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革命斑斑錄 – 開欄文
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瀏覽657 ｜回應6｜推薦2 |
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我應該沒有「衝鋒陷陣」基因，自然跟「革命」扯不上什麼關係(1)；不過，七十多年來，心嚮往之的時刻還是有過那麼一次、兩次。
在一個訪問節目中，系國兄談到：「由於當時的政治環境，我們那個年代的青年很多都有所謂的『使命感』」(大意)。區區不才年幼無知時也曾經是這批人之一；在「天下興亡，匹夫有責」這類醬缸文化的薰陶(誤導？)下，滿腦子都是「如何富國強兵」。所以，在熟讀《孫武兵法》外，我從小就崇拜拿破崙。
初中時讀了高語和先生翻譯的《拿破崙傳》。其它內容我當然早就忘了，但有一句話我到今天還記得：「拿破崙自稱『革命之子』，但他卻背叛了革命」(大意)。雖然我讀完他這本傳記後不再崇拜拿破崙，但我保持對「法國大革命」這個事件的興趣；過去大概讀過四、五本《法國大革命史》。後來對「1848革命潮」也下了點工夫。「巴黎公社」一詞的印象，大概最早來自馬克思的著作(2)。我書架上有一本《論巴黎公社》，可惜我一直找不出時間讀它。
昨天在網上看到《巴黎公社：血腥的一週》(請見本欄第二篇貼文)。為了寫一段簡單的介紹，我上網搜尋此事件的相關資料；在這個過程中，覺得這段歷史值得寫上一筆；又進一步想到：可以藉這個因緣，談談「革命」大業；是開此欄。
附註：
1. 我上網查了「革命」一詞的出處；這才想起：「革命」的「命」並非小老百姓的「命」，而是指「天命」的「命」；或者說，皇帝小兒能夠坐上金鑾殿的「命」。只是在這個過程中，小老百姓要拿自己的「命」當賭注；故名此欄。
2. 此處請參見我這段簡評(該欄開欄文「結論」第一段和該文附註6。
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形塑當代社會與思潮的5個重要革命 -- Vinay Prasad Sharma 編輯
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Top 5 important revolutions in world's history that shaped modern civilisastion
Edited By Vinay Prasad Sharma, 10/05/25
In the history of the world, various revolutions and organised groups fought for their lives to replace existing ruling systems. Many of them failed, while some achieved remarkable success. These uprisings influenced several, extending across continents. Check the top 5 revolutions.
(Photograph: X/@ChivalryGuild) 請至原網頁觀看珍貴麗此照片/繪畫
1. The French Revolution (1789 – 1799)
By the late 1700s, France was divided between the struggling poor and the wealthy nobility. Anger over heavy taxes and royal excess boiled over on July 14, 1789, when revolutionaries stormed the Bastille, sparking the French Revolution. The years that followed saw riots, fear, and radical reformers like Robespierre calling for sweeping change.
In 1792, King Louis XVI was arrested, and the monarchy fell. His execution in 1793 triggered the Reign of Terror, where thousands were killed. After years of bloodshed and instability, Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799, ending the revolution but leaving behind a legacy of people’s power.
(Photograph: X/@_HistoryNerd) 請至原網頁觀看珍貴麗此照片/繪畫
2. The American Revolution (1765 – 1783)
Tensions between Britain and its 13 colonies began in 1765 with the Stamp Act, sparking protests against unfair taxation. Anger grew, leading to the 1773 Boston Tea Party, where rebels dumped tea into Boston Harbor.
In 1774, delegates formed the Continental Congress to oppose taxation without representation, though independence was not yet demanded. Fighting erupted in 1775 at Lexington and Concord, and by July 4, 1776, the colonies declared independence. Years of conflict followed until George Washington, aided by French forces, defeated the British at Yorktown in 1781. The war ended with the 1783 Treaty of Paris, securing American independence.
(Photograph: X/@Taimur_Laal) 請至原網頁觀看珍貴麗此照片/繪畫
3. The Haitian Revolution (1791 – 1804)
Saint Domingue, today it is known as Haiti, was a wealthy French colony on the island of Hispaniola. Inspired by the French Revolution, enslaved people launched a massive uprising on August 22, 1791. Led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, a former slave, they quickly gained ground, seizing a third of the island within a year. To ease tensions, France’s National Assembly granted rights to free men of colour in 1792, but conflict escalated when local whites allied with Britain and Spain to suppress the revolt.
In 1794, France officially abolished slavery in Saint Domingue, prompting L’Ouverture to support the French and defeat British forces. By 1801, he declared himself Governor-General for life. Napoleon later sent troops to retake the colony, capturing L’Ouverture, who died in a French prison. His general, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, carried on the fight, defeating French forces at Vertières in 1803. On January 1, 1804, Haiti became the first independent Black republic, a landmark in world history.
(Photograph: X/@tongbingxue) 請至原網頁觀看珍貴麗此照片/繪畫
4. The Chinese Revolution (1911)
The Qing dynasty was weakened by repeated military defeats and growing unrest among its people by the early 20th century. Discontent soon gave rise to revolutionary movements, most notably the Revolutionary Alliance, led by Sun Yat-sen, later hailed as the Father of the Nation. While initial uprisings were crushed by Qing forces, the 1911 Wuchang Uprising became a turning point. To ease tensions, the Qing court promised reforms, even appointing Yuan Shikai as premier and considering a constitutional monarchy.
However, the momentum of revolution grew as provinces declared allegiance to the alliance. Their delegates met and elected Sun Yat-sen as provisional president of the Republic of China. In 1912, the emperor abdicated, officially ending centuries of imperial rule. Yuan Shikai later assumed the presidency after negotiations. The 1911 Revolution not only dismantled the Qing dynasty but also laid the foundation for China’s modern political transformation, culminating in Mao Zedong’s Communist victory in 1949.
(Photograph: X/@radicaldaily) 請至原網頁觀看珍貴麗此照片/繪畫
5. The Russian Revolution (1917)
Russia was among the poorest and least developed nations of Europe by the end of the 20th century. The anger heightened, and World War I deepened the crisis, bringing mass casualties and economic ruin. Tsar Nicholas II left to lead the army, leaving governance to his unpopular wife, Alexandra, who was heavily influenced by the mystic Rasputin.
In 1917, Petrograd erupted in the February Revolution, and this time, soldiers joined the people. Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, ending the Romanov dynasty. A provisional government took charge but kept Russia in the war, worsening hardship. By October 1917, Lenin and his Bolsheviks seized power in a swift coup, promising rule by peasants and workers. Civil war followed, but after five years of struggle, the Bolsheviks emerged victorious, giving birth to the Soviet Union.
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尼泊爾Z世代青年抗議背景分析 -- Lex Harvey等
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我本來就打算將此報導轉載於此欄；但近幾日腦子不管用的程度加劇，將它單獨發表。現在做了修正，造成不便，甚是抱歉。
另請參考：
* They were shot dead for protesting against corruption in Nepal
* Nepal's protests estimated to have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage as families farewell those killed
A social media ban, corruption and ‘Nepo Kids:’ What we know about the deadly protests that ousted Nepal’s leader
Lex Harvey/Sugam Pokharel/Esha Mitra/Aishwarya S Iyer, CNN, 09/10/25
Nepali protesters, angered by a bloody crackdown, defied a police curfew and took over the streets of the capital Kathmandu on Tuesday, setting fire to the Supreme Court, parliament and other government buildings in the latest day of Gen Z-led protests that have toppled the Himalayan country’s prime minister.
