Introduction
Written by Karl Marx as an address to the General Council of the International, with the aim of distributing to workers of all countries a clear understanding of the character and world-wide significance of the heroic struggle of the Communards and their historical experience to learn from. The book was widely circulated by 1872 it was translated into several languages and published throughout Europe and the United States.
The first address was delivered on July 23rd, 1870, five days after the beginning of the Franco-Prussian war. The second address, delivered on September 9, 1870, gave a historical overview of the events a week after the army of Bonaparte was defeated. The third address, delivered on May 30, 1871, two days after the defeat of the Paris Commune – detailed the significance and the underlining causes of the first workers government ever created.
Publication Information: The Civil War in France was originally published by Marx as only the third address (here comprising Chapters 3 through 6) separated into four chapters. In 1891, on the 20th anniversary of the Paris Commune, Engels put together a new collection of the work. Engels decided to include the first two addresses that Marx made to the International (Chapters 1 and 2) – in this way providing additional historical background to the Civil War; Marx's account of the Franco-Prussian (July to September, 1870). In this publication, basic titles have been provided for each chapter in brackets, to give the unfamiliar reader a basic guide to the historical events each chapter discusses. Also, Engels 1891 introduction has been separated into two parts: an introduction (below) and a postscript.
1891 Introduction by Frederick Engels
On the 20th Anniversary of the Paris Commune
[Historical Background &
Overview of the Civil War]
Thanks to the economic and political development of France since [the French Revolution of]
1789, for 50 years the position of Paris has been such that no revolutions
could break out there without assuming a proletarian character, that is
to say, the proletariat, which had bought victory with its blood,
would advance its own demands after victory. These demands were more or less
unclear and even confused, corresponding to the state of evolution reached
by the workers of Paris at the particular period, but in the last resort
they all amounted to the abolition of the class antagonism between capitalist
and workers. It is true that no one knew how this was to be brought about.
But the demand itself, however indefinite it still was in its formulation,
contained a threat to the existing order of society; the workers who put
it forward were still armed; therefore the disarming of the workers was
the first commandment for the bourgeois at the helm of the state. Hence,
after every revolution won by the workers, a new struggle, ending with
the defeat of the workers.
This happened for the first time in 1848. The liberal bourgeoisie
of the parliamentary opposition held banquets for securing reform of the
franchise, which was to ensure supremacy for their party. Forced more and
more, in their struggle with the government, to appeal to the people, they
had to allow the radical and republican strata of the bourgeoisie and petty
bourgeoisie gradually to take the lead. But behind these stood the revolutionary
workers, and since 1830,[A] these had acquired far more political independence
than the bourgeoisie, and even the republicans, suspected. At the moment
of the crisis between the government and the opposition, the workers opened
battle on the streets; [King] Louis Philippe vanished, and with him the franchise
reform; and in its place arose the republic, and indeed one which the victorious
workers themselves designated as a "social" republic. No one, however,
was clear as to what this social republic was to imply; not even the workers
themselves. But they now had arms in their hands, and were a power in the
state. Therefore, as soon as the bourgeois republicans in control felt
something like firm ground under their feet, their first aim was to disarm
the workers. This took place by driving them into the insurrection of June
1848 by direct breach of faith, by open defiance and the attempt to banish
the unemployed to a distant province. The government had taken care to
have an overwhelming superiority of force. After five days' heroic struggle,
the workers were defeated. And then followed a blood-bath of the defenceless
prisoners, the likes of which as not been seen since the days of the civil
wars which ushered in the downfall of the Roman republic. It was the first
time that the bourgeoisie showed to what insane cruelties of revenge with
will be goaded the moment the proletariat dares to take its stand against
them as a separate class, with its own interests and demands. And yet 1848
was only child's play compared with their frenzy in 1871.
