Voices of the Paris Commune (Revolutionary Pocketbooks) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1629631000 ISBN 13: 9781629631004

Verlag: PM Press, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

The Paris Commune of 1871, the first instance of a working-class seizure of power, has been subject to countless interpretations; reviled by its enemies as a murderous bacchanalia of the unwashed while praised by supporters as an exemplar of proletarian anarchism in action. As both a successful model to be imitated and as a devastating failure to be avoided. All of the interpretations are tendentious. Historians view the working class’s three-month rule through their own prism, distant in time and space. Voices of the Paris Commune takes a different tack. In this book only those who were present in the spring of 1871, who lived through and participated in the Commune, are heard.

The Paris Commune had a vibrant press, and it is represented here by its most important newspaper, Le Cri du Peuple, edited by Jules Vallès, member of the First International. Like any legitimate government, the Paris Commune held parliamentary sessions and issued daily printed reports of the heated, contentious deliberations that belie any accusation of dictatorship. Included in this collection is the transcript of the debate in the Commune, just days before its final defeat, on the establishing of a Committee of Public Safety and on the fate of the hostages held by the Commune, hostages who would ultimately be killed.

Finally, Voices of the Paris Commune contains a selection from the inquiry carried out twenty years after the event by the intellectual review La Revue Blanche, asking participants to judge the successes and failures of the Paris Commune. This section provides a fascinating range of opinions of this epochal event.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mitchell Abidor is the principal French translator for the Marxists Internet Archive and has published several collections of his translations, including Anarchists Never Surrender: Essays, Polemics, and Correspondence on Anarchism by Victor Serge. He is currently working on translations of further unpublished works by Victor Serge and Daniel Guérin.

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Voices of the Paris Commune

By Mitchell Abidor

PM Press

Copyright © 2015 PM Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62963-100-4

Contents

Introduction, 
Timeline of the Civil War in France, 
Jules Vallès, 
Paris, Free City, 
The Election, 
Our People, 
The Dead, 
The People of Belleville, 
Debate in the Commune on the Hostages and the Committee of Public Safety, 
Inquiry on the Commune, 
Henri Rochefort, 
Paschal Grousset, 
Édouard Vaillant, 
M. Pindy, 
M. Dereure, 
Jean Allemane, 
Jean Grave, 
Louise Michel, 
Jean-Baptiste Clément, 
Gaston Da Costa, 
Maxime Vuillaume, 
Elisée Reclus, 
A Rebel from Lyon, 
P-O Lissagaray, 
Alphonse Humbert, 
G. Lefrançais, 
M. Brunel, 
Léo Meillet, 
Nadar, 
M. Victor Jaclard, 
Georges Pilotell, 
M. Louis Lucipia, 
M. Champy, 
M. Chauvière, 
Alexander Thompson, 
J. Martelet, 
Madame N., 
General de Gallifet, 

CHAPTER 1

TIMELINE OF THE CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE

1870

January 10 Approximately one hundred thousand people demonstrate against Bonaparte's Second Empire after the death of Victor Noir, a republican journalist killed by the Emperor's cousin, Pierre Bonaparte.

May 8 A national plebiscite votes confidence in the Empire with about 84 percent of votes in favor. On the eve of the plebiscite, members of the Paris Federation were arrested on a charge of conspiring against Napoleon III. This pretext was further used by the government to launch a campaign of persecution of the members of the International throughout France.

July 19 After a diplomatic struggle over the Prussian attempt for the Spanish throne, Louis Bonaparte declares war on Prussia.

July 23: Marx completes what will become known as his "First Address."

July 26: The "First Address" is approved and internationally distributed by the General Council of the International Working Men's Association.

August 4–6 Crown Prince Frederick, commanding one of the three Prussian armies invading France, defeats French Marshal MacMahon at Worth and Weissenburg, pushes him out of Alsace (northeastern France), surrounds Strasbourg, and drives on toward Nancy. The other two Prussian armies isolate Marshal Bazaine's forces in Metz.

August 16–18 French Commander Bazaine's efforts to break his soldiers through the German lines are bloodily defeated at Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte. The Prussians advance on Chalons.

