Selection From The Civil War in France

Abstract

IN July 1870 War Broke Out Between France and Prussia, concluding with the defeat and capture of Louis Bonaparte, the authoritarian leader of France, in September. In response, a new republic was formed, a Government of National Defense to continue the resistance against Prussia. Paris was besieged by the Prussian army and in early 1871 a new National Assembly was created, based in Versailles, to negotiate peace. One provision of the peace treaty was the disarmament of the National Guard, the Parisian militia. Moves to do this provoked the National Guard to repudiate the new French government in Versailles and form its own government in Paris: the Paris Commune of 1871. It only lasted from March until May before being suppressed by the government at Versailles, with the aid of the Prussians. Although it only had a brief existence, for Marx and Engels the Paris Commune was a landmark in the political struggle of the working class to forge a new order.