KARL MARX . The P aris Commune With Introduction by FREDERICK ENGELS NEW YORK NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY Are You a Reader of the Weekly People? YOU ARE DEPENDENT upon the capitalist class for a chance to earn a li\.ing as long as you allow that class to retain its autocratic hold on industry. If you would attain THE RIGHT TO WORK JXN Iuust organize with the rest of the workiug class on proper lines. \Vhat kind of*organization i< needed, and what tactics should he pursued to end the serf-like conditions in the snaps and in- dustrial plants of the United States is pointed out and explained in THE WEEKLY PEOPLE 45 ROSE STREET N E V.’ YORK CITY ‘1‘1ie 1Veeklv People, being the Party-owned ’ mouthpiece of the Sociali.qt Labor Party of Amer- ica, aims at industrial democracy. through the in- tegral industrial union and revolutionary working class political action. It is a complete Socialist weekly paper, and sells at $I.CO a year, 50 cents for six months, 25 cents for three months. A trial snhscription of seven weeks ma!. he had for I j , cents. Send for a free YarnpIe copy. THE PARIS COMMUNE . THE BALANCE-SHEET OF BOUR- GEOIS VENGEANCE. Twenty-five thousand men, women, and children killed during the battle or after; three thousand at least dead in the prisons, the pontoons, the forts, or in consequence of maladies contracted during their cap- tivity ; thirteen thousand seven hundred condemned, most of them for life; seventy thousand women, children, and old men de- prived of their natural supporters or thrown out of France; one lundred and eleven thotuand victims at least. That is the bal- ance-sheet of the bourgeois vengeance for the solitary insurrection of the eighteenth of March. What a lesson of revolutionary vigor given to the workingmen! The governing classes shoot in a lump without taking the trouble to select hostages. Their vengeance lasts not an hour; neither years nor vic- tims appease it; they make of it an admin- istrative function, methodical and contin- uous. Lissagaray’s “ History of the Commune of 1871.‘9 PUBLISHERS’ NOTE THE two manifestoes on the France-Prussian War and the essay on the Civil War in France, which form the bulk of this volume, were originally issued in 1870 and 1871 by the General Council of the International Work- ingmen’s Association, as will be seen by the dates affixed to the documents. The Twentieth Century Press, of London, England, reprinted them a few years ago in a . pamphlet entitled The Commune of Paris, the pamphlet including an abridgment of Frederick Engels’ introduc- tion to the standard German edition of The Civil War in France, which was published in Berlin in 18g1. In an edition recently issued by a New York publisher, the two manifestoes on the France-Prussian War are omitted, and the English abridgment of Engels’ intro- duction is still further abridged to make it conform to the absence of the omitted documents. Deeming it but just to both Marx and Engels that their work should be given to the public in an unabridged form, we present in this volume the first complete edition of the essays by Marx and the introduction by Engels published in the English language. The only liberty we have taken with the. text is the addition of chapter titles to The Civil War ira France. In the Appendix will be found (I) a translation of the anti-plebiscite manifesto, referred to on pages 23 and 24 ; (2) further details regarding “ Bloody Week,” con- ” vi PUBLI.51iEKS’ NOTE sisting of a compilation of testimony from capitalist sources, with brief comments! on the same by Lucien Sanial ; (3) the reply of the Secretary of the General Council of the International to Jules Favre’s circular letter of June 6, 1871; (4) the personnel of the General Council of the International when the manifestoes on the Franco- Prussian War and the Civil War in France were issued. These documents throw additional light on the events of \y 1870 and ,thetragedy. of 1871. NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY. CONTENTS PUBLISHERS' NOTE - - - - - - - - - v INTRODLJCTI~N TO 'THE GERMAN EDITION, BY FREDERICK EXCELS _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ I THE INTERNATIOKAL WORKINGMEN’S ASSOCIATION C)S THE FRASCO-PRUSSIAN WAR FIRST MANIFES'L‘O-THE DECLARATIOS OF WAR - - - ZI SECOX~ MASIFESIW-AFTER SEDAN - - - 31 THE CIVIL \\'AR IN FRANCE CHAPTER I. THE S.4~1ox.4~ DEFESSE - - - - - - 47 II. THE EIGHTEENTH OF MARCH - - - - - 60 III. THE IIISTORIC SIcSIFICASCE OF THE Co~rMusE - 70 IV. THE REPRESSIOS 1 - - - - - - - $10 APPENDIX ANTI-PLEBISCITE AIANIFESTO - - - - - - - 107 UB~~~~~ WEEK” - - - - - - - - - IIO JULES FAVRE ON THE INTERNATIONAL - - - - - 114 PERSONNEL OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE INTERNA- TIONAL _ - - - - - - - - - 116 . INTRODUCTION TO THE GERMAN EDITION THE invitation to prepare