The Commune

In the history of humanity we find the assurance and certainty that the advance toward social justice and liberty can never be checked for long, and that the means and aims of realizing it are gaining in clarity and strength with every new uprising and revolt.

In old Rome the slaves, led by Spartacus, rose in rebellion seventy years before the Christian era. Badly armed and provisioned, a chaotic conglomerate from the whole realm, they yet triumphed over the trained legions of the Roman State, and the safety of Rome itself was threatened by their determined onslaughts. Unfortunately friction arose among the various tribes and nationalities, the difficult situation still, further aggravated by the spies of Rome, who industriously sowed discord in the army of rebellion, finally to hand it over to the power of Rome, that employed the most barbaric methods to wipe out the uprising.

The Middle Ages witnessed the revolution flame through the various countries of Europe, under the guise of religious movements. But whatever their particular form, the common purpose of them all was the conquest of bread and liberty. This was the aim of the French peasants in the jacquerie movement of the 14th century. They rebelled against the theft of their lands by the robber knights of the court and of the nobility, and took up arms against the chains of serfdom. They made common cause with the poorer classes of the city population, of whom greedy taxation and usury stole the last crust from their very mouths. Thousands were sacrificed in this struggle, and it was only by means of the great French Revolution that the peasant of France finally freed himself from the yoke of feudalism.

Bread and Freedom! Again it was the cry of the 100,000 English peasants who rose on Blackheath Common, near London, under the leadership of Wat Tyler, setting the whole country round aflame with the fire of the insurrection, the rebels successfully attacking the capital of England and holding it in their possession for three weeks. But the treachery of the king and his parliament in holding out empty promises to the rebels, and the murder of Wat Tyler by a courtier, broke down the rebellion.

Tremendous were the peasant uprisings a century later in Germany, Austria, Holland and Switzerland. The castles and estates of the nobles, without number, were sacked and burned, the red flag waving at the head of many a rebel army. This time treachery came from the religious reformer, Martin Luther, who at first sided with the peasants, but later craftily made peace with the rulers and vehemently advocated the most cruel treatment of the rebels.

The power of the nobility was finally broken by the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, to which the Revolution of the American Colonies against England was the prelude. But the poor people of the large cities were already beginning to realize that it was not enough to abolish feudalism; that though the bourgeoisie fought to secure for itself political liberty, it was at the same time determined to continue the social and economic oppression of the masses by wage slavery and usury, even with greater intensity and more effectually than was the case under feudalism. Men like Marat, Hebert, and particularly Babeuf understood to some extent the situation. Babeuf headed a conspiracy, whose aim was to proclaim Communism. But the movement was not successful, and Babeuf, with a number of his comrades, was guillotined.

The tendencies of social revolution from then on manifested themselves with greater clarity and consciousness, in contrast with the mere political changes which in spite of all representation and franchise brought no radical improvement in the lot of the masses of labor. Social revolutionary tendencies came into strong relief in the June revolution of 1848, but still more definitely in the Paris Commune, proclaimed by the people of the French capital on March 18th, 1871.

The Commune was defeated two and a half months later by the united international reaction, that slaughtered 30,000 men and women, and imprisoned and banished 10,000 more.

The Commune was an heroic attempt toward a successful Social Revolution. But the social ideas of that time were not sufficiently strong to wipe away the old political traditions. Thus, for example, instead of taking effective revolutionary measures – providing for the needs of the people by  throwing open the warehouses where food and other necessaries were stored; by expropriating and getting possession of the national treasury; by organizing production and distribution in co-operative leagues of the people – instead of all these absolutely vital measures, an election was ordered, which carried into power a number of politicians and weak compromisers, who would have remained quite insignificant if the revolution had been energetically carried to its logical conclusion. Such social measures would have inspired the people with confidence and courage; the rebellious proletariat would have realized that this time they were not to sacrifice their lives and shed their blood in vain; that it was not to be a more change of political constellations, but that it was in all truth a real Social Revolution.

An unbroken thread of red runs through proletarian history, from the ancient slave revolts and peasant wars of feudal days, to the uprisings of the proletariat in 1792, 1830, 1848, 1871, down to the heroic struggle of the Russian people of our own time.

It is uninterrupted warfare; and we of this generation shall continue the fight till the victory of the downtrodden is complete.

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The obscure, the nameless! They are the true heroes of history. We know no books they have written. Not authors, nor orators they. Yet how life-like they tower before our mental eye in all the glory of their self-sacrifice, their noble passion and immortality. We see them, these brave unknown, in the thick of combat, their eyes aflame, their fists clenched. We hear their songs of battle, witness their inspiring devotion. We behold them dying, serenely joyous, the devoted martyrs of a noble cause.

Countless times duped, deprived of the fruits of their triumph, again we see them enter the arena. Restlessly they storm forward, ever forward! 

The men and women of fame are the meteors momentarily lighting up the horizon, then fading away into the night of the past. But the nameless do not vanish. They are like the phoenix, eternally resurrected in the ashes of his fiery death; We know that we do not hope in vain when we rest in them our faith for the future.

–Le Trimardeur

Road to Freedom v.1, no.5 (March 1925) https://libcom.org/article/road-freedom-vol-1-no-5-march-1925