At the origins of the Soviet historiography of the Paris Commune of 1871 stands the giant figure of V. I. Lenin 1 .

Lenin studied the historical experience of the Paris Commune throughout his life. In June 1895, when Lenin first arrived in Paris, despite the shortness of his stay in the French capital, he devoted part of his time to studying the history of the Paris Commune. He took notes on the first part of a book by a member of the Commune, G. Lefrancet, entitled "An Outline of the Paris Communard Movement in 1871" .2 This summary, apparently, should be considered the beginning of V. I. Lenin's study of the heroic feat of the French workers of 1871.

Throughout the following years, V. I. Lenin repeatedly returned to an in-depth study of the history of the Paris Commune. Already at the beginning of the XX century, in one of his works, he gives her a high assessment. In 1903, in his article "The National Question in Our Program," written on the eve of the historic Second Congress of the RSDLP, Lenin called the Paris Commune "the greatest movement of the proletariat in the nineteenth century." A year later, in March 1904, in one of the summaries of a report on the Paris Commune that he had read, in the last, 13th paragraph of "Results and lessons", he defines the essence of the Commune with a short, clear formula:"The dictatorship of the proletariat" 3 .

These two words in Lenin's synopsis are full of the deepest meaning. The social-democratic literature of the early twentieth century largely ignored the feat of the French workers. The most popular organs of German social democracy at that time, the magazine Die Neue Zeit and the newspaper Vorwärts, rarely published any articles about the Paris Commune. Yes, and the very meaning of the Commune, revealed in due time by K. Marx and F. Engels, was consigned to oblivion. Even in the best works of K. Kautsky at the beginning of the century, especially devoted to the problems of the conquest of power by the working class, the experience and lessons of the Commune of 1871 were ignored and the solution of the problem was conceived only strictly within the framework of parliamentarism4 . "Dictatorship of the proletariat" - two words that define the essence of the Commune, which are found in V. I. Lenin's notes, eloquently indicate that in his assessment of the Paris Commune, he fully supported the point of view of the founders of scientific communism - K. Marx and F. Kropotkin. Engels. This is also confirmed by a number of draft recordings by V. I. Leni-

1 See for more details: V. A. Eremina. V. I. Lenin as a historian of the Paris Commune. Voprosy Istorii, 1971, No. 2.

2 G. Lefrancais. Etude sur mouvement communaliste a Paris en 1871. Neuchatel. 1871. See "Foreign Literature", 1957, N 4.

3 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 7, p. 237; vol. 8, p. 488.

4 K. Kautsky. Die Soziale Revolution. V. 1902; ejusd. Der Weg zur Macht. B. 1909.

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on the subject of the first government of the working class in 1871, which proves the deep attention with which he studied everything he wrote.

V. I. Lenin not only studied and accepted Marx's assessments of the Paris Commune. He went further: he enriched revolutionary theory and Marxist historiography with a new and deeper understanding of the players of the Paris Commune. He established a direct link between the revolutionary feat of the Paris Communards and the revolutionary struggle of the Russian proletariat. In the spring of 1905, V. I. Lenin wrote down a thought Full of deep inner content: "We all stand on the shoulders of the Commune in the present movement." 5 These few words establish a genetic link between the Russian revolutionary movement, which entered a period of fierce fighting during the flood of the first people's revolution, and the short-lived history of workers ' power in Paris.

Later, V. I. Lenin revealed the deep meaning behind this concise formula. In the Soviets of Workers 'Deputies created by the revolutionary creativity of the masses in 1905, he saw something akin and close to the workers' government of the Paris Commune. In the well-known preface to the Russian translation of Karl Marx's letters to Kugelman, V. I. Lenin draws the greatest attention to Marx's assessment of the historical feat of the Paris Communards .6
It is significant that in these works of V. I. Lenin one can find not only a deep analysis of the strengths of the Paris Commune and, above all, the features of the new type of state, but also a criticism of its mistakes and blunders. V. I. Lenin approached the experience of the Commune as a leader of the revolution, as a great revolutionary strategist: he sought, first of all, to revolutionary battles of 1871. lessons for the upcoming class battles. Following Marx, he points out the main ones: the mistakes of the Paris Communards. We should have marched at once to Versailles, he writes, considering it a serious mistake for the Communards to be slow, to abandon the policy of a revolutionary offensive, and to lack determination in their actions aimed at breaking the resistance of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. Like Karl Marx, V. I. Lenin points out that the Central Committee of the National Guard resigned its powers too early. This remark in the preface to Karl Marx's letters deserves special attention. It shows that V. I. Lenin, following Karl Marx, was able to highly appreciate the role of the first revolutionary government of the working class, the Central Committee of the National Guard, an organ of revolutionary power created as a result of a popular uprising, a government that relied not on legal or other legal sources of power, but directly on the armed people.

But this criticism of the mistakes of the Paris communards did not prevent Lenin from generally appreciating very highly the liberation struggle of the French working class in 1871. In the famous article "Lessons of the Commune", written in 1908, he writes:: "But for all its mistakes, the Commune is the greatest example of the greatest proletarian movement of the nineteenth century." 7 Moreover, as can be seen from a number of Lenin's statements, he considered the Commune of 1871 to be the highest achievement of the international working-class movement before the victory of October.

