150th Anniversary of the Paris Commune The world’s first workers’ dictatorship
One hundred fifty years ago this week, in 1871, armed workers ran the French bosses out of Paris and established the Paris Commune. France was a world superpower. Germany had a growing industrial base and its own super-power ambitions. "We, the members of the International Working Men's Association, know of no frontiers," declared the communists. But competition between French and German capitalists led to war in 1870. The French army was soon routed.