If you want to get morbidly angry at the capitalist ruling class like I just did, read the 6th chapter of Karl Marx's "The Civil War in France": The Fall of Paris, as well as the whole thing since it's a really good book.
#socialism #communism #marxism #classwar #classstruggle #france #pariscommune #karlmarx #marx #capitalism #anticapitalism

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch06.htm

The #ParisCommune: A New History

#CarolynJEichner discusses her book #TheParisCommuneABriefHistory

"The Commune stands as a critical and pivotal moment in 19th century history, as the linchpin between revolutionary pasts and futures, and as a crucible allowing glimpses of alternate possibilities."

https://marxedproject.org/event/the-paris-commune-a-new-history/

#LaCommune #CommuneDeParis #histFr #Paris #communardes #communards #livres #books #18mars #18mars1871 #18March1871 #EnCeJour #OTD #CarolynEichner @histodons @bookstodon

Today in Labor History February 23, 1903: Jean-Baptiste Clement died. Clement was a socialist and Paris Communard, poet, singer and composer of the famous song, “The Time of Cherries.” He was one of the last on the barricades during the Commune. He escaped and fled to England. The French authorities condemned him to death, in absentia. They later granted him amnesty and he returned to France in 1879. He helped found the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party in 1890. Paris has since named schools and a street after him.

Today in Labor History February 10, 1898: Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht was born. Brecht was a doctor, poet and playwright. He fled the Nazis only to be persecuted in the U.S. by HUAC during the Cold War. He is most well-known for his play, “The Three Penny Opera.” He also wrote “Mother Courage and Her Children” and “The Days of the Commune,” about the Paris Commune. Additionally, he wrote poetry and composed the lyrics to many of the songs performed in his plays, like “Mack the Knife” and “Alabama Song” (AKA Whiskey Bar). https://youtu.be/6orDcL0zt34

#workingclass #LaborHistory #nazis #fascism #huac #Anticommunist #witchhunt #BertoltBrecht #marxist #Poet #books #writer #author #fiction #playwright #ParisCommune @bookstadon

Today in Labor History February 8, 1805: Louis-Auguste Blanqui was born. He was a French revolutionary and participant in the Paris Commune. Blanqui took an active role in most republican conspiracies of the early to mid-1800s, both in France, and in Italy with the Carbonari society, including the July Revolution of 1830. In 1840, the authorities condemned him to death for his role in a violent rebellion led by the Société des Saisons. However, they commuted it to life in prison and then ended up releasing him during the revolution of 1848. Needless to say, he promptly resumed his attacks. In 1849, they again imprisoned him, but he escaped and led two more armed uprisings. Just prior to the Paris Commune, they arrested him again. While in prison, the Communards elected him president of the commune. The Communards offered to release all of their prisoners if the government released Blanqui. In 1872, along with other leaders of the Commune, the authorities sentenced him to deportation. But because of poor health, they commuted his sentence to local imprisonment. He died in 1881.

Today in Labor History January 14, 1895: The Knights of Labor (KOL) initiated the Brooklyn trolley strike over wages and safety (lasting until Feb. 28). It was the largest strike Brooklyn had ever seen. The bosses brought in scabs from Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The drivers cut the wires, surrounded trains and assaulted the scab drivers. 2 people died. On January 19, the mayor called out the National Guard and declared martial law. Militiamen, with fixed bayonets, battled workers in the streets. Sympathetic locals threw rocks and bottles at the militiamen. When a supporter tried to disarm a soldier and was subsequently stabbed, the crowds of supporters swelled into the thousands. One New York paper called it another Paris Commune. However, the KOL had been weakened by years of poor leadership, and by the witch hunt that followed the Haymarket Bombing, and its membership had dwindled to under 100,000. They hadn’t waged a successful strike in years. In the end, the militia effectively quashed the strike and things returned to business as usual without the workers winning any of their demands.

