "the cry of
conciliation" as a crime! In regard, however, of the hopeless prospect held out by his campaign, Thiers resolved to shift his tactics
by ordering, all over the country, municipal elections to take place on the 30th of April, on the basis of the new municipal law
dictated by himself to the National Assembly. What with the intrigues of his prefects, what with police intimidation, he felt quite
sanguine of imparting, by the verdict of the provinces, to the National Assembly that moral power it had never possessed, and of
getting at last from the provinces the physical force required for the conquest of Paris.
page 89
His banditti-warfare against Paris, exalted in his own bulletins, and the attempts of his ministers at the establishment, throughout
France, of a reign of terror, Thiers was from the beginning anxious to accompany with a little byplay of conciliation, which had to
serve more than one purpose. It was to dupe the provinces, to inveigle the middle-class element in Paris, and, above all, to afford
the professed Republicans in the National Assembly the opportunity of hiding their treason against Paris behind their faith in
Thiers. On the 21st of March, when still without an army, he had declared to the Assembly: "Come what may, I will not send an
army to Paris." On the 27th March he rose again: "I have found the Republic an accomplished fact, and I am firmly resolved to
maintain it." In reality, he put down the revolution at Lyons and Marseilles [93] in the name of the Republic, while the roars of his
Rurals drowned the very mention of its name at Versailles. After this exploit, he toned down the "accomplished fact" into an
hypothetical fact. The Orleans princes, whom he had cautiously warned off Bordeaux, were now, in flagrant breach of the law,
permitted to intrigue at Dreux. The concessions held out by Thiers in his interminable interviews with the delegates from Paris and
the provinces, although constantly varied in tone and colour, according to time and circumstances, did in fact never come to more
than the prospective restriction of revenge to the "handful of criminals implicated in the murder of Lecomte and Clément
Thomas," on the well understood premise that Paris and France were unreservedly to accept M. Thiers himself as the best of
possible Republics, as he, in 1830, had done with Louis Philippe. Even these concessions he not only took care to render doubtful
by the official comments put upon them in the Assembly through his ministers. He had his Dufaure to act. Dufaure, this old
Orleanist
page 90
lawyer, had always been the justiciary of the state of siege as now in 1871, under Thiers, so in 1839 under Louis Philippe, and in
1849 under Louis Bonaparte's presidency. [94] While out of office he made a fortune by pleading for the Paris capitalists, and made
political capital by pleading against the laws he had himself originated. He now hurried through the National Assembly not only a
set of repressive laws which were, after the fall of Paris, to extirpate the last remnants of Republican liberty in France;[95] he
foreshadowed the fate of Paris by abridging the, for him, too slow procedure of courts-martial, [96] and by a new-fangled, Draconic
code of deportation. The Revolution of 1848, abolishing the penalty of death for political crimes, had replaced it by deportation.
Louis Bonaparte did not dare, at least not in theory, to re-establish the régime of the guillotine. The Rural Assembly, not yet
bold enough even to hint that the Parisians were not rebels, but assassins, had therefore to confine its prospective vengeance against
Paris to Dufaure's new code of deportation. Under all these circumstances Thiers himself could not have gone on with his comedy
of conciliation, had it not, as he intended it to do, drawn forth shrieks of rage from the Rurals, whose ruminating mind did neither
understand the play, nor its necessities of hypocrisy, tergiversation, and procrastination.
In sight of the impending municipal elections of the 30th April, Thiers enacted one of his great conciliation scenes on the 27th
April. Amidst a flood of sentimental rhetoric, he exclaimed from the tribune of the Assembly:
"There exists no conspiracy against the Republic but that of Paris, which compels us to shed French blood. I repeat it again and
again. Let those impious arms fall from the hands which hold them, and chastisement will be arrested at once by an act of peace
excluding only the small number of criminals."
page 91
To the violent interruption of the Rurals he replied:
"Gentlemen, tell me, I implore you, am I wrong? Do you really regret that I could have stated the truth that the criminals are only
a handful? Is it not fortunate in the midst of our misfortunes that those who have been capable of shedding the blood of
Clément Thomas and General Lecomte are but rare exceptions?"
France, however, turned a deaf ear to what Thiers flattered himself to be a parliamentary siren's song. Out of 700,000 municipal
councillors returned by the 35,000 communes still left to France, the united Legitimists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists did not carry
8,000. The supplementary elections which followed were still more decidedly hostile. Thus, instead of getting from the provinces
the badly-needed physical force, the National Assembly lost even its last claim to moral force, that of being the expression of the
universal suffrage of the country. To complete the discomfiture, the newly-chosen municipal councils of all the cities of France
openly threatened the usurping Assembly at Versailles with a counter Assembly at Bordeaux.
Then the long-expected moment of decisive action had at last come for Bismarck. He peremptorily summoned Thiers to send to
Frankfort plenipotentiaries for the definitive settlement of peace. In humble obedience to the call of his master, Thiers hastened to
despatch his trusty Jules Favre, backed by Pouyer-Quertier. Pouyer-Quertier, an "eminent" Rouen cotton-spinner, a fervent and
even servile partisan of the Second Empire, had never found any fault with it save its commercial treaty with England, [97]
prejudicial to his own shop interest. Hardly installed at Bordeaux as Thiers' Minister of Finance, he denounced that "unholy" treaty,
hinted at its near abrogation, and had even the effrontery to try, although in vain (having counted without Bismarck), the immediate
en-
page 92
forcement of the old protective duties against Alsace, where, he said, no previous international treaties stood in the way. This man,
who considered counter-revolution as a means to put down wages at Rouen, and the surrender of French provinces as a means to
bring up the price of his wares in France, was he not the one predestined to be picked out by Thiers as the helpmate of Jules Favre
in his last and crowning treason?
On the arrival at Frankfort of this exquisite pair of plenipotentiaries, bully Bismarck at once met them with the im perious
alternative: Either the restoration of the Empire, or the unconditional acceptance of my own peace terms! These terms included a
shortening of the intervals in which the war indemnity was to be paid, and the continued occupation of the Paris forts by Prussian
troops until Bismarck should feel satisfied with the state of things in France; Prussia thus being recognized as the supreme arbiter in
internal French politics! In return for this he offered to let loose, for the extermination of Paris, the captive Bonapartist army, and to
lend them the direct assistance of Emperor William's troops. He pledged his good faith by making payment of the first instalment
of the indemnity dependent on the "pacification" of Paris. Such a bait was, of course, eagerly swallowed by Thiers and his
plenipotentiaries. They signed the treaty of peace on the 10th of May, and had it endorsed by the Versailles Assembly on the 18th.
In the interval between the conclusion of peace and the arrival of the Bonapartist prisoners, Thiers felt the more bound to resume
his comedy of conciliation, as his Republican tools stood in sore need of a pretext for blinking their eyes at the preparations for the
carnage of Paris. As late as the 8th of May he replied to a deputation of middle-class conciliators:
page 93
"Whenever the insurgents will make up their minds for capitulation, the gates of Paris shall be flung wide open during a week for
all except the murderers of Generals Clément Thomas and Lecomte."
A few days afterwards, when violently interpellated on these promises by the Rurals, he refused to enter into any explanations;
not, however, without giving them this significant hint:
"I tell you there are impatient men amongst you, men who are in too great a hurry. They must have another eight days; at the end
of these eight days there will be no more danger, and the task will be proportionate to their courage and to their capacities."
As soon as MacMahon was able to assure him that he could shortly enter Paris, Thiers declared to the Assembly that
"he would enter Paris with the laws in his hands, and demand a full expiation from the wretches who had sacrificed the lives of
soldiers and destroyed public monuments."
As the moment of decision drew near he said — to the Assembly, "I shall be pitiless!" — to Paris, that it was doomed; and to his
Bonapartist banditti, that they had State licence to wreak vengeance upon Paris to their hearts' content. At last, when treachery had
opened the gates of Paris to General Douay, on the 21st of May, Thiers, on the 22nd, revealed to the Rurals the "goal" of his
conciliation comedy, which they had so obstinately persisted in not understanding.
"I told you a few days ago that we were approaching our goal ; today I come to tell you the goal is reached. The victory of order,
justice, and civilization is at last won!"
So it was. The civilization and justice of bourgeois order comes out in its lurid light whenever the slaves and drudges of that
order rise against their masters. Then this civilization and justice stand forth as undisguised savagery and lawless
page 94
revenge. Each new crisis in the class struggle between the appropriator and the producer brings out this fact more glaringly. Even
the atrocities of the bourgeois in June 1848 vanish before the ineffable infamy of 1871. The self-sacrificing heroism with which the
population of Paris - men, women, and children - fought for eight days after the entrance of the Versaillese, reflects as much the
grandeur of their cause, as the infernal deeds of the soldiery reflect the innate spirit of that civilization of which they are the
mercenary vindicators. A glorious civilization, indeed, the great problem of which is how to get rid of the heaps of corpses it made
after the battle was over!
