Category Archives: Commentary

The Paris Commune: Alexander Berkman

Alexander Berkman sees in both the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921 a failure of foresight and nerve. In both cases, what was demanded was aggressive action against the State. And what occurred was passivity, lack … Continue reading

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The Paris Commune: Voltairine de Cleyre

The Paris Commune of 1871 was not a revolution of the many against the tyranny of state and capital, but an uprising of a minority that confusedly took control of Paris, then left the foundations of power in place, only … Continue reading

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The Paris Commune: Errico Malatesta

Writing of the Paris Commune in 1900, Errico Malatesta sought to disarm the myth of the Commune as a revolution – it was neither a socialist nor an anarchist revolution – and bring to the fore what in fact it … Continue reading

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The Paris Commune: Peter Kropotkin

The revolution of 1871 was above all a popular one. It was made by the people themselves, it sprang spontaneously from the midst of the mass, and it was among the great masses of the people that it found its … Continue reading

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The Paris Commune: Karl Marx

The work of Karl Marx on the Paris Commune of 1871 remains central for the understanding of the Commune as a “revolution”. We share below a text known as The Third Address of May 30th, 1871, part of a collection … Continue reading

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The Paris Commune: Mikhail Bakunin

I am a supporter of the Paris Commune, which for all the bloodletting it suffered at the hands of monarchical and clerical reaction, has nonetheless grown more enduring and more powerful in the hearts and minds of Europe’s proletariat. I … Continue reading

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The Paris Commune: Louise Michel

Anarchy is not a new idea; writers long before Saint-Just believed that a person who makes himself a leader commits a crime. Louise Michel It is not possible to read Louise Michel’s memoires without being swept away by the passion … Continue reading

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The Paris Commune

To arrive at the unknown through the disordering of all the senses, that’s the point. Arthur Rimbaud We share the words and sentiment of Mitchel Abidor, when he writes that the “Paris Commune of 1871 has been a blank screen … Continue reading

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For March 8: Feminist voices from latin america

The La Tinta media collective, with the support of the The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, has produced an excellent series of video interviews with feminist writers and activists from across latin america; feminist’s who speak in many voices and who take … Continue reading

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Rita Segato: Reading patriarchy

It will be necessary to shake the fantasy of the state, the fantasy of law, the safe harbor and terra firma sustaining the patriarchal and state certainties that impede our advancement. It will be necessary, for example, to reexamine the unachievable, inclusive formula of … Continue reading

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