Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune

by Kristin Ross

Reclaiming the legacy of the Paris Commune for the twenty-first century

Kristin Ross’s highly acclaimed work on the thought and culture of the Communard uprising of 1871 resonates with the motivations and actions of contemporary protest, which has found its most powerful expression in the reclamation of public space. Today’s concerns—internationalism, education, the future of labor, the status of art, and ecological theory and practice—frame and inform her carefully researched restaging of the words and actions of individual Communards. This original analysis of an event and its centrifugal effects brings to life the workers in Paris who became revolutionaries, the significance they attributed to their struggle, and the elaboration and continuation of their thought in the encounters that transpired between the insurrection’s survivors and supporters like Marx, Kropotkin, and William Morris.

The Paris Commune was a laboratory of political invention, important simply and above all for, as Marx reminds us, its own “working existence.” Communal Luxury allows readers to revisit the intricate workings of an extraordinary experiment.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, France, Theory, Philosophy, Sociology

156 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2015

About the author

Kristin Ross is a professor of comparative literature at New York University. She is the author of numerous books, including Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization and the Reordering of French Culture and May '68 and its Afterlives.

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

My second train book was The Road: Stories, Journalism, and Essays, however I switched to ‘Communal Luxury’ once I got to Grossman’s famous essay ‘The Hell of Treblinka’. I have read it several times before and, let me tell you, the experience is even more painful when you are on a train. I needed a break from the horror, so turned to this rather delightful little book of theory centred on the lived experience of the Paris Commune. It takes quite a different perspective to everything else I’ve read about the Commune. The reader is assumed to already know what happened and who was involved - this is not a narrative history. Instead, the chapters discuss the philosophies of the Commune, not only during its existence but before and after. Ross specifically sets out to show both the political practises that the Commune sprung from and its lasting impact. The concept of ‘communal luxury’ is an appealing one: the particular pleasure of everyone owning everything. I found the eclecticism of the book appealing and thought-provoking. It isn’t erratic and opaque (cough-Žižek-cough) or dogmatic (cough-Badiou-cough) in its analysis of the Commune. I was particularly interested in the sections discussing the redefinition of art and rejection of disciplinary boundaries in education. Ross synthesises inspiring points like this from the Commune’s legacy:

More important than any laws the Communards were able to enact was simply the way in which their daily workings inverted entrenched hierarchies and divisions - first and foremost between manual and artistic or intellectual labour. The world is divided between those who can and those who cannot afford the luxury of playing with words and images. When that division is overcome, as it was under the Commune, or as it is conveyed in the phrase ‘Communal luxury’, what matters more than any images conveyed, laws passed, or institutions founded are the capacities set in motion. You do not have to start at the beginning - you can start anywhere.

Another highlight is the examination of how the spirit of the Commune lived on in those who survived it and were sent into exile, as well as those who weren’t there but were changed by it. Amongst the latter were Marx and William Morris, both of whose responses to the Commune are considered in some detail. I hadn’t realised that Morris was so influenced by it. Scattered throughout the book are such thought-provoking tidbits. I will admit, I’d never thought of this before, although it seems obvious in retrospect:

Russian scientists and the view from the north uniformly rejected Malthusian competition. They saw it as theoretical expression that could only have emerged from the experience of a small, crowded, hyper-industrial country whose economic ideal was the open competition of the ‘free market’, and from research conducted, as was Darwin’s, in the teeming, environmentally rich, and varied flora and fauna of the tropics. Marx, too, had come to conclusion that Darwin was, to all intents and purposes, a little Englander.

In a neat link to The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us, which I’m currently reading, there is discussion of concern for nature amongst the Communards. Further reason to reject the idea that environmentalism and sustainability are recent inventions and didn’t exist during the industrial revolution. (Refuting this is a key theme of The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us.) Another insight that will stay with me is the link between France’s colonial oppression of Algeria and the vicious repression of the Commune. The former prepared the army for the latter. There really is a great deal of original and fascinating material in this small book. It also has a charming cover, fittingly featuring a William Morris design, and ends on this excellent note:

What counts as prosperity? What is wealth? For solidarity with nature to exist, rather than purely mercantile interests, a transformation of values must occur that is itself predicated on a complete transformation of the social order: the abolition of private property and of the state. Nature would then be not just a productive force or stockpile of resources but valued as an end in itself. Environmental sustainability is not a technical problem but a question of what society values, what it considers wealth.

‘Communal Luxury’ reinvigorated my fascination with the Paris Commune and reminded me why it’s such an enduringly radical and inspiring event. Books containing this much political theory very rarely manage to be so uplifting, which earns this one five stars. An excellent train read.

[Mahla · Rating 4 out of 5]

کمون پاریس، جرقهٔ کوتاهی از تجربه بالفعل و عینیِ دیکتاتوری پرولتاریا.

