By Ivo Kokić
In the French local elections held in March 2026, the Socialist Party once again emerged victorious in Paris. Although the party is experiencing record-low popularity at the national level, Paris seems to remain its stronghold. The Socialists have governed the city continuously since 2001.
This has revived the discussion of Paris as a “red city,” and many recalled that the Paris Commune represented the first time in history that communists came to power anywhere in the world. Therefore, this article provides an analysis of the specific experiences and other causes that led Paris to become the first city in which communists were able to implement their political program.
However, toward the end of the article, an interesting detail is highlighted: after the fall of the Paris Commune in 1871, and until 2001 (a period of 130 years), right-wing parties governed Paris continuously. This is highly unusual — perhaps even a record — for a European metropolis. Thus, the dominant perception that Paris has always been and forever will be a left-wing bastion is not entirely accurate. That thesis was true in 1871 and remains acceptable today, but we cannot ignore the 130-year period in between during which this was not the case.
Introduction
Toward the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Prussian forces reached Paris, thereby securing victory over France. In response to the capitulation of Paris, an uprising broke out among the Paris National Guard. Moreover, within the French National Assembly there was a strong movement advocating the restoration of the monarchy. Amid such chaotic circumstances, a new administration of Paris was elected, under whose authority the Paris Commune was established (18 March – 28 May 1871).
The Commune was crushed by the regular French army with Prussian approval. Although it lasted only briefly, it became one of the most significant events of the 19th century. Karl Marx considered it the first social revolution, while many Marxist philosophers and communist regimes of the 20th century viewed the Paris Commune as the beginning of communism in practice.
Since communism advocates revolution as an essential means of coming to power, this paper deals with the phenomenon of violence within the Paris Commune. The research objective is to understand the motivations of the actors themselves in carrying out revolutionary violence. This concerns not only the political worldview that united them, but also the specific experiences they lived through or that remained vivid in the memory of their generation.
Human beings are not universal trans-temporal categories. People are biologically similar, but enormous socio-cultural differences exist between them. Experience is one of the main differences, and in this case it is necessary to examine how experience influenced these actors to regard violence as something that should not be avoided. Emotions are equally important because they serve as catalysts for radical change. The revolutionary dimension that manifested itself in practice as violence in the name of communist ideas is precisely what makes the Paris Commune the first establishment of communism.
The French Revolution
From the perspective of legal regulations, those who organize uprisings or guerrilla movements and employ violent methods are considered bandits. However, there are outlaws whom the state sees as criminals, yet who draw support from their own people. They are therefore regarded as fighters for justice and freedom rather than mere robbers.
In other words, some bandits carry out their actions as acts of social protest and rebellion, not because of greed. Robin Hood is a good example. Such figures are always attributed certain characteristics in order to portray their behavior as heroic. They begin their “career” as victims of injustice, fight for justice, take from the rich and give to the poor, kill only in self-defense, and oppose not a just ruler but a tyrant.
However, these “fighters for justice” had always remained on the margins of society. Only with the French Revolution of 1789 did a group come to power that sought a radical transformation of society. The desire for revenge against members of the old regime provided strong motivation for the new authorities. The situation reached its peak during the Jacobin Terror (1793–1794) under Maximilien Robespierre.
The Jacobins implemented not only ideological but also physical terror. Thus, a dictatorship was carried out in contradiction to the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 26 August 1789. It is precisely this aspect of the French Revolution that must be considered when determining the motivations of the communards.
The Jacobins compared the Republic to a city under siege or a giant military camp. This certainly referred to the hostile states surrounding France. For this reason, abandoned homes belonging to emigrated French citizens were turned into military barracks. During that period, France witnessed massive crimes against those whom the Jacobin authorities deemed undesirable.
It should be emphasized that more than 90% of all convictions from that era were issued for rebellion against the authorities or treason. Such justifications for politically motivated killings would later be used by many communists, making it difficult not to notice a possible inspiration in the Jacobins.