To find a parallel for the conduct of Thiers and his bloodhounds we must go back to the times of Sulla and the two Triumvirates
of Rome. [98] The same wholesale slaughter in cold blood; the same disregard, in massacre, of age and sex; the same system of
torturing prisoners; the same proscriptions, but this time of a whole class; the same savage hunt after concealed leaders, lest one
might escape; the same denunciations of political and private enemies; the same indifference for the butchery of entire strangers to
the feud. There is but this difference, that the Romans had no mitrailleuses for the despatch, in the lump, of the proscribed, and that
they had not "the law in their hands," nor on their lips the cry of "civilization."
And after those horrors, look upon the other, still more hideous, face of that bourgeois civilization as described by its own press!
"With stray shots," writes the Paris correspondent of a London Tory paper, "still ringing in the distance, and untended wounded
wretches dying amid the tombstones of Pére-Lachaise — with 6,000 terror-stricken insurgents wandering in an agony of
despait in the labyrinth of the
page 95
catacombs, and wretches hurried through the streets to be shot down in scores by the mitrailleuse - it is revolting to see the
cafés filled with the votaries of absinthe, billiards, and dominoes; female profligacy perambulating the boulevards, and the
sound of revelry disturbing the night from the cabinets particuliers [*] of fashionable restaurants."
M. Edouard Herve writes in the Journal de Paris,[99_] a Versaillist journal suppressed by the Commune:
"The way in which the population of Paris (!) manifested its satisfaction yesterday was rather more than frivolous, and we fear it
will grow worse as time progresses. Paris has now afête day appearance, which is sadly out of place; and, unless we are to be
called the Parisiens de la d&e acute cadence, this sort of thing must come to an end."
And then he quotes the passage from Tacitus:
"Yet, on the morrow of that horrible struggle, even before it was completely over, Rome — degraded and corrupt — began once
more to wallow in the voluptuous slough which was destroying its body and polluting its soul — alibi proelia et vulnera, alibi
balnea popinoe que (here fights and wounds, there baths and restaurants). "[ 1001
M. Herve only forgets to say that the "population of Paris" he speaks of is but the population of the Paris of M. Thiers - the
francs-fileurs returning in throngs from Versailles, Saint Denis, Rueil, and Saint-Germain — the Paris of the "Decline."
In all its bloody triumphs over the self-sacrificing champions of a new and better society, that nefarious civilization, based upon
the enslavement of labour, drowns the moans of its victims in a hue and cry of calumny, reverberated by a world wide echo. The
serene working men's Paris of the Commune is suddenly changed into a pandemonium by the bloodhounds of "order." And what
does this tremendous change prove to the bourgeois mind of all countries? Why, that the Commune has conspired against
civilization! The Paris people
* Private rooms.
page 96
die enthusiastically for the Commune in numbers unequalled in any battle known to history. What does that prove? Why, that the
Commune was not the people's own government but the usurpation of a handful of criminals! The women of Paris joyfully give up
their lives at the barricades and on the place of execution. What does this prove? Why, that the demon of the Commune has
changed them into Megaeras and Hecates! The moderation of the Commune during two months of undisputed sway is equalled only
by the heroism of its defence. What does that prove? Why, that for months the Commune carefully hid, under a mask of moderation
and humanity, the blood-thirstiness of its fiendish instincts, to be let loose in the hour of its agony!
The working men's Paris, in the act of its heroic self-holocaust, involved in its flames buildings and monuments. While tearing to
pieces the living body of the proletariat, its rulers must no longer expect to return triumphantly into the intact architecture of their
abodes. The Government of Versailles cries, "Incendiarism!" and whispers this cue to all its agents, down to the remotest hamlet, to
hunt up its enemies everywhere as suspect of professional incendiarism. The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks
complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the desecration of brick and mortar!
When governments give state-licences to their navies to "kill, burn, and destroy," is that a licence for incendiarism? When the
British troops wantonly set fire to the Capitol at Washington and to the summer palace of the Chinese EmperorJ IOll was that
incendiarism? When the Prussians, not for military reasons, but out of the mere spite of revenge, burned down, by the help of
petroleum, towns like Chateaudun and innumerable villages, was that incendiarism? When Thiers, during six
page 97
weeks, bombarded Paris, under the pretext that he wanted to set fire to those houses only in which there were people, was that
incendiarism? In war, fire is an arm as legitimate as any. Buildings held by the enemy are shelled to set them on fire. If their
defenders have to retire, they themselves light the flames to prevent the attack from making use of the buildings. To be burnt down
has always been the inevitable fate of all buildings situated in the front of battle of all the regular armies of the world. But in the
war of the enslaved against their enslavers, the only justifiable war in history, this is by no means to hold good! The Commune
used fire strictly as a means of defence. They used it to stop up to the Versailles troops those long, straight avenues which
Haussmann had expressly opened to artillery-fire; they used it to cover their retreat, in the same way as the Versaillese, in their
advance, used their shells which destroyed at least as many buildings as the fire of the Commune. It is a matter of dispute, even
now, which buildings were set fire to by the defence, and which by the attack. And the defence resorted to fire only then, when the
Versaillese troops had already commenced their wholesale murdering of prisoners. Besides, the Commune had, long before, given
full public notice that, if driven to extremities, they would bury themselves under the ruins of Paris, and make Paris a second
Moscow, as the Government of Defence, but only as a cloak for its treason, had promised to do. For this purpose Trochu had found
them the petroleum. The Commune knew that its opponents cared nothing for the lives of the Paris people, but cared much for their
own Paris buildings. And Thiers, on the other hand, had given them notice that he would be implacable in his vengeance. No
sooner had he got his army ready on one side, and the Prussians shutting up the trap on the other, than he proclaimed: "I shall be
pitiless! The ex-
page 98
piation will be complete, and justice will be stern!" If the acts of the Paris working men were vandalism, it was the vandalism of
defence in despair, not the vandalism of triumph, like that which the Christians perpetrated upon the really priceless art treasures of
heathen antiquity; and even that vandalism has been justified by the historian as an unavoidable and comparatively trifling
concomitant to the titanic struggle between a new society arising and an old one breaking down. It was still less the vandalism of
Haussmann, razing historic Paris to make place for the Paris of the sightseer!
But the execution by the Commune of the sixty-four hostages, with the Archbishop of Paris at their head! The bourgeoisie and its
army, in June 1848, re-established a custom which had long disappeared from the practice of war - the shooting of their
defenceless prisoners. This brutal custom has since been more or less strictly adhered to by the suppressors of all popular
commotions in Europe and India; thus proving that it constitutes a real "progress of civilization"! On the other hand, the Prussians,
in France, had re-established the practice of taking hostages — innocent men, who, with their lives, were to answer to them for the
acts of others. When Thiers, as we have seen, from the very beginning of the conflict, enforced the humane practice of shooting
down the Communal prisoners, the Commune, to protect their lives, was obliged to resort to the Prussian practice of securing
hostages. The lives of the hostages had been forfeited over and over again by the continued shooting of prisoners on the part of the
Versaillese. How could they be spared any longer after the carnage with which MacMahon's praetorians [102] celebrated their
entrance into Paris? Was even the last check upon the unscrupulous
page 99
ferocity of bourgeois governments - the taking of hostages - to be made a mere sham of? The real murderer of Archbishop
Darboy is Thiers. The Commune again and again had offered to exchange the archbishop, and ever so many priests in the bargain,
against the single Blanqui, then in the hands of Thiers. Thiers obstinately refused. He knew that with Blanqui he would give to the
Commune a head, while the archbishop would serve his purpose best in the shape of a corpse. Thiers acted upon the precedent of
Cavaignac. How, in June 1848, did not Cavaignac and his men of Order raise shouts of horror by stigmatizing the insurgents as the
assassins of Archbishop Affre! They knew perfectly well that the archbishop had been shot by the soldiers of Order. M. Jacquemet,
the archbishop's vicar-general, present on the spot, had immediately afterwards handed them in his evidence to that effect.
All this chorus of calumny, which the Party of Order never fail, in their orgies of blood, to raise against their victims, only proves
that the bourgeois of our days considers himself the legitimate successor to the baron of old, who thought every weapon in his own
hand fair against the plebeian, while in the hands of the plebeian a weapon of any kind constituted in itself a crime.
The conspiracy of the ruling class to break down the Revolution by a civil war carried on under the patronage of the foreign
invader - a conspiracy which we have traced from the very 4th of September down to the entrance of MacMahon's praetorians
through the gate of St. Cloud - culminated in the carnage of Paris. Bismarck gloats over the ruins of Paris, in which he saw perhaps
the first instalment of that general destruction of great cities he had prayed for when still a simple Rural in the Prussian Chambre
introuvable of 1849. [103] He
page 100
gloats over the cadavers of the Paris proletariat. For him this is not only the extermination of revolution, but the extinction of
France, now decapitated in reality, and by the French Government itself. With the shallowness characteristic of all successful
statesmen, he sees but the surface of this tremendous historic event. Whenever before has history exhibited the spectacle of a
conqueror crowning his victory by turning into, not only the gendarme, but the hired bravo of the conquered Government? There
existed no war between Prussia and the Commune of Paris. On the contrary, the Commune had accepted the peace preliminaries,
and Prussia had announced her neutrality. Prussia was, therefore, no belligerent. She acted the part of a bravo, a cowardly bravo,
because incurring no danger; a hired bravo, because stipulating beforehand the payment of her blood-money of 500 millions on the
fall of Paris. And thus, at last, came out the true character of the war, ordained by Providence as a chastisement of godless and
debauched France by pious and moral Germany! And this unparalleled breach of the law of nations, even as understood by the old-
world lawyers, instead of arousing the "civilized" Governments of Europe to declare the felonious Prussian Government, the mere
tool of the St. Petersburg Cabinet, an outlaw amongst nations, only incites them to consider whether the few victims who escape
the double cordon around Paris are not to be given up to the hangman at Versailles !
