ABSTRACT
The Paris Commune of 1871 was the first, as yet weak, historic attempt of the working class to impose its supremacy. Kautsky requires his extensive comparison of the Commune and Soviet Russia only in order to slander and humiliate a living and victorious dictatorship of the proletariat in the interests of an attempted dictatorship, in the already fairly distant past. The Parisian worker has behind him too definite a past to need revolutionary recommendation or protection from the praises of the present Kautsky. The workers pursue the offensive only under the pressure of iron necessity, just as they have recourse to the Red Terror only under the threat of destruction by the White Guards. The vote of the Paris Commune was decided, not at the elections, but in the battles with the troops of Thiers. 167,000 National Guards represented the great mass of the electorate.
