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History of the Commune of 1871
The Paris Commune was a pivotal event in the history of socialist thought. It had such a profound effect on Karl Marx that he amended a portion of his "Communist Manifesto" in response to it. "History of the Paris Commune" is an eyewitness account of the Commune, written in its immediate aftermath by a French worker who participated in the events he describes. Illustrated with 8 pages of photographs.
124 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1876
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About the author
Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray
17 books8 followersHippolyte-Prosper-Olivier "Lissa" Lissagaray (November 24, 1838 in Toulouse – January 25, 1901 in Paris) was a literary animator and speaker, a Republican journalist and a French revolutionary socialist.
Lissagaray was born at Toulouse to pharmacist Laurent Prosper Lissagaray and Marie-Louise Olympe Boussès de Foucaud. On his father's side, his great-grandfather was a landowner and farmer of 200 hectares, and his grandfather a doctor. The journalist Paul de Cassagnac was a cousin of Lissagaray, with whom he had a fractious relationship; his father's mother, Ursule (1775-1850), was the sister of Laurent Prosper Lissagaray. Disagreement over financial matters related to Ursule's dowry led to the poor relationship between the Lissagarays and Cassagnacs after Laurent Prosper Lissagaray's death.
Lissagaray is known for his investigation of History of the Paris Commune of 1871, an event in which he participated. He collected testimonies from the survivors in exile in London, Switzerland and consulted all documents available at the time to ensure accuracy. He was assisted by Karl Marx in the writing of History of the Paris Commune of 1871, which was translated to English by Eleanor Marx. The current English translation is from the first edition dating in 1876. The French edition is based on the 1896 version.
Exiled in London from 1871 to 1880, he stayed in the house of the Marx family, although he was not personally liked by Mrs Marx, her daughter Laura or her husband Paul Lafargue. Eleanor "Tussy" Marx, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx, fell in love with "Lissa", 17 years older. Because of his young Tussy's depression, her father accepted the engagement between Tussy and Lissa. But at age 25, shortly after the death of her mother, Eleanor decided to break up with Lissa. He retained a strong resentment against Paul and Laura Lafargue. He had a relationship with a marchioness in the 1890s, but afterwards remained single.
Lissagaray was born at Toulouse to pharmacist Laurent Prosper Lissagaray and Marie-Louise Olympe Boussès de Foucaud. On his father's side, his great-grandfather was a landowner and farmer of 200 hectares, and his grandfather a doctor. The journalist Paul de Cassagnac was a cousin of Lissagaray, with whom he had a fractious relationship; his father's mother, Ursule (1775-1850), was the sister of Laurent Prosper Lissagaray. Disagreement over financial matters related to Ursule's dowry led to the poor relationship between the Lissagarays and Cassagnacs after Laurent Prosper Lissagaray's death.
Lissagaray is known for his investigation of History of the Paris Commune of 1871, an event in which he participated. He collected testimonies from the survivors in exile in London, Switzerland and consulted all documents available at the time to ensure accuracy. He was assisted by Karl Marx in the writing of History of the Paris Commune of 1871, which was translated to English by Eleanor Marx. The current English translation is from the first edition dating in 1876. The French edition is based on the 1896 version.
Exiled in London from 1871 to 1880, he stayed in the house of the Marx family, although he was not personally liked by Mrs Marx, her daughter Laura or her husband Paul Lafargue. Eleanor "Tussy" Marx, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx, fell in love with "Lissa", 17 years older. Because of his young Tussy's depression, her father accepted the engagement between Tussy and Lissa. But at age 25, shortly after the death of her mother, Eleanor decided to break up with Lissa. He retained a strong resentment against Paul and Laura Lafargue. He had a relationship with a marchioness in the 1890s, but afterwards remained single.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 4, 2015
Lissagaray was a participant in the struggle to defend the Commune. He narrowly escaped capture after the fall of Paris and spent the next few years with the Marx clan writing this book, which reads not so much like a history in the academic sense as much as a partisan memoir of the struggle.
The author's passion and pain is both what makes the book memorable and also not the most enlightening read about the nature of the Commune. Lissagaray was a fighter and journalist during the insurgency and he observed first hand the disastrous machinations of the various attempts at a revolutionary government. The majority of the text is devoted to Lissagaray's tortured hindsights on all the missed opportunities and missteps that led to the movement's demise. These are occasionally interrupted by proclamations about the courage of the Parisian masses and the magical sense of camaraderie that, according to Lissagaray, overtook the rebelling proletarians. But we get no real portrait of life for the common person under the first attempt at a socialist government.
