Saturday, September 19, 2015

A WORKERS' REVOLT ANNOUNCES THE FUTURE


"JUNE" FIGHTING BREAKS OUT IN THE NEW WORKING-CLASS TERRITORIES

Insurrections once concentrated in faubourg Saint-Antoine near the Bastille, now erupt as well in the much wider industrializing areas in the east:


Zoom
Barricades of June 1848

Combat at the Saint-Denis gate, anonymous lithograph, 1848 / zoom

# # # 

Women fight much more than in 1830:

The Barricade at the Saint-Denis gate, Paris 1848 by William Edward Gabe / zoom

"At the moment when the leader dropped the flag, a young girl grabbed it and lifted it over her head,
waving it in an inspired way. Hair flying, arms bare, wearing a scarlet dress, she seemed to defy death...

"A shot rang out and she stumbled and collapsed. 

Another woman suddenly jumped to her side. 
With one hand she held the bleeding corpse, with the other she threw stones at the assailants. Another round was fired. She fell on the corpse she embraced."
--  Stern 

Discipline is as evident as in February, though the leaders have been arrested: Modern accounts do not mention this key aspect, to my knowledge.

"They fought without leaders, yet with a unity and military experience that astonished the most elderly officers."

-- Toqueville (as for the next excerpts)
Workers' aim has immeasurably broadened:

"What distinguished them too was their goal, not to change the form of government,
but to alter the order of society."
# # #

Elites are terrified:

"In spite of its victory, all [privileged] society felt a dread that can only be compared to the invasion of Rome by the barbarians."

Reference to barbarians
 becomes constant in conservative texts.

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