Talk:Paris Commune

You say that captured communards were shot against the mur des federes. And in the Mur des federe article, you say that 147 men were killed. Which, all in all, leads to think that only 150 personns were executed !!

Later in the article you say that 30000 person were killed.

Globally, you should point that most of the Paris's people and Commune's defenders were executed every where in Paris (Luxembourg, Satory, Ecole militaire) and killed in action on the barricade.

The mur des federes is just a symbol and it is used now as a memorial for instance for the 1st May celebration.

Globally the pages on the Commune are really poor.

Then improve them. The "you" you are addressing is the Wikipedia community, which includes you. - Molinari

---

I think that both this article and Communards' Wall have shown much improvement recently.

There are currently 5 external links at the bottom of this article. They are all excellent, and all should be kept, but they are all from either a Communist or anarchist perspective, which is to say that they are all (in varying degrees) celebratory of the commune. Can anyone provide a useful link to a discussion of the Commune from a more critical POV? Presumably some non-left historians have also written well on the subject. -- Jmabel 18:13, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)

Fourscore raises several issues

I think the author(s) of this introduction have made a good job of describing, concisely, a very complex and contoversial episode. Here, however, are some further suggestions. The illustrations... I have never known the photograph to be referred to as an execution of Communards; usually it is described as the shooting of Generals Lecomte and Thomas. However, there is no good evidence that the generals were shot together (see Jellinkek and others) and, more to the point, the "photograph" is generally accepted as a fake, or, more politely, a "reconstruction". (See Dayot.) It is interesting as one of the earlier examples of photographic faking for political ends, but that's not what we need it for here.

• I believe that is now appropriately captioned. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:10, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

The fine map (I saw an original in the British Library map room several years ago) is the best we have to show the progress of the Versaillese army, broadly from the west of Paris to the eastern poorer districts, but perhaps it rather pre-empts the fuller account of La Semaine sanglante which I believe is linked to from this introductory page?

• I believe that is now appropriately addressed by integrating Fourscore's edits. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:19, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

On the text. It is true that Blanqui was elected to the Commune: but in view of his immense influence on the political thought and strategy of the period, would it be as well to mention that he was elected in his absence, having been arrested on the 17th March, and held in custody throughout the Commune, which was thus robbed of his potential leading role?

• I believe that is now appropriately addressed by integrating Fourscore's edits. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:39, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Not to be niggly, but the point about the decree on the municipal pawnshops was not so much that they should stop selling off pawned items that had run out of time, but that they should begin actually to return craftsmen's tools and similar, and thus make it possible for carpenters, masons and others to return to work. (Could this not be said in a short parenthesis?)

• I believe that is now appropriately addressed by integrating Fourscore's edits. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:39, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

I would like to think that there was a "remarkable cooperation between different revolutionists" - but couldn't this phrase bear thinking about? The divisions (over, for example, the creation of a Committee of Public Safety) were bitter and have been thought to have led to a fatal weakness in the final phases of the Commune. Would it be an idea to point, rather, to a truly remarkable feature of the Commune: namely, that divisions of opinion between electors and their delegates, could be, and sometimes were, thrashed out at short notice in local meetings?

• Fourscore, you are still welcome to try to write something on this. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:19, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Best wishes for the development of an interesting topic.

Fourscore

Sounds like you know more about this topic than most of us who've been working on it. Please, edit! (By the way, you should sign comments here by typing ~~~~; your sig will be added, with a datestamp.) -- Jmabel | Talk 18:40, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

A rather different version

I've done the text of a rather different version: I'll put it up as an aunt sally in a few days when I've spent more time studying the wiki markup rulesFourscore

Fourscore's text

In a formal sense the Paris Commune of 1871 was simply the local authority (council of a town or district - French "commune") which exercised power in Paris between 18th March and 28th May, 1871. But the conditions in which it was formed, its controversial decrees and tortured end constitute one of the more important political episodes of the time.

