IV.3.1. EGALITARIANISM BREAKS THROUGH

"ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND MEN ARE THERE,

THEIR HEARTS BEATING IN UNISON"  

-- Maxime Vuillaume, My red Notebooks, Memories of the Commune, 1910 (in French),

evoking the proclamation of La Commune.

Other sources show the same euphoria.

The humble take control of their lives,

then are repressed with a savagery

that announces 20th-century carnage

Proclamation of the Commune, March 26, 1871 by Daniel Vierge, Musée Carnavalet / not exhibited

.

In brief

• A most unlikely revolution

• Upheaval 

• Carnage

• Ruins and revenge

• Mystification

• An omen and a turning point

• Fraternity that worked 

*    *

To learn more,

beware of the web, 

where texts are often inaccurate.

Exceptions: the blog My Paris Commune

and these links toward memoirs, graphic novels, media... 

In French.

Basic publications in English:

• Karl Marx's The civil war in France and his daughter's translation of History of the Commune of 1871 by the fighter and refugee Pierre-Olivier Lissagary

 

• The war on Paris and The Paris Commune 1871 by Robert Tombs.

• A three-page story from the right: Alphonse Daudet's The Battle of Père Lachaise in which Communards surrender without fighting after an orgy in the tombs (English translation online). 

•  A novel

• Liberty's Fire by Lydia Syson (2015). Written for teens but gripping for adults as well, particularly the last part: For reviews, please click here.

Ms. Syson is the great-great granddaughter of N.F. Dryhurst, who taught in the anarchist school Louise Michel established in London in 1890, to escape from the police in France.

 

If you read French,

please click on this informal translation

I had given the novel for an exhibit to commemorate La Commune's 150th anniversary to the local library. To my astonishment, a short time later an employee came up to me and said, "Here are a few pages I felt like writing..."

Jean-Pierre Sutka gives:

• A list and description of the characters.
• A résumé, chapter by chapter.
• A complete translation of the most important third.

• A movie : The new Babylon, a Soviet silent film (of 1929). The photography is magnificent and the music is a 20-year-old Shostakovich's first score 

"Wonderful example of how while Hollywood was producing comedies and costume extravaganzas, Soviet directors were creating an entirely different cinema, until it all went so horribly wrong." 

-- Web site comment 

There is much for in French, of course.

For suggestions, please click.

More studies and sources appear

on the next pages. 

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Next,
IV.3.1.a.
A most unlikely revolution