Paris Commune | |||||||
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A barricade on Rue Voltaire, after its capture by the regular army during the Bloody Week |
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Belligerents | |||||||
Communards National Guards |
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Patrice de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
170,000 | On paper, 200,000; in reality, probably between 25,000 and 50,000 actual combatants | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
877 killed, 6,454 wounded, and 183 missing | 6,667 confirmed killed and buried Unconfirmed estimates between 10,000 and 20,000 killed |
The Paris Commune (French: La Commune de Paris, IPA: [la kɔmyn də paʁi]) was a radical socialist and revolutionary government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871. Following the defeat of Emperor Napoleon III in September 1870, the French Second Empire swiftly collapsed. In its stead rose a Third Republic at war with Prussia, which laid siege to Paris for four months. A hotbed of working-class radicalism, France's capital was primarily defended during this time by the often politicized and radical troops of the National Guard rather than regular Army troops. In February 1871 Adolphe Thiers, the new chief executive of the French national government, signed an armistice with Prussia that disarmed the Army but not the National Guard.
Soldiers of the Commune's National Guard killed two French army generals, and the Commune refused to accept the authority of the French government. The regular French Army suppressed the Commune during "La semaine sanglante" ("The Bloody Week") beginning on 21 May 1871. Debates over the policies and outcome of the Commune had significant influence on the ideas of Karl Marx, who described it as an example of the "dictatorship of the proletariat".