The war with Prussia, started by Napoleon III ("Louis Bonaparte") in July 1870, turned out disastrously for the French and by September Paris itself was under siege. The gap between rich and poor in the capital had widened in recent years and now food shortages and the continuous Prussian bombardment were adding to an already widespread discontent. Working people were becoming more open to radical ideas. A specific demand was that Paris should be self-governing, with its own elected "Commune", something enjoyed by most French towns, but denied Paris by a government wary of the capital's unruly populace. An associated but more vague wish was for a fairer, if not necessarily socialist, way of managing the economy, summed up in the popular cry for "La Sociale!"

By the beginning of 1871 many tens of thousands of Parisians were armed members of a citizens' militia known as the "National Guard", which had been greatly expanded to help defend the city. Battalions in the poorer districts elected their own officers and possessed many of the cannon which had been founded in Paris and paid for by public subscription. Steps were being taken to form a "Central Committee" of the Guard, and the President of the Third Republic, Louis Adolphe Thiers, realised that in the present unstable situation this body could come to form an alternative centre of political power.

In January, 1871, when the siege had lasted for four months, Thiers sought an armistice. Despite the hardships of the siege many Parisians were bitterly resentful and were particularly angry that the Prussians should be allowed a brief ceremonial occupation of their city.

In January, 1871, when the siege had lasted for four months, Thiers sought an armistice. Despite the hardships of the siege many Parisians were bitterly resentful and were particularly angry that the Prussians should be allowed a brief ceremonial occupation of their city. The events at this juncture are confused, but what is clear is that before the Prussians entered Paris National Guards, helped by ordinary working people, managed to take the cannon (which they regarded as their own property) away from the Prussians' path and store them in "safe" districts. One of the chief "cannon parks" was on the heights of Montmartre.

The Prussians entered Paris briefly and left again without incident. But Paris continued to be encircled while the issue of war indemnities dragged on. As the Central Committee of the National Guard was adopting an increasingly radical stance and steadily gaining in authority, the government could not indefinitely allow it to have four hundred cannon at its disposal. And so, as a first step, on 18th March Thiers ordered regular troops to seize the cannon stored on the Buttes Montmartre. Instead of following instructions, however, the soldiers, whose morale was in any case not high, fraternised with National Guards and local residents. When their general, Claude Martin Lecomte, ordered them to fire on an unarmed crowd they dragged him from his horse. He was later shot. Other army units joined in the rebellion which spread so rapidly that President Thiers ordered an immediate evacuation of Paris by as many of the regular forces as would obey; by the police; and by administrators and specialists of every kind. He himself fled, ahead of them, to Versailles. The Central Committee of the National Guard was now the only effective government in Paris: it almost immediately abdicated its authority and arranged elections for a Commune, to be held on 26th March.

The 92 members of the Commune (or, more correctly, of the "Communal Council") included skilled workers, several “professionals” (such as doctors and journalists), and a large number of political activists, ranging from reformist republicans, through various types of socialists, to the Jacobins who tended to look back nostalgically to the Revolution of 1789. The charismatic socialist, Louis Auguste Blanqui, was elected President of the Council, but this was in his absence, for he had been arrested on 17th March and was held in a secret prison throughout the life of the Commune. Despite internal differences, the Council made a good start in maintaining the public services essential for a city of two million; it was also able to reach a consensus on certain policies whose content tended towards a progressive social democracy rather than a social revolution. Lack of time (the Commune was able to meet on less than 60 days in all) meant that only a few decrees were actually implemented. These included: the remission of rents for the entire period of the siege (during which they had been raised considerably by many landlords); the abolition of night work in the hundreds of Paris bakeries; the abolition of the guillotine; the granting of pensions to the unmarried companions of National Guards killed on active service, as well as to the children if any; the free return, by the state pawnshops, of all workmen's tools of their trade, pledged during the siege; and, in an important departure from strictly "reformist" principles, the right of employees to take over and run an enterprise if it were deserted by its owner.

Projected legislation dealt, among other things, with the total separation of church from state and with educational reforms which would make further education and technical trading freely available to all.

