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Revolution in Retrospect: The Paris Commune through Chinese Eyes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

John Bryan Starr
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Extract

“What is the Commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois mind?” asked Marx as he began to offer his answer to the riddle his question implied. From the plethora of discussion evoked over the course of the ensuing century by the events in Paris during the 72 days from 18 March until 29 May 1871, it seems clear that Marx's explanation notwithstanding, the Commune has proven sphinx-like and tantalizing not only to the bourgeois mind, but to the socialist and communist minds as well.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 49 , January 1972 , pp. 106 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1972

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References

* I am grateful to the Social Science Research Council and the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley, for research support during the period in which this article was written. Neither institution is, however, responsible for the interpretations and conclusions herein. The article was presented in essentially its present form as a paper at the Conference on the Paris Commune sponsored by the French Area Studies Center, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, in October 1971.

1. Marx, Karl, “The Civil War in France,” in Marx and Engels, Selected Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1958) vol. I, p. 516.Google Scholar

2. Shu, Li, Marxism and the Chinese Revolution (Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1963),Google Scholarcited by Mineo Nakajima, “The commune concept in Mao Tsetung Thought,” (paper for Committee on International Relations, 08 1969), translated in Chinese Law and Government 4:1–2 (spring-summer 1971) p. 81.Google Scholar

3. Marx, , Civil War, p. 516Google Scholar. Lenin later pointed out that this “one principal and fundamental lesson of the Paris Commune” was considered sufficiently important by Marx and Engels to have been included as a “substantial correction” to the 1872 edition of the Communist Manifesto. (Lenin, State and Revolution [Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965] p. 45.)Google Scholar

4. Marx, , Civil War, p. 520.Google Scholar

5. Ibid. p. 519. Cf. Lenin, State and Revolution, p. 54 et seq.

6. Marx, Civil War, p. 519Google Scholar. Cf. Engels' Introduction to Marx, ibid. p. 484, and Lenin, State and Revolution, p. 52.

7. Marx, , Civil War, p. 519.Google Scholar

8. Ibid. p. 519 et seq. Cf. Engels' Introduction, ibid. p. 478.

9. Ibid. p. 519.

10. Engels' Introduction, ibid. p. 478.

11. Ibid. p. 478 et seq.

12. Engels, “On Authority” (10 1872), in Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. 1, p. 639.Google ScholarTreating the question of the defeat of the Commune, Lenin returned to Engels' critical comment of 1872 and argued, “It is still necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and crush its resistance. This was particularly necessary for the Commune; and one of the reasons for its defeat was that it did not do this with sufficient determination.” (State and Revolution, p. 50.)Google Scholar

13. Mao Tse-tung hsüan-chi (Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung) single volume edition (Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1969) p. 306.Google ScholarEnglish translation in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965) vol. I, p. 341.Google ScholarThe other reference is found in a note giving the source for a comment of Marx's to the effect that “once an armed uprising is started there must not be a moment's pause in the attack,” a lesson Marx drew from the defeat of the Communards and conveyed in a letter to Kugelmann, L.. (Cited in Mao Tse-tung hsüan-chi, pp. 183, 224n; Selected Works, vol. 1, pp. 208, 252n.)Google Scholar

14. Mao Tse-tung hsüan-chi, p. 306; Selected Works, p. 341. Mao echoes in general terms here Marx's thoughts on the subject expressed in a letter to Domela-Nieuwenhuis, dated 22 02, 1881,Google Scholarwhere Marx says, “a socialist government does not come into power in a country unless conditions are so developed that it can immediately take the necessary measures for intimidating the mass of bourgeoisie sufficiently to gain time … for permanent action.” (In Feuer (ed.) Marx, and Engels, : Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy (New York: Doubleday-Anchor Books, 1959) p. 390 et seq.)Google Scholar

