The Civil War in France was a book written by Karl Marx as an address to the General Council of the International, with the aim of distributing to workers of all countries a clear understanding of the character and world-wide significance of the heroic struggle of the Parisian Communards and their historical experience to learn from. The book was widely circulated by 1872, being translated into several languages and published throughout Europe and the United States. Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818, Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883, London) was a German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ...

Publication

The Civil War in France was originally published by Marx as only a third address to the General Council of the International, separated into four chapters. In 1891, on the 20th anniversary of the Paris Commune, Friedrich Engels put together a new collection of the work. Engels decided to include the first two addresses that Marx made to the International--in this way providing additional historical background to the Civil War from Marx's account of the Franco-Prussian (July to September, 1870). Frederich Engels (November 28, 1820, Wuppertal – August 5, 1895, London), a 19th-century German political philosopher, developed communist theory alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto (1848). ...

Theoretical Consequences

For Marx, the history of the Paris Commune caused him to reassess the significance of some of his own earlier writings. In a later preface to the Communist Manifesto, Marx would write that "no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today."^[1] It is this earlier passage which sought to show the process of worker seizure of state power. Following the publication of The Civil War in France, "One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that 'the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.'"^[1] Le Père Duchesne looking at the statue of Napoleon I on top of the Vendome column: Eh ben ! bougre de canaille, on va donc te foutre en bas comme ta crapule de neveu !… (Here! savage rascal, we will put you down just like your crook of a nephew!…) The... Malayalam editon of the Manifesto The Communist Manifesto, also known as The Manifesto of the Communist Party, first published on February 21, 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is one of the worlds most historically influential political tracts. ...

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Karl Marx and Frederich Engels, Communist Manifesto (Preface) http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm

External links

• The Civil War in France
• Preface to the 1872 publication of the Communist Manifesto
• Red & Anarchist Action Network