Chapter 12 Significance of Commemorating the Paris Commune[1]

(March 18, 1926) Today is the first time that Chinese people commemorate the Paris Commune.Fifty-five years have passed since the Paris Commune incident. Why do we only know about the commemoration and hold the commemoration today? Because the previous revolutions in China were arranged by a small number of people, and when the revolutionary trend gradually increased, the revolutionary movement Then it expanded from a minority to a majority, and now there are a majority of peasants and workers participating, with the guidance of leftist Kuomintang members and the model of State Soviet Russia, the dictatorship of the workers and peasants. That's why the Chinese people know that there is today's commemoration. In order to have today's commemoration.

The history of the Paris Commune has been recorded in newspapers in recent days, even in the book "New Social Outlook" [2], there is also a brief description. I think all comrades have read it, so there is no need to talk about it.Now I will only talk about a few important meanings of commemorating the Paris Commune. The Paris Commune was the first revolutionary movement of the working class in Paris on March 18, 1871.That year was the tenth year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, and it is exactly fifty-five years today.We have to ask, why did this kind of movement not happen a hundred years ago, but today fifty-five years ago? We know that any kind of movement does not happen without a reason, and there must be objective conditions.According to the Paris Commune, thirty years after the Opium War in China, the Treaty of Nanking, the Treaty of Tianjin, and the Treaty of Beijing continued to be concluded in these thirty years, which fully proves that European countries have the ability to send money to the East. It has developed violently, has transformed from capitalism to imperialism, and has formed a great working class in the country, so this kind of heroic workers' revolutionary movement has emerged.This is the first point that should be noted.

Marx said: International wars in which capitalists compete for each other's interests are meaningless, and only domestic class wars can liberate mankind.In the three years of the European War in the Republic of China, many lives were lost and countless money was spent. What was the result? How important is its value? The October Revolution in Russia and the Paris Commune were the working class’s pursuit of true equality and freedom for mankind with their own strength. Their meanings are the same, but success and failure are different.So we can say: The Paris Commune is a bright flower, and the Russian Revolution is a happy fruit—the Russian Revolution is the successor of the Paris Commune.Now ordinary capitalists say: "Wars abroad are beneficial, but wars at home are useless." But we want to go further and say: "International wars in which capitalists compete for each other's interests are meaningless, and international wars to overthrow capitalism will Civil wars in which warlords vie for power and profit are worthless, and civil wars in which oppressed classes rise up and overthrow oppressors are valuable." The general nationalist faction vigorously advocates that "sacrifice for the motherland is paramount." "Glorious" is a bourgeois deceit, we must not be fooled by them! This is the second point we should pay attention to.

At present, some people in China doubt or oppose class struggle. This is because they do not understand the history of human evolution.Marx said: "The history of mankind is a history of class struggle." [3] This is a fact that cannot be denied.The evolution of human beings from primitive society to patriarchal society, feudal society, and even today's country is the evolution of the class struggle between the ruling class and the ruled class.The Paris Commune was the first political and economic revolution in which the working class rose to overthrow the ruling class.We have always read Chinese history without paying attention to the facts of class struggle. In fact, the history of China for more than 4,000 years is not a history of class struggle. For example, during the reign of Emperor Qin II, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang who rose to revolution were peasants.Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty was a rogue, and it was also a revolution in which the proletariat overthrew the aristocratic class. However, in the agricultural society, after their successful revolution, they became emperors again and became the aristocratic class themselves.Taiping Wang Hongxiuquan called on a group of unemployed peasants in Guangxi to rise up for revolution, which was of great significance for social revolution. Premier Sun also admired him very much.Everyone only knew that it was the Qing government that overthrew him, but they didn't know that the real main force that overthrew him was the landlord class.It was Zeng Guofan who contributed the most to defeat the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. He was the leader of the landlord class at that time.Zeng Guofan was born in Lian Tuan Lian, which is the force used by the landlord class to oppress the peasants. They saw that Hong Xiuquan led a group of peasant revolutions, which was not good for them, so they tried their best to defeat him.Therefore, the incident of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not a war between Manchu and Han, but a class struggle between peasants and landlords.This should pay attention to the third point.

The Paris Commune existed for only seventy-two days, so why did it fail so quickly? There are two main reasons: (1) There is no unified, centralized, and disciplined party in command——for the revolution to succeed, we must concentrate our forces and act in unison. It depends on an organized and disciplined party calling the shots.At that time, because the Paris Commune did not have a unified political party, internal opinions were divided and forces were dispersed, which gave the enemy an opportunity to take advantage of. This was the first reason for its failure. (2) To be too compromised and too kind to the enemy - We are kind to the enemy, but we are cruel to our comrades.The success of the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the victory of the National Government in overthrowing Yang and Liu[5] and purging the counter-revolutionaries in 14 years[4] all depended on the absolute severity of measures against the enemy, without the slightest compromise, because we did not use If we deal with the enemy with severe means, the enemy will use extremely cruel means to deal with us.The Paris Commune did not deal harshly with the enemy, but allowed the enemy to occupy financial institutions and mobilize troops, so it was finally destroyed by the enemy.All comrades should learn from the past and learn from the future, learn from the past and learn from the future, and never forget the saying "If we don't deal a fatal blow to the enemy, the enemy will deal a fatal blow to us".If we want revolution, we must learn the method of revolution from this.This is the fourth point that should be noted in commemorating the Paris Commune.

In order to disperse the unity of the revolutionary forces, the current imperialists are trying their best to promote the "red terror", saying that the Russian revolution killed tens of thousands of people, but in fact only the "white terror" of the imperialists is the real terror! Just look at the fact that after the failure of the Paris Commune, no less than 100,000 people were massacred by the French capitalists, while the number of people killed by the Russian Revolution was no more than a few thousand. The "red terror" is really not as good as the "white terror"! The May 30th massacre and the Shaki massacre are even more evidence of the "white terror".So we have to cry out loudly: "Oppose the white terror! Oppose the massacre of the proletariat by the imperialists!"

Printed according to the second issue of "Chinese Kuomintang Political Seminar Ten Weekly" on March 31, 1926. -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ note [1] This is Mao Zedong’s speech at the Kuomintang Political Workshop to commemorate the fifty-fifth anniversary of the Paris Commune. It was published in the "Chinese Nationalist Political Workshop Ten Years" and was originally titled "Some Points to Pay Attention to in Commemoration of the Paris Commune". [2] "New Social Outlook", written by Guo Fanlunke, translated by Wang Yiwei, proofread by Qu Qiubai, published by Minmin Publishing House in June 1925.

[3] See Marx and Engels "Communist Manifesto".The new translation is: "The history of all societies so far is the history of class struggle." Engels commented on this sentence in the 1888 English edition of the "Communist Manifesto", pointing out: "Precisely , which refers to the history with written records.” (See both pages 250-251 of the first volume of "Selected Works of Marx and Engels", People's Publishing House, 1972 edition) [4] Refers to the fourteenth year of the Republic of China, that is, 1925 AD. [5] Yang and Liu refer to Yang Ximin and Liu Zhenhuan.See note [3] on page 17 of this volume