تجربهٔ کوتاه حکومت کمون، در مرز محدود پاریس. جنبشی که در رمانتیسیمِ سیاسی، جریان منتقد عصر روشنگری و فرزندش انقلاب فرانسه، ریشه داشت. کریستین راس در «تجملات اشتراکی» به زیرساخت‌های نظریِ بی‌عیب و نقص کمون می‌پردازد و به روشنی از موجودیتِ این آتشی که با خاکستر مدفون شد تا با نسیم انقلاب اکتبر شعله‌ور شود پرده بر می‌دارد.
سو تفاهم نشود. کمون و تجربه حضور ۲۰ و چند روزه‌اش در پاریس، هیچ ربطی، به فضاحتی که بلشویک‌ها در قرن بیستم به‌بار آوردند، ندارد
کمون به‌جز انترناسیونالیسم، وجه اشتراکی با کمونیسم شوروی نداشت و به‌گمانم استبداد شوروی واژه «کمونیسم» را هم همچون مفاهیم دیگری چون عدالت، برابری و آرمانشهر لگدمال کرد.
کریستین راس از آرمان‌های دل‌انگیز و روسوییِ کمونارها می‌گوید، عدالتِ بی‌مرز، تجملات اشتراکی، آموزش برابر و همبستگی در قالب دلدادگی و آمیزش دوبارهٔ انسان با طبیعت.
من هم اگر جای کریستین راس بودم، نام «تجملات اشتراکی» را برای کتابم بر می‌گزیدم. زیباترین بخش بیانیهٔ کمون، مبتنی بر «هنر، برای همه»، با برافراشتن پرچم استقلالِ هنر و هنرمند، از دام سیاست‌زدگی و انحصار طبقاتی.
کمونارها معتقد بودند مرزی میان صنعت و هنر نیست. صنعتگر نوعی هنرمند است و باید همچون هنرمند از کار و حاصل آن لذت ببرد.
کمون پاریس با دولت‌گرایی و مرجعیت قدرت میانه‌ای نداشت و از طرفی دلبستهٔ تام و تمام آنارشیسم نبود. کمون توانست در روزهای حیاتش، «کمونیسم آنارشیستی» را در قامت یک آرمان عملی و رمانتیسیسم را آمیخته به حقایق و پویاییِ امر اجتماعی به تاریخ بشریت عرضه کند.
.کتاب پرده از بینش ناب و نوینِ کمون پاریس بر می‌دارد. بازخوانیِ تجربه‌ای کاملاً متفاوت با آنچه به‌نام جنبش‌های چپ، برابری‌خواه و عدالت‌طلب می‌شناسیم.
مطالعهٔ کتاب کریستین راس و آشنایی با واقعه‌ای جریان‌ساز که نقشی تعیین‌کننده در مسیر تاریخ ایفاء کرد را توصیه می‌کنم.
 شاید امروز که بازی‌های ایدئولوژیک به بن‌بست رسیده‌اند، باید زبان تجربه را فرا گرفت تا گوش به ندای تاریخ بسپاریم.

[Oisín Gilmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of friends highly recommended this book. And it is good, but...

For the majority of my life, I'm 30 now and since I was 13, I have identified to varying degrees with the anarchist-communist political tradition.

This book is a great introduction to that, and as an introduction it does a number of interesting things. It locates the roots of this tradition in the historical context of the late nineteenth century. And it shows how the entire history of the left, the antecedents of both Leninism and Social Democracy, is rooted in the fall-out of the Paris Commune and the arguments made around it. This is all very interesting and the way in which she shows the intellectual developments arising from the commune in differing places and in differing manners is very interesting.

However, she fails to be explicit that much if not all of these ideas she is presenting are simply what became and is today known as anarchist-communism. And with that she fails to address some of the problems, the practical and intellectual failing of anarchist-communism.

If you haven't read Kropotkin and/or don't know anarchist communist history and theory well, this book is likely to present you with some ideas you haven't come across before. If you do know this stuff and are interested in a book that is not particularly challenging but is really well written, novel and interesting, it's well worth the few hours it takes to read, but don't expect to be challenged or exposed to any particularly new ideas.

[Leonard Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've made no secret of the fact that I think of the Paris Commune as one of the pivotal events in human history. It was not only one of the first, but still is one of the most audacious experiments in equality, freedom, and liberation from oppression that has ever taken place. One of its most remarkable qualities of this startling experiment of 1871 was its spontaneity; it is not that it had no precedents -- certainly it was operating on ideas that had been percolating around Europe for decades -- but that its participants, many of them uneducated, unsophisticated, and with little knowledge of the world outside of Paris so completely threw themselves into a unique and radical experiment in democracy and common humanity and more or less on their own created a working microcosm of egalitarian ideals that today, almost 150 years later and with technology and resources that they could never have dreamed of, we are still struggling to replicate.

The great Rosa Luxembourg stressed, before she met an end all too familiar to the brave men and women of the Communards, that it was not necessary to cross the Ts and dot the Is of radical theory to have a revolution; the means of living a liberated life could be -- indeed, must be -- discovered while in the process of living it. "The modern proletarian class doesn't carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory," she wrote. "The modern worker's struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight we learn how we must fight. That's exactly what is laudable about it -- that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding the weapons of their own liberation." When she wrote those words, the German revolution was struggling, and would eventually fail; but 50 years prior, the people of Paris, hundreds of thousands strong, without a tenth the benefit she had accrued from education and commitment to the cause, managed to create the conditions of a revolutionary world with almost no planning or forethought. The Commune was not only a stunning act of defiance and a staggering accomplishment of democratic self-rule by the masses, it was a feat of unprecedented imagination.