Today in Labor History October 21, 1894: French anarchists incited a revolt on the penal colony of Île Saint-Joseph, in the Salvation Islands of French Guiana, which included the infamous Devil’s Island. The revolt was a response to the guards killing an anarchist prisoner. The uprising was quickly put down, with the guards slaughtering several anarchists, and torturing many more, some of whom later died from their wounds. Captain Alfred Dreyfus was held there (1895-98) after his wrongful, antisemitic conviction for treason. Charles Delescluze, libertarian socialist and future leader of the Paris Commune, was sent there in 1853. Clément Duval, a member of the Panther of Batignolles anarchist gang of robbers, spent 14 years on Devil’s Island, making 20 escape attempts. In 1901, he succeeded and fled to New York, where lived until his death at the age of 85. The first political prisoners brought to Guiana were Jacobins, in 1794. Numerous slave rebellions also occurred in the colony, until slavery was finally abolished, in the wake of the 1848 French Revolution. The novel and film “Papillon” takes place there, as does Joseph Conrad's short story “An Anarchist” (1906). Delescluze, who was killed on the barricades during the Commune, wrote an account of his imprisonment in Guiana, “De Paris à Cayenne, Journal d'un transporté.” And Duval wrote about it in his 1929 memoir, “Outrage: An Anarchist Memoir of the Penal Colony.” Guiana is the only continental South American territory to remain a European colony into the 21st century.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #prison #uprising #Revolution #anarchism #pariscommune #devilsisland #slavery #guiana #books #papillon #novel #memoir #writer #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History October 20, 1895: Anarcho-syndicalist writer Gaston Leval was born in France. He was the son of a French Communard. He escaped to Spain in 1915 to avoid conscription during WWI. Then left for Argentina during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera where he lived from 1923 to 1936. He returned to Spain and became a militant fighter in the war against the fascists, and where he documented the revolution and the urban and rural anarchist collectives in his numerous articles and books.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #gastonleval #spain #france #Revolution #civilwar #pariscommune #writer #books #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History October 18, 1843: Italian anarchist Amilcare Cipriani was born. At age 15, he fought with Garabaldi in Italy’s second war of independence. 1867, he joined the First International. He also defended the barricades during the Paris Commune. He was re-elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies eight times, but never was permitted to serve because he refused to swear allegiance to the king. Cipriani was so well-respected in Italy that Mussolini’s parents gave him the middle name of Amilcare.

Today in Labor History October 5, 1839: Eugène Varlin was born. He was an internationalist anarchist and elected member of the Paris Commune of 1871. Born into a poor, peasant family, he went on to become a bookbinder and a union organizer. He helped lead the very first French bookbinders strike, in 1864. He participated in several insurrections prior to 1871, as well as the storming of the Vendôme place, at the beginning of the Paris Commune. When the Commune was finally suppressed, Varlin was captured and executed.

Der Revolutionärin Louise Michel wurde bei der Eröffnungsfeier von Olympia 2024 in Paris Tribut gezollt. Nach Niederschlagung der Pariser Commune 1871 machte man Michel den Prozess und deportierte sie nach Neukaledonien. Sie kam zurück und kämpfte weiter für eine gerechte Welt. Lernt sie kennen! Ihr Leben & Denken — mit ausgewählten Originaltexten von Michel: https://dietzberlin.de/louise-michel-oder-die-liebe-zur-revolution

Today in Labor History 7/16/1877: The Great Railway Strike (Great Upheaval) began in Martinsburg, WV, with strikes spreading across the country, despite the unions, which tried to block it. Boatmen, steelers, miners & workers of all ages, genders & races joined in. Militias & national guards were deployed. For the 1st time ever, federal troops were used to crush a strike. Workers fought back with rocks & bricks. They sabotaged equipment. Dumped railroad cars. Rerouted engines. Many of the poorly paid soldiers went AWOL & joined the strikers. In Lebanon, PA, they mutinied. Karl Marx called it “the first uprising against the oligarchy of capital since the Civil War.”