September 1 Battle of Sedan. MacMahon and Bonaparte, attempting to relieve Bazaine at Metz and finding the road closed, enter battle and are defeated at Sedan.

September 2 Emperor Napoleon III and Marshal MacMahon capitulate at Sedan with more than eighty-three thousand soldiers.

September 4 At the news of Sedan, Paris workers invade the Palais Bourbon and force the Legislative Assembly to proclaim the fall of the Empire. By evening, the Third Republic is proclaimed at the Hôtel de Ville (the City Hall) in Paris. The provisional Government of National Defense (GND) is established to continue the war effort to remove Germany from France.

September 5 A series of meetings and demonstrations begin in London and other big cities, at which resolutions and petitions are passed demanding that the British government immediately recognize the French Republic. The General Council of the First International take a direct part in the organization of this movement.

September 6 GND issues a statement blaming the war on the Imperial government. It now wants peace, but "not an inch of our soil, not a stone of our fortresses, will we cede." With Prussia occupying Alsace-Lorraine, the war does not stop.

September 19 Two German armies begin the long siege of Paris. Bismarck figures the "soft and decadent" French workers will quickly surrender. The GND sends a delegation to Tours, soon to be joined by Gambetta (who escapes from Paris in a balloon), to organize resistance in the provinces.

October 27 French army, led by Bazaine with 140,000–180,000 men at Metz, surrenders.

October 30 French National Guard is defeated at Le Bourget.

October 31 Upon the receipt of news that the Government of National Defense had decided to start negotiations with the Prussians, Paris workers and revolutionary sections of the National Guard rise up in revolt, led by Blanqui. They seize the Hôtel de Ville and set up their revolutionary government — the Committee of Public Safety, headed by Blanqui. On October 31, Gustave Flourens prevents any members of the Government of National Defense from being shot, as had been demanded by one of the insurrectionists.

November 1 Under pressure from the workers, the Government of National Defense promises to resign and schedule national elections to the Commune — promises it has no intention of keeping. With the workers pacified by their "legal" charade, the government violently seizes the Hôtel de Ville and reestablishes its domination over the besieged city. Paris official Blanqui is arrested for treason.

1871

January 22 The Paris proletariat and the National Guards hold a revolutionary demonstration, initiated by the Blanquists. They demand the overthrow of the government and the establishment of a Commune. By order of the Government of National Defense, the Breton Mobile Guard, which was defending the Hôtel de Ville, opens fire on the demonstrators. After massacring the unarmed workers, the government begins preparations to surrender Paris to the Germans.

January 28 After four long months of workers' struggle, Paris is surrendered to the Prussians. While all regular troops are disarmed, the National Guard is permitted to keep their arms — the population of Paris remains armed and allows the occupying armies only a small section of the city.

February 8 Elections are held in France, unknown to most of the nation's population.

February 12 New National Assembly opens at Bordeaux; two thirds of members are conservatives and wish the war to end.

February 16 The Assembly elects Adolphe Thiers chief executive.

February 26 The preliminary peace treaty between France and Germany signed at Versailles by Thiers and Jules Favre, on the one hand, and Bismarck, on the other. France surrenders Alsace and East Lorraine to Germany and pays it indemnities to the sum of five billion francs. German army of occupation slowly withdraws as indemnity payments made. The final peace treaty is signed in Frankfort-on-Main on May 10, 1871.

March 1–3 After months of struggle and suffering, Paris workers react angrily to the entry of German troops in the city and the ceaseless capitulation of the government. The National Guard defects and organizes a Central Committee.

March 10 The National Assembly passes a law on the deferred payment of overdue bills; under this law the payment of debts on obligations concluded between August 13 and November 12, 1870 could be deferred. Thus, the law leads to the bankruptcy of many petty bourgeoisie.

March 11 The Assembly adjourns. With trouble in Paris, it establishes its government at Versailles on March 20.

March 18 Adolphe Thiers attempts to disarm Paris and sends French troops (regular army), but the workers of Montmartre, who had paid for the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: PM Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1629631000
• ISBN 13: 9781629631004
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 128
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
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