It is this latter aspect that NYU literature professor Kristin Ross concerns herself with in the revealing new book, Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune. Slight and written in a slightly arch academic style, the book is nonetheless hugely impressive for the way it tells many of the stories, seemingly familiar to those who have read extensively about the events of Paris' 1871 summer, in a context that renders them electric with new meaning. Ross sheds historical and theoretical light on the amazingly dynamic events of that period, showing that the people of Paris drew extensively -- and sometimes unknowingly -- on the culture and ideas of the past, but realized them in a way that had no precedent and which seemingly developed its own theories and practices with lightning speed. Marx told us that the Commune was important for its mere existence, but one of the most amazing things about it was that it did so much more than merely exist: it worked, it functioned, it thrived in ways that the city, that the world, had never dreamed.

Dreams, visions, and ideas of a life lived as never before are form a major part of Communal Luxury. Even to those familiar with the Commune, it is striking how modern their ideas seem today. They were internationalists from the very beginning (one of the main reasons they struck such terror in the hearts of the political elite, and why the French allied with their recent enemies in Germany to crush them). They forsook the growing nationalism of the day in favor of the idea of an idyllic global commonality, a desire for the global emancipation of labor from its boredom and want and cruel restraints that had nothing to do with base patriotism: they called it the "Universal Republic", and demanded not just a guarantee of the basic necessities to keep hunger and deprivation at bay, but the best in life for everyone.

They embraced women's rights as an essential component of their revolution: the Women's Union was a critical part of the Commune, and was led by a 20-year-old named Elisabeth Dmitrieff who formed a crucial tie between French and Russian thinkers. They organized creches, fought on the front lines, took charge of education, and demanded much more than just a vote for women: they sought no less than "a full reorganization of women's labor and the end of gender-based inequality" at the same time they were fighting fires, serving on ambulances, and filling sandbags. Paid labor for all women and "work and well-being for all" with the producers keeping the profits their labor generated was being demanded by these Parisians when the vote for women in America was still six decades away. Far from being a conglomeration of white working-class people, the commune included Arabs, Asians, Africans and Jews, and anti-facism and anti-imperialism were integral parts of its platform, central tenets of the idea that "socialism is the redemption of all people, the salvation for all". "We shouldn't forget what we did to others," said one speaker who had fought for France against Prussia but who had no concern for nationalist humiliation; "We went into Crimea, China, Rome, Mexico, and we fought with people who asked for nothing but to live in peace with us." Black zouaves from Africa manned the barricades as Eugène Varlin insisted that "Africa will flourish only when it administers itself"; Arab workers helped feed the population as Varlin hissed that "The French have brought [Algeria] not civilization but misery and servitude." They completely reorganized the idea of education, eliminating the influence of the church and created a blended learning for all boys and girls, which would combine book study with the development of practical skills and the theory and application of art and science, insisting that every child should have access to every aspect of the world we could teach them.

Throughout Communal Luxury, Ross makes a rather scrupulous effort not to tie the lessons of the Paris Commune, however obvious they may be, to our present situation. But this is not out of reluctance or rejection; instead, she trusts the reader to understand the relevance of what they are reading as she describes the events as a sort of collectively realized dream, a simultaneous drawing from the hearts and minds of a diverse and growing group of people ideas that they would translate almost immediately into a contested but dynamic reality. She effectively traces the rise and fall of the Commune and its diaspora, which influenced politics for decades and produced a noise that never stopped echoing. Almost a century and a half ago, the people of Paris threw down a gauntlet, challenging the way society should conceive of work and who should benefit from it, of the role of women and children being treated with equal status, of universal acceptance of all people in opposition to petty nationalism, of what our public spaces should look like and what purpose they should serve, of what it meant to be human. That gauntlet still sits on the ground before us, waiting for someone brave enough to pick it up.

[Ferda Nihat Koksoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marx, 1871'de Evrensel Cumhuriyet bayrağı altında gerçekleşen "gözüpek bir enternasyonalizm eylemi" olan Paris Komünü'nün en önemli yanının, gerçekleştirmeye çalıştığı herhangi bir ideal değil, kendi "işleyen varoluşu" olduğunu yazdığında, asilerin gelecek topluma dair herhangi bir ortak tasarımlarının olmadığını da vurgulamış oluyordu.
Bu anlamda Komün hemen oracıkta doğaçlama uydurulan veya geçmiş senaryolar ve tabirlerden parça parça bir araya getirilip gerek duyuldukça değiştirilen ve son iki üç yıldaki halk toplantılarının uyandırdığı arzularla beslenen siyasi icatların denendiği, işlek bir laboratuvardı.
Bir "eylemde eşitlik" yaşantısı olan Komün, bir devlet olmak değil, önemli sayıda ve etkinlikteki yabancı üyeleriyle birlikte, uluslararası ölçekli Komünler Federasyonu içinde bir birim, özerk bir kolektif olmak istiyordu.

