The term "Paris Commune" originally referred to the government of Paris during the French Revolution. However, the term more commonly refers to the socialist government that briefly ruled Paris from March 26 to May 30, 1871.

The Paris Commune of 1871 was made possible through a civil uprising of all revolutionist trends within Paris after the Franco-Prussian War ended with French defeat. The Prussians included the occupation of Paris in the peace terms. The city and its National Guard had withstood the Prussian troops for six months. The population of Paris was defiant in the face of occupation—they limited the Prussian presence to a small area of the city and policed the 'boundary'. The French government of the Third Republic, headed by Louis-Adolphe Thiers, was concerned that the workers would arm themselves from the National Guard weapons and provoke the Prussians, so on March 18 French troops entered Paris to seize arms within the city. The National Guard refused to give up the weapons and the French government fled from the city to Versailles and declared war on Paris.

On March 26, a new municipal council of 81 was elected with Louis-Auguste Blanqui as president, and the Paris Commune was proclaimed on the 28th, although local districts often retained the organizations from the siege. They ended conscription and replaced the standing army with a National Guard of all citizens who could bear arms. The Commune also put a moratorium on unpaid war-time rents and stopped pawnshops from selling goods, as they were concerned that skilled workers had been forced to pawn their tools during the war. They separated the church from the state and made all church property state property, excluded religion from schools, postponed debt obligations, and abolished interest on the debts. The churches were only allowed to continue their religious activity if they kept their doors open to public political meetings during the evenings. This made the churches the chief participatory political centres of the Commune.

At the same time the local assemblies formed during the siege pursued their own goals, usually under the direction of local workers. Despite the formal reformism of the Commune council, the composition of the Commune as a whole was much more revolutionist. Revolutionary trends present included anarchist and socialists, Blanquists, and more libertarian republicans. Due to the variety of tendencies, the high degree of workers' control and the remarkable cooperation amongst different revolutionists; the Paris Commune has been celebrated by anarchist and Marxist socialists continuously until the present day.

The Commune was assaulted from April 2 by the government forces of the Versailles Army , and the city was constantly bombarded. The government advantage was such that from mid-April on they refused to negotiate. The city wall was reached and breached in the west by May 21. The toughest resistance came in the more working-class districts of the east, where fighting continued for a further eight days of vicious street fighting (La Semaine Sanglante, the bloody week), before the final defeats in Belleville and Menilmontant. The last Communards were shot, against what is now known as the Communards' Wall in the Père Lachaise cemetery while thousands of others were marched to Versailles for trials. Few Communards escaped, mainly through the Prussian lines to the north. The total loss of Communard lives is estimated to between 20,000 and 40,000. Government losses were around nine hundred. Paris remained under martial law for five years.

During the assault, the government troops were culpable in the slaughter of unarmed citizens. Thirty thousand are believed to have died. Of the more than 30,000 more who were arrested, many were shot and 7,000 were exiled to New Caledonia.

After the fall of the Commune, its leadership has been criticized for playing too kindly in the grave situation it was in. Karl Marx found it aggravating that the Communards "lost precious moments" organizing democratic elections rather than instantly finishing off Versailles once and for all. France's national bank, located in Paris and storing billions of francs, was left untouched and unguarded by the Communards. Timidly they asked to borrow money from the bank (which of course they got without any hesitation). The Communards chose not to seize the bank's assets because they were afraid that the world would condemn them if they did. Thus large amounts of money were moved from Paris to Versailles, money that financed the army that crushed the Commune.

The Paris Commune has been subject to the awe of many socialist leaders. Mao would refer to it often. Lenin, along with Marx, judged the Commune a living example of the Dictatorship of the proletariat. At his funeral he had his body wrapped in the remains of a red flag preserved from the Commune. The Soviet spaceflight Voskhod 1 carried part of a communard banner from the Paris Commune for propaganda purposes.

The commune adopted the previously discarded French Revolutionary Calendar during its brief existence and used the red flag rather than the tricolore.

See also

• Medieval commune

External links

• Norman Barth writing on the Commune in Paris Kiosque http://www.paris.org/Kiosque/may01/commune.html
• The Civil War in France 1870-1871 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/index.htm , written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels during and immediately after the events.
• Discussion of the Commune in "An Anarchist FAQ" http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA5.html#seca51
• Association Les Amis de la Commune de Paris (1871) http://perso.club-internet.fr/lacomune/pages/parent.html (in French)
• Agor@'s book-length site about the Commune http://www.chez.com/durru/lmichel/lacommune.htm (in French)