The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-03-18
Lessons of the Paris Commune
BY BURcK

of the masses Several groups competed for lead
ership-the Prudhonists, the Blanquists and the
Internationalists were the most representative
of them And this doomed the Commune to
continued confusion and indecision to lack
of planning and of long range program Piece
NEAL day-to-day treatment of a rapidly devel-
oping revolutionary situation with utter neglect
OF tactics seemed to have been the practice of
the leaders. !
Even the limited authority of the first days
OF the uprising was relinqushed AS Marx noted
in the celebrated letter to his friend Kugelmann,
written on April II, 1871, "the Central Com
mIttee (of the National Guard reIinqushed its
powers too soon to pass them on to the Com
mune."
Marx, the centralist, realized that successful
revolutionary struggle against Theirs govern
ment could have been carried out by the Paris
workers only under the leadership of a central
lied revolutionary authority with military re-
sources at its command This authority wa the
Central Committee of the National Guard, but
by reneuncing its powers and turning its au-
thority over to the loosely organized Commune,
1t dissipated the revolutionary energy of its
armed forces
He followed this with criticism of another
error which was one of the costliest of the Com
because of their 'magnanimity' They should
Immediately have marched on Versailles as soon
as Why and the reactionary portion of the Ma
tional Guard escaped from Paris The. oppor-
tune moment was missed on account of con
ScientiouSneSs''
Marx the revolutionary strategist, knew that
when the enemy of revolutionary Paris was on
the run. it was the job of the National Guard
to pursue Theirs defeated army and annihiIate
AZ, rather than to allow it time to reorganize its
forces and return to fight the Paris workers.
The 'magnanimity" of the leaders of the
Commune which Marx criticized lew them to
allow the ministers of the Theirs government
and It's reactonary supporters to depart to YER
sallles IN peace there to reorganize their forces
and conspre against the Commune it kept
them from taking hostages from among the
prominent bourgeois leaders who remained in
the city and who took the opportunity to act
as spies and form centerS of counter-reyolu-
tlonary activity Had the Commune disarmed
those troops which were under the influence of
the reactionary government and held them In
the city, they could have won over great part
OF them and neutralized others. Instead they
were permitted to depart in peace to Versailles,
and to remain there under the continued tute-
lage of the reactionary militarists.
After the capture of power comes the imme-
date task of holding it and using it to spread
and deepen the revolutionary struggle When
the Russian WORKERS seized power in october
1917, they did not rest there Having learned
from the mistakes af the Commune the Russian
Bolsheviks led the workers TO further often
sive not to end until every vestige of the old
order has been uprooted and destroyed in the
entire country and the working class firmly en-
tranched
The Commune was struggle for power on
the part Of the working class. 1t was not merely
change of administration that the Paris work
ers saw in the development of the struggle The
clearest among the leaders, the followers of the
International, knew that the conflict was as
Stunning the proportions of a social revolution,
although they, well as the others, failed to
work out the tactics necessary for the direction
of the struggle
The DEGREES of the Commune separating the
church from the state confscating church
property, taking over the deserted factories,
abolishing the payment of fines levied upon
workers prohibiting night work in bakeshops,
ETC., were all acts of great social import These
were the acts of workers government legislat-
ing in the interest of the working class But
the Commune did not take over all the fac
tories. 1t did not take over the Bank Of France
Instead, 1t went there to borrow (scD money
for its revolutionary needs.
Although the Commune seized the powers Of
the State, IL tried TO operate within the frame
work Of the old State apparatus. Marx warned