AHC:Saving the Commune

Alright,is there any single way that could be taken to save the Paris Commune-and eventually-"Commune-ized" France,in the end?

When it was a tiny, much-exaggerated uprising that failed to achieve anything remotely significant except in the field of symbolism? Difficult. Very, very difficult.

You'd need to start by looking at the French socialist movement and trying to change things (to make it less utterly insignificant) decades in advance at the very least, possibly far longer ago than that.
 
It would have to be a more widespread movement. Maybe if the army refused to attack Paris but you need some earlier butterflies for that.
 

dead_wolf

Banned
It wasn't small and it wasn't localized to just Paris, there were other uprisings in the large industrialized cities, the Parisians were just the most successful and longest-lived and the capital, therefore they are the most famous.

In regards to the OP the classic critique by the Left is that the commune didn't go far enough, especially in regards to immediately seizing resources within the city such as cannon, or money from the banks to buy/trade for supplies, but I'm not entirely sure that'd be enough. I think you need to both go back earlier to the very beginning of the uprising and have the communards take a bolder approach to the situation. IMHO for the commune to survive a good start would be Blanqui and his supporters to be successful in convincing the Central Committee/National Guard to chase the bourgeois national govt & army under Thiers to Versailles and destroy them instead of holing up in Paris. Successfully destroying Thiers govt, which the commune could have done at that point as Thiers had only some ~40,000 soldiers to his cause, most of them of dubious loyalty, compared to the 400,000 National Guard the commune had. That would leave only scattered, small, nationalists militias to resist the commune, and would likely relieve enough pressure on the other cities to let the communards successful take control there. From there it'd all domino into place. The real question here is the Prussians, who are still occupying much of northern France - how do they react? I expect poorly, but at the same time they'd want to stay out of a civil war, and there'd be a certain schadenfreude in watching the French fall apart.
 
Last edited:
It wasn't small and it wasn't localized to just Paris, there were other uprisings in the large industrialized cities, the Parisians were just the most successful and longest-lived and the capital, therefore they are the most famous.

In regards to the OP the classic critique by the Left is that the commune didn't go far enough, especially in regards to immediately seizing resources within the city such as cannon, or money from the banks to buy/trade for supplies, but I'm not entirely sure that'd be enough. I think you need to both go back earlier to the very beginning of the uprising and have the communards take a bolder approach to the situation. IMHO for the commune to survive a good start would be Blanqui and his supporters to be successful in convincing the Central Committee/National Guard to chase the bourgeois national govt & army under Thiers to Versailles and destroy them instead of holing up in Paris. Successfully destroying Thiers govt, which the commune could have done at that point as Thiers had only some ~40,000 soldiers to his cause, most of them of dubious loyalty, compared to the 400,000 National Guard the commune had.
Well,does taking out few Officers can solve the problem?
 

dead_wolf

Banned
Well,does taking out few Officers can solve the problem?

A large part of the problem if that Blanqui himself was captured by the nationalists at the outbreak of the revolution, as he was in the Midi visiting a family doctor/friend at the time. The Blanquist weren't a majority in the commune, though they were very vocal and very influential; however they didn't have anyone in their ranks elected to the Executive Commission or in the Central Committee who was an able leader. Have Blanqui stay in Brittany, where he was at immediate the conclusion of the war, and then go to Paris at the start of the uprising, or better yet have him go from Brittany to Paris instead of to the Midi altogether and you'd likely get a march on Versailles. Of course then again he might die from such a change in the timeline, he was visiting his doctor after all when he was arrested, and he latter died from apoplexy IOTL.
 

dead_wolf

Banned
An additional problem is that, since there were no forceful leaders, the commune at its highest level was ruled by committee. That in and of itself wouldn't be too big of a problem, however it was an ad-hoc mish-mash committee. One of the unresolved questions coming out of this was whom the National Guards ultimately reported to & took commands from - their own Central Committee, or the newly elected Executive Commission.

As well the commissioners weren't representatives in a parliamentary sense, but more like delegates, perhaps best akin to corporate executives, and they could and were subject to immediate recalls. This meant that as things started turning against the commune the leadership overturned quickly several times, which only made things worse for the most part.

Also, while the commissioners were theoretically the ultimate go-to on all matters militarily and legally, both in an executive and legislative sense, a lot of the actual leg work was done by very small local organizations in each quarter of the city, some of them often worked at cross-purposes as there was no clearly defined areas of responsibility or a chain of command in any real sense.

It's really hard to judge the commune due to the short amount of time it existed and the constraints it faced, you can't really compare it to any other socialist government; even at the height of the Russian Civil War the Soviets didn't face the same existential odds that the communards did from day one. With that being said though, IMHO, the commune's problem was a lack of charismatic leadership. The Soviets had Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Kamenev, Zinoviev, etc., as well as brilliant commanders like Frunze, Tukhachevsky, etc. The communards had Dabrowski... and that's about it as far as bold, decisive leaders. If the commune had had more time leadership would have naturally emerged from the ranks, but IOTL they simply didn't have that luxury.

Getting the National Guards to march on Versailles in force in late March immediately at the beginning of the uprising and decapitating the bourgeois national government instead of the half-hearted and ill-conceived attempt they made IOTL nearly two weeks later could very likely be the difference between life and death for the commune.
 
An additional problem is that, since there were no forceful leaders, the commune at its highest level was ruled by committee. That in and of itself wouldn't be too big of a problem, however it was an ad-hoc mish-mash committee. One of the unresolved questions coming out of this was whom the National Guards ultimately reported to & took commands from - their own Central Committee, or the newly elected Executive Commission.

