Surviving Paris Commune

Exactly what it says. What would it take for the Paris Commune to survive to present day or at least longer than what it did? And could it have spread to other parts of France?
 
The problem of Paris Commune is that it was doomed from the start.
With all respect due to the various authors of "surviving Commune" TL, they almost always fail to understand the poor structures in question.

Paris Commune existence itself was more a reaction to post-war situation than a real social and political project : not that ti's entierly spontaneous, but certainly not a uprising (or even a revolution in the common sense of the world). While Blanqui in Paris in 1871 would certainly change things (even if leading the Commune all by himself is certainly out of question, giving the harsh opposition between neo-jacobins and socialists) but he couldn't change the pitful state of Commune structures : political and military especially.

Politics

Communeux were divided among many "parties" (roughly, jacobins and socialists being the two great ensemble) with diverging point of view about what should be done.
Ones more or less wanted a 1793 revival, others a proudhonist approach, some claiming legacy from 1848, an handful of non-jacobin socialists and a sprinkle of proto-anarchists with that...

It worth nothing it was all mixed with some worry about legalism or a worry about not wanting to appear as aggressors. Marx depict it as "idealized", but it's politically sound, as the governemental and german answer would have been blunt with an even greater popular support.
It's one of the reason Banque de France never was threatened IOTL, the other being :

  • -Lack of management : the very same problem than with military : very few people actually able to deal with financial issues. They kept the BdF in one piece because they simply felt they couldn't manage it well enough to replace it.

  • Trade and exchanges : basically, taking over the treasury would have definitely prevented these possibilities with foreign countries.

  • Solvability : Versailles still have the larger part in province (especially Brest) and would simply void Paris' BdF solvability, making every Parisian printed money worthless and purely at face-value (which means, in a semi-siege situation, in a defeated France, not even worth the value of the paper).

Military ressources : They had weapons, but no military structure to speak of. Légions d'arrondissement were often at odds with communal authority, and in spite of a theoric important number (200 000), maybe 30 000 were actually there to fight, at best.
The tentatives to build a command structure worth of the name failed : Louis Rossel tried to create a reserve but lack of command, ultra-localism and the military conceptions (or lack thereof) of revolutionary representatives prevented him to do so.

This last point is important : Paris Commune have weapons, not much soldiers, and almost no skilled generals and many of them had no influence on the military base, being less of militants.

Heck, the grande sortie of the 3 April failed totally because the generals had no idea whatsoever about how many men they had, making no reckon, no reserve, no rear or vanguard, no real strategy.

It's to be compared with Versailles' forces, that in spite of the defeat had more men, more weapon, more specialists, more artillery, and beneficied from the benevolent support of Germany (that, it must be remembered, held all the eastern fortifications of Paris).

There's as well the omnipresent idea that if Communeux had took Versailles, as proposed by Marx, it would have been fine.
Problem is that Marx wasn't there : it's not a problem of strategic command, but a problem of structure, both political and military.
Commune had to build itself, to decide who have to decide, and even once it's done, to deal with the general disorder in the army.

Admitting, though, that Communeux attack and took Versailles. What exactly would have prevented the governement to go to Bordeaux, Orléans or Tours? Where is the strategic gain taking Versailles, apart stretching already limited ressources?

And that's assuming that Bismarck just lets the Commune (a bunch of more or less revanchist leftists for all he cared) do whatever it wants :

IOTL, Prussians not only allowed Versailles government to deal with Commune, but actually given back a large part of french PoW to hasten the recapture of the city : 60 000 compared to the initial 12 000 Thiers had, even if armistice convention technically authorised only 40 000 soldiers in the region (the ammount would sky rocket up to 130 000 eventually without any trouble).

And again, Prussians held all the eastern forts of Paris. What the Commune to do?

So, no, Paris Commune as such was doomed. And believe me, I scratched just a bit of the issues the Commune had.

---

What could be reached however, but you may have to work more on provincial Communes* and Leagues for that, and "middle-way" republicans (as Gambetta and Clémenceau) would be a IIIrd republic more akin to the IInd trough a more widespread and strong communal movement. But that would be vastly different from what we know about Commune de Paris.

*You had provincial Communes, some more neo-jacobines (Narbonne, Toulouse), some more left-wing (Marseille), some serious, some farcical (Lyon)
 
Top