The Experience of the Paris Commune and Marx’s Reflections on Communism

Abstract

The Paris Commune had shown that the aim of the working class had to be one of building a society radically different from capitalism and embodied the idea of social-political change and its practical application. It became synonymous with the very concept of revolution and inspired Karl Marx to develop his reflections on communism. The alternative to capitalist alienation was achievable only if the subaltern classes became aware of their condition as new slaves and embarked on a struggle to radically transform the world in which they were exploited. Their mobilization and active participation in this process could not stop on the day after the conquest of power. Social mobilization would have to continue after the revolution, in order to avert any drift towards the kind of state socialism that Marx always opposed with the utmost tenacity and conviction. In The Civil War in France, he explained that, after the conquest of power, the working class would have to fight to uproot the economical foundations upon which rests the existence of classes, and therefore of class rule.