Chapter 2 - The Commune as Violent Trauma

Summary

This chapter explores the second of two contemporary revolutionary interpretations of the Commune: the ‘violent’, which was mainly upheld by adherents of Louis Auguste Blanqui. These activists had held power during the Commune, and were more inclined to promote violent insurrection and state interventionism. This interpretation ignored the Commune’s ideas and its duration, focusing instead upon the shared experience of its violent end as part of an effort to turn Commune into a lasting revolutionary symbol and obscure the mistakes the Blanquists had made in power. Although this interpretation proved more enduring, it was not as beneficial as its ‘realist’ counterpart during the 1870s, because it was unable to characterise the Commune as anything more than a tragic event. I conclude by noting that while both readings were aimed at promoting unity, such competing interpretations also reflected the continuation of divisions that emerged during the Commune and continued to fracture the French revolutionary movement well into the early 1880s.