The Civil War in France
Marx defends the Paris Commune and reads its institutions as an experiment in popular power. He examines limits of the existing state apparatus and possibilities for transformed political organization.
Understanding the text
Written in English during and after the Commune’s suppression, this is a partisan intervention responding to unfolding events. The address was written for the International Working Men’s Association and answers hostile accounts of the Commune. Its account of municipal institutions must nevertheless be compared with the communards’ different political traditions and the immediate constraints created by war and siege.
Address of the International Working Men’s Association’s General Council.
Key points
- 01
State apparatus
Taking power does not mean using the inherited governmental machine unchanged. Administrative and military centralisation possesses institutional interests and a history of its own.
- 02
Accountable mandates
Election, recall, and official pay seek to limit rulers’ separation from citizens. Recall seeks to make representatives answerable to electors rather than independent holders of authority.
- 03
An open experiment
The Commune poses political learning rather than a fully completed institutional model. Defeat does not eliminate the question of which alternative democratic institutions were genuinely possible.
How to read it
Compare drafts and historical research on the communards’ diversity.
Editions & sources
Summaries and key points are original editorial interpretations. They accompany reading the work and do not replace an edition of the text. Editorial method ↗