The Paris Commune | Lessons from the First Dictatorship of the Proletariat 

Oh yes the Paris Commune, that brief moment where France was based

Brilliant work, thank you!

Just wanted to let anyone who was curious know. I ordered from The bookstore mentioned in video. I never trust sponsors or ads (or even patreon…sorry Paul) on RU-vid, but after I saw about the deal and checked out the website, I broke down and actually placed an order for some books. They arrived fast and in great condition. Highly recommend giving them a try. I figured supporting someone who supports Paul hopefully makes up for my patreon trust issues.

Thanks for the video! My favorite part has to be the critique, "we owe nothing to the bourgousie system" important and hard lesson this historical event teaches us. Anyone serious about communism needs to learn.

This video is awesome. As communists, it is vital we know our history and observe class struggle all around the world, but also learn from our mistakes and shortcomings :)

This was an amazing analysis, Comrade Paul. :) I can imagine how many people would be saying simply "Oh, it just failed. I mean, look at how short it was!", but no, for however brief a time, it represented something of a shining light, a starting point for communist inspiration the world over! There's a quote that springs to mind, I'm not sure if it was Mao or somebody else, something about a "first shot starting the Paris Commune, the second starting the Bolshevik Revolution", maybe?

Fab video as ever, comrade!! Really handy for me too, as my knowedge of details of the Paris Commune are shamfully and embarrassingly lacking, in all honesty! Much here I didn't know, so special thanks for filling in vast gaps in what I knew about this extremely important historical event!!

It proves that in *CAN* be done. If the French could do it, and the Russians could do it, and the Cubans could do it, why can't we?

Great video. I've been putting off watching your videos but when I find the time, I will definitely binge more.

Great and insightful video. I've only recently took the time to actually understand what the commune was about and you kept it straight to the point. Thank you.

I've got a couple of questions now Is the nature of the paris commune being an isolated area one of its main drawbacks? Like should it have...somehow, waited until other areas would too embrace this nature before being the target of the state? Is a revolution, especially now with communist parties, a national event rather than the isolated event, spreading outwards until it reaches the whole country or the government? And with people's armies, are they too supposed to be nationally organised so they can defend against these reactionary forces? How does a people's army differ from having many and multiple people's militias everywhere?

One day France...One day...🥖🚩

Still yet to read much about the Paris commune, this is a great starter vid. Thanks!

I look forward to today, because both Marxist Paul and Second Thought upload today

I'm loving these videos! I find learning about revolutionaries and revolutionary movements in the past fascinating and inspiring! Please keep making these type of videos! 🙂

Today is the anniversary of the formation of the Paris Commune! Long live the international revolution! And cheers to you for the amazing video(s)!

Fantastic video, comrade!

"2 views, 6 likes". Love it. Massive support from a member of CPGB, Paul! Solidarity!

a video on the chinese revolution in the 20s would be very interesting. most views ive seen are very ideologically driven by the tired stalin/trotsky divide

The united front of China is a great example of what to do, whilst the united front that Dimtrov wanted had errors we must learn from.

Brilliant video as always! Please please do a video on the limerick Soviet or Shanghai commune etc etc

our first revolution of many

will you make a video on people's war?

Another banger!

4:47 - 5:02 Nice double entendre there, comrade. I see what you did there. 😉

"So as not to fall into a one sided analysis" Fantastic, exactly. Do not get me wrong, I am no anarchist. But we must study theory and history objectively. Otherwise dialectical and historical materialism, like in acience, becomes a tool of confirmation bias, threatening to falsify our conclusions and observations.

Currently, on page thirty-something of The state and revolution, boy does this video help put things into perspective. Thank you!

Great video that I'm sharing with my anarchist friends and comrades,

Ngl, the first time I've heard the term "Communard" was in Disco Elysium and I thought it was supposed to be a slur against communists 😆. Keep up the good work, Paul! ✊

Mashallah daddy Marxist Paul has uploaded

This is kind of a niche request maybe, but do you think you could include some kind of brief bullet point recap of the major points of the topic near the end, like the sequence of events and the reflections of Marx and Engels and their observations of the major failings of the commune (anarchist opposition to marching on Versailles, holding on to the gold)? I know you did do a conclusions section but maybe something that lays the major beats out in bullet points would be really helpful for me to retain the biggest takeaways, even if it's just a text slide to pause on at the end

Commenting for revolutionary engagement :)

The OGs.

