communard

The Communards were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. After the suppression of the Commune by the French Army in May 1871, 43,000 Communards were taken prisoner, and 6,500 to 7,500 fled abroad. The number of Communard soldiers killed in combat or executed afterwards during the week has long been disputed—Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray put the number at 20,000, but estimates by more recent historians put the probable number between 10,000 and 15,000. 7,500 were jailed or deported under arrangements which continued until a general amnesty during the 1880s; this action by Adolphe Thiers forestalled the proto-communist movement in the French Third Republic (1871–1940). The Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune The working class of Paris were feeling ostracized after the decadence of the Second Empire and the Franco-Prussian War. The Prussians besieged Paris in September 1870, causing suffering among Parisians. The poor ate cat or rat meat or went hungry. Out of resentment from this situation grew radical and socialist political clubs and newspapers. While Paris was occupied, socialist groups tried twice to overthrow the provisional government.