The last hundred pages or so are quite visceral. As we all know, the story does not end happily, but we subjects of capitalism still don't hear that much about the mass slaughters of revolutionaries that took place in the aftermath of the Commune. It was a political genocide, claiming far more lives than the terror of the Jacobins.
One thing I did learn is that the uprising was initially in no way limited to Paris. The workers of all the major cities of France took up arms. It truly was a national, socialist revolt. The smaller cities, however, fell quickly due to the lack of organization that would eventually doom mighty Paris.
The assistance of Karl and Eleanor Marx with the production of this text has made it one of the "official" Marxist statements on the Commune (along with Karl's actually more laudatory article, "The Civil War in France," written while the Commune was still in power). One can see how Lissagaray's focus on the negative, the doomed nature of the improvised insurrection exactly because of its improvised nature, helped to influence the Leninist obsession with preparation and order in the face of revolutionary opportunity. Given the carnage that was the Communards' reward, one can see how no one would ever want to duplicate their experience.
The author's passion and pain is both what makes the book memorable and also not the most enlightening read about the nature of the Commune. Lissagaray was a fighter and journalist during the insurgency and he observed first hand the disastrous machinations of the various attempts at a revolutionary government. The majority of the text is devoted to Lissagaray's tortured hindsights on all the missed opportunities and missteps that led to the movement's demise. These are occasionally interrupted by proclamations about the courage of the Parisian masses and the magical sense of camaraderie that, according to Lissagaray, overtook the rebelling proletarians. But we get no real portrait of life for the common person under the first attempt at a socialist government.
The last hundred pages or so are quite visceral. As we all know, the story does not end happily, but we subjects of capitalism still don't hear that much about the mass slaughters of revolutionaries that took place in the aftermath of the Commune. It was a political genocide, claiming far more lives than the terror of the Jacobins.
One thing I did learn is that the uprising was initially in no way limited to Paris. The workers of all the major cities of France took up arms. It truly was a national, socialist revolt. The smaller cities, however, fell quickly due to the lack of organization that would eventually doom mighty Paris.
The assistance of Karl and Eleanor Marx with the production of this text has made it one of the "official" Marxist statements on the Commune (along with Karl's actually more laudatory article, "The Civil War in France," written while the Commune was still in power). One can see how Lissagaray's focus on the negative, the doomed nature of the improvised insurrection exactly because of its improvised nature, helped to influence the Leninist obsession with preparation and order in the face of revolutionary opportunity. Given the carnage that was the Communards' reward, one can see how no one would ever want to duplicate their experience.
August 11, 2016
This history of the Paris Commune is a well-deserved classic, whose great merit is the author's personal immersion in the political effervescence of Paris during the days of the Commune as a journalist, witness, activist, and combatant.
The prose is often dense with information and names, and tends to assume that the reader is familiar with the political landscape of the Second French Empire (1852-1870). At moments, I wished that Lissagaray had better organized his depiction of the events leading to the Commune in late 1870 and early 1871.
Yet his narrative is powerful and gripping throughout, especially in the final chapters, when he describes the last days of the Commune and the massacres unlashed by the Versailles army. The chapter "Paris on the eve of Death", in which he takes the reader on a tour of Paris right before the Versailles army enters the city, is outstanding; it powerfully conveys what the space of the city felt like in that moment, and the effervescence and collective energy that the Commune had created in Paris despite facing extremely difficult conditions.
What I particularly enjoyed about Lissagaray's narrative is the tone of passionate yet controlled indignation that guides his narrative. This indignation is aimed, first, at the brutality and hypocrisy of the French ruling class, which after defeating the Commune executed about 20,000 men and women in the name of order and civilization. But the author also critically dissects in detail the disorganization and incompetence of many of the men who led the Commune. While the main goal of the book (first published in 1876) was to counter the demonization of the Commune by the French government, Lissagaray is particularly harsh in his criticism of the political and military leadership of the Commune, which, as he says, was often more concerned with "deliberating" than with preparing for an effective defence of the city. When he writes that a more disciplined and determined leadership could have saved the Commune from disaster, one can see the influence of Marx (his daughter Eleanore translated the book into English and Marx revised the translation) and the influence that this interpretation would subsequently have on Lenin and his ideas of a vanguard party, as Alain Badiou shows in his book The Communist Hypothesis. But in retrospect (as Badiou shows), that interpretation also created the hierarchical revolutionary activism that led to the disaster of Stalinism. But that's another story.