On the eve of the world imperialist War, when the question of military danger was still on the agenda of the congresses of the Second International, Lenin also approached the legacy of the Paris Commune from a different angle. The amendment to A. Bebel's resolution at the Stuttgart International Socialist Congress in 1907, introduced by him and supported by the left, is widely known. The resolution was not satisfactory

5 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 9, p. 330.

6 See V. I. Lenyam. PSS. Vol. 14, pp. 371-379.

7 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 16, p. 453.

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V. I. Lenin, who believed that it could be read "through opportunist glasses" 8 . Mr. Vollmar's openly chauvinistic speech at the Congress confirmed the validity of these fears. V. I. Lenin introduced an amendment to Bebel's resolution on behalf of the Russian and Polish delegations. The main point of this amendment was that socialists must use the crisis created by the war to overthrow capitalism. After difficult negotiations with A. Bebel and a struggle in the relevant congressional commissions, this amendment was adopted by V. I. Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg .9 It had a deep meaning. The main idea of this amendment was later included in the well-known resolution of the Copenhagen Congress of 1910, and then was repeated in the resolution of the Basel Congress of 1912, which directly pointed to the example of the Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution of 1905.

During the First World War, V. I. Lenin, justifying his famous slogan of turning the imperialist war into a civil war, repeatedly returned to the resolutions of the Basel and previous Congresses of the Second International and directly pointed out the historical examples of the Paris Commune. In his famous articles - "The military program of the Proletarian Revolution", "On the slogan of disarmament" - he reminds the Western European left of the lessons that the Commune once taught in the struggle against the war unleashed by the ruling classes. 10
In the early spring of 1917, when the first news of the revolution that had begun in Russia reached Switzerland, where Lenin was in exile, Vladimir Ilyich again returned to his thoughts about the Commune. In March 1917, he made a report to Swiss and foreign workers in Zurich about the beginning of the Russian revolution. The draft outline notes for his report contain an important entry. "What should I do? Where and how to go?" - he asks a question and answers it: "To the Commune? Prove it " 11 . These two lines of V. I. Lenin's rough notes are of great importance. They show that at the first news of the bourgeois-democratic revolution that had begun in Russia, V. I. Lenin immediately came to the conclusion that it was inevitable for Russia to follow the path of the Commune and the first Russian revolution. In his later works, which were also written in the Swiss emigration, V. I. Lenin deciphers this sparse entry in the draft in his famous "Letters from Afar". In the third letter, he writes: "The workers, by their class instinct, have realized that in revolutionary times they need something quite different, not just a new one. an ordinary organization, they correctly followed the path indicated by the experience of our 1905 revolution and the Paris Commune of 1871, they created the Soviet of Workers 'Deputies..." 12
It is no exaggeration to say that at that time Lenin was the only revolutionary and theoretical scholar in the world who was able to understand the continuity between the Soviets and the Paris Commune, and to point out that the Russian revolutionary movement should follow the path of the Paris Commune. Creative generalization of the historical experience of the Commune of 1871 and the Russian Revolution of 1905-1907 led V. I. Lenin to theoretical and revolutionary-practical conclusions of great importance. The year 1917 confirmed them completely and enriched them with new experience. Theoretically comprehending and synthesizing the lessons of this long historical experience (1871 - 1905 - 1917 V. I. Lenin wrote new pages in the theory of the socialist revolution.-

8 Ibid., p. 73.

9 See ibid., pp. 73, 87-88; see also Lenin in the Struggle for the Revolutionary International, Moscow 1970, pp. 139-144.

10 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 30, pp. 136-137, 154-156

11 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 31, p. 481.

12 Ibid., p. 38.

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thus enriching both social sciences in general and historical science in particular.

The political orientation that Lenin gave to the party when he returned in April 1917, the line of developing the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist, proletarian revolution, was a line that took into account the historical experience of the Paris Commune and its international significance. In the well-known article "On Dual Power" (April 1917), in the pamphlet "Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution" (report at the Seventh (April) Conference), 13 V. I. Lenin repeatedly pointed out the new type of state that grew up in the course of the revolution. He saw in it the highest type of democratic State, a State like the Paris Commune.

On the eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution, while hiding from prosecution in Razliv, V. I. Lenin returns to studying the lessons of the Paris Commune. In the summer of 1917, after the famous July days, he again and again comprehensively examines the whole complex of problems devoted to the history of the first working-class government. Most of his attention is drawn to two big problems, which were eventually put in the title of his published book "The State and the Revolution".

The Paris Commune was the first experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat. So V. I. Lenin defined its nature at the beginning of the XX century. But what does this mean specifically? What are the special features of the Commune as a new type of State? Starting from the thought and methodology of Marx, V. I. Lenin gives a new and profound interpretation to the lessons of the historical experience of 1871, comparing it with the experience of the class struggle of subsequent times. In the preparatory materials for "The State and the Revolution" one can find about 20 signs, noted by V. I. Lenin, defining the Commune as a new type of state. As he continues to work on this topic, he reduces the number of these features, combines and groups many of them, and eventually their number becomes significantly less than 14 .

