AHC: Surviving Paris Commune

As the title says - the challenge is to have the Paris Commune survive for at least a year. Cookie if it survives long-term. The whole cookie jar if it results in all or at least a good portion of France becoming Communard (you can have a rump non-Communard France if you want). A French Civil War and/or Brittany etc. breaking off are also permissible.
 
"The Commune was remarkable for the heroism and combativity shown by the working class. Nonetheless, the Commune made a number of mistakes, which made it more vulnerable to the bourgeoisie’s attacks. The National Guard didn’t pursue the French army and the old government officials when they fled Paris. The National Guard probably could have destroyed the old army and the old government in March; if that had happened, the army could not have been used later to attack the Commune. But since the National Guard didn’t finish off the army, it came back later to destroy the Commune.

Nor did the Commune touch the Bank of France. The Communards still had too much respect for the law which defended the property of the bourgeoisie. And so they left untouched all the money of the old government as well as the wealth the bourgeoisie had taken from the working people over the years. The respect of the Communards for the rights of others was not reciprocated. The Versailles government used the promise of that money in the Bank of France to pay for soldiers and rifles to destroy the Commune.

And the Commune of Paris made little effort to lead the rest of France. The Communards thought it would be easy for the rest of the country to simply imitate Paris. Communes were proclaimed in other cities, but the workers outside Paris were not as strongly organized, nor as conscious of their power, as the workers of Paris. The rest of the cities needed direction and military aid from Paris, but they did not get it. Very quickly, these other communes were destroyed by the Versailles government.

At first, the Communards believed they would be left alone in Paris. Since they intended to leave the regime at Versailles alone, they expected to receive the same treatment. They did not organize a defense against the coming attack. Without a central co-ordination of the defense, the attack eventually proved fatal. The National Guard was organized only neighborhood by neighborhood. Barricades and cannons were placed as each neighborhood wished. Ammunition was not sent out according to any plan; some neighborhoods had too much, while others didn’t have enough."
http://the-spark.net/o_pariscom.html
 
If the Commune adressed the beforementioned problems/mistakes, they might have been able to hold out a lot longer, maybe a year.
 
A Paris Commune which lasted up to a year would probably mean that it would be more frequently portraied in later popular culture (books, music, movies, tv-series).
 
Also, A longer lasting paris commune would possably influace other citys to form there own with longer lasting reprocassions then otl. Although they would take longer to fall, it would result in a weaker, drained france. Not sure what the reprocasssions of that would be.
 
A Paris Commune which lasted up to a year would probably mean that it would be more frequently portraied in later popular culture (books, music, movies, tv-series).

The same goes for anarchism as a whole, we could see anarchism reaching the same spot in pop culture ans communism does otl
 
Top