Officials said at least 22 have people have been killed and hundreds wounded in the clashes in Kathmandu sparked by a government ban on social media platforms but driven by deep-rooted resentment at rampant corruption by the country’s political elite and a lack of economic opportunities for regular Nepalis.
Police used live ammunition, water cannons, and tear gas against the protesters, Reuters news agency reported. On Tuesday, smoke clouded the sky above the capital, photos by Reuters showed. The country’s main international airport shut because of the violence, according to a notice posted Tuesday afternoon. Later that evening, the Nepal Army sent troops into Kathmandu “to control the situation for the security of Nepal and Nepalis,” according to its chief.
Nepal, a Himalayan country of 30 million people, is known for its turbulent politics and has seen more than a dozen governments since it transitioned to a republic after abolishing its 239-year-old monarchy in 2008 following a decade-long civil war.
Still, the latest protests, which are led by people ages 13 to 28 – the cohort known as Generation Z – are Nepal’s worst unrest in decades.
Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli announced his resignation on Tuesday in a letter that cited “the extraordinary situation” in the country, according to copy of the note posted on social media by a top aide.
Video appeared to show demonstrators ransacking Oli’s private residence on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Crowds of protesters could be seen breaking into the property and destroying furniture before setting it on fire.
Here’s what we know about the unrest roiling Nepal.
What sparked the protests?
Anger against the government for what many view as rampant, decades-long corruption was already simmering, and it spilled into the streets of the capital last week after the government blocked social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube and X, in a move that was widely criticized by rights groups.
Organizers say the protests are not only about the social media ban but also reflect generational frustration at poor economic opportunities.
“While the main trigger for the protest was the recent social media ban, the long history of corruption and bad governance is the main reason that thousands of people have come out on the streets to protest,” a 28-year-old who attended the protests on Monday and Tuesday told CNN.
“It was overwhelming to see such a huge turnout and the energy and anger of the people,” said the protester, who asked not to be named out of fear of government retribution.
The unemployment rate for youth aged 15-24 in Nepal was 20.8% in 2024, according to the World Bank.
Meanwhile, a viral online movement against “Nepo Kids” — politicians’ children showing off their lavish lifestyles — is fueling further anger by highlighting the disparities between those in power and regular Nepalis.
Nepal’s economy is heavily reliant on money sent home by Nepalis living abroad. More than a third (33.1%) of Nepal’s GDP came from personal remittances, according to the World Bank, a number that has steadily risen over the past three decades.
Protests turn deadly
The protests escalated just hours after they began Monday as protesters clashed with police at the parliament complex in Kathmandu.
At least 22 people have been killed, Dr. Mohan Regmi, the executive director at Civil Service Hospital in Kathmandu, told CNN on Tuesday after a second day of demonstrations.
More than 400 people, including security forces staff, were hospitalized on Monday, according to a report by Nepal’s health ministry.
The Kathmandu Post newspaper said its servers were down Tuesday after its building was set on fire.
UN Secretary General António Guterres called for a “thorough investigation” and “restraint to avoid further escalation of violence” in a statement to X Tuesday.
“I call on the authorities to comply with human rights law. Protests must take place in a peaceful manner, respecting life & property,” Guterres said.
“The use of lethal force against protesters not posing an imminent threat of death or serious injury is a grave violation of international law,” Amnesty International said in a statement.
The US State Department “strongly advised” all US citizens in Nepal to shelter in place until further notice and to avoid travel.
Government under pressure
The resignation of Prime Minister Oli on Tuesday came after a string of other officials quit over the government’s response to the protests. Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak resigned Monday following the violence, with the ministers for agriculture, water and health a day later.
In the hours after Oli stepped down, the Nepali Army appealed for a peaceful solution through dialogue, urging “all citizens to exercise restraint to prevent further loss of life and property in this critical situation.”
Later Tuesday, Nepal President Ramchandra Paudel urged demonstrators to “cooperate for a peaceful resolution” and called on youth protesters to “come to talk.”
Binay Mishra, a Nepal-based public policy analyst, told CNN that “once the prime minister steps down, the president calls the parliament to form the government.”
As there is currently no party with a clear majority, lawmakers are more likely to form an interim government with some Gen Z organizations potentially involved in discussions over who could lead in the short term, said Mishra, an assistant professor of public policy at Kathmandu University School of Management.
In a statement before his resignation, Oli said his government was “not negative toward the demands raised by the Gen Z generation” and said he was “deeply saddened” by the incidents on Monday. He blamed “infiltration by various vested interest groups” for the violence, without elaborating on who those groups were.
CNN’s Ross Adkin contributed reporting.
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12月黨人革命200年紀念 --- Martin George Holmes
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我讀過三位作者寫的達斯妥也夫斯基傳記(1821--1881)，和許多關於他作品的評論。因此，我大略知道「12月黨人」的革命事件；但並不很清楚它的歷史或政治意義。為了進一步了解達斯妥也夫斯基及其作品的社會背景，我甚至買了一本簡要的《俄國史》；可惜一直找不出時間讀此書。這是我花了點時間讀完這篇近4,000字冷門文章的原因。
Fathers of Russian Liberalism: Bicentennial Reflections on the 1825 Decembrist Revolt
Martin George Holmes, 09/2025
Two hundred years ago, on 14 December 1825,1 a handful of liberal military officers wrote a new chapter in the history of human freedom. Braving a bitter Russian winter, these liberals – known to posterity as the Decembrists – rallied approximately 3,000 troops from three guard regiments in St. Petersburg, then the capital of the Russian Empire. They marched to Senate Square, formed up around the statue of Peter the Great, and decried the accession of Nicholas I to the throne. Their motivation was to destabilize the autocracy, the authoritarian regime throttling Russian political life, and secure constitutional liberties.
Throughout the day, Nicholas summoned more than 9,000 loyal troops to surround the Decembrists and bring them to heel. Loyalist officers tried to intimidate them into surrendering. The Decembrists remained defiant; one went so far as to shoot Mikhail Miloradovich, a high-ranking general. Nicholas ordered a cavalry charge, which failed miserably.
Fearing that the civilian population would soon join the Decembrists, Nicholas ordered an artillery bombardment. Cannon balls ripped through the Decembrists’ ranks and forced them to flee onto the ice-clad Neva River. The cannons continued to blast; many Decembrists fell through the ice and drowned. On 29 December, a second group of Decembrists revolted in Ukraine, then a territory of the Russian Empire. Approximately 1,000 soldiers rallied to the standard. Within a week, however, the Decembrists encountered a loyalist force, mistook them for allies, and were defeated in battle. Now securely in power, Nicholas I arrested the leaders of the revolt and put them on trial. A handful were executed. Many more were banished to the depths of Siberia.