15. Speech at the Lushan Conference, 23 07 1959, Chinese Law and Government 1:4 (winter 1968–9) p. 42.Google ScholarMao is referring to Marx's opposition to the Commune as voiced in his Second Address on the Franco-Prussian War delivered on 9 09 1870. There he cautioned the Parisians that “any attempt at upsetting the new government in the present crisis, when the enemy is almost knocking at the doors of Paris, would be a desperate folly” (Civil War, p. 497.)Google ScholarMao returned to the same theme yet more vehemently two weeks later. Cf. “Comments on how a Marxist should correctly deal with mass movements,” 15 08 1959,Google Scholar in Chinese Law and Government 1:4 (winter 1968–9) p. 71.Google Scholar

16. Roy Hofheinz (“Rural administration in communist China,” China Quarterly No. 11 (07–09 1962, p. 155 et seq.) notes a reference to the Paris Commune in a report by Wu Chih-pu, then Governor of Honan Province. The reference, however, is scarcely more than a passing one and the context is narrow:Google Scholar

The unification of hsiang and commune is actually the unification of economic and political organs. The people's communes are, on the one hand, the basic units of production and livelihood, and on the other hand, they are the basic level political organs. … In the communes there are also military organs – the militia and the public security organs. Thus the unification of the hsiang and the commune is very much like the Paris Commune in that it constitutes a unification of economic and political organs.Google Scholar

(“Lun jen-min kung-she,” (“On people's communes,” Chung-kuo Ch'ing-nien pao (Chinese Youth Paper), 16 09 1958, p. 2.)Google Scholar

17. This relative disinterest in the commune as a political organ is reflected in a summary of Mao's thinking on the subject contained in an article by Ch'en Po-ta published in Hung-ch'i (Red Flag) (Peking) (hereafter HC) on the eve of the launching of the rural communes:Google Scholar

Marx and Engels, in the Communist Manifesto, listed the last two of ten measures to be taken after the realization of the proletarian dictatorship as follows: “combine agriculture and industry and facilitate elimination of the distinction between town and country”; “combine education and material production.” … Comrade Mao Tse-tung said that we should steadily and systematically organize “industry, agriculture, commerce, education and the military” into a big commune, thereby to form the basic units of the society. In this commune, industry, agriculture and commerce will serve the material life of the people, culture and education will reflect the spiritual life of the people who lead such a material life, and the people's armed forces will protect such material and spiritual life – these people's armed forces are absolutely necessary pending the complete elimination of exploitation of man by man in the world. This conception of the commune is a conclusion drawn by Comrade Mao Tse-tung from practical experience.Google Scholar

“Tsai Mao Tse-tung t'ung-chih te ch'i-chih hsia,” (Under the banner of Comrade Mao Tse-tung) HC No. 4 (16 07 1958) p. 8.Google Scholar

18. “More on the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat,” 29 12 1956, On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1956) p. 26.Google Scholar

19. “Outline of views on the question of peaceful coexistence,” 10 december 1957, in “The origin and development of the differences between the leadership of the CPSU and ourselves,” Comment 1 on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU of 14 July 1963, 6 September 1963 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963), Appendix 1, p. 89 et seq.

20. Concerning Mao's possible authorship of this article, see Stuart Schram, R., Mao Tse-tung (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966) p. 302.Google Scholar

21. “Long live Leninism,” 22 04 1960 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960) p. 1 et seq. The point is reiterated on p. 41 et seq.Google Scholar

22. Ibid. p. 2.

23. Ibid. p. 53 et seq.

24. “Pa-li kung-she te wei-ta ch'uang-chü,” (The great innovations of the Paris Commune) Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily) (Peking) (hereafter, JMJP) editorial, 18 March 1961; Shih Tung-hsiang, “Chi-nien pa-li kung-she,” (“Commemorating the Paris Commune”) Hung-ch'i (Red Flag); Ai Ssu-ch'i, “Pa-li kung-she pi chiang pien-pu ch'uan shih-chieh,” (“The Paris Commune will encompass the entire world”), JMJP 18 March 1961; Chang Chung-shih, “Pa-li kung-she ho ma-k'o-ssu lieh-ning chu-i shih-yeh te fa-chan,” (“The Paris Commune and the development of the cause of Marxism-Leninism”), ibid.

