The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1871-08-26

On the dawn of the 18Th of March, Paris
arose to the tbnnderburst of give la Com
muner' What Is the Commune, that
sphinx so tantalizing to the Bourgeoise
mind
The proletarians Of Paris" said the
Central Committee in it's manifesto of the
18th Of March, "amidst the failures and
treasons Of the ruling classes, have under
stood that the hour IT, truck for them to
save the situation by taking into thei1
own hands the direction Of public affairs
They havs understood that it ia their i'm
perious duty and their absolute right to rem
der themselves masters of their own des
TIMES, BY seizing upon the governmental
power" But the working class cannot
simply lay hold Of the ready -made State
machinery, and WELD it for it's own pur-
poses.
The centralized State power, with its
ubiquitous organs Of standing army, police,
bureaucy, clergy, and judicature-organs
wrought after the plan of a systematic and
hierarchic division of labor,-originates
fro n the days Of absolute monarchy, sery-
ing nascent middle-class society as mighty
weapon in its struggles against feudallsm.
Still, its development remained clogged by
all manner of medieval rubbish, seignorial
rights, local privileges, municipal and guild
monoPOhes and provincial constitutions.
The gigantic broom Of the French Revolu-
ton OF the eighteenth century swept away
al these relics OF bygOne times, thus clear
ing simultaneously the social soil Of its last
hindranccs to the superstructure of the mod
ern Sta g ed bee raised under the FIRST Em
plre, Itself The offspring of the coalition
walls Of old seni-teudal Europe against
modern Franc During the subsequent
regimes the government, placed under par
liamentary cOntrOl-Ihat is, under the dl-
rect control of the propertied ca1ses-be-
came not only hotbed Of huge national
debts aud crushing taxes; with It's irresst
Ible allurements Of place, pelf, and patron
az 1t became not only the bone of conten
ton between the rival factions and adven-
turers o. the ruling classes; but its politi-
ell character changed simultaneously With
the economic changes of society. At the
same pace at which the progress of modem
industry developed, widened, intensified the
elias antagonism between capital and labor,
the State power assumed more and more
the character Of the national power of cap.
ltal over labor, of public force organized
for social enslavement, of an engine of class
desPotsm. After every revolution mark
ing progressive phase in the class strug-
gle, the purely repressive character of the
State power stands out in bolder and holder
relief The Revolution Of 1880, resulting
In the transfer Of Government f.om the
landlords to the capitalists, transferred it
from the more remote to the more direct
antagonists of the working men. The bour-
geOIs Republicans, who, in the name Of the
Revolution Of February, took the State
power, used it for the June massacres, in
order to convince the working class that
social republic meant the republic ensur-
ing their social subsection, AMI in order to
convince the royalist bulk Of the bourgeois
and landlord class that they might safely
leave the cares and emoluments of govern
msnt to the bourgeois Republicans"
However, after their one heroic exploit Of
June, the bourgeois Republicans had, from
the front, to fall back to the rear Of the