Massacre: The Life and Death of the Paris Commune of 1871

This was a hard one for me to get through. I have only the vaguest concept of the topography of Paris and so the rapid fire recitation of names of various buildings, locations etc. became a blur - one almost needs a tourist guide book or map to keep some sort of focus unless you are familiar with the city and environs. I also have no knowledge of the French language which would have been a real asset in dealing with this book. Past all that, I have a very old Kindle that did not like the font of the book and in which none of the niffy Kindle reading aids really worked (which is not the fault of either the author or the book's content - just another impediment to my reading).<br /><br />The book is a history of the 1871 Paris Commune revealed for the most part by quoting contemporary sources. The book clearly delineates the social, economic, political and religious bases for the spontaneous generation of the Commune; and if some of the verbiage doesn't raise the hairs on the back of your neck than you have not been following the nightly news. Than, as now, class warfare is the issue and we only have to replace the Commune with Occupy and Versailles with Wall Street and once again the lesson of not learning from, and so repeating, history is greatly impressed upon one.<br /><br />Although it really does not take more pages that other portions of the book the "set point" is clearly "Bloody Week" wherein the price of opposing one's social and economic overlords was once again rained down upon the heads of virtually pre-doomed insurgents. Paris 1871 casts a very long and bloody shadow and has been historically mimicked too often. The Commune stands as a very grave warning to the political happenings of this age and to this country.<br /><br />Bottom line, I had trouble reading the book but I appreciate the scholarship which is outstanding and the placing of the events of a very complex and confusing period into a manageable narrative.

I was actually looking for something that delved into the mindset of the Communards when I picked this book of the library shelf. Although not originally what I was looking for, this book provided a practical hour-by-hour, day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of the rise and fall of the Paris Commune. Merriman provides a broad, balanced, beginning-to-end, account of the Commune, its causes and the aftermath. He also documents the surreal character of the city of Paris' response to the massacre as it was happening. History buffs will be very happy with the amount of little-known details that fill this book. The Paris Commune of 1871 has achieved a certain mythic proportion. Its notoriety transcends generations and crosses political lines. Those on the "left" tend to lionize this brief-lived insurrection whilst those on the "right" cite it as an example of of all that can go wrong when an alternate socio-economic system attempts to take control. In "Massacre", John Merriman provides a comprehensive history of the insurrection giving particular emphasis to the impressions, actions and reactions of a cross-section of people on both sides of the political divide.

Merriman, in this detailed history of the rise and fall of the Paris Commune, argued that the history of the Paris Commune, which the left celebrates as a moment of possibility of direct socialist democracy, instead should be looked at for the massacres by the conquering Versailles troops. The decision of the conservative troops, composed of mainly peasant, to kill as many Communards as possible in the week of the Paris’s reconquest, Merriman puts, sets up the terrors of the 20th century, in which people could die in mass for their beliefs. The rise of the Commune was set off after the defeat of the Bonapartist army in the Franco-Prussian War, afterwhich the conservative provisional government tried to disarm the National Guard, a working class Parisian militia set up in order to prevent violence against strikers. The direct democracy of Paris was extremely liberatory, as working class people were able to freely move about and shackles of old order seemed to fall away. The true welfare of people took paramount, though in the end, the Communards were unable to stop the reconquest. Much of the book is spent detailing the Bloody Week, in which Versailles troops methodically massacred Communards or whoever they thought were Communards or looked too working class. Ostensibly in response to the execution of 70 hostages, namely an archbishop, the total dead in the massacre approaches 35,000. The massacre also cemented class hatred and deeply divided French society afterwards. <br /><br />Key Themes and Concepts:<br />-The terror of reaction against the revolutionaries forshadows the state terror of the 20th century.<br />-Liberatory forces would not be tolerated and reestablishing class order was to be accomplished by killing all the Communards.<br />-The Communards targeted their wrath towards monarchist and clerical power, but in general thought of themselves as waging a class war against privilege. Most of the wealthy fled the city and cheered the destruction of the working class in the reconquest.<br />-Paris’s population had doubled in the previous 2 decades, as migrants came into the city to work factory jobs. The Imperial regime swelled the pockets of the wealthy, which fueled class antagonism.<br />

A sobering chronicle of the working class Paris Commune uprising and brutal crackdown by bourgeois state violence. The focus on the violent demise makes this book a hard read. My blood was boiling, I had no idea how gruesome the crackdown of the commune had been. If there is any shortfall to the book, it is perhaps the lack of context how the collective actions of the Commune, which was neither socialist nor proletarian, has formed. Lacking a detailed topography of Paris, I would also have liked to see more street maps in the book - or perhaps an internet link to maps. Modern technology, like Google Earth, should have made this easily possible. Nonetheless, an extra-ordinary insightful chronicle of class struggle that resonates with more recent political events for more equality and justice.