The load of work was eased by several factors, although the Council members (who were not "representatives" but delegates, subject to immediate recall by their electors) were expected to carry out many executive functions as well as their legislative ones. But the numerous ad hoc organisations set up during the siege in the localities ("quartiers") to meet social needs (canteens, first aid stations) continued to thrive and cooperated with the Commune. In the 3rd arrondissement, for instance, school materials were provided free, three schools were laicised and an orphanage was established. In the 20th arrondissement school children were provided with free clothing and food. And so on. The vital ingredient, however, in the Commune's relative success at this stage was the initiative shown by ordinary workers in the public domain, who managed to take on the responsibilities of the administrators and specialists removed by Thiers. Engels, Marx's closest associate, would later maintain that the absence of a standing army, the self-policing of the "quartiers", and other features meant that the Commune was no longer a "state" in the old, repressive sense of the term: it was a transitional form, moving towards the abolition of the state as such. Its future development, however, was to remain a theoretical question. After only a week it came under attack by elements of the new army (which included former prisoners of war released by the Prussians) being created at a furious pace in Versailles.

The outer suburb of Courbevoie was captured, and a delayed attempt by the Commune's own forces to march on Versailles failed ignominiously. Defence and survival became overriding considerations. The working-class women of Paris now played a steadily more important role. They served with the National Guard and even formed a battalion of their own which later fought heroically to defend the Place Blanche, a key to Montmartre. (It must be admitted that the democratic credentials of the Commune were not improved by the fact that women did not have the vote, or that there were no female members of the Council!)

Strong support came also from the large foreign community of political refugees and exiles in Paris: one of them, the Polish ex-officer and fighter for the independence of his country from Russia, Jaroslav Dombrowski, was to be the Commune's best general. The Council was fully committed to internationalism, and it was in the name of brotherhood that the Vendôme Column, celebrating the victories of Napoleon I, and considered by the Commune to be a monmument to chauvinism, was pulled down.

Abroad, there were rallies and messages of goodwill sent by trade union and socialist organisations, including some in Germany. But any hopes of getting serious help from other French cities were soon dashed. Thiers and his ministers in Versailles managed to prevent almost all information from leaking out of Paris; and in provincial and rural France there had always been a sceptical attitude towards the activities of the metropolis. Movements at Narbonne, Limoges and Marseilles were rapidly crushed.

As the situation deteriorated further, a section of the Council won a vote (opposed by bookbinder Eugène Varlin, a correspondent of Karl Marx, and by other moderates) for the creation of a "Committee of Public Safety", modelled on the Jacobin organ with the same title, formed in 1792. Its powers were extensive and ruthless. But the time when a strong central authority could have helped was now almost past. On 21st May a gate in the fortified wall of Paris was forced (or, more probably, betrayed) and Versaillese troops began the reconquest of the city, first occupying the prosperous western districts where they were made welcome by the residents who had not left Paris after the armistice, and then moving towards Montmartre and the poorer eastern districts of Belleville and Menilmontant.

The strong local loyalties which had been a positive feature of the Commune now became something of a disadvantage: instead of an overall planned defence, each "quartier" fought desperately for survival and was overcome in its turn. The webs of narrow streets which made entire districts nearly impregnable in earlier Parisian revolutions had been largely replaced by wide boulevards. The Versaillese enjoyed a centralised command and had modern artillery. By the 27th May only a few pockets of resistance remained. The advance of the Versaillese took a heavy toll in life: prisoners were shot out of hand and multiple executions were commonplace. In a futile gesture of defiance on 27th May, a mob seized and brutally murdered 50 hostages, several of them priests, who had been held by the Commune. These deaths were to be avenged many times over.

At four o'clock in the afternoon of the next day the last barricade, in the rue Ramponeau in Belleville, fell, and Marshall Mac-Mahon issued a proclamation: "To the inhabitants of Paris. The French army has come to save you. Paris is freed! At 4 o'clock our soldiers took the last insurgent position. Today the fight is over. Order, work and security will be reborn."