"The History of the Paris Commune of 1871" is an extraordinary historical document that is worth being revisited today. The grassroots egalitarianism and the democratic, internationalist spirit that guided the Paris Commune, and which Lissagaray documents in detail, continues being a source of inspiration.
The prose is often dense with information and names, and tends to assume that the reader is familiar with the political landscape of the Second French Empire (1852-1870). At moments, I wished that Lissagaray had better organized his depiction of the events leading to the Commune in late 1870 and early 1871.
Yet his narrative is powerful and gripping throughout, especially in the final chapters, when he describes the last days of the Commune and the massacres unlashed by the Versailles army. The chapter "Paris on the eve of Death", in which he takes the reader on a tour of Paris right before the Versailles army enters the city, is outstanding; it powerfully conveys what the space of the city felt like in that moment, and the effervescence and collective energy that the Commune had created in Paris despite facing extremely difficult conditions.
What I particularly enjoyed about Lissagaray's narrative is the tone of passionate yet controlled indignation that guides his narrative. This indignation is aimed, first, at the brutality and hypocrisy of the French ruling class, which after defeating the Commune executed about 20,000 men and women in the name of order and civilization. But the author also critically dissects in detail the disorganization and incompetence of many of the men who led the Commune. While the main goal of the book (first published in 1876) was to counter the demonization of the Commune by the French government, Lissagaray is particularly harsh in his criticism of the political and military leadership of the Commune, which, as he says, was often more concerned with "deliberating" than with preparing for an effective defence of the city. When he writes that a more disciplined and determined leadership could have saved the Commune from disaster, one can see the influence of Marx (his daughter Eleanore translated the book into English and Marx revised the translation) and the influence that this interpretation would subsequently have on Lenin and his ideas of a vanguard party, as Alain Badiou shows in his book The Communist Hypothesis. But in retrospect (as Badiou shows), that interpretation also created the hierarchical revolutionary activism that led to the disaster of Stalinism. But that's another story.
"The History of the Paris Commune of 1871" is an extraordinary historical document that is worth being revisited today. The grassroots egalitarianism and the democratic, internationalist spirit that guided the Paris Commune, and which Lissagaray documents in detail, continues being a source of inspiration.
July 14, 2024
A vital contemporaneous account of the Commune, this book is free on line in the Marxist Internet Archive. It is a breathless and vivid telling of 1870/71 as it unfolded, filled with the real political flavor of the epoch, such as the the epithet "mameluke" applied to compliant deputées.
Some morsels:
this could be today's paper: "The masses, deceived by a braggart and corrupt press, might ignore the danger, lull themselves with vain hopes; but the deputies have, must have, their hands full of crushing truths. They conceal them."
"Here Tartuffe is grafted upon Trimalcion."
"The great bourgeois of 1830, like him of 1790, had but one thought — to gorge himself with privileges, to arm the bulwarks in defence of his domains, to perpetuate the proletariat."
His condemnation of French Liberals a hundred and fifty years ago is as biting as Domenico Losurdo a decade ago. The liberals! those chosen and preferred adversaries of reaction who postured during the gold rush of the second empire and came to heel whenever real revolution was threatened.
"While the upper classes sell the nation for a few hours of rest, and the Liberals seek to feather their nests under the Empire, a handful of men, without arms, unprotected, rise up against the still all-powerful despot."
Some morsels:
this could be today's paper: "The masses, deceived by a braggart and corrupt press, might ignore the danger, lull themselves with vain hopes; but the deputies have, must have, their hands full of crushing truths. They conceal them."
"Here Tartuffe is grafted upon Trimalcion."
"The great bourgeois of 1830, like him of 1790, had but one thought — to gorge himself with privileges, to arm the bulwarks in defence of his domains, to perpetuate the proletariat."
His condemnation of French Liberals a hundred and fifty years ago is as biting as Domenico Losurdo a decade ago. The liberals! those chosen and preferred adversaries of reaction who postured during the gold rush of the second empire and came to heel whenever real revolution was threatened.
