In 1867, the World's Fair was held in Paris. The fair showcased the achievements of the european continents as well as the British in industrial construction, as well as treasures excavated from the colonies of other continents in European countries. The Tsar of Russia, the kings of Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Spain and Belgium, the sultans of Ottoman Turkey, the princes and princesses of England, and the princes of Japan all took the stage. This was napoleon iii's moment of fulfillment.
Group photo of the 1867 Paris World Exposition
But during the parade, an assassin from Poland attempted to kill the Tsar, and although unsuccessful, he succeeded in breaking the Tsar's good mood. Three years later, when France lost to Prussia, Russia refused to intervene.
There was no doubt that the 1867 Paris World's Fair was a success, but by then France had slipped into a quagmire. Shortly after 1848, Napoleon III seized power. France and Paris ushered in rapid economic growth, but both Napoleon's royal family, the old and new aristocrats, and the emerging bourgeoisie indulged in all kinds of desires and enjoyments.
Napoleon III
A decaying city under a volcano
In his book The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune: 1870-1871, alistair Horn, a prominent English historian of France, argues that Napoleon III's empire was:
"The picture of indulgent debauchery and playfulness has a cold opposite. The splendid masquerade party will soon be nothing more than a fleeting memory... The beauty will disappear on the stage, only a vague and ambiguous sexy fragrance."
Syphilis was rampant in French political and cultural circles at that time, and even most of the upper middle class. De Maupassant, Jules Goncourt, Dumas the Younger, Baudelaire, Manet and other cultural icons of 19th-century France were all infected with syphilis, and while becoming famous, they inevitably ushered in "gloomy pus, decay and eventual death".
Maupassant
Napoleon III has always sought to build a splendid country, including a gorgeous capital and a variety of overseas adventures. This seems to be the most effective means of winning Great Power status and glory for France. During his reign, paris was remodeled, and it was always considered the most effective urban transformation, making paris the capital of Europe.
The transformation of Paris itself not only cost a lot of money, but also forcibly demolished the original civilian areas, built spacious roads, and the urban pattern is very clear. What the reformers did not expect was that such an urban pattern would make the violent rendering even more terrifying during the French Civil War in early 1871.
Napoleon III wanted to circumvent the revolution, so he allowed the French working class to strike and introduced a series of far-reaching reforms, including shortening working hours, introducing health legislation, establishing maternity welfare institutions, and mutual aid societies.
The problem is that because of France's economic development, coupled with the hedonistic social structure unique to large cities such as Paris, the cost of living in this city has risen far faster than the increase in workers' wages. After the renovation of Paris, the roads and houses became neat, but the cost of renting them was unbearable. More of the fruits of rapid economic growth were distributed to shareholders, and workers had limited pay increases. In this case, the workers had to move to the outer city and rediscover the dirty slums, which strengthened the connection between the workers.
Moreover, from 1848 to 1870 and 1871, only 20 years later, the workers still have enough scars to remember that in the Revolution of 1848, laborers defended the Republic and shed blood in the barricades, but the French bourgeoisie and its ultimate representative, Napoleon III, seized the fruits of the revolution.
Revolution of 1848
In 1867, the First International under the leadership of Marx and Engels launched its second congress. Although the French versions of Capital and the Communist Manifesto are not so significant in France, their potential impact cannot be underestimated.
The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune: 1870-1871 points out that there were many factions in the French political elite system, in addition to the hardcore Bonaparte supporters, but also the original Bourbon family fans, the Orleans, and various republicans. There are also intellectuals and artists represented by Hugo, who have never spared no effort to criticize the rule of Napoleon III.
The division of these forces means that when the crisis comes, Paris will not be able to organize the forces it already has against the Prussian army; the elite will no longer be able to shamelessly fool the working class as it did in the past.
Books Reviewed: Title: The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune: 1870-1871 Author: Alistair Horn Translators: Wang Chen, Tian Fangzhou Publisher: Democracy and Construction Press Publication date: October 2021
From rout to siege
The Franco-Prussian War began with a declaration of war by France. The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune: 1870-1871 states that the proclamation found itself with no friends or allies. Russia remained neutral, and Britain was no exception. Austria-Hungary said it would enter the war when France invaded southern Germany, but otherwise stood by.
Napoleon III, leading the demoralized troops, with insufficient armaments and even military reconnaissance, began to engage the most powerful Prussian army of the time. In just six weeks, the French decided to surrender. Napoleon III and his 100,000 troops, all taken prisoner.
