9/29 - The Paris Commune - Fundamentals of Marxism Study Series discussion

Join us for our last meeting in the 
Fundamentals of Marxism Summer Study Series 

The Paris Commune -- Wed 9/29
7pm in Savery Hall 139

Anyone Reading The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels can't help but be amazed at the pamphlet's relevance after 150 years. But already by 1872, on one critical point, Marx himself was convinced that the Manifesto was "out of date." The occasion for this revision, not just in the Manifesto, but in one of the fundamental tenets of Marxism, was the epic struggle in 1871 of the Paris Commune, a mass movement of workers and the poor that for the first time in history established a short-lived workers' government in Paris. Although ultimately unsuccessful, the Commune was a spectacular demonstration that the future belonged to the world's working class.

The central lesson of the Commune, which had Marx and Engels scrambling to rewrite Marxism's founding document, is of such importance that socialism is ultimately impossible without it. "One thing especially was proved by the Commune," writes Marx. "That the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes." In order for workers to govern themselves, the workers must first assure that the bourgeoisie cannot simply use their military forces to repossess what they have temporarily lost.

Recommended prerequisite:

• Elizabeth Lalasz, The Classics of Marxism: The Civil War in France
  http://www.isreview.org/issues/34/civilwarinfrance.shtml

Main Reading:

• Marx, The Civil War in France: The Paris Commune (45 pages)
  http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/index.htm 

If you prefer to buy the books: The Civil War in France: The Paris Commune