The Experience of the Paris Commune

Lenin showed special interest in the experience of the Commune on the eve of the Bolshevik seizure of power, especially with regard to the soviets competing with the provisional government for political power, just as the Paris Commune had challenged the legitimacy of the Versailles government under Thiers. The success of the October Revolution where the Commune had failed led Soviet historians to focus on two negative lessons of the Paris Commune, namely, the role of the proletarian political party and the alliance between the workers and the peasants. The interpretation of the Paris Commune that emerges in these new textbooks is always framed in terms of lessons to be learned. The lower middle school text naturally had the simplest assessment. The 1956 world history self-study reference book boils down the experience of the Paris Commune in similar terms: Naturally, the Paris Commune failed, but it had real historical significance.