On September 4, 1870, the Revolution broke out in Paris and the French Third Republic was established. Although the Franco-Prussian War severely damaged France's war power, the new republic confidently recruited troops from all over the country and armed the civilians in Paris. 80 years ago, during the French Revolution, almost all of Europe jointly intervened in the revolution, and the civilians armed in Paris formed a new army, surprisingly many times defeated the intervention army.
But the influx of people has also caused a strain on the food supply in Paris. The Prussian army was very shrewd to besiege Paris without attack, cutting off the flow of people and goods between Paris and the rest of France.
This brings with it the most serious problem for historians: food and other food are becoming scarcer and concentrated in the hands of the rich, who have to coexist in a city with destitute laborers.
The new government supported by the bourgeoisie proved incapable of breaking the siege of the Prussian army and could not solve the problem of lack of food and clothing. Parisians tried to send calls to defend Paris through hot air balloons to all parts of France, mobilizing the "King of Diligence", but many places outside Paris were either supporters of the deposed Napoleon III or had no resource base for military mobilization.
The new French government wanted to negotiate peace with Prussia as soon as possible, but in order to tame the working class and the middle and lower civilians, it also declared that it would defend Paris and never surrender. This duplicitous attitude will soon cause it to lose the basic trust of the people.
Why would the new government prefer to surrender, cede land and pay huge sums of money, hoping to end the siege as soon as possible? The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune: 1870-1871 explains that the bourgeoisie and merchant class feared that the siege would continue and that business would suffer heavy losses. But all this is not a problem for the proletariat at all, because the proletarian has nothing to lose. For the proletarians, "sooner or later the betraying bourgeoisie will make a deal with the reactionary Prussians, and they will then cooperate to crack down again on the real Parisian republicans".
From hunger to commune
The immediate problem with the prolonged siege is that food prices have skyrocketed. Although the republicans and the left called for the new government to intervene, the bourgeoisie refused to respond. Hoarding is a merchant nature, and if a nationalization initiative such as a food distribution system were to be established, it would mean unprofitable, which would be worse than restoring the rule of Napoleon III.
In this way, even cat meat and rat meat have entered the Parisian recipe, and the price has continued to rise. But the rich in Paris aren't actually hungry. Some of the extravagant people also had cows, horses, and a large number of canned food products in their homes – France was the country where canned food was invented, and this type of industry was particularly developed.
The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune: 1870-1871 is ironic and points out that Leningrad, which also suffered from the long siege, did not have an unfair distribution of food due to the disparity between rich and poor, while the Siege of Paris from September 1870 to early 1871 was much shorter but in equally bad condition.
Part of a peace agreement between France and Germany (the King of Prussia had already been crowned Emperor of Germany at versailles on the outskirts of Paris) was to allow the Germans to hold a victory parade in Paris. This was, of course, an unnecessary show-off, and years later the French irrationally intensified the reckoning of Germany, the defeated nation of World War I, which originated from the March 1, 1871 military parade in Paris. At the end of World War I, French Prime Minister Clemenceau, who in 1871 was the mayor of a paris district, clearly witnessed the national humiliation of his country.
After the withdrawal of the German troops, the bourgeois government began to organize the disarmament of the working class guards, but the main members of the National Guard responsible for the disarmament were also from the working class. Therefore, this move is reasonably interpreted by the left as the inferiority of the bourgeoisie. The conflict that engulfed Paris ensued.
The Paris Commune was not carried out under the leadership of the First International, and it can even be said that this revolutionary action ultimately failed because of the immaturity of thought and organization. The versailles who suppressed the Commune, the brutal killings carried out in the city of Paris, and the great incompetence of the French army in the fight against the Prussian (German) army confirmed the "contempt of the meat eaters" and the theorem that only the toiling masses could save the country. The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune: 1870-1871 points out that the great sacrifice of the Paris Commune was not worthless, that france no longer had the political soil for a monarchy, and that French political culture began to tend to be at the forefront of Europe, demonstrating various social reforms.
Marx summed up the lessons of the Paris Commune and wrote The French Civil War. This also led to the division of the First International, one of which was Lenin's Bolshevik Party, the other the relatively moderate British Labour Party and the German Social Democratic Party. The political experiment of the Paris Commune was of great guiding significance for the later Russian Bolshevik "October Revolution" and provided a full lesson.
In 1864, the first Soviet team of three cosmonauts went into space aboard the Ascent, carrying three holy relics: a portrait of Marx, a portrait of Lenin, and a strip of cloth from the flag of the Paris Commune.