So what defines a Commune as a new type of state? First of all, it is an attempt to break down the old military-bureaucratic state machine - the destruction of the permanent army, the permanent police, the old bureaucratic state apparatus that is cut off from the people. All these measures mean practically scrapping the old state machine. But it is not enough to break the old state machine, it must immediately be replaced by another form of power organization. And V. I. Lenin defines: the old army and police, hostile to the people, must be replaced by an armed people. What was the Central Committee of the National Guard, the Paris Commune? It was an armed people, a people who defended their freedom and sovereignty with weapons in their hands. Second, the old bureaucracy should be replaced by civil servants chosen by the people themselves, responsible to the people, and replaced by the people. V. I. Lenin pointed out another feature of the new state apparatus: the reduction of the salary of civil servants to the ordinary salary of a skilled worker.

Following Karl Marx, Lenin emphasized several other important features in the historical experience of the Commune. He drew attention to the fact that the Paris Commune was a working type of state, that it united together the executive and legislative state powers. V. I. Lenin also considered the system of organizing the unity of the nation implemented by the Commune to be very important:

13 Ibid., pp. 145-148, 162-165.

14 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 33, pp. 308-328.

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From top to bottom, the Commune was built on the principles of proletarian democratic centralism. The sum of these measures means the creation of a new type of state, the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. 15
What is the relation of the dictatorship of the proletariat to democracy? It is well known that after the October Revolution, theorists of international social-democracy, especially Kautsky, Bauer, and Vandervelde, criticized the Soviet government as allegedly violating certain inviolable principles of democracy. They opposed democracy to the dictatorship of the proletariat. V. I. Lenin showed that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not opposed to democracy, but quite the opposite: the dictatorship of the proletariat is at the same time proletarian democracy. The whole question is, what is this democracy like? There is no" pure " democracy; it can be bourgeois or proletarian. Lenin said that the implementation of the measures taken by the Paris Commune meant a genuine triumph of democracy, but of a fundamentally different and higher type than the bourgeois one. In The State and Revolution, Lenin wrote: "Thus, the Commune seems to have replaced the broken state machine 'only' with a more complete democracy: the abolition of the standing army, complete electability and turnover of all officials. But in reality, this "only" means a gigantic replacement of some institutions by institutions of a fundamentally different kind... A democracy carried out with as much completeness and consistency as is generally conceivable is transformed from a bourgeois democracy into a proletarian one..."16 Lenin repeatedly stressed that this new proletarian democracy means democracy for the majority .

The whole train of thought of V. I. Lenin shows that the Soviet state, which emerged as a result of the Great October Socialist Revolution, he considered as a natural continuation and development of the principles of the Paris Commune. When Lenin delivered his first report on the activities of the Council of People's Commissars at the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets in January 1918, he began his report with a reminder of the Paris Commune: "Comrades! On behalf of the Council of People's Commissars, I must submit to you a report on its activities during the two months and 15 days that have elapsed since the formation of the Soviet Government and the Soviet Government in Russia. Two months and 15 days is only five days more than the period during which the previous power of the workers over the whole country, or over the exploiters and capitalists, existed - the power of the Paris workers in the era of the Paris Commune of 1871. We must remember this workers ' power first of all when we look back and compare it with the Soviet power that was formed on October 25." 17 Later, V. I. Lenin repeatedly reminded that the Soviet state is a continuation and development of that power, the rudiments of which were created by the Paris communards.

It was Lenin's creative and innovative attitude to the Paris Commune of 1871 that determined the subsequent development of Soviet historical science, which studied the first experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat. From the very beginning, in the young Soviet republic, the Paris Commune was treated with the greatest respect. In the first years of Soviet power, there was probably not a single city where a street or factory named after the Paris Commune did not appear, where deep admiration for the French workers who "stormed the sky" in 1871 was not expressed in one form or another. The day of March 18 became a holiday in the Soviet country, it was celebrated everywhere - in big cities, in counties, and in remote villages and villages. Later, in Moscow, on Vorontsov Field (now Obukha Street), the House of Veterans of the Commune was opened, and often solemn meetings were held in the city hall.-

15 See ibid., p. 43.

16 Ibid., p. 42.

17 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 35, p. 261.

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The events that took place in the young Soviet Republic were attended by a few veterans of the Commune who lived to see the victory of the socialist revolution in our country. They took pride of place in the bureaus and were greeted with loud cheers.

Attention to the Paris Commune was so great that in the first years of Soviet power, a number of translated works were published, in the absence of original ones, designed to satisfy the huge public interest in the predecessor of the Soviet state. In 1918-1920, books by A. A. Arnoux, L. Dubreuil, and S. Mendelssohn were published .18 At the same time, P. L. Lavrov's book about the Paris Commune was republished 19 .

