One-Way Show: Reconstructing the National Political System from the Perspective of Society
Writing the history of socialism cannot avoid a major historical transformation—the Paris Commune of 1871. The Commune regime, which existed for a brief seventy-two days, not only left a precious political legacy for the global socialist movement but also provided invaluable historical experience for the development of Marxist theory. Marx and his theoretical followers viewed the events of the Commune from the level of the state. The International Workingmen's Association (the First International), represented by Marx, gave the Paris Commune high praise, calling it the "glorious harbinger of a new society." In Marx's view, the Commune was the explicit form of a "social republic" meant to supersede class rule; it was the social organism's reabsorption of state power. From the decrees and actions of the Commune, he distilled a "communal system." This was further interpreted by Engels: the Paris Commune was not a "state in the proper sense of the word" but rather the "dictatorship of the proletariat," thereby laying the theoretical foundation for the subsequent practice of the "commune-state." Through the continued elaboration of Engels and later Lenin, the Paris Commune came to be regarded as the embryonic form of socialist state power. With the spread of Marxism, the idea that the Commune gave birth to a new type of state has become a classic thesis regarding the Paris Commune.
However, as the antithesis to the Marxist narrative of the Commune, an image of a "non-state" Commune has persisted. Three representative perspectives include: the view of it as a local rebellion splitting the state; the view of it as municipal autonomy beneath the state; and the anarchist view of it as an anti-state movement. The first perspective originated from the collusion of the "Party of Order" in the Versailles camp; for example, in its Parliamentary Inquiry into the Insurrection of March 18, the Versailles government referred to the Commune events as a "terrible insurrection" aimed at subverting order. The second view was the common perception of the "Republicans" who sought reconciliation during the Civil War in France; for instance, the Republican League for the Rights of Paris, acting as a mediator, advocated for communal autonomy on the premise of national unity, viewing the Paris Commune as an expression of municipal liberty. The third view came from anarchists following Bakunin, who demanded the total abolition of all forms of the state and declared that the Paris Commune was "a bold and clearly formulated negation of the State." It is evident that, outside of Marx’s thesis, the Paris Commune has been characterized by various "non-state" images.
The dispute between the "state" and "non-state" interpretations demonstrates that the image of the Paris Commune is pluralistic. On the centenary of the Commune revolution, French academia engaged in heated debate on this topic. Jean Bruhat discussed the diverse interpretations of the Commune by both the Versailles government and Commune supporters. He argued that the Commune was a complex event; upon closer examination, one finds diverse and even contradictory components. The fragmentation, rejection, or neglect of the event were necessary conditions for the creation of its legends. Michel Winock argued that the Commune was viewed through multiple lenses, described by multiple narratives, and utilized in various ways; besides the parties who participated in or witnessed the revolution, subsequent communists, liberals, the Old Left and New Left, Catholics, and the Right also selectively borrowed from the Commune. Georges Haupt emphasized that the Paris Commune was both a symbol and a paradigm that has taken root in collective memory. The extensions of the Commune's theory, thought, and spirit constitute the "second part" of its own history. Explaining the Commune requires that the production of legends not be limited to the ideological sphere, but rather delve into the collective mentality of radical groups. Such analyses from the perspective of cultural symbols are intended to show that the historical facts and the discourse of the Commune cannot be observed in isolation, but they simultaneously push the image of the Paris Commune into the arena of contention.
How can we return to the investigation of facts and re-examine this dispute over images? Historical reconstruction based on the perceptions of the Communards provides a feasible path. Compared to the suppressors, mediators, and onlookers, the Communards were not only participants in the Commune events but also the creators of the Commune cause; they were the subjects of the Commune, and their collective consciousness and joint actions can be seen as the self-presentation of the Commune. Considering the extremely large volume of documents left by the Communards, this article selects only the highly authoritative official gazettes and meeting records of the Commune as the primary first-hand sources of citation. These two texts centrally record the numerous statements and various activities of the Communards during the period. Furthermore, this article cites the memoirs of Communards written after the failure of the Commune as supplementary material to explore whether the Communards' views on the Paris Commune underwent any shifts. Relying on these historical documents, this article attempts to reconstruct the appearance of the Commune in the eyes of the Communards, aiming to resolve the "state vs. non-state" dispute regarding the Commune’s image from a subject-centered perspective, and thereby reveal the profound concepts contained within the Paris Commune.
I. Transcending the Municipal: Laying the Foundation for the "Republic"
The term "Commune" [1] held multiple meanings for the Parisian populace in 1871. The medieval urban communes of French history, the Paris Commune of 1792, and the utopian experimental communes of the mid-19th century provided different examples for their understanding of the term. To view the 1871 Commune simply as a pursuit of local autonomy is a misunderstanding. While "Commune" inherently implies autonomy, the Paris Commune did not stop at this demand. The Communards' ideal of laying a foundation for the Republic transcended municipal autonomy; they sought to establish a social republic starting from the Commune.