That after the most tremendous war of modern times, the conquering and the conquered hosts should fraternize for the common
massacre of the proletariat — this unparalleled event does indicate, not, as Bismarck thinks, the final repression of a new society
upheaving, but the crumbling into dust of bourgeois society. The highest heroic effort of which old
page 101
society is still capable is national war; and this is now proved to be a mere governmental humbug, intended to defer the struggle of
classes, and to be thrown aside as soon as that class struggle bursts out into civil war. Class rule is no longer able to disguise itself
in a national uniform; the national Governments are one as against the proletariat!
After Whit-Sunday, 1871,[*] there can be neither peace nor truce possible between the working men of France and the
appropriators of their produce. The iron hand of a mercenary soldiery may keep for a time both classes tied down in common
oppression. But the battle must break out again and again in ever-growing dimensions, and there can be no doubt as to who will be
the victor in the end — the appropriating few, or the immense working majority. And the French working class is only the advanced
guard of the modern proletariat. While the European Governments thus testify, before Paris, to the international character of class
rule, they cry down the International Working Men's Association - the international counter-organization of labour against the
cosmopolitan conspiracy of capital - as the head fountain of all these disasters. Thiers denounced it as the despot of labour,
pretending to be its liberator. Picard ordered that all communications between the French Internationals and those abroad should be
cut off, Count Jaubert, Thiers' mummified accomplice of 1835, declares it the great problem of all civilized Governments to weed it
out. The Rurals roar against it, and the whole European press joins the chorus. An honourable French writer,** completely foreign
to our Association, speaks as follows:
"The members of the Central Committee of the National Guard, as well as the greater part of the members of the Commune, are
the most
* I.e., May 28, the last day of the Commune.
** Probably Jean-François-Eugene Robinet.
page 102
active, intelligent, and energetic minds of the International Working Men's Association, .
sincere, intelligent, devoted, pure, and fanatical in the good sense of the word."
. men who are thoroughly honest,
The police-tinged bourgeois mind naturally figures to itself the International Working Men's Association as acting in the manner
of a secret conspiracy, its central body ordering, from time to time, explosions in different countries. Our Association is, in fact,
nothing but the international bond between the most advanced working men in the various countries of the civilized world.
Wherever, in whatever shape, and under whatever conditions the class struggle obtains any consistency, it is but natural that
members of our Association should stand in the foreground. The soil out of which it grows is modern society itself. It cannot be
stamped out by any amount of carnage. To stamp it out, the Governments would have to stamp out the despotism of capital over
labour — the condition of their own parasitical existence.
Working men's Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its martyrs are
enshrined in the great heart of the working class. Its exterminators history has already nailed to that eternal pillory from which all
the prayers of their priests will not avail to redeem them.
THE GENERAL COUNCIL
M. J. Boon
G. H. Buttery
Delahaye
A. Herman
Fred. Bradnick
Caihil
William Hales
Kolb
page 103
Fred. Lessner
J. P. MacDonnel
Thomas Mottershead
Charles Murray
Roach
Rühl
A. Serraillier
Alfred Taylor
Lochner
George Milner
Charles Mills
Pfänder
Rochat
Sadler
Cowell Stepney
W. Townshend
CORRESPONDING SECRETARIES
Eugène Dupont, /br France
Karl Marx, for Germany and Holland
Frederick Engels, for Belgium and Spain
Hermann Jung,/<9r Switzerland
P. Giovacchini, for Italy
Zévy Maurice for Hungary
Antoni Zabicki, for Poland
James Cohen, for Denmark
J. G. Eccarius, /br the United States of America
Hermann Jung, Chairman
John Weston, Treasurer
George Harris, Financial Secretary
John Hales, General Secretary
Office: 256 High Holborn, London, W.C.
May 30th, 1871
page 104
NOTES
"The column of prisoners halted in the Avenue Uhrich, and was drawn up, four or five deep, on the footway fasing to the road.
General Marquis de Galliffet and his staff dismounted and commenced an inspection from the left of the line. Walking down
slowly and eyeing the ranks, the General stopped here and there, tapping a man on the shoulder or beckoning him out of the rear
ranks. In most cases, without further parley, the individual thus selected was marched out into the centre of the road, where a small
supplementary column was, thus, soon formed. ... It was evident that there was considerable room for error. A mounted officer
pointed out to General Galliffet a man and woman for some particular offence. The woman, rushing out of the ranks, threw herself
on her knees, and, with outstretched arms, protested her innocence in passionate terms. The General waited for a pause, and then
with most impassible face and unmoved demeanour, said, 'Madame, I have visited every theatre in Paris, your acting will have no
effect on me. (Ce n 'est pas la peine dejouer la com&e acute die.) ... It was not a good thing on that day to be noticeably taller,
dirtier, cleaner, older, or uglier than one's neighbours. One individual in particular struck me as probably owing his speedy release
from the ills of this world to his having a broken nose. . . . Over a hundred being thus chosen, a firing party told off, and the column
resumed its march, leaving them behind. A few minutes afterwards a dropping fire in our rear commenced, and continued for over
a quarter of an hour. It was the execution of these summarily-convicted wretches." — Paris Correspondent, Daily News, [104] June
8th.
This Galliffet, "the kept man of his wife, so notorious for her shameless exhibitions at the orgies of the Second Empire," went,
during the war, by the name of the French "Ensign Pistol."
"The Temps J 1051 which is a careful journal, and not given to sensation, tells a dreadful story of people imperfectly shot and
buried before life was extinct. A great number were buried in the square round St.
page 105
Jacques-la-Boucherie; some of them very superficially. In the daytime the roar of the busy streets prevented any notice being taken;
but in the stillness of the night the inhabitants of the houses in the neighbourhood were roused by distant moans, and in the morning
a clenched hand was seen protruding through the soil. In consequence of this, exhumations were ordered to take place. . . . That
many wounded have been buried alive I have not the slightest doubt. One case I can vouch for. When Brunei was shot with his
mistress on the 24th ult. in the courtyard of a house in the Place Vendôme, the bodies lay there until the afternoon of the 27th.
When the burial party came to remove the corpses, they found the woman living still and took her to an ambulance. Though she
had received four bullets she is now out of danger." — Paris Correspondent, Evening Standard, [106] June 8th.
II
The following letter appeared in the [London] Times of June 13th: [107]
"To the Editor of The Times :
"Sir, - On June 6, 1871, M. Jules Favre issued a circular to all the European Powers, calling upon them to hunt down the
International Working Men's Association. A few remarks will suffice to characterize that document.
"In the very preamble of our statutes it is stated that the International was founded 'September 28, 1864, at a public meeting held
at St. Martin's Hall, Long Acre, London.'[108] For purposes of his own Jules Favre puts back the date of its origin behind 1862.
"In order to explain our principles, he professes to quote 'their (the International's) sheet of the 25th of March, 1869.' And then
what does he quote? The sheet of a society which is not the International. This sort of manoeuvre he already recurred to when, still
a comparatively young lawyer, he had to defend the National newspaper, prosecuted for
page 106
libel by Cabet. Then he pretended to read extracts from Cabet's pamphlets while reading interpolations of his own - a trick exposed
while the Court was sitting, and which, but for the indulgence of Cabet, would have been punished by Jules Favre's expulsion from
the Paris bar. Of all the documents quoted by him as documents of the International, not one belongs to the International. He says,
for instance, 'The Alliance declares itself Atheist, says the General Council, constituted in London in July 1869.' The General
Council never issued such a document. On the contrary, it issued a document[109] which quashed the original statutes of the
Alliance' — L' Alliance de la démocratie socialiste at Geneva — quoted by Jules Favre.
"Throughout his circular, which pretends in part also to be directed against the Empire, Jules Favre repeats against the
International but the police inventions of the public prosecutors of the Empire, which broke down miserably even before the law
courts of that Empire.
"It is known that in its two addresses of July and September last) on the late war,* the General Council of the International
denounced the Prussian plans of conquest against France. Later on, Mr. Reitlinger, Jules Favre's private secretary, applied, though
of course in vain, to some members of the General Council for getting up by the Council a demonstration against Bismarck, in
favour of the Government of National Defence; they were particularly requested not to mention the Republic. The preparations for
a demonstration with regard to the expected arrival of Jules Favre in London were made — certainly with the best
* See above, pp. 19-26 and 27-38 .
page 107
of intentions — in spite of the General Council, which, in its address of the 9th of September, had distinctly forewarned the Paris
workmen against Jules Favre and his colleagues.