W.E.B DuBois refered to the radical reconstruction-era south US as a "Dictatorship of Labor" what is your perspective on this analysis

Maximilien Robespierre: We'll transform French society and make France based again. The Communards: Hold our beer, we'll show the world how to be based again.

Does anyone know why my positive review of the in video sponsor keeps getting deleted? Does RU-vid think it’s spam if I’m trying to let everyone know that it’s a good book site? Is my message still visible to everyone but me?

Great video!

This video conveys a really important message in a really subtle way. Well done.

Great video

This did the commune so grimy. France hasn't recovered since.

Based. For the algo.

I always learn something I didn't know from watching your videos Paul.

I really hope you make a video like this someday about the October Revolution as well.

Interesting stuff.

Damn, late again! Another video, another banger!

🔥🔥🔥

👍🏿🖤❤️🖤👍🏿

Great video as always comrade

When more streams comrade?

A cautionary note about the Paris Commune: if you overthrow the capitalist republic and install a "more democratic" republic, you still have a republic, which is makes it easier for the average civilian to see their place in the system as nothing more than a voter who leaves the job of decision-making up to other people. That, in turn, supports the methods of the old system that existed under capitalism, where the people are only allowed to hope that their elected rulers are wise and benevolent. Socialists do not need or want wise and benevolent rulers; they need and want to get rid of all rulers, elected or otherwise, and fill that role with bottom-up democracy. People who claim to be socialist while also insisting that a republic is the vehicle for socialism because it's "more democratic" than X or Y, are not really looking at the issues that face republics, and are instead falling into the trap of "it's better than what we had before, therefore it's socialism." Socialism is not wise rule or "better" rule, but proletarian rule by proletarian decision-making that rejects any kind of autonomous state, because an autonomous state, even if completely elected and recallable, will find a way to increase its autonomy and its authority. And because socialism is the rule by the society through community-level/based democracy, not the rule OVER society "in the best interests of society" from above by state-level republicanism. 7:55 And this is where I have to disagree with Marxist Paul: the revolution must begin before the physical revolution ever threatens to materialize. Socialists must build it from the ground up, and should never, under any circumstances, believe that they can legislate and force it from above "if only our party takes power." (Socialism is not state rule, so socialists need to stop thinking in ways that are governed by systems of state rule.) What that really means is organizing communities into democratic units, normalizing the practice of actual democracy (not republicanism where people merely vote for someone else to make decisions) within those communities, building mutual aid networks (because networking is vital to a successful democracy), and in all other ways building the basis for the society that they want to replace the existing one so that when the physical revolution happens, there is already a strong *commonly shared* understanding of what everyone needs to do to make it work, networks for finding out what needs are so they can be met, etc etc etc. The physical revolution is supposed to overthrow the old system and replace it with the new one, but if the new system is left up to the leadership (elected or otherwise) to determine...then nobody has any business calling that socialist. It may be "better" for the proletariat than what it replaced (at least until the party decides it needs to consolidate power, corruption becomes more prominent, and the purges and other things start), but socialism is a specific brand of "better" that can't be lumped in with every form of leftist "better." Additionally, the role of the party should be nothing more than advisory. The party should never do more than offer analyses and guidance for the people in the organized communities to democratically work through. The moment it starts trying to "lead" the movement in any other way is the moment that the party shows its true colors as merely wanting to create a new hierarchy of power with the party leadership at the top, and at that point it's not fundamentally different from any other anti-socialist party that wants to seize control "in the name of the people."

Excelente! Abrazo desde Argentina!

A very good video

Another Marxist Paul banger! ♥️☭✊🏽

One day...

Engagement!

Algorithm comment

10:10 Oh my God. Why are anarchists always so cringe?

They left the historical context out of he video on purpose, while the Parisians had understandable grievances they weren't going to succeed no matter what their ideas were

0:43 why'd they draw her so stacked

Le cadavre est a terre, et l’idee est debout

Nice

We are to the Shanghai commune as Lenin was to the Paris commune

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based

0:11 democratically administer the affairs of paris in an embryonic dictatorship???? Pretty self-contradictory sentence right there.

❤

Extremely rare French W

Engagement!