Hardly a dispassionate history, but it shouldn't be--not with a subject like this. Merriman's pro-Communard bias is obvious, but since I share it, I can't complain. It is a gripping read. My only criticisms are that the book is full of typos and it needed more and better illustration.

Merriman's succinct history focuses on the defence of Paris during the fateful weeks. Mini-biographies of participants, both working class and the bourgeoisie, breathe life into the narrative. The commune that emerges from the account is much less the ideal that some socialists have made it in hindsight. Yet, I'd recommend Donny Gluckstein's book for those interested in the running of the commune's democracy. Although it is not clear whether there is much original research in the book, the emphasis is commendable. Merriman shows clearly what the struggle was about: 'The conservative National Assembly revolted against Paris, and not the other way around (50), and 'Increasingly, one of the tropes of "the war on Paris" and its insurgent plebeians was that of battle against an inferior people' (130). The book is first and foremost a testament to the fear and cruelty of the bourgeoisie that rarely gets mentioned in mainstream history. Enjoyable and compassionate.

Lots and lots and lots of leaves but weak on the trees and a harndkly any discussion of the forest. The author assuming the reader has memorized the street map of Paris (which is not provided in the book) ... "the troops proceeded from Rue A to Rue B, across Rue C and down Rue D." Way to much meaningless detail that is never tied together. Unspeakable attrocities were committed but very little on the "why" ... I want to know more about what caused the hatred beyond simple class differences.

Thorough coverage of the Paris Commune, albeit strongly biased with no pretence of impartiality, and suffering significantly from a notable lack of maps. Not a good book for someone with no previous knowledge of the events, but a helpful supplementary resource for someone already familiar with the outline.

Tenia pendent de feia temps llegir algun llibre sobre la Comuna de París. Tot aprofitant que aquesta primavera feia cent cinquanta anys d'aquest moment cabdal, un amic historiador em recomanà “Masacre” de John Merriman.<br /><br />La Comuna s'instaurà aprofitant el buit de poder que havia deixat la guerra franco-prussiana, una derrota sense pal·liatius de la França, que dugué a la caiguda del Segon Imperi Francés i la proclamació de la Tercera República.<br /><br />La Comuna, un govern revolucionari, durà poc més de dos mesos. Fou aixafada militarment per l'exèrcit de Versalles i ho fou d'una manera cruel, genocida. El títol, “Masacre”, no és una casualitat o una exageració. S'executaren entre 15.000 i 35.000 persones. Fou la matança més gran a Europa del segle XIX, una "repressió estatal assassina". Els soldats i oficials versallesos torturaren i afusellaren sense pietat no sols combatents que s'havien rendit. També ho feren amb dones, xiquets i ancians. De fet, hi hagué una repressió destacada contra les dones, que havien participat en els debats i fins i tot en els combats per defensar la Comuna.<br /><br />La Comuna també cometé crims però d'una dimensió molt menor. Entre 66 i 68 ostatges foren assassinats. La història no és una relació entre bons i roïns, però no tots són iguals.<br /><br />Certament, fou un odi de classe burgés contra gent humil (al París de 1870 una quarta part de la població, quasi mig milió de persones, era indigent. Quatre quintes parts dels edificis no tenien aigua corrent). Els pobres eren vistos com “escòria”. Als “communards” la propaganda versallesa els deshumanitzà. "Le Figaro" escrigué "Què és un republicà? Un animal salvatge". Eren vistos doncs, com animals o com no europeus (la colonització fou brutal i acabà aplicant-se la “lògica” deshumanitzadora contra els "bàrbars" contra europeus pobres o “inferiors”. Salvant totes les distàncies, s'aplicà contra els eslaus per banda dels nazis i contra els republicans durant la Guerra Civil per banda dels franquistes). De fet, la sagnia fou vista com una "purificació" d'indesitjables.<br /><br />És un llibre molt ben escrit que pot llegir qualsevol (no és només per a especialistes, tot i el rigor). És molt recomanable per a entendre els segles XIX i XX i la “lògica” de les matances de poblacions civils. Però, si esteu una miqueta “deprimits”, ajorneu la lectura. És dur el que narra.<br /><br />#elsmeusllibres

Books about the events known as the "Commune of Paris", the upheaval in the wake of the fall of the French Second Empire in 1871 are rather scarce. Merriman's starts off very well and promising with a thorough painting of the broader background and all the reasons why.<br />Unfortunately he has a bee in his bonnet about forensic accuracy up to the point of keeping writing what happened, what street, what time exactly, who got wounded to what part of their bodies, what shot was fired from what balcony and so forth. Talk about a blow by blow account! As if this did not make reading unpleasant enough, Merriman is always keen to show us how good his command of the French language is and so he finds it clever to have his sentences sprinkled with a flurry of old-fashionned French words, their translation into English in brackets. It was such an ordeal that I will never ever pick up this book again.