SOLDIERS OF REVOLUTION: The Franco-Prussian War

Mark Lause's investigation of the link between mass conscription, war and revolution is timely. Many of the classic revolutions and vast movements of social reforms on which the 21st century Left can base its reflection involve soldiers and ex-soldiers - the Paris Commune of course, but also the Russian, German and Chinese revolutions, the rise of social states around 1945 in Britain, France and even the US around the GI Bill. His book outlines the essential preconditions for this largest armed working-class uprising of its day, the Paris Commune of 1871. Behind this event are less well-defined rebellions of 1848-49, which not only generated new revolutionary ideas associated with figures such as Marx, Blanqui and Bakunin, but also inspired revolutionary cadres, individuals and networks willing to take up arms against state power. Lause explores how the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 left legions of people, in and out of uniform, ready to act, whether as German social democrats or French insurgents for commune self-government. The republicanism that crushed the Commune also marked the practical triumph of blood and iron over an old utopian faith that reason and moral persuasion could resolve social tensions. Lause makes the case that wars among nations recruited and trained soldiers of revolution are essential to resist the armed might of a murderous old order. We read in detail about the discontent amongst radicalised soldiers and civilians pressed into armed service on behalf of institutions they learned to mistrust. The Commune's subsequent repression not only butchered the tens of thousands of Parisians but slaughtered the old utopian faith. Lause is a Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati and born into a family of trade unionists. 288pp.