Theory

“Working men’s Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the great heart of the working class. Its exterminators’ history has already […]

The birth of the Paris Commune marked the first time in history when the working class took political power directly into its own hands. Karl Marx at the time described it as a “new point […]

The following article by Leon Trotsky was written in 1921 on the 50th anniversary year of the Paris Commune. It is a brilliant analysis of the Commune which draws the most essential lesson from its […]

The Paris Commune – ‘storming heaven’ The lessons for today Sunday 28th March 2021, 15-00 (GMT) Speakers: Cécile Rimboud, Gauche Revolutionnaire, France Peter Taaffe, CWI and Socialist Party England, and Wales Steve Hollasky, Sozialistische Organisation […]

A hundred and fifty years ago, on 18 March 1871, the armed proletarians of Paris set out to “storm heaven” (as Marx put it) and created the very first embodiment of a state ‘by and […]

The following text by Pascal Grimbert was published as a short pamphlet by Gauche Révolutionnaire (CWI in France), in March 2011, to mark the 140th anniversary of the Paris Commune. socialistworld.net  Historical and political summary […]

“It is time people understood the true meaning of this Revolution, and this can be summed up in a few words. It meant the government of the people by the people. It was the first […]

Today, 18 March, is the anniversary of what is regarded as the start of “the 1871 Paris Commune as government”. An insurrection of workers took place to prevent the French army from seizing the cannons […]