The ‘Fall of Paris’ 150 years ago

The Paris commune saw for a brief but heroic few weeks the working class take power for the first time. In the immortal words of Karl Marx, the masses “stormed heaven”.

In extremely hazardous circumstances, Parisian workers attempted to re-organise society, to abolish exploitation and poverty, before falling beneath a vicious counter-revolution.

On 21 May 1871, the counter-revolutionary terror began in earnest, massacring thousands of communards.

Click here for a reprint by the CWI of Marx’s address to the First International on the May events.