The Paris Commune-General Lydiathread for the 18th of March 2022

The Paris Commune was a radical socialist and revolutionary government that formed in Paris on this day in 1871, existing for just a few months before being defeated by the French National Army on May 21st that year.

A hotbed of working-class radicalism, the Paris Commune was a watershed moment in revolutionary left history. A few months after it was formed, the commune was attacked and defeated by the French National Army on May 21st, 1871, beginning the so-called "Bloody Week".

The government of the Paris Commune developed a set of policies that tended towards a progressive, secular, and highly democratic social democracy, although its existence was too brief to implement these ideas. Among these policies were the separation of church and state, abolition of child labor, abolishment of interest on some forms of debt, as well as the right of employees to take over and run an enterprise if it was deserted by its original owner.

The Paris Commune was analyzed by many communist thinkers, including Karl Marx, who called it a "dictatorship of the proletariat." Vladimir Lenin danced in the snow in celebration when the newly formed Bolshevik government lasted longer than the Paris Commune.

The uprising inspired similar revolutionary attempts around the world, including communes in Moscow (1905), Petrograd (1917), Shanghai (1927 and 1967), and Seattle (2020).

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