"While the upper classes sell the nation for a few hours of rest, and the Liberals seek to feather their nests under the Empire, a handful of men, without arms, unprotected, rise up against the still all-powerful despot."
January 16, 2022
Recientemente se conmemoraron los 150 años de la comuna de París, que fue un alzamiento revolucionario, que se da en el contexto de la derrota francesa con Alemania en la guerra de 1870. Este episodio marcaría fuertemente a los movimientos revolucionarios del siglo XX, que vieron en la comuna de Paris la primera experiencia revolucionaria proletaria. De hecho muchos símbolos tradicionales de los movimientos comunistas - como por ejemplo la bandera roja - provienen de allí. El relato de Lissagaray es uno de los más conocidos acerca de la comuna y se hace desde la perspectiva de un protagonista directo de los sucesos y con el sesgo claro de un partidario del movimiento.
Creo que es interesante revisar lo que fue la comuna de París, por su notable influencia histórica posterior.
Creo que es interesante revisar lo que fue la comuna de París, por su notable influencia histórica posterior.
December 31, 2022
An eyewitness account of the last revolutionary convulsions of France, when amidst the thundering failure that was the Franco-Prussian war, Paris found itself encircled by Prussians and ruled by an inept and rurally conservative precarious republic. Despite having just felled Napoleon III for his military bumbling, the urban populace lived under a fear of an imminent reactionary coup. The last straw came when this new government announced a humiliating peace offer and attempted a forcible disarming of the Paris National Guard - the core of urban republicanism - to force unwilling Parisians accept a defeat in the war. Tired of repeatedly seeing its hard fought republics reverted back into monarchy by the rural "jesuits" and feeling betrayed by this action, Parisians arose, and for the second time in less than a year, proclaimed a republic. A republican revolution inside a republic. A leftist, radical revolution, unsupported by the elected leftists and radicals. "Vive la Commune!" indeed. Confusion is not only pardoned, but brotherly welcomed. And yet it is an inherently tragic story.
It is an often overlooked revolution lead mostly by unknown people. So unknown, that it became a recurrent joke amongst contemporaries. And yet all the more impressive that from this near-anonymous blob arose a force that could defy its government for two months, sustaining a now DOUBLE encirclement by the Prussians AND the government. Meanwhile keeping the city in order and civility. It was a good experiment, with an abrupt ending.
The revolution fails for the simple reason that the rest of France was unwilling to keep pace with its tiresomely revolutionary capital. Quite content under existing conditions, they probably wouldn't have minded even a monarchy. Thus isolated, disorganized, naively idealistic, the Commune gradually fell into petty squabbling and endless deliberation literally broken up by cannonfire. The latter 1/3 of the book is a visceral description of the government columns pouring through the tangled streets and disjointed barricades, day and night, slowly but surely cornering and squeezing the rebels into a last stand, fittingly in a graveyard. The great city once more torn apart and burning - a toll taxed for being the historical driving force of the continent. And then came the mass executions and imprisonments...
Funnily enough it is *this* book that makes Bolsheviks make sense. It is only after the failures of the Paris Commune, that a context is given to many of the Leninist tendencies. One can vividly see which parts Lenin could've underlined and taken to mind in this book, having likely read it. "Fuck deliberations, fuck civility, fuck not executing everyone on sight - it ends in being on the receiving end of a firing squad". And most of all, "FUCK relying on the masses, which, however goodwilled, remain directionless and fizzle out, never outweighing a disciplined, organized, highly obedient hierarchical revolutionary vanguard."
And I haven't even read Marx's writings on this...
Deduced one star due to the immense context required and hence difficult reading. Also a tad onesided.
It is an often overlooked revolution lead mostly by unknown people. So unknown, that it became a recurrent joke amongst contemporaries. And yet all the more impressive that from this near-anonymous blob arose a force that could defy its government for two months, sustaining a now DOUBLE encirclement by the Prussians AND the government. Meanwhile keeping the city in order and civility. It was a good experiment, with an abrupt ending.
The revolution fails for the simple reason that the rest of France was unwilling to keep pace with its tiresomely revolutionary capital. Quite content under existing conditions, they probably wouldn't have minded even a monarchy. Thus isolated, disorganized, naively idealistic, the Commune gradually fell into petty squabbling and endless deliberation literally broken up by cannonfire. The latter 1/3 of the book is a visceral description of the government columns pouring through the tangled streets and disjointed barricades, day and night, slowly but surely cornering and squeezing the rebels into a last stand, fittingly in a graveyard. The great city once more torn apart and burning - a toll taxed for being the historical driving force of the continent. And then came the mass executions and imprisonments...
