The Paris commune proclaimed on March 18, 1871, represents a Significant chapter in the history of the labor movement. Was the First social essay of the revolutionary proletariat to take power political, unleashing a civil war against the exploiters, establishing an embryonic form of direct working democracy. Not only It was a significant revolutionary action in itself, but also provided a practical model for the future of the fight proletarian.
This government emerged spontaneously during the war Franco-Prussian, as a response to general discontent against bourgeoisie, who had triggered war and exercised a defense mediocre of the homeland. The commune was elected on March 26 and proclaimed two days later, implementing policies to meet the needs immediate of the laborious masses and dissolving the old state of the exploiters
The measures taken by the commune included the abolition of the Permanent Army and the Police, the democratic and revocable election of officials with worker salaries, and the separation of the church and the state. These acts demonstrated how the masses resolved in the Practice the problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a dictatorship For oppressive classes, with the democratic exercise of the masses exploited and oppressed.
The commune type is characterized by being a new type of state that denies the bourgeois state. Its power comes from direct initiative of the masses from below, replacing repressive institutions with the general armament of the people and replacing the bureaucracy with Eligible and removable officials. Serves the proletariat as a class dominant to exercise their dictatorship over the ancient oppressors and exploiters, but at the same time, it is the beginning of the denial of All state.
The women, since the beginning of the revolution on March 18, were fundamental in the defense of the city, facing the troops of the government and demonstrating its firmness not only in support work, but with weapons in the barricades; especially during the last week. The women of the commune were not limited to a "feminist movement" traditional, but they were actively involved as workers and this He could see in the organization of committees, clubs, cooperatives, such as Union of women for the defense of Paris founded by Louise Michel.
The military defeat of the commune occurred thanks to the alliance of The Prussian forces that helped fence the city and the forces of Thiers who were nourished by the release of prisoners in hands of Prussia, defeat helped by the naive benevolence of the workers who did not take quick and urgent measures to "Expropate the expropriators" as was the Bank of France, measures that gave the necessary time and the resources for the reaction to lift and unite internationally.
Despite its fall on May 28, 1871, the commune of Paris left historical teachings that still guide the praxis of the detachments Revolutionaries of the working class and its authentic parties. The Lessons of the commune are mandatory and their understanding and application is decisive for communists in the world, especially After the experiences of the proletariat dictatorship in Russia and China and His storm defeat.
“The commune has died! Live the Commune! The working class did not expect any miracle from the commune. The workers have no utopia ready to implement it for recret du Peuple (by decree of the people). They know that, to conquer their own emancipation, and with it that superior form of life to which it tends Irremisibly current society for its own economic development, They will have to go through long struggles, for a whole series of processes historical, which will completely transform circumstances and men. They do not have to perform any ideals, but simply give free rein to the elements of the new society that the old woman Agonizing bourgeois society carries in its bosom. "
Karl Marx