"The Civil War in France" (German: "Der Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich") was a pamphlet written by
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
, as an official statement of the General Council of the
International
International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations".
International may also refer to:
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* ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011
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on the character and significance of the struggle of the
Communards
The Communards () were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.
After the suppression of the Commune by the French Army in May 1871, 43,000 Communards w ...
in the
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
.
Writing
Between the middle of April and the end of May 1871,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
resident Karl Marx collected and compiled English, French, and German newspaper clippings on the progress of the Paris Commune, which pitted the radical workers of Paris against conservative forces from outside the city. Marx had access to French publications supported by the Commune as well as various bourgeois periodicals published in London in English and French. Marx also had access to personal interpretations of events passed along by several leading figures in the Commune and associates such as
Paul Lafargue
Paul Lafargue (; 15 January 1842 – 25 November 1911) was a Cuban- Haitian revolutionary Marxist socialist, political writer, economist, journalist, literary critic, and activist; he was Karl Marx's son-in-law having married his second dau ...
and Peter Lavrov.''MECW'', v. 22, pg. 665.
Marx originally intended to write an address to the workers of Paris and made such a motion to the meeting of the governing General Council of the International on March 28, 1871, a proposal unanimously approved. Further developments in France made Marx think that the document should be instead directed to the working class of the world, and at the April 18 meeting of the General Council, he passed along that suggestion by noting his desire to write on the "general tendency of the struggle." The proposal was approved, and Marx began writing the document. Main writing on the publication seems to have taken place between May 6 and May 30, 1871,''MECW'', v. 22, pg. 666. with Marx writing the original document in English.
Publication
The first edition of the pamphlet, a slim document of just 35 pages, was published in London on about June 13, 1871 as "The Civil War in France: Address of the General Council of the International Working-Men's Association." Only 1000 copies of the first edition were printed, and the pamphlet quickly sold out, to be followed by a less expensive second edition with a print run of 2000. A third English edition, containing a number of corrections of errors, appeared later in that same year. The pamphlet was translated into French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Flemish, Croatian, Danish, and Polish and published both in newspapers and in pamphlet form in various countries in 1871 and 1872 . The German translation was rendered by Marx's longtime associate,
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels" '' A separate pamphlet edition was also published by the ''Volkstaat'' in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
in that same year.
On the fifth anniversary of the fall of the Paris Commune, the German edition of the pamphlet was reissued, with Engels making certain minor corrections to the translation. The second edition was also published in Leipzig by Genossenschaftsbuchdruckerei.Draper, ''Marx-Engels Register'', v. 2, pg. 187.
In 1891, on the 20th anniversary of the Paris Commune, Engels put together a new edition of the work. He wrote an introduction emphasising the historical significance of the experience of the Paris Commune, its theoretical generalization by Marx in "The Civil War in France" and providing additional information on the activities of the Communards from among the Blanquists and
Proudhon
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (, , ; 15 January 1809, Besançon – 19 January 1865, Paris) was a French socialist,Landauer, Carl; Landauer, Hilde Stein; Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl (1979) 959 "The Three Anticapitalistic Movements". ''European Soci ...
ists. Engels also decided to include earlier material by Marx made for the International, providing additional historical background to the Commune from Marx's account of the Franco-Prussian War.
Theoretical consequences
For Marx, the history of the Paris Commune caused him to reassess the significance of some of his own earlier writings. In a later preface to the Communist Manifesto, Marx would write that "no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today."Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, ''Communist Manifesto (Preface)'' http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm It is the earlier passage that sought to show the process of worker seizure of state power. Following the publication of "The Civil War in France", "One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that 'the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.'" His writing of this passage also brings up a rift between
Leninists
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establ ...
and Social-Democrats, who both interpret his writing differently. Libertarian Marxist currents would later draw from this work by emphasizing the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party or state to mediate or aid its liberation.Vladimir Lenin, ''State and Revolution'' https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/lenin/state-and-revolution.pdf
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
writes that, "Marx's idea is that the working class must break up, smash the 'readymade state machinery', and not confine itself merely to laying hold of it."