{"id":70,"date":"2025-10-15T16:05:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T16:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/?p=70"},"modified":"2025-10-19T09:03:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T09:03:24","slug":"andre-leo-internationalist-and-communard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/andre-leo-internationalist-and-communard\/","title":{"rendered":"Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o: Internationalist and Communard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An article on the life and ideas of Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o, an early French feminist and (libertarian) socialist. A member of the First International and a leading participant in the Paris Commune. It first appeared in Black Flag Anarchist Review<\/a><\/em> Vol. 4 No. 2 (Summer 2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o: Internationalist and Communard<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o was the pen name \u2013 from the first names of her twin sons \u2013 of Victoire L\u00e9odile B\u00e9ra (1824-1900), a French novelist, journalist, socialist and feminist, an active member of the International Workers\u2019 Association and the Paris Commune. While an \u201carticulate feminist socialist who was a prolific writer from the 1860s to the 1890s\u201d[1]<\/a>, she became somewhat forgotten and is usually remembered, if at all, thanks to accounts of women active during the Commune.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet this is unfortunate for she was, as Bakunin\u2019s paper l\u2019\u00c9galit\u00e9<\/em> noted, \u201c[o]ne of the finest socialist writers in France\u201d[3]<\/a> and worked with numerous revolutionary anarchists before, during and after the Commune \u2013 including \u00c9lie and \u00c9lis\u00e9e Reclus[4]<\/a>, Louise Michel and Michael Bakunin.\u2013Her ideas are well worth remembering and, as one historian suggested, a \u201cbook could and should be written about the life of the feminist and socialist writer Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o including her relationship to the Commune and her role in the Union [des femmes pour la d\u00e9fense de Paris et les soins aux bless\u00e9s]\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as we revolutionary anarchists can find useful ideas in Proudhon\u2019s works while not agreeing with all of it, we can do the same with L\u00e9o\u2019s feminist-mutualism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the Commune<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

L\u00e9o was born in Lusignan, Vienne, to a bourgeois family in 1824. In the 1860s she had become a successful novelist, her books addressing many of the issues she later championed when she became politically active \u2013 women\u2019s rights, patriarchal marriage, peasant life and the need for integral education.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1866 the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 du Droit des Femmes<\/em> (Society for Women\u2019s Rights) began to meet at her house in Paris. Members included Paule Minck, Louise Michel and \u00c9lie Reclus. Three years later, it was reorganised as Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 pour la Revendication du Droit des Femmes<\/em> (Society for the Advocacy of Women\u2019s Rights) and focused on the subject of improving girls\u2019 education. At the same time, L\u00e9o was active in the International Workers\u2019 Association whose goal, she explained, was \u201cthe emancipation of the workers by the workers themselves \u2013 the abolition of the privileges of capital.\u201d[7]<\/a> As she wrote in L\u2019Egalit\u00e9<\/em> (1 March 1869):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cA pretended order that admits suffering as the condition of what one calls peace is only disorder. There is no economic science, however profound, that is able to reduce to nothing the protest of the most humble workers, who demand with feeling their right to well-being, education, and the leisure necessary for all moral and intelligent creatures.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The International, as should be well-known, had been formed by British and French trade unionists, the later influenced by the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. This was for the better (support for federalism and workers\u2019 associations) and for the worse (his appalling sexism was shared by many within their ranks[9]<\/a>). L\u00e9o ruthlessly and remorselessly critiqued the arguments of those on the left (\u201cthe democracy\u201d) in defence of their bigotries while also reporting on various public debates allowed in the later 1860s under the liberalised Second Empire (such as those on women\u2019s work).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based in Batignolles, she soon \u201chad a reputation as an orator at clubs and as an organizer for workers\u2019 and women\u2019s issues. She collaborated and helped direct La R\u00e9publique des travailleurs<\/em>, the journal of the Batignolles section of the International.\u201d[10]<\/a> Significantly, its \u201cfirst issue [\u2026] included in its programme, signed by seventeen leading members including Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o, the statement that \u2018It is time to have women participate in [the] democracy instead of making them its enemy by senseless exclusion\u2019\u201c[11]<\/a> The work of L\u00e9o and others paid off:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Beno\u00eet Malon (when in prison for being an official of the International \u2013 later he was elected to the Commune) could write to Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o in 1868, assuring her that \u201cwe are not forgetting about . . . emancipation of women and we receive new support each day. We have convinced almost the entire association of the idea; only the pontiffs of Proudhon remain unconvinced\u201d[12]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Yet it should not be concluded \u2013 as some do \u2013 that developments like this meant a replacement of other aspects of Proudhon\u2019s ideas. Rather, they represented a desire to make these ideas consistent<\/em> as can be seen when L\u00e9o linked her arguments to earlier feminist critics of Proudhon who \u201chad played beautifully against the Proudhonian contradictions, weakening [his] prestige in the world of thinkers, but were read little by the public.