25. The two translations were of Kerzhentsev, P. M., History of the Paris Commune of 1871 (Moscow: Publishing House of Social-Economic Literature, 1959)Google Scholar and of Lissagaray, P.-O., Histoire de la Commune de 1871, (Paris: M. Rivière, 1947).Google ScholarFour other books dealing with the Commune appeared in conjunction with the anniversary: Ma-k'o-ssu, en-ko-ssu, lieh-ning ssu-ta-lin lun pa-li kung-she (Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on the Paris Commune) (Peking: Jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1961)Google Scholar; Pa-li kung-she hui-i chi-lü (Protocols of the Meetings of the Paris Commune) (Shanghai: Shang-wu yin-shu kuan, 1961)Google Scholar; Pa-li kung-she huo-tung-chia chuan lüeh (Brief Biographies of the Paris Communards) (Hong Kong: San-lien shu-tien, 1961)Google Scholar; and Pa-li kung-she shih-hsüan (A translation of Jean Varloo (ed.), Les poètes de la Commune (Paris: Les éditeurs français réunis, 1951) (Peking: Jen-min wen-hsüeh ch'u pan-she, 1961).Google Scholar

It is interesting to compare this substantial corpus of material with the slim volume by Shih Wei entitled Pa-li kung-she, the publication of which marked the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the Commune (Shanghai: Jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1956). Shih's work is almost entirely dependent on the Marxist-Leninist canon on the subject, augmented only with occasional reference to the Chinese edition of the Soviet Academy of Science Course of Instruction in Modern History (Chin-tai shih chiao-ch'eng).Google Scholar

26. “On Khrushchov's phoney communism and its historical lessons for the world,” Comment IX on the Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU of 14 07 1963, 14 07 1964, (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1964) p. 90.Google Scholar With regard to the probability of Mao's authorship of these comments, I support Chalmers Johnson's conclusion (“The two Chinese Revolutions,” China Quarterly No. 39 (07–09 1969) p. 34) that Mao must have been intimately involved in their formulation.Google Scholar

27. “On Khrushchov's phoney communism,” pp. 90–3.Google Scholar

28. I have discussed this theory and its relationship to the corpus of Mao's thought more completely elsewhere. (“Conceptual foundations of Mao Tse-tung's theory of continuous revolution,” Asian Survey 11:6 (06 1971)).Google Scholar

29. Chih-ssu, Cheng, “Pa-li kung-she te wei-ta chiao-hsün,” HC No. 4 (03 1966), translated in Peking Review (hereafter PR) 9:14 (1 April 1966) pp. 23–6, 9:15 (8 April 1966) pp. 17 et seq., 25 and 9:16 (15 April 1966) pp. 23–9. The range of sources which Cheng cites suggests that he made use of the material published in China five years earlier in his attempt to go somewhat beyond the distillation of the history of the commune provided by Marx and Engels, using that distillation as a model, but not as his exclusive source of data. He cites the Kerzhentsev and Lissagaray histories as well as the Protocols, all of which had been translated and published in 1961. In addition, he refers to Arthur Adamov's La Commune de Paris 18 mars–28 mai 1871: anthologie (Paris: Editions sociales, 1959).Google Scholar

30. Cheng contends that “revisionist” Soviet historians have attempted to negate this lesson by over-emphasizing the significance of the elections held in Paris on 28 March and minimizing the role played by the force of arms in establishing the Commune.Google Scholar

