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o many workers,
the Paris Commune may seem like nothing more than a vague and distant event in
the history of another country. It would be a mistake to think that the ruling
class thinks of it the same way. Their memory of the Commune still burns
because it shattered a myth that lays at the very foundation of capitalist
society: the myth that capitalists are indispensable to production, and that
production would cease and anarchy would reign without them. The Commune of
1871 exposed the myth, not by design, but by the foroe of circumstances that
compelled the workers of the city to take matters into their own hands.
During its brief life, the Commune so
organized and ran Paris as to prove beyond doubt that the working class is
capable of establishing and operating a government "of, for and by the
people" in the most meaningful sense . of those words. Most officials and
functionaries in the public services deserted Paris at a signal from their
superiors at Versailles, where the bourgeois government had established
itself. They carried off seals, cash, records, committed vandalism and
otherwise attempted to disrupt and destroy public services. Similarly, the
owners and managers of hundreds of private enterprises and factories locked
their doors and headed for Versailles. With the "brains" of the
enterprises absent, the | Versaillese believed the workers would be stymied and
that production would remain interrupted until the masters returned.
How the workers reorganized the
services and reopened vital factories, and how they drew upon their own numbers
for "directive ability," forms a heroic chaptcr of the heroic story
of the Commune. They had no plan for industrial union administration, or, indeed,
any conception of the administrative organ and social form developed by the SLP
and Daniel De Leon more than a quarter of a century later. The insurrection
itself burst upon them like a storm and literally thrust responsibility and a
host of urgent and gigantic problems in their hands. Yet the manner in which
they accepted these responsibilities and grappled with the problems was the common sense manner
implicit in the Socialist Industrial Union program.
The
telegraph workers reorganized the telegraphs; the public markets were closed
only a few hours; from their own ranks the workers who kept the streets lighted
drew their supervisors; even the cemeteries, which French president Adolph
Thiers and his agents had tried to disorganize, were soon
"functioning" under the direction of employees. An example of the
actual procedure of these workingmen, suddenly thrown upon their own, could be
found in the postal services.
Before
the postal officials fled to Versailles, they hid or carried off stamps, seals,
equipment, carte, etc., and posted placards instructing employees to proceed to
Versailles on pain of dismissal. Many did. Others might have followed but for
the fact that they were not forewarned. When they came to organize the mail
service, Lissagaray relates in his History of the Commune of 1871, they
were addressed by Theisz, ua chaser" who was appointed to
direct the post office by the Central Committee, little by littie they gave
way," writes Lissagaray. "Some functionaries who were Socialists
also lent their help, and the direction of the various services was intrusted
to head-clerks. The divisionary bureaus were opened, and in forty-eight hours
the collection and distribution of letters for Paris reorganized... A superior
council was instituted, which raised the wages of postmen, sorters, porters,
caretakers of the bureaus, shortened the time of service as supernumeraries,
and decided that the ability of employees should be tested for the future by
means of teste and examinations."
No similar problem of ^persuasion"
arose in the case of privately owned enterprises. However,
here the
Parisian workmen's failures to prepare to "take over," plus the
handicap arising from lack of time and the necessity to defend against military
attack, prevented a full-scale assumption of industrial administration and
operation. For the most part, only factories turning out urgently needed items
were opened.
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Overshadowing these
failures was the action of the Commune iteelf in its decrees on the disposition
of deserted workshops. These decrees, issued less than a month after the
insurrection of March 18, called for an inventory of abandoned factories, and
ordered trade councils "to present a report on the practical means of
exploiting again at once these deserted shops, not by the renegades who have
left them, but by a coopera-tive association of the workers once employed
therein." There was also to be a "final cession" of the
proprietors in question "to the workers' societies," but only when
"the amount of the indemnity the societies shall pay the employers"
was determined by arbitration boards! The proposal to indemnify the employers
betrays a lack of clarity. However, the wonder is not that the Communards
betrayed ignorance of the full implications of the upheaval, but that they
comprehended them as fully as they did.