December 2025 marks the bicentennial of the revolt. One could be forgiven for not knowing it, given the lack of attention from scholars and the general public. Even discussion among classical liberals has been minimal. This neglect is tragic. The Decembrist Revolt played a significant role in the history of liberty in Russia and Eastern Europe. It deserves to be commemorated.
The Horror of Autocracy
To appreciate the Decembrists’ courage, one must remember that Imperial Russia was an autocracy. This word refers to the totalizing power that the tsar – the emperor – wielded in Russian society from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. Until 1905, there was no constitution. There were no legal checks and balances upon the tsar’s authority. The tsar had ministers and a senate to help them rule, but these people were imperial appointees designed to rubber-stamp imperial policies. The autocracy even governed the Russian Orthodox Church, the official church of Russia.
Tsarist Russia was a potent concoction of militarism, superstition, religious discrimination, and class hierarchies. A wide swath of the population were serfs, peasants bound to specific plots of land, who were treated more like property than human beings. Religious and ethnic groups at the bottom of society, especially Jews, faced official discrimination. Lording over the masses were a handful of aristocratic families. In between the rich and the poor there was no robust middle class. Draconian measures were second-nature in this society. The Russian state conscripted peasants into the armed forces for lengthy periods and subjected them to flogging and other appalling punishments. Many Russian landowners brutalized their serfs – their “property” – in ways that can only be described as psychopathic.
There was a lot of resentment in imperial Russia, but because constitutional processes were non-existent, peaceful reform was impossible. If the nobility disliked a certain tsar, they staged a palace coup, murdered him, and shoved a more palatable person into his place. Whenever peasants buckled under the oppression of their landlords, they rebelled in violent – and ultimately futile – bursts of rage.
Enlightenment Ideas and the Aristocracy
From the seventeenth century, capitalism and the Enlightenment spread throughout Western Europe. Both were crucial for the safeguarding of liberty. Capitalism encouraged wealth production and social mobility. The old feudal binary between rich aristocrats and poor peasants gave way to a vibrant society in which education and civic engagement became widespread among all classes. The Enlightenment fueled greater interest in freedom of thought, personal experience, and political radicalism.
Many Enlightenment thinkers argued for individual liberty. The pinnacle of Enlightenment political thought was the American Revolution, when American colonists justified their war of independence on the basis of natural rights. The King of England and his parliament ruled tyrannically and without consent. Therefore, the colonists had the right to defend their liberty by force of arms. The French Revolution, which took place shortly afterward, began with the same righteous motive. Some early leaders, such as the Marquis de Lafayette, were veterans of the American War of Independence. The impact of anti-individualist ideologies, given impetus by more shady Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, corrupted both the American and French Revolutions over time. But the ideal of liberty nevertheless became a defining feature of Western Europe.
The spread of the Enlightenment in Russia was slower and patchier. Only the aristocracy had the linguistic knowledge, philosophical bent, and leisure time to ponder natural-rights theory. Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812, moreover, provoked a wave of anti-Western sentiment among aristocrats. Napoleon draped his imperial ambitions in the cloak of the French Revolution, claiming that he was liberating other nations from tyranny and superstition. Many Russians responded by reaffirming autocracy and Russian Orthodoxy. No less a figure than Tsar Alexander I, once a dashing young monarch who flirted with political reform, degenerated into a traditionalist fanatic.
Some nobles, however, remained sympathetic to Western liberalism. Young military officers were particularly susceptible. The war against Napoleon had been portrayed as a freedom struggle: first to liberate Russia from invasion, then to free the rest of Europe from French imperialism.
As the Russian army moved into Central Europe, young officers saw societies in which serfdom had been abolished and constitutions had been established. When they returned to their homeland, the barbarity and backwardness of the tsarist autocracy dismayed them. The Decembrist Alexander Bestuzhev Marlinsky summarized their opinions as follows: “We have shed our blood, and we are obliged to sweat at forced labor again. We have freed the Motherland from the tyrant, and the rulers tyrannize us again.” Russian nobles raised overseas tended to react similarly.
The parents of Sergey Muravyov-Apostol wanted to keep the horror of serfdom from him while living in Western Europe, lest he become ashamed of his homeland. Only when he was taken home, and his mother saw his joy at crossing the border, did she reveal the dirty truth: “Be prepared, children, to hear some horrifying information: in Russia you will find what you have not known [in Western Europe] – peasants, who are in bondage.” Muravyov-Apostol soon joined the army and became one of the most radical Decembrists.
These disaffected officers joined the military and stayed in it, despite their hostility to the autocracy, because it was one of the few professions open to them. It was considered unbefitting of an aristocrat to become, for example, an industrialist or a banker. Aristocrats were gentlemen of leisure, who were based either on their estate or in townhouses. Some wrote in their spare time; some took farming seriously; others whittled away their time in frivolous pursuits.
Those who wanted a serious profession were expected to do government work: the navy, the army, or the civil service. Liberal-minded officers tended to stay within the military because they had a strong sense of civic duty, and because they wanted to be close to the seat of political power. After all, many were part of the elite guard units stationed in the Russian capital.
The Decembrist Movement Forms
The Decembrist movement began shortly after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, though the term “Decembrist” was applied only after the revolt in December 1825. Much happened within these ten years. The war, as previously mentioned, had generated support for political reform. Russian liberals deplored Alexander I’s retreat into a conservative cul-de-sac. The Universities of Kazan, St. Petersburg, Vilna, and Dorpat came under scrutiny because some faculty took liberal ideas seriously. The government sacked professors and purged curricula. In Kazan’s case, the university was virtually closed down for a time. Censorship suppressed or mutilated even the most timid critiques of the autocracy, including in fiction.
To help reduce military expenditure and ensure retired soldiers did not get up to mischief, the autocracy established military colonies for veterans. The man in charge of this plan, General Aleksey Arakcheev, was the definition of a brute. Once he got so angry that he assaulted a soldier and bit off their ear. Under Arakcheev’s guidance, military colonies became cesspits of despotism and poverty. Perhaps most galling of all was the dissolution of the elite Semenovsky Regiment in 1820. Relations between officers and enlisted men had been closer than usual because of shared experiences in war. However, in 1820, a new commander was appointed who was a strict disciplinarian. He flogged many soldiers and, when these battle-hardened veterans lodged an official protest, the regiment was disbanded and the soldiers blacklisted.
Tsar Alexander I’s rejection of political reform forced Russian liberals to form secret societies. Only behind closed doors could they ponder solutions to the plight of their homeland. These societies were an open secret: the state police kept tabs on dissidents, and the aristocratic world was so small that word of political meetings soon got around. Alexander’s advisors wanted him to crack down on the liberals, but Alexander permitted them to operate. After all, he himself had indulged in liberalism as a youth, and he suspected that they would grow out of it in time.
Alexander was wrong. Russian liberals were determined to have political reform, and they spent many a night discussing how Russia could be made better. Several ideas were almost universally accepted: the restraint of autocratic powers, the ratification of a constitution, the abolition of serfdom, the spread of capitalist industry, and the education of the masses. However, there were disagreements about how far political reform should go. One faction was moderate. These people took inspiration from, among other things, the American Revolution and the early phases of the French Revolution. They advocated a constitutional monarchy, whether because they considered it the best political system, or because they thought Russia was unripe for republican government in the distant future. Nikita Muravyov, arguably the most important moderate thinker, was one such republican who, for pragmatic reasons, endorsed constitutional monarchy.