Funnily enough it is *this* book that makes Bolsheviks make sense. It is only after the failures of the Paris Commune, that a context is given to many of the Leninist tendencies. One can vividly see which parts Lenin could've underlined and taken to mind in this book, having likely read it. "Fuck deliberations, fuck civility, fuck not executing everyone on sight - it ends in being on the receiving end of a firing squad". And most of all, "FUCK relying on the masses, which, however goodwilled, remain directionless and fizzle out, never outweighing a disciplined, organized, highly obedient hierarchical revolutionary vanguard."
And I haven't even read Marx's writings on this...
Deduced one star due to the immense context required and hence difficult reading. Also a tad onesided.
April 2, 2025
Great book on the Paris Commune, although with many asterisks.
1. The book is best understood not as a study on why the Paris Commune happened, how the revolution affected Parisian society, the political structure of the commune, etc... but rather, a personal retelling listing off the events of the Commune's existence.
2. It's a very dense and painful read. I struggled to get through it because it felt very repetitive at moments and there was a lot to push through that just didn't feel important.
3. The book does well demonstrating how the lack of cohesiveness and proper organization on the part of the Communards prevented them from taking the actions that they needed to take in order to succeed, which I think is where the value of reading this really shines. I've found that this book is good at dispelling and providing clarity to a lot of discourse surrounding the commune which is often based off of misconceptions and misdirected criticism. Although since the Commune, the mistakes that this book points out have been rectified by Leftist theory since, I feel like this book helps with better contextualizing those theoretical developments (such as the development of Democratic Centralism and so on).
4. The author of this book was someone who survived the Commune, so he's blatantly biased in favor of the Commune and frequently glorified those who fought for it. However, I do not feel that this undermines the value of this book or the integrity of it, I just think it's something to point out because this book really isn't something for everyone.
1. The book is best understood not as a study on why the Paris Commune happened, how the revolution affected Parisian society, the political structure of the commune, etc... but rather, a personal retelling listing off the events of the Commune's existence.
2. It's a very dense and painful read. I struggled to get through it because it felt very repetitive at moments and there was a lot to push through that just didn't feel important.
3. The book does well demonstrating how the lack of cohesiveness and proper organization on the part of the Communards prevented them from taking the actions that they needed to take in order to succeed, which I think is where the value of reading this really shines. I've found that this book is good at dispelling and providing clarity to a lot of discourse surrounding the commune which is often based off of misconceptions and misdirected criticism. Although since the Commune, the mistakes that this book points out have been rectified by Leftist theory since, I feel like this book helps with better contextualizing those theoretical developments (such as the development of Democratic Centralism and so on).
4. The author of this book was someone who survived the Commune, so he's blatantly biased in favor of the Commune and frequently glorified those who fought for it. However, I do not feel that this undermines the value of this book or the integrity of it, I just think it's something to point out because this book really isn't something for everyone.
April 16, 2023
Napoleon III abdicates following humiliation in the Franco- Prussian War, which leads to a Communist interim government which lacked nationwide command and control (despite Rothschild funding and Garibaldi agitation), which leads to the more liberal monarchists essentially genociding Paris.
August 18, 2021
This text hasn't aged well, and is very dense at the start, although you do get used to it as your progress. It's fascinating in places, and told with heart.
August 9, 2023
La historia de la Comuna de París de 1871 de Lissagaray supone un elemento histórico indispensable para entender las entrañas de la mayor revolución social del siglo XIX. Este denso y documentado libro es una narración de todos los hechos que rodearon la explosión popular del 18 de marzo en París, su nacimiento y su fatal desenlace el 28 de mayo. El libro está plagado de hechos contrastados con citas e informes lo cual dota a su obra de un gran valor historiográfico. Si bien, la pulcritud y esmero de Lissagaray a la hora de narrar la historia de manera fehaciente le obliga a incluir una maraña de nombres, cargos, corrientes políticas, calles parisinas e instituciones, esto también puede suponer una lectura de episodios excesivamente lentos que llegan a abrumar a un lector que no haya acudido al libro buscando un detalle tan escrupuloso, cuasi académico.
