For the first time, I am beginning to read a few articles on the Paris Commune (1871). One article on libcom says the following:
Source: http://libcom.org/history/articles/paris-commune-1871
The council became increasingly isolated from those who’d elected it. The more isolated it got, the more authoritarian it got. The council set up a “Committee of Public Safety” to “defend [by terror]” the “revolution”. This Committee was opposed by the anarchist minority on the council and was ignored by the people who, unsurprisingly, were more concerned with defending Paris from invasion by the French army.
Two things are confusing here. One: It says "the people" ignored this Committee because they were focused on fighting off the French army, but wouldn't a committee to "defend the revolution" be focused on fighting the French army, too?
Two: A committee to defend the revolution is essentially what was proposed by Friends of Durruti when they said that a junta of elected delegates to coordinate the civil war was needed. Anarchists generally support that so why were they against a similar thing in the Paris Commune?
The article says nothing else about the Committee of Public Safety, and doing a search on libcom and scanning other articles which mention it didn't provide much info, so I don't really know anything about this Committee or its real purpose and what it did. So maybe there were good reasons for being opposed but they aren't apparent.
Anyone know?
Good question. I haven't read up on the Paris Commune lately, but I'll try and give it a shot.
1) No, I don't think most people ignored the Committee because they were fighting off the French army. They ignored because at that time the council of the Commune was just becoming more isolated from them and more irrelevant. It was a committee designed to "defend" the Commune through bourgeois Jacobin means, as it was created by the Jacobin majority of Communards. But what most people wanted was to defend the Commune through their own revolutionary means, and they hoped they would be able stop the constant attack by the French military themselves. Of course, the fact that the council of the Commune kept aspects of representative bourgeois government and did not go far enough in economic transformation partly cost them. Had they been in a position where workplaces were at once completely transformed, they might have had more of a chance in defeating the military. Basically, I think the ended up making the same mistakes as the Spanish Trotskyists and anarchists did in the Civil War: to fight the military first, and then continue with the revolution.
Your second question is pretty much answered in the above.