Devlet temelinde ve 1871 yılı üzerinden yazılmış tarihlerin ötesine geçip, 1868 sonunda yaygınlaşmaya başlayan halk toplantılarına bakarsak, bunlardan üreyen çeşitli birlikleri (en gelişkin olanı, Marx ve Çernişevski'yi birleştirmeye çalışan Elisabeth Dmitrieff'in kurduğu Kadınlar Birliği idi), komiteleri, devrimci kulüpleri ve 50.000 üyeli ademi merkeziyetçi federasyonu (1870) görürüz ki, büyük demokratik ve toplumsal komün fikrinin, olayın kendisinden önce bu yapılar tarafından yaratıldığını fark ederiz.

Devlet bürokrasisine, özellikle de onun merkezi olan okullara ilişkin sökme eylemleri, Komün sırasında sanatın devlet elinden sökülmesiyle birlikte seyretti.
Kafayla kol arasındaki ayrımı aşacak, zihinle bedeni birlikte geliştirecek (ORTAK LÜKS) ve düşünce hayatında hak iddia edebilecek bütünsel ve politeknik eğitim talebi (I.Enternasyonal tavrı) Komün sonrasında da ayakta kalmıştır (Rancière/Cahil Hoca/Jacotot tarzı).
Kilise etkisinde olan ilkokullardaki öğrenciler bu etkiden kurtarılmış ve üçte biri hiç okula gitmeyenler dahil tüm çocuklara, adalet ve başkalarının çıkarlarına saygıyı temel alan zorunlu ve laik kamu eğitimi verilmesi sağlanmıştır; bu konuda başlıca rolü, 1867'de laik eğitim çağrısı yapmış olan I.Enternasyonal üyeleri oynamıştır.
Sanat okullarının herkese açılması, kadınların öncülüğünde kreşlerin ilk modelinin ve kız sanat okulunun kurulması gerçekleştirilmiştir.

Kropotkin ve William Morris'in Kuzey gezilerinden ve geçmişlerine dair incelemelerinden edindikleri izlenimler, Paris Komünü sırasında yaşananlara benzer olarak değerlendirilmiştir. Bu yaşam şekli, İngilizlerin Hobbes/Darwin ile özetlenebilen herkesin herkesle savaşında iyi olanın ayakta kalması düşüncesinin karşıtı bir tavırdır.
Özellikle İzlanda ve Töton kadim geleneklerinde, işbirliğiyle  doğayla mücadele, birlikteliğin sağladığı yüksek düşünsel ve ahlaki seviye, bolluk ve yoksulluğun az çok eşit bölüşümü, güçlü bir demokrasi geleneği ve bağımsızlık ruhu, kararların alınmasının ve adaletin açık alan katılımıyla gerçekleşmesi; Morris'e, "Kendi kendimizin Gotları olup, yeni tiran Kapitalizm İmparatorluğu'nu ne pahasına olursa olsun yıkacağız" dedirten tespitlerdir bunlar.

İşbirliği pratiğini Komün'de gözleyen Marx, özellikle Rusya'daki  Kırsal İşçi-Köylü komünleriyle (Çernişevski ile daha da gelişir) ilgilenir hale gelmiştir. Bunların birbirlerinden kopuk olmasını handikap olarak gören Marx, yaşamlarını sürdürebilmelerini, federasyon ve köylü meclisi oluşturabilmelerine ve batıdaki devrimci proleter güçlerle bağlar kurabilmelerine bağlamıştır.
Kent ve kırsalın birlikteliğinin sağlanmasının önemi, Komün'ün katliamlarla dağıtılmasına büyük destek veren kırsal gerçeğiyle ortaya çıkmıştır (sonraları Gramsci, yaşayan çıkarlarının komünde olduğunu gösteren pratiğe dayalı hızlandırılmış siyasi eğitim kursları önerir).

Komün sonrasında Marx devlet merkeziyetçiliği konusundaki fikrini değiştirmiş, devletin topluma asalak bir fazlalık olarak büyüdüğünü ve bunun burjuvazinin yönetme şekli olduğunu anlayarak, 1872'de "işçi sınıfı hazır durumdaki devlet mekanizmasına el koyup onu kendi amaçları için kullanamaz" şeklinde yazmıştır. Artık ona göre sınıf mücadelesinin asıl mecrası, devlet ile sivil toplum arasındaki ayrımın ortadan kaldırılması olmalıdır.  

Yine Komün sırasındaki birlikteliklerle  zorunlu emeğin yerini özgürce bağ kuran emeğin alması, Marx için meta fetişizmi ve yabancılaşmanın fiilen çözülmesi anlamına gelmiş ve bu düşünce "emek özgürleşince herkes proleter haline gelir ve üretken emek sınıfsal bir vasıf olmaktan çıkar" şeklinde ifade edilmiştir.

