In Honor Of The 143^rd Anniversary Of The Paris Commune –Jean-Paul  Roget’s Fear

 Jean-Paul Roget frankly was exhausted after coming out of the three hour meeting of the sectional committee of the Paris Commune that had just been declared a few days previously and was desperately in need of organization now that the Thiers government had fled to Versailles leaving the city to the “people.” And that idea of organization, damn, the desperate need for organization, first and foremost of the food supplies and military defense of the city against an attack by either forces loyal to Thiers or from the dreaded Prussians who just that moment had most of the capital surrounded and squeezed in was needed right then. What had Jean-Paul exhausted was not the daunting tasks of organization in front of him and his comrades, tough as they were, but that the three hour meeting that had just finished produced not resolve and purpose but only reams and reams of hot air.

Now that that people of Paris were masters of their own house every dingbat orator, lawyer, crackpot radical and not a few dandies  saw their opportunity to wax and wane endlessly about the beautiful struggle that had taken place, that a new day was aborning ,and ill-witted material like that. Take Varlin, a Proudhonist who had been, in the old days back in ’48, quite the radical figure, had been seemingly on every barricade and who in the aftermath of the June Days bloodbath been transported (exiled). This day however he felt the need, and felt it for hours, to push the notion of artisan cooperatives at a time when Paris was losing that segment of the population to the every-devouring factories that were in fact more efficient in the production of goods. Moreover dear Varlin was captivated by the notion that now that Thiers had fled (and good riddance) there was no reason to pursue his troops and disband them as agents of potential counter-revolution.

Certainly Varlin had forgotten the harsh memories of ’48 but he was not the worst offender against the urgency of the times. The old windbag Capet, jesus, was he still alive thought Jean-Paul when he heard that name announced from the podium,  went on and on about the glory days, the glory days of ’89 like life had stopped in that blessed time. In the same vein (maybe vain) as well Dubois, an old time working-class radical, a semi-follower of Marx from over in England, kept harping on the need to take over the banks in order to finance  the new affairs of the Commune.  Jean-Paul himself merely a tanner, and a good one, laughed when that idea was announced for where would he, or anyone else, get the money for their daily personal and business needs. A couple of  other speakers went on and on as well about how great the peoples’ needs were without however coming up with one solid working idea. At least Jean-Paul had suggested setting a maximum on the price of bread that could help the people but that was merely “taken under advisement” And so ended a day, a fruitless day by Jean –Paul’s lights in the life of the Commune…