Reprisals now began in earnest. Having supported the Commune in any way was declared a crime, of which thousands could be, and were, accused. For many days endless columns of men, women and children made a painful way under military escort to temporary prison quarters in Versailles. Later they were tried; a few were executed; many were condemned to hard labour; many more were deported for long terms or for life to virtually uninhabited French islands in the Pacific. The number of killed during what became known as "La Semaine sanglante", the Week of Blood, can never be established for certain but the best estimates are 30,000 dead, many more wounded, and perhaps as many as 50,000 later executed or imprisoned. For the imprisoned there was a general amnesty in 1889.

The better-off citizens of Paris and many of the earlier historians of the Commune, saw it as a classic example of mob rule, terrifying and yet at the same time inexplicable. Most later historians, even those on the right, have recognised the value of some of the Commune's reforms and have deplored the savagery of its repression. However, they have found it difficult to explain the unprecidented hatred which the Commune aroused in the middle and upper classes. On the left, there have been many who criticise the Commune for showing too great moderation (for example, for having failed to seize the gold reserves of the Bank of France, which went on sending large sums of money to Versailles while doing out small loans to the Commune.) Communists, left-wing socialists, anarchists and others have seen the Commune as a model for, or a prefiguration of, a liberated society, with a political system based on participatory democracy from the grass roots up. Marx and Engels, Bakunin, and later Lenin and Trotsky tried to draw major theoretical lessons (in particular as regards the "withering away of the state") from the limited experience of the Commune. A more pragmatic lesson was drawn by the diarist Edmond de Goncourt, who wrote, three days after La Semaine sanglante, "…the bleeding has been done thoroughly, and a bleeding like that, by killing the rebellious part of a population, postpones the next revolution… The old society has twenty years of peace before it…" Fourscore 14:33, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, I didn't find it feasible to work my account ( see previous posting) in with the other one that had the images. My account needs some better formatting (internal links, e.g.) and some relevant images of which I have several waiting to be uploaded. But any comments, anyone? All help appreciated as I am a newbie. [[User:Fourscore] 14:38, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Bias

This is generally a very good articile, it's language, for wikipedia, is superb. However I worry that parts of it sound almost like an apologia for the commune, while it doesn't quite reach the level of an NPOV breach I think that in fairness we need more criticism of the commune, as well as a more balanced presentation of it's merits. Deeper disscusion of the politics of the commune, as well as disscusion of the governments motives should be part of the articile. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.105.64.90 (talk • contribs) 31 Oct 2005 (UTC)

Probably so. But I hope that whoever wants to add that balance can do so without weighing down all well-put sentences with a swamp of qualifiers, which is what all too often happens. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

See, I disagree. I think the bias is the other way around. There are a lot of assertions sans warrants in the paragraph critiquing Marx's & Engel's view of the commune. In fact, it was neither a dictatorship nor was it proletarian (except in the very loosest sense). Maybe that's fair, maybe it's not, but it definitely needs more qualification than the author's assertion. I mean, point of fact -- Engel's work is a text, and we have to defer to the logic of the text that is not in fact reproduced here we we don't see a counterpoint made or implied by the author of the wiki. I mean, even something as simple as, "At odds with Engel's assertion is the fact that the Commune did x, y, z." (X, y, z being things that presumably wouldn't be a dictatorship or proletarian.) I don't know what the hell the author of that sentence was going for, anyway, since I see plenty of justification that the Commune was a bunch of workers making solid bottom-up political action and pushing the big guys around. That's just me; if you want it to stay please fix it or tell me why blithe assertions are ok in an encyclopedia. Ihavenoheroes 06:57, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Editing difficulties

Well, in my ignorance I've obviously done something wrong. I first edited (adding to and modifying slightly) the page of references, saved my changes, and lo and behold my page is up and running for all to see, and the one it replaced has gone! But it's there as an appendage to the original article - which has had my rewrite added on to the end! I can understand someone junking my rewrite altogether, or improving it by better formatting with some internal links (and if my rewrite proves more or less acceptable I'd also like to upload some relevant images and place them exactly where they ought to be in the text) - but it can't be normal for a student searching for Paris Commune to be presented with two rather different articles on the subject, one after the other, can it? What have I done wrong? Somewhere along the way I got a message that before my own rewrite, or edit, came through, someone else had been doing some editing and I'd have to merge my changes with theirs. There were even, for a few seconds, two different columns, in two different colours, with the two texts side by side for comparison, but this page suddenly disappeared. I'll get the hang of wiki etiquette eventually. Perhaps in my impatience I'm pressing too many tits - the wiki server seems painfully slow!Fourscore 18:05, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Fourscore, good writing, but you might do well to look at some of the information you can find starting at the Community Portal about the tech aspects of working with Wikipedia articles.

