Hassan Maarfi Poor
Translated by Farhad Sharifi
Introduction
In this article, I will briefly attempt to examine the various aspects of the world’s first workers’ revolution, namely the Paris Commune. This event has been met with differing interpretations from revolutionary, reactionary, and counter-revolutionary forces. While for socialists, revolutionaries, communists, anarchists, and internationalists worldwide, the Paris Commune represents the brief experience of one of the most important revolutionary events and the establishment of the most democratic form of workers’ government, for the counter-revolutionary and anti-communist bourgeoisie, for the aristocracy, for the enemies of the liberation of the oppressed and the enemies of the workers, it is like a thorn stuck in their eyes.
My acquaintance with the history of the Paris Commune dates back many years,to when I first read the book The Civil War in France in Persian. In 2010, I decided to write an article on Marxist state theory. This research resulted in a short article1 published on the “Oktober” website. Writing this article compelled me to study various works by Marx, Engels, and Lenin, including The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, The Civil War in France, Critique of the Gotha Programme, Anti-Dühring, The German Ideology, State and Revolution, and the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. This article is available on the “Oktober” blog and, although it does not fully elaborate on Marxist state theory, writing it required me to study the history of the Paris Commune once again, albeit somewhat superficially.
In 2015 and 2016, I resumed reading Marx’s works in German and authored two papers as part of my university research—though perhaps not particularly strong ones—titled “The Welfare State: Product of Class Struggle or Bourgeois Humanism?2” and “Marxism and Foucault: An Analysis of the Concept of Power3“. Although these papers were sound in terms of methodology and theoretical grounding, the difficulty I had writing academically in German at the time prevented me from delving deeply into the subject matter.
In 2021, there was a German-language YouTube channel called “Tage der Commune” (Days of the Commune4). Every morning, from March 18, 2021, until the day the Commune was finally defeated after the “Bloody Week,” this channel released content ranging from music to interviews and book presentations. During that period, which coincided with the COVID-19 lockdown, I was one of the first people watching this program each morning. The “Tage der Commune” YouTube channel further acquainted me with lesser-known aspects of the Commune.
Undoubtedly, this article does not have the scope to cover all the issues surrounding Paris Commune; therefore, I invite readers to consult not only this article but also the sources mentioned herein, as well as other resources, to gain a more detailed understanding of the complex facets of the Commune.
حسن معارفیپور 