Paule Mink participated in the Paris Commune and in the First International.
24 Facts About Paule Mink
1.
2.
Paule Mink's father, Count Jean Nepomucene Mekarski, was a Polish officer who had gone into exile after the unsuccessful Polish uprising of 1830; he was a relative of the last Polish king, Stanislas II.
3.
Paule Mink's mother was an aristocrat, Jeanne-Blanche Cornelly de la Perriere.
4.
Paule Mink had two younger brothers, Louis and Jules; both participated in the Polish uprising of 1863 and in the Paris Commune.
5.
Paule Mink associated with Polish patriotic organisations and with revolutionary socialist circles.
6.
Paule Mink was convinced that the emancipation of women could only be fully accomplished through the abolition of capitalism.
7.
Paule Mink contributed to the venerable journal La Reforme and joined the First International.
8.
Paule Mink was active in providing aid to Polish refugees from the Russian empire.
9.
Paule Mink was then in Paris and became active in the defence of the besieged city.
10.
Paule Mink supported the uprising of the Paris Commune and was a prominent revolutionary orator at the republican clubs of St Sulpice and Notre Dame.
11.
Paule Mink was a member of the Committee of Vigilance of Montmartre and organised a free school for the poor at the church of St-Pierre.
12.
Paule Mink made several tours to the provinces to drum up support for the Paris Commune in other cities; somehow she always managed to get through the German siege.
13.
Paule Mink was absent on one of these tours during the Bloody Week and the suppression of the Commune.
14.
Paule Mink attended the fifth international Peace Congress at Lausanne.
15.
Paule Mink was close to many Blanquist refugees, with whom she had collaborated in the Commune, and read the writings of Karl Marx with interest.
16.
Paule Mink helped found the French Workers' Party which was led by Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue.
17.
Paule Mink attended the POF's first congress at Le Havre as a delegate for the workers of Valence.
18.
Since Paule Mink's family had strong connections and citizenship to Russia, the French government threatened to deport her.
19.
At some point in the 1880s Paule Mink left the POF to join Edouard Vaillant's Blanquist Socialist-Revolutionary Party.
20.
However, Marxists and Blanquists collaborated increasingly closely, and in any case Paule Mink seems not to have had a sectarian bent.
21.
Paule Mink helped found, and contributed to, the feminist journal La Fronde in 1897, with Marguerite Durand and others.
22.
That year, Paule Mink ran unsuccessfully as a candidate in elections for the National Assembly.
23.
Paule Mink's remains were cremated and buried in Pere-Lachaise cemetery.
24.
Paule Mink's funeral was the occasion for a large demonstration of socialists, anarchists and feminists and ended in a violent brawl with the police.