The experiences and emotions from that period were not something people could easily forget. Witnessing the public executions — mostly by guillotine — of tens of thousands of ideologically undesirable individuals was something survivors remembered for the rest of their lives. Yet the temporal distance between the French Revolution and the Paris Commune was too great for the communards themselves to remember the guillotine firsthand.
This creates the plausible thesis that the shocking novelty of the guillotine generated such powerful emotions that those who experienced it recounted these stories to their children — the future Parisians who would later establish the Commune. Hearing about mass executions from early childhood undoubtedly influenced emotional development and personality formation. Such stories create the impression that one might witness a situation in which state violence becomes normal.
It should also be remembered that the generation of future communards grew up during the Restoration monarchy and a period of relative political stability. On the one hand, they lived under a regime they considered unjust; on the other hand, they were exposed to narratives about how a king had not so long ago been overthrown. This may have awakened in many rebels a longing for a new revolution, and the opportunity for its realization came through the Paris Commune.
Particular attention should be paid to the previously mentioned Jacobin narrative of France as a fortress surrounded by enemies. This produced collective fear — one of the most powerful human emotions. Fear can paralyze people, but it can also make them irritable and paranoid, creating a sense of existential threat.
If the nation is threatened, it naturally sees enemies everywhere because it does not want to risk insufficient protection. This concerns not only external enemies but also internal ones — those suspected of collaborating with outsiders. Since internal enemies exist within the same borders, fear of them is even greater. This intensifies hatred toward them, and the hated group must be prevented by all means from political activity. This includes the physical elimination of real, alleged, or potential enemies of the regime through political executions.
Thus, we observe an identical situation in both the Jacobin dictatorship and the Paris Commune, with fear functioning as the dominant emotion that consciously or subconsciously motivated both.
The Paris Commune
The communards managed to create a narrative in which they were simultaneously anti-war yet prepared for armed conflict. Indeed, they portrayed their struggle as the opposite of conventional warfare. They proclaimed that their victory would not be hollow like a battlefield triumph, but would instead bring about the reorganization of society itself, while their defeat would mean the end of the freedoms for which they fought.
They argued that if the bourgeoisie refused to fight because they had families, then workers should fight precisely because they were fighting for their children. Here again, experience played a key role in calls for revolution. This referred to the experience of pointless wars fought for rulers and territorial control. In opposition to such experiences, Parisians were offered something entirely different: a struggle for the restructuring of social relations.
Emotions also played a role in fueling revolution and violence as an outlet for frustration. Therefore, one should not overlook the French government’s decision to move the National Assembly to Versailles. Considering how centralized France was — and still is — around Paris, it is understandable that this relocation angered Parisians.
Various official bodies of the Paris Commune issued proclamations clearly revealing how they motivated citizens toward revolution. The proletariat was told that its rights were under threat through the denial of its aspirations and the destruction of the homeland. Therefore, workers had both the right and duty to take destiny into their own hands and seize power.
Furthermore, one goal of the revolution was to eliminate the possibility of future wars, abolish class antagonism, and establish social equality. One manifesto even declared that carrying out the revolution was a sacred duty.
This demonstrates that motivation stemmed from exhaustion with war and the widespread desire to end it. Equally important were experiences of social injustice and inequality that the revolution promised to eliminate.
Although revolutions often transcend national borders due to their universal character, in this case the influence of Jacobin ideology was even stronger because of geographical and cultural continuity. Even if Jacobin politics did not completely determine communard behavior, it significantly shaped it — especially regarding violence.
To better understand why violence was so prevalent within the Paris Commune, it is important to consider the circumstances of its birth. These included conditions of high-intensity warfare in which killing was an everyday occurrence rather than headline news. In revolutionary conditions, a sharp friend–enemy divide also emerges. Those subjected to violence are not perceived as neutral observers, but as threats to revolutionary victory.
It is well known that the architects of the October Revolution were deeply impressed by both the French Revolution and the Paris Commune. If the French Revolution could influence politicians nearly 130 years later in an entirely different part of Europe — Russia — then its inevitable influence on the Paris Commune becomes obvious.