"What would Jules Favre say if, in its turn, the International were to send a circular on Jules Favre to all the Cabinets of Europe,
drawing their particular attention to the documents published at Paris by the late M. Millière?
"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
"John Hales,
"Secretary to the General Council of the
International Working Men's Association.
"256, High Holborn, London, W.C.
"June 12th, 1871."
In an article on "The International Society and its aims," that pious informer, the London Spectator f l 101 (June 24th), amongst
other similar tricks, quotes, even more fully than Jules Favre has done, the above document of the "Alliance" as the work of the
International, and that eleven days aftee the refutation had been published in The Times. We do not wonder at this. Frederick the
Great used to say that of all Jesuits the worst are the Protestant ones.
From Marx
to Mao
Marx and Engels
Collection
~ ,. Notes on
"^ the Text
Guide ^ ,
Below
page 261
NOTES
[1] Engels wrote this introduction for the third German edition (jubilee edition) of Marx's The Civil War in France, published in
1891 by the Vorwärts Press, Berlin, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Paris Commune. While pointing out the historical
significance of both the experiences of the Paris Commune and the theoretical generalizations drawn from them by Marx in The
Civil War in France, Engels also made a number of additions in the introduction to the history of the Commune, including
references to the activities of the Blanquists and Proudhonists. In the jubilee edition Engels included two works written by Marx —
the First and Second Addresses of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the Franco-Prussian
War. Other editions of The Civil War in France, published later in various languages, usually contained Engels' introduction.
At first, Engels' introduction was published with his approval under the title of "On The Civil War in France" in Die Neue Zeit,
No. 28, (Vol. II), 1890-91. When it was published, the editorial board of Die Neue Zeit tampered with the text by changing the
words "Social-Democratic philistines" in the last paragraph of the manuscript into "German philistines." It was evident from
Richard Fischer's letter to Engels on Match 17, 1891, that Engels disapproved of this arbitrary change. However, he kept the
changed words in the pamphlet, probably because he did not want different versions of his work published contemporaneously. The
present edition restores the original text. [p.l_]
[2] See Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1951, Vol. I, pp. 221-31 1. [p. I]
[3] A reference to the wars of national liberation waged by the German people from 1813 to 1814 against the rule of Napoleon I.
[p-2]
[4] In 1819, after the wars against Napoleonic France, reactionary circles in Germany applied the name demagogues to people who
took part in the opposition movement against the reactionary system of the German states and organized political demonstrations
for the unification of Germany. The movement spread widely among the intelligentsia and student societies. The "demagogues"
were persecuted by the reactionary authorities, [p.2]
[5] See Marx, "Second Address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the Franco-Prussian
War," p. 34 of the present book, [p.2]
[6] The monarchists in France were at that time divided into three dynastic parties: the Legitimists (see Note 55), the Orleanists
(see Note 34), and the Bonapartists - adherents of Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon III), [p.5]
[7] The coup d'état of Louis Bonaparte, then President of France. He dissolved the National Assembly, and a year later
proclaimed himself Emperor of France, [p.5]
[8] The Second Empire of France was the name given to the period of Louis Bonaparte's rule (1852-70) in distinction from the First
Empire of Napoleon I (1804-14). [p.5]
[9] Prussia was victorious in the war against Austria which was engineered by Bismarck. By excluding Austria from the German
Confederation Prussia secured the hegemony at the founding of the German Empire. Napoleon III remained neutral in the Austro-
Prussian War, in return for which he hoped — in vain — to receive part of the territory of the German states, as promised by
Bismarck, [p. 6]
[10] On September 1-2, 1870, a decisive battle was fought in the Franco-Prussian War in the vicinity of Sedan, a town in
northeastern France, resulting in the complete rout of the French army. According to the capitulation terms signed by the French
Headquarters on September 2, 1870, Napoleon III and more than 80,000 French soldiers, officers and generals were taken
prisoners. From September 5, 1870 to March 19, 1871, Napoleon III was detained in Wilhelmshöhe, a Prussian castle near
Kassel. The debacle at Sedan accelerated the downfall of the Second Empire. As a result, France was proclaimed a republic on
September 4, 1870. [p.6] [p.83]
[11] This refers to the Franco-German preliminary peace treaty signed in Versailles on February 26, 1871 by Adolphe Thiers and
Jules Favre on one side and Bismarck on the other. Under the terms of the treaty France agreed to cede Alsace and the eastern part
of Lorraine to Germany
page 263
and pay a war indemnity of five billion francs, while Germany was to continue occupying part of French territory until the
indemnity was paid. The final peace treaty was signed at Frankfort-on-Main on May 10, 1871. [p. 7]
[12] Quoted from the report of the election commission of the Commune, published in the organ of the Commune, Journal officiel
de la Républiquefrançaise, No. 90, March 31, 1871. [p.8]
[13] Engels is probably referring to the contents of the order issued by Edouard Vaillant, delegate of education of the Paris
Commune, which was published in the Journal officiel de la République française, No. 132, May 12, 1871. [p. 9]
[14] Now, usually called "The Wall of the Communards." [p. 12]
This refers to Proudhon's work Idée générale de la révolution au XIXe siècle (General
Idea of the Revolution of the 19th Century ), Paris, 1851. A criticism of the views expressed by Proudhon in this book was given in
Marx's letter to Engels dated August 8, 1851 and in Engels' work, "Analytical Criticism on Proudhon's General Idea of the
Revolution of the 19th Century " {Archives of Marx and Engels, Vol. X, pp. 13-17). [p. 14]
[16] The Possibilists represented the opportunist trend in the French working-class movement at the end of the 19th century.
[p.14]
[17] The First Address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the Franco-Prussian War was
written by Marx between July 19 and 23, 1870.
On July 19, 1870, the day the Franco-Prussian War broke out, the General Council commissioned Marx to draft an address on
the war. It was adopted by the Permanent Committee of the General Council on July 23 and unanimously approved at the session of
the General Council on July 26, 1870. It was first published in English under the title "The General Council of the International
Working Men's Association on the War" in the London newspaper Pall Mall Gazette, No. 1702, July 28, 1870. A few days later a
thousand copies of the Address were printed in leaflet form. A number of British papers also printed the full text or excerpts of the
Address. A copy was sent to the editorial board of The Times, but it refused to publish it.
The General Council decided on August 2, 1870 to reprint another thousand copies of the Address as the first batch had soon
sold out and the number of copies issued had fallen far short of the demand. In September 1870, the First Address was reprinted in
English together with the General Council's Second Address on the Franco-Prussian War. In
page 264
this new edition, Marx corrected the misprints that had appeared in the first edition of the First Address.
The General Council set up a commission on August 9 — consisting of Marx, Hermann Jung, Auguste Serraillier and J. George
Eccarius — and instructed it to translate the Address into French and German and to disseminate it. The Address first appeared in
German in Der Volksstaat, No. 63, August 7, 1870, Leipzig, the translation being made by Wilhelm Liebknecht. Marx revised this
German version and retranslated nearly half of the text. This new German translation appeared in Der Vorbote, No. 8, August 1870,
as well as in leaflet form. In commemorating in 1891 the 20th anniversary of the Paris Commune, Engels included the First
Addless of the General Council in the German edition of The Civil Wer in France which was published by the Berlin
Vorwärts Press. The translation of the First Address for this new edition was made by Louisa Kautsky under the guidance of
Engels.
The Address appeared in French in L'Egalite, August 1870, in LTnternationale, No. 82, August 7, 1870, and on the same day in
Le Mirabeau, No. 55. The Address was also published in leaflet form in accordance with a French translation by the General
Council's commission.
A Russian version of the First Address appeared for the first time in the Narodnoye Dyelo, Nos. 6-7, August-September 1870,
Geneva, [p.19]
[18] Marx and Engels, Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1951, Vol. I, pp. 348-49 and p. 349. [p. 19]
[19] The plebiscite was conducted by the government of Napoleon III in May 1870 in an attempt to consolidate the tottering regime
of the Second Empire which had caused widespread discontent among the people. The questions were so worded that it was
impossible to express one's disapproval of the policy of the Second Empire without at the same time declaring against all
democratic reforms. In spite of the demagogic manoeuvres made by the government, the result of the plebiscite indicated the
growth of the opposition forces - 1,500,000 people voted against the government and 1,900,000 abstained from voting. While
preparing for the plebiscite, the government took extensive measures to suppress the working-class movement, ceaselessly
slandered the workers' organizations and distorted their objectives in order to frighten the intermediate stratum of society with the
danger of "Red terror."