With the development of Soviet historical science, the first publications devoted to the Paris Commune appeared. The largest number of works were published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Paris Commune, which was widely celebrated in the Soviet country in 1921. These were the works of I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, V. Bystryansky, V. Fritsche, M. Balabanov, N. M. Lukin 20 . The pamphlets of Fritsche and Balabanov were propagandistic and popularizing in nature. The books of Bystryansky and Skvortsov-Stepanov were more detailed, they contained a detailed account of the events of the revolution of 1871, and an analysis of the lessons of the Paris Commune. However, these works were written not on the basis of studying sources, but mainly on the existing literature. The exception was the work of N. M. Lukin (Antonov). Apparently, this work should be considered the first original historical study in our country, written according to the sources of the Paris Commune. N. M. Lukin, who at that time was giving a course of lectures at the General Staff Academy and at Moscow University, began to study all the main sources of the Commune available at that time - the press, proclamations, leaflets, Commune protocols to the extent that they were then available in Moscow. His work was quite independent; it was a source-based scientific analysis of the history of the Paris Commune in 1871. How great was the public demand for the first works of Soviet historians can be judged by the fact that in a short time they passed through numerous publications. Lukin's book went through four editions before 1932, during ten years, and Skvortsov-Stepanov's book was published in the seventh edition in 1938. Most of the other works were also reprinted.

These first Soviet historical works were not free from some errors in their coverage of the history of the Paris Commune. The richness of Lenin's ideas about the Commune as the first experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been fully mastered. Some works of that time contained erroneous definitions of the character and class nature of the Paris Commune. In the extensive work of Yu. M. Steklov (editor of the Izvestia newspaper at that time), devoted to the history of the First International, the Paris Commune was covered completely incorrectly. Steklov did not understand the character of the Commune as a dictatorship of the proletariat, did not understand the historical merit of the Parisian workers, and portrayed the Commune almost as a complete mistake. 21 In some works, there was a lack of understanding of the significance of an alliance with the peasantry for the Commune, an overestimation of the spontaneous nature of the revolution of 1871, and so on.-

18 A. A. Arnoux. Folk History of the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1918; L. Dubreuil. Commune of 1871, Moscow, 1920; S. Mendelssohn. Paris Commune on March 18. Ptgr. 1918.

19 P. L. Lavrov. Paris Commune on March 18, 1871, Ptyr. 1919.

20 I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov. The Paris Commune of 1871 Voprosy taktiki proletarskoi revolyutsii [Questions of tactics of the Proletarian Revolution], Moscow, 1921. An essay on the history of the Paris Commune. Ptgr. 1921; V. Fritsche. Paris Commune March 18-May 27, 1871 M. 1921; M. Balabanov. Paris Commune. Kiev, 1921; N. Lukin (Antonov). The Paris Commune of 1871, Moscow, 1922.

21 Yu. Steklov. The First International (International Comradeship of Workers). Moscow-Ptgr. 1923.

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The performance of Lukin and Skvortsov-Stepanov is generally highly appreciated. These authors had not yet penetrated Lenin's system of views on the Paris Commune. It should not be forgotten that this was the period of the formation of Soviet historical science, the overcoming in some matters of simplistic and naive ideas, alien influences, etc. Hence a number of formulations and definitions that to a certain extent belittle the significance of the Commune as the first experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In subsequent editions, these authors significantly corrected and improved their books.

In the 1920s and early 1930s, our country continued to publish translated works, including those written by members of the Communist Party. The memoirs of G. Lefrancet, L. Michel, J. Allemand and others were translated into Russian 22 . The appearance of this significant memoir literature has enriched the range of sources available to researchers. By the Karl Marx and Fr. In the 1920s and 1930s, Engels acquired valuable collections of newspapers, pamphlets, leaflets and other materials on the history of the Paris Commune, which formed an important documentary base for its scientific study. Valuable documentary publications began to appear in the press. In 1933, the first volume of the Protocols of the Paris Commune, prepared and published by French historians J. Bourgain and G. Henriot, was translated into Russian. After the Great Patriotic War, a scientific publication of the protocols of the Paris Commune was carried out, covering the entire period of its activity .23
Useful documentary materials were prepared and published in the 1930s. These are the letters of the leaders of the First International in the days of the Commune, the documents of its London Conference, the letters of the workers ' correspondents of the Paris Commune, and the particularly valuable collection The First International in the Days of the Paris Commune. The publication of diplomatic documents of the tsarist government was of great value. Almost simultaneously, very interesting documentaries of the Russian revolutionary democracy and responses in Russia to the Paris Commune were published .24 In the first years of Soviet power, P. L. Lavrov's book "The Paris Commune of 1871" was reprinted four times. It is not an exaggeration to say that of all the contemporaries of the Commune, Lavrov came closest to understanding its true essence, revealed by Karl Marx and Philipp Schultz. By Engels. Recently, B. S. Itenberg discovered new documents of P. L. Lavrov, which were not previously known, showing his close ties with the Communards of 187125 .

Extensive documentary material, introduced into scientific use, significantly expanded the possibilities of studying the Paris Commune. In the 20s and 30s, A. I. Molok worked fruitfully and intensively on studying the problems of the history of the Commune. Of his works, the most important is the book "The Paris Commune and the Peasantry", which convincingly proved that the Commune made significant efforts,

22 Lefranc. Memoirs of a Communard, L. 1925; L. Michel. Commune, Moscow, 1926; J. Alleman. From barricades to hard labor. L. 1933; M. Vilhom. Days of the Commune, L. 1925; M. Sazhin. Heroic Days and the Fall of the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1926; L. Lejeune. Memoirs of a Paris Communard, Moscow, 1923; V. Arendt. Days of the Commune 1871 Moscow 1929; "The Immortal Commune". Memoirs of veterans, participants of the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1928.