Leon Trotsky was also profoundly inspired by the Commune. He described its most important aspect as being “the living negation of formal democracy because, in its full development, it signified the dictatorship of working-class Paris over the peasant country.”
This quote is important not merely because it reveals Soviet communist admiration for the Commune, but because it unintentionally points to the communards’ own inspiration for violence. If the Commune represented the negation of democracy and the implementation of dictatorship, then it is clear that the communards looked to Jacobin terror as their model rather than to the moderate liberal regime that followed the French Revolution.
One progressive achievement of the Paris Commune was the broader inclusion of women in combat. Women’s battalions were formed, and women were allowed to participate actively in politics.
Louise Michel remains remembered as one of the most important figures of the Commune. She also wrote memoirs that serve as a valuable ego-document through which we can better understand the experiences and ideas she identified as her inspiration.
She stated that above all she had been completely obsessed with the French Revolution. It was her only dream and only love. She still remembered, from childhood, old people recounting legends from revolutionary times. During the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, while daily witnessing the deaths of her compatriots, she recalled scenes of violence she had seen as a child.
She also reflected on social injustice, arguing that no peasant ever became rich by cultivating the land; rather, peasants generated profit for those who already possessed excessive wealth. Thus, childhood experiences profoundly shaped her worldview, whether through stories glorifying the Revolution or through exposure to violence on the streets of Paris.
There is no doubt that witnessing violence in childhood provokes disgust. Yet if future communards were constantly exposed to such scenes as children — and Michel’s memoirs suggest they were — then it may be assumed that over time they became desensitized rather than shocked by them.
This is important because it helps explain why such individuals, as adults, might commit violence without experiencing emotional disturbance. In other words, they had already “spent” that emotional shock in their youth.
It is equally clear that revolutionary motivation stemmed from war exhaustion and fear of death. When war strikes a region, the first instinct is survival and fear of dying. In this case, fear of death had reached such intensity that people no longer hesitated to launch a revolution, thereby risking their lives further, simply to escape what they saw as the primary source of their suffering — war itself.
The possibility of death, ordinarily the greatest fear, became secondary. They chose to risk even that possibility in order to free themselves from what they considered the universal source of destruction.
Paris After the Commune
One particularly interesting detail invites reflection from the modern reader. From the fall of the Paris Commune in 1871 until the local elections of 2001 — a continuous period of 130 years — right-wing and conservative parties governed Paris. Only in 2001 did socialist Bertrand Delanoë win office at the head of a coalition of Socialists, Greens, and Communists, and even then the result was considered a major surprise.
Naturally, we can never fully understand all the reasons why Parisians voted for the right for 130 years. Yet it is possible that awareness of the Commune’s legacy and the traumas associated with it created a strong aversion among Parisians toward left-wing movements, at least during the first decades after the Commune’s collapse.
Conclusion
We may conclude that political violence represented a crucial element in the implementation of the Paris Commune’s policies. The reason for this lies not only in the communist ideology’s call for revolution. The possibility of mass violence found fertile ground because of the specific experiences and emotions shared by the communards and their supporters. These experiences normalized violence.
The various manifestos issued by the actors of the Commune reveal motivations rooted in exhaustion from war, severe class inequalities, worker exploitation, and related grievances. The actors of the Paris Commune were above all inspired by the French Revolution. The best evidence for this is Louise Michel’s own testimony in her memoirs.
Stories told by older generations about the revolutionary era in France clearly became deeply embedded in the memories of younger generations, who later led the Commune as adults. This applies especially to the period of state terror during Jacobin rule, which served as the model the communards consciously emulated. This applied both to radical ideas and to the methods used to implement them.
The specifically French experience of several revolutions occurring within a relatively short period influenced the ease with which Parisians embarked upon yet another revolution. Equally important were the intense emotions they experienced, which acted as catalysts for radical action. Emotions possess the power to trigger individuals who already hold a formed worldview into concrete political action.
