Girl, watercolour, 2015
I was shocked to learn that between 21-28 May 1871, during the Paris Commune, the national army slaughtered as many as 25,000 civilians and combatants (London Review of Books, 2 July, 2105, Philippe Marliere). On behalf of the National Assembly the army used "machine guns to perform mass executions. Hatred of the proletariat, and a determination to avenge humiliation at the hands of the Prussians, prevailed among the army's officers. The Versaillais regarded the Communards as common criminals or worse - 'vermin', 'beasts', 'wild animals' - and were bent on 'purifying' the streets of Paris."
The Communards, these vermin, promoted equality for women and established a Women's Union. They were committed to universal democracy and free, compulsory and secular education for all children, whatever their social background. They believed in international republicanism, not nationalism. They set up the Artists' Federation with the aim of "free expression of art, released from state control and privilege".
The use of the term 'proletariat' is shocking. I had to look it up to remind myself what exactly it means - the lowest social or economic class of a community - different from our dignified 'working class', which refers to the class of people who work, especially manually, for wages. Different also from 'plebian', a member of a lower class of society (not necessarily the lowest), used by the elite as an insult suggesting coarse and uneducated.
I'm often told not to use the term 'working class' any more as it no longer applies to our society. I suppose in view of the dismantling of our manufacturing base and heavy industry generally, there could be some justification for saying that the opportunity to join a significant workforce undertaking manual labour, skilled or unskilled, for wages is no longer very prevalent and the culture created by this workforce is disappearing. The service industry is hardly the same, even if it provides a wage.
But on the same day as reading the article on the Paris Commune of 1871, I heard the term 'underclass' used on the radio, and also 'the great unwashed', the latter no doubt used ironically. Even so, It is ominous. Luckily, from my experience, the communities that remain in what were industrial 'working class' locations are rich in wise, intelligent, pragmatic and resilient people whose humanity is pretty free of sentimentality. The assumption is that the less they are valued, the more excluded or deprived of opportunity, the more likely they are to turn to the xenophobia and resentment facilitated by right wing media and politics. But perhaps there is a more optimistic lesson in the aspirations and long-lasting influence of the Communards.