I believe what you did was to replace a section when you meant to replace the whole article. It's also possible that in addition you ended up in an edit conflict with the other user who was editing during the same period and didn't notice that you were on a page intended to facilitate the conflict resolution rather than the regular edit page.

In any case, what you added looks quite good, but it also looks to me like you deleted some pretty good links that I don't think we should lose. Generally, one does not delete others' external links and references unless there is actually some reason they shouldn't be there.

I'll try to clean it up. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:34, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Exterrnal/internal links

Thanks, Jmabel, I'll pay heed. Certainly grateful for any cleaning-up you can find time to do, I know I'm still weak on internal links, I'll spend time at the Community Portal. I thought I'd only left out one external link, it was to a friends of the Commune association (Les amis de la Commune), there were reasons I thought it a weak link but I should have discussed it. Fourscore 21:56, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Merged by Jmabel

Fourscore, I've done my best to merge your version with the previous version. Your material was excellent, and literally the majority of your paragraphs are intact (and "wikified": that is, I've added appropriate internal links) in the resulting merged version.

I think that all of the material I kept from the previous version was worth keeping. Your approach of just pasting your material and letting someone else merge is actually not a bad one: much better, in fact, than if you had simply overwritten the other material, much of which was good and touched on different matters than you chose to address.

Could I prevail upon you to have a pass through and see if you think I got anything wrong? It is possible that I retained some sentences from the old article that you believe are outright wrong. It is also possible that something in the merged article is now redundant, or that the prose I tried to merge from two different sources that did not necessarily handle things in quite the same sequence does not flow as well as it should. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:29, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Paris Commune

--Fourscore 11:04, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC) Jmabel, I am very pleased thatyou have been able to merge so seamlessly my modest contribution with an already sound article. It must have been a lot of work for you. One or two typos crept into my text. I also think that the caption to the excellent map could have a reminder that by clicking on the image an enlarged version will appear - no doubt most readers will work this out for themselves, but the delay in getting up the enlarged image can be rather long, perhaps to do with the volume of traffic. I shall assume that it is in order to try out these minor edits, and also look forward to comments, corrections and suggestions for further improvements to this important page, from wiki users. I am now going to try your patience once more. I have spent some time at the Community Portal, specifically on the conventions and rules for images. The map, as I have commented, is a splendid aid. But I shall shortly use the Special page to upload 7 images some of which at least might be useful illustrations to the text (workmen recovering their tools from a pawnshop, the burning of the guillotine, the cannon being taken by women and children to Montmartre, a communal canteen during the siege, prisoners being marched to Versailles, etc.) They are all from illustrated magazines of the time. I have compressed and optimised them in Image Ready and sized them to fit comfortably. Are there likely to be any copyright problems? And... if they are usable as is (with appropriate captions)dare I ask you to place one or two of them in the page? If you do not have time, I'll work out placements for myself. They are all jpg's and all have file names beginning with commune - communepawnshop.jpg, and similar. Fourscore 11:04, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If the images are 19th century, then there should be not copyright issues. And please, if you find typos just correct them.

I'm going to make that map a little larger on the page, because it really is important content, not eye candy. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:29, Feb 3, 2005 (UTC)

Images

Two points Jmabel: I have taken the liberty of placing 3 images which seem to me relevant, in their right position in the text (I feel that these 3 more images are about all the page can take) but am not happy that I have provided the required source and copyright information, not having quite got the hang of the schema provided. The other thing is that in the map the little colour code bars, which make sense of the coloured map areas, are for some reason blank. I don't remember this in the original version I saw once. If it's o.k. I would be happy to colour them suitably in a graphic editing programme, but this would involve downloading the map to my hard disk, making the small modifications, and then re-uploading the map (of course in the excellent size and format you have chosen.) Fourscore 10:21, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I didn't put the map there, but absolutely, feel free to fix it.

