They remember the Commune¶
Core Argument¶
Here the author argues that the French ruling class fears not merely the political consequences of liberation, but the revolutionary memory embedded in Parisian history. The chapter opens by invoking the insurrectionary tradition of 1789, 1830, 1848, and crucially 1871, when Parisian workers first seized power during the chaos of the Franco-Prussian war. The key claim is that the capitalist class has never forgotten that the Paris Commune arose precisely when the corruption and degeneracy of the French bourgeoisie was laid bare, and that Thiers’ attempt to disarm the workers triggered the overthrow of the capitalist government. This historical parallel is drawn directly to the present: the attempt to disarm the masses is again the precondition for capitalist control.
The chapter then pivots to a polemic against the misdirection of popular anger. It cites the public humiliation of women accused of collaboration with German soldiers—head-shaving and forced nudity—as a deliberate diversion. The real criminals, the author insists, are the big trusts and combines who collaborated intimately with Nazi capital. A correspondent’s report of a small shopkeeper demanding the punishment of merchants rather than women is offered as evidence that this diversion will fail.
A sharp polemic is directed against de Gaulle’s narrative of national unity in liberation, and against the Communist and Socialist parties for their “foul propaganda” which blurs the distinction between Nazis and German workers. The author predicts that the initial joy of liberation will give way to a rapid awakening, as Anglo-American imperialism imposes its own financial dictatorship over France and Europe. The ruling class, it is claimed, will tremble.
The chapter concludes with a revolutionary projection: Paris has spoken by expelling the Nazis, and can just as easily expel the French capitalists. The French Trotskyists are positioned as the genuine revolutionary force, set against the class-collaborationist Stalinists and reformists. The final note is internationalist: the workers of France will fight for a soviet France and a socialist united states of Europe, with Paris, Rome, and Warsaw as the opening acts of a continent-wide revolutionary wave.