Power to the People
Within the Paris Commune there were numerous groups which advocated and practiced direct action and direct democracy, pushing the Commune towards the social revolution. These sorts of ideas had been advocated by a variety of anarchists during the revolutions of 1848 (see Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume One, Chapter 4), such as Proudhon, Dejacques, Pisacane and Coeurderoy, and were championed within the International by people like Bakunin, Varlin and the revolutionary collectivists associated with them.
The following excerpts are taken from a wall poster and newspaper article by the “Communal Club of the Third Arrondissement,” published at the beginning of April and May 1871 respectively. In the wall poster, the Club urges others to follow their example of taking direct action by using the churches as gathering places for the people. In the newspaper article, the Club emphasizes the need for the people to govern themselves directly, as had Proudhon and other anarchists. The idea that direct democracy is a kind of direct action was developed further by Murray Bookchin.
Anarcho-Syndicalism: For Direct Action and Direct Democracy
Wall Poster of the Communal Club of the Third Arrondissement
Citizens:
A great revolutionary act has just occurred: the population of the Third Arrondissement has at last taken possession—to serve the political education of the People—of a building that has until now served only the caste that is inherently hostile to any kind of progress.
The coming to power of the Commune has restored all their rights to the citizenry. It is for these citizens to exercise them both to serve the Commune and when necessary, to remind our delegates that their mandate is to save the Nation. This means that they should act energetically and temporarily leave aside much too great a respect for considerations of ‘legality’ — which in effect aids only the forces of reaction.
It is to you, citizens of all arrondissements, that we make this appeal.
Follow our example: open Communal clubs in all the churches. The priests can conduct services in the daytime and you can provide the people with political education in the evenings.
Govern Yourselves! Long Live the Commune!
The Communal Club, constituted at the beginning of May 1871, professes the following aims…
To fight the enemies of our communal rights, of our freedom and of the republic.
To uphold the rights of the people, to accomplish their political education, so that they may be able to govern themselves.
To recall our representatives to first principles, were they to stray from them, and to aid them in all their efforts to save the Republic.
But above all else, to insist on the sovereignty of the people; they must never renounce their right to supervise the actions of their representatives.
People, govern yourselves directly, through public meetings, through your press; bring pressure to bear on those who represent you; they will never go too far in the revolutionary direction.
If your representatives procrastinate or cease to move, push them forward, that we may reach the objective we are fighting for: the acquisition of our rights, the consolidation of the Republic and the victory of Justice.
Long live the Commune!
The Paris Commune
Robert Graham