\u201d[13]<\/a> Her political views were reflective of mutualism:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cL\u00e9o gained prominence largely for her sociopolitical writings, in which she favored prevailing left-wing ideals of workers\u2019 associations and antiauthoritarian democracy. In 1867, she published several articles in the journal La Coop\u00e9ration<\/em> that attacked liberalism, applauded education, and favored workers\u2019 associations. Workers\u2019 associations, she wrote, would advance economic justice and morality. They represented \u2018a new order of relations,\u2019 for, she argued, \u2018the goal of association is not only well-being: it places members under the obligation to be just; it necessarily raises the moral level.\u2019\u201d[14]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Her advocacy for workers\u2019 associations, concern for justice and morality, defence of the worker\u2019s ownership of the product of their labour[15]<\/a>, for example, were shared by Proudhon \u2013 although this is often obscured by commentators.[16]<\/a> Yet she also noted how the patriarchal democrats \u201cexclude for women the individual autonomy that they demand for themselves\u201d and that it is \u201cthe old authoritarian conception which makes the human being the cog of a preconceived order, instead of deriving this order from human nature itself.\u201d The future was clear: \u201cIn right derived from human beings, on the contrary, there is no subjection that is not disorder; no injustice that is not a crime; no oppression [compression<\/em>] which does not harm the entire social body. True order is in the harmony produced by the free development of all.\u201d[17]<\/a> She debunked the sexism, hypocrisy and inconsistencies so prevalent in the French left in her 1869 book La femme et les moeurs : libert\u00e9 ou monarchie<\/em> (Women and Morals: Liberty or Monarchy<\/em>) while noting that \u201c[b]y the material dependence . . . removed from nearly all social functions other than the servile, and reduced to an insufficient wage, [woman] is forced either to sell herself in marriage in exchange for an often illusory protection, or rent herself out in temporary unions . . . she has been made an object.\u201d[18]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fundamentally a reformist, she wished the unity of all friends of process, even those she called \u201cbackward\u201d, causing Bakunin to end a short-lived collaboration in 1869 with these words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cWe received two letters, one from Mme Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o, the other signed jointly by four people: Mm \u00c9lie Reclus, Louis Kneip, A. Davaud and Albert, cobbler. These two letters are inspired by the same spirit of conciliation towards this good bourgeois class which feeds upon us so quietly every day, as if it were the most natural and legitimate thing in the world, and protests against the tendencies of our journal, because having raised the flag of the frank politics of the proletariat it does not want to agree to any compromise. It is true, we hate compromises. Historical experience shows us that in all political and social struggles they have only ever served the possessing and powerful classes, to the detriment of the workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLack of space does not allow us to include these two letters. In the face of the bosses\u2019 coalition which threatens to starve us, we have other things to say and do than polemicise against bourgeois socialism.\u201d[19]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Also noteworthy is that her concern for women was matched with concern for the peasantry, attempting in 1870 \u2014 along with Elis\u00e9e Reclus and others\u2013 to launch a journal addressed to peasants entitled L\u2019Agriculteur<\/em> which aimed to challenge the prejudices that prevented workers, whether urban or rural, from recognising their common interests and acting upon them. In this, like her feminism and federalist-socialism, she shared much in common with Bakunin even if they disagreed on certain tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Commune<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

After the creation of the Paris Commune on the 18th<\/sup> of March 1871, L\u00e9o founded the newspaper La Sociale<\/em> (\u201cLa Sociale<\/em> is absolutely anarchist and atheist\u201d[20]<\/a>) with her friend Anna Jaclard (a Russian revolutionary socialist and feminist) and also wrote for La Commune<\/em> and Le Cri du Peuple<\/em>. The same themes and ideas were raised as before but within a more promising environment for, as one historian notes, the \u201cgoals of the Commune, the coherent thought which quickened the best of the Communards<\/em>, are both expressed by Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o\u2019s excellent articles.\u201d[21]<\/a> Her articles during the Commune addressed many subjects, not least recognising the importance of involving both women and the peasantry in the struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of the peasantry, being well aware of the danger of isolation which the Commune faced L\u00e9o took practical activity to overcome it by writing the famous \u201cAu travailleur des campagnes\u201d, which first appeared in La Commune<\/em> (10 April 1871) before being distributed by hot-air balloon. Its message was clear, namely that the peasants should join with the Commune in a common struggle against common enemies:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cSo, inhabitants of the countryside, you see, the cause of Paris is yours, and it is for you that it works, at the same time as for the worker . . . If Paris falls, the yoke of poverty will remain around your neck and will be passed onto those of your children. So help it prevail, and, whatever happens, remember well these words \u2013 for there will be revolutions in the world until they are achieved: \u2013 THE LAND TO THE FARMER, THE TOOL TO THE WORKER, WORK FOR ALL.\u201d[22]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This, notes one historian \u201cwas one of the most clearly class-conscious documents of the Commune; its underlying thesis was that workers in the cities and workers in the countryside should unite in the struggle for social justice\u201d.[23]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

