Paris Commune and Polish contribution in it as seen by polish historiography after WWII (on the 140th anniversary of the events connected with Franco-Prussian War 1870–1871)
The author presents the circumstances of the creation of the Paris Commune and its activity as the municipal Council in the capital city between March, 18 and May, 29, 1971, e.g. time of revolution and the civil war. It was the reaction of the inhabitants for the collapse of France in 1870, an attempt to liberate country from the Prussian occupation and to defend the republican form of government. After researching the political and social background of the Commune, the author makes a conclusion that Polish historiography was wrong estimating it as ‘proletarian authority’ or ‘proletarian dictatorship’. A social program of the Commune was prepared by the leaders who derived from lower middle class and inteligentsia. They conducted the struggle against the government in Versaille in the interest of the working population of Paris. Its ‘majority’ wanted to regard Commune as the French government and “minority” – only municipality. The interest for the history of the Paris Commune in Poland after 1945 was strictly connected with the process of forming of the communist system. Therefore the interpretation of the event corresponded with the ideological explanations of ‘classical’ works with all their simplifications and misrepresentations. Research on participation of Poles in the Paris Commune was concentrated on their personal data (it resulted in a list of 450 names of totally 600-700 persons with information about their social background and later lot) and detailed biographies of Jarosław Dąbrowski and Walery Wróblewski.