easy reading on the paris commune

There is a short chapter in Paul Masons book, I recall.

Live working...

The Fall of Paris by Alastair Horne. It is a really great book, very accessible and a good introduction to the Commune and the Siege that proceeded it. Also, there is "Theses on the Commune" by Vaneigem, Debord and Kotanyi that provides an interesting revolutionary perspective on its importance (you can find it on libcom). Unfortunately there is not a lot of great material on the Commune in English.

If there's a decent second-hand bookshop in your area, it might be worth looking there. There was a fair bit of stuff on the Commune released in the seventies- a combination of the centennial and the New Left- so there might be something there, and it'll at least be on the cheaper side.

http://www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/index.htm ... was Pjotr Lavrov's stuff ever translated into English?

I highly recommend the newly release: Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune by Kristin Ross, Verso, 2015. No ebook available as of yet to my knowledge.

Communal Luxury - epub

From the ICC's series on communism:

http://en.internationalism.org/internationalreview/199403/3596/1871-first-proletarian-dictatorship

I've written quite a bit on the Commune and you may find it of interest:

An Anarchist FAQ section A.5.1 The Paris Commune

The Paris Commune, Marxism and Anarchism

The Paris Commune and the Kronstadt Uprising

Proudhon, Marx and the Paris Commune

Kropotkin wrote a lot on the Paris Commune, some of which is included in my Direct Action Against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology:

1848-1871 (Freedom, first time in book)
The Paris Commune (Fighting the Revolution volume 2; first time in book)
Commune of Paris (Freedom, first time in book)

An older translation of The Paris Commune is in the Anarchy Archives.

Also, my introduction to Property is theft! A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology has a section on the Commune as well as an appendix of texts issued by it.

Hope you find some of that helpful.

Kristin Ross' Communal Luxury is excellent. She does a great job of taking the nature of the commune into the present context of precarity and creative self-employment and other such things. I especially liked the parts about education, I think in chapter two.

As for if it's the most straightforward you can find - I'm not sure, but def give it a try. I gave it to my sister, who has a short attention span, and she found it dense. But I think if you're interested, you'll be good.

Actually, no it isn't. Riddled with many inaccuracies, Ross's book reads more like a special pleading to the Occupy crowd in the USA than a thorough look at the Commune, which she time and time again seems to misread, ignoring its imperfections and bigging-up some minore aspects.

Battlescarred, what are your specific grievances with the book? Many have recommended it....

I am in process of writing a review which should go up on the AF website soon, so watch that space

Film by Peter Watkins on the subject. Excellently made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KIvQ1nUdIs

Not sure if this fits the description of the OP (which seems to be from a couple years back), but adding to the list:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/brinton/1961/05/paris-commune.htm

Has anyone mentioned 'The Civil War in France`, by Karl Marx. I enjoyed it.

The paris commune - reflections 140 years later (2011), plus a detailed book-sized critical account.

A glance at my book shelf reveals......

A short read ,Writings on the Paris Commune, which contains excerpts from Marx , Bakunin, Kropotkin and Lenin. 125pp. Pub 2010.Red and Black.

A somewhat more substantial tome, History of the Paris Commune of 1871 by Prosper Olivier Lissagaray (Translated from French by Eleanor Marx). 362pp. Pub 2007. Red and Black.

Of the same title there is also Frank Jellinek's 450pp Left Book Club Edition. Pub 1937. Victor Gollancz

James MacBryde

Has anyone mentioned 'The Civil War in France`, by Karl Marx. I enjoyed it.

It is probably his best work -- but, then, it is mostly reporting on a heavily anarchist influenced uprising. What makes interesting reading is comparing Marx's reporting with Proudhon's 1848 election manifesto:

Election Manifesto of Le Peuple

Everything Marx praises the Commune for doing -- mandates, fusion of executive and legislative functions in one body, workers' associations, etc. -- were all advocated by Proudhon... in 1848:

The Paris Commune and the Kronstadt Uprising

Proudhon, Marx and the Paris Commune

I'm in the process of revising my article "The Paris Commune, Marxism and Anarchism" and I'm happy how well it has stood-up. What I will be adding (beyond consolidating references as well as using Property is Theft! and Direct Struggle Against Capital) is just building upon the points made.

Also, I should say that Kropotkin's analysis of the Commune stands up far better than Marx's reporting.

Anarcho

James MacBryde

Has anyone mentioned 'The Civil War in France`, by Karl Marx. I enjoyed it.

It is probably his best work -- but, then, it is mostly reporting on a heavily anarchist influenced uprising.... Also, I should say that Kropotkin's analysis of the Commune stands up far better than Marx's reporting.

It's this kind of one eyed stupidity that can give a thread some much needed humour.

IrrationallyAngry

It's this kind of one eyed stupidity that can give a thread some much needed humour.

I know, imagine someone who knows something about a subject commenting upon it... Still, I guess we don't need to so any more research on the Commune -- we can just read "The Civil War in France" and be grateful that Marx has saved us the trouble of thinking for ourselves...

The more I read about the Commune, the Kropotkin's analysis holds up. The same cannot be said of Marx's reporting -- it is pretty superficial and it completely ignores the theoretical influences (that is, Proudhon) which gave it its distinctive nature.

It would be nice if someone translated Kropotkin's article on the Paris Commune which he wrote for the Russian movement after 1905. Would be a nice supplement to the many articles he wrote in French and English on it (three of which are in "Direct Struggle Against Capital").

Anarcho:

Also, I should say that Kropotkin's analysis of the Commune stands up far better than Marx's reporting.

Thank you for the recommendation, I will read it now...(https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1880/paris-commune.htm)

Starts well:

'...the usual stage effects of revolution...the armed people came out into the streets, the rulers fled away, the troops evacuated the town...'

Gets positively poetic:

'...Paris found herself free from the impurity which had defiled her...'

Then:

'Yet the change thus accomplished began a new era in that long series of revolutions whereby the peoples are marching from slavery to freedom. Under the name "Commune of Paris" a new idea was born...'

You've lost me Petr, what's new about revolution, it's as old as civilization/class society itself.

Let's compare this to the introduction to the report by Comrade Marx:

'On the dawn of March 18, Paris arose to the thunder-burst of “Vive la Commune!...” '

And swiftly on to it's conclusion:

'...the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.'