The Paris Commune: everything you wanted to know

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. In the spring of 1871, the citizens of Europe's second largest city rose up and proclaimed the Paris Commune. Eight extraordinary weeks, the French capital defied the national government that had been forced to decamp to Versailles and adopted a series of progressive policies ranging from the abolition of night work in bakeries to the toppling of contested monuments. But what exactly was the commune? How did this revolutionary government function?

And why was it crushed with such vigour? Historian David A. Schaeffer speaks to Danny Byrd to answer listener questions on this extraordinary moment in French history. Before we get into the events of the spring of 1871, can you take us back a bit?

What were the deeper forces and tensions building in France, especially in Paris, that laid the groundwork for the Commune? So Uh dating back, I mean, it it depends on how far back we want to go. There had been a revolutionary tradition which, in some respects, laid the groundwork for the commune. The the whole idea that the French Revolution had been an incomplete project, that it was the affilial duty of 19th century Republicans and revolutionaries to finish that job.

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