Page:The Paris Commune - Karl Marx - ed. Lucien Sanial (1902).djvu/48

 Rh as of the wealthier bourgeoisie. But behind these stood the revolutionary workmen; and the latter had, since 1830, acquired for themselves a far greater sense of political independence than even the Republicans among the middle classes suspected. In the moment of crisis between Government and Opposition, the workmen inaugurated the battle in the streets; Louis Philippe disappeared, and with him the electoral reform. In its stead arose the Republic, and moreover a republic designated by the victorious workmen themselves as the "Social Republic." As to what was to be understood by this "social" republic, nobody was quite clear, not even the workmen themselves. But they now had weapons, and wielded power in the State. So soon, therefore, as the bourgeois Republicans, who were at the head of affairs, began to feel somewhat firm ground under their feet, their first object was to disarm the workmen. To effect this, the bourgeoisie drove them to insurrection in June, 1848, by the direct breach of pledges, by scornful and defiant treatment, and by the attempt to banish the unemployed into a distant province. The Government had taken care to have an overwhelming repressive force at hand. After five days of heroic struggle, the workmen succumbed, and now followed a massacre of the defenseless prisoners, the like of which had not been seen since the days of the Civil Wars which ushered in the downfall of the Roman Republic. It was the first time that the bourgeoisie showed to what a mad ferocity of vengeance it can be stirred up, so soon as the proletariat dares to stand up against it as a separate class with its own interests and demands. And yet 1848 was child's play compared with their fury in 1871.

But Nemesis straightway followed. If the proletariat could not as yet rule France, the bourgeoisie could not