Komün, tarihe kitlelerin şekil verdiğini ve bunu yaparken de sadece fiili gerçekliği değil,  teorinin kendisini de yeniden şekillendirdiğini iyice netleştirmiştir; Kropotkin'in tanımıyla, birlikte varolabilen ve birbirlerini destekleyen sermaye, devlet, ulus üçlüsü aynı anda söküme uğratılmaya, özel mülkiyet lağvedilmeye ve kamulaştırılmaya çalışılmıştır.

72 günlük Paris Komünü'nün, burjuvazinin büyük nefretle düzenlediği, -sınıf düşmanlarını teker teker ve blok halinde bertaraf etme yönündeki olağanüstü girişim- ve köylülerin geniş desteğiyle yaptığı kutsal savaş ruhu katliamlarıyla bastırmasını takiben kurulan III.Cumhuriyet,  sanayi burjuvazisi ile taşra önde gelenleri arasında kurulan tarihsel bir ittifakla, kapitalist toplumla cumhuriyetçi devleti ilk defa kaynaştırmıştır.

(1864'de kurulmuş, en güçlü olduğu dönemde 1.2 milyon üyeye ulaşmış ve Komün'e katkı sağlamış olan)
I.Enternasyonal de Paris Komünü'nün etkisinin geliştirdiği karşı-devrimle sonlanmıştır.

[Ebru · Rating 5 out of 5]

18 Mart -28 Mayıs 1871 tarihleri arasında yaşanan Komün deneyimi bu aralıktan çok daha uzun bir zamana etkisini yayar. Kristin Ross'un komün'ün kimi aktörlerinin düşüncelerini takiple anlamaya çalıştığı zamanın anlam dünyası bize de bir sürü şey söylüyor. "Hayalimiz bir toplum nasıl olurdu?" sorusunu tartışma yolunda ilham veriyor.

Paris Komünü duyumsanabilir olan bir deneyimdi. Komünde yaşama sanatı edinilecek, yaşamak "gündelik hayatın yüksek fikirlerden ayrılmadığı" bir hayat üslubuna dönecektir. Emek insanı coşturan hale geldiğinde emekçi de sanatçı olacaktır. Baştan başlamak gerekmez, her yerden başlanabilir. Her şey her şeydedir. Sanat yaşanmış kılınacaktır, toplum için vazgeçilmez olacaktır, sanat yapılabilmesinin koşulları yaratılacaktır. İyi yapılmış bir çizme ile sanat arasındaki mesafe yok olacaktır (Çirkin eşya yığınından ve anlamsız gösterişten kurtulunacaktır). Gündelik hayatın tüm ayrıntıları önemsenecek ve sanat yoluyla yükseltilecektir. Bu ayrıntılar kölelere bırakılmış bir icra meselesi görülmeyecektir. Bu fikirler / pratikler saf bir ahlaki çağrı olmamıştır. Örneğin dayanışma sevgiden kaynaklanmaz, kişinin kendi ihtiyaçları başkalarıyla bağlantılıdır bu nedenle dayanışılır. Komün, teorisini kendinden çıkaran bir deneyim olmuştur.

Komüne karşı, "paylaşmanın ancak sefaleti paylaşmak olduğu" propagandalarına rağmen "herkesin her şeyin en iyisini alacağı" ortak lüksün dünyası komünde duyumsanmıştır.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what happened during the Paris Commune, but what happened afterwards. A very good reflection of a magnificent moment in time.

[Sinan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paris Komünü üzerinden “Komünizm”in imkânına yönelik, başta hayatta kalabilmiş Komünarlar (Elisee Reclus, William Morris) olmak üzere, Marx, Kropotkin, Çernişevski gibi düşünürlerin değerlendirmelerini ve Komün’ün onların zihinlerinde yarattığı geleceğe dair etkileri çok iyi anlatan bir eser. Tavsiye ederim.

“Daimi savaş hali: Ticaret!”
William Morris

“Doğanın onarılması ancak ve ancak uluslararası ticaretin ve kapitalist sistemin bütünüyle Lağvedilmesi yoluyla mümkün olabilir…”
W. M.

“Zenginlik doğanın bize verdiği ve makul bir insanın doğanın armağanları arasından kendi makul kullanımı için çıkarabildiği şeydir. Güneş ışığı, temiz hava, çehresi kirletilmemiş toprak, zorunlu miktarda ve doğru dürüst yiyecek, kıyafet ve barınak; her türden bilginin depolanması ve bu bilgiyi dağıtabilme gücü; insanla insan arasındaki özgür iletişimin araçları; sanat eserleri, insanın en çok insan olduğunda, en arzulu ve düşünceli olduğunda yarattığı güzellik, insanın haz almasına hizmet eden bütün özgür, insanca ve yozlaşmamış şeyler. Budur zenginlik.

Emek zamanı çalışmanın ölçütü olmaktan, çalışma da zenginliğin ölçütü olmaktan çıktığında, zenginlik artık mübadele değeri üzerinden ölçülemez. Tıpkı bu düşünürlerin (Pyotr Kropotkin, William Morris, Elisee Reclus) her birine göre gerçek bireyciliğin, ancak her bireyin ortak iyiye yapacağı katkıya ihtiyaç duyan ve değer veren komünizmde mümkün olabilmesi gibi, gerçek lüks de ancak ORTAK LÜKS olabilir.”

