VI The Paris Commune
On September 1, 1870, a part of the French Army was defeated near Sedan and compelled to capitulate on the following day. Among the prisoners was Louis Bonaparte, the French Emperor. The Empire fell on September 4, and France was proclaimed a Republic. On September 6 Marx wrote to Engels: “The French section of the International travelled from London to Paris in order to do foolish things in the name of the International. They want to overthrow the Provisional Government and set up a Commune de Paris.”—(“Correspondence,” Vol. IV., p. 330).
Although the Provisional Government of the newly-baked French Republic was in no wise made up of friends of the democracy, Marx and Engels expressed themselves against any revolutionary action by the Paris working class. In the second Address (or declaration) of the General Council of the International, written on September 9, and composed by Marx, the question is discussed as follows:
“Thus the French working class finds itself placed in extremely difficult circumstances. Any attempt to overthrow the new Government, when the enemy is already knocking at the gates of Paris, would be a hopeless piece of folly. The French workers must do their duty as citizens; but they must not let themselves be overcome by the national reminiscences of 1792.... They have not to repeat the past but to build the future. Let them quietly and with determination make the most of the republican freedom granted to them, in order to carry out thoroughly the organisation of their own class. That will give them new, Herculean strength for the rebirth of France and for our common task—the emancipation of the proletariat.”—(“Civil War in France,” Second Address.)
Marx then urged the French workers not to do anything foolish, not to set up a revolutionary Commune of Paris, but to make use of their republican liberties to create proletarian organisations and to save and discipline their forces for future tasks. Circumstances, however, proved much stronger than any words of wisdom. Goaded by the anti-democratic moves of the Government supporters, deeply humiliated by the defeats of the French army, burning with patriotism and whipped up into fury against the “capitulards,” the Paris working men cast Marx’s words to the winds and rose in revolution on March 18, 1871, proclaiming the Paris Commune. Paris was to be the capital of a Socialist Republic. In seven weeks the Paris Revolution was overthrown—and “Vae victis!” (Woe to the vanquished!) Marx afterwards wrote the pamphlet on “The Civil War in France, 1871,” which is one of the most mature of his writings. He did not cut himself entirely adrift from the revolutionaries—the Bolsheviks of that time—but defended them with unsurpassable energy. It is the swan song of Marx and of the first International.