André Léo
“Le programme de la Commune”, La Sociale, 22 April 1871
The Commune produced its programme yesterday.[1]
It has done well.
The bourgeoisie had long awaited this declaration of principles, which would have the effect of settling still floating sympathies, of reassuring timid spirits and of giving certainty to all minds.
This programme is clear, precise, simple – majestically calm in the midst of this noise of war and tumult of opinions.
And it affirms more than ever, against Jacobin doctrines, the revolutionary principle:
FEDERATION.
Never dominate; never be dominated – this is essentially the theme of the declaration.
Live free.
And being free, happy.
This is all that Paris demands – and what satisfies it more than the privileges, the monopoly, the authority which it had enjoyed until now.
It was a master.
It only wants to be an equal.
And foremost it wants to share this freedom it claims for itself.
That is why they are bombarding it!
Free!
Yes, we want to be free – and be it absolutely!
We, citizens of Paris, want to govern, administer, organise our city as we wish, according to our aspirations, based on the evidence of our acquired knowledge, according to the concept of the Revolution which we made after having reflected upon it.
We want to be the masters of arranging – and arranging alone – amongst ourselves our finances, army, justice, police, education, work, etc.…
We just acknowledge that general laws regulate in an identical manner, over the whole extent of the national territory, different interests from one place to another, often contradictory according to the latitude, and which the variety of peoples renders totally inconsistent.
What relates to the city must be administered, regulated and executed by the men of the city federating themselves into electoral groups and nominating their mandatories – just as what relates to the nation must be resolved by the delegates of the communes federalised in the Federal Assembly.
Our rights!
And your own.
That is what we want! What, people of the provinces, do you have to complain about?
Do we not demand your autonomy as we demand ours?
And by forbidding you the right to interfere in the discussion of our communal affairs, do we reserve the right to intervene in yours?
The declaration of the Commune is categorial:
“We want,” it says, “the absolute autonomy of the Commune extended to all the localities of France, and assuring to each one its full rights, and to every Frenchman the full exercise of his faculties and abilities as man, citizen and worker.”
“The autonomy of the Commune will have as its limits only the right to equal autonomy for all the other communes adhering to the contract, whose association must ensure French unity.”
There is nothing here that is not profoundly just.
And what man of good judgement and good will could accuse the Commune of authoritarianism?
On the contrary, what it is doing today is the critique of the principle of authority; it is the recognition of the rights of all the communes to govern themselves, and the substitution of their own will for the will of a central power.
No more capitals!
Free towns!
The cry of the Revolution of 1871 is like that of the Revolution of 1793: No more tyrants, free men!
And this is the first proclamation of justice for the group, as 1793 was the first proclamation of justice for the individual.
The programme of the Paris Commune is nothing more than the Declaration of the Rights of Man transposed to the city.
[1] The Paris Commune’s “Declaration to the French People” is included in Black Flag Anarchist Review Vol. No. 1 (Spring 2021) and A Libertarian Reader (Active Distribution, 2023) volume 1. (Translator)