[Geoffrey Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of five deeply thought essays on distinct but overlapping debates regarding the Paris Commune of the spring of 1871, coming not to a unified conclusion but raising more sharply pointed questions about social aims and possibilities. There had been self-governing towns and village associations called "communes" since the middle ages, but it was a new and revolutionary conception that emerged in the wake of the French revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848, becoming a popular theme in Paris political clubs in the 1860s. The new concept, suited to the rapidly developing industrial world of 19th century Europe, was of a self-governing collective that was also egalitarian and voluntary, that is, entered into freely rather than with statuses predetermined at birth, and decisions and leadership all chosen, and revoked as necessary, by free vote of the people. Goods would be distributed to provide for the material needs of all, and in further contrast to preindustrial communes, it would not isolate itself but be open to newcomers and to free exchange of ideas and goods with other communities.
The amazing thing, astounding to participants and observers, is that something approaching that ideal became a reality in continental Europe's greatest and most economically and technically advanced city for over two months (the 72 days from the revolt of 18 March to final massacre ending 28 May 1871).
The essays, or chapters, successively examine the pre-history of the Paris Commune in the thinking of worker intellectuals, the Commune's actual practice during its brief active existence — with special attention to women's actions and demands — and the sequels of the Commune's experience in the thinking of survivors and sympathizers, including especially the geographers Elisée Reclus and Piotr Kropotkin and the arts & crafts artist, artisan and self-proclaimed "Communist" William Morris. Like Morris, Kristin Ross searches through ideals of the past to illuminate possibilities for our future — though without Morris' medieval romanticism. It's a marvelous intellectual journey, pointing to interpretations of the Arab spring, Spain in 2011, and many other popular revolts, in course or about to come.
« Elle n’est pas morte » sang survivors. And indeed “elle”, la Commune, did not die with the defenders of the Paris barricades or the scores of communards shot down in the cemetery Père Lachaise at the end of May 1871. The ideal of the commune had been born earlier in the imaginations of workers and their allies, as productive capacities and expanded communications made the scarcities and restrictions of capitalism seem unnecessary and intolerable. It was born in the imaginations of workers like Eugène Pottier, decorative artist, poet, communard and author of the phrase “communal luxury” and of the lyrics of The Internationale. And bookbinder Nathalie LeMel, and schoolteacher Louise Michel, and many others. And lives on still.

[Michael Bellecourt · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I'm being honest, I purchased this book because I was interested in the political IMAGERY of the Paris Commune, and was somewhat disappointed when I got to the second chapter and realised that it was about the political IMAGINARY. Nonetheless, I was hooked on the book, as I have come to regard as the life and death of the Commune as one of the most important events in modern western history. Here, in Ross's book, was one of the first instances of my being able to better perceive the minds of the rank and file Communards. Gone was the propaganda of both the French republican governments and the the communist states of the 20th century, and thanks to this book I understand, just somewhat more, what the International and the Universal Republic meant to some of the earliest socialists.

I would still like to read about the political imagery of the Commune, though.

[Zéro Janvier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficile de résumer cet essai de Kristin Ross, tant il est riche, dense, et parfois un peu confus.

L'autrice revient sur l'expérience de la Commune de Paris, elle montre notamment que cette insurrection révolutionnaire n'est pas sortie de nulle part mais était le produit de débats et de réflexions qui agitaient les milieux radicaux depuis plusieurs années. Elle étudie également comment cette expérience a ensuite nourri la réflexion de plusieurs auteurs, dont Karl Marx, Elisée Reclus, William Morris, et Pierre Kropotkine.

J'ai parfois eu du mal à suivre la logique d'ensemble du texte, mais j'ai tout de même trouvé cela diablement intéressant.

[Martin Zulaika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trabajo de todos, para todos. Qué maravilla de libro.

[Maja Solar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a wonderful book on Paris Commune and the changes of the aesthetic coordinates of the community (in Rancièrian perspective); on distinction between bourgeois, „useless“, senseless, „swinish“ luxury (driven by a system based on the overproduction of goods for profit) & communal luxury, „equality in abundance“; about the attempted emancipation of existing form & division of labor; on the prehistory and the echoes of Commune, its survivors and supporters like Elisabeth Dmitrieff, Marx, Kropotkin, William Morris, Élisée Reclus...

[Pierre Jty · Rating 3 out of 5]

J'ai été moins convaincu par cet ouvrage de Kristin Ross que son autre ouvrage sur la commune même si j'aime beaucoup sa plume.
Faire dialoguer plusieurs auteurs dont Reclus et Kropotkine ne m'a pas convaincu.

[Sarah Jaffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aptly named. Reading this book felt like a luxury.