Any information about copyrights belongs on the Image page. When you choose "edit" on that page, you are editing the text of that page. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags.

BTW, please use section headings in talk that have to do with the specific topic at hand. I changed this section header from "Paris Commune" (a given, since we are on that page) to "Images", which indicates the topic. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:19, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Map of Versaillese advance

Hope the colours match, Jmabel! Not eye-candy, in your nice expression (how do North Americans always manage to write so graphically?) I think it's an attractive page as regards layout as well as content - apart from the lake of white opposite the chapter headings, but there doesn't seem much point in sticking an image in there just for the sake of it and the image at the head of the page sums up, in its way, what the Commune was about. Thanks for your editorial patience, I've acquired more wiki-awareness from this little project than I would have done any other way. Fourscore 16:29, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Looks good. By the way, you could have uploaded to the existing image name, overwriting the existing image. That tends to work better on a correction like this, since (1) if any other articles were using the image, they are also updated and (2) any earlier information about the picture is preserved. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:22, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Article series templates

This article now has two side-by-side article series templates for series of which it is not part. I think the inclusion of both of these is dubious (Category? Sure. Template? Excessive.) and it looks really bad at 800 x 600, still a common screen resolution. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:16, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

People still use 800x600? Wow... Well you can remove the communism series I added if it bothers you that much. It looks pretty good at my resolution though.--Che y Marijuana 00:52, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Uh...cannon or cannons?

Am I missing something or is all reference to cannon singular, even though the context clearly says it is plural i.e. have four hundred cannon? Is there a way cannon can be used in its plural form without saying cannons? --Bash 06:37, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I cleaned it up. If you do revert, please explain because I may be missing out on something. --Bash 06:41, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Both "cannon" and "cannons" are acceptable plurals of "cannon" (there aren't a lot of these in English, but "fish" and "fishes" is another example.) For "cannon", at least, the "-s" form is of more recent vintage, but is probably gaining favor. My guess is that among native English speakers alive today, there would be a generational split on this. I'm 50; "cannon" as plural comes more naturally to me, but I've heard "cannons" more from people now in their 20s. When Tennyson wrote "Cannon to the right of us, cannon to the left of us, cannon in front of us volleyed and thundered", he did not mean one each. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:37, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

Ah O.K. then. To my eyes "cannon" as the plural form looked really odd. --Bash 23:50, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

image of map

Sorry, I have to ask someone who knows Wiki ettiquette better than me to direct this to the person who asked about the origins of an image - I can't find his question right now, but it was about the origins of the map of the Versaillese advance. I misunderstood his question and my answer was right off the point. Here are the facts: this image was in the earlier version of the article, before I did a rewrite. It was, sadly, lacking much of its usefulness because the key to the colour coding (4 lozenges at bottom of map) were not themselves coloured, but blank! I coloured them correctly, as in the original map, and uploaded the modified image, adding "new" to its name. The original image was taken from I know not where - but I have seen and handled a copy of the original map itself in the map room of the British Museum. It certainly dates from the nineteenth century and I would guess from within 10 or 15 years of the end of the Commune. Fourscore (8 Aug 2005)

What is this?

"However, they have found it difficult to explain the unprecedented hatred which the Commune aroused in the middle and upper classes."

This is the first mention in the entire article that there was any unprecedent hatred involved. Ken Arromdee 04:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Hm?

"They ended conscription and replaced the standing army with a National Guard of all citizens who could bear arms."

How is that possible? Unless every single citizen who could bear arms voluntarily joined the National Guard, which seems unlikely, they must have been conscripted. So the line should read something like "They conscripted people into the National Guard instead of into a standing army, extending conscription to all citizens who could bear arms."

"However, they have found it difficult to explain the unprecedented hatred which the Commune aroused in the middle and upper classes."