(1) Discussing the Commune at the State Level
The "insurgents" (insurgés) of 1871 discussed the Commune at the state level. Perusing the many newspapers and periodicals published in Paris during the Commune, one frequently encounters two words: "Commune" and "Republic" (République). These words are striking because they often appear capitalized and are frequently placed at the end of articles in the form of slogans like "Vive la...!" (Long live...!). This special notation of "Commune" and "Republic" indicates that these terms held a particular significance, and their linked usage conveyed that "Commune" was synonymous with "Republic." The official press of the Paris Commune retained the name of the original Journal Officiel de la République Française, which contained the word "Republic," indicating indirectly that the Commune did not view itself simply as a local regime. After the March 18 uprising, the first announcements issued by the Central Committee of the National Guard in this publication mentioned the "Republic" several times in a posture of praise, welcome, and defense. Shortly after the establishment of the Commune, an article in the gazette discussed the form of the Republic desired by the people of Paris, declaring: "The Republic is the Commune." Clearly, the Communards discussed this revolution at the state level, rather than limiting it to urban autonomy.
The statements of the Communards confirm the conviction that the Commune sought to lay a foundation for the state. in the publicity for organizing Commune elections, notices released by the Communards declared: Paris enjoys the right to autonomy; the central government is responsible for national affairs; and the realization of autonomy in the capital, Paris, is a necessary condition for the establishment of the French Republic. Another election poster pointed out that the people of Paris had achieved full sovereignty, and the people should establish a Commune for their own city through elections to guarantee their rights, thereby setting an example for other cities in the Republic. According to this shared vision, the Paris Commune was not in opposition to the central administrative apparatus; it would serve as an exemplar for the Republic while simultaneously upholding the rights of both Paris and the nation. At the inauguration ceremony of the Commune members, the Communard Charles Beslay declared: "The liberation of the Paris Commune is the liberation of all communes of the Republic." In this Republic composed of a federation of communes, every group would obtain full independence and freedom of action.
The Declaration to the French People, serving as the Commune's political program, also announced that the Commune aimed to consolidate the Republic. The program expressed the purpose of Paris as "recognizing and consolidating the Republic," interpreting the Republic as "the only form of government which can ensure the people their rights and the free and healthy development of society." It proclaimed the absolute autonomy of Paris within its municipal scope, while hoping that this autonomy could be extended to the entire country, with each commune voluntarily federating into a unified republic on the basis of equality. Ordinary people within the Commune also expressed this republican vision. Désiré Florentin Lapie, a member of the National Guard, believed that what the Parisians wanted to establish was "an indivisible Republic." This Republic would implement the separation of church and state without hindering freedom of conscience, provide free and compulsory secular education for secular schools, abolish the standing army, and establish the National Guard. Lapie's description of the Republic was basically consistent with the republican ideal depicted in the Commune's gazette, confirming from another perspective the prevalence of the idea that "the Commune is the Republic" at that time.
Unlike bourgeois republics, the "Republic" sought by the Communards was preceded by multiple modifiers. In the periodicals of the time, the terms used for "Republic" were diverse. Frequently appearing expressions included: "the true Republic," "the democratic, unified, and indivisible Republic," "the democratic, social, and unified Republic," "the Universal Republic," "the democratic social Republic," "the unified and indivisible, democratic and social Republic," "the Social Democratic Republic," "the Republic of Laborers," "the Communal Republic," "the democratic, social, and universal Republic," and "the Universal Social Republic." Aside from the expression "unified and indivisible" (intended to maintain sovereign integrity), the other adjectives adorning "Republic"—"democratic," "social," "universal," and so on—directly conveyed the Commune's quest to establish a republic belonging to the people. The vast array of terms for "Republic" indicates that establishing and consolidating the Republic was the basic consensus of the Commune revolution. For ease of expression, the term "social republic" is used here to denote the Commune's republican vision.
(2) The Social Dimension of the Commune
The appearance of "social republic" as a slogan can be traced back to 1848. After the July Monarchy [2] was overthrown, various classes in France endowed the newly established republic with different content: the bourgeois republicans advocated for a "bourgeois republic," the petty-bourgeois democrats proposed a "democratic republic," and the proletariat demanded a "social republic." There were two understandings of the "social republic": the first did not touch upon the transformation of ownership but resorted to the organization of labor and the guarantee of the right to work to respond to social problems; the second sought to change the private ownership of the means of production into public ownership, realizing the proletariat's seizure of power through revolution. In 1848, the Parisian workers' perception of the "social republic" still fell within the scope of a bourgeois democratic republic, primarily used to solve workers' livelihood issues rather than the issue of building a regime. The Republic sought by the Paris Commune in 1871 added new meanings on this basis, and its "social" dimension was reflected in the decrees and actions of the Communards. Specifically, this can be divided into three aspects:
First, the secular dimension of removing religion. This secular dimension was primarily manifested in the clearing away of ecclesiastical influence. The decree on the separation of church and state signaled the Communards' overall attitude toward religion. The decree maintained that liberty is the first principle of the Republic and that freedom of conscience is the most important of all liberties; the religious budget, which taxed citizens for their beliefs, was contrary to this. Therefore, the Commune decided to implement the separation of the church from the state, abolish the religious budget, and nationalize religious property. Secularized educational reform was another measure to eliminate church influence. Led by Edouard Vaillant, the Commune's representative for education, the Education Commission sought to remove church interference from schools and establish a secular education system. Their educational reform document, Proposal of the New Education Society, pointed out that the Commune was creating a "republican education"—that is, adopting experimental or scientific teaching methods and implementing universal, free, and compulsory secular education. Based on this model, Vaillant signed an educational decree requiring Parisian schools to remove religious education: "In many schools, religious education still exists in the form of crucifixes, statues of the Virgin, and other symbols. Teachers must ensure these objects disappear, as their presence violates freedom of soul. Such objects made of precious metals will be inventoried and sent to the Mint." In addition, the Commune issued other religion-related decrees, such as the demolition of the Chapel of Atonement (dedicated to General Bréa) and renaming it the Place de Juin, and the abolition of political and professional oaths.
