Voices of the Paris Commune

by Mitchell Abidor (Translator)

The Paris Commune of 1871, the first instance of a working-class seizure of power, has been subject to countless interpretations; reviled by its enemies as a murderous bacchanalia of the unwashed while praised by supporters as an exemplar of proletarian anarchism in action. As both a successful model to be imitated and as a devastating failure to be avoided. All of the interpretations are tendentious. Historians view the working class’s three-month rule through their own prism, distant in time and space. Voices of the Paris Commune takes a different tack. In this book only those who were present in the spring of 1871, who lived through and participated in the Commune, are heard.

The Paris Commune had a vibrant press, and it is represented here by its most important newspaper, Le Cri du Peuple, edited by Jules Vallès, member of the First International. Like any legitimate government, the Paris Commune held parliamentary sessions and issued daily printed reports of the heated, contentious deliberations that belie any accusation of dictatorship. Included in this collection is the transcript of the debate in the Commune, just days before its final defeat, on the establishing of a Committee of Public Safety and on the fate of the hostages held by the Commune, hostages who would ultimately be killed.

Finally, Voices of the Paris Commune contains a selection from the inquiry carried out twenty years after the event by the intellectual review La Revue Blanche, asking participants to judge the successes and failures of the Paris Commune. This section provides a fascinating range of opinions of this epochal event.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, France

120 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2015

Reviews

[Donald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some fun stuff in this. The main takeaway was how divided the memories of the Commune were. You have people saying the problem was lack of central authority and decisive military action alongside the libertarians criticizing the concept of government. The book tilts towards the more libertarian but you get some nice little bites of everything. Ultimately though it turned out I didn't really care about the details of the battles and such, even though I did enjoy the more Kristin Ross style stuff about the meaning of the Commune.

[Javier · Rating 5 out of 5]

An awesome collection of interviews with survivors of the Commune together with primary-source documents and timelines. Excellent!

[Jesse Hilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather puzzling book for those like myself who have little background in French history. It is made up of raw, first-hand documents of the events of the Paris Commune in 1871. Forgive me for writing ignorantly. It seems one of the major thrusts of the book as published here is to serve as a “lessons learned” critique of what not to do in a revolutionary situation when rising up against the government, as the Commune did in Paris. But even those lessons were lost on me largely. The density of the names of the individuals, the unfamiliar place names of Paris, the structure of the Commune politically and the complex maneuvers they had to execute both in a parliamentary sense and obviously in a military capacity, all these made it difficult to understand. This has been an appealing series of books, the Revolutionary Pocketbooks of PM Press of which this is #2, but it’s not easy to grasp what the content is and how it should be utilized. As I write these words, barricades are being built in Minneapolis due to anti-ICE protests. Maybe they no longer exist. It seems astonishing to think that lessons can be drawn from history in the current political milieu with all its fear and hysteria.

[PhattandyPDX · Rating 4 out of 5]

“But what the Chiefs didn’t know to do, the nameless crowd did. There were many of them, 30 to 40,000 perhaps, who died around Paris for the cause they loved. There were many as well who, within the city fell before the machine guns, shouting ‘Vive Le Commune!’”

“It held before us for the future, not through its rulers but through its defenders, an ideal far superior to that of all the revolutions that had preceded it. It commits in advanced those who want to continue it-in France and throughout the world - to fight for a new society in which there will neither be masters by birth, titles, or money, nor servants by origin, cast, or salary. Everywhere the word commune was understood in the widest sense, As having to do with a new humanity, formed of free And equal companions, ignorant of the existence of ancient borders, and assisting each other in peace from one end of the World to the other.”

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neat collection of primary source documents and interviews. Very interesting to read the Commune's post-mortem in the 'Inquiry on the Commune'. The Versaillais' Bloody Week seems all the more cold and murderous. Heroes one and all. Louise Michel though, was singularly inspiring, something about the way she speaks.

[Chris Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never really known what to make of the Paris Commune: Did it succeed (by coming into existence), did it fail (by falling to the Versaillais) or did it simply not last long enough to say either way?

I don't think this book has really resolved this as people’s accounts differ, but it's interesting all the same.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This slim book is a unique historical document. Short pieces from various participants make up most of the book. I have only a vague idea of how the commune played out, and now need to go deeper.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth looking over. Fills in a few blanks for me.

Although there are people who are not interested in this bit of working-class history.

[Doğaç Çetiner]

Paris Komününe ilgi duyuyorsanız başlangıç için oldukça iyi bir kitap olabilir.Birinci dereden komüne tanık olanların hem özeleştiriyle hem övünçleriyle sorular ekseninde cevaplarını barındırıyor.