The other faction was more extreme. Its guiding light was Pavel Pestel. Without doubt the most able and active of the Decembrist leaders, Pestel was also the most problematic. He regarded himself as a liberal. But he believed that Russia was so backward, and that the autocracy was so repressive, that social revolution must accompany political revolution. Russia was to become a republic; the tsar was to be assassinated. To protect itself, the infant republic would require a secret police to suppress attempts to reestablish the old order. He drew inspiration from the French Jacobins, the radical revolutionaries who instituted the Reign of Terror to protect – in their minds – the French Revolution from enemies foreign and domestic.
As one might expect, the two factions, known as the Northern and Southern Societies, found it challenging to work together. Each agreed to keep the other updated, and there were constant efforts to unite the two. But the philosophical differences ensured that they operated independently. The Northern Society had its stronghold in the guard regiments of St. Petersburg. The Southern Society had its stronghold in southern Ukraine, where Pestel and some companions held military posts.
The Achilles Heel of the Decembrist Movement
The biggest shortcoming of the Decembrists was their conspiratorial approach to politics. As noted above, it was a position into which the autocracy forced them. But they still reaped the whirlwind. Liberalism can only flourish in an open society, or at the very least, in a society moving toward a condition of openness. Russian liberals were a minority among the aristocracy, which was itself a minority within the Russian Empire. There was a colossal gulf between this educated elite and the lower classes. Russian peasants lacked a cosmopolitan spirit. Almost all were illiterate and preoccupied with the problems of their family, village, and estate. The influence of the autocracy and of Russian Orthodoxy predisposed the masses to accept government decrees passively, rather than regard themselves as political actors capable of changing them. The average soldier and sailor were virtually the same. They knew how to read and write – this was one of the few compensations for being conscripted – but they were still conditioned to obey social superiors and accept the existing political order without question.
Despite the Russian liberals’ dream of a free and modern Russia, therefore, their plan of action differed little from the palace coups of earlier generations. Neither the moderates nor the radicals generated a mass movement in favor of political change. Some radicals took steps to do so, but they achieved little. The Decembrists remained fixated on the idea that a dedicated group of military officers could, at an opportune moment, launch a palace coup and force the autocracy to implement reform. The best time to launch such a coup, it was believed, was after the death of Alexander I.
No one expected Alexander to die so soon, in the fall of 1825. He was only in his late forties. But he caught typhus while traveling throughout the empire, and died on 19 November. News of his death reached the capital on 27 November. An awkward interregnum began. Alexander had no heir, so it was assumed that his eldest surviving brother, Constantine, was the new tsar. But Constantine did not want the throne – he feared assassination – and so Alexander had drawn up a will that declared a younger brother, Nicholas, the successor. This will was unknown to most Russians, so as a matter of course, military men and state bureaucrats swore allegiance to Constantine. Even Nicholas swore allegiance, figuring that it would be risky to claim the throne until the will’s contents were popularized. For three weeks, Russia was gridlocked as Constantine repeated his renunciation, and Nicholas continued to bide his time. But in mid-December, Nicholas resolved to accede to the throne. December 14 was to be the day that the senate and guard regiments swore allegiance.
The Decembrists were unprepared for Alexander’s sudden death, but they felt that they could not let this opportunity pass. If Nicholas, a stern reactionary, were allowed to accede without protest, Russia might have another generation of autocratic rule. The moderates in St. Petersburg and the radicals in south Ukraine resolved to stage a coup. The Northern Society acted first. The liberal officers would gather the soldiers and sailors under their command, march to the senate, and demand political reform. Because they lacked mass support, they resorted to deception to achieve their aims. They told the men under their command that Constantine was the rightful tsar, and that it was their duty, as defenders of the Russian state, to ensure his claim to the throne. It was a tragedy that these liberals, in pursuit of their vision of an open society, lied to gain political support. The lie itself was also absurd considering that Constantine was no less a traditionalist than Nicholas.
The Northern Society collapsed under the weight of its self-imposed responsibilities. Too much had to be done too quickly. Despite their best efforts, the Decembrists rallied only 3,000 men from three guard regiments. The rest either sided with Nicholas or attempted neutrality. By the time the Decembrists reached the senate, the members had already dispersed, which meant they could not lodge their protest in favor of a constitution. Several Decembrists backed out before or during the revolt. One key leader, the charismatic Sergey Trubetskoy, seemed to suffer a nervous breakdown. Another, Kondraty Ryleyev, was so ill that he retired to his quarters. The 3,000 soldiers and sailors, shivering in the snow, were abandoned to the command of a mere lieutenant.2 When Nicholas ordered an artillery barrage on their position, there was little to do but flee onto the frozen Neva River. Those who did not perish from cannon balls or falling through the ice were captured and put on trial.
The Southern Society was beset by the same problem. Pavel Pestel was arrested shortly before the revolt. Command passed to Muravyov-Apostol, the man who had been raised in Western Europe, and whose parents had kept him ignorant of the existence of serfdom as a boy. To his credit, Muravyov-Apostol openly proclaimed to the troops under his command that they were fighting for a free Russia. He persuaded a local priest to join his cause, and he also tried to rally local peasants. But many of the peasants did not understand what the revolt was all about; there was an ideological gulf between the thousand-or-so soldiers and the peasant communities through which they marched. Not all these soldiers, moreover, fully grasped what they were doing. In any case, the rebels were soon cornered and overrun by troops loyal to Nicholas.
The new tsar put the Decembrists on trial. During their imprisonment, the Decembrists were subjected to torture. Nicholas hanged the key leaders, including Pestel, Ryleyev, and Muravyov-Apostol. Others were banished to Siberia.
The Fathers of Russian Liberalism
The Decembrist Revolt was a complete failure. It could never have succeeded because it lacked mass support, and because the publicized goal – the accession of Constantine – was a red herring. But the nature of the autocracy was such that this failure became a rallying point for future generations of political dissidents.
Nicholas I ruled the country with an iron fist until his death in 1855. The last years of his reign, however, were marred by Russian defeats during the Crimean War. It was evident to everyone, even Nicholas, that Russia was a backward, corrupt, and inefficient state compared to Western Europe. His successor, Alexander II, recognized that mild reforms were essential to prevent the country falling apart. Most notably, he abolished serfdom. The autocracy remained in full force until 1905, when a revolution forced Nicholas II to draw up a constitution and establish a parliament.
The tsar still wielded absolute power, but he now had to contend with legislation and legislators who wanted to push Russia in a liberal direction. It was not until the February Revolution of 1917, when Nicholas abdicated and Russia became a republic, that free elections were finally held. The rise of the Bolsheviks and the tumult of the First World War quickly strangled the infant provisional government that, for all its shortcomings, was the most liberal Russia had received to date. Under the Soviet Union, another kind of autocracy became paramount. The Soviets honored the Decembrists, the opponents of the old regime, by renaming Senate Square “Decembrists’ Square.”
