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Class Warrior: On the Paris Commune. 1906

Class Warrior
On the Paris Commune. 1906

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table of contents
  1. Cover
  2. Foreword
  3. Introduction
  4. Part I: Selected Writings of E. T. Kingsley
    1. 1900   On Washington State’s Primary Law
    2. 1903   On Political Action
      1. On Reformism and Electoral “Fusion”
      2. On Trade Unions
    3. 1905   On the Single Tax
      1. On a Journey to Seattle
    4. 1906   On the Arrest of US Labour Leaders and State Power
    5. 1908   On the Socialist Movement and Travels across Canada
    6. 1909   On War
      1. On the Vancouver Free Speech Fight
    7. 1911   On Property
      1. On the Workers’ Awakening
      2. On Economic Organization
      3. On the Capitalist State
    8. 1914   On the Causes of the First World War
    9. 1916   On Carnage
    10. 1917   On Slavery and War
      1. On War Finance
      2. On the War Effort
    11. 1918   On the Bolshevik Revolution
      1. On Capitalism Getting Rich Quick
    12. 1919   On Control of the State by the Working Class
      1. On Reconstruction
      2. On Collaboration between Labour and Capital
      3. On Wealth
      4. On Gold
      5. On Class War
      6. On the Paris Peace Conference
      7. On Capitalist Civilization
    13. 1921   On the 1921 Canadian Parliamentary Election
  5. Part II: Selected Speeches of E. T. Kingsley
    1. 1895   On the Aims of Socialism
    2. 1896   On Socialism and the Economy
    3. 1899   On American Imperialism in Cuba and the Philippines
    4. 1903   On the Labour Problem
      1. On the Political Organization of Miners in Cumberland
      2. On Stirring the Emotions of His Audience
      3. On Wages, Profit, and Capital
      4. On the 1903 British Columbia Election
    5. 1905   On the 1905 Russian Revolution
      1. On Workers and Rockefeller
      2. On the Mission of the Working Class
    6. 1906   On the Paris Commune
    7. 1908   On Labour and Its Economies
      1. On the Working Class Using Clubs If Necessary
      2. On Working-Class Political Power
    8. 1912   On the Vancouver Free Speech Fight
    9. 1913   On the Vancouver Island Miners’ Strike
    10. 1914   On the Komagata Maru Incident
    11. 1917   On Conscription
      1. On Working-Class Opposition to Conscription
      2. On Conscription and Wiping Out Ruling-Class Laws
      3. On the 1917 Conscription Election
    12. 1918   On the Formation of the Federated Labor Party
      1. On Laws
      2. On Reconstruction
      3. On the Armistice and Postwar Moment
      4. On Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War
    13. 1919   On Lenin and Trotsky
      1. On the Belfast General Strike, Unemployment, and the Postwar Challenge to Capitalism
      2. On the Bolshevik Revolution
      3. On the One Big Union
      4. On the Class Struggle
      5. On the Machine
      6. On Capitalism
      7. On the Defeat of the Winnipeg General Strike
      8. On the Machinery of Slavery
      9. On Civilization
    14. 1920   On Mechanization of Production
      1. On the Paris Commune
      2. On the Collapse of Civilization
      3. On the Bankruptcy of the Capitalist System
  6. Part III: The Genesis and Evolution of Slavery
    1. 1916   The Genesis and Evolution of Slavery: Showing How the Chattel Slaves of Pagan Times Have Been Transformed into the Capitalist Property of To-day
  7. Part IV: On the World Situation
    1. 1919   On the World Situation
  8. Appendix
  9. Kingsley’s Speeches
  10. Index

On the Paris Commune 1906

Report of a speech by Kingsley at a Socialist Party of Canada meeting at Sullivan Hall, Vancouver, commemorating the thirty-fifth anniversary of the inauguration of the Paris Commune, 18 March 1906.

Among the Workers: Commune Anniversary

With a Good Audience, a Satisfactory Meeting Was Held in Sullivan Hall on Sunday Evening.—The Speakers Were George Dales and E. T. Kingsley.

E. T. Kingsley, after acknowledging the inspiration supplied by the music and song, and the presence of so many ladies in the audience, proceeded to an able and forcible exposition of the whole subject.

Dealing with the Franco-Prussian War, of which the Commune was the final development, the speaker traced the events which furnished the opportunity and to some extent the incentive and inspiration of the Communards. Paris, the beautiful capital of the leading State in Europe, had always possessed a quota of revolutionary workmen, among the noblest and best the world has ever seen; frugal, intelligent and capable of great self-sacrifice, qualities shared, too, in large measure by their wives and even children.

When these, the flower of French manhood, saw the degrading, humiliating and cowardly plot of the French Commanders and ruling classes to surrender the city to the Prussians, when they recognised the hollowness of Race Patriotism and the universal and cosmopolitan bonds of steel that bind in a common interest and policy of repression, the ruling class of the world, and instanced by the aid given by the Prussians to the French against the Communards; this was the chance seized to establish, for sixty days, a civic government, that for ability, justice and consideration for all within its pale, stands unrivalled, and an enduring monument to the worth of the working class. But the success of the Commune only further enraged the ruling class and their military tools, who would rather see France a Prussian province and maintain their social and economic mastery of the masses, than see it ruled in the interests and by those masses themselves. Bribery and ignorance among the troops of the Provisional Government, then removed to Versailles, the aid of the victorious Prussians, the trustfulness and lack of organisation and knowledge of military matters among the Communards are mainly accountable for the fall of the Commune. Their very virtues contributed to their undoing. Cheered by the audience, the speaker, here made some scathing criticisms of professional murder, alias soldiering; said he: “I love a soldier as I do a policeman.” Every man should have a gun, but in his own keeping and for his own protection.

The concluding part of Com. Kingsley’s address was a forceful application of the subject to current events and an appeal to the worker to be ready for the unbaring of the iron hand of Capitalism on this continent.

Comrade Jas. Pritchard occupied the chair. With Miss Polly Parr at the piano and the songs of the Glee Club, directed by Mr. E. T. Burns, a pleasant variation was made from the routine meetings.

Meetings will be held every Sunday evening, in Sullivan Hull, from now until further notice.

Come along next Sunday, and bring your neighbour.

—“Commune Anniversary,” Western Clarion, 24 Mar. 1906, 4. For a selection of Kingsley’s other speeches on the Paris Commune, see “Brief Local Times,” Vancouver Daily Province, 19 Mar. 1904, 16; “News and Views,” Western Clarion, 9 Mar. 1907, 4; “Last Sunday’s Meeting,” Western Clarion, 16 Mar. 1907, 4; “E. T. Kingsley Lectures,” Federationist, 27 Mar. 1914, 6; “The Paris Commune and the Bolsheviki,” Federationist, 15 Mar. 1919, 8; “Kingsley on Paris Commune,” Federationist, 19 Mar. 1920, 1; “Kingsley on the Commune,” Federationist, 26 Mar. 1920, 4.

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On Labour and Its Economies. 1908
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