ANDRIAMAHAZO Presentation on

Andy Julien Anarchist Experience: the case of the

Diplomatic Studies Paris’s Commune of 1871

Anarchist experience: the case of the Paris’s Commune of 1871.

The Paris’s commune is first of all a patriotic event in which Parisians shows their belonging to
the nation, trying to set a social order by the emancipation of all estate authority. By definition,
the Paris’s Commune as a proletarian rebellion is a pick of a strike series against the
bourgeoisie and mostly against the capitalist ideology. We are going to apprehend this event
by an ideological point of view, in occurrence by an anarchist experience positive perusal.

1- Contextual facts.

The anarchism is first a thought standing but very variant thus non-unified. The main goal of
this ideology is the deleting of the State as government. We can define this subject by 3 mains
authors as Pierre Joseph Proudhon, or Mickael Bakounine, or by Kropotkine thoughts, but the
distinction of the anarchism by the other political ideology is by the organization’s manner
without politics power and by the highlight of the individual and the community’s freedom.
The anarchism opposed the all form of authority by building a collective self-management
form out of the hierarchical concept.

2- By the falling of Emperor Napoleon III to the birth of the Commune.

In a history context of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, the sequence of the losing war by the
napoleon’s army 2nd September in Sedan, follow the uprising of French patriotic feelings,
precisely Parisians. The peace armistice conclude between Adolphe Thiers and Von Otto
Bismarck mark the strongest fury of the Parisian toward the National Defence Government
and later, attribute to the beginning of the Commune.
Through the Second Empire, above Third Napoleon, the bourgeoisie dictatorship reigned and
the oppression on the population is at its highest level. The capitalism ideology took-off in the
social and economic context. The creation of the World Labours Association in 1864 allow
many labours sticks and insurrections, all to escape the bourgeoisie oppression mostly from
1868, then the labours gain in unions and forces. In this veil, all of revolutions elements are
gathered and disposed. On 4th September 1870, marked by the loosing of the napoleon’s army
in Sedan, serve to the proletarian population as a great occasion to emancipate the authority,
and a perfect convenience to set up a self-management in which, later, the Paris’s commune
attribute its being reason.

This defeat of the napoleon’s army, is such a proof, viewed by the people as a breakdown, and
a weakness’s evidence of the napoleon state. Meanwhile, the main trigger element of the
event is hosted by the signing of the peace armistice between Adolphe Thiers and Otto Von
Bismarck. This armistice is viewed by people as a real meaning of defeat, meanwhile, the
Government of National Defense is supposed to carry on the war against the Prussian. Though
the insurrection of the Paris’s Commune occurred, it’s mostly caused by the interest
dissimulation among the Government of National Defense in which it’s inclined its interest to
conclude rapidly the armistice (to save and to prevent the bourgeoisie order); in opposition
to the Parisian people, proletarian, and laborer whom carried their interests to the pursuit of
the war.

3- Through the Commune’s birth to its end.

On the 28th March 1871, the Paris’s Commune was installed, setting a real organization
structure (out of the utopist notion), and disposing an involvement structured. This
organization’s form was established to avoid the misconduct of the bourgeoisie. The Paris’s
Commune has known this organization’s form mainly based on the “self-management” idea
framed in a “federative system” order. Following the Proudhonian ideology point of view, the
self-management would be a social reconfiguration of the employer-worker setting, by the
elimination of the hierachisation’s notion, then the laborer self-government can take place.
Though the Paris’s Commune has known this organization’s form, it’s certainly caused by the
paroxysm of the capitalist oppression. Though the Paris’s Commune is framed in the
federative system, linking to the opposition of the governmental and administrative
centralization, it’s because mainly to emancipate the bourgeoisie expropriation on their
interest (example the case of the Government of the National Defense of 4 th October 1870
and the parliamentary election of Adolphe Thiers on 17th February 1871 as Executive chief,
protecting the bourgeoisie interest and have a reference toward the monarchy. Inside this
event, has been marked by the installation of the Government of the Commune, and by the
instauration of the Vigilance Committee which it is a control body of the government of the
commune. This Vigilance Committee take its functions in 20 districts in Paris, and will serve as
an order element to the Commune. The instauration of the “Comité de Salut Public” in the
same time will imitate perfectly the same task of the Central Committee. The installation of
the Central Committee of the National Guardians demise the military influence of Thiers’s
Government to the Commune, and bring back these functions to the social environment. As
the Paris’s Commune of 1871 is a labor movement, worker representative, it was able to
organize an emancipation order of the entire society. Following the anarchist order of this
Commune’s event, in the heart of its organization took place in the same time a Central
Committee of the Women Unions to defend Paris, such a reference to Louise Michel, a
relevant point to the Paris’s Commune. The individual freedom notion was established to
emancipate the religion, the education for all concept was also disposed, as well as the
apparatus of production was attributed to the labor class and which lead to the real
emancipation of state itself. By these elements, the Paris’s Commune event took part of the
anarchist order so elaborated by Proudhon (the property emanating from the capitalism, the
State and Religion are the three great authoritarian institutions and source of inequality). By
these facts, the event of the Paris’s Commune prove its being, knowing an establishment of a
structured organization, but always seems utopic thereafter, which is the source of its collapse
through the bloody repression’s week event of 21-28th May 1871.
4- The bloody repression’s week event.

In fact, according to Marx affirmation: “The great social measure of the Commune is to have
existed”. The Paris’s Commune is a fundamental event for the laborer struggle. One of the
proletarian revolution that has distinguished itself from the whole society, dismissing in it’s
the utopic concept of anarchist. This event lasted for thirty seven days, from twenty eight
March to twenty one May 1871, then seen its collapse after the bloody week repression, and
took its ending after the wide repression and by an important humane loss by the Versailles’s
army lead by Adolphe Thiers. How the Commune, widely organized known its collapse after
Adolphe Thiers action, whom, doesn’t have likely any army at the birth of the Commune?
According to Lissagaray affirmation: “on 19th March, what remains to Mr. Thiers to govern the
France? He doesn’t have army, nor canon, nor big town”. The Adolphe’s retaliation to the
Commune is manifested by two major’s elements: first is the reconstitution of an army out of
the context (mainly composed by a soldiers from colonizing conquest repatriation in one hand
and by the discharge of the Bismarck’s prisoner in the other hand); and the second is the
disarming policy of the Commune’s Government. The aiming of the oppression of Thiers is
framed by the limitation of the spreading of the Commune’s event to the province, and by the
Paris’s isolating despite the other region. Though the Commune’s event failed within the
bloody week, it’s because its self-management is literally a breakdown. Some example of this
breakdown is the plurality of the ideas composing the Fédérés. This event seen its success in
the state’s emancipation but not in the maintaining of its existence, resulted of an effective
organization leak toward an accurate goal.