As well the commissioners weren't representatives in a parliamentary sense, but more like delegates, perhaps best akin to corporate executives, and they could and were subject to immediate recalls. This meant that as things started turning against the commune the leadership overturned quickly several times, which only made things worse for the most part.

Also, while the commissioners were theoretically the ultimate go-to on all matters militarily and legally, both in an executive and legislative sense, a lot of the actual leg work was done by very small local organizations in each quarter of the city, some of them often worked at cross-purposes as there was no clearly defined areas of responsibility or a chain of command in any real sense.

It's really hard to judge the commune due to the short amount of time it existed and the constraints it faced, you can't really compare it to any other socialist government; even at the height of the Russian Civil War the Soviets didn't face the same existential odds that the communards did from day one. With that being said though, IMHO, the commune's problem was a lack of charismatic leadership. The Soviets had Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Kamenev, Zinoviev, etc., as well as brilliant commanders like Frunze, Tukhachevsky, etc. The communards had Dabrowski... and that's about it as far as bold, decisive leaders. If the commune had had more time leadership would have naturally emerged from the ranks, but IOTL they simply didn't have that luxury.

Getting the National Guards to march on Versailles in force in late March immediately at the beginning of the uprising and decapitating the bourgeois national government instead of the half-hearted and ill-conceived attempt they made IOTL nearly two weeks later could very likely be the difference between life and death for the commune.

So..pretty much..cant happen?
 

dead_wolf

Banned
So..pretty much..cant happen?

If the commune had had more time leadership would have naturally emerged from the ranks, but IOTL they simply didn't have that luxury.

Getting the National Guards to march on Versailles in force in late March immediately at the beginning of the uprising and decapitating the bourgeois national government instead of the half-hearted and ill-conceived attempt they made IOTL nearly two weeks later could very likely be the difference between life and death for the commune.

fgshhahdshjhhjvlj
 

dead_wolf

Banned
Eh, they never broke out, but at the same time they prevented the Prussians from every storming the city. It was only the shelling that broke the Government of National Defense; and largely created the conditions for the Paris Commune..
 
Funnily enough I'm planning a TL about a Commune that morphs into a full scale revolution. Or a King Lafayette of America TL (see sig). Basic premise is that the Theirs government is captured early on in Paris. Chaos ensues, Blanqui manages to escape and the tenement government is severally weakened. Other industrial cities rise up and civil war ensues. Not the most plausible thing ever but not the least either.
 

Neirdak

Banned
Even if National Guard chased the bourgeois national govt & army under Thiers to Versailles or destroyed them, I am not sure that the Germans would let a socialist/revolutionary government take power in France. They rushed and modified the Armistice terms to give soldiers back to Thiers in order to repress the Communards in our timeline. If Thiers government was destroyed, they would probably have repressed Paris Commune with their own troops. The same scenario would happen, if only a few Versailles troops refused to attack the Commune or joined it.

In order to avoid such a german repression, you would need a full mutiny of the French Army or an united national decision to continue war. But you have two big problems. The first problem is the popularity of Patrice Mac-Mahon who was chosen by Thiers to lead the Versailles army due to his huge popularity among both soldiers and civilians. The second problem is probably the biggest one : the mob killings of Generals Jacques Leon Clement-Thomas and Claude Lecomte by National Guard soldiers and mutineers on March 18. Those murders sparked the armed conflict and created a fatal division between the French Army and the National Guard.

As soon as the National Guard and French Regular Army divorced, the Commune was fated to be destroyed. You would probably need a POD between 15 February and 24 February, when the National Guard began to organize itself and created the Central Committee of thirty-eight members. During this meeting, they decided to refuse to follow any orders or advices from General Aurelle de Paladines, the official commander of the National Guard appointed by Thiers, or of General Vinoy, the Military Governor of Paris. This tense situation led to the 18 March "Cannons of Paris" event and to the death of the two generals.

You also need to prevent the rise of radicalism inside the Commune, as shown on March 26, when they fired Clemenceau from his negotiator position, despite the fact he was successful.

What I would do :

I would wound Patrick MacMahon more severely in Sedan. In OTL he was only slightly wounded, but used this excuse to transmit his command position before the capitulation. With a severe wound, he won't be able to come back to his house in Paris and won't join Thiers after being shocked by the uprising. I would avoid to lynch Generals Jacques Leon Clement-Thomas and Claude Lecomte on March 18 and release them, following the advice of Clemenceau who tried to save them in OTL. I would send them back to Thiers with Clemenceau, which would help to negotiate a better aftermath.

With a negotiated Parisian autonomy and an armistice between the other Communes and Versailles. We could imagine the possibilities of new elections, which would lead to less radicalism in Paris and the creation of a common government that could cancel the recently signed cease-fire and armistice with the Germans.
 
Last edited:

Anaxagoras

Banned
Eh, they never broke out, but at the same time they prevented the Prussians from every storming the city.

They didn't prevent the Prussians from storming the city; the Prussians never bothered to try. Why suffer needless casualties when they could get what they wanted just by waiting a little while?
 

dead_wolf

Banned
They didn't prevent the Prussians from storming the city; the Prussians never bothered to try. Why suffer needless casualties when they could get what they wanted just by waiting a little while?

The Prussian "never bothered to try" because of the thousands of National Guards in the city that would have fought for every inch of soil. Giving your enemies pause is a valid tactic; quantity has its own quality, etc. etc.

Bismarck seemed pretty worried about waiting out the Parisians and crashing the Prussian economy in a long war, which is why the Prussian army was finally put under his command allowed to shell the city. Moltke & Blumenthal wanted no part of that, but were overruled by Wilhelm.
 
Top