Second, a democratic orientation opposing autocracy. While the Commune set about destroying the tools and symbols of autocratic rule, it simultaneously attempted to strengthen the construction of democratic institutions based on universal suffrage. The Commune not only abolished the standing army and the police—the material power of the Empire—replacing them with the National Guard and the Commune's own administrative apparatus, but also dismantled the Vendôme Column, a symbol of the Empire, thereby effecting a comprehensive removal of the autocratic system and its culture. The populace under the Commune's administration also acted spontaneously, burning the guillotine. Regarding the construction of democratic systems, the Commune implemented universal suffrage, with members of the Commune Council elected by the people of the various districts of Paris, ensuring they were representatives who came from the people and were familiar with them. To those elected as Commune members, the Commune granted the people the rights of supervision and recall, allowing for the immediate replacement of incompetent public officials to prevent them from degenerating from "servants of the people" into "masters of the people." The Commune also capped the maximum salary for public officials, ensuring their wages did not exceed the annual pay of an ordinary Parisian worker, thereby truly realizing "cheap government." Furthermore, the democracy of the Commune was manifested in the participation of mass organizations in public affairs; a vast number of diverse and broad-reaching mass organizations were active in the Hôtel de Ville, district governments, streets, squares, and public meeting halls. Most Commune members themselves came from these mass organizations and, after taking office, frequently returned to their neighborhoods to attend assemblies. Every member participated in one or more such organizations; they brought the opinions of the mass organizations into the Commune Council while transmitting the resolutions and decrees from the City Hall back to the neighborhoods. The whole of Paris operated dynamically within this complex social network.
Third, an egalitarian orientation toward the restraint of capital. The Commune's restraint of capital was centrally reflected in its economic decrees, which covered various issues such as rent, pawnbroking, the disposal of workshops abandoned by employers, payment deadlines, the requisitioning of housing, night shifts in bakeries, and the price of bread. These decrees prohibited arbitrary fines and excessive exploitation of workers by employers, while also encouraging laborers to freely associate for production under the public ownership of the means of production. Simultaneously, they resolved the debt problems of the Parisian middle class to a certain extent, avoiding the creation of a massive gap between the rich and the poor between employers and workers, within the working class itself, and between the working class and the middle class. The collective action of workers across various trades expressed this egalitarian orientation even more clearly. For instance, a notice from the union of stone polishers and cutters emphasized that workers are the ones who create wealth, and that workers must unite to stop the insatiable greed of those who are idle and the bosses who exploit workers in distress. A statement of principles conveyed to the Commune by a meeting of the mechanics' union and the metalworkers' association declared that "equality" under the Commune was not an empty word, but aimed at "economic liberation," which could "only be achieved by uniting all laborers." The workers demanded the "abolition of the exploitation of man by man, the last form of slavery," and the "organization of labor through cooperative methods of shared responsibility, relying on collective and inalienable capital." The Federation of the Paris Sections of the International Workingmen's Association also proclaimed in its notices that Paris had won the liberation of the workers, and to ensure this liberation was guaranteed, the workers demanded: "the organization of credit, exchange, and cooperation to ensure that workers can obtain the full value of their labor." Judging from the proclamations of various workers' associations, the collective formation of trade associations to achieve economic liberation was a major demand during the Commune period.
From these three dimensions, the Paris Commune was the realization of the Social Republic. As Marx once commented: "The Social Republic appeared as a phrase, as a prophecy, on the threshold of the February Revolution." It had merely manifested as a vague intention to replace class rule itself, whereas the Paris Commune of 1871 was the explicit form of the Social Republic.
II. Between Autonomous Association and the Dictatorship of Paris
In the eyes of the Parisian insurgents, the establishment of the "Republic" meant the liberation of society. Facing the power vacuum left after Thiers' government fled the capital, the Parisian populace acted spontaneously to form a large number of autonomous groups, maintaining the daily operation of Paris through association. Autonomous association, as a strategy for liberation, was unanimously recognized by the Communards, and the initial organizational structure of the Commune was based upon it. Due to the continuous approach of the Versailles army, improving the operational efficiency of the Commune became an urgent issue. The Executive Commission of the Commune carried out reforms around this issue, leading to the establishment of the Committee of Public Safety after reorganization. This meant that the bottom-up strategy of association was integrated with a top-down scheme of dictatorship. The transition of the Commune from autonomous association toward centralized dictatorship was specifically manifested in the question of the jurisdictional boundaries of the Executive Commission.
