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Chapter 2 - The Commune as Violent Trauma

from Part I - The Paris Commune and Accounting for Failure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2019

Julia Nicholls
Affiliation:
King's College London
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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.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • The Commune as Violent Trauma
  • Julia Nicholls, King's College London
  • Book: Revolutionary Thought after the Paris Commune, 1871–1885
  • Online publication: 12 July 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108634199.003
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  • The Commune as Violent Trauma
  • Julia Nicholls, King's College London
  • Book: Revolutionary Thought after the Paris Commune, 1871–1885
  • Online publication: 12 July 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108634199.003
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Commune as Violent Trauma
  • Julia Nicholls, King's College London
  • Book: Revolutionary Thought after the Paris Commune, 1871–1885
  • Online publication: 12 July 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108634199.003
Available formats
×