Paris Commune

Paris Commune

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This article is about the government of Paris in 1871. For the Commune during the French Revolution, see Paris Commune (French Revolution).

Paris Commune
A barricade on Rue Voltaire, after its capture by the regular army during the Bloody Week
Date 18 March – 28 May 1871 Location Paris, France Result Revolt suppressed
Belligerents
French Republic French Armed Forces	Communards National Guards
Commanders and leaders
Adolphe Thiers	Louis Charles Delescluze  †
Strength
170,000[1]	On paper, 200,000; in reality, probably between 25,000 and 50,000 actual combatants[2]
Casualties and losses
877 killed, 6,454 wounded, and 183 missing[3]	6,667 confirmed killed and buried.[4] Other estimates between 10,000[5] and 20,000[6] killed

The Paris Commune^[7] was a radical socialist and revolutionary government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871. Following the defeat of Emperor Napoleon III in September 1870, the French Second Empire swiftly collapsed. In its stead rose a Third Republic at war with Prussia, who subjected Paris to a brutal four-month siege. A hotbed of working-class radicalism, during this time France's capital was primarily defended not by the regular French Army, but by the often politicized and radical troops of National Guard. In February 1871 Adolphe Thiers, the new chief executive of the French national government, signed an armistice with Prussia that disarmed the Army but not the National Guard.

The killing of two French army generals by soldiers of the Commune's National Guard and the refusal of the Commune to accept the authority of the French government led to its harsh suppression by the regular French Army in "La semaine sanglante" ("The Bloody Week") beginning on 21 May 1871.^[8] Debates over the policies and outcome of the Commune had significant influence on the ideas of Karl Marx, who described it as an example of the "dictatorship of the proletariat".^[9]