31. Engels, Introduction to Marx, The Civil War, p. 484.Google Scholar

32. Cheng, “Pa-li kung-she,” p. 25.Google Scholar

33. Ibid.

34. The lessons of defeat were not, however, entirely irrelevant. Two months later there appeared an article in Chieh-fang-chün Pao (Liberation Army Daily) which served as a kind of public position paper on the nascent movement as it moved from a purely cultural campaign to one covering a much broader segment of society. Two purposes were listed for the expansion of the Cultural Revolution: “to defend the dictatorship of the proletariat …” and to provide “training in actual class struggle for every one of our comrades.” The article served as well to notify the PLA of the fact that they would be expected to take an active part in the movement. “While struggling against the enemy without guns,” the article noted, “we should give close attention to the enemy with guns.” Here again, in the process of launching the Cultural Revolution, the experience of the Paris Commune was evoked. “Although [the bourgeoisie] are only a tiny percentage of the population, their political potential is quite considerable and their power of resistance is out of all proportion to their numbers.” The Paris Commune failed, the article continues, as a result of the superior force of the armed counter-insurrection of the bourgeoisie. (“Raise high the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung's thought and carry the great proletarian Cultural Revolution through to the end,” CFCP 6 June 1966; in PR 9:29 (15 July 1966) p. 20.)Google Scholar

35. Talk before Central Committee Leaders, 1966; in U.S. Consulate General, Hong Kong, Current Background (hereafter, CB) 891 (8 October 1969) p. 58. The date of these remarks is unclear, but a marginal note in the Chinese original gives the date as 21 July.Google Scholar

36. Chinese Communist Party, Eighth Central Committee, “Decision concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” 8 08 1966, text in PR 9:33 (12 08 1966) p. 9.Google Scholar

37. Ibid. p. 10.

38. “The general election system of the Paris Commune,” HC No. 11 (21 08 1966) p. 36 et seq.; translated in U.S. Department of Commerce, Joint Publications Research Service (hereafter, JPRS) 37902 (29 September 1966) pp. 46–8.Google Scholar

39. “Ch'en Po-ta tui ch'u-pu wen-hua ko-ming yun-tung tsung-chieh ch'üan-wen,” (“Ch'en Po-ta's summary of the opening phase of the Cultural Revolution”) (24 October 1966) Hsing-tao Jih-pao (Hong Kong) 28 January 1967. In the same article, Ch'en spoke of the Cultural Revolution theretofore as having been “even more tumultuous and reverberant” (“keng hsiung-yung p'eng-p'ai”) than the Paris Commune and the October Revolution.Google Scholar

I am grateful to Chin Ssu-k'ai for having pointed out to me Ch'en's interest in the Paris Commune model as represented in this and the following reference.

40. “Chin-hsing pa-li kung-she shih ta tu-ch'üan” (“Bring off a Paris Commune style seizure of power”) Hsin Pei-ta (New Pei-ta), 9 02 1967;Google Scholar reprinted in Ming Pao (Hong Kong) 23 02 1967. The meeting in question was held on 22 and 23 January 1967. It is interesting that Ch'en is the only one among the members of the Cultural Revolution Group whose remarks are reported here to speak of the Paris Commune as an example for the seizure of power.Google Scholar

41. “On the proletarian revolutionaries' struggle to seize power,” JMJP, 31 01 1967,Google ScholarHC No. 3 (3 02 1967);Google Scholartranslated in PR 10:6 (3 02 1967) pp. 10–15.Google Scholar

42. It is interesting to note that this official account made it a “Peking Commune,” rather than a “Chinese Paris Commune” as it had read in the unofficially circulated version. Cf. above note 35.Google Scholar

43. Ibid.

44. HC No. 3 (3 02 1967) pp. 19–21. Cf. above note 12.Google Scholar

45. New China News Agency (hereafter, NCNA), 4 February 1967. This was to be the only reference to a new commune carried by NCNA.Google Scholar

46. Jones, P. H. M., “Vive la Commune!” Far Eastern Economic Review 55:7 (16 02 1967) p. 225.Google Scholar

47. Radio Shanghai, 6 February 1967. This description was echoed in a Wen-hui Pao (Shanghai) editorial on 8 February where the Shanghai Commune was spoken of as “… a result of the creative study and application of Mao Tse-tung's thought by the worker revolutionary rebels and all other revolutionary rebels in Shanghai, and a glorious product as well of the integration of the great thought of Mao Tse-tung with the workers' movement, the peasants' movement, and the students' movement in the Shanghai area.”

