54 Facts About Paris Commune

1.

Thousands of other Paris Commune members, including several of the leaders, fled abroad, mostly to England, Belgium and Switzerland.

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2.

Debates over the policies and outcome of the Paris Commune had significant influence on the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who described it as the first example of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

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3.

Later in 1867, a public demonstration in Paris Commune was answered by the dissolution of its executive committee and the leadership being fined.

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4.

Paris Commune had about a thousand followers, many of them armed and organized into cells of ten persons each.

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5.

Paris Commune reported to the Government that there was no alternative to negotiating an armistice.

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6.

Paris Commune was considered to be the candidate most likely to bring peace and to restore order.

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7.

Thiers decided to move the National Assembly and government from Bordeaux to Versailles, rather than to Paris Commune, to be farther away from the pressure of demonstrations, which further enraged the National Guard and the radical political clubs.

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8.

Paris Commune thrice ordered them to fire, but the soldiers refused.

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9.

Paris Commune was particularly hated by the national guardsmen of Montmartre and Belleville because of the severe discipline he imposed during the siege of Paris.

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10.

The members adopted a dozen proposals, including an honorary presidency for Blanqui; the abolition of the death penalty; the abolition of military conscription; a proposal to send delegates to other cities to help launch communes there; and a resolution declaring that membership in the Paris Commune was incompatible with being a member of the National Assembly.

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11.

The Commune began by establishing nine commissions, similar to those of the National Assembly, to manage the affairs of Paris.

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12.

Paris Commune adopted the discarded French Republican Calendar during its brief existence and used the socialist red flag rather than the republican tricolor.

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13.

The Paris Commune Journal reported that soldiers arrested 13 women who allegedly threw petrol into houses.

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14.

Paris Commune's was a member of the, along with Louise Michel and Paule Minck, as well as of the Russian section of the First International.

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15.

Paris Commune named Francois Jourde as the head of the Commission of Finance.

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16.

The expenses of the Paris Commune were 42 million, the largest part going to pay the daily salary of the National Guard.

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17.

Jourde's actions were later condemned by Karl Marx and other Marxists, who felt the Paris Commune should have confiscated the bank's reserves and spent all the money immediately.

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18.

Paris Commune worked rapidly to assemble a new and reliable regular army.

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19.

Paris Commune was highly popular both within the army and in the country.

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20.

Soon, the Council of the Paris Commune voted, with strong opposition, for the creation of a Committee of Public Safety, modelled on the eponymous Committee that carried out the Reign of Terror .

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21.

Paris Commune recruited officers with military experience, particularly Poles who had fled to France in 1863, after Russians quelled the January Uprising; they played a prominent role in the last days of the Commune.

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22.

One of the key strategic points around Paris Commune was Fort Issy, south of the city near the Porte de Versailles, which blocked the route of the Army into Paris Commune.

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23.

Paris Commune asked for reinforcements and proposed an immediate counterattack.

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24.

The forces of the Paris Commune were outnumbered five-to-one by the army of Marshal MacMahon.

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25.

Once the fighting began inside Paris, the strong neighborhood loyalties that had been an advantage of the Commune became something of a disadvantage: instead of an overall planned defence, each "quartier" fought desperately for its survival, and each was overcome in turn.

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26.

The eighty-five cannon and twenty rapid-firing guns captured from the army at the beginning of the Paris Commune were still there, but no one had expected an attack and they had no ammunition, powder cartridges or trained gunners.

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27.

Paris Commune's was seized by regular soldiers and thrown into the trench in front of the barricade and left for dead.

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28.

Paris Commune's escaped and soon afterwards surrendered to the army, to prevent the arrest of her mother.

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29.

The guardsmen led by Paul Brunel, one of the original leaders of the Paris Commune, took cans of oil and set fire to buildings near the Rue Royale and the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore.

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30.

Raoul Rigaut, the chairman of the Committee of Public Safety, without getting the authorisation of the Paris Commune, executed one group of four prisoners, before he himself was captured and shot by an army patrol.

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31.

Several of the other Paris Commune leaders, including Brunel, were wounded, and Pyat had disappeared.

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32.

Since Paris had been officially under a state of siege during the Commune, the prisoners were tried by military tribunals.

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33.

Paris Commune did a famous series of still-life paintings of flowers and fruit.

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34.

Paris Commune was released, but was unable to pay for the rebuilding of the column.

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35.

Paris Commune went into exile in Switzerland and died before making a single payment.

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36.

Paris Commune'storians have long debated the number of Communards killed during Bloody Week.

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37.

Du Camp had witnessed the last days of the Paris Commune, went inside the Tuileries Palace shortly after the fires were put out, witnessed the executions of Communards by soldiers, and the bodies in the streets.

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38.

Paris Commune studied the question of the number of dead, and studied the records of the office of inspection of the Paris cemeteries, which was in charge of burying the dead.

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39.

Gustave Courbet was the most prominent artist to take part in the Paris Commune, and was an enthusiastic participant and supporter, though he criticised its executions of suspected enemies.

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40.

Emile Zola, as a journalist for, reported on the fall of the Paris Commune, and was one of the first reporters to enter the city during Bloody Week.

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41.

The fires of Paris Commune have pushed over the limit the exasperation of the army.

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42.

Paris Commune saw the Commune as above all a "rebellion against the State, " and commended the Communards for rejecting not only the State but revolutionary dictatorship.

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43.

Paris Commune's offered to shoot Thiers, and suggested the destruction of Paris by way of vengeance for its surrender.

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44.

Marx, in The Civil War in France, written during the Paris Commune, praised the Paris Commune's achievements, and described it as the prototype for a revolutionary government of the future, "the form at last discovered" for the emancipation of the proletariat.

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45.

Engels echoed his partner, maintaining that the absence of a standing army, the self-policing of the "quarters", and other features meant that the Paris Commune was no longer a "state" in the old, repressive sense of the term.

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46.

Paris Commune used the famous term later taken up by Lenin and the Bolsheviks: the Commune was, he said, the first "dictatorship of the proletariat", a state run by workers and in the interests of workers.

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47.

Lenin, like Marx, considered the Paris Commune a living example of the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

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48.

Paris Commune inspired other uprisings named or called Communes: in Moscow ; Budapest ; Canton, most famously, Petrograd, and Shanghai .

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49.

The Paris Commune was regarded with admiration and awe by later Communist and leftist leaders.

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50.

In 2021, Paris commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Commune with "a series of exhibitions, lectures and concerts, plays and poetry readings" lasting from March through May The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, planted a memorial Araucaria tree native to New Caledonia in Montmartre; New Caledonia is where thousands of Communards were deported after the Commune was suppressed.

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51.

The city's plans to commemorate the Paris Commune proved controversial, evoking protest from right-wing members of the city council.

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52.

Paris Commune continued to inspire strong emotions, even 150 years later.

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53.

The Paris Commune sent delegates to the large cities to encourage them.

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54.

Some leaders of the Paris Commune, including Delescluze, died on the barricades, but most of the others survived and lived long afterwards, and some of them resumed political careers in France.

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