Really? Does anyone have a quote which says "I find it difficult to explain the unprecedented hatred which the Commune aroused"? Let alone enough such quotes to show that this is what most historians believe. This sounds to me like someone tried to say "there was unprecedented hatred", could not prove that directly, and instead attributed it to unnamed historians. Ken Arromdee 17:54, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I've deleted the passages. I'm sure someone is going to restore the National Guard line; if you do, please figure out how to avoid the contradiction. Ken Arromdee 16:30, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The rise and nature of the commune

These are the first few lines of the section "The rise and nature of the commune". I can't figure out what is being said here. Perhaps someone who knows, can clarify?

The Prussians entered Paris briefly and after taking a good look at all the cannons and pipes, they realized that the average pipe size was too small so they had to do something. Ruler stick were then placed above the pipe to get more precise measurement. Anything above 5 got too stick around. If they were above a 7, they were inducted into the Cornelius Collosus club for big pipes. During celebrations, skis were shared generously.

--Davecampbell 01:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• It was vandalism about 2 hours before your comment. Once you commented, someone promptly reverted it. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:29, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Glad I could help! ;-)

Caption

Another issue, also in this section: On this page, the picture is captioned "Generals Lecomte and Thomas being shot in Montmartre after their troops join the rebellion: a photographic reconstruction, not an actual photograph"; on the image page, however, the caption says "Communards being shot during the Paris Commune; a photographic reconstruction, not an actual photograph".

So ok, the obvious answer is, no one's actually getting shot, it's a photographic reconstruction.

But the correct question was too long: Is it the Generals, or the Communards, whose execution is being photographically reconstructed? --Davecampbell 12:05, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

The caption has now been changed to match the article, which I believe is correct. - Jmabel | Talk 03:13, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Amnesty

I was asked on my talk page [1] to provide a reference for why I changed the date of the general amnesty in the article from 1889 to 1880. [2]. The date we had was a long-standing mistake:

"A partial amnesty, granted in spring 1879, reduced the number of Communard prisoners or exiles to about one thousand. Those who were released were the best plea for an amnesty to the remainder. Ill, wasted, and in rags, they staggered off the ships that had brought them back across half the world...With new elections due in 1881, the republicans were anxious to remove from the political agenda a question which divided them...Freycinet introduced the proposal for a full amnesty in June 1880, but it was the authority of Gambetta which carried the measure."

Cobban, Alfred. A History of Modern France. Vol 3: 1871-1962. Penguin books, London: 1965. Pg. 23.

Amnesty for the Communards was a political issue throughout the 1870s in France. Victor Hugo was famous for his role in this. The partial amnesty was voted on 3 mars 1879. It was applicable to all exiles or convicts that had been pardoned prior to or within three months of the law. The general amnesty was voted on July 10, 1880 applicable on July 14, 1880. This was also the first time that Bastille day was celebrated as France's national holiday. As far as I know, the July 1880 amnesty covered all Communard prisoners.-- JJay 18:18, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. And thanks for the solid citation. - Jmabel | Talk 03:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Translation

Translation was asked for "Eh ben ! bougre de canaille, on va donc te foutre en bas comme ta crapule de neveu !..." My French is not so great, and it clearly is so colloquial that it won't translate easily ("bougre de canaille" is literally "guy of rabble") but it's something like "Ah, good! You rabble, here's how I can fuck you in the ass like your villain of nephew!" (If someone can do better, please do.) - Jmabel | Talk 03:23, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I see this has now acquired a much milder translation in the article. Am I wrong to read foutre as "fuck"? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:10, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

• Foutre means sperm in french and has numerous other uses but is rarely used to mean fuck in the same way as baiser. "On est foutu" could be translated as "we're fucked". In this case, "on va donc te foutre en bas"...would be translated as "we're going to throw you down" or "we're going to pull you down". -- JJay 01:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Good thing I don't ever try to curse in French. - Jmabel | Talk 05:00, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Them Pinko's, Them Bums!