23 "Minutes of the meetings of the Paris Commune of 1871", Vol. 1-2, Moscow, 1959-1960.

24 "Letters of the leaders of the First International in the days of the Commune", Moscow, 1933; "Letters of the workers' Correspondents of the Paris Commune", Moscow, 1933; "Tsarist Diplomacy and the Paris Commune of 1871" (with a preface by Ts. Fridlyanda). Moscow -L. 1933; "Gallows". Revolutionary leaflets about the Paris Commune. "Literary Heritage", Vol. I. M. 1931; P. L. Lavrov. About the Paris Commune. "Hard labor and exile", 1931, No. 10; "London Conference of the First International", Moscow, 1936.

25 " The Paris Commune and P. L. Lavrov "(new documents). "History of the USSR", 1971, N 2.

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those who remained, however, were unsuccessful in establishing a link between revolutionary Paris and the peasantry. A. I. Molok's work on the German intervention against the Paris Commune in 1871 is also valuable. He also wrote works about culture in the days of the Paris Commune. A number of studies devoted to the Paris Commune were published by S. B. Kan. O. Neustroeva and A. Y. Lurie wrote biographical sketches about the leaders of the Commune. Several studies on this topic were created by O. L. Weinstein 26 . Soviet researchers also paid special attention to studying the relationship between the Commune and the Church. As you know, the first working class government radically solved this problem by passing the law on the separation of church and state. 27 Soviet historians, for example, N. M. Lukin, as well as military specialists S. N. Krasilnikov and others, specifically studied the combat operations and military experience of the communards of 1871, subjecting them to a particularly thorough analysis of the serious mistakes of the communards in this area .28
The research of N. M. Lukin (Antonov), who worked for a long time to expand and improve his work on the Paris Commune, was of great importance for Soviet historical science. Four editions of this work show how much the scientist did to reveal the historical achievements of the Parisian workers in 1871. The latest editions of his work showed a thoughtful effort to analyze a large amount of concrete material from the primary sources that the scientist mobilized on the basis of Lenin's instructions about the Commune .29 It should be recognized that at that time the works of Academician N. M. Lukin were the largest and most fundamental historical studies devoted to the Paris Commune. In 1940, a large generalizing work by P. M. Kerzhentsev was published .30
The war temporarily interrupted the work of Soviet historians on the study of this important topic. After the war, their efforts were mainly focused on revealing certain aspects of either the history of the Commune itself or its prehistory, since general questions were already developed in the works of N. M. Lukin and P. M. Kerzhentsev. Here should be named a large and valuable monograph by E. A. Zhelubovskaya, which received well-deserved recognition in the Soviet and foreign scientific press, and which deeply explored the prehistory of the Paris Commune. 31 J. I. Drazninas published a number of research articles on the history of the class struggle in Paris in the autumn of 1871 .32 Special issue on

26 A. I. Molok. The Paris Commune and the Peasantry, Moscow, l. 1925. German Intervention against the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1939. Essays on the life and Culture of the Paris Commune in 1871, Moscow, 1924. The White Terror in France in 1871 M. 1936; his own. Workers of Paris in the days of the Commune. Voprosy Istorii, 1951, No. 3; izd. Revolutionary Clubs in the days of the Paris Commune in 1871. "Scientific Notes" of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. Issue 6, 1957; S. B. Kan. The French Bank and the preparation of the events of March 18, 1871 "Historian-Marxist", 1933, N 4; O. Neustroeva. The Life of Louise Michel, Moscow, 1929; A. Y. Lurie. Portraits of figures of the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1942; O. L. Vainshtein. The French Bank and the Paris Commune. "The Marxist Historian", 1926, No. 1; it is the same. History of the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1932.

27 Ya. Mikhailov (Ya. M. Sacher). The Paris Commune and the Church, Moscow, 1931;" The Paris Commune in the Struggle against Religion and the Church, " Moscow, 1933.

28 N. M. Lukin. From the History of Revolutionary Armies, Moscow, 1923; S. N. Krasilnikov. Military actions of the Paris Commune in 1871, Moscow, 1935.

29 See N. M. Lukin. Selected Works, vol. II, Moscow, 1963.

30 P.M. Kerzhentsev. The History of the Paris Commune in 1871, Moscow, 1940 (2nd ed., Moscow, 1959).

31 E. A. Zhelubovskaya. The collapse of the Second Empire and the emergence of the Third Republic in France, Moscow, 1956.

32 Ya. I. Drazninas. From the history of the struggle in the Paris National Guard in September-October 1870 "Scientific notes" of the Chita Pedagogical Institute. Vol. I. 1957; it is the same. The revolution of September 4, 1870 in Paris and the tactics of the Blanquists. Same place; same place. The struggle for the Commune. In the same place. Issue 3. 1958; his own. October 31, 1871 Uprising In the same place. Issue 4. 1959.