In Chicago & St. Louis, strikes were led by the communist Workingmen’s Party, affiliated with the First International. In Chicago, future Haymarket martyr, Albert Parsons, gave a fiery speech. In St. Louis, workers took over & ran the city for a week in what became known as the St. Louis Commune (after the Paris Commune of 1871). At a huge meeting in St. Louis, a black man asked: “Will you stand with us regardless of color?” The crowd replied: “We will!”

The Great Upheaval ended after 45 days, with over 100 workers slaughtered. In Pittsburgh, the militia killed 20 workers in 5 minutes. In Chicago, they killed another 20. In Scranton, up to 50 were killed. In the aftermath, unions became better organized, particularly the new Knights of Labor, which mushroomed in size. But the bosses learned many lessons, too. Many of the old stone armories we see across the country today were built after the Great Upheaval to provide cities with greater fire power for the next great strikes.

My novel, "Anywhere But Schuylkill," is part of the "Great Upheaval" trilogy. You can get a copy from these indie booksellers:
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/
https://christophersbooks.com/

And from: https://www.amazon.com/Anywhere-but-Schuylkill-Michael-Dunn-ebook/dp/B0CJVW1BP2

You can read my full article on the Great Upheaval here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/31/the-great-upheaval/

Today in Labor History June 16, 1869: In the small mining town of Ricamarie, France, troops opened fire on miners who were protesting the arrest of 40 workers. As a result, troops killed 14 people, including a 17-month-old girl in her mother’s arms. Furthermore, they wounded 60 others, including 10 children. This strike, and another in Aubin, along with the Paris Commune, were major inspirations for Emile Zola’s seminal work, “Germinal,” and the reason he chose to focus on revolutionary worker actions in that novel.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #coal #mining #Revolutionary #france #massacre #strike #pariscommune #zola #germinal #books #fiction #novel #author #writer @bookstadon

Today in Labor History May 29, 1830: Anarchist school teacher Louise Michel was born. Also known as the Red Virgin, she was a leader of the Paris Commune. During the Bloody Week, the authorities executed 30,000 men, women and children. They forced Michel to turn herself in by threatening to kill her mother, then deported her to New Caledonia, where she taught both the children of colonists and the indigenous people of New Caledonia. Her struggle against French colonialism and her support for the indigenous people is remembered today in their local museum of anarchism.

In 1880, the French gave amnesty to commune prisoners and allowed her back into the country. Many of those prisoners could not find work and were starving. She helped set up soup kitchens to feed them and devoted herself to writing about strikes and worker protests. On Mach 9, 1883, she led a demonstration through Paris. During the march, starving workers looted bakeries and stole bread. They arrested Michel and sentenced her to six years solitary confinement. Two years after being released, a would-be assassin shot her behind her ear. During the trial, she defended the would-be assassin, arguing that he had been misled by an evil society. She died on January 9, 1905.

Read my entire biography of Michel here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/20/louise-michel/

„Auf ihr, die ihr die Ketten des Elends tragt!” Louise Michel, heute 1830 geboren, prägte als Aktivistin der Pariser Commune die Geschichte Frankreichs. Massiv bekämpfte sie die patriarchale Geschlechterordnung und die Abwertung der Frau. Ein Leben zwischen Barrikaden, Gefängnis, Abschiebung & Verbannung: https://dietzberlin.de/louise-michel-oder-die-liebe-zur-revolution

Mit 68 Jahren veröffentlicht Louise Michel, Symbolfigur der Pariser Kommune, das Buch «La Commune» (1898) und reflektiert das Geschehen & Scheitern der #commune. Es war falsch, sich nicht „der Schätze, die allen gehörten zu bedienen, um sie für die Allgemeinheit einzusetzen.“ Oder wie Engels 1891 schrieb: „Am schwersten begreiflich ist der heilige Respekt, womit man vor den Toren der Bank von Frankreich ehrerbietig stehnblieb.“ Lesetipp: https://dietzberlin.de/louise-michel-oder-die-liebe-zur-revolution /2