Another loss for the commies! Just thought I'd share that with you sympathetic lefties! Romanyankee(24.75.194.50 16:52, 14 April 2006 (UTC))

Marx and the Commune

The "in retrospect" part is well-written, but the references to Marx and the Commune are a bit misleading. Marx was greatly enthusiastic about the Commune, seeing it as the first workers' government in history. He did, of course, have some criticism, but the article makes it seems as though he was more critical than supportive. Perhaps some mention should also be made of his important work about the Commune, "The Civil War in France", in which he developed the idea that the working class cannot just take over bourgeois government but must transform it - an important and underratted idea in Marxism. If there is agreement here I will try a rewrite. PS Pere Duchesne is the greatest!

Bandiera 18:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

photos

Some of the names of people were missing photos on the page with the extra list of names. In the discussion for each I put a link to a site with many many photos of all types. I suggest someone write to that site and request directly the use of those photos for wikipedia. I also put that site as a link at the bottom of the main page. Hope that wasn't too out of line, I'm new here. {{subst:Sean1K2GA9|9 July 2006}

Photos from the period of the Commune should be old enough to be out of copyright. - Jmabel | Talk 22:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

"Content of the policies"

"Despite internal differences, the Council made a good start in maintaining the public services essential for a city of two million; it was also able to reach a consensus on certain policies whose content tended towards a progressive, secular and highly democratic social democracy rather than a social revolution."

My comments are about the last portion of the passage. The contrast that this statment makes is misleading and a false distinction. It is contrasting a "democratic social democracy" and a "social revolution". What exactly is the "content" of "social revolutionary" policies?

I think this passage is merely a liberal interjection (and revisionism!) that the policies were of the "social democratic" and not the "communist" type, merely trying to erase the fact that the commune, in Marx's words and thier own, was the armed -dictatorship- of the proletariot and not a democratic republic. They were the model of democratic centralism, which is typically described as the example of worker's democracy. The commune was againsts (and with the force of arms!) the bourgeois and thier representatives amongst the officer-ranks of the army how is that "secular"? More so, the central committee did not reach a 'consensus' with everyone - it was the 'executive and legislative body' (to quote Marx). - —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.227.111.238 (talk • contribs) 10 July 2006.

---"secular", to me, means absence of religion in government. How is anti-bourgeois and anti-military not secular? Those are secular issues, yes?Sean1K2GA9 05:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

---I can agree that the adj. 'secular' can apply to the commune, but I think my other criticisms (the use of "consensus" and the false distinction between "democratic social democracy" and "social revolution" still stand. Chiefly, historically and politically speaking social democrats (and the proposition of the social democracy) has a direct line to the 2nd international which Engels (and Marx tacitly in his Critique of the Gotha Program) opposed. Most importantly, a social democracy is not an institution formed by an -armed- revolution, but reform and 'election politics'.

Perhaps removing any -political- conception of the commune is best, and in its place, describing merely its actually political -organization- (the formation and composition of the central committee, etc.) Perhaps even removing the term 'progressive' and stating more simply the fact: The commune was able to maintain public services which a majority of the two million citizens of Paris depended on.

I hope I'm not coming off too zealous here, but I think words are very important and how you dscribe things influence how readers will think about these concepts. I'm willing to elborate more. --66.227.111.238 18:24, 12 July 2006 (UTC)Ugh

Issues with recent edits

• "…republicans, democrats and patriots…" in the first paragraph of the Background section seems rather POV.

• How did "the Prussians" become "the Germans" in this article? At the time, there was not yet a united Germany.

• To describe General Thomas as having been "arrested" seems rather a euphemism. He was, as I understand it, basically grabbed by an angry mob. Am I wrong on this? I am sure I have read that in works sympathetic to the Commune.

• Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, formerly described as "observant and reliable" is now described as "an (sic) Communard… very vivid and partisan." I would suggest that we drop either the favorable or unfavorable descriptions unless we can cite them, since there is obviously disagreement in the matter. - Jmabel | Talk 19:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

One more thing:

• We still say (in a footnote that has become detached from the material it related to) "estimates come from Cobban", but it looks like estimates from elsewhere are now also being used. Someone ought to sort out what comes from where and cite accordingly. It looks like the problem began in May 2006, and has been compounded since. - Jmabel | Talk 19:34, 24 July 2006 (UTC)