The Paris Federal Sections of the International (Les sections parisiennes fédérées de l'lnternationale) and
the Federation of Workers' Unions (Chambre fédérale des Sociétés ouvrières) jointly issued a
declaration on April 24, 1870, exposing the Bonapartists' demagogic plebiscite and
page 265
calling on the workers to abstain from voting. On the eve of the plebiscite the government arrested members of the Paris sections of
the International on a police-concocted charge that they were plotting to assassinate Napoleon III. Armed with the same charge the
government launched an extensive persecution of members of the International in other cities throughout France. Although the
falsehood of this charge was thoroughly exposed during the trials which took place from June 22 to July 5, 1870, the Bonapartist
court still sentenced members of the International to imprisonment on the ground that they belonged to the International Working
Men's Association.
Persecution of the International in France aroused widespread protests among the workers, [p.20]
[20] This refers to the Franco-Prussian War which began on July 19, 1870. [p.20]
[21] This refers to the coup d'état by Louis Bonaparte on December 2, 1851, which ushered in the Bonapartist regime of the
Second Empire, [p.20]
[22] Le Réveil — organ of the French Left-wing Republicans, first a weekly, then a daily newspaper from May 1869. Edited
by Charles Delescluze, it appeared in Paris from July 1868 to January 1871. From October 1870 it was opposed to the Government
of National Defence, [p. 21]
[23] Le Merseillaise - a French daily newspaper, organ of the Left-wing Republicans, appeared in Paris from December 1869 to
September 1870. The paper regularly published articles on the activities of the International and the workers' movement, [p.21]
[24] A reference to the Society of December Tenth, so called in honour of the election of its patron, Louis Bonaparte, to the
Presidency of the French Republic on December 10, 1848. Formed in 1849, this secret society of the Bonapartists was composed
mainly of declassed elements, political adventurers and militarists. Though formally dissolved in November 1850, its adherents
continued to propagate Bonapartism, and took an active part in the coup d'état of December 2, 1851. Marx gave a detailed
account of the Society of December Tenth in his work "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" (Marx and Engels, Selected
Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1951, Vol. I, pp. 221-311).
The chauvinist demonstration in support of Louis Bonaparte's plan of conquest was held by the Bonapartists with the
collaboration of the police on July 15, 1870. [p. 21]
page 266
[25] The Battle ofSadowa fought in Czech on July 3, 1866 - with Austria and Saxony on one side and Prussia on the other - was
decisive in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, from which Prussia emerged victorious. Historically it was also known as the battle of
Königgrätz (now called Hradec Králove). [p.22]
[26] The meetings of workers held at Brunswick on July 16, and at Chemnitz on July 17, 1870 were convened by the leaders of the
German Social-Democratic Labour Party (the Eisenachers) in protest against the policy of conquest of the ruling class.
Marx quoted the resolutions of both meetings from Der Volksstaat No. 58, July 20, 1870. [p.23]
The Second Address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the Franco -Prussian War was
written by Marx between September 6 and 9, 1870.
After studying the new situation brought about by the fall of the Second Empire and the beginning of a new stage in the Franco-
Prussian War, the General Council of the International decided on September 6, 1870 to issue a second address on the war, and for
this purpose set up a commission consisting of Marx, Hermann Jung, George Milner and Auguste Serraillier.
While writing the Address, Marx made use of the material Engels sent him, which exposed the attempt of the Prussian
militarists, the Junkers and the bourgeoisie to annex French territory under the pretext of military-strategic considerations. The
Address drafted by Marx was unanimously adopted at a special session of the General Council on September 9, 1870, and sent to
all the bourgeois newspapers in London. With the exception of the Pall Mall Gazette which printed an extract of the Address on
September 16, 1870, all the newspapers kept silent. A thousand copies of the Address were issued in English in leaflet form
between September 1 1 and 13. At the end of the same month a new edition appeared containing both the First and Second
Addresses. In this the misprints in the first edition were corrected and a few changes were made in the language.
The Second Address was translated into German by Marx himself. In this translation, he made several omissions and added a
few sentences addressed especially to the German workers. This version of the Second Address was published in Der Volksstaat,
No. 76, September 21, 1870, and Der Vorbote, Nos. 10 and 11, October-November 1870, as well as in leaflet form in Geneva. In
1891 Engels included the Second Address in the German edition of The Civil War in France. The translation of
page 267
the Address for this new edition was made by Louisa Kautsky under Engels' guidance.
The French version of the Second Address appeared in L'Internationale, No. 93, October 23, 1870, and partly (the publication
was not completed) in L'Egalite, No. 35, October 4, 1870. [p.27]
[28] In 1618 the Electorate of Brandenburg merged with Ducal Prussia (East Prussia), a vassal state of the republic of the szlachta
(gentry) of Poland which had been formed in the early 16th century by estates of the Teutonic Order. As ruler of Prussia the Elector
of Brandenburg became a vassal of Poland. This relationship remained until 1657 when the Elector of Brandenburg took advantage
of Poland's difficulties in its war against Sweden and obtained the recognition of his sovereign rights over Prussian territory.
[p.29]
[29] This refers to the reparate Peace Treaty of Basle which Prussia concluded with France on April 5, 1795. The treaty led to the
break-up of the first anti-French coalition of the European states, [p.30]
[30] By the Treaty of Tilsit concluded in 1807 between France on the one side, and Russia and Prussia on the other, Prussia lost
almost half of her territory, agreed to pay an indemnity, reduce her army and close all her ports to British shipping, lp. 311
[31] At a conference with Napoleon III at Biarritz in October 1865, Bismarck won France's de facto agreement to a Prussian-Italian
alliance and Prussia's war against Austria. Napoleon calculated that Austria would be the victor and that he could then intervene in
the war and reap the gains for himself.
At the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the czarist Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov stated in his talks
with Bismarck at Berlin that Russia would keep a benevolent neutrality in the war and put diplomatic pressure on Austria. In its
turn, the Prussian government undertook not to place any obstacles in the way of czarist Russia's policy on the Eastern question.
[p.33]
[32] This refers to the victory won by feudal reaction in Germany after the downfall of Napoleon's rule.
Together with the people of the other European countries the German people participated in the war of liberation against the rule
of Napoleon I. The fruits of the victorious war, however, were seized by the rulers of the feudal absolute states in Europe who
relied on the reactionary nobility. The counter-revolutionary league of monarchies — the Holy Alliance, with Austria, Prussia and
czarist Russia as its nucleus — controlled the destinies of the European states. With the founding of the
page 268
German Confederation, feudal separatism remained in Germany, feudal absolutism was consolidated in the German states, all the
privileges of the nobles were kept intact and exploitation of the peasants under semi-serfdom was intensified, [p.34]
[33] A quotation from "Das Mallifest des Ausschusses der Sozialdemokratischen Arbeiterpattei an alle deutschen Arbeiter," which
appeared in leaflet form on September 5, 1870, and was published in Der Volksstaat, No. 73, September 11, 1870. [p.35]
[34] The Orleanists were monarchists representing the interests of the financial aristocracy and the big bourgeoisie. They were the
supporters of the House of Orleans, a branch of the Bourbons dynasty that ruled France from July 1830 to 1848. [p.35]
[35] Marx is referring to the movement started by the British workers for recognition of and diplomatic support for the French
Republic established on September 4, 1870. With the active support of the trade unions, working people held mass rallies and
demonstrations from September 5 in London, Birmingham, Newcastle and other cities. All the demonstrators expressed sympathy
for the French people and demanded in resolutions and petitions that the British government immediately recognize the French
Republic.
The General Council of the First International took a direct part in organizing the campaign, [p.36]
[36] rpj^ s ^ an a rj us i on t th e ac tive participation of bourgeois-aristocratic Britain in the formation of the coalition of absolute
feudal states, which started the war against revolutionary France in 1792 (Britain herself entered the war in 1793); and to the fact
that the ruling British oligarchy was the first in Europe to recognize the French Bonapartist regime founded after Louis Bonaparte's
coup d'état of December 2, 1851. [p.37]
[37] During the civil war in the U.S.A. (1861-65) between the industrial North and the South, which upheld the system of slave
plantations, the English bourgeois press supported the slavery of the South, [p.37]
[ ] The Civil War in France is one of the most important works of scientific communism, which, in the light of the experience of
the Paris Commune, further developed the fundamental theses of Marxist teachings on the class struggle, the state, revolution and
the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was written as an address of the General Council of the International Working Men's
Association to all its members in Europe and the United States.
As soon as the Paris Commune was proclaimed Marx began meticulously to collect and study material about the activities of the
Corn-
page 269
mune which was available from such sources as the French, British and German newspapers, and in letters from Paris. At a session
of the General Council on April 18, 1871, Marx proposed that the Council issue an address to all members of the International on
"the general trend of the struggle" in France. The Council commissioned Marx to draft the address and he then started the work on
April 18 and continued it until the end of May. He wrote the first and second drafts of The Civil War in France (see pp. 109-260
and Note 1 1 1 of the present book). Then he set about to complete the final text. On May 30, 1871, two days after the last street
barricade in Paris fell into the hands of the Versailles troops, the Council unanimously approved the final text of the address Marx
read out.
