Lafargue on the Commune, past and future.

‘The Commune: A Future 18th of March Will Be Socialism’s Triumph’ by Paul Lafargue from Montana News. Vol. 6 No. 24. April 16, 1908.

(Translated by Walter Kleinsorge.) The following article appeared in the French socialist organ in the annual commemoration of the Paris Commune. Paul La Fargue, the famous French socialist, is a son-in-law of Karl Marx:

In celebrating the 18th of March, 1871, we do so with a view to the future 18th of March. The defeat of the Past is the gauge of the victory of the Future. We must seek out the causes of this defeat were it only to answer our adversaries, who say to us: “How may you hope for the triumph of a socialist revolution, when you have the experience of the 18th of March “

Socialism was master of Paris, it had provisions of war and an heroic army, and for adversary an enemy dishonored through the capitulation of Paris; and yet it has been beaten.

The uprising of the 18th of March was not nor could it be a socialist uprising; it was a burst of patriotic feeling which, embodied itself in a revolutionary proletariat-republican victory over Bismark and Wilhelm. It was a new era of revolution which opened up for France and Europe. But Jules Favre and the other heads of the liberal bourgeoisie who had seats at the government of the “National Treason,” had rather give Paris to the Prussians than see a proletarian government take in hand the defense of the native soil. “Sooner the Prussians than the proletarians,” was their word of command.

For the first time in history workers came into power and the workers could only hold this power by doing different things from the bourgeoisie, and the Commune having but several weeks being, had not the time to do socialist work. Its only socialist measure, the leaving to the workers of the shops abandoned by their former possessors, refugees at Versailles, was quite illusory, since to the workers there was neither credit nor money furnished. As to the seizure of the finances and the suspension of the payment of loans, they are normal measures, explained by the abnormal situation of a besieged town.

Bourgeoisie and proletaires were of one mind, to rise on the 18th of March against the traitors who delivered two provinces and five milliards to the Prussian. Over 2,000 Parisian electors ratified the expulsion of Thiers.

Never had an election put as many electors in motion as did the election of the members of the Commune. Even ere the Commune had a meeting the members of the liberal bourgeoisie began to betray it. They followed Thiers to Versailles, some placing themselves at the service of the reaction, the others staying neutral.

If the liberal bourgeoisie united on Thiers, and the reaction clerical and monarchic, in order to crush the Communes, it was because they understood that in developing, it had to become socialist.

The Commune could not aim at becoming a socialist government. A social revolution springs not up in one day of struggle. Our revolutions of 1830, 1848 and 1870 were merely parliamentary crises, for the power has ever staid in the hands of the bourgeois class; while 1789, which was a veritable social revolution, was prepared by a half century’s heated propaganda.

There had not been any socialist movement under the Empire. The fact that one could take the book of the petit bourgeois Proudhon, “Political Capacity of the Working Class,” for a socialist work, show what idea one had about socialism. The French delegates to the congresses of the International, besides some rare exceptions, made themselves conspicuous by their bourgeois and reactionary minds. The working class had the hatred of the empire. It wanted and demanded but one thing–the overthrow of the empire. Even when the Emperor granted the right of assembly, while restricting it to economic discussions, in the hope to see the socialists theses rise high, which were to serve him in keeping the bourgeois republicans down, he was astonished to see that the body of the meetings enthused itself only for political questions, which the speakers brought up under the vaguest pretexts. Neither the heads of the Commune, barring some very rare exceptions, nor the population of Paris and France were prepared for a socialist revolution. To arrest, as hostages, Rothschild and the big capitalists, seize the Bank of France, where they would have found millions to buy Thiers, the deputies and the generals of Versailles, came not and could not come into the heads of either of the Commune or the popular mass.

And then, the Commune was Paris which rose, having unknown men to guide it. In 1830, 1848 and 1870 the land had ratified the Parisian revolution, because it knew the men it carried into power. The land, with the exception of a few partial uprisings, staid neutral and let Thiers massacre revolted Paris.

A future 18th of March will be socialism’s triumph, as since over 20 years a thorough socialist propaganda stirs the land and gets it ready for the most revolutionary measure. In the towns and the fields exist socialist groups, which will, without order from: Paris, start the revolution in their towns and communes, as the peasants in the last century, before the revolutionary burghers of Paris, started the true revolution against the nobility, burning the castles and feudal seats. On the eve of the 24th of February, 1848, the workers of one of the mines of St. Etienne drove the boss administration away and declared the mine a republic;–this fact is unique. But on the coming 18th of March the miners of Carmaux, Anzin, of the Pas de Calais, will proclaim the mines, where they work, national property, and make ready to exploit them for the good of society.

Some coming 18th of March there will be a general uprising and everywhere the working class will have leaders whom it long since knows, through their work, who inspire it with entire confidence and who are broken into public business through their going in and out in their municipal councils. The heads of the conscious and organized best of the proletariat are prepared for the social revolution.

Since the 18th of March, 1871, capitalist production marches with giant strides; it creates the economic mill wherein will roll around the future Communist society; it shapes the men who will direct and accomplish the production of the Communist society.

All is ready, men and things, for a social revolution; we shall soon celebrate an 18th of March triumphant.

The Montana News first published in Lewistown, Montana, began as the Judith Basin News published by J. H. Walsh in 1904 as the paper of the Socialist Party of Montana. The Montana News moved from Lewistown to Helena, and from 1905 was edited by Ida Crouch-Hazlett. Splits within the State Party led to a number of conflicts over the paper, which ran as a weekly until 1912.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/montana-news/080416-montananews-v06n24.pdf