another edition of the ad- dress of the General Council of the International Work- ingmen’s Association concerning the Civil War in France, and to preface it with an introduction, came to me quite unexpectedly. I can only, therefore, take up the most essential points and touch upon them very briefly. I prefix the two shorter addresses of the General Coun- cil to the longer pamphlet on the France-Prussian War. Firstly, because in the pamphlet on the Civil War ref- erence is made to the second address, which itself would not be intelligible without the first. Secondly, be- cause these two addresses, which are also the work of Marx, are, not less than the Civil War, excellent speci- mens of that marvelous gift of the-author, first exhibited in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, of ap- prehending clearly the character, the import, and the in- evitable consequences of great historical events, at the very time when these events are still unfolding them- selpes, or have only just taken place. And lastly be- cause, as I write, the German people are still suffering from the evils consequent upon the events here con- sidered, as clearly foreseen and foretold by Marx. Has it not, indeed, come to a fulfilment, as predicted in the first address, that should Germany’s war of defense against Louis Bonaparte degenerate into a war of con- 2 INTRODUCTION TO THE GERMAN EDITION quest against the French nation, all the calamities that befell the German people after the so-called wars of Iib- eration’ would revisit them “ with accumulated inten- sity ” ? Have we not had twenty years more of Bis- marckian rule, and in place of the former persecution of the “ demagogues ” have we not had the “ exceptional. law “= and the hounding of socialists, with the same po- lice tyranny and the same revolting interpretation of legal texts ? And has it not come literally true, that the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine would “drive France into the arms of Russia,” and that after this annexation Germany would either become the acknowledged vassal of Russia, or would have, after a short respite, to arm herself for a new war ? And what a war? A “ race war of the Germans against the coalesced Slavs and Latins “! Is it not a fact, that the annexation of the French provinces has driven France into the arms of Russia ? Has not Bis- marck for twenty years courted in vain the favor of the Czar, and lowered himself before him with even meaner servility than little Prussia, before she became the “ first great power of Europe,” had been accustomed to dis- play at the feet of “ Holy Russia “? And does not the “ Damocles sword ” overhang us of a war, on the first day of which all written treaties will be blown unto the wi& like chaff; of a war as to which nothing is certain but the absolute uncertainty of its issue ; of a race war which will expose all Europe to the devastation of fifteen or twenty millions of armed men, and which only hangs fire 1 1813-15, against Napoleon.-Note to the American Edition. ? This law was passed by the German Reichstag in 1878 with the obiaa of suppressing socialist agitation, confiscating the socialist press and liter- ature, etc. Owing to the courage and determination of the socalists, th% “ law of exception ” proved a boomqang, and after twelve years of fi- conflict between the socialist workinqmen and the capitalist government, the latter allowed the law to die by limitation.--Vote to the American E&&m- INTRODUCTION TO THE GERMAN EDITICK 3 at present for the reason that even the strongest of the great military states shrinks before the absolute uncer- tainty of the final result? All the niore, therefore, is it our duty to render accessi- ble to the German workingmen these brilliant but half- forgotten documents, which attest to the far-sightedness. of the International’s proletarian policy in connection with the events of 1870. What applies to these two addressefs, applies also to the one entitled The Civil War in France.. On the -28th of May, the iast of the combatants of the Commune -were crushed by.superior numbers on the heights of Bellev~lle,, and not more than two days passed, before Ma&, on’the goth, read to the General Council of the International the pamphlet in question, in which the historical significance of the Paris Commune is presented briefly, but in words so powerful, so incisive, and above all, so true, that there is no equal to it in the whole range of the extensive lit- erature on the subject. Thanks to the economic and political development of France since 1789, Paris has for fifty years been placed in such a position that no revolution could there break ‘out without assuming a proletarian character, in such wise that the proletariat, which had bought the victory with its blood, would immediately thereafter put forward its own demands.