During the long struggle against autocracy, reformers and revolutionaries took inspiration from the Decembrists. They fought and suffered for their principles, being harassed by secret police and thrown into squalid prisons, just like the Decembrists. They too were forced, by circumstances, to meet in secret and to plan clandestine rebellion against a regime that denied open political debate. In his autobiography, the dissident nobleman Peter Kropotkin paid homage to “the Decembrists, who were the first to unfurl the banner of republican rule and the abolition of serfdom.” Unfortunately, revolutionaries after the Decembrists tended to be socialists and anarchists who embraced the blood-stained logic of Pavel Pestel. But the Decembrists cannot be blamed for this trend.
The legacy of the Decembrists remains as important today as it ever was. Modern Russia, though liberated from communism, is an authoritarian country in which collectivism is emphasized and political opposition is discouraged. The Russian government recognizes the danger of liberal ideas, and that the Decembrists could serve as a lightning rod for those ideas. Hence the renaming of Decembrists’ Square back to “Senate Square” in 2008. But the renaming of the square cannot expunge the Decembrist Revolt from history. The Decembrists illustrate that Russia, despite its long history of authoritarianism, has a native liberal tradition that holds within it the seeds of a freer society.
The Decembrists also teach a broader lesson. The revolt failed, above all, because Russia lacked a culture of open political discussion and of a clear notion of individual liberty based on natural-rights theory. Even among the aristocracy, these ideas were far from universally accepted. The Decembrists’ failure shows that countries that have developed under the influence of classical liberalism are truly blessed. The United Kingdom and the United States, to take two famous examples, have fallen away from classical liberalism. Their governments have become bloated and overbearing, and their populations, by and large, have become docile and socialist. Nevertheless, classical liberalism is built into the political institutions and into the political culture, which means that liberals are never without resources when protesting for freedom.
Other countries, such as Russia, lack this inheritance. Classical liberals based in old liberal strongholds, therefore, should fight all the harder for their inheritance. And classical liberals in other countries should seek to plant and nurture the seeds of liberal ideas within their own lands, in the hope that they may develop into traditions in time.
In retrospect, this is what the Decembrists should have done in Russia. Rather than launch armed rebellion without mass support, they should have worked to create a civic culture. Beginning among themselves at first, and then slowly radiating outward, they could have tried to create a culture of political openness, as well as a culture in which individual liberties were taken seriously. This strategy alone could have brought enduring, authentic cultural change. It would have been a challenging path to trudge. The tsarist regime would have hurled many agitators into prison. The Decembrists might have buckled under the pressure, just as they buckled on the battlefield. It is difficult to say for certain. But one thing is clear: two hundred years ago, the Decembrists wrote a new chapter in the history of liberalism in Russia. Their efforts should not be forgotten.
NOTES
1. Before the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, Russia used the Julian Calendar, which is slightly behind the Western Gregorian Calendar. All Russian dates before October 1917 are given according to the Julian Calendar.
2. There was a higher-ranking lieutenant commander present. But as a naval officer, he felt out of his element fighting on land, and so he declined to take charge. Mazour, Russian Revolution, 176.
Martin George Holmes is a historian with a PhD from the University of Otago, New Zealand. Send him mail.
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巴黎公社紀念文集錦 -- 列寧等
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以下各篇文章的簡介摘錄自《保衛馬克思主義》網誌。我在英文版《維基百科》上找到5部以介紹「巴黎公社」為主題影片的「超連結」。我自己沒有觀賞過它們；有興趣的朋友可以先看「介紹」，再決定要不要看「影片」。《維基百科》上的「外部連結」條目下附有該影片IMDb「超連結」。
1. 1871 (film)
2. La Commune (Paris, 1871)
3. Dawn of Paris
4. Jarosław Dąbrowski (film)
5. The New Babylon
Paris Commune
In Defence of Marxism (日期不詳)
The Paris Commune is one of the most inspiring episodes in the entire history of the working class. In just a few weeks in 1871, surrounded by enemies, the working men and women of Paris demonstrated with brilliance that it is possible for the workers to run society democratically, without capitalists, bankers or even a standing army.
For the first time, albeit confined to a single city, we see the proletariat consciously organised as the ruling class. As Marx put it, the Communards “stormed heaven”. And to this day, the experience of the Commune contains essential lessons for Marxists as well as inspiration.
In the place of the old rotten state, with its corrupt parliament and bloated bureaucracy, the Parisian workers elected their own representatives by universal (male) suffrage. These members of the Commune, like all its officials, received no more than a workman’s wage. Those who failed to carry out their responsibilities to the workers’ satisfaction could be recalled at any time. Compare this to the ridiculous fraud of our so-called “democracy” today!
As in all great revolutions, women played a leading role in the Commune from start to finish. At the birth of the Commune on 18 March, it was the working women of Montmartre who disarmed the reactionary generals by fraternising with the troops. And in the Commune’s dying hours, women could be seen at every barricade, arms in hand, fighting for their class.
Isolated and overpowered, the Commune was defeated, and drowned in blood. But the spirit of the Commune lives on. It was to the Commune that the Bolsheviks looked when they led the workers to power in 1917, and it still provides a model for workers’ power today. What the workers of Paris began, we must complete the world over. Vive la Commune!
[Video] The Paris Commune at 150: working-class heroism and lessons for today
In Defence of Marxism, 04/26/21
For two months between March and May 1871 the armed workers of Paris, surrounded by enemies on all sides, took their destiny into their own hands and demonstrated that it is possible for the workers to run society democratically, without capitalists, bankers or even a standing army. Jules Legendre, from Révolution (the French section of the International Marxist Tendency) spoke at an event to mark the 150th anniversary of the Commune, and launch Wellred Books' reprint of Marx's The Civil War In France (available here).
The Paris Commune: triumph, tragedy and lessons for today
Josh Holroyd, 03/18/21
The following is an introduction to Wellred Books’ new republication of The Civil War in France by Karl Marx. This excellent overview explains the main events and political processes of this inspirational watershed in the history of working-class struggle. The Communards' heroic, triumphant, but ultimately tragic efforts to build the first workers' government are filled with lessons for revolutionaries today.
The Paris Commune (1871)
Révolution, 03/13/21
This translation of an article originally published by Révolution (the French section of the IMT), provides an overview of the Paris Commune: its heroic rise, its tragic fall, and its lessons for revolutionaries today.
Women in the Paris Commune
Carolyn Kemp, 03/08/21
“We have come to the supreme moment, when we must be able to die for our Nation. No more weakness! No more uncertainty! All women to arms! All women to duty! Versailles must be wiped out!” These were the words of Nathalie Lemel, participant in the Paris Commune of 1871, and member of the Union des Femmes pour la Defense de Paris et les Soins aux Blesses (The Union of Women for the Defense of Paris and Aid to the Wounded).
[Audio] Hubert Prévaud on the Paris Commune
Hubert Prévaud, 09/26/11
Hubert Prévaud, speaks on the Paris Commune at the recent World School of the IMT.
140th anniversary of the Paris Commune
Greg Oxley, 05/27/11
The Paris Commune of 1871 was one of the greatest and most inspiring episodes in the history of the working class. In a tremendous revolutionary movement, the working people of Paris replaced the capitalist state with their own organs of government and held political power until their downfall in the last week of May. The Parisian workers strove, in extremely difficult circumstances, to put an end to exploitation and oppression, and to reorganise society on an entirely new foundation. The lessons of these events are of fundamental importance for socialists today. We publish this article ahead of the 140th anniversary of the Commune's suppression, tomorrow, 28 May.
