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50 years ago. Women in the Paris Commune

Women in Paris Commune

By Sarmad MayoPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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50 years ago. Women in the Paris Commune
Photo by Adam Winger on Unsplash

150 years ago, on March 18, 1871, the insurrection that gave birth to the Paris Commune began, which would last 72 days. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote about this historical experience. His conclusions are part of the basic principles of revolutionary socialism throughout the world to this day.

The role of women in this insurrection and in the radical democracy that grew out of it is usually little discussed at the commemorations, despite the fact that there is a whole series of studies on the matter.

Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray wrote in his Histoire de La Commune [01], published as early as 1876 and which must be described as a classic work on the subject, the following [own translation]: “Women were the first to advance, as in the days of the revolution. The women of March 18 were hardened by the siege - not in vain they had to endure a double portion of hardship - and they did not wait for their men. They surrounded the machine guns and said to the soldiers: 'It's a shame! What are you doing here?' The soldiers were silent. From time to time a noncommissioned officer would say: 'Come on, good women, get out of here!' The tone of his voice was not harsh, and the women stayed… A great number of National Guards, rifle butts raised, accompanied by women and children, advanced down the rue des Rosiers. Lecompte (the general) was surrounded, ordered three times to open fire. But his men remained with their rifles on the ground. When the crowd approached, they fraternized, and Lecompte and his officers were arrested. "

On February 8, at the request of Bismarck, a National Assembly with a monarchical majority had been elected to initiate peace negotiations. As of February 17, Adolphe Thiers installed himself, as head of government, in Versailles, the residence of the kings. The mass of workers and the petty bourgeoisie was determined to defend Paris against the Prussian army, despite the enormous hardship suffered by the besieged city: massive unemployment, hunger, cold. The worst part fell on the women, who already had the worst of it before: they received lower wages and were oppressed and harassed in many ways.

The National Guard, made up mainly of workers, was the armed wing of the Parisian population. Thiers demanded capitulation, and his attempt on March 18 to disarm this corps, which at that time probably numbered some 180,000 men, came as a huge provocation. Thus began the insurrection of the people of Paris. The advanced role of women in responding to the offensive against republican Paris was no accident.

"Beautiful animals"

The radical democratic and social effervescence was noted months before the outbreak of the Franco-German war, especially in Paris. Louis Bonaparte (Napoleon III) launched his war of aggression precisely to stop this effervescence. However, after successfully defending itself, the Prussian-led army went on the attack, and the Bonapartist adventure came to an abrupt end.

Months before, many women had begun to participate in the republican and social movement, to meet on their own and create their own organizations. On September 8, 1870, a group of women, led by André Léo (Léodile Champeix) and Louise Michel, demonstrated in front of the town hall and asked for arms to fight the Prussians. On October 7, these women demanded their right to participate in the fighting on the front line, to ensure care for the wounded. The positions against the participation of women in the republican and socialist-communist camp - in particular, Proudhon was strictly against, and even went so far as to claim that women are "beautiful animals, but animals" - began to crumble.

The combat of the Commune proclaimed on March 18, took place on two fronts at the same time: against the Prussian besiegers and against the treacherous government of Versailles. In addition, an attempt was made to solve the most pressing social problems and to build a new world in the midst of a distressing situation, a world in which working people took charge of their own destiny. The involvement of women in solving all these problems could hardly be rejected.

The Central Committee of the National Guard initially assumed command of revolutionary Paris and organized elections to the municipal council, the Commune, elections that took place on March 26. On March 28, the Commune was publicly proclaimed. As of March 29, ten commissions were in operation, which prepared proposals that were submitted to the council for approval. Among them, it is worth mentioning the separation of Church and State; free and secular school, compulsory for boys and girls; right to paid work; granting of nationality to immigrants; confiscation of empty homes for the homeless; free legal aid; socialization of companies abandoned by their owners, self-managed by cooperatives created by the staff.

The measures of the Commune

A series of resolutions of the Commune improved the situation of women. They could obtain a divorce from their husbands by means of a simple declaration of will and received material support from the Commune until the court decided. Teachers and teachers received the same salary. The companions of the National Guards who died in combat received the same compensation from the Commune as married women.

The elected representatives were obliged to render accounts to their electorate and their positions were revocable at all times; the consistory was considered legislative power and executive power at the same time, and they received for their support the amount equivalent to the average salary of a worker. Women did not have the right to vote in the Commune, but there is no doubt that the Commune would have finally implemented this right if it had had more time. At lower levels of representation, in districts and in many entities, many women held leadership positions and held important roles.

The activities of women in the Commune and for the Commune were very varied, so much so that we cannot list them all here. They participated in defense, supply, and in solving every imaginable everyday problem. On May 21, Thiers' troops entered Paris, having repeatedly bombed the city. Numerous women fought on the barricades. Dozens of them will be taken prisoner and abused and massacred. It is impossible to know how many of them were among the 20,000 to 30,000 people killed.

The furious counterrevolution carried out revenge, and not only through judicial channels. On May 29, he proclaimed his victory. Officially there were 26 death sentences, 4,213 deportations to New Caledonia and around the same number of prison terms and forced labor. Louise Michel was sentenced to nine years of deportation. Others entered prison, with sentences that ranged from six days to live; the most frequent sentence was five years. 3,000 commoners and commoners managed to escape into exile.

Karl Marx wrote that the Paris Commune was "the finally discovered political form in which the economic emancipation of labor can occur." Compared with later times - or with England in the same period - factories and industries, and with them the workforce, were small at that time. Despite this, it was shown that it was possible to build, by organizing solidarity, a community that was at the same time a revolutionary dictatorship and radical, participatory democracies, a model for all subsequent attempts to establish a council democracy.

Self-emancipation

Bourgeois parliamentary democracies are more or less covert forms of government of the capital. A socialist democratic alternative can only emerge from below, based on the democratic self-organization of the working class, together with all the exploited and oppressed sectors. These structures are not created to put into practice certain preconceptions, but to solve concrete problems in the fight against exploitation and oppression. When the masses begin to interfere in the instances in which their destiny is decided, the opportunity arises to implant an alternative political order.

The legacy of the Paris Commune still in force today includes the notion that this movement, which aspires to universal emancipation, is unthinkable without the massive participation of women, who organize themselves in the movement, participate in it, and in it. they assert their own interests. The wage-earning class can only emancipate itself. At the same time, it can only emancipate itself by eliminating all forms of the dominance of people over people. Therefore, ending oppression, discrimination and the undermining of women is an integral part of socialist and communist aspirations.

The experience of the Paris Commune also teaches that women need to organize themselves, because as much as their liberation objectively results in the interests of exploited and oppressed men, in any situation of social inequality, the resistance of those who would like to get high must be overcome. despite everything above other people.

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Sarmad Mayo

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