The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-17
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Ola COMMUNE. I"

Insurgents mean by s'the Commune" and |
why they want ''the Commune" and what |
Significance there is in this rising against the
National Government, we have to 90 back to |
1848. Prior to that year, the Socialists were |
only comparatively small sect, and propa- |
gated their doctrines by means of secret So
.cieties. The revolution of 1880 was politi-
cal revolution purely, but it was probably the
last purely political revolution that Paris was
ever to see. The Government of Louis Phil
ippe was overthrown also by kind OF sur
prise on political issue; but the minute the
ground was cleared, the Socialists rushed in
to occupy it, and obtained a strong represen- |
tation in the Provisional Government, and |
really had made it subservient to their de- |
signs before the bourgeoisie had recovered |
from their stupefaction. Indeed, we find in
its earliest acts the very ideas which the Com
munists of 1871 are fighting for.
One of the DEGREES issued the day after its |
instalment ordered the raising of large |
popular national guard, to be paid franc |
and half day, and clothed by the Govern
ment; another, the next day, ordered all |
articles pledged in pawnshops to be restored |
to the owners at the public expense; another |
made the Tuileries an asylum for invalid
workingmeR;" another formally guaranteed
employment to all citizens, and restored to
the ouvriers to whom it belonged" the mil
lion of fiorins just falling due on the Civil
List. The issue of these proclamations
was forced on the Provisional Governpent by
the state of things in Paris.
The streets were still full of barricades;
the ouvriers were armed, and, as now, refused
to abandon the barricades and go home until
they had been fully assured that the Govern
ment was not going t, "betray" them. Even
the presence of Louis Blanc and of Albert,
"the Ouvrier," as he called himself in the
Government, was not sufficient to reassure
them; 80 that the sane members of the Gov
srnment were really obliged to let Louis
Blanc and Albert have their way in order to
gain time, and the programme of these latter
gentlemen was as yet only half revealed. To
them the Republic meant what Louis Blanc
called "the organization of labor" that is, the
establishment Of Government workshops for
all branches of industry, in which all persons
who chose could find employment and would
receive equal rates of pay; the establishment
of Government banks, at which all citizens
could get their bills discounted; and, in fact,
the complete destruction of the present rela-
tion of capitalist and laborer, this being in
Socialist parlance the exploitation of man
by man." The Provisional Government was
actually compelled to recognize the sound
ness of all these principles by public procla-
nation, but, to escape or postpone the con-
sequences of its concessions, it appointed
Government Labor Commission" put Louis
Blanc and Albert ct the head of it, and sent
it over to the Luxembourg Palace to hold its
sittings and to this flowed the enormous
processions Of workmen, or manifestations,
as the French called them, to which the la
boring class gave itself wholly up in those
days. thus giving the other members at the
Hotel de Vile time to attend to the more
serious and pressing affairs of the nation.
The discussions at the Luxembourg Palace
probably surpassed in folly and absurdity
anything in which civilized human beings
ever engaged; and one would read the reports
<<f kHa,o, ,xrysth amt and in
credulity if the talk of the Communists at the
present day did not so closely resemble
them.
But now was first revealed that dislike of
the Paris population, and indeed of the re-
publican party, to allow the country districts
to have any control over the capital, which is
one of the most striking and important phe-
nomena in French politics, and which has
proved the proximate cause of the present
disasters, and found such strong and unfor-
tunate expression in Gambetta's policy during
the late war. The majority of the Provisional
Government were naturally very anxious to
summon National Assembly as soon as pos
sible to relieve them of the responsibility
they had assumed after the revolution.
But the Socialists were fercely opposed
to ANYTHING of the kind. They knew
that the majority of legislature elected by
the country at large would put speedy end
to their attempts to reorganize society, and it
was with extreme dlthculty that the elections
were at last ordered. They wanted the
Commune" is, the government not of
Paris only, but of the whole of France, by a
body elected by a majority of the Paris
voters; and they excused this desire to inn
pose the will of the minority on the majority
by a metaphysical process, which is peculiar
to the French school of politicians, and with
out careful attention to which nobody can
thoroughly understand French politics. We
mean the process of abstraction, by which an
ideal, or collection of attributes, is made to
take the place and play the part of concrete
objects in political reasoning. We pointed
out how, in this way, ''the people" and ''the
republic" had come to be treated as some
thing quite different from, more excellent
actual population of France, or the system of
administration set up by it; Just as woman is
in this country, in like manner, coming to be
used by certain agitators as the name of
force of extraordinary power and virtue, rather
than a general term descriptive of persons of
the female sex, such as we all know them and
see them. So, also, "Paris" has assumed in
the eyes of Parisians, and particularly the
Communists, the position of an ideal being of
superior might and wisdom, and entitled to
rule by virtue of this superior might and
wisdom, and by no means a collection of
houses, inhabited by a large body of ordinary
men and women. This curious fancy found
frequent expression during the late war in
the de6ances hurled at the Germans Victor
Hugo predicted, just as the siege was begin
ming, and doubtless expressed the sentiment
of hundreds Of thousands, that the enemy
would, in some mysterious manner. be
blasted when he arrived before the walls.