In
his Civil War in France,
Karl Marx summarized the capitaliste' reaction to the workers' demonstration of
administrative ability. "When the Paris Commune took the management of the
revolution in its own hands," he wrote, "when plain workingmen for
the first time dared to infringe upon the governmental privilege of their
'natural superiors,' and, under circumstances of unexampled difficulty,
performed their work modestly, conscientiously, and efficiently—performed it
at salaries the highest of which barely amounted to one-fifth of what,
according to high scicntific authority, is the minimum required for a
secretary to a certain metropolitan school board—the old world writhed in
convulsions of rage at the sight of the Red Flag, the symbol of the Republic of
Labor, floating over the Hotel de Ville."
The Commune
overcame the most menacing problems of the administration of services and
production with common sense and energy. However, the revolution of the 21st
century will require more than common sense and energy if vital services and
other economic processes are not to be disrupted. The nature of the revolution,
and the magnitude, complexity and ramifications of modern industry, require
the prerevolu- tionary economic organization of the workers, and their
appreciation of the economic organization's pootrevolutionary role as the
organ of industrial administration, lb the Socialist Industrial Union, power,
responsibility and the problems of production and distribution will not come as
an unexpected storm. They will come, rather, as the fruit of conscious
struggle. What the Communards extemporized with such efficiency as to enrage
their "natural superiors," the SIU will accomplish in a planned,
organized assumption of control and power.
On
March 18, workers the world over have cause to commemorate the Paris Commune of
1871. The first workers'government the world had known, the Commune governed
Paris for just two brief months before it was savagely suppressed by the
bourgeoisie. Yet that short period marked a turning point in the history of
labor s struggle to free itself from the shackles of class rule.
Karl Marx
called the Commune the most tremendous event in the history of European civil
wars. After the June 1848 uprising in Prance, Marx had noted that henceforth
"every revolution in France would bring up the question of'overturning
bourgeois society,' while before February, 1848, it could be a J question only
of overturning the form of government."
In
June of 1848, the proletariat was "still incapable of carrying through its
own revolution." But in the next 18 years economic 1 and
political conditions in France developed considerably, as did the
consciousness of the French proletariat. With the Paris Commune of 1871, the
overthrow of capitalist class rule was placed on the social agenda as a real
possibility and socialism was posited as a practical alternative.
As
with so many uprisings since, impe- ■ rialist war set the stage for revolution.
In 1870, the adventurer Louis Bonaparte (Emperor Napoleon III) declared war
against Prussia, a strategy he thought would help him keep his throne and solve
France's domestic problems. Instead, the Prussians soundly defeated the French
troops and laid siege to Paris. Louis Bonaparte abdicated.
With
the collapse of the Second French Empire, a bourgeois republic was proclaimed
on Sept. 4, 1870. Under the leadership of Louis Adolphe Thiers, a
"Government of National Defense" was formed to guard Paris against
the invaders. But the army, riddled with corruption and treachery, was less
than fully committed to the city s defense.
The
military leaders had to keep one eye on the invaders and the other on the
restless Parisian workers, whom they rightly regarded as the paramount enemy.
On Oct 31, workers stormed City Hall, but withdrew, leaving Thiers and Co. to
rule for another four months.
During
this period. Paris remained under a state of siege, surrounded by Prussian
soldiers. The French armies suffered defeats at Metz and Sedan and many were
taken prisoner by the Prussians. Consequently, the defense of Paris fell more
and more to citizen-soldiers enrolled in the National Guard. The majority of
these guardsmen were workers who demanded the fight against the invaders be
continued.
After
a 131-day siege, the Republic capitulated to the Prussians on Jan. 28,1871. The
Prussian army entered the city, but finding themselves surrounded by armed
workers, they limited their occupation of Paris to one small symbolic area.
Forts were surrendered and federal army troops were disarmed, but the Prussians
made no attempt to confiscate the cannon and arms of the national guardsmen.
(Continued on page 6) Part
one, (1/3)
www. severinomajkus.com/blog 13.2.20012
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