This fascinating article on the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune was published by the Socialist Worker, a far-left newspaper “associated with the International Socialist Tendency”. Most importantly, it is a unique look at an unusual chapter in democratic history. Here is an excerpt:

The Paris Commune, where workers briefly took power and created the first workers’ government, was born 150 years ago this month. A workers’ movement ran the city for 72 days between March and May 1871, with freedom and democracy at its core.

Revolutionary Karl Marx described the Paris Commune as, “The first revolution in which the working class was openly acknowledged as the only class capable of social initiative, even by the great bulk of the Paris middle class—shopkeepers, tradesmen, merchants—the wealthy capitalist alone excepted.”

Read the full article here.