48. Radio Tsingtao, 9 February 1967. Power had initially been seized in Tsingtao on 22 January. This announcement thus appeared to involve merely the renaming of an existing organ of power. It is noteworthy that no further mention of the “political and judicial commune” occurs, despite the relatively extensive coverage given to the Tsingtao power seizure. (Cf. NCNA 14 February 1967, JMJP 15 02 1967.)Google Scholar

49. China News Summary (Hong Kong) No. 160 (9 03 1967) 3. The poster was written by Red Guards of Peking's Fifth Middle School.Google Scholar

50. Radio Harbin, 16 02 1967.Google Scholar

51. Ibid.

52. “Chou En-lai t'an tu-ch'üan wen-t'i,” (“Chou En-lai on the question of power seizure”) Hung-se chan-pao, 17 02 1967;Google Scholarreprinted in Hsing-tao Jih-pao 21 04 1967.Google ScholarChou's remarks were made to a meeting of representatives of revolutionary rebel organizations held in Peking on 26 January. Another version of what appear to be the same remarks appeared in Hung-se chih-kung No. 3 (29 01 1967) and were translated in JPRS 41107 (22 May 1967) pp. 4–6.Google Scholar

53. Radio Taiyuan, 3 02 1967.Google Scholar

54. “Chairman Mao's remarks at his third meeting with Chang Ch'ün-ch'iao and Yao Wen-yuan,” February 1967; translated in JPRS 49826 (12 Feb. 1970) p. 44. Implausible as this objection seems it was nevertheless widely disseminated as the explanation for the scrapping of the Paris Commune model. Agence France Presse reported posters giving this explanation being displayed in Peking on or about 4 March 1967 (China News Summary, No. 160 (9 03 1967) p. 3).Google ScholarChou En-lai repeated the rationale during a speech to “representatives of mass organizations from three north-eastern provinces” on 28 September 1967. (U.S. Consulate General, Hong Kong, Survey of the China Mainland Press (hereafter, SCMP) 4088 (28 12 1967) pp. 1–19.) He added to Mao's comment his own thoughts on the subject which are reminiscent of Ch'en Po-ta's report of Mao's views in 1958. “‘Commune’ is used only in the rural areas. An organization embracing many trades and lines of business and using the title of ‘commune’ is another organ of power.”Google Scholar

55. “Comrade Chang Ch'ün-ch'iao transmits Chairman Mao's latest directives,” Kuang-chou Kung-jen Pao (Canton) Tzu-liao chuan-chi (Special collection of reference materials) 10 February 1968; translated in SCMP 4147 (27 03 1968) p. 7.Google Scholar

56. Ibid.

57. NCNA 24 02 1967. A discussion of the Shanghai Commune from the point of view of politics within the city is found in Neale Hunter's Shanghai Journal (New York: Praeger, 1969, pp. 244–67). He points out that Chang Ch'ün-ch'iao was personally committed to the Commune model, but that rival forces led by Keng Chin-chang opposed Chang and the Commune. Chang used his position as a member of the Central Committee's Cultural Revolution Group to maintain his personal ascendency in Shanghai despite the necessity to abandon the form of the Commune which he had sponsored.Google Scholar

58. The text of which was broadcast on Radio Shanghai, 8 02 1967.Google Scholar

59. China News Summary No. 160 (9 03 1967) p. 3. The official launching of the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee did not occur until 20 April, Hsieh Fu-chih in the meantime chairing a preparatory committee.Google Scholar

60. NCNA 22 April 1967; in SCMP 3926 (26 04 1967) p. 2.Google Scholar

61. An example of this movement to “revolutionize the revolutionary committees” is the “Regulations of the Heilungkiang provincial revolutionary committee concerning certain systems,” NCNA Harbin, 28 June 1967; in SCMP 3975 (7 07 1967) p. 14 et seq.Google Scholar

62. “Advance victoriously along Chairman Mao's revolutionary line,” JMJP, HC, CFCP editorial, 1 01 1971; in PR 14:1 (1 January 1971) p. 9.Google Scholar

63. Incongruities such as this one lend credence to the view of those observers who regard discussion of the Commune as having become a kind of shorthand reference for policies espoused by the more radical members of the Maoist camp. They thus interpret its occasional use in the press as indicative either of an improvement in the position of those members or at least as a placebo thrown in their direction by their opponents.

