The Paris Commune: Reviving Assemblies, Building Global Movements

With the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Paris Commune (18 March–28 May 2021) Socialism and Democracy, having previously addressed the topic on several occasions, reproduces two reflections on the Commune from organizers within active social movements. Howie Hawkins, long time Green Party organizer and its most recent US presidential candidate, revisits the Commune’s influence on Green conceptions of grass-roots democracy before examining its echo in the besieged Rojava (North and East Syria). Not oblivious to the geostrategic challenges that Rojava creates for the global antiimperialist left, Hawkins focuses on the internal practices of the movement. Following Murray Bookchin, Hawkins implores activists to democratize the grass roots and rebuild movements with a municipal focus. He notes that longstanding obstacles to democracy prevalent at the state and federal levels of governance are formidable but not as effective at the local level. As such, Hawkins argues that – more than principle – grass-roots democracy is themost practical politics available to Greens under present political conditions. If Hawkins is animated by the political–strategic impasse facing the Greens as a third party in a hostile political context, Gustave Massiah is similarly inspired to understand the Commune’s lessons for the Alterglobalization movement, itself confronting early promise but an uncertain trajectory, one reflected in World Social Forum process. Turning to its social content, Massiah draws connections between, on the one hand the Commune’s working-class character and cross-class alliances and, on the other hand, the complex bloc of actors constituting the Alterglobalization movement. While prominent and central, the latter-day working class finds its concerns, expressions, networks and concrete challenges overlapping, articulated, woven in and resonating with broader civilizational questions including the