Paris Commune

The Paris Commune was the first time the working class took political power. Frederick Douglass covered the events of the Commune closely in his newspaper. Douglass’s views on the Commune illuminate his relationship to socialist and labour movements abroad and in the United States. This essay examines the liberal analysis in Douglass’s newspaper while comparing his reaction to that of Karl Marx. Douglass’s revolutionary abolitionism did not necessarily extend to oppressed wage workers. The Commune abroad and labour unrest in the US bought to light Douglass’s free labour prescription, with its assumption of a harmony of interests between capital and workers. His reaction to the Commune exposes the limitations of his liberal political thought to take on an analysis of class conflict and labour struggles, especially when compared to contemporaries such Marx and others. This study offers a unique contribution on Douglass while juxtaposing him with a Marxist perspective.