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S. A. Frumov's monograph 33 was devoted to the Commune's policy in the field of education . Yu. I. Danilin is responsible for valuable research on the history of theatrical and literary life in Paris during the Commune era .34 A. S. Gushchin, A. I. Tikhomirov, and N. N. Kalitina published special works on the visual arts, the activities of the Federation of artists in the days of the Commune, and especially on the active role of the famous G. Courbet, a member of the Commune. 35
There was, in fact, almost no aspect of the first working-class government that Soviet historians did not study more or less fully. Food problems, housing issues, financial policy, judicial policy, health policy, professional organizations of workers - this is not a complete list of issues of socio-economic activity of the Commune, which became the subject of their study 36 . It would be wrong to say that the research on these topics is complete and complete. It should be borne in mind that the listed works are far from equivalent, but with all this, the first surveys have been made, and the contours of the areas that the scientific search has touched are already clearly outlined. In some areas, the degree of scientific development is deeper and more thorough; in others, it is still general and far from exhaustive reviews. The task, apparently, is to consolidate the scientific results achieved and continue intensive research on all the problems of the Commune's socio-economic policy.

Naturally, the great attention of Soviet historians was drawn to a topic that, in fact, could only be solved in our country, namely, Russia and the Commune. It is well known that Russian revolutionaries played a significant role in the Paris Commune: E. L. Dmitrieva (Tumanovskaya), A. V. Korvin-Krukovskaya, P. L. Lavrov, M. T. Sazhin, and others. A number of valuable works by I. S. Knizhnik-Vetrov, B. S. Itenberg, Z. S. Efimova, S. Kunisky, and O. Streich are devoted to their biographies, which have been restored bit by bit by the painstaking work of researchers .37 The role of the Russian revolutionary movement in the era of the First International was first thoroughly explored in the works of B. P. Kozmin, B. S. Itenberg, and O. D. Sokolov38 . The position of the tsarist government in relation to

33 S. A. Frumov. The Paris Commune and the Struggle for School Democratization, Moscow, 1958.

34 Yu. Danilin. Theatrical life in the era of the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1938. Poets of the Paris Commune, Vol. I. M. 1947; his. Anthology of Poetry of the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1948.

35 A. I. Tikhomirov. Gustave Courbet, artist of the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1931; A. S. Gushchin. The Paris Commune and Artists, L. 1934; N. N. Kalitina. Gustave Courbet. M. 1970; her. G. Courbet in the days of the Commune. "French Yearbook 1966", Moscow, 1968; "Revolutionary Caricature of the Paris Commune", Moscow, 1961.

36 See F. I. Arkhipov. The food question in Paris during the siege and the Paris Commune. "Scientific Notes" of the Gorky Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, vol. I. 1955; his. Resolution of the Paris Commune housing issue. Ibid., vol. 12, 1959; A. I. Bazhanov. Commission of Justice of the Paris Commune. "Scientific Notes" of Kazan University, vol. 114, Book 10, 1954. Judicial authorities of the Paris Commune. Ibid., vol. 117. K". 7. 1957; E. N. Yakubova. Health issues in France during the Revolution of 1848, and the Paris Commune. Moscow, 1958; G. P. Morozov. Professional organizations of the workers of Pardazh and the Commune of 1871 "Voprosy Istorii", 1961, No. 3, etc.

37 I. S. Knizhnik-Vetrov. A.V. Korvin-Krukovskaya, a friend of F. M. Dostoevsky, an activist of the Paris Commune. Moscow, 1931; his. Russian activists of the First International and the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1947; O. Streich. Russian Nihilists in the Paris Commune (A. V. Korvin-Krukovskaya), Moscow, 1935; B. S. Itenberg. The Paris Commune and Russian revolutionaries of the 70s of the XIX century "History of the USSR", 1961, N 2; 3. S. Efimova. The Paris Commune and the Iskra organ of Russian Revolutionary Democracy. "Historical Notes", vol. 59, 1967, et al.

38 B. P. Kozmin. Russian Section of the First International, Moscow, 1957; O. D. Sokolov. At the dawn of the labor movement in Russia, Moscow, 1963; B. S. Itenberg. The First International and Revolutionary Russia, Moscow, 1964.

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The history of the Paris Commune in 1871, in addition to the above-mentioned valuable collection of diplomatic documents, was covered in the works of Sh. Basilai, S. D. Kunisky and others .39 A new question, which had not been studied before - the revolutionary movement in the French colony of Algiers in 1871 and the attitude of the Paris communards to it - was raised by M. N. Mashkin40 . This problem certainly deserves further study.

A great contribution of Soviet historians to the scientific development of the Commune's problems was the publication of a number of publications and research papers covering a wide range of issues related to the relationship between the First International and the Paris Commune. Such publications of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU as the corresponding volumes of the Works of Karl Marx and Fr. The building of the protocols of the General Council of the First International, the protocols of the London Conference, etc., have become indispensable sources for studying the history of the Commune. Scientific research devoted to these problems is also valuable 41 .

The results of a long-term study of the Paris Commune by Soviet historians were summed up in a large collective work prepared by the Institute of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences for the 90th anniversary of the Paris Commune42 . This edition, in its main parts, was carried out by Soviet scientists; the central chapters were written by E. A. Zhelubovskaya, S. B. Kahn, A. Z. Manfred, A. I. Molok, F. A. Kheifetz, historians who had long been engaged in the study of the Paris Commune. Some of the chapters devoted to responses to the Paris Commune in some European countries were written by a number of foreign scholars. At the same time, a popular essay by A. G. Slutsky 43 and a translation of a bright book by Jacques Duclos 44 were published .