64. Cf. above note 40. Also newly published were two pamphlets: the first a picture history of the Commune (Pa-li kung-she (Shanghai: Jen-min ch'u-pan-she, 1971) ), the other a brief and unannotated history of the Commune (Pa-li kung-she (Hong Kong: Ch'ao-yang ch'u-pan-she, 1971)). The comparison with the magnitude of the publication effort on the anniversary a decade earlier is striking.Google Scholar

65. JMJP 18 03 1971.Google Scholar

66. JMJP, HC, CFCP editorial, 18 March 1971, translated in PR 14:12 (19 03 1971) pp. 3–16.Google ScholarIn addition there were pictorial articles on the Commune in China Reconstructs (Hua Cheng-mou, “Defend the principles of the Paris Commune,” 20:3 (03 1971) pp. 12–17)Google Scholarand in Jen-min hua-pao (“Chi-nien pa-li kung-she i-pai chou-nien,” (“Commemorating the centenary of the Paris Commune”) No. 3 (03 1971) pp. 2–11).Google ScholarThe latter inspired Rewi Alley to compose the poem, “Marx in Peking”: “ Quietly, thoughtfully – the portrait of Marx greets – from a magazine front cover; – turn the page and Engels – is there; then on to – the Communards who dared, and – in so doing dramatised the fact – that the social struggle is – international.…” (Ta-kung Pao Weekly Supplement (Hong Kong) No. 255 (25–3103 1971) p. 14).Google Scholar

67. NCNA 16 March 1971; JMJP 19 03 1971.Google Scholar

68. Discussion of the events of 1966–7 is limited to the following summary: “… the salvos of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution initiated and led by Chairman Mao himself have destroyed the bourgeois headquarters headed by the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-ch'i and exploded the imperialists' and modern revisionists' fond dreams of restoring capitalism in China.” (“Long live the victory …,” p. 12.)Google Scholar

69. Ibid. p. 4. Some readers were somewhat implausibly said to have taken the editorial very seriously indeed on this point. After an outbreak of incidents involving the planting of bombs in Hong Kong – some real and many bogus – to protest a rise in charges for water and the failure to adopt Chinese as a second legal language, the following comment appeared in the local press: “One source close to the New China News Agency said that some communist leaders felt that the extremists could have been misled by the recently published articles marking the centenary of the Paris Commune.” (South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) 30 March 1971.)

70. “Long live the victory …,” p. 12.Google Scholar

71. Such opposition as there was in Paris appears to have taken the form either of passive resistance or voluntary emigration. Virtually every account speaks of the deserted appearance of the streets of Paris during the weeks of Commune control. Even Marx alludes to the absence of the customary licentious street life, an absence which he attributes to the Communards' displacement of bourgeois immorality.Google Scholar

72. Letter to Lin Piao, 17 or 18 January 1967, in CB 892 (21 10 1969) p. 50.Google Scholar(The date is from Jürgen Domes, “The Cultural Revolution and the Army,” Asian Survey 8:5 (05 1968) p. 353 et seq.)Google Scholar

73. Klaus Mehnert describes at some length the fascination it held for certain groups of “ultra-Leftist” young people in China in his monograph, Peking and the New Left: At Home and Abroad (Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, 1969).Google Scholar

74. Chimen Abramsky, “Marx's theory of the state: A development of ideas. From the ‘Communist Manifesto’ to the Paris Commune and after.” (Unpublished paper for French Area Studies Center, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Conference on the Paris Commune, 10 1971), passim.Google Scholar

75. Arendt, “Reflections on violence,” New York Review of Books 12:4 (27 02 1969) p. 22. The Commune thus serves Arendt – as do the Russian soviets in the years immediately following the October Revolution and the organizations of workers formed in the wake of the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 – as historical precursors of the “temporary action groups” which she sees as one way of restoring the “political space” necessary for meaningful political action.Google Scholar