The death & life of the Paris Commune since 1871 - HIS00177I

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Module summary

The Paris Commune of 1871 was a radical experiment in government. Following the Franco-Prussian war of the previous year, Paris democratically elected a central Commune Council in March 1871. The Commune governed Paris for seventy-two days and quickly set to work legislating a new progressive agenda, with measures including the abolition of night work, free secular education, and the separation of Church and State. In May 1871 the Commune was brutally defeated by the army of new Third Republic. More than ten thousand Communards were killed, and thousands more fled France. For activists in France, and throughout the world, the Commune quickly became a powerful symbol of the possibilities of progressive proletarian government and municipal people power. 

This module considers the lives and afterlives of the Paris Commune. We will examine the ideas and individuals that shaped the Commune’s beginning and its end, before unpacking its substantial posthumous global significance.

In the decades after 1871 powerful Commune myths and memory rituals took hold across the world. The twentieth century saw the Commune’s memory zealously revivified by Lenin and Mao, as each sought to associate the Commune’s legacy with the communist regimes of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China respectively. In the twenty-first century the resurgence of urban occupation as a revolutionary strategy saw the spirit of the Commune conjured by the Indignados of Spain, the Direct Democracy Now movement in Greece, the Occupy movement, and activists in the Arab Spring.

The module seeks to understand how the Paris Commune’s short-lived and experimental nature has made its memory endlessly malleable and useful for movements seeking to advance political alternatives. We will explore the rich historiographical debates spawned by the Commune, as well as engaging with scholarship from literature, critical theory, and memory studies.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 1 2025-26

Module aims

The aims of this module are:

• To provide students with the opportunity to study particular historical topics in depth
• To develop students’ ability to examine a topic from a range of perspectives and to strengthen their ability to work critically and reflectively with secondary and primary material

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:

• Have acquired a deep knowledge of the specific topic studied
• Have developed their ability to use and synthesise a range of primary and secondary sources
• Be able to evaluate the arguments that historians have made about the topic studied
• Have developed their ability to study independently through seminar-based teaching

Module content

Students will attend a 1-hour briefing in week 1. Students will then attend a 1-hour plenary/lecture and a 2-hour seminar in weeks 2-4, 6-8 and 10-11 of semester 1. Weeks 5 & 9 are Reading and Writing Weeks (RAW) during which there are no seminars. Students prepare for and participate in eight 1-hour plenaries/lectures and eight 2-hour seminars in all.

Seminar topics are subject to variation, but are likely to include the following:

1. Introduction 
2. The revolution is on the street
3. Women & the Commune
4. Refugee revolutionaries 
5. Myth, memory, and commemoration 
6. The global Commune
7. The Communist Commune
8. The Commune in Britain

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

For formative assessment, students will complete a referenced 1200 to 1500-word essay relating to the themes and issues of the module. This will be submitted in either the Week 5 or Week 9 RAW week (on the day of the weekly seminar).

For summative assessment, students will complete an Assessed Essay (2000 words, footnoted). This will comprise 100% of the overall module mark.

Summative assessments will be due in the assessment period.

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100.0

Module feedback

Following their formative assessment task, students will typically receive written feedback that will include comments and a mark within 10 working days of submission.

Work will be returned to students in their seminars and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their formative work during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.

For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 25 working days of the submission deadline. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.

Indicative reading

For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:

• Kristin Ross, Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune (Verso, 2016)
• John M. Merriman, Massacre: The Life and Death of the Paris Commune of 1871 (Yale, 2016)
• Laura C. Forster, The Paris Commune in Britain: radicals, refugees, and revolutionaries after 1871 (OUP, 2025)