In such a book, "The French Civil War", Marx erected a monument to the Paris Commune that has lasted for eternity

Marx not only saved the lives of several Paris Commune revolutionaries, but also mainly applied the experience of the struggle of the Commune fighters to the international workers' movement in order to inherit the legacy of the fighters. At the end of April, the General Committee entrusted Marx with the task of drafting a manifesto on the Commune. He even wrote this document from his hospital bed. He wrote two drafts and then finalized them.

Two days after the fall of the last barricade in Paris, on 30 May, he had written a manifesto, "The Civil War of France", which was read to the members of the General Committee. The manifesto was unanimously agreed and immediately printed in English; From the end of June, it was serialized in German in the People's State newspaper, the central organ of the Social Democratic Labour Party; Soon it was also printed in German, French, and then in Russian, Italian, Spanish and Dutch.

Marx gave a true account of the course of events, refuting the slanderous remarks inflicted on the Commune fighters, but he was not satisfied with them. His work focuses on the substantive questions of the Paris Commune. He had long seen from the course of the class struggle of the revolution of 1848 that the proletariat, after the seizure of power, could not simply take over the old bourgeois state apparatus, but must replace it with the state apparatus created by the class itself. For the first time, the Paris Commune proved this theoretical foresight.

Not only that. On the basis of the experience of the Paris Commune, on the basis of his careful analysis of the political and social measures of the Commune, Marx was able to perceive something completely new in the direct exercise of power by the people, namely, the principal features of the proletarian state of the future. All people's deputies are elected and can be recalled; They are responsible for justifying the measures to the people; Parliament became the true representative body of the masses of the people; Legislators are also enforcers. These, in Marx's view, are the decisive signs of the new proletarian state.

Although the commune fighters, isolated from the outside world, besieged and not led by a revolutionary class party, could only take the first steps on the road to this new type of state, Marx saw in the bud of this development the basic feature of the proletarian state: the dictatorship of the proletariat.

He explained the nature of the Commune, saying that "it is essentially the government of the working class, the result of the opposition of the producer class against the class of occupiers, the political form which has finally been discovered and which can lead to the economic emancipation of labour." Such experiences and conclusions are therefore very important in enabling the working class to theoretically ascertain their way to power.

Marx also pointed out to the international proletariat another important lesson of the Commune. The struggle in Paris has indeed proved that in order to overthrow the bourgeoisie and consolidate this victory, the working class must unite with other working strata, especially with the working peasants. Marx emphasized in particular the experience of the Paris Commune: without a revolutionary party acting according to a scientific program, it would be impossible to free the working people from exploitation and oppression.

In France in 1871, there was no such party. The main thing is that at that time , and throughout the nineteenth century — there were no objective and subjective conditions sufficient for the victory of the proletarian revolution. The productive forces have not yet developed to the point where they can be transformed into social property and must be transformed in this way. The French proletariat has not yet been able to create a revolutionary class party that employs scientific strategy and tactics to seize power.

In 1871, in the absence of these two most important prerequisites, the Paris Commune must have been a bold attempt by the proletariat to establish class rule.

In the manifesto of the French Civil War, it is once again revealed that Marx had excellent intellect, was able to understand the core of historical events through some individual facts, and deduced the essence of the historical process from the trend of development. Like almost all of Marx's writings, The Civil War of France is a work of combat, produced in the days when the international proletariat waged its class struggle against the enemies of the Commune. The book records the theoretical and political legacies of the Commune fighters, so this work is a monument that Marx erected for the "soaring Parisians".

"The Paris of the workers and its Commune will always be admired as brilliant pioneers of the new society. The heroes of Paris have always been remembered in the great heart of the working class. The executioners of Paris have been forever nailed to the pillar of shame by history, and no amount of prayer by their clergy can free them," Marx said, unabashedly praising the Commune. That was the concluding remarks of the General Committee' declaration.

(Gemkov's "Marx" reading notes)