France in Revolution: 1848

Abstract

National Library of Australia Card no. and ISBN 0 7081 0354 5 Text set in lOpt IBM Press Roman, 2pt leaded and printed on 96gsm Glopaque by Southwood Press, Sydney vii interested in French Catholicism, considered the Commune as part of the history of anti-clericalism. Dr Rubel, the distinguished French Marxologist and historian of socialism, spoke on socialism and the Commune, and I endeavoured, in the final lecture, to assess the significance of the Paris Commune for a soc ialist theory of society and to gauge its connection or lack of connection with the revolutionary strivings of today. In this volume I have collected these four lectures, together with what seems to me to be a splendid paper by Dr F.B. Smith, which was first presented in more professional seminar discussions of Marxism and the Commune that the History of Ideas Unit had organised within the Research School of Social Sciences of the Australian National University. Because our public lectures were primarily concerned with the significance of the Paris Commune as an event in the history of radicalism and of revolution ary movements, they referred only by the way to the character of the forces of law and order that stood behind Thiers and his Government of National Defence. Dr Smith's paper helps to redress the balance; it enables us, even if indirectly, to assess the morality of the Communards in the light of the morality of those who stood against them. To make room for Dr Smith's paper and for a comparatively full chronology of events surrounding the Paris Commune, I have chosen to abridge my own concluding lecture; the main burden of the argument should nevertheless remain evident to the reader.