This paper examines nineteenth-century anarchist evaluations of the 1871 Paris Commune and three post-Commune defences of commune organisation to conceptualise anarchist communalism. The argument is that anarchists characterised the Paris Commune as a defeat and that a generation of post-Commune anarchists defended commune organisation as the revolutionary aspiration in need of articulation. I use Albert Camus’ idea of defeat as the pacification of a noble cause and Christopher Hill’s theorisation of ideation shift to develop the conception of defeat. I discuss the work of Peter Kropotkin, Gustav Landauer and Rudolf Rocker to present the account of commune organisation. By showing how each used Marx’s Civil War in France as a foil, I relate the perception of the Paris Commune’s defeat to the rejection of state socialism and the defence of anarchist communalism.
History
School
Social Sciences and Humanities
Department
International Relations, Politics and History
Published in
Communalism as a Democratic Repertoire
Publisher
Routledge
Version
AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge/CRC Press in Communalism as a Democratic Repertoire on 01/12/2025, available online: http://www.routledge.com/[BOOK ISBN URL]