(1) The Evolution of the Jurisdictional Boundaries of the Commune's Executive Commission
The process of establishing, reorganizing, and replacing the Commune's Executive Commission reveals the shifts in the Commune's internal structure. The day after the Commune was established, the Commune Assembly passed a power organization scheme based on ten commissions. The Commune set up an Executive Commission and nine other commissions in charge of specific affairs. The Executive Commission held executive power and was responsible for implementing the Commune's decrees and the resolutions of the various commissions. it was composed of seven [3] Commune members with a term of one month. Like the other commissions, it did not have a chairman or a single representative, instead practicing a system of collective responsibility. This system encountered difficulties in practice. First was the relationship between the Executive Commission and the other nine commissions: while the ten commissions were equal in terms of organizational rank, according to their functional settings, the other commissions were in a subordinate "deliberative-executive" relationship with the Executive Commission. Being both equal and subordinate constituted a logical contradiction. Second was the problem of communication and coordination between the Executive Commission and the other commissions; there was no guaranteed mechanism to bridge "resolution" and "execution," and neither the individual commissions nor the Executive Commission had specialized representatives to interface on specific matters, resulting in a situation of "deliberating without acting" and a "nine heads on one body" [4] scenario.
To change this situation, Commune members proposed several reform plans. The reorganization proposal by Louis Charles Delescluze was passed at the Commune session on April 20. According to the proposal, the executive power of the Commune was temporarily entrusted to representatives from the nine commissions. These nine representatives were appointed by the Commune by a majority vote; the representatives met daily and made decisions regarding each department by majority vote, reporting their work to the Commune daily for final approval of their decisions. According to this design, the nine representatives elected by the Commune formed the Executive Commission, with each representative in charge of one specialized commission, while a system of representative responsibility was implemented within each commission. Simultaneously, the number of members in each commission was reduced to five to improve deliberative efficiency. This reorganization strengthened the centralization of the Commune. The Executive Commission obtained powers second only to the Commune Assembly, and it was no longer in an equal relationship with the other nine commissions; coordination and communication between them were also guaranteed by the addition of the nine commission representatives. Consequently, the logic of the Commune's power operation became increasingly clear: after the Commune Assembly elected the nine representatives and the members of each commission, it delegated power to the Executive Commission; the nine commissions would first meet individually to deliberate (specialized commission meetings), then the representatives of the nine commissions would meet for deliberation (Executive Commission meetings), and finally, matters were submitted to the Commune for resolution.
As the war intensified, a motion was made within the Commune to establish a Committee of Public Safety to strengthen centralization. At the April 28 Commune session, Jules Miot proposed the establishment of a Committee of Public Safety to deal with the emergency state facing the Commune. According to the proposal, the Committee of Public Safety would consist of five members individually voted on by the Commune. It would not only replace the functions of the previous Executive Commission but also hold the broadest powers over the other nine specialized commissions. Compared to the reorganized Executive Commission, the Committee of Public Safety should be seen as an emergency measure for a state of exception—a dictatorship. Onto the original democratic architecture, it grafted a leadership body that aggregated power to compensate for the defects of democratic consultation with centralization. Leveraging the broad powers granted by the Commune, the Committee of Public Safety subsumed all powers of the Executive Commission. The representatives previously dispatched by the Executive Commission to the other nine commissions were stripped of their original authority and retreated into their respective specialized commissions, performing duties only as commission representatives. The specialized commissions no longer funneled collective resolutions into the Executive Commission through representatives, but instead passively accepted the decisions and orders handed down by the Committee of Public Safety. The Executive Commission and the Committee of Public Safety were two different logical arrangements rooted in the same democratic foundation. The former still maintained a balance and interaction between two tiers of elective democracy, while the latter leaped into becoming a decision-making body positioned above all specialized commissions. Commune members within this structure could particularly feel this distinct shift.
(2) The Committee of Public Safety and Dictatorship
The establishment of the Committee of Public Safety directly caused the Commune Council to split into a majority faction and a minority faction. Twenty-five Commune members refused to participate in the nominations for the Committee of Public Safety and submitted a statement of abstention: "This committee will cause people to forget the principles of serious social reform pursued by the communal revolution of March 18." Because they were fewer in number, they were generally referred to as the minority in the Commune, in contrast to the majority who supported the establishment of the Committee of Public Safety. The minority and majority factions in the Commune were not tight-knit political organizations; they were conceptual groups that diverged and converged around the issue of the Committee of Public Safety. To understand their direct disagreement, one must first clarify what the "Committee of Public Safety" was. Examining the records of the Commune sessions on April 28, April 30, and May 1, one finds that the term "Committee of Public Safety" was highly correlated with the word "dictatorship" (dictature). Both the members who favored establishing the body and those who were fearful of the name and refused to accept it spoke of "dictatorship" multiple times.
For example, reasons for opposing the establishment of the Committee of Public Safety included: "I do not agree that the Commune should have any other dictatorship besides the dictatorship of the Commune itself... I oppose a dictatorship by a committee of three, five, or nine people." "Behind the Committee of Public Safety, a dictatorship is hidden." "Given the establishment of the Committee of Public Safety, its main result will be the formation of a dictatorial organ, which will in no way help increase the power of the Commune." "The establishment of any dictatorial organ by the Commune is a genuine usurpation of people's sovereignty..."
Conversely, reasons for supporting the establishment of the Committee of Public Safety included: "I advocate for a dictatorship exercised by three members, rather than five." "If a certain kind of dictatorship could truly lead us to victory, I might accept it." "The 'Committee of Public Safety' will not be a dangerous dictatorial organ because it is under the supervision of the Commune."