[Joseph Demakis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good history book

It's a good history book but please that what is said with a grain of salt and get more information about the subject than what is provided in the book

[Guillaume · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lecture fort intéressante et complète que l'on pourrait juger trop vite annexe par rapport à tous les récits sur la Commune de Paris, les témoignages et les analyses de l'événement (ce dernier point me ferait plutôt fuir a priori). Kristin Ross découpe son discours en plusieurs étapes : un tour d'horizon historique des événements, une tentative de chronologie des prémices du soulèvement, des organisations souterraines, soirées et autres rassemblements ; l'impact de la Commune sur une brochette de penseurs s’identifiant plus ou moins aux courants anarchistes ; puis l'Après (comme dirait l'autre hein) et les résonances de la Commune chez ces mêmes penseurs, les changements de visions de Marx sont d'ailleurs fort intéressant. Kristin Ross donne à voir William Morris, Elisée Reclus et Pierre Kropotkine dans toutes leurs nuances, réflexions et parcours, et nous donne à nous lecteurs envie de creuser de plus en plus ces vies et ces idées.

Le choc de la radicalité de l'époque, les publications et les slogans que l'on pouvait alors entendre. Et le Capital qui depuis n'a fait qu'étouffer, tuer et réduire en miettes tous les désirs pour les remplacer par de nouveaux, de servitude.

[lukas · Rating 5 out of 5]

dosť fajné, odporúčam

[César · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Paris Commune was an actually existing example of a communist society in the correct sense of the term - a stateless, egalitarian way of organizing individual and social life, where individuals were free to act and to associate themselves with other members of the commune for the realization of the necessary activities to carry out every day life. Workers of different trades and nationalities declared Paris to be the capital of France no more: it was now the fist commune of the Universal Republic.

The Commune had a profound effect on the revolutionaries of the time, here it was, right before their eyes, an example of actually existing communism, and it worked. Marx followed closely its developments and apparently it lead him to reconsider some of his views on the State, he said: '(...) the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes." It was not enough to take over the existing bourgeois State, the objective was to dismantle it. He described the Commune as the first example of the dictatorship of the proletariat (which contrasts with other 'examples' of it, as we understand it today).

This book, though for some reason I don't know was a bit hard for me to read, it's gold: it deals with the conditions that made possible the Commune, the ideological currents that played part, and how different events and modes of thought played part in its development, how the people living in Paris (for they were not all Parisians or French, there were people of many nationalities involved) took control over their own lives and living space and for seventy-two days, establishing a government based in nothing more than the free association of individuals in solidarity.

It was not perfect, of course, and there's space for criticism (some say they should've expropriated the Bank of France), and and it the end it was brutally crushed by the French Republic: at least 7,000 Communards dead (but some say between 10,000 and 20,000 it's more accurate) and the total destruction of a living example of a new kind of society. One commune was not enough and they knew it, the objective was to replicate it through France (and the world) in a Federation of free communes, the Universal Republic.

The Communards showed that it was, and it is possible.

[Timothy Dymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Communal Luxury’ means ‘equality in abundance - the achievement of which, according to Kristin Ross, would mean we had arrived in the world heralded by the Paris Commune during its brief reign in 1871. Ross attempts to set out what she argues is a neglected part of the Commune’s history: its political philosophy and the thoughts it inspired in others.

The aspects of ‘Commune-ism’ which interest Ross are its aesthetics, and its embrace of the ‘Universal Republic’. The aesthetic focus of the Commune is demonstrated by the priority the Communards gave to the destruction of the Vendôme Column and its statue of Napoleon I. The rejection of the particularist, national Republicanism of France - with the newly created Third Republic - was demonstrated by the burning of the guillotine. The Commune was criticised by other radicals such as Karl Marx for prioritising these types of actions instead of say, seizing gold reserves from the banks. However Ross is more forgiving. Retaking public spaces and making them genuinely communal spaces was central to the Communard project, giving them much in common with more recent ‘Occupy’ movements.

Given Ross’s focus, you won’t get much in this book about the widespread starvation under the Commune (the citizens of Paris ended up eating zoo animals), nor the Communard practice of taking and executing hostages, nor their burning down of public buildings. Ross also barely touches on the ‘Bloody Week’ in which the Commune lost the fight to the forces of the Third Republic which then conducted mass executions of Communards and anyone associated with them. Ross spends a lot of time on thinkers such as William Morris, the English textile designer, poet, novelist and translator who became a political radical after the Commune, but had nothing to do with the actual event itself. Morris was much taken by how the artists under the Commune had sought to ‘extend the aesthetic dimension into everyday life’. Morris imagined an apricot orchard flourishing in London’s Trafalgar square - replacing the current imperial and royalist follies. Communal luxury would mean everybody getting access to the best life can offer.

[Alf Bojórquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fina y detallada lectura del imaginario de la Comuna de París, con todas las bisagras de los distintos proyectos que emanan de ella. Particularmente Kropotkin, Morris, Reclús, no sin antes revisar el final de Marx, quien quedó movido por la experiencia de la Comuna (y se puede notar en La guerra civil en Francia) para descentralizar el Estado de sus propuestas como se aclara en el prólogo del Manifiesto del Comunista en la última versión revisada por él mismo.