Punishment followed hard at heel. If the proletariat was not yet
able to rule France, the bourgeoisie could no longer do so. At least not
at that period, when the greater part of it was still monarchically inclined,
and it was divided into three dynastic parties [Legitimists, Orleanists and Bonapartists] and a fourth republican
party. Its internal dissensions allowed the adventurer Louis Bonaparte
to take possession of all the commanding points – army, police, administrative
machinery – and, on December 2, 1851,[B] to explode the last stronghold of the bourgeoisie, the National Assembly. The Second Empire opened the exploitation
of France by a gang of political and financial adventurers, but at the
same time also an industrial development such as had never been possible
under the narrow-minded and timorous system of Louis Philippe, with its
exclusive domination by only a small section of the big bourgeoisie. Louis
Bonaparte took the political power from the capitalists under the pretext
of protecting them, the bourgeoisie, from the workers, and on the other
hand the workers from them; but in return his rule encouraged speculation
and industrial activity – in a word the rise and enrichment of the whole
bourgeoisie to an extent hitherto unknown. To an even greater extent, it
is true, corruption and mass robbery developed, clustering around the imperial
court, and drawing their heavy percentages from this enrichment.
But the Second Empire was the appeal to the French chauvinism,
the demand for the restoration of the frontiers of the First Empire, which
had been lost in 1814, or at least those of the First Republic.[C] A French
empire within the frontiers of the old monarchy and, in fact, within the
even more amputated frontiers of 1815 – such a thing was impossible for
any long duration of time. Hence the necessity for brief wars and extension
of frontiers. But no extension of frontiers was so dazzling to the imagination
of the French chauvinists as the extension to the German left bank of the
Rhine. One square mile on the Rhine was more to them than ten in the Alps
or anywhere else. Given the Second Empire, the demand for the restoration
to France of the left bank of the Rhine, either all at once or piecemeal,
was merely a question of time. The time came with the Austro-Prussian War
of 1866; cheated of the anticipated "territorial compensation" by Bismarck,
and by his own over-cunning, hesitating policy, there was not nothing left
for Napoleon but war, which broke out in 1870 and drove him first to Sedan,
and then to Wilhelmshohe [prison].
The inevitable result was the Paris Revolution of September 4,
1870. The empire collapsed like a house of cards, and the republic was
again proclaimed. But the enemy was standing at the gates [of Paris]; the armies of
the empire were either hopelessly beleaguered in Metz or held captive in
Germany. In this emergency the people allowed the Paris Deputies to the
former legislative body to constitute themselves into a "Government of
National Defence." This was the more readily conceded, since, for the purpose
of defence, all Parisians capable of bearing arms had enrolled in the National
Guard and were armed, so that now the workers constituted a great majority.
But almost at once the antagonism between the almost completely bourgeois
government and the armed proletariat broke into open conflict. On October
31, workers' battalions stormed the town hall, and captured some members
of the government. Treachery, the government's direct breach of its undertakings,
and the interventions of some petty-bourgeois battalions set them free
again, and in order not to occassion the outbreak of civil war inside a
city which was already beleaguered by a foreign power, the former government
was left in office.
At last on January 28, 1871, Paris, almost starving, capitulated
but with honors unprecedented in the history of war. The forts were surrendered,
the outer wall disarmed, the weapons of the regiments of the line and of
the Mobile Guard were handed over, and they themselves considered prisoners
of war. But the National Guard kept its weapons and guns, and only entered
into an armistice with the victors, who themselves did not dare enter Paris
in triumph. They only dared to occupy a tiny corner of Paris, which, into
the bargain, consisted partly of public parks, and even this they only occupied
for a few days! And during this time they, who had maintained their encirclement
of Paris for 131 days, were themselves encircled by the armed workers of
Paris, who kept a sharp watch that no "Prussian" should overstep the narrow
bounds of the corner ceded to the foreign conquerors. Such was the respect
which the Paris workers inspired in the army before which all the armies
of the empire had laid down their arms; and the Prussian Junkers,
who had come to take revenge at the very centre of the revolution, were
compelled to stand by respectfully, and salute just precisely this armed
revolution!