In the eyes of the various factions of Commune members, the Committee of Public Safety was a dictatorial organ; establishing it meant implementing a dictatorship. The difference lay in how the members viewed the act of dictatorship. Commune members exhibited three attitudes on this issue: the Committee of Public Safety as a revival of the dictatorial Terror during the Great Revolution [5]; the Committee of Public Safety as a method of centralization borrowing the memory of the Great Revolution; and the Committee of Public Safety as a new measure to concentrate the Commune's strength, distinct from the dictatorial organs of the Great Revolution. These three roughly corresponded to the inclinations of the Proudhonists, the Neo-Jacobins, and the Blanquists on this issue.
The Proudhonists were the main force of the minority; they rejected any form of dictatorship, especially the terror-style dictatorship of the Great Revolution. The Neo-Jacobins and most Blanquists constituted the majority; they all favored dictatorship. The former held a heavy memory of the Great Revolution and were obsessed with the names of old things; the latter viewed dictatorship as a necessary transitional stage of social revolution and were not fixated on revolutionary memories or the names of things. Their perception of the establishment of the Committee of Public Safety was, in essence, the concretization of their overall view of the Commune. This split demonstrated the differing perceptions of the "Commune" among its members, while simultaneously etching two different images of the Commune: one of top-down vanguard decision-making, and the other of bottom-up grassroots democracy. The majority championed the former, while the minority mapped out the latter. Due to the short existence of the Commune, the proposals of neither faction were able to transcend the boundaries of Paris. In this sense, the Paris Commune merely demonstrated a certain potential in terms of constructing a new state political system.
III. The State Form in the Transitional Stage
In the view of the majority faction, the desperate situation in Paris required a dictatorship to turn the tide. Although the Neo-Jacobins and Blanquists differed in their understanding of dictatorship, their original intention in promoting dictatorship was not to oppose democracy but to catalyze it. In other words, for the majority faction, dictatorship had a clear transitional character. Clarifying this point requires tracing back to Jacobinism during the Great Revolution.
(1) The Club-style Commune of Neo-Jacobinism
Jacobinism was the completed form of the "société de pensée" (society of thought [6]) that emerged in the second half of the 18th century, with the club being its common organizational form. Unlike interest groups formed from real-world experience, a "society of thought" relates only to ideas. It is built upon the abstract equality of individuals and reaches a consensus based on the discussions of its members, which it then propagates and defends. To put it bluntly, it is "an instrument for manufacturing a consensus of opinion." What the "society of thought" manifests is a "pure democracy" without leaders or representatives. It takes "social public opinion," generated through equal debate, as its supreme principle. The Jacobin clubs, which manufactured and disseminated this public opinion, won the support of the masses by virtue of the intellectual power they wielded, gradually moving toward political power and becoming spokespersons for democracy. However, faced with the planned distribution required by material scarcity and the concentration of power required to suppress reactionary forces, "pure democracy" was forced to turn toward a "dictatorship" that is effective in a state of emergency.
The Neo-Jacobins revered the Jacobin leaders of the Great Revolution; they also defined themselves as representatives of the people, starting from the immediate needs of the people and developing as the environment changed. From the declaration of war in early July 1870 to the suppression of the Commune at the end of May 1871, the Neo-Jacobins were initially patriotic, then republican, and sometimes socialist. They adopted flexible and realistic tactics, distinguishing between the requirements of emergency situations and the possibilities offered by an ideal society, even at the expense of ideological consistency. For the Neo-Jacobins, the Commune meant a radical social and political transformation; it was the way for patriots to reclaim France from Prussia and Versailles. Similar communes should be established throughout France. The adoption of coercive means, distinct from "Terrorism," was determined by the need to sustain the revolution. The Committee of Public Safety [7] was the necessary institution for implementing this process—used first to defend the revolution, then to transform political structures, and finally to replace the bourgeois state with a people's democracy.
This leads to the Neo-Jacobin attitude toward "dictatorship." The Neo-Jacobins denied that dictatorial means of seizing and holding power would harm the future development of the revolution. When revolutionary means are used to reject formal democracy in order to establish people’s democracy, there is no incompatibility between democratic goals and dictatorial means, especially when this tactic is chosen by people's organizations. Their goal was to integrate the spontaneity of the masses into the revolutionary plan, organizing and guiding this spontaneous behavior rather than stifling it. As a revolutionary vanguard minority, the Neo-Jacobins sought not only to lead the revolution but also to provide political education to the people, while simultaneously establishing institutions that would allow the people to participate effectively and further advance the movement. They emphasized the transitional nature of the dictatorship, which would last until internal and external enemies were eliminated and until the majority—especially the rural masses—became "New Men." Forging republican citizens who manifested new values was a central thread in the continuation of the Jacobin tradition.
