The Civil War in France

The Civil War in France was a pamphlet written by Karl Marx as an official statement of the General Council of the International on the character and significance of the struggle of the Parisian Communards in the French Civil War of 1871. Between the middle of April and the end of May 1871, London resident Karl Marx collected and compiled English, French, and German newspaper clippings on the progress of the French civil war, which pitted the radical workers of Paris against conservative forces from outside the city. Marx also had access to personal interpretations of events passed along by several leading figures in the Commune and associates such as Paul Lafargue and Peter Lavrov. Marx originally intended to write an address to the workers of Paris, but further developments in France led Marx to the opinion that the document should be instead directed to the working class of the world, noting his desire to write on the "general tendency of the struggle." For Marx, the history of the Paris Commune caused him to reassess the significance of some of his own earlier writings. Marxist currents would later draw from this work, emphasizing the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a revolutionary party or state to mediate or aid its liberation.