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.
Le dernier combat au cimetière Père Lachaise ("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 pour 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.
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" to show equality and common purpose.
-- Lefrançois
Contrast: "We only have ladies and gentlemen here," someone from a wealthy neighborhood sniffs.
-- Tombs
- Teach children from all backgrounds a manual trade.
3. Define art as anything done with ardor and brought it into daily life.
Barricade on rue de Castiglione with Vendôme column in background by Bruno Braquehais / zoom
La Commune's work of art — the barricade by cobbler Napoléon Gaillard
"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.
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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.
-- Les Services publiques sous la Commune ("Public services during la Commune"),ed. Les Amis de la Commune
5. Back cooperatives.
The Women's Union Cooperative makes 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 it.
-- Statement of Central Committee on March 22,
cited in La Commune destroys the Vendôme Column, "Gavroche," n° 44, 1989,
indicated in Ma Commune de Paris.
- The column that honors Napoleon's militarism is torn down.
Ma Commune de Paris
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La Colonna de Piazza Vendôme abbatta dai communards il 16 maggio 1871 ("The Vendôme Column torn down by the Communards May 16, 1871) / zoom (please scroll down)
- Workers from Italy, Poland, Belgium and Luxembourg fight on the barricades.
- Foreigners, who may be members of the International, play an official role.
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Raspou.team |
"Faithful to the tradition of 1848, La Commune officially encourages the participation of foreigners. A Hungarian Jew, who is 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."
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- Until the catastrophe of the end, violence is mainly verbal and a guillotine is publicly burned:
Souvenirs de la Commune - la guillotine brûlée au pied de la statue de Voltaire ("The guillotine burned at the foot of the statue of Voltaire") / zoom |
The repressive measures, which were self-defense in the combat with Versailles, 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 did not.
-- 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,
and its definition of art is unique.
End of this section.
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Next section,
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