Among the Commune members, Delescluze, Pyat, Gambon, and Demay were typical representatives of Neo-Jacobinism. They not only identified with the propositions of the Old Jacobins but also analogized the situation of 1871 to that of 1793. Using clubs spread across various districts as their organizational basis, the Neo-Jacobins repeated terms from the Revolutionary era such as "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," "Republic," "Committee of Public Safety," and "Commune." They attempted to use the press and public opinion to awaken a historical consciousness, thereby guiding the masses to defend Paris and support the Commune. Following the example of their predecessors, they advocated for centralization and a temporary dictatorship under a state of emergency to deal resolute blows to the enemy. Simultaneously, they focused on promoting civic virtue and active participation in public life to construct a politically democratic and equal republic. In terms of organizational structure, the Neo-Jacobins had neither a disciplined conspiratorial group nor a clear working-class base. They oriented themselves toward neighborhoods; participants included men, women, the young, and the old, with primary support coming from members of the National Guard. Their organization was built on several important newspapers and a loose but vast network of popular clubs.
(2) The Conspiratorial Commune of Blanquism
Blanquism also inherited the tradition of the Great Revolution, a lineage that developed from the propositions of the Hébertists to Babeufism, and was passed through Buonarroti to Blanqui. The core of Blanqui's doctrine can be summarized in three linked stages: conspiratorial uprising, the Parisian Dictatorship (Dictature Parisienne), and communism. This doctrine held that the revolution must be led by a strictly trained elite minority who would launch an uprising on a chosen day and complete the seizure of power from Paris. After the revolutionaries took power, they would implement a transitional dictatorship with two main tasks: performing transformations of the political system and economic measures based on the value-demand for equality, and propagating atheism based on knowledge and science to educate the people in the values of the new society. Afterward, the Parisian Dictatorship would give way to a communist society. In Blanqui's absence, his supporters followed the political vision of this spiritual leader, constructing and transforming the Paris Commune according to the "Parisian Dictatorship." To a certain extent, the Paris Commune in the eyes of the Blanquists was the realization of their concept of the Parisian Dictatorship.
The theory of the Parisian Dictatorship was an external extension of Blanqui's elitist views. In his view, Paris was the place where the French elite gathered and should hold ruling power as the representative of the entire nation. He favored Paris, praising it as "the brain and heart of France," and "the capital of intelligence and labor, the true representative of the country." Blanqui was critical of the immediate convening of a constituent assembly after a revolutionary victory; universal suffrage and parliaments could not consolidate the fruits of revolution. What was needed during this period was a revolutionary dictatorship. He believed that the Paris of 1793 represented a dictatorship of the whole—that is, equality—and that the Paris of today would continue to represent it. Blanqui pointed out that dictatorship was not the normal state but merely a transitional stage toward communism; before reaching the ideal, France had to implement a "Parisian Dictatorship."
In Blanqui's view, Paris was the true representative of the nation because the ideas of Paris were more progressive than those of the provinces; hastily holding national universal suffrage would only lead to Bonapartist despotism. Before the popularization of knowledge, the Parisian Dictatorship had to be adopted as a transition. The Parisian Dictatorship was not a class dictatorship, but the rule of Paris over the whole country, with the rulers being only a portion of the residents of Paris. Mass education following the dictatorship was a key point for advancing toward communism.
The Blanquists' understanding of the Commune derived mainly from Blanqui's teachings. Before the Commune revolution, they were active among worker groups and intellectuals. Politically regarded as heretics conspiring for rebellion, they were suppressed by the Imperial government and could only hide within the lower strata of society in a tightly organized form, secretly enlightening the people. After the Parisians launched the revolution, members who espoused Blanqui's doctrine occupied important positions in the Commune, generally implementing Blanqui's revolutionary program. Approximately 14 Blanquists could be clearly identified in the Commune leadership, including Gustave Tridon, Raoul Rigault, and Vaillant. The Blanquists believed that after the victory of the uprising, consolidating revolutionary power required the promulgation of emergency regulations to strike at the old system. Blanqui's political propositions influenced the members; his followers in the Commune faithfully executed relevant suggestions, including "abolishing the army and judges," "nationalizing religious property," "reorganizing civil servants," "implementing a nation in arms," and "granting no liberty to the enemy."
The Blanquists believed that in a state of emergency, dictatorial organs should be used to guarantee democracy, but they did not demand the use of the name "Committee of Public Safety." Rigault agreed to establish a Committee of Public Safety of 1871, but not a Committee of Public Safety of 1793. Vaillant's attitude was even clearer: he favored the entire proposal but opposed only the name "Committee of Public Safety." He preferred to continue using the name "Executive Commission" because what mattered was strengthening the power of the Commune rather than quarrels sparked by a name. Tridon confirmed this from another angle, calling the "Committee of Public Safety" a useless and ridiculous antique; the name, rather than adding strength, would weaken existing forces. Whether for or against the establishment of the Committee of Public Safety, the Blanquists advocated for increased centralization and the implementation of a Parisian Dictatorship; they wanted present unity rather than divisions caused by ancient names.
There were also clear distinctions between the Neo-Jacobins and the Blanquists. The former were non-socialist Republicans in the tradition of Robespierre; they supported a highly centralized state and favored the use of Terror to achieve political ends. They followed the tradition of 1792–1793, believed in dictatorship, and attempted to drive out invaders by arming the people. The latter came from the Hébertist and Babeufist traditions of the Great Revolution; while advocating for centralization, they also focused on economic revolution and held a rudimentary belief in the beauty of a communist society, believing that violence and dictatorship were the ways to establish and maintain such a society. In short, the Blanquists advocated for the establishment of a centralized egalitarian state, while the Neo-Jacobins changed their action strategies in line with the situation, hoping to awaken the spontaneous power of the people. In either case, they relied on various clubs to convey their propositions and exerted every effort to mobilize the masses. The difference was that the Blanquists participated in the clubs with a conspiratorial group as the core, whereas the Neo-Jacobins lacked such a rigorous organization. Furthermore, the Blanquists drew lessons from the failure to build a republic during the Great Revolution, combining the two forms of the popular club and the elite conspiratorial group to organizedly awaken the "sleeping sovereign"—the people.