[Audio] The Paris Commune of 1871
Greg Oxley, 03/26/09
Speaking on the 1871 Paris Commune at the IMT Winter School in Berlin, Greg Oxley explained: "The history of the Paris Commune is not just history, but it is our history. It is really the beginning of the conscious struggle for socialism. The Paris Commune was the first time the working class rose up, took power, held on to power for ten weeks before it was brutally crushed in the last week of May 1871."
The Paris Commune of 1871
Greg Oxley, 05/16/01
The Paris Commune of 1871 was one of the greatest and most inspiring episodes in the history of the working class. In a tremendous revolutionary movement, the working people of Paris replaced the capitalist state with their own organs of government and held political power until their downfall in the last week of May. The Parisian workers strove, in extremely difficult circumstances, to put an end to exploitation and oppression, and to reorganise society on an entirely new foundation. 130 years later the lessons of these events are of fundamental importance for socialists today.
Albania, the Paris Commune, and the February Revolution
Alan Woods, 01/24/06
This article, written by Alan Woods just before the June elections, reviews the election campaign and the several incidents which happened during this, an interview with the leader of the Vlora Committee, Shyti, and draws the lessons for the Albanian revolution from previous revolutionary movements which only went half way.
Lessons of the Paris Commune
Leon Trotsky, 02/04/1921
Today marks the anniversary of the beginning of the Paris Commune, where the working class for the first time in history, took power into its own hands. On this occasion we republish the following classic work by Leon Trotsky about the lessons of the Commune.
Lessons of the Commune
V.I. Lenin, 03/18/1908
On the anniversary of the Paris Commune we republish an article written by Lenin in 1908.
History of the Paris Commune of 1871
Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, 03/18/21
This book is an excellent history of the Paris Commune. Its author Lissagaray was a direct participant and fought for the Commune on the barricades. He collected testimonies from the survivors in exile in London, Switzerland and consulted all documents available at the time to ensure accuracy. He was assisted by Karl Marx in the writing of this classic, which was translated to English by Eleanor Marx.
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馬克思和巴黎公社-Katherine Connelly
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從本欄第二篇貼文我們知道巴黎公社的結果相當慘烈。我對這個歷史事件沒有研究，無從判斷它對馬克思本人思想，以及之後左翼人士鬥爭策略兩者的影響有多深遠。馬克思在世時間為1818 – 1883；大家由此可以了解「歐洲革命潮」(1848)和「巴黎公社」(1971)兩件大事跟他生涯的時間關係。
我不知道自己有沒有時間或能力就康莉講師這篇大作寫個讀後(1)；為了日後指示方便起見，我替原文的子標題加上序號，並增加了「前言」這個子標題。
下文討論了馬克思《法國內戰》；該書簡介請見此處。
附註：
1. 為了統一對人名的翻譯，自2024/01前後(或更早)到今年年初，我都使用【發音指南】上的美式發音來音譯外國人的大名。直到今年年初(或稍早)，我偶然間發現該【指南】提供的發音未必標準。今後我將參考2 -3個提供發音方式的網站來決定人名的音譯。英國人將根據英式發音，其他外國人一律使用美式發音。例如：依據美式發音，下文作者康莉講師大名需譯為：康奈莉或康娜莉。
Karl Marx and the Paris Commune
Katherine Connelly, 03/17/21
Editor’s Notes：Marx’s analysis of the Paris Commune is a brilliant example of the interaction between revolutionary theory and practice, argues Katherine Connelly.
0. 前言
The Paris Commune made Karl Marx famous. After workers in Paris seized control of their city in March 1871 and were butchered by French troops only two months later, the press looked for a dangerous communist to blame.
They found him in Marx, a German exile from the 1848 revolutions who had found refuge in London. There were rumours that the International Working Men’s Association (IWMA) that Marx founded had given secret commands to the workers of Paris. Journalists were soon calling at Marx’s home.
After living for years in obscurity, Marx rather enjoyed the notoriety – at least his ideas were getting heard.
While respectable opinion held that the Communards were uncivilized thieves and murderers, Marx boldly defended them – they had provided a glimpse of what he had hoped to see for most of his adult life: the working class in power. After their defeat, Marx helped the revolutionary refugees who fled to London, even trying to placate their angry landladies when they were unable to pay their rent.[1]
But Marx refuted all claims that he, or the IWMA, were secretly behind the Commune. Marx had spent years arguing against those he called ‘utopian socialists’ who thought that their role was to tell everyone how to organise society after a revolution, and he also argued against conspirators who thought their role was to secretly plan the revolution.
In the revolutionary year of 1848, Marx and his lifelong collaborator Friedrich Engels argued in their Manifesto of the Communist Party (now famous as the Communist Manifesto), that capitalism itself, not a gang of revolutionaries, would generate social revolution.
1. The role of revolutionaries
What, then, did Marx think revolutionaries should do? According to the Manifesto, communists
‘are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.’
These two aspects of a revolutionary’s role are integrally linked. The theoretical understanding that ‘the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves’ (as Marx put it in the first rule of the IWMA) informed practical efforts aimed at all times at strengthening working-class organisation and advancing working-class interests against capitalist interests.
Therefore, what a revolutionary like Marx did depended on an assessment of the context. In autocratic Prussia, Marx had campaigned for freedom of the press; in Britain he supported the most militant Chartists; in 1848 he was one of the leading revolutionaries pressing for democratic reforms. In exile in the 1860s, he formed the IWMA so that workers on strike could strengthen their action through international networks of support.
In 1871 the context looked bleak for the Parisian working class.
The year before, the French Emperor Napoleon III had been goaded into the Franco-Prussian war only to be captured on the battlefield. A Republic was declared in Paris which soon found itself under siege by the invading Prussian army. Working-class Parisians defiantly held out, enduring widespread privation and starvation, only for the French government to surrender.
In these circumstances, Marx argued that ‘any attempt to upset the new [French] government . . . would be a desperate folly’.[2]
Then, on 18 March 1871, the new French government tried to disarm militant, working-class Paris by sending troops to seize cannons on Montmartre. They were confronted by an angry group of working women. Ordered to fire, the troops instead turned their guns on their officers.
The government and wealthy Parisians swiftly fled the city in fear. Working-class Parisians instantly began to run the city themselves – declaring a Paris Commune.
2. Taking sides
Although up to this point he had cautioned against it, now that the French government had been ‘upset’ Marx recognised that the context he was operating in had changed.
In the abstract, declaring a Paris Commune at such a moment was a terrible idea. But now that it had happened, to maintain this stance and wait for the Commune’s failure to confirm his prediction would have flattered an intellectual commentator but have been a sectarian betrayal by a revolutionary.
The fact of the Commune posed the question ‘which side are you on?’ and Marx was in no doubt of his answer.
There were many different socialist, republican and anarchist ideas in play in the Commune, but Marx uncompromisingly identified it with the IWMA: ‘it is but natural that members of our Association should stand in the foreground’.