The Civil War in France, written in English, was first printed in London around June 13, 1871. A thousand copies of this 35-
page pamphlet were issued. As the first edition was sold out very quickly, a second English edition of two thousand copies was
issued and sold among the workers at a reduced price. In this edition Marx corrected the misprints in the first edition and added a
second document to the "Notes." The names of two trade unionists, Benjamin Lucraft and George Odger, were removed from the
list of signatures of General Council members at the end of the Address because they had expressed disagreement with the Address
in the bourgeois press and withdrawn from the General Council; the names of new members were added. In August 1871 a third
edition of The Civil War in France appeared, in which Marx removed a few inaccuracies that had been made in the preceding
editions.
In 1871 and 1872, The Civil War in France was translated into French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish and Dutch and
published in newspapers, magazines, and also in pamphlet form in Europe and America.
The German version was translated by Engels and appeared in Der Volksstaat, Nos. 52-61, June 28, July 1, 5, 8, 12, 16, 19, 22,
26 and 29, 1871, and partly in Der Vorbote, August-October 1871. It was also printed as a separate pamphlet in Leipzig. In the
translation, Engels made a few minor changes in the text. When a new German edition of The Civil War in France was prepared in
1876 to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Commune, some revisions were made in the text.
Engels again revised this translation in 1891 for the German jubilee edition of The Civil War in France, issued to mark the 20th
anniversary of the Paris Commune. He also wrote an introduction for it. He included in this edition two works by Marx — the First
and Second Addresses of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the Franco-Prussian War. These
were also contained in
page 270
most of the separate pamphlets of The Civil War in France subsequently published in various languages.
The French version of The Civil War in France first appeared in L'Internationale, Brussels, July-September 1871. A pamphlet in
French appeared in Brussels the following year. The translation was edited by Marx, who retranslated many passages and made
numerous changes on the proofs, [p.39]
[39] The correspondence of Alphonse Simon Guiod to Louis Suzanne appeared in the Journal officiel, No. 115, April 25, 1871.
Journal officiel is an abbreviation for the Journal officiel de la Républiquefrançaise, official organ of the Paris
Commune. It was published from March 20 to May 24, 1871. The journal used the name of the government paper of the French
Republic, published in Paris from September 5, 1870. (During the period of the Commune, the organ of the Thiers government in
Versailles was also published under the same title.) Only the issue of March 30 bore the title Journal officiel de la Commune de
Paris, [p.43]
[40] On January 28, 1871. Bismarck and Jules Favre, representative of the Government of National Defence, concluded the
"Convention on Armistice and the Capitulation of Paris." [p.43]
[41] The Capitulards — a contemptuous name for those who advocated the capitulation of Paris during the siege (1870-71). Later,
this term became used in French to describe capitulationists. [p. 44]
[42] Le Vengeur, No. 30, April 28, 1871. [p.44]
[43] L'Etendard - a French Bonapartist paper, published in Paris in 1866-68. It had to stop publication following an exposure of
the fraudulent means used by the paper to obtain financial support, [p.45]
[44] This refers to the Sociéte générale du crédit mobilier, a big French joint-stock bank founded in
1852. Its source of income was chiefly from speculation on the securities of the joint-stock companies it had established.
Crédit mobilier had close connections with the government of the Second Empire. It went bankrupt in 1867 and closed
down in 1871. In many of his articles published in the New York Daily Tribune Marx laid bare the real nature of Crédit
mobilier (sec Marx and Engels, Works, Ger. ed., Berlin, Vol. XII, pp. 20-36, 202-09, 289-92). [p.45]
[45] L'Electeur libre - organ of the Right-wing Republicans, published in Paris from 1868 to 1871. It was a weekly at first and
became a daily after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. In 1870 and 1871 it had close connections with the Finance Office of
the Government of National Defence, [p. 45]
page 271
[46] A reference to the actions against the Legitimists and the church which occurred in Paris on February 14-15, 1831 and found a
response in the provinces. To protest against the Legitimists' demonstration at the funeral of the Duke of Berry, the masses wrecked
the Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois church and the palace of Archbishop Quélen, who was known as a sympathizer of the
Legitimists. The Orleanist government intended to deal a blow at the hostile Legitimists, and therefore took no measures to restrain
the masses. Thiers, the then Home Minister, who was present when the church and the archbishop's palace were being wrecked,
persuaded the National Guards not to intervene.
Thiers ordered the arrest in 1832 of the Duchess of Berry - mother of the Count of Chambord, the Legitimist pretender - put her
under strict surveillance and made her undergo a humiliating physical examination so as to make public her secret marriage and
thus compromise her politically, [p.46]
[47] Marx is referring to the infamous role played by Thiers in suppressing the uprising of April 13-14, 1834, which was against the
rule of the July Monarchy. The uprising of the Paris workers, and the petty-bourgeois strata which joined in with them, was led by
the Republican secret Society for the Rights of Man. In suppressing the insurrection, countless atrocities were perpetrated by the
militarists, including the slaughter of all the dwellers in a house in the Rue Transnonain. Thiers was the chief instigator of the brutal
suppression of the democrats both during the uprising and after it was put down.
Under the provisions of the reactionary Laws of September - introduced in September 1835 - the French government restricted
the activities of juries and severely inhibited the press by such measures as that which increased the sum of money periodicals had
to deposit as a security. The laws also threatened imprisonment and heavy fines for speeches against private ownership and the
existing state system, [p.46]
[48] In January 1841 Thiers submitted a plan to the Chamber of Deputies on the building of fortifications - ramparts and forts -
around Paris. The revolutionary democrats regarded this move as a preparatory measure for the suppression of the people's
uprisings. It was pointed out that it was exactly for this purpose that Thiers' plan provided for the construction of a large number of
particularly strong forts near the workers' quarters in the eastern and northeastern part of Paris, [p.46]
[49] In January 1848 the army of Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies, bombarded the town of Palermo to suppress the people's
uprising, which was a signal for the bourgeois revolution in the Italian states in 1848-49. In the
page 272
autumn of 1848, Ferdinand II again indiscriminately bombarded Messina, and thus won himself the nickname King Bomba.
[p.47]
[50] In April 1849 the French bourgeois government in alliance with Austria and Naples intervened in the Roman Republic in order
to overthrow it and restore the temporal power of the Pope. Because of the armed intervention and the siege of Rome — cruelly
bombarded by the French army — the Roman Republic was overthrown despite heroic resistance and Rome was occupied by the
French army, [p.47]
[51] This refers to the cruel suppression of the uprising of the Parisian proletariat of June 23-26, 1848, by the bourgeois Republican
government, With the suppression of the insurrection the reactionary forces became rampant and the position of the conservative
monarchists was further consolidated, [p. 48]
[52] The Party of Order, founded in 1848, was the party of the conservative big bourgeoisie in France, and a coalition of two
monarchist factions, the Legitimists and the Orleanists. It played the leading role in the Legislative Assembly of the Second
Republic from 1849 up to the coup d'état of December 2, 1851. The bankruptcy of its anti-popular policy was utilized by
Louis Bonaparte's clique in building the regime of the Second Empire, [p. 48]
[53] France faced the danger of war with an anti-French coalition of the European powers following the conclusion of the
Convention of London on July 15, 1840 by Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria and Turkey, which agreed to aid the Turkish sultan
against the French-backed Mohammed Ali, governor of Egypt. The French government was forced to withhold support for
Mohammed Ali in order to avert the war. [p. 49]
[54] Endeavouring to strengthen the Versailles troops for the suppression of revolutionary Paris, Thiers requested Bismarck to
permit him to enlarge the number of his troops, which, according to the terms of the Versailles preliminary peace treaty signed on
February 26, 1871, were not to exceed 40,000 men. Thiers' government assured Bismarck that the troops would be used only to
suppress the insurrection in Paris. There upon, the government was granted permission, through the Rouen agreement of March 28,
1871, to increase the size of its army to 80,00 and then to 100,000 men. Under this agreement the German Headquarters hastily
repatriated the French prisoners -of- war, namly those captured in Sedan and Metz. They were then put in locked-up camps by
Versailles and trained in hatred for the Paris Commune, [p. 49]
[55] The Legitimist Party was the party of the supporters of the older line of the Bourbon dynasty overthrown in 1792. It
represented the in-
page 273
terests of the big landowning aristocracy. The party was formed in 1830, after the Bourbons were overthrown for the second time.
