The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State - Mikhail Bakunin Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin on the Paris Commune and the idea of government and the state. This work, like all my published work, of which there has not been a great deal, is an outgrowth of events. It is the natural continuation of my Letters to a Frenchman (September 1870), wherein I had the easy but painful distinction of foreseeing and foretelling the dire calamities which now beset France and the whole civilized world, the only cure for which is the Social Revolution. My purpose now is to prove the need for such a revolution. I know my self-imposed task is not a simple one. Well, then, who am I, and what is it that prompts me to publish this work at this time? I am a convinced advocate of economic and social equality because I know that, without it, liberty, justice, human dignity, morality, and the well-being of individuals, as well as the prosperity of nations, will never amount to more than a pack of lies. This divergence leads to a difference in tactics.
Glossary of Terms: Bo Bonapartism First used in reference to the government established by Louis Bonaparte, who had been elected to the office of presidency in 1848. Three years following, on 2 December, 1851, he staged a coup d'etat against his government, setting up a military dictatorship in its place. Marx soon after wrote a popular pamphlet called the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte "demonstrating how the class struggle in France created circumstances and relationships that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero's part." Bonapartism has been used to describe a government that forms when class rule is not secure and a military, police, and state bureaucracy intervenes to establish order. Further readings: Trotsky, The Rise of Hitler and Destruction of the German Left; and The Workers' State, Thermidor and Bonapartism. Bourgeoisie The class of people in bourgeois society who own the social means of production as their Private Property, i.e., as capital. Bourgeois Democracy V.I.
Luce, Maximilien, 1858-1941 Short biography of Neo-impressionist painter and anarchist Maximilien Luce. Maximilien Luce was born into a modest family in 1858 in Paris. From early youth he mixed with impoverished artisans and workers constructing the major roads and other works. It was in 1887 that he began to reveal his talent. Luce was no theoretician but he absorbed the ideas of Seurat on painting, which became known as neo-impressionism. From 1897 he moved away from this “divisionist” style towards a more classic impressionism., whilst retaining his use of vibrant colours and thickly crowded spaces. He had contempt for the art dealers and journalists who he felt were totally ignorant of the aims of the neo-impressionists. Encouraged by the cobbler Eugene-Frederic Givort, whom he had first met during military service, and by the worker Eugene Baillet, he joined them in participating in the activities of the anarchist group of the 14th arrondissement. This article appeared in issue 76 of Organise!
Economic Manuscripts: Capital Vol. I - Chapter Six Karl Marx. Capital Volume One Chapter Six: The Buying and Selling of Labour-Power The change of value that occurs in the case of money intended to be converted into capital, cannot take place in the money itself, since in its function of means of purchase and of payment, it does no more than realise the price of the commodity it buys or pays for; and, as hard cash, it is value petrified, never varying. [1] Just as little can it originate in the second act of circulation, the re-sale of the commodity, which does no more than transform the article from its bodily form back again into its money-form. By labour-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description. But in order that our owner of money may be able to find labour-power offered for sale as a commodity, various conditions must first be fulfilled. The owner of labour-power is mortal.
Montels, Jules, 1843-1916 A short biography of anarchist, Paris Communard and tutor to Leo Tolstoy's children, Jules Montels. Jules Montels was born in France at Gignac in the Herault department, on 25th March 1843. As a young boy he experienced the uprising in 1851 against the coup of Louis Napoleon, which was followed by savage repression. These left bitter memories for him. Working either as a clerk or commercial traveller, he was in Paris when the Commune broke out. He served as a colonel in the 12th Federated Legion of the Commune (Montels always harboured deep resentment against Karl Marx and his followers for Marx’s maligning of the Communards). With Emile Digeon, he participated in the short-lived Narbonne Commune. Guesde was involved in the work of the French exile group of the International, the Section de Propagande et d’Action Revolutionnaire-Socialiste, and Montels took part alongside him in this work. He was one of the few French exiles to take this work seriously. Some time later he moved to Tunis.
Bourgeoisie The prototypical bourgeois: Monsieur Jourdain, the protagonist of the play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670), by Molière, is the best would-be nobleman that money can buy. In Marxist philosophy, the term bourgeoisie denotes the social class who owns the means of production and whose societal concerns are the value of property and the preservation of capital, in order to ensure the perpetuation of their economic supremacy in society.[3] Joseph Schumpeter instead saw the creation of new bourgeoisie as the driving force behind the capitalist engine, particularly entrepreneurs who took risks in order to bring innovation to industries and the economy through the process of creative destruction.[4] Etymology[edit] The 16th-century German banker Jakob Fugger and his principal accountant, M. Schwarz, registering an entry to a ledger. History[edit] Denotations[edit] The Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie[edit] Nomenclatura[edit] In France and French-speaking countries[edit]
Theses on the Paris Commune - Situationist International The Situationists reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of a great revolutionary moment; "the biggest festival of the nineteenth century". "...it is time we examine the Commune not just as an outmoded example of revolutionary primitivism, all of whose mistakes can easily be overcome, but as a positive experiment whose whole truth has yet to be rediscovered and fulfilled." “The classical workers movement must be reexamined without any illusions, particularly without any illusions regarding its various political and pseudotheoretical heirs, because all they have inherited is its failure. The apparent successes of this movement are actually its fundamental failures (reformism or the establishment of a state bureaucracy), while its failures (the Paris Commune or the 1934 Asturian revolt) are its most promising successes so far, for us and for the future” (Internationale Situationniste #7). The Commune was the biggest festival of the nineteenth century. The Commune had no leaders. 1.
Proletariat The proletariat (/ˌproʊlɪˈtɛəriːət/ from Latin proletarius) is a term used to describe the class of wage-earners (especially industrial workers) in a capitalist society whose only possession of significant material value is their labour-power (their ability to work);[1] a member of such a class is a proletarian. Usage in Roman law[edit] As defined in the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the proletarii constituted a social class of Roman citizens owning little or no property. Although included in one of the five support centuriae of the Comitia Centuriata, proletarii were largely deprived of their voting rights due to their low social status caused by their lack of "even the minimum property required for the lowest class"[4] and a class-based hierarchy of the Comitia Centuriata. Usage in Marxist theory[edit] A 1911 Industrial Worker publication advocating industrial unionism based on a critique of capitalism. See also[edit] Reference notes[edit] Further reading[edit] External links[edit]