Today in Labor History May 21, 1894: The French authorities executed anarchist Emile Henry by guillotine. His final words were, “Courage, comrades! Long live Anarchy!” Henry grew up in a family of radicals. His father had been a supporter of the Paris Commune. As a result, his family was exiled to Spain, where Henry was born. However, his father contracted mercury poisoning from his factory job there and died when Henry was ten. After this, the family moved back to France. Henry’s older brother, also an anarchist, helped him make connections with other French revolutionaries. In 1892, Henry set a time bomb at the offices of the Carmaux Mining Company, which killed five cops. In February, 1894, he set off a bomb at the Café Terminus, killing one person and wounding twenty. The authorities arrested him for this crime and sentenced him to death by guillotine.

Today in Labor History May 21, 1871: The Bloody Week, a savage orgy of repression and violence, was launched against the Paris Commune. As a result of the French government’s massacres and summary executions, 20,000 to 35,000 civilians died. 38,000 people were arrested. Prior to the repression, workers had taken over the city for 2 months, governing it from a feminist and anarcho-communist perspective, abolishing rent and child labor, and giving workers the right to take over workplaces abandoned by the owners.

During the Commune, workers took over all aspects of economic and political life. They enacted a system that included self-policing, separation of the church and state, abolition of child labor, and employee takeovers of abandoned businesses. Churches and church-run schools were shut down. The Commune lasted from March 18 through May 28, 1871. Karl Marx called it the first example of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Louise Michel was one of the leaders of the revolution. During the Commune, she was elected head of the Montmartre Women’s Vigilance Committee. She also participated in the armed struggle against the French government. In her memoirs, Michel wrote the following about her state of mind during the commune: “In my mind I feel the soft darkness of a spring night. It is May 1871, and I see the red reflection of flames. It is Paris afire. That fire is a dawn.” She also wrote “oh, I’m a savage all right, I like the smell of gunpowder, grapeshot flying through the air, but above all, I’m devoted to the Revolution.”

Read my complete biography of Louise Michel here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/20/louise-michel/

Louise Michel, born May 29, 1830, was a poet, a school teacher, a leader of the 1871 Paris Commune, and a founder of anarcha-feminism. As a child, she always empathized with the downtrodden and, particularly, with animals. Indeed, she attributed the origin of her revolt to her horror at seeing animals abused. “I used to wish animals could get revenge, that the dog could bite the man who was mercilessly beating him, that the horse bleeding under the whip could throw off the man tormenting him.”

During the Paris Commune, she served as head of the Montmartre Women’s Vigilance Committee and participated in armed struggle against the government. In her memoirs, she wrote the following about her feelings during the Paris Commune: “Oh, I’m a savage all right, I like the smell of gunpowder, grapeshot flying through the air, but above all, I’m devoted to the Revolution.”

When the authorities finally quashed the commune, they forced Michel to turn herself in by threatening to kill her mother. She was lucky to have survived. They slaughtered up to 20,000 men, women and children. They also arrested over 43,000 people, sentencing ninety-five to death, 251 to forced labor, and 1,169 to deportation, including Michel, who they sent to New Caldonia. When asked if she had anything to say in her defense, she replied: "I do not wish to defend myself, I do not wish to be defended. . . I wished to oppose the invader from Versailles with a barrier of flames. I had no accomplices in this action. I acted on my own initiative. . . since it seems that any heart which beats for freedom has the right only to a lump of lead, I too claim my share. If you let me live, I shall never stop crying for revenge and l shall avenge my brothers. I have finished. If you are not cowards, kill me!"

She spent the next seven years of her life in New Caldonia, serving as a school teacher to
the children of both the colonists and the indigenous Kanak people. Her ongoing struggle against French colonialism and her support for the Kanak people, including participation in their 1878 revolt against the French colonialists, is remembered today in their local museum of anarchism.