During the Second Empire the Legitimists, unable to gain any support from the people, contented themselves by adopting a
temporizing tactic and publishing some critical pamphlets. They became active only in 1871 after they joined the campaign of the
counter-revolutionary forces against the Paris Commune. [p.5JJ
[56] Chambre introuvable — a name given to the French Chamber of Deputies of 1815-16 which, composed of out-and-out
reactionaries, was elected in the early period of the restoration, [p.52]
[57] Pourceaugnac — a character in one of Molière's comedies, typifying the dull-witted, narrow-minded petty landed
gentry, [p.52]
[58] The Assembly ofRurals was a contemptuous nickname for the French National Assembly of 1871, which consisted mostly of
reactionary monarchists - provincial landlords, officials, rentiers and merchants elected from the rural election districts. Out of the
630 deputies, 430 were monarchists, [p.52]
[59] A reference to the demand for the payment of war indemnity put forward by Bismarck as one of the terms in the preliminary
peace treaty concluded between France and Germany in Versailles on February 26, 1871. (See Note 1J_.) [p.52]
[60] On March 10, 1871, the National Assembly passed the Law on the Postponement of Payment of Debt Obligations, which laid
down that debts incurred between August 13 and November 12, 1870 had to be paid within seven months from the day they were
contracted, while those incurred after November 12 could not be deferred. Thus the law actually did not grant a delay of payment
for most of the debtors; it dealt a heavy blow at the workers and the poorer strata of the population and bankrupted many of the
small manufacturers and merchants, [p. 53]
[61] This refers to Charles Cousin-Montauban, a French general who commanded the joint French and British aggressive forces
which invaded China in 1860. He was given the title of comte de Palikao by Napoleon III because he defeated the troops of the
Ching dynasty (1644-191 1) at Palichiao, a village east of Peking, [p. 53]
[62] The D&e acute cembriseur — participants and supporters of the coup d'état of Louis Bonaparte of December 2, 1851.
Vinoy took a direct part in the coup d'état and with armed force suppressed the uprising of the Republicans in one of the
provinces, [p. 53]
[63] According to press reports, Thiers and other government officials were to get more than 300 miliion francs as "commission"
out of the
page 274
domestic loan to be raised by the government. Thiers later admitted that representatives of the financial circles, with whom he
negotiated for a loan, had demanded the speedy suppression of the revolution in Paris. The law on the domestic loan was adopted
on June 20, 1871 after the Versailles troops had suppressed the Paris Commune, [p. 53]
[64] Cayenne - a city in French Guiana, South America, a penal settlement and place of exile for political prisoners, [p. 56]
[65] Le National — a French daily, organ of the moderate bourgeois Republicans, published in Paris between 1830 and 1851.
[p-59]
[66] On October 31, 1870, workers and the revolutionary section of the National Guard in Paris launched an insurrection after
receiving news that Metz had capitulated, Le Bourget was lost, and Thiers, by order of the Government of National Defence, had
begun negotiations with the Prussians. The insurgents occupied the Hôtel de Ville and established a revolutionary organ of
political power, the Committee of Public Safety, headed by Louis Auguste Blanqui. Under the pressure of the workers, the
Government of National Defence promised to resign and hold an election to the Commune on November 1 . However, taking
advantage of the incomplete organization of the revolutionary forces of Paris and the differences between the leading sections of
the insurrection - the Blanquists and the petty-bourgeois democrats, the Jacobinists - the government went back on its words, and,
with the help of the few battalions of the National Guard which remained on its side, reoccupied the Hôtel de Ville and
regained power, [p. 59]
[67] The Bretons, i.e., the mobile guards of Brittany, which Trochu used as gendarmerie to suppress the revolutionary movement in
Paris.
The Corsicans made up an important part of the gendarmerie of the Second Empire, [p. 59]
[68] On January 22, 1871, on the initiative of the Blanquists, the proletariat of Paris and the National Guards held a revolutionary
demonstration, demanding the dissolution of the government and the establishment of the Commune. The Government of National
Defence instructed its Breton mobile guards, which guarded the Hôtel de Ville, to fire at the masses. It arrested many
demonstrators, ordered the closure of all the clubs in Paris and banned mass rallies and many newspapers. After suppressing the
revolutionary movement with terror, the government began to prepare for the surrender of Paris, [p.60]
[69] Sommations was a form of warning issued by the French authorities for the dispersal of demonstrations, meetings, etc.
According to the law of 1831, the government had the right to use force after this warning
page 275
had been repeated three times by a roll of drums or a flourish of trumpets.
The Riot Act, which came into force in England in 1715, prohibited any "riotous assembly" of more than twelve persons. The
authorities had the duty to sound a special warning to such an assembly and use force if the participants did not disperse within an
hour. [p. 61]
When the event of October 31, 1870 occurred (see Note 66), members of the Government of National Defence were detained
[70]
in the Hôtel de Ville. One of the insurgents demanded their execution but was stopped by Gustave Flourens. [p. 63]
[71] See Voltaire, Candide, Chapter 22. [p.63]
[72] A quotation from the decree on hostages passed by tbe Paris Commune on April 5, 1871 and published in the Journal ofliciel
de la Républiquefrançaise, No. 96, April 6, 1871. (The date referred to by Marx was the date of its publication in
British newspapers.) The decree provided that anyone accused and proved guilty of colluding with Versailles would be detained as
hostages. By this measure the Commune tried to prevent the Versailles troops from killing the Communards, [p.63]
[73] Journal officiel de la République française, No. 80, March 21, 1871. [p.66]
[74] The wars waged by England, Russia, Prussia, Austria, Spain and other states against revolutionary France and later against the
empire of Napoleon I. [p. 67]
[75] Investiture in the Middle Ages meant the act of a feudal lord in granting his vassals a fief, benefice, office, etc. This system
was characterized by the complete control exercised by the upper grades of the ecclesiastical and secular hierarchy over the lower
grades, [p. 72]
[76] The Girondins or Girondists were supporters of the Party of Gironde which was formed io the bourgeois French Revolution,
representing the interests of the big commercial and industrial bourgeoisie, as well as the interests of the landlord-bourgeoisie
which emerged during the period of the revolution. The Girondins were so named because many of their leaders represented the
province of Gironde in the Legislative Assembly and the National Assembly. Under the flag of protecting the right of the provinces
to autonomy and federation, the Girondins opposed the Jacobin government and the revolutionary masses supporting it. [p. 73]
[77] Kladderadatsch — an illustrated humorous satirical weekly which began to appear in Berlin in 1848. Punch — an abbreviation
for Punch or the London Charivari, a humorous weekly of the British bourgeois liberals which first appeared in London in 1841.
[p-74]
page 276
[78] On April 16, 1871, the Commune promulgated a decree postponing payments of all debt obligations for three years and
cancelling interest, The decree alleviated the financial condition of the petty bourgeoisie and was unfavourable to the creditors
among the big bourgeoisie, [p.77]
[79] This refers to the rejection of the bill on the "concordats a V amiable " by the Constituent Assembly on August 22, 1848. The
bill provided for the deferment of the payment of debts by any debtor who could prove he had become bankrupt owing to
stagnation of business caused by the revolution. As a result of this, a considerable number of the petty bourgeoisie became totally
ruined and were left to the tender mercy of the big bourgeois creditors, [p.77]
[80] Frères ignorantins — a nickname for the religious order which appeared in Reims in 1680. Its members dedicated
themselves to the education of poor children. In the schools founded by the order the pupils mainly received religious education
and obtained very little in other fields of knowledge. Marx used this expression to allude to the low standard and clerical character
of elementary education in bourgeois France, [p.77]
"Union republicaine " (Alliance républicaine des Départements ) — a political organization of the petty-
bourgeois elements who came from different provinces and lived in Paris. It called on the provinces to support the Commune and
fight against the Versailles government and the monarchist National Assembly, [p. 78]
[82] Probably from the appeal of the Paris Commune, "Au travailleur des campagnes," which was published in April or early May
1871 in the newspapers of the Commune and also as a leaflet, [p.78]
[83] On April 27, 1825, the reactionary government of Charles X promulgated a law compensating former émigrés
for the loss of their estates confiscated in the years of the bourgeois French Revolution. The greater part of the indemnity -
totalling 1 ,000 million francs and paid by the government in the form of three-per-cent securities - was obtained by the chief
aristocrats at court and the big landlords of France, [p.78]
[84] The Provisional Government of France decided on March 16, 1848 to add a 45 centimes tax to each franc of direct tax
collected. The burden of this additional tax fell mainly on the peasants. As a result of this policy adopted by the bourgeois
Republicans, the peasants were estranged from the revolution and voted for Louis Bonaparte in the presidential election of
December 10, 1848. [p.78]
[85] rpj^ s re f ers t0 t j ie } aws that divided France into military districts and gave commanders extensive powers, granted the president
of the
page 277
republic the right to appoint and remove burgomasters, placed school-masters under the control of the prefects, and extended the
clergy's influence over national education. Marx gave a characterization of these laws in his work "The Class Struggles in France,
1848 to 1850" (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1951, Vol. I, pp. 199-200). [p.79]
[86] The Vendôme Column — a bronze column with a statue of Napoleon I, erected in the Vendôme Square in the centre
of Paris, to glorify victories in his aggressive wars. Cast from 1,200 captured guns, and also known as the "Victory Column," it was
a symbol of aggression and chauvinism.