IV. The State as an Association
In the view of the Minority [8], the sovereignty of the Commune was inalienable, and the dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety violated this principle. They adhered to the proposal for an autonomous association established at the beginning of the Commune and formed an ideological group in opposition to the dictatorship, characterized primarily by their belief in Proudhon's theory of communal federalism.
(1) The Commune Minority Defending the Principle of Autonomy
The collective attitude of the Minority toward the dictatorship was primarily reflected in the "Minority Declaration" published on May 15. The declaration stated: "Unlike the Majority, we represent those whom we represent, claiming only the right to be responsible for our actions to our electors, without hiding behind some supreme dictatorial organ." Among the 21 members who signed the declaration, most were famous Proudhonists. They all insisted on retaining sovereignty in the hands of the Commune, to be exercised personally by representatives directly elected by the people. The Minority demanded that they govern themselves (autonomy) rather than be governed by others (heteronomy). The style of government they envisioned was essentially an autonomous federation. This autonomous federation had a dual orientation: internal democratic autonomy and external equal association. Limited by external blockades, the association between communes failed to take shape, but the Paris Commune was representative due to its preemptive nature; there was only a distinction of priority, not of rank, between it and future provincial communes. Therefore, a "Commune" was effectively a democratic, autonomous "small territorial unit."
The vision of an autonomous federation appeared frequently in the statements of the Minority members. In the draft declaration Lefrançais wrote for the Commune, he proposed that Paris should leave political issues to the 80 districts divided by geography and economic issues to various associations formed spontaneously based on professional and sectoral interests. A communal federation could guarantee direct sovereignty politically, and collective ownership of the means of production could achieve true freedom of labor in the socio-economy. The role of the Commune Commission was merely to execute and coordinate decisions made at meetings. In his view, Commune members and other public officials should participate in public meetings and clubs in each district to maintain direct contact with citizens and justify their actions. The task of the Commune revolution was not to disperse power but to eliminate power itself, thereby restoring the effective sovereignty of every member of the social body. The "Federation of Parisian Artists" established by Courbet provided an experimental example of internal autonomy in Paris; the association called on Parisian artists to manage themselves and form a union to escape the control of authority. Another member, Arnould, believed the Paris Commune should break the old concept that the state is built upon unity and centralization and achieve the social liberation of France; the principle of the Commune revolution was "the workers liberate themselves—group autonomy," replacing the state with a free federation of communes.
(2) Proudhon's Theory of Communal Federalism
The autonomist-federalist tendencies of the minority were deeply influenced by the doctrines of Proudhon. For instance, Lefrançais [9] praised Proudhon’s autonomist federation for its ability to limit power to the sphere of administration through decentralization, thereby restoring full autonomy to the Commune and guaranteeing both individual and collective sovereignty. Courbet went even further, declaring outright that the Commune revolution was launched by the people: "its apostles are workers, and its Christ is Proudhon." Proudhon’s federalism was a contractual arrangement used to safeguard the social practice of mutualism while resorting to governmental authority to the minimum extent possible. In his conception, the largest unit (the federal state) is assigned the least power, while the smallest unit (the commune) is assigned the most. The result is the subordination of the superior to the inferior; local units are even granted the right of secession, and recognized sovereign parties would have the right to withdraw from the group. Every member of the state maintains their independence and continues to act as a sovereign; the superior authority deals only with matters concerning the collectives. As for the role of the state, it is merely that of a creative initiator, a neutral arbiter, and an executor.
Political federation serves to safeguard economic mutual aid associations. The mutualism advocated by Proudhon originated from his understanding of social contradictions. He indicted the social injustice caused by capitalism—namely, non-equivalent exchange—which stems from two factors: private property and the state. Property owners are able to extract profit from the exchange process, selling commodities at prices higher than their value, thereby levying a tax on the social product. It is precisely this exchange relationship that creates two social classes: the rentier-owners and the workers who possess no capital other than their labor. The "state" is the institution that maintains non-equivalent exchange; it is impossible for it to change the system or create social justice. To achieve social justice, one must, on the one hand, adopt federalism to reshape the state structure and, on the other, organize mutual aid associations to eliminate the problems caused by exchange. Regarding the latter, Proudhon believed that industrial mutual aid organizations composed of small-scale units were feasible. Individual producers would voluntarily unite for the purpose of exchange, forming multiple mutual aid associations and establishing credit banks within each association to reduce non-equivalent exchange through direct exchange. These mutually allied associations form an economic federation, namely an "agro-industrial federation"—an autonomous "small republic of workers."