A diferencia del análisis de los hechos de Karl Marx en su obra -maestra- 'La Comuna de París', el nivel de detalle de Lissagaray sobre los errores y carencias de los 60 días de la Comuna hace que, independientemente del valor de sus acciones, posibilidades y símbolos internacionales, la frustración contra la dejadez y fanfarronería de sus dirigentes aflore acompañada de cierta rabia histórica. Cabe mencionar que la parte final del libro, la que se centra en los últimos estertores de la Comuna y su posterior represión tras la entrada de los versallescos en París enviados por el carnicero Thiers, supone un cúmulo de fascinante valentía y honor concentrado en las barricadas parisinas, pero que al mezclarse con el espantoso y vergonzoso horror de los fusilamientos de la represión recuerdan a las incontables e idénticas expresiones fascistas y burguesas sobre cualquier atisbo revolucionario del siglo XX aún por nacer.
A diferencia del análisis de los hechos de Karl Marx en su obra -maestra- 'La Comuna de París', el nivel de detalle de Lissagaray sobre los errores y carencias de los 60 días de la Comuna hace que, independientemente del valor de sus acciones, posibilidades y símbolos internacionales, la frustración contra la dejadez y fanfarronería de sus dirigentes aflore acompañada de cierta rabia histórica. Cabe mencionar que la parte final del libro, la que se centra en los últimos estertores de la Comuna y su posterior represión tras la entrada de los versallescos en París enviados por el carnicero Thiers, supone un cúmulo de fascinante valentía y honor concentrado en las barricadas parisinas, pero que al mezclarse con el espantoso y vergonzoso horror de los fusilamientos de la represión recuerdan a las incontables e idénticas expresiones fascistas y burguesas sobre cualquier atisbo revolucionario del siglo XX aún por nacer.
June 15, 2024
Me ha resultado terriblemente difícil de leer. Es un libro escrito desde el corazón y la rabia, y me parece que el autor no se esfuerza mucho en ponernos en contexto ni en que la narración sea literaria.
Enumera los hechos y sus impresiones de una manera periodística, pero totalmente parcial e indignada y confieso que he leído muchos párrafos en diagonal (o vertical).
La narración mejora muchísimo hacia el final, pero ya está todo perdido ("la comuna no tiene sentido si no es una dictadura").
De todas maneras, me parece un libro súper interesante y necesario. La comuna fue el primer 15-M, donde los comuneros consiguieron grandes cosas porque no sabían imposibles, y se deshizo porque se dedicaron a formar comités para decidir a espaldas del conjunto y a dimitir y ser readmitidos continuamente. Y por culpa de un estado asesino, vengativo y sádico, inhumano (o quizá muy humano, comparado con la nobleza animal).
Enumera los hechos y sus impresiones de una manera periodística, pero totalmente parcial e indignada y confieso que he leído muchos párrafos en diagonal (o vertical).
La narración mejora muchísimo hacia el final, pero ya está todo perdido ("la comuna no tiene sentido si no es una dictadura").
De todas maneras, me parece un libro súper interesante y necesario. La comuna fue el primer 15-M, donde los comuneros consiguieron grandes cosas porque no sabían imposibles, y se deshizo porque se dedicaron a formar comités para decidir a espaldas del conjunto y a dimitir y ser readmitidos continuamente. Y por culpa de un estado asesino, vengativo y sádico, inhumano (o quizá muy humano, comparado con la nobleza animal).
April 23, 2023
Se me hizo eterno. A pesar de ello, es una historia muy completa de un acontecimiento decisivo en la construcción de la teoría marxiana y leninista de la toma del poder y la construcción del socialismo. Aveces se hace difícil su comprensión por la cantidad de datos. Aún así, es un texto muy completo que ofrece la mirada de los vencidos, aquella que fue calumniada y escondida durante tantos años. Texto muy importante para la comprensión de la Comuna de París, pero es necesario un conocimiento previo de lo ocurrido ya que o si no se hace imposible su compresión.
October 2, 2021
Se me ha hecho eterno. Una crónica en primera persona sobre la Comuna de París. Muy detallada y cercana, el problema? Tienes que tener un conocimiento amplios de lo que pasó. Si no, cuesta de seguir y entender. Recomendable si quieres indagar más en la Comuna, no para conocerla
March 23, 2025
Muy buena aproximación a la Comuna de París desde la perspectiva de un participante
November 22, 2025
Should have seized the gold
December 29, 2015
This is the one essential book on two months that changed the course of European history and set new patterns for 20th century revolutionary struggle worldwide.
