A VISIONARY FUTURE

ASTONISHED PROGRESSIVES HEAD THE CONTINENT'S LARGEST CITY FOR 72 DAYS

They leave a blueprint for a society based on equality, humanism and integrity before they are ferociously crushed.

The Last Combat at the Père Lachaise cemetery (detail), by H.F.E. Philippoteaux / zoom

"They failed because of their great decency."

-- Karl Marx

• Widows of soldiers who fought on the other side receive pensions.

• Ambulance drivers and nurses succor all the wounded.

• There are no expropriations and the gold of the Bank of France is untouched.

But "Revolution and legality don't mix," says Lefrançois and later revolutionaries strongly criticized the last choices.

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Main objectives and decisions 

1. Promote rationality: The separation of Church and State is voted immediately and unanimously.

Journal de la Commune, Raspou'team 2011

Religious symbols are removed from schools, hospitals and tribunals.

Priests and nuns may tend the wounded who request them. But otherwise they are not present because, Communards believe, they add to the suffering of the wounded by blaming them for fighting Versailles. 

Yet ties of mutual respect spring up: The Director of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital admires the nuns and lets them conceal an altar behind a bouquet of lilacs, and he survives the repression because they hide him in their convent.  

-- Vuillaume

2. Challenge the social hierarchy

•  Use the term "citizen," which shows equality and common purpose.

A ripple of approval runs through the hall when an orator uses it for the first time since the Revolution.

-- Lefrançois

Contrast: "We only have ladies and gentlemen here," someone from a wealthy neighborhood sniffs.

-- Tombs

•  Teach children from all backgrounds a manual trade.

The small poster calls for skilled workers and artists to teach their crafts. Pay is not mentioned. (The large sign states that City Hall gives away the supplies and that under no circumstances may teachers charge for them.)  

3. Define art as anything done with ardor and bring it into daily life.

Bruno Braquehais

La Commune's work of art — the barricade by cobbler Napoléon Gaillard at place de la Concorde.

"They were in front of another barricade [...]. What a triumph of engineering! What shocking grandeur! [...] Workers had been paid to raise it [...]. Somebody had consulted a plan and told others what to do [...]. Wheelbarrows were lined up beside a huge mound of earth. Tomorrow they would start again."

-- Liberty's Fire by Lydia Syson, 2015

•  Immediate changes: museums are free; artists manage monuments, theaters, museums and art galleries; a school chorale.

•  Projected changes: schools will teach drawing, engraving and sculpture on wood; building the City finances must include a work of art.

Zoom

4. Hand over control 

• Auxiliaries who are "little paid but conscientious" help the police and post office.

• A plan to have employees elect the directors of social services is underway. 

•  Employees may run businesses whose owners have left.

    -- Public Services during la Commune, ed. Les Amis de la Commune (in French) 

 5. Back cooperatives.

The New Babylon

Women's Union cooperatives make the guards' uniforms. Its members drive ambulances, nurse the wounded and make sandbags for barricades as well. 

It will be the model for Yugoslavian cooperatives after World War II.

6. Stop war and promote a universalist vision:

• A militia is to protect against power, as opposed to permanent armies that protect that power.

-- Statement of Central Committee on March 22, 

cited in La Commune destroys the Vendôme Column, "Gavroche," n° 44, 1989,

 indicated in My Paris Commune commune (in French)

• The column that honors Napoleon's militarism militarism is torn down.

My Paris Commune

       Article in Italian  / zoom 

 

•  Workers from Italy, Poland, Belgium and Luxembourg fight on the barricades.

• Foreigners, who may be members of the International, play an official role. 

Raspou.team

"Faithful to the tradition of 1848, La Commune officially encourages the participation of foreigners. A Hungarian Jew, a jewel-maker member of the International Worker's Association, is even elected member of the Commune by the 13th district [...] "the flag of La Commune is that of the universal Republic."

.

• Until the catastrophe of the end violence is mainly verbal and a guillotine is publicly burned:  

Zoom

The repressive measures were of self-defense in the combat with Versaillais but were rarely applied: hostages were arrested but not executed, the forbidden versaillais press continued, and though in principle all men were supposed to fight, many didn't.

-- Brandely, p. 62 et seq.

• The humble were not aggressive: for example, cancan dancers brandished white petticoats as banners for peace, before and after La Commune. 

-- Nadège Maruta, cancan dancer, choreographer and historian

# # #

Some of La Commune's policies 

have been widely adopted,

progressives demand others
and its definition of art is unique.

 End of this section. 

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Next section,

IV.3.1.c.
Civil war and carnage