During the war the Paris workers had confined themselves to demanding
the vigorous prosecution of the fight. But now, when peace had come after
the capitulation of Paris,[D] now, Thiers, the new head of government, was
compelled to realize that the supremacy of the propertied classes – large
landowners and capitalists – was in constant danger so long as the workers
of Paris had arms in their hands. His first action was to attempt to disarm
them. On March 18, he sent troops of the line with orders to rob the National
Guard of the artillery belonging to it, which had been constructed during
the siege of Paris and had been paid for by public subscription. The attempt failed;
Paris mobilized as one man in defence of the guns, and war between Paris
and the French government sitting at Versailles was declared. On March
26 the Paris Commune was elected and on March 28 it was proclaimed. The
Central Committee of the National Guard, which up to then had carried on
the government, handed in its resignation to the National Guard, after
it had first decreed the abolition of the scandalous Paris "Morality Police."
On March 30 the Commune abolished conscription and the standing army, and
declared that the National Guard, in which all citizens capable of bearing
arms were to be enrolled, was to be the sole armed force. It remitted all
payments of rent for dwelling houses from October 1870 until April, the
amounts already paid to be reckoned to a future rental period, and stopped
all sales of article pledged in the municipal pawnshops. On the same day
the foreigners elected to the Commune were confirmed in office, because
"the flag of the Commune is the flag of the World Republic."
On April 1 it was decided that the highest salary received by
any employee of the Commune, and therefore also by its members themselves,
might not exceed 6,000 francs. On the following day the Commune decreed
the separation of the Church from the State, and the abolition of all state
payments for religious purposes as well as the transformation of all Church
property into national property; as a result of which, on April 8, a decree
excluding from the schools all religious symbols, pictures, dogmas, prayers
– in a word, "all that belongs to the sphere of the individual's conscience"
– was ordered to be excluded from the schools, and this decree was gradually
applied. On the 5th, day after day, in reply to the shooting of the Commune's fighters captured by the Versailles troops,
a decree was issued for imprisonment of hostages, but it was never carried
into effect. On the 6th, the guillotine was brought out by the 137th battalion
of the National guard, and publicly burnt, amid great popular rejoicing.
On the 12th, the Commune decided that the Victory Column on the Place Vendôme,
which had been cast from guns captured by napoleon after the war of 1809,
should be demolished as a symbol of chauvinism and incitement to national
hatred. This decree was carried out on May 16. On April 16 the Commune
ordered a statistical tabulation of factories which had been closed down
by the manufacturers, and the working out of plans for the carrying on
of these factories by workers formerly employed in them, who were to be
organized in co-operative societies, and also plans for the organization
of these co-operatives in one great union. On the 20th the Commune abolished
night work for bakers, and also the workers' registration cards, which
since the Second Empire had been run as a monopoly by police nominees –
exploiters of the first rank; the issuing of these registration cards was
transferred to the mayors of the 20 arrondissements of Paris. On
April 30, the Commune ordered the closing of the pawnshops, on the ground
that they were a private exploitation of labor, and were in contradiction
with the right of the workers to their instruments of labor and to credit.
On May 5 it ordered the demolition of the Chapel of Atonement, which had
been built in expiation of the execution of Louis XVI.
Thus, from March 18 onwards the class character of the Paris movement,
which had previously been pushed into the background by the fight against
the foreign invaders, emerged sharply and clearly. As almost without exception,
workers, or recognized representatives of the workers, sat in the Commune,
its decision bore a decidedly proletarian character. Either they decreed
reforms which the republican bourgeoisie had failed to pass soley out of
cowardice, but which provided a necessary basis for the free activity of
the working class – such as the realization of the principle that in
relation to the state, religion is a purely private matter – or they
promulgated decrees which were in the direct interests of the working class
and to some extent cut deeply into the old order of society. In a beleaguered
city, however, it was possible at most to make a start in the realization
of all these measures. And from the beginning of May onwards all their
energies were taken up by the fight against the ever-growing armies assembled
by the Versailles government.