Se trata de una ecología de imágenes y proyectos intelectuales que partiendo del arte o de la ciencia, de distintas tradiciones intelectuales, afinaron la mirada y propusieron ajustes distintos a los que se les suele reconocer al anarquismo y socialismo que luego serán más populares. Ross hace guiños maravilloso también con el trabajo de Ranciere, particularmente el Maestro ignorante y La noche de los proletarios, como buena traductora no sólo de sus ideas, sino compartiendo objetos de estudio, ampliando esa parte de la izquierda del XIX que ponía en primer lugar la búsqueda de libertad, antes que la educación, la universidad y la cultura propiamente libresca o de autor tradicional.

[Nils · Rating 4 out of 5]

An attempt to redeem the memory of the significance of the Paris Commune from the Leninist legacy in the name of an eco-anarchist decentralizing but still internationalist communalism, specifically by spending time with how that tragic event was interpreted by William Morris, Peter Kropotkin, and the less well known Elisée Reclus. A lot of squared circles in this effort to create a useable past for a (worthwhile, perhaps) contemporary political project. These thinkers attempted to theorize after the massacre in May 1871 (when forces of reaction killed many multiple Communards as the Jacobins killed aristocrats during the Terror of 1793) what Ross herself was an a-theoretic moment of practice. Her key theoretical touchstone is Henri Lefebvre and his politics of space, though she shades more toward anti-bureaucracy than even the master theoretician of everyday life.

Best read after David Harvey's magisterial PARIS, CAPITAL OF MODERNITY.

[dimwig · Rating 5 out of 5]

largely what that fella oisin said. familiar but not precisely groundbreaking.

and this: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/kr...

but other things too! i think it's an interesting approach to history—again not NEW per se, redolent of benjamin (as she makes explicit)—to take the historical moment as rupture, as parable, and study it in productive dialogue with the present (i feel like this is where benjamin uses words like collision and constellation but i can't remember). ideas about spatializing time to counter positivism? and capitalism for that matter—inscribing space on time instead of vice versa.

also it's just nice to have all the nice thoughts in one place. it really is most of them. alt education, environmentalism, solidarity, obv communal luxury, etc etc etc it's great.

[Elijah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a history of the Paris Commune!

Assuming at least basic familiarity with and understanding of the events of the Commune, the book proceeds to discuss the ideas that were born with and from it. It discusses the generation of ideas that would later become the foundation of anarchist communism and the way in which the Commune, simply through its own establishment, proved transformative to movements the world over. It makes a compelling argument about the ways in which theory and action are, or ought to be, inseparable from one another, all the while detailing, just as the subtitle says, the "imaginary" of the Commune.

[Kevin Reuning · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting take on the Paris Commune looking at what happened before and after. The book really hits its stride in the 4th chapter on the ideologies created out of the Paris Commune. Ross is able to link together those figures that participated in the Commune and then where they came together afterward.

The other interesting focus is on the role of action leading to theory. Ross connects theory to action in a very important way.

As she says, this book does not provide lessons but it does provide a history and tools.

[Jacob Wren]

Kristin Ross writes:


The logic of emancipation concerned concrete relations between individuals. The logic of the institution, on the other hand, is always nothing more than the indefinite reproduction of itself. Emancipation is not the result but the condition for instruction.


and:


Time or temporality is a human, social construction, and as such is tainted by the contemporary biases and dominant prejudices of the moment - such as the idea that dominates our own time that one should accumulate the most capital one can, hoard it to oneself, and then die.



.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

"[Kristin] Ross has written brilliantly of how French radical culture drew the lessons to be learned from the May, ’68 uprising. She’s written brilliantly of the ways French society in the postwar years reinvented itself in the image of American consumerism. Communal Luxury might have been equally brilliant had it been more questioning of the Commune’s own Imaginary, and of the concept of Imaginary itself..."

Full review at:
http://theorangepress.com/woid/woid21...
WOID: a journal of visual language

[Maud · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really beautifully written. The history of the Paris Commune is a moving one and Ross puts a positive spin on what many propagandists would say was a failure of a revolution.
This book places us a few years back during Occupy and it's hopeful to see some of what we learned during that time still alive and thriving, if different and interesting to compare to the Commune. It's cool to see the seeds of people's (Marx, Reclus, Kropotkin...) philosophy forming. It makes you think how we too are works in progress and why we ought to be more aware of our place in time and space.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a very good introductory text to the Commune; it doesn't really even summarize the main events. It is however, an extremely interesting exploration of the political thought of the Communards, and the effect the Commune had on existing revolutionary thinkers such as Kropotkin, Marx, and Morris. Particularly interesting are how much emphasis the Communards placed on what would later be termed social ecology or environmental socialism, as well as their emphasis on communal art and education (hence the title).

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably need to read this again to properly understand it and respond to it. It does suggest that much of what I'd previously read about the Commune was written from more of a right-wing perspective than I'd realized, which isn't surprising. The Paris Commune must be one of history's most unique and improbable events. If you don't have a love of French history, maybe you haven't learned about the Commune? Tragic end notwithstanding, this is inspiring history.