Lissagaray first gives us the political background of the 1870-71 crisis, when the Second Empire of Louis Napoleon, or "Napoleon III" destroyed itself in a disastrous war with Prussia, during which extreme conservatives created a new government elected mainly by rural constituencies. The revolt of Parisian ouvriers and petits bourgeois began as outrage against that disgraced government, successor of the emperor, that not only had failed to defend them against Prussian siege and bombardment but now expected them to pay (through rent increases and taxes) the huge indemnization demanded by the Prussians.
The insurrection broke out without plan or clear leadership when on 18 March 1871 that conservative government sent troops to seize the cannons of the Paris Garde nationale. Populace and Gardes quickly mobilized to prevent the seizure, and the government troops, bewildered and unprepared for such action, fraternized with them. Two generals, already notorious for earlier bloodletting, were murdered by the mob, and now Paris was in open revolt. The reactionary government, led by the aged Adolphe Thiers, then withdrew from the city and established its new capital in nearby Versailles. In the next weeks the citizens of Paris had to organize all urban services, while simultaneously defending themselves from infantry and bombardment of Versailles while the Prussian army hemmed them in on the north and east. Revolutionary reforms in education, work hours, women's rights and opportunities followed in quick succession — but despite spirited, though woefully disorganized, defense by Parisians and foreigners such as Dombrowski and Wroblewski, Versailles troops finally broke through and began the systematic destruction and massacres od la semaine sanglante, the "bloody week" of 21-28 May, 1871, followed by mass executions, rigged trials and deportations that very nearly wiped out the whole of Paris' working class — 30 or 40,000 killed, more thousands imprisoned and/or deported, others fled to exile in Belgium, Switzerland or England.
Lissagaray was a young radical journalist in 1871, not an elected official nor with any formal responsibility in the Commune, but committed to its cause and ultimately, in the last desperate days, a combattant and eye-witness of the semaine sanglante. He escaped, ultimately to London, and spent the next five years reading every available document, interviewing and corresponding with survivors, and writing his great history, which was published in Belgium in 1876. In 1886, the book appeared in English translation by Eleanor Marx Aveling (youngest daughter of Karl Marx and Lissagaray's one-time fiancée). In 1896, five years before his death, Lissagaray re-issued his history with a new postscript, where he predicts that the socialist goals of the Commune would be realized in Germany. Things didn't turn out that way, but the Commune's influence on the strategic thinking of Lenin, Trotsky and others would later be decisive for another country.
There have been many more studies since Lissagaray, and there are other contemporary accounts with important additional information — those by Louise Michel and Jules Vallès deserve special mention. Some of Lissagaray's value judgments may be challenged, and there are aspects he didn't know about that are important for understanding how this massive revolt emerged and developed, but this big, careful study (with numerous notes and appendices) is our most valuable single account. (I read the Kindle version of the 1896 edition. I recommend the e-book because it's cheap, carefully edited — very few scanning errors — and because you can read it with the Kindle version of the French dictionary Robert, in case like me you need it.)
Lissagaray first gives us the political background of the 1870-71 crisis, when the Second Empire of Louis Napoleon, or "Napoleon III" destroyed itself in a disastrous war with Prussia, during which extreme conservatives created a new government elected mainly by rural constituencies. The revolt of Parisian ouvriers and petits bourgeois began as outrage against that disgraced government, successor of the emperor, that not only had failed to defend them against Prussian siege and bombardment but now expected them to pay (through rent increases and taxes) the huge indemnization demanded by the Prussians.
The insurrection broke out without plan or clear leadership when on 18 March 1871 that conservative government sent troops to seize the cannons of the Paris Garde nationale. Populace and Gardes quickly mobilized to prevent the seizure, and the government troops, bewildered and unprepared for such action, fraternized with them. Two generals, already notorious for earlier bloodletting, were murdered by the mob, and now Paris was in open revolt. The reactionary government, led by the aged Adolphe Thiers, then withdrew from the city and established its new capital in nearby Versailles. In the next weeks the citizens of Paris had to organize all urban services, while simultaneously defending themselves from infantry and bombardment of Versailles while the Prussian army hemmed them in on the north and east. Revolutionary reforms in education, work hours, women's rights and opportunities followed in quick succession — but despite spirited, though woefully disorganized, defense by Parisians and foreigners such as Dombrowski and Wroblewski, Versailles troops finally broke through and began the systematic destruction and massacres od la semaine sanglante, the "bloody week" of 21-28 May, 1871, followed by mass executions, rigged trials and deportations that very nearly wiped out the whole of Paris' working class — 30 or 40,000 killed, more thousands imprisoned and/or deported, others fled to exile in Belgium, Switzerland or England.
