PREFACE.
The Commune of Paris is the one event which Socialists
throughout the world have agreed with single accord to
celebrate. Every i8th of March witnesses thousands of
gatherings throughout the civilised world to commemorate
the (alas ! only temporary) victory of organised Socialist
aspiration over the forces of property and privilege in
1871.
The Commune, it is said, did little of a distinctively
Socialistic character ; it made many mistakes ; it was
infatuated with the idea of decentralisation. All this is
true. What constitutes the importance of the Commune
in history is not certainly the measures that it enacted, is
not even its admirable conduct of the administration of a
great metropolis under circumstances of extreme difficulty ;
it is the fact that the Commune is a landmark as being the
first administration manned by the working classes, having
for its more or less conscious aim the reorganisation of
Social conditions the transformation of a Civilised
Society into a Socialist Society. It is this question of
aim as symbolised by the red flag, which is the central one.
For, however nebulous may have been the views of some of
those that took part in it that such was the aim of
the movement has been recognised by friejids and foes
alike.
What meant the blood-frenzy of the Versaillese ? What
meant the tacit or avowed approval of the capitalistic
press throughout the civilised world, at the most hideous
carnage known to history, but the desperate rage of
threatened class-interests ? We all recognise that those
who died under the red flag in 1871 died for Socialism,
and a nobler army of martyrs no cause has ever had.
In dedicating this little book to the Social-Democratic
Federation, I should say that its initiation is due to my
old friend Harry Quelch, now editor of JUSTICE, in the
columns of which journal it originally appeared in serial
form. ...
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