"The his true secret was this: that it was essentially a government of the working class ...
... The product of the class struggle of producers against the appropriate class, the political form finally discovered, in which emancipation could be made economic work ... the Municipality was therefore to serve as a lever for empty the economic bases on which the existence of the classes rests, e therefore of the class domain. With the emancipation of all work they become workers, and the productive work ceases to be an attribute class ". (Karl Marx - "The Civile In France war").
The March 18, 1871 The first great experience of power was born of the proletariat, the Municipality of Paris. The Municipality of Paris lasted two months and ten days, from March 18 to May 28, but these two months have marked the whole history of humanity.
Marx not " The civil war in France ". He writes at the end: “Paris worker, with its municipality, will be celebrated forever, such as the glorious herald of a new society. His martyrs have for Urn the big heart of the working class. Its exterminators, the history has already nailed them to that eternal pillory from which not All the prayers of their priests will be able to redeem them. "
There Municipality of Paris to be defeated there is an entire army, days and days of massacres. There were more than 30 thousand commonards killed and among these also many women and children. 45 thousand followed arrests, tens of thousands of convictions - many transformed into Kills - and deportations, while thousands of Parisians fled abroad. In those days there was a river of blood flowing in the streets.
But Lenin says: "The memory of the fighters of the municipality is honored not only by the French workers, but also by the proletariat of the whole world, because it did not fight for a local goal or strictly national, but for the emancipation of all humanity worker, of all the humiliated and offended. As a fighter avant -garde of the social revolution, the Municipality has conquered the sympathy in all
Places where the proletariat suffers and fight ... The rhombus of the Paris cannons has awakened from their deep sleep the most backward layers of the proletariat and gave a everywhere impulse to revolutionary socialist propaganda. For this the cause of the municipality is not dead, so it continues to live up to Today in each of us. The cause of the Municipality is the cause of the social revolution is the cause of complete political emancipation And the economic of the workers, it is the cause of the world proletariat. AND In this sense it is immortal ".
There Municipality of Paris is organized in a phase in which France that He had tried to make war on Prussia in 1870 crushed. The people try to resist, to relaunch the battle Against the Prussian enemies, it imposes the proclamation of the Republic, counting to obtain social reforms and instead finds in the government, Thiers - " This monstrous dwarf ", as Marx writes, "(That) never during his long political career, yes it is not even a single provision, albeit of the most insignificant, of some practical utility. His only consistency is was the greed of wealth and the hatred against those who produce " - the one who kneels towards the Prussians and wants to disarm the masses. A situation that caused For the masses a very serious condition in which everything was missing and which led to the decision on March 18 to arise, hunt the Government that had signed a disastrous peace and elect 26 March and proclaim the Municipality of Paris on March 28th
“ THE prices increased and many products disappeared from the market, like the beef. Horse meat was sold, then it was the turn of the cat, dog and mouse meat. In December the animals of the zoological garden, and the elephants were slaughtered, the Orsi, the antelopes. The cards for meat were introduced, and the most Poor, who needed money, sold them. Essential daily food remained bread, "a black dough that torched the intestines ».
The winter 1870-1871 was particularly rigid, and for the high cost of the wood e of coal the population dismantled palized, saw the trees of the parks of the Bois de Boulogne, of Vincennes, of the Champs-élysées, of A few boulevards, and stole timber from deposits and factories. The disbursement of the interrupted gas, raised oil, the roads of Night were immersed in the most complete darkness. The health situation He worsened. Before the war, mortality in Paris was 750 deaths a week, with the siege he passed to 1,500 in October and a 4,500 in January ".
This It was the context of the insurrection of Paris.
There Municipality was the first worker government. In two months and ten days took measures that went in the direction of the interests of the proletariat and the people.
Scrive Marx: " ”
“ ...there Municipality worried about breaking the strength of repression spiritual, the "power of priests", melting and expropriating all the churches as prospective entities. The priests they were returned to the quiet of private life, to live on alms of the faithful, in imitation of their predecessors, the apostles. All educational institutions were opened free of charge to the people and freed at the same time from any interference of the Church and the State. Thus not only the education was made accessible to everyone, but the science itself was freed from the chains who had imposed on the class prejudices and the strength of the Government ... the magistrates and judges had to be elective, responsible and revocable like all other public officials ... ”
“ ...There Municipality made a reality of the slogan of the bourgeois revolutions, the cheap government, destroying the two major sources of expenses, the permanent army and state function .. .”
“ Wonderful - Marx continues - ”.
AND' Really exciting and exciting to read all that the Municipality did in those few days, day by day.
From the introduction of Engels from 1891 to "The Civil War in France:
" The March 30 the Municipality abolished conscription and the permanent army e he proclaimed that the National Guard, in which they had to enroll All citizens attached to weapons would have been the only armed force. It declared a moratorium of all the leather for the houses of home from October 1870 to April, establishing that Rentals already paid were to be confused on the deposit of the leeks Future; and suspended every sale of objects engaged in the mountain of compassion. On the same day the foreigners elected to be part of the Municipality were confirmed in their office, because "the flag of the Municipality is the flag of the World Republic ".
The 1st April it was decided that the highest salary of a employee of the Municipality, therefore including that of its own members, do not exceed 6,000 francs.
The following day (April 2) the Municipality decreed the separation of the Church from the State and the repeal of all the payments of the state to religious purposes, as well as the transformation of all goods ecclesiastical in national heritage; Following this on April 8th It was decided to ban from schools to all religious symbols, Images, dogmas, prayers, in short, to " Everything that belongs to the field of individual consciousness
The April 30 ordered the abolition of pledge houses, which were not if not a private exploitation of the workers, in contradiction with workers' right to their work tools and credit. 5 May decreed the demolition of the explanatory chapel built in Louis execution of Louis XVI capital execution. "
AND Engels clearly explains the proletarian character of the government of the Common: " As in the Municipality there were almost only workers or recognized representatives of the workers, so also theirs resolutions had a marked proletarian imprint ".
Marx, Then also Lenin also sees the weaknesses, the limits of this first Great experience of the working class. Marx says at some point that the Communardi had been too much " magnanimi ", When the representatives of the government, of the state were to pursue, the bourgeois who ran away to Versailles and reorganized for return to Paris and massacre more than 30 thousand men, women, children " The municipality made use of fire exclusively as a means of Intre a” - scrive Marx.
One same general then wrote: " The most serious error was probably not to attack Versailles immediately, very serious and irreparable error ... the central committee did not use “All the advantages unexpectedly achieved. In that moment All the chances were on its side. It should have try the attack the following day ”.
From This experience that Marx theorizes the need for dictatorship of proletariat . The proletariat cannot only take power, To keep it, he must exercise a dictatorship towards the bourgeoisie who he defeated, otherwise the bourgeoisie organizes himself and resumes his own candies. And precisely from the great lessons of this short but intense first experience of the proletariat who was born the need for dictatorship of the proletariat.
Another one important lesson that Marx and Engels draw is the problem of State. The bourgeois state is not enough to take it from the class worker in his own hands and transform it, but it must be reversed and build a new state, totally different, compared to the principles, to the class it represents. And the Municipality began to do this.
Without This experience of the Municipality of Paris would have been neither the October revolution and the construction of socialism in the USSR, nor the Chinese revolution, with the great proletarian cultural revolution.
For The revolutionary communists, for the avant -garde workers the Municipality It must be more alive than ever. This great first experience of the working class provides theoretical, political, ideological lessons, e practices that show that The proletariat has only one solution conquest of political power with the revolution, and that with power in his own hands the proletariat with his "decrees" addresses and solves fundamental problems of the masses in a few days which today seem unresolved.