Lissagaray was a young radical journalist in 1871, not an elected official nor with any formal responsibility in the Commune, but committed to its cause and ultimately, in the last desperate days, a combattant and eye-witness of the semaine sanglante. He escaped, ultimately to London, and spent the next five years reading every available document, interviewing and corresponding with survivors, and writing his great history, which was published in Belgium in 1876. In 1886, the book appeared in English translation by Eleanor Marx Aveling (youngest daughter of Karl Marx and Lissagaray's one-time fiancée). In 1896, five years before his death, Lissagaray re-issued his history with a new postscript, where he predicts that the socialist goals of the Commune would be realized in Germany. Things didn't turn out that way, but the Commune's influence on the strategic thinking of Lenin, Trotsky and others would later be decisive for another country.
There have been many more studies since Lissagaray, and there are other contemporary accounts with important additional information — those by Louise Michel and Jules Vallès deserve special mention. Some of Lissagaray's value judgments may be challenged, and there are aspects he didn't know about that are important for understanding how this massive revolt emerged and developed, but this big, careful study (with numerous notes and appendices) is our most valuable single account. (I read the Kindle version of the 1896 edition. I recommend the e-book because it's cheap, carefully edited — very few scanning errors — and because you can read it with the Kindle version of the French dictionary Robert, in case like me you need it.)
Read
October 21, 2021A highly valuable document on the Commune by one of its participants which should be approached as a contemporary intervention rather than a timeless account. Lissagaray assumes a relatively high level of familiarity with the historical context, which makes it hard for a modern reader to follow at times. He also focuses far too much on the strictly military aspects of the Commune, which is probably not what most readers will be interested in nowadays. Nevertheless, below this somewhat messy surface there lie brilliant moments. The approach is one of revolutionary clarity; "He who tells the people false revolutionary myths, he who amuses them with sensational stories, is as criminal as the geographer who would draw up false charts for navigators." (p. 5) Lissagaray is not afraid to criticize the Commune, and his critiques are precisely what make this book a useful read. His clarity helped me understand the Commune in a much more constructive way than the usual mystification of it as the textbook example of proletarian-socialist revolution (it was neither particularly socialist in outlook nor particularly proletarian in its composition). My impression, at least, is that it was much more of a dictatorship of the petty bourgeoisie than a dictatorship of the proletariat. It belonged to a very particular place in history which will never appear again, a time when radical republicanism was still a revolutionary force. Understanding it this way is, I think, a necessity if we want to draw lessons from it.
Want to read
February 26, 2025All my life I’ve had many friends urge me to read Lissagaray’s History of the Paris Commune. This was the book to read to understand what went on and understand the Commune as that great example of the first time the working class took power.
I now have read almost half the book and to be kind the reading of it is at best a slog. Most of it I can’t make sense of what is going on. It impressed me that the account is poorly written. The New Park version I have is very poorly edited. I’m convinced that this publisher didn’t care a jot whether anyone got anything out of reading the book, only the notoriety of having published the book. No maps, no glossary, no explanatory notes, nothing to guide the reader who had no familiarity with the events. I have decided to put this down for now an perhaps pick it up next year
I now have read almost half the book and to be kind the reading of it is at best a slog. Most of it I can’t make sense of what is going on. It impressed me that the account is poorly written. The New Park version I have is very poorly edited. I’m convinced that this publisher didn’t care a jot whether anyone got anything out of reading the book, only the notoriety of having published the book. No maps, no glossary, no explanatory notes, nothing to guide the reader who had no familiarity with the events. I have decided to put this down for now an perhaps pick it up next year
January 1, 2017
Partisan, but clear-eyed account of the 1871 Paris Commune from an author who experienced it first hand.
July 12, 2014
Violent yet beautiful history of the resistance of ordinary people to an army siege.
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