The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1913-04-04
LESSON OF THE
PARIS COMMUNE

a far-off ocean learn anything new
from the blood-stained walls of Pere
la Chaise, where just forty-two years
ago the great Paris Commune went
down to tragic defeat? We cannot
review that terribly heroic scene
without at least renewing our devo-
ton to the great cause that inspired
such lofty daring-the barbados, the
hopeless sallies, the narrowing circle
Of resistance, and then the very babes
fighting against the brutal foes of the
toilers in the last agony of defeat.
You who have read your Lissagary
and your Marx know the tale of this
labor tragedy-how for ten weeks the
working men and women of Paris,
hemmed in on one side by the con
quering German army and on the
other sides by the inhuman beasts of
a degraded capitalist class, strove to
achieve the impossible and won a
glorious martyrdom. You remember
how Theirs, the lackey of the rich,
when he heard of the gallant resist
ance of the workers uttered those
brutal words: "I SHALL BE PITT
LESS!"
Standing in unending lines along
grear open trenches we again see in
the minds eye the uncounted thou
sands of prisoners. The ground is
muddy. 1t is raining. They are hun
CRY. Some of the women have tainted
Some of the children are crying.
Every now and then a song waivers
down the mighty line. 1t is the Mar
seillaise.
Then come the soldiers, those muir
derers of the poor. Detachments de-
ploy into line and the work of death
begins. The crying babes, the sing
ing mothers, the defiant fathers, all
are silent in death save that from
somewhere down in the bloody gulch
beneath an awful load of corpses some
dying one cries out in misery; or here
and there a head heaves heavily up
toward the light asking for mercy.
There are bayonet thrusts into the
quivering mass. Then the wet earth
is heaped upon the quick and the
dead.
They believed in the emancipation
of the toiling masses. But they were
muddled in their economics, like many
of u.s. They trusted the middle class.
They elected members of the middle
class to positions of trust They ex-
pected them to do something for the
workers: End the middle class talked
and talked Ia the Hotel de Vile while
the workers died on the barricades.
They played politics and preached re-
spect for property. They quarreled.
They deserted to the enemy, They
proved to be spies in many cases.
Nine times out of ten they were cow
ards. But the workers listened to
their fine phrases and built new bar
ricades to defend their middle class
leaders.
At last the workers were trapped by
these fine phrases. They were dis
armed and led to the slaughter. Had
they depended upon themselves there
was hope; but with leaders from an
other class, victory was impossible
from the start.
Workers, can we never learn that
the working class and the employing
class can have nothing in common?
Can we never learn that we cannot
merge our organizations with theirs
nor allow them to manage the conflict
for us? Neither politically nor indus
trially have we any friendly business
with them. They are curse to you.
Go it alone. You who feed and clothe
the world hold within the hollow of
your hands the powers of production
when you but reach out without fear
and with class conscious clearness as
sert yourselves. You need no lawyers.
You need no Shiny politicians with
petty reformers. You need no mer-
chants. Look to yourselves and the
the education of your class, the only
necessary class.
The few noble ones from another
class that will bleed for you are the
exception. Yes, there are some. But
in the hour of conflict the vast ma
jority of those who have more to lose
than their chains will desert you
Economic determinism will prevail
The big capitalists of France used the
middle class inside the barbados to
betray the Commune and they used
the middle class that was outside the
barricades to crush it utterly.
Here in America 1t is not the cap
tains Of industry that torture resisting
workers It is the middle class that
organizes itself into vigilantes and cit
liens committees and mine owners
associations and all that. It is to their