Sometimes this claim is derided as Marx exaggerating his influence, but Marx wrote this just after the Communards had been slaughtered in their thousands. In that context, Marx’s statement was principled and brave.
It has become fashionable for Marx’s detractors to scoff that he was a slow writer: he ‘only’ published the first volume of Capital.
What this caricature overlooks is that in revolutionary situations, when the lives of insurgents were at stake and the situation demanded quick, strategic analysis then Marx rose to the task, writing speedily, decisively and brilliantly. As Engels said in his oration, Marx was ‘before all else a revolutionist’.
After the outbreak of the Commune, Marx corresponded with some of its leading figures who sought his advice and, as he told them, he put tremendous effort into mobilising international support for the Commune: ‘I have written several hundred letters on behalf of your cause to every corner of the world in which we have [IWMA] branches’. In addition to all this, Marx wrote the IWMA’s analysis of events, The Civil War in France, completed only days after the Commune was crushed.
3. Revolutionary analysis
Marx’s analysis did not start from what he thought ought to have happened – which would have been of little use to anyone – instead, he proceeded from what had happened in struggle and what lessons could be learnt from it. This was useful: Lenin was reading The Civil War in France in 1917.
Lenin noted that Marx’s analysis of class struggle provided the only ‘correction’ he made to the Communist Manifesto: that ‘the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.’
The state appears, Marx wrote, to be ‘soaring high above society’ but this is an illusion. In fact it operates in the interest of the dominant class in society.
While capitalist societies can operate with very different kinds of state – for example, France between 1851-1870 had an imperial dictatorship, Britain today has a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy – what they have in common is that economic questions, which determine the very nature of our existence and the power-relations in society, are placed beyond democratic control. Challenge that, and the state intervenes.
Therefore, the task of achieving working-class emancipation has to go beyond putting the ‘right’ people into a ‘ready-made state machinery’ that is designed to oppress the working class. Instead, an insurgent working class must do away with that machinery and seize power.
This was the lesson of the Commune in which the seizure of the city was accomplished by making all representatives in positions of power (in the military, legislature and executive) responsible to people, who could recall and replace them. As Marx observed, working-class revolution necessitated genuine democratic exercise of power that revealed the inferiority of parliamentary democracy:
‘Instead of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people.’
When one of those journalists seeking the evil genius behind the Commune asked Marx what his IWMA strove towards, he replied: ‘The economical emancipation of the working class by the conquest of political power. The use of that political power to the attainment of social ends.’
The democratic conquest of political power in the Commune produced huge social changes that Marx celebrated as ‘the glorious harbinger of a new society’.
The Church was separated from the state revolutionising among other things the nature of education.
Women’s lives were transformed as the Commune refused to distinguish between children born inside or outside of marriage.
Nightwork was abolished for bakers.
There was a flowering of cultural expression.
The Commune made important internationalist statements: electing foreigners to its government and tearing down the Vendôme Column that celebrated France’s military victories.
Instead of creating an armed body to use against the people, the people themselves were armed.
The Commune’s representatives were paid workers’ wages (compare this with MPs today who are paid over two and a half times more than the average wage).
And all this was achieved in a city fighting for its survival, under siege, in just 72 days – by people regarded as the scum of the earth by every government in Europe.
The Paris Commune provided the briefest glimpse of what a society run by working-class people might look like. It also demonstrated how savagely a threatened ruling elite would reimpose its authority.
In his response to the Paris Commune, Marx sided resolutely with those who had lost and analysed it closely and critically so that the emancipatory promise of the Commune might one day be realised.
References：
[1] David McLellan, Karl Marx: A Biography (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p.374.
[2] Quoted in ibid, p.365.
Katherine Connelly is a writer and historian. She led school student strikes in the British anti-war movement in 2003, co-ordinated the Emily Wilding Davison Memorial Campaign in 2013 and is a leading member of Counterfire. She wrote the acclaimed biography, 'Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire' and recently edited and introduced 'A Suffragette in America: Reflections on Prisoners, Pickets and Political Change'.
Katherine Connelly will be speaking at Counterfire’s event commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune on 21 March. Register here: tinyurl.com/ParisCommune150
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巴黎公社：血腥的一週 ------ Danny Bird
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馬克思主義者，或一般而言，各類左派人士，對「巴黎公社」大概都不陌生。這篇呈現巴黎公社最後一星期的「簡史」，彰顯了馬克思那個時代「階級鬥爭」的邪惡性質和慘烈程度。足資警惕；也讓我們感受到馬克思主義何以歷久不衰，至今仍被很多有志士仁人奉為圭臬的原因。
這篇文章作者的「史感」很強；文中借古諷今的幾個地方都很到位。值得欣賞；前事不忘，後事之師，良有以也
下文提及第一國際和《國際歌》，兩者請參見拙作《關於「共產國際」》。
The Paris Commune’s Bloody Week
In May 1871, a short-lived Parisian revolution in social relations was brutally suppressed. What is the legacy of the Paris Commune?
Danny Bird, 05/25/21
Destruction of the Vendôme Colonne during the Paris Commune, by Auguste Bruno Braquehais, 1871. Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris. Public Domain. 請至原網頁觀看照片
In hiding and soon to be sentenced to death in absentia, Eugène Pottier completed a poem In June 1871 that still serves as the rallying cry for the Left worldwide: L’Internationale. Its themes of solidarity and universalism would enshrine the ambitions of the Paris Commune, a brief and extraordinary social experiment that unfolded during the spring of 1871 in what was then Europe’s second-largest city. However, between 21 and 28 May, central Paris was incinerated and approximately 25,000 people massacred when French soldiers annihilated the Commune, an atrocity remembered as the ‘Bloody Week’.
The Commune’s origins lay in France’s humiliation during the Franco-Prussian War. In September 1870 Napoleon III’s Second Empire gave way to the French Third Republic, which resolved to continue fighting. Paris was besieged by Prussia and privation soon ravaged the city’s poorest districts. In January 1871 France signed an armistice with the new, Prussian-dominated German Empire. The National Assembly held elections the following month and appointed Adolphe Thiers to lead the incoming government.
A steely political navigator of France’s tumultuous 19th century, Thiers was soon rubbing salt into Parisian wounds. The wartime moratorium on debt repayments was rescinded, now requiring repayment within 48 hours, while landlords could seek arrears. This was devastating to working-class Parisians, whose industry and commerce had stalled during the war.
The National Guard (the fédérés), a militia that had expanded significantly during the siege and whose officers were elected in working-class districts such as Belleville, now posed a direct threat to bourgeois order. The aristocratic officer corps of the professional army considered them a dangerous rabble, particularly as the fédérés were determined to keep their cannons in areas like Montmartre.
Barricade on the Rue de Flandre, unknown photographer, 18 March 1871. Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris. Public Domain. 請至原網頁觀看照片
Matters came to a head on 18 March when the army attempted to confiscate them. Confronted by fédérés and local residents, many professional soldiers defected, while generals Jacques Léon Clément-Thomas and Claude Lecomte were seized and summarily executed. As barricades went up across Paris, Thiers gave orders for the National Assembly and army to abandon the capital for Versailles. In their wake, fédérés occupied key buildings in the central arrondissements. The next day a red flag flew over the Hôtel de Ville.
