Page:Ernest Belfort Bax - A Short History of the Paris Commune (1895).djvu/39

 Rh affairs to be forthwith recognised, and that of the other Communes throughout France to follow, apparently as demanded.

As an International Revolutionist I have been always strongly sympathetic with all movements for local autonomy as most directly tending to destroy the modern "nation" or centralised bureaucratic State, and if the movement had been properly organised in co-operation with the other large towns in the earlier days of March a decentralising programme, properly worked out, might have formed the common political basis. Now, however, it was too late. The idea of constituting Paris a solitary island in the midst of the ocean of provincial France in the vague hope that other islands would spring up in time of themselves, and form an archipelago, was little better than a crude absurdity. The manifesto contained some good passages, probably the work of Delescluze, but as it stood it was ill-timed and not to the point. Nevertheless it was accepted almost without discussion by the Commune, so perfunctory had its proceedings become.

There were now two distinct parties within the council of the Commune, the so-called "majority" and "minority." These originated in the first instance over a hot discussion on the question of the verification of the elections of the 16th, and tended, as is the wont of such factions, to become increasingly bitter and personal. The Commune soon became split up into cliques which alternately dominated, and which still further exacerbated the situation by their mutual recriminations and intrigues. In this way the defence was paralysed, and decrees, good or bad, remained more often than not an empty form.

All this time the Versaillese were organising their attack, and getting into military order the reinforcements they were almost daily receiving from Germany, consisting of