The Vendôme Column was demolished on May 16, 1871 according to a decree enacted by the Paris Commune on April 12,
which denounced it as a "monument of barbarism" and an "affirmation of militarism." It was re-erected in 1875 by the French
bourgeois government, [p. 81]
[87] In the newspaper Le Mot d'ordre of May 5, 1871, evidence was published of the crimes committed in the cloisters. A search in
the Picpus convent in the suburban district of St. Antoine revealed cases in which nuns had been imprisoned in cells for many
years. Implements of torture were also found. In the church of St. Laurent a secret vault was discovered revealing evidence of
several murders. These facts were also made public in the Commune's pamphlet entitled Les crimes des congrégations
religieuses. [p. 83]
[88] Irish absentees — big landlords who lived in England on their income from Irish estates which were managed by land agents or
leased to speculator-middlemen, who, in turn, rented them out to small peasants on exacting terms, [p. 84]
[89] Franc s-fileurs - literally "free absconders," was an ironical nickname for the bourgeois of Paris who fled the city during its
siege. The nickname was ironical because its pronunciation is similar to that of francs-tireurs (free shooters), the appellation for the
French partisans who took an active part in the war against Prussia, [p. 85]
[90] Coblenz — a city in Germany which became the counter-revolutionary centre for monarchist émigrés who
prepared for intervention against revolutionary France during the bourgeois revolution of 1789. Coblenz was the seat of the
emigrant government supported by the feudal absolute states and headed by Charles Alexandre de Calonne, the fanatic reactionary
minister under Louis XVI. [p. 86]
[91] Chouans — originally the participants of the counter-revolutionary riots in northwestern France during the bourgeois French
Revolution. At
page 278
the time of the Paris Commune the Communards used this name to describe the monarchist-minded Versailles army recruited at
Brittany, [p. 87]
[92] Zouave - a corps of colonial infantry troops in the French Army - derived its name from a tribe of Algeria. First organized in
Algeria in the 1830s, the corps was composed of local inhabitants. Later it became a purely French body but retained the original
Oriental costume. The Pontifical Zouaves were the Pope's guards, organized and trained on the pattern of the original Zouaves and
recruited from volunteers of the young French noblemen. After the occupation of Rome by the Italian troops and the end of the
temporal power of the Pope, the Pontifical Zouaves were dispatched to France in September 1870, and reorganized under the name
of the "Legion of Volunteers of the West." Incorporated into the 1st and the 2nd Loire Army, they fought in the war against
Germany. After the war the Legion took part in the suppression of the Paris Commune. Later it was disbanded, [p. 87]
[93] Under the influence of the proletarian revolution in Paris, which gave birth to the Paris Commune, revolutionary movements of
the masses started in Lyons, Marseilles and many other French cities. On March 22 the National Guards and the working people of
Lyons seized the town hall. On March 26 after the arrival of a delegation from Paris the Commune was proclaimed in Lyons.
Though the Communal commission — set up to prepare for the election to the Commune — possessed an armed force, it finally
relinquished power owing to lack of contact with the people and the National Guards. Another uprising by the Lyons workers on
April 30 was cruelly suppressed by the army and police.
In Marseilles the insurgent population occupied the town hall, arrested the prefect, formed the "department commission" and
decided to hold an election to the Commune on April 5. The revolutionary outbreak in Marseilles was put down on April 4 by
government troops which bombarded the city, [p.89]
[94] This refers to Dufaure's efforts to consolidate the regime of the July Monarchy during the period of the armed uprising of the
Sociéte des saisons (Society of the Seasons) in May 1839, and to the role played by Dufaure in the struggle against the
opposition petty-bourgeois Montagnards at the time of the Second Republic in June 1849.
An attempt at a revolution by the secret Republican-socialist Society of the Seasons on May 12. 1839, headed by Louis Auguste
Blanqui and Armand Barhes, did not rely on the masses and bore a conspiratorial character; the rising was suppressed by the
government army and the Na-
page 279
tional Guard. In order to combat the danger of revolution, a new cabinet was formed, which Dufaure joined.
During a growing political crisis in June 1849 - caused by the Montagnards' opposition to the President of the Republic, Louis
Bonaparte - the Minister of Interior, Dufaure, proposed the adoption of a series of decrees against the revolutionary section of the
National Guard, the democrats and socialists, [p.90]
[95] This refers to the law adopted by the National Assembly "On the Prosecution Against the Offence of the Press," which
enforced the clauses in the former reactionary press laws (of 1819 and 1849) and laid down harsh penalties - including that of
prohibition - for publications containing anti-government views. It also refers to the rehabilitation of officials of the Second
Empire who had been removed from office; to the special law concerning the procedure of returning the properties confiscated by
the Commune, and the classification of such confiscation as a criminal offence, [p.90]
[96] The law on the proceedings in courts-martial, which Dufaure submitted to the National Assembly, further shortened the
proceedings as stipulated in the "Code de justice militaire " of 1857. It confirmed the right of the army commander and the Minister
of War to carry out judicial prosecutions according to their own discretion without preliminary inquiry, in such circumstances, the
legal case, including the examination of the appeal, had to be settled and the sentence executed within 48 hours, [p.90]
[97] This refers to the trade agreement concluded between Britain and France on January 23, 1860. It was stipulated in the
agreement that France relinquish the policy of prohibitive tariff and replace it with an income tax not exceeding 30 per cent of the
value of the goods. The agreement gave France the right to export duty-free most of its goods to Britain. After the conclusion of
this agreement, the large flow of English goods into France greatly inceased competition in the home market and aroused the
di s content of the French manufacturers . [p . 91]
[98] This refers to the situation of terror and bloody repression during the period of sharpening social-political struggle in ancient
Rome, and at different stages of crisis in the slave-holding Roman Republic in the first century B.C.
The Dictatorship of Sulla (82-79 B C), lackey of the slave-holding nobility, was accompanied by a mass slaughter of the
representatives of hostile groups of slave-holders. Under Sulla proscription was introduced for the first time, i.e., a list of persons
whom any Roman had the right to kill without a trial.
page 280
The two Triumvirates of Rome (60-53 and 43-56 B.C.) — A Triumvirate was the dictatorship of the three most influential Roman
generals who divided the power among themselves. The first Triumvirate consisted of Pompey, Caesar and Crassus; and the
second. Octavian, Antony and Lepidus, The Triumvirate represented a stage in the struggle for the liquidation of the Roman
Republic and the formation of an absolute monarchy. They widely employed the method of physical extermination of their
opponents. Upon the fall of the two Triumvirates, sanguinary, internecine civil war ensued, [p. 94]
[99] Journal de Paris — a weekly which appeared in Paris from 1867. It supported the monarchist Orleanists. [p. 95]
[ioo] ^ ese tw0 p assa g es were quoted from an article by the French publicist Edouard Herve, published in Journal de Paris, No.
138, May 31, 1871. For the quotation from Tacitus, see Tacitus' History, Book III, Chapter 83. [p. 95]
[101] In August 1814 during the Anglo-American war, the British troops occupied Washington and burned the Capitol (the
Congress hall), the White House and other public buildings.
In October 1860 in the colonial war waged by Britain and France against China, the Anglo-French troops plundered and burned
the Yuan Ming Yuan Palace near Peking, which was a rich treasure of architecture and art. [p.96]
[102] Praetorians - the name used in ancient Rome to describe the privileged private guards of the generals or the emperor. At the
time of the Roman Empire, Praetorians constantly took part in internal strifes and often placed their own nominees on the throne.
Later the word "praetorians" became a synonym for mercenaries and those who committed outrages and carried out the arbitrary
rule of military cliques, [p.98]
[103] By the "Prussian Chambre introuvable " — analogous to the extremely reactionary French Chambre introuvable of 1815-16 —
Marx meant the Prussian Parliament elected in January-February 1849 according to the Constitution granted by the Prussian king
on December 5, 1848, the day of the counter-revolutionary coup d'etat. According to the Constitution, the Parliament was
composed of the House of Lords of the privileged aristocrats arnd the Lower House. Only "independent Prussians" were allowed to
take part in the elections to the Lower House, thereby ensuring the dominance of the Junker-burceaucrats and Right-wing bourgeois
elements in it. Bismarck, who was elected to the Lower House, was a leader of the extreme Right-wing group of Junkers, [p. 99]
page 281
[104] The Daily News - a liberal paper and mouthpiece of the British industrial bourgeoisie, published from 1846 to 1930 in
London, [p. 104]
[105] Le Temps — a conservative daily, organ of the French big bourgeoisie; published in Paris from 1861 to 1943. It opposed the
Second Empire and its war against Prussia. After the collapse of the Second Empire it supported the Government of National
Defence, [p. 104]
[106] The Evening Standard — published in London between 1857 and 1905, used to be the evening edition of The Standard a daily
paper of the British Conservatives, which was founded in London in 1827. [p. 105]
[107] The statement was drawn up by Marx and Engels for the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on
Jules Favre's circular of June 6, 1871. It was included in the second and third English editions of The Civil War in France and in
the German editions of 1871, 1876 and 1891. It was also published separately in many newspapers. (See Marx and Engels, Works,
Ger. ed., Vol. XVII, pp. 367-68.) [p. 105]
[108] See Marx and Engels, Works, Ger. ed., Vol. XVI, p. 14. [p. 105]
[109] rpj^ re f ers t0 ^g c i rcu i ar drafted by Marx, "The International Working Men's Association and the Alliance of Socialist
Democracy" (see Marx and Engels, Works, Ger. ed., Vol. XVI, pp. 359-41). [p.106]
[110] The Spectator — a British liberal weekly, which began to appear in London in 1828. [p. 107]
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