For the centenary of the Paris Commune, the Institute of General History of the USSR Academy of Sciences has prepared a large work on the history of the world's first proletarian state45 , which in a certain sense sums up the results of scientific research by Soviet scientists for more than 50 years. The authors also take into account all the achievements of foreign progressive historical science. At the same time, the new collective monograph of Soviet historians is a completely original, independent study of the first Proletarian revolution.

Fundamental research on the Paris Commune published over the past decade makes it possible to clearly and fully summarize the features of solving the Paris Commune theme that are characteristic of the Soviet historical school. They allow us to identify what was fundamentally new that was introduced by Soviet historians in the study of this topic. This should first of all include disclosure, following K. Marx and F. Schulz. The role of the Paris Commune as the first experience of the dictatorship

39 Sh. Basilaya. On the question of the attitude of the Tsarist government towards the Paris Commune. Sukhumi. 1954; S. D. Kunisky. The Tsarist government and the Paris Commune. "Scientific Notes" of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute, vol. 37, issue 3, 1946; his. Russian Society and the Paris Commune, Moscow, 1962.

40 M. N. Mashkin. To the history of the struggle for the Commune in Algeria. Voprosy Istorii, 1949, No. 6.

41 See K. Marx and F. 17, 33; " The General Council of the First International. 1870 - 1871. Protocols". M. 1965; "The First International". Part 2. M. 1965.

42 "The Paris Commune of 1871". Vol. 1-2. Moscow, 1961.

43 A. G. Slutsky. The Paris Commune of 1871, Moscow, 1964.

44 Zh. Duclos. To storm the sky. Paris Commune-harbinger of the new world, Moscow, 1962.

45 "The History of the Paris Commune in 1871". Edited by E. A. Zhelubovskaya, A. Z. Manfred, M. N. Mashkin, A. I. Moloko, S. V. Obolenskaya, and F. V. Potemkin, Moscow, 1971. See the review of Academician S. D. Skazkin (Pravda, 17. III. 1971).

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the proletariat. Not only theoretically, but also concretely and historically, based on the analysis of the practical activities of the Central Committee of the National Guard, and then the Paris Commune, its commissions and other bodies, Soviet historians revealed and showed the functioning and daily activities of the Commune as an imperfect, but the first state of the dictatorship of the proletariat in world history. Special attention of Soviet scientists was naturally drawn to the concrete historical analysis of the breakdown of the old military-bureaucratic state machine and its replacement by state bodies of a fundamentally different nature.

Soviet historiography developed and grew stronger in the struggle against reactionary bourgeois historiography. The main efforts of reactionary historians in recent decades have been aimed at" debunking "the" myths "and" legends " of the Commune. Since the publication in 1930 of the American historian E. Meson's book on the Commune , 46 which was recently reprinted again, reactionary historians have largely followed this author .47 Their efforts were aimed at "refuting" the proletarian character of the revolution of 1871. Even the very fact of the revolution of 1871. they are ready to take into question. The great revolutionary struggle of the French workers, under the pen of reactionary authors, was reduced to the level of a "backward" movement for municipal liberties, a movement that feeds on memories of the eighteenth century. The latest performance of this kind is a book by M. Gallo under the blasphemous title "Grave for the Commune" 48 . This work is not about the Commune, but against the Commune. Gallo, along with Meson, speaks out against the" legends " of the Commune, calling for an attack on them.

Soviet historiography primarily contrasts the speculative and openly biased books of reactionary historians with irrefutable facts. The Soviet historiography of the Paris Commune is based on a solid factual foundation. It is the combination of scientific Marxist-Leninist methodology and historical accuracy of facts that gives credibility to the works of Soviet authors about the Paris Commune. Based on facts and following historical truth, they reveal with all objective rigor both the strengths and weaknesses of the Paris Commune. Already in the ten - day rule of the Central Committee of the National Guard (March 18-March 28, 1871), they saw the first revolutionary government of the working class and analyzed the measures it had taken to break down the old, military-bureaucratic bourgeois state machine and create a new government in its place. At the same time, Soviet historians emphasize with due justification that while destroying the old state machine and creating a new one, building the first state of the type of proletarian dictatorship, the Parisian workers could not yet imagine the historical significance of what they were doing; they were groping, driven by the demands of life and the conditions of the civil war. A series of fatal mistakes were made by the Paris workers and their Government, the Central Committee of the National Guard and the Commune, precisely because the workers did not yet have a revolutionary proletarian party and were not familiar with revolutionary Marxist theory.

Soviet historians strive to study and reconstruct the activities of the first working class government in its entirety, tracing all the forms and aspects of its revolutionary work. This means that they are trying to show not only the role of the state.

46 E. S. Masоn. The Paris Commune. An Episode in the History of Socialist Movement. N. Y. 1930.

47 See, for example, J. T. Joughin. The Paris Commune and the French Politics 1871 - 1880. Vol. 1 - 2. Baltimore. 1955.

48 M. Gallo. Tombeau pour la Commune. P. 1971.

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such as the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat and proletarian democracy, but also its socio-economic and ideological policies ("policies in the sphere of culture, education, literature, art, etc.in their dialectical inconsistency and integrity with all their strengths and weaknesses, that is, to show the first workers 'power as it was at the time of the revolution"). In fact, in all its cross-sections, not only in the activities of its state bodies, but also in the process of everyday, one might say, everyday creation of a new society by its ordinary builders - workers, national guardsmen, women, members of political clubs, etc.

