2. Paris Workers’ Revolution & Thiers’ Reactionary Massacres¶
Core Argument¶
Here, Marx dissects the opening phase of the Paris Commune, framing it not as a rebellion but as a defensive revolution forced upon the working class by the provocations of a counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. The core argument is that the “glorious working men’s Revolution of 18 March” was a direct and unavoidable response to a conspiracy to disarm Paris, orchestrated by Adolphe Thiers and the monarchist “Rurals” of the Bordeaux National Assembly. Marx insists that the sole “serious obstacle” to the counter-revolution was an armed Paris, and Thiers’ demand for the return of the National Guard’s artillery was a “barefaced lie.” He provides the evidence: the cannon were private property, paid for by public subscription, and officially exempted from surrender to the Prussians under the 28 January capitulation. The seizure was merely the “preliminary to the general disarmament of Paris” and, by extension, the nullification of the Republic of 4 September 1870, which was the Assembly’s own legal foundation.
Marx draws heavily on the immediate historical context of the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris. He contrasts the revolutionary legitimacy of Paris—which endured a five-month famine and provided the basis for provincial defence—with the treacherous “capitulards” who signed away France. The chapter is a sustained polemic against Thiers, whom Marx savages as a “parliamentary Tom Thumb” playing Tamerlane, and his generals—Vinoy, a “Decembriseur” (referencing Louis Bonaparte’s 1851 coup), Valentin the Bonapartist gendarme, and Aurelles de Paladine the Jesuit. The narrative contrasts the magnanimity of the Central Committee, which persisted in a “merely defensive attitude” and left its class enemies unharmed, with the “tigerish instincts” of Thiers. Marx details the “revolting atrocities” committed by the Versailles forces: the summary execution of General Duval, the treacherous murder of Flourens, the shooting of prisoners, and the use of petroleum to burn National Guards alive. He specifically refutes the “myth” of a massacre at the Place Vendome, arguing that the “pacific demonstration” of 22 March was a “riotous mob of swells” armed with “revolvers, daggers, and sword-canes” who fired first. The chapter’s central polemical thrust is to expose the hypocrisy of the “Party of Order,” which lauded the bloody repression of a peaceful demonstration in 1849 but condemned the single volley that dispersed an armed provocation in 1871. Marx concludes that the Central Committee’s fatal mistake was its “reluctance to continue the civil war,” failing to march on the helpless Versailles immediately after 18 March, a hesitation that allowed Thiers to regroup and unleash his slaughter.