The Communards of Paris, 1871

by Stewart Edwards (Editor), Jean McNeil (Translator)

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Genres: Nonfiction

180 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1973

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Reviews

[celestine · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of primary documents from the Commune with limited commentary introducing each section. As someone interested in the future of the socialist movement I found a lot of it highly informative— in particular the documents regarding the minutes of some noteworthy “congressional” meetings. My review of the material reveals to me that a kind of democratic centralism is still necessary for the left, as ultra-democratic tendencies can easily work against the movement. I’m reminded of a book I read last year on the arming of the defense committees in revolutionary Spain, and how the endless “democratic” debates that occurred there hindered the movement in the militant necessity of the moment. The same thing occurred under the Paris Commune.

[Robert Monk · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Paris Commune of 1871 is a very interesting subject, and its legacy loomed large over the 20th Century. So why have I had such a hard time finding a really good book about it? This is the best one I've come across so far, it being a collection of original sources (translated into English). The introduction and explanatory notes do a pretty good job of providing an outline of what happened, and the documents themselves are interesting. It's fairly one-sided, telling the tale from the point of view of the proletariat, with no input from the royalists or the bourgeoisie. But like I said, it's the best one I've read.