Soviet historians also see their most important task (this can be easily traced in the analysis of a number of works, and especially the last major works of 1961 and 1971) to reveal the activities of the Commune not statically, but dynamically, revealing and showing very significant changes in its social character. After all, the Commune of the second half of May 1871 was already quite different, in many ways unlike the exultant, illusionary people who celebrated their victory in ecstasy the day after the uprising on March 18.

Naturally, much attention of Soviet scientists was drawn to the problems of political leadership of the revolution of 1871. The tragedy of the Paris Communards, which entailed disastrous consequences, was their lack of a revolutionary proletarian party armed with advanced scientific theory, a Marxist proletarian party. Neither the Proudhonists, the Blanquists, nor the neo-Jacobins could provide a proper revolutionary leadership; life itself, the logic of the class struggle, often forced them to act contrary to their doctrines, and yet the lack of a scientific theory, a politically correct program, and a plan of action led to the fatal mistakes of the communards.

Naturally, this problem was in the center of attention of Soviet researchers. The diverse historical experience accumulated by the world labor movement from 1871 to the present day has shown that, depending on concrete historical conditions, there can be different solutions: the implementation of the tasks of the socialist revolution is possible both under a one-party system (the USSR) and in the presence of several union parties (Bulgaria, Hungary, and other socialist countries), but Under all conditions, the Marxist party of the working class retains the leading role. The Communards ' lack of proper political leadership was ultimately explained by the level of development of the working-class movement at that time. However, the consideration of this complex of issues was and still is of great scientific and political importance.

Finally, unlike French historians, who view the Paris Commune primarily as a result of the development of the national history of France, as the brainchild of French history, Soviet authors approach this issue somewhat differently. Without denying the fact that the Paris Commune originated on French national soil and was one of the brightest pages in French history, they see the Commune as a natural result and stage in the development of the entire international labor movement. Accordingly, the two-volume monograph of 1961 and the last generalizing work of Soviet historians begin with a review of the development of revolutionary and democratic movements in European countries. Soviet researchers put the emergence of the Paris Commune in connection with the achieved level of the liberation struggle, the workers ' movement throughout the world. Equally, they do not confine themselves to the history of the Paris Commune itself, which is naturally studied with the attention it deserves, but they also examine the influence of the Paris Commune outside of France, taking into account the diverse responses that have been received by the Paris Commune.

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caused a Commune in a number of countries in Europe and America. A significant part of the second volume of the Paris Commune of 1871 and the History of the Paris Commune is devoted to revealing the great impact that it had on contemporaries in different parts of the European continent, as well as to some extent in America. Thus, the Paris Commune is regarded as the largest event in the entire history of the world, which influenced the entire course of it at the end of the XIX and beginning of the XX century. The Soviet historical school pays great attention to studying the traditions of the Commune and its influence on the international labor movement, especially on the Russian revolutionary movement. Without risking an exaggeration, it can be argued that Soviet historiography has held leading positions in the field of studying the Paris Commune both in the past and in the present. And how could it be otherwise, if the foundations of the Soviet historiography of the Commune were laid by V. I. Lenin himself?

However, there is no doubt that this large, important topic that does not age over the years requires further unflagging attention and further intensive scientific research. There are still unsolved problems in studying the Commune of 1871. Some problems connected with the prehistory of the Paris Commune, in particular with the formation and constitution of the Central Committee of the National Guard and the process of arming the people, and the political situation in Paris in the last two weeks before the March 18 revolution, cannot be considered fully clarified. The activity of the Central Committee of the National Guard as the first revolutionary government of March 18-28 also requires new research. New archival materials (police funds, etc.) introduced into scientific circulation by M. Shurikov and others require the most careful study by Soviet historians.

In fact, the history of communes in Marseille, Lyon, Saint-Etienne, Creusot, Narbonne, Limoges and other provincial cities remains an almost unexplored area of work. The very fact of their proclamation is a direct proof that the revolution that won in Paris on March 18 was unfolding from its first days as a national revolution. To study the Proletarian revolution of 1871 as a national revolution, as the fifth French Revolution with all its peculiarities, is the most important task of historians. Soviet historians, if only because they have not yet studied the local archives for a number of reasons, have left this topic almost unexplored. But even French historians do not deal with it. As a result, one of the most important pages in the history of the revolution of 1871 remains a lacuna. The interests of science demand its elimination.

Soviet historical science celebrated with honor the centenary of the first working class power in history. First of all, it owes its achievements to the fact that it followed the path laid out by the genius of V. I. Lenin. By continuing along this path and developing new scientific problems prompted by the increased demands of science, the Soviet historiography of the Paris Commune will be able to continue to meet the great challenges it faces.

49 See M. Choigu. La Commune au coeur de Paris. P. 1969; ejusd. Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet. P. 1969; ejusd. La Paris communard. P. 1970.

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