On April 7, the Versailles troops had captured the Seine crossing
at Neuilly, on the western front of Paris; on the other hand, in an attack
on the southern front on the 11th they were repulsed with heavy losses
by General Eudes. Paris was continually bombarded and, moreover, by the
very people who had stigmatized as a sacrilege the bombardment of the same
city by the Prussians. These same people now begged the Prussian government
for the hasty return of the French soldiers taken prisoner at Sedan and
Metz, in order that they might recapture Paris for them. From the beginning
of May the gradual arrival of these troops gave the Versailles forces a
decided ascendancy. This already became evident when, on April 23, Thiers
broke off the negotiations for the exchange, proposed by Commune, of the
Archbishop of Paris [Georges Darboy] and a whole number of other priests held hostages in
Paris, for only one man, Blanqui, who had twice been elected to the Commune
but was a prisoner in Clairvaux. And even more in the changed langauge
of Thiers; previously procrastinating and equivocal, he now suddenly became
insolent, threatening, brutal. The Versailles forces took the redoubt of
Moulin Saquet on the southern front, on May 3; on the 9th, Fort Issy, which
had been completely reduced to ruins by gunfire; and on the 14th, Fort
Vanves. On the western front they advanced gradually, capturing the numerous
villages and buildings which extended up to the city wall, until they reached
the main wall itself; on the 21st, thanks to treachery and the carelessness
of the National Guards stationed there, they succeeded in forcing their
way into the city. The Prussians who held the northern and eastern forts
allowed the Versailles troops to advance across the land north of the city,
which was forbidden ground to them under the armistice, and thus to march
forward and attack on a long front, which the Parisians naturally thought
covered by the armistice, and therefore held only with weak forces. As
a result of this, only a weak resistance was put up in the western half
of Paris, in the luxury city proper; it grew stronger and more tenacious
the nearer the incoming troops approached the eastern half, the real working
class city.
It was only after eight days' fighting that the last defender
of the Commune were overwhelmed on the heights of Belleville and Menilmontant;
and then the massacre of defenceless men, women, and children, which had
been raging all through the week on an increasing scale, reached its zenith.
The breechloaders could no longer kill fast enough; the vanquished workers
were shot down in hundred by mitrailleuse fire [over 30,000 citizens of Paris were massacred]. The "Wall of the Federals" [aka Wall of the Communards] at the Pere Lachaise cemetery, where the final mass murder was consummated,
is still standing today, a mute but eloquent testimony to the savagery
of which the ruling class is capable as soon as the working class dares
to come out for its rights. Then came the mass arrests [38,000 workers arrested]; when the slaughter
of them all proved to be impossible, the shooting of victims arbitrarily
selected from the prisoners' ranks, and the removal of the rest to great
camps where they awaited trial by courts-martial. The Prussian troops surrounding
the northern half of Paris had orders not to allow any fugitives to pass;
but the officers often shut their eyes when the soldiers paid more obedience
to the dictates of humanity than to those of the General Staff; particularly,
honor is due to the Saxon army corps, which behaved very humanely and let
through many workers who were obviously fighters for the Commune.
Frederick Engels
London, on the 20th anniversary
of the Paris Commune, March 18, 1891.
Chapter 1: [The Begining of the Franco-Prussian War]
A.
The revolution of July 1830 in France.
B.
The coup d'etat, by Louis Bonaparte on December 2, 1851, which marked the beginning of the Bonapartist regime of the Second Empire.
C.
The first republic was proclaimed in 1792 and was replaced by the First Empire of Napoleon I (1804-14), which expanded the borders of France as far east as to include most of Northern Italy and stopped short of Denmark. Further, Napoleon established a series of satellite states that stretched throughout central and Eastern Europe, up through Poland. His attempt to spread his empire into Russia was met with bitter failure, by the hand of the extremely courageous and the bold resistance of the Russian land and peasantry.
D.
The preliminary peace treaty between France and Germany signed at Versailles on February 26, 1871 by Thiers and Jules Favre, on the one hand, and Bismarck, on the other. According to the terms of this treaty, France ceded Alsace and East Lorraine to Germany and paid it indemnities to the sum of 5 billion francs. The final peace treaty was signed in Frankfort-on-Main on May 10, 1871.