KKE and French communists honored the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune

Photo: 902.gr

“We are here in Paris to culminate the rich program of tributes, events, publications and other activities through which our Party honors the heroic Paris Commune, 150 years since the first “storming of dream” by the working class. We are here, we walked in the footsteps of the Commune and drawing strength and knowledge from its teachings, we continue the beautiful but difficult struggle. So that dreams will be vindicated”, said Dimitris Koutsoumbas, General Secretary of the CC of the KKE, during a speech in Paris, France.

KKE leader Koutsoumbas pays tribute to the Paris Commune

Photo: 902.gr

On his 2nd day of visit in Paris, the General Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Dimitris Koutsoumbas participated in a guided walk “on the footsteps of the Commune”. The walk began from Louise Michel square and continued in Montmartre.

Later on, the General Secretary and a delegation of the KKE visited the “Communards' Wall” at Père Lachaise cemetery where Koutsoumbas laid a wreath in honor of the 147 fallen combatants of the 1871 Paris Commune. Flowers were also deposed to the graves of the General Secretary of the French Communist Party from 1930 to 1964 Maurice Thorez, communist poet Paul Éluard and communard chansonnier Jean-Baptiste Clement. 

Vladimir I. Lenin — Lessons of the Paris Commune

By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

After the coup d état, which marked the end of the revolution of 1848, France fell under the yoke of the Napoleonic regime for a period of 18 years. This regime brought upon the country not only economic ruin but national humiliation. In rising against the old regime the proletariat under took two tasks—one of them national and the other of a class character—the liberation of France from the German invasion and the socialist emancipation of the workers from capitalism. This union of two tasks forms a unique feature of the Commune.

150 years since the Paris Commune — Abstract from Karl Marx's "The Civil War in France"

Today, 18 March 2021, marks the 150th anniversary of the heroic Paris Commune, the first time in the history of mankind when the state power passed, albeit for a short time, into the hands of the proletariat, the most pioneering and only revolutionary class of capitalist society. 

The Commune founded by the workers of Paris lived for only 72 days. However its historic importance was enormous. Nothing after the Paris Commune would be the same for the working class, nor for the bourgeoisie which, from then on, would be forced to live with the nightmare of a revolution overthrowing its dominance.

On the occasion of the 150 years since the Commune de Paris, we publish two chapters from Karl Marx's work "The Civil War in France" (1871) which refer to the historical events of the then period. 

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- The State and Revolution (1917) Part VI "The Vulgarisation of Marxism by Opportunists"

The State and Revolution.

By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

First Published: 1918.

Source: V.I.Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 25, p.381-492.

The question of the relation of the state to the social revolution, and of the social revolution to the state, like the question of revolution generally, was given very little attention by the leading theoreticians and publicists of the Second International (1889-1914). But the most characteristic thing about the process of the gradual growth of opportunism that led to the collapse of the Second International in 1914 is the fact that even when these people were squarely faced with this question they tried to evade it or ignored it.

In general, it may be said that evasiveness over the question of the relation of the proletarian revolution to the state--an evasiveness which benefited and fostered opportunism--resulted in the distortion of Marxism and in its complete vulgarization.

To characterize this lamentable process, if only briefly, we shall take the most prominent theoreticians of Marxism: Plekhanov and Kautsky.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- The State and Revolution (1917) Part V "The Economic Basis of the Withering Away of the State"

The State and Revolution.

By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

First Published: 1918.

Source: V.I.Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 25, p.381-492.

Marx explains this question most thoroughly in his Critique of the Gotha Programme (letter to Bracke, May 5, 1875, which was not published until 1891 when it was printed in Neue Zeit, vol. IX, 1, and which has appeared in Russian in a special edition). The polemical part of this remarkable work, which contains a criticism of Lassalleanism, has, so to speak, overshadowed its positive part, namely, the analysis of the connection between the development of communism and the withering away of the state.

1. Presentation of the Question by Marx

From a superficial comparison of Marx's letter to Bracke of May 5, 1875, with Engels' letter to Bebel of March 28, 1875, which we examined above, it might appear that Marx was much more of a "champion of the state" than Engels, and that the difference of opinion between the two writers on the question of the state was very considerable.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- The State and Revolution (1917) Part IV "Supplementary Explanations by Engels"

The State and Revolution.

By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

First Published: 1918.

Source: V.I.Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 25, p.381-492.

IV. SUPPLEMENTARY EXPLANATIONS BY ENGELS.

Marx gave the fundamentals concerning the significance of the experience of the Commune. Engels returned to the same subject time and again, and explained Marx's analysis and conclusions, sometimes elucidating other aspects of the question with such power and vividness that it is necessary to deal with his explanations specially.

1. The Housing Question

In his work, The Housing Question (1872), Engels already took into account the experience of the Commune, and dealt several times with the tasks of the revolution in relation to the state. It is interesting to note that the treatment of this specific subject clearly revealed, on the one hand, points of similarity between the proletarian state and the present state--points that warrant speaking of the state in both cases--and, on the other hand, points of difference between them, or the transition to the destruction of the state.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- The State and Revolution (1917) Part III "Experience of the Paris Commune of 1871: Marx's Analysis"

The State and Revolution.

By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

First Published: 1918.

Source: V.I.Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 25, p.381-492.

III. EXPERIENCE OF THE PARIS COMMUNE OF 1871: MARX'S ANALYSIS.

1. What Made the Communards' Attempt Heroic?

It is well known that in the autumn of 1870, a few months before the Commune, Marx warned the Paris workers that any attempt to overthrow the government would be the folly of despair. But when, in March 1871, a decisive battle was forced upon the workers and they accepted it, when the uprising had become a fact, Marx greeted the proletarian revolution with the greatest enthusiasm, in spite of unfavorable auguries. Marx did not persist in the pedantic attitude of condemning an “untimely” movement as did the ill-famed Russian renegade from marxism, Plekhanov, who in November 1905 wrote encouragingly about the workers' and peasants' struggle, but after December 1905 cried, liberal fashion: "They should not have taken up arms."