Proudhon had no intention of eradicating the two major factors causing social injustice—private property and the state—and particularly detested the revolutionary programs of communists to abolish private property and overthrow the state. He sought to provide a realistic and feasible reform plan: mutual aid associations in the economic sphere and a federation of communes in the political sphere. Because mutual aid associations and communes are the forms of collective life closest and most intimate to individual life, they are the natural sites for practicing this plan. Proudhon did not seek to dissolve sovereignty but rather to subdivide it; the groups formed by individual contracts always maintain sovereignty, and the tiered alliance of groups constitutes a federal state. The essence of this federalism is to leave more power to citizens than to the government, and to municipalities [10] rather than to central organs. As the primary carrier, the Commune "is a sovereign being... (the Commune) is either everything, or it is nothing."
Proudhon believed that the municipal liberty claimed by the Commune as a sovereign entity was incompatible with the governmental unity prescribed by the French Constitution, making conflict with centralized power inevitable. Once conflict breaks out, central power usually gains the upper hand, and after the upheaval, there is always a return to centralization that negates local autonomy. However, he believed that the principles of the Commune would be realized in the future. Extending Proudhon’s doctrine: if Paris were to become a Commune, then no dictatorial apparatus should be established. It would no longer be a capital towering above the provinces, but an autonomous city equal in status to other cities; its political institutions would be composed of delegates directly elected by voters, and its economy would be managed by a federation of various mutual aid associations. Paris would be an autonomous unit, and the whole of France would be a federation of communes. These were precisely the principles practiced by the Proudhonists within the Paris Commune. Proudhon and his followers advocated for the promotion of liberty and economic welfare through the decentralization of political power and the establishment of mutual aid organizations. Their theory of autonomist federalism was an expression of the concept of association prevalent in the 19th century—that is, viewing the state as a type of association. What was relatively unique was that the association he described was based on individuals forming economic mutual aid societies, rather than merely on political free association.
V. Conclusion
The Communards of 1871 generally focused on the issue of the state; occupying the middle and lower strata of society, they attempted to reconstruct the state’s political system starting from society itself. The Communards viewed the Commune as an exemplar of the "Social Republic" and integrated their own historical experience and the experience of the siege into the construction of the new regime. The decrees and actions of the Commune demonstrate that the people's possession of sovereignty was a fundamental consensus among the Communards, but disagreements arose within their ranks regarding how to operate democracy, leading to a split between the majority and minority factions over whether to implement a dictatorship. The split between the two factions was profoundly linked to their differing understandings of the "Commune": the majority believed that dictatorship was a transition under a state of emergency and did not conflict with the realization of democracy; the minority insisted that the sovereignty of the Commune was inalienable and that the state could only be a bottom-up federation. The former mixed Neo-Jacobinism with Blanquism, while the latter was deeply influenced by Proudhonism. Regardless of the faction, the Paris Commune in the eyes of the Communards was not limited to the scope of urban autonomy, nor did it have an anti-institutional tendency to destroy all forms of the state. This served as a powerful rebuttal to the so-called municipalism of the Republicans and the accusations of anarchy leveled by the Versailles government.
With the failure of the Paris Commune, the Communards’ perception of the Commune also underwent new differentiations. Faced with the violent suppression by the Versailles army, surviving Communards either joined the ranks of the radical Republicans, acknowledging that the Commune merely pursued urban autonomy; or they leaned toward Bakunin, believing the Commune was a negation of the state and authority and demanding the complete abolition of the state; or they continued to believe in Blanqui’s doctrine, emphasizing the national character of the Commune revolution and the necessity of dictatorship, plotting to launch a surprise attack by organizing "revolutionary communes" to establish a Communal Republic. Only a small number of Communards turned to the Marxist position, viewing the Commune as the political form of labor emancipation. Due to the recovery of the French working-class forces and the spread of Marxism, around the 1880s, the Communards and their supporters gathered under the banner of the labor movement to revisit the Paris Commune. They highlighted the socialist nature of the Commune, declared it a proletarian action continuing the French revolutionary tradition, and believed the Paris Commune opened a new era for workers seeking liberation. Thereafter, the Paris Commune was continuously invoked on the socialist path, becoming an important historical exemplar for the construction of socialist regimes.
Viewed from the perspective of modern state-building, the Paris Commune in the eyes of the Communards represents an exploration of the early practice of people’s democracy [11]. Commune-style democracy replaced the system of hierarchical investiture with universal suffrage; it both refused to adopt bourgeois representative democracy and allowed various mass organizations such as clubs, associations, and federations to participate in consultation, essentially combining electoral democracy with consultative democracy. The operation of Commune-style democracy faced the dilemma of whether to strengthen centralization to improve administrative efficiency, which holds comparative value for the proposal of democratic centralism. Furthermore, the issue of whether dictatorship is a necessary transition to realize democracy or its inevitable opposite led to another synonymous expression of people’s democracy—the dictatorship of the proletariat. The extension of democracy into the sphere of production, through the organization of production cooperatives and the collective ownership of the means of production, demonstrated an economic and social dimension that transcends political equality. Viewed this way, the "Social Republic" oriented toward people’s democracy has a more complex structure on the basis of electoral democracy; it is a composite democracy, overall manifesting as the organic association and common governance of various social groups.
(Author Biography: Shan Chengxiu, Lecturer and Post-doctoral Fellow at the Institute of Marxism, CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee Party School)
Online Editor: Tong Xin Source: Socialist Studies, No. 5, 2023