The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-03-11

sufferings during the siege, the unemployment
among the workers, and the ruin of the petty
bourgeoise; the fury of the masses against the
upper classes and the incompetent war leaders,
the revolutionary ferment in the working class,
which was dissatisfied with its condition and
tended toward another social system. The reac-
tionary composition of the national assembly gave
ground for fear for the fate of the republic All
these and many other factors combined to force
the Paris population into the revolution of March
Is, which unexpectedly put power into the hands
of the national guard, that is, into the hands of
the working class and its ally, the petty-bour
geoisiea
1t was an event unknown in previous history.
Up to that day, power had been in the hands of
the landlords and capitalists, that is, in the hands
OF their trustees who composed the government,
so-called. After the revolution of March Is, when
the government of M. Theirs fled from Paris with
its troops, police and bureaucrats, the people re-
manned the masters of the situation and power
passed into the hands of the proIetariat. But in
contemporary society, the proletariat, enslaved
economically by capital, cannot govern politically
without breaking the chains which bind it to
capital. 1t was for this reason that the course
of the Commune inevitably took on a socialist
color-that is, it tended to the overthrow of bour-
geOis rule, the rule of capital tended toward the
tearing up of the foundations of the present So
cal order.
The movement was in the beginning quite hazy
and indeterminate. Even the patriots joined it
in the hope that the Commune would resume the
war against Germany and carry it to a victorious
end 1t was supported by the petty merchants
who were threatened with bankruptcy if there
were moratorium Of their obligations and
their rent (the government had not been willing
to grant them this moratorium, but the Com
mune gave it) And last, even the bourgeois re
| publicans were in the beginning sympathetic to
it, fearing that the reactonary national assembly
| (the shay seeds," the rustic landords) would re-
store the monarchy. But the main role in this
movement was undoubtedly played by the work
ers Especially the Paris handicraftsmen). There
had been going on among them, during the last
years of the second empire, an effective socialist
propaganda, and many of them belonged to the
! International
Only the workers remained faithful to the Com
mune to the end. The bourgeois republicans and
the petty bourgeois withdrew from it soon some
of them were frightened by the revolutionary so
cialist, proletarian character of the movements
others deserted it when they saw that it was in
/ eyitably doomed to defeat. Only the workers
i fearlessy and unrelentingly supported their
own government; they alone fought and died for
it, for the emancipation of the working class, for
a better future for all toilers.
Deserted by their allies Of yesterday, without
any support whatever the Commune was doomed
to failure. The entire French bourgeoisie all Of
the landlords, the bourse (stock exchange) mag
mates, all big and petty thieves, all exploiters
united against it. This bourgeois alliance with
the help of Bismarck (who freed 100000 French
war prisoners to fight against revolutionary
Paris, succeeded in rousing the uncultured peas
ants and rural Electromagnetic against the Paris
proetariat. THEY besieged with ring of iron
half of Paris (the other half was besieged by the
German army In some other of the larger
French cities (Marseilles, Lyons, saint-Etinne