On 26 March, elections established a new authority: the Paris Commune. Mandated to affirm the city’s autonomy, its delegates were comprised of Jacobins, devotees to the French Revolution’s most fanatical faction; Blanquists, followers of the veteran socialist, Auguste Blanqui; and members of Karl Marx’s International Workingmen’s Association. Massing outside Paris, Thiers’s forces – the Versaillais – pointed to a foreign conspiracy.
For soldiers like Louis Rossel, however, disgusted at the armistice with Germany, the Commune offered a lifeline. He notified the Minister of War: ‘I do not hesitate to join the side which has not concluded peace, and which does not include in its ranks generals guilty of capitulation.’ In Versailles, mocked since the surrender as defeatists and also blamed for the cannons fiasco, the likes of General Joseph Vinoy spoiled for a reckoning.
While the Commune set about abolishing night work in bakeries and granting pensions to unmarried widows and children, the Versaillais plotted the reconquest of Paris. Troops were saturated with propaganda that depicted a city usurped by the dregs of society, ex-convicts, drunks and foreigners. Soldiers suspected of sympathy were deployed elsewhere in France. Newspapers such as Le Soir informed readers that property recaptured from the Communards would require ‘fumigation’.
'Les hommes de la Commune', published in L'Illustration, 15 July 1871, by Jules Robert. Raoul Rigault is positioned bottom left. Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris. Public Domain. 請至原網頁觀看照片
In April, following the murder of its military commanders by Versaillais troops, the Commune adopted a Decree on Hostages. For every Communard killed, three hostages would be executed in retaliation. Raoul Rigault, the Commune’s chief of police, began abducting clerics, including the Archbishop of Paris, Georges Darboy. The Communards sought an exchange for Blanqui but Thiers refused, estimating that it would be equivalent to handing over a battalion. Instead, the Versaillais launched missiles on the affluent western arrondissements, pulverising their own side’s houses.
On 16 May the Commune toppled the Vendôme Column, a monument sculpted of melted Austrian and Russian cannons, crowned with a statue of Napoleon Bonaparte in the style of a Roman emperor. Its jingoistic symbolism was an affront to their internationalist values, while its demolition provoked outrage among the Versaillais. General MacMahon conjured its iconoclasm to rouse bloodlust in his troops: ‘Some so-called Frenchmen had the nerve, under the eyes of the Prussians, to destroy this witness to the victories of your fathers over the European coalition.’
On 21 May the Versaillais breached Paris’ defences and swept towards the Arc de Triomphe. The slaughter was already underway as Thiers crowed: ‘The punishment will be exemplary, but it will take place within the law.’ In the western districts, a journalist for Le Gaulois happened upon 30 bodies next to a ditch: they were fédérés strafed by the Versaillais with a mitrailleuse – a rapid-firing weapon similar to a Gatling gun. The Bloody Week had begun.
Barricades at the Place de la Concorde were soon overwhelmed. Bourgeois citizens in the prosperous districts cheered on the carnage as Versaillais troops rained down bullets from upper-storey windows. To impede the enemy’s advance, the Commune ordered that strategic buildings be torched.
Barricade on the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, unknown photographer, 18 March 1871. Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris. Public Domain. 請至原網頁觀看照片
Anti-Communards saw this as proof that the Commune was capable only of destruction. Yet there is strong evidence that Versaillais missiles were the primary cause of the inferno that would leave Paris in ruins. Nevertheless, Communards did incinerate landmarks such as the Tuileries Palace, reviled as a symbol of the Second Empire, and the Hôtel de Ville, as they retreated to the eastern arrondissements. From his bedroom in the Marais, the English merchant Edwin Child recorded that by 24 May ‘it seemed literally as if the whole town was on fire’.
Suddenly, rumours of female arsonists – pétroleuses – firebombing buildings became rife. Women caught carrying bottles, even chimneysweeps with blackened hands, were shot on the spot by the Versaillais. Killing was conducted in the open, with as many as 3,000 men and women dispatched in the Jardin du Luxembourg between 24 and 28 May. Children, too, fell victim to the bloodbath. Medical personnel who tended to the wounded or dying were, as The Times reported, suspected of ‘sympathising with them and thus meriting the same fate’.
Many generals involved in the massacre had earned their stripes crushing indigenous rebellions in French colonies. The Versaillais was a highly disciplined force and the piles of corpses left strewn throughout Paris that week attests to a ruthless mentality that perceived anyone who challenged the ideals of the French state as alien and incorrigible.
Finally, after a rash decision to execute Archbishop Darboy and other hostages, the Commune made its last stand among the tombs of Père-Lachaise Cemetery. On 28 May Vinoy lined 147 fédérés up against its eastern wall and mowed them down. In Montmartre, Eugène Varlin, one of the Commune’s brightest leaders was beaten so savagely that his eyeball was left dangling from its socket before he was killed in the same location as the two generals on 18 March. According to the Journal des débats, the army had at last ‘avenged its incalculable disasters by a victory’.
Around 35-40,000 prisoners were marched on foot to Versailles. Upon reviewing one convoy, General Galliffet had all grey-haired men executed, suspected of having participated in the 1848 Revolution. Bourgeois women lining the route struck prisoners with their umbrellas. Crammed into filthy, open-air prison camps, disease and exposure claimed many lives. In the years that followed, survivors would face firing squads, destitution and banishment to remote penal colonies.
Blessing ceremony of the foundation stone of the Sacré-Coeur church, by Louis-Josée-Amédée Daudenarde, 1907. Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris. Public Domain. 請至原網頁觀看照片
Subsequently, the Third Republic consolidated its grip on France’s national memory. School textbooks highlighted Darboy’s death while trivialising the slaughter of tens of thousands of Parisians and precluded any mention of the military’s eliminationist policy. Within years, a Catholic basilica, the Sacré-Cœur, soared over Montmartre in expiation for the Commune’s ‘sins’. The basilica was financed by the National Assembly, even as it fought against efforts to have ‘Member of the Commune’ inscribed on Communards’ tombstones.
The recent iconoclasm of national idols throughout some parts of the world has prompted fierce debate about the ‘cancelling’ of history, triggering prophylactic jeering among conservative commentators, as it did in 1871. It bears emphasising that the Communards’ plan to tear down contested monuments was no less political than their construction in the first place. According to the Communard Antoine Demay, when Thiers’s mansion was razed in May 1871 the Commune was keen to preserve his many books and artefacts, in order to ‘conserve the intelligence of the past for the edification of the future’, which rather debunks the barbarian caricature pushed by the Versaillais.
In the spring of 2021, two letters addressed to the French government and anonymously written by members of the military warned darkly of national disintegration and civil war because of anti-racist activism and Islamic extremism. In an image that evokes the radical reputation of working-class districts such as Belleville during 1871, the first letter spoke of ‘hordes from the banlieue’ threatening ‘our civilisational values’. The second referenced La Marseillaise, specifically the French national anthem’s seventh verse about avenging the military’s elders. The events of the Paris Commune and the Bloody Week still cast a long shadow over France.
Danny Bird is a writer based in Bristol, UK. A graduate of UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, he has a special interest in modern European history.
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