L\u00e9o repeatedly denounced the lack of interest by male Communards and the commune\u2019s council in getting women involved in the struggle, noting that it was a major mistake and clearly counterproductive. One article, for example, recounted the heroism of nine female ambulanci\u00e8res<\/em> (nurses) who braved the dangers of being on barricades yet suffered the insults and prejudices of Communard officers.[24]<\/a> Two days later, in \u201cLa R\u00e9volution sans la femme\u201d (La Sociale<\/em>, 8 May 1871) she recounted the key role played by the women of Montmartre on 18 March 1871 and castigated the majority of radicals for refusing to recognise women as equals and how counter-productive it was:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cbecause many republicans \u2013 I do not speak of the genuine ones \u2013 have dethroned the Emperor and the good Lord\u2026 only to put themselves in their place . . . they need subjects, or at least female subjects. Woman must no longer obey priests; but as before she must not rise above herself. She should remain neutral and passive, under the direction of man, she will have only changed confessor . . . the Revolution is the freedom and the responsibility of every human creature, with no limit other than the common right without any privilege of race, nor of sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWomen will only abandon the old faith to embrace with passion the new. They do not want to, they cannot be, neutral. We must choose between their hostility or their devotion.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This indifference was not a recent development for it was possible to \u201cwrite a history from 89 with this title: A History of the inconsistences of the Revolutionary Party. \u2013 The woman question would be the largest chapter, and we would see how this party found a way to drive half its troops, who only wanted to march and fight with it, over to the side of the enemy.\u201d[25]<\/a> She also urged that women should join in the struggle in whatever role they desired \u2013 including on the barricades \u2013 for it \u201cis especially through women that the democracy has been defeated so far, and the democracy will only triumph with them.\u201d[26]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such articles were needed as can been seen when on May 1st<\/sup> the Commune\u2019s Jacobin-Blanquist Committee of Public Safety bar women from the battlefield, this being the first day of its existence and so \u201cexemplifying the depth of sexism amongst male socialist leaders.\u201d[27]<\/a> Fortunately, this was ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While wholeheartedly in support of the Commune\u2019s aims,[28]<\/a> she was critical of its practices and protested the errors of the revolution, whether made by the Central Committee of the National Guard or the Commune\u2019s Council. She stressed the importance of means as well as ends, urging that the means used should be consistent with socialist principles and the desired goal of a free and equal society. One letter indicated her perspective well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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22 April<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citizen Editors,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You think it is good<\/em>. I think it is bad. We can differ on the means, while ardently desiring the success of the Revolution, and consequently that of the Commune<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see I am referring to your article yesterday on the suppression of newspapers. My name having appeared in La Sociale<\/em>, and will appear there again, I wish to make my responsibility clear on this point, out of respect for the principles which constitute the strength and the whole raison d\u2019\u00eatre of democracy. In my opinion, to renounce them is to renounce its mission. If we act like our enemies, how will the world choose between them and us? In this clouding of consciousness there can be no success for the cause. Let lies and slander be held to account; but let freedom of thought be inviolable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9 Leo[29]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

She also opposed attempts by the Commune\u2019s council to debate in secret, rightly arguing that the \u201cpeople who are dying for this cause have a right to know who is serving them, and who [is] betraying them. A true democracy is not distrustful of the truth, for it is made of truth. It comes from truth, it moves toward truth; it dies only for want of light.\u201d[30]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet she did more than just write: \u201cUnder the leadership of the feminist Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o a mutual aid society, La Solidarit\u00e9<\/em>, drew up a list of the needy in the 17th<\/sup> arrondissement and began to distribute a daily allowance.\u201d[31]<\/a> Louise Michel noted that after the Versailles troops had entered Paris, \u201cRed Flag at their head, the women . . . had their barricade at the place Blanche<\/em> [. . .] Andr\u00e9 Leo was at the Batignolles . . . I was at the barricade barring Clignancourt\u201d.[32]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of the heroic activities of both men and women, the Commune was drowned in blood with around 25,000 slain by government troops (many after surrendering) and 35,000 marched to prison camps at Versailles (many shot along the way), with 10,000 convicted by court martial (23 executed, 4,500 imprisoned in France, the rest deported to prison colonies in New Caledonia).[33]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Commune<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Due to her activity during the Commune, an arrest warrant was issued for L\u00e9o on 17 June 1871. Hiding briefly in Montmartre, she fled to Basel before proceeding to Neuch\u00e2tel. She wrote on 2 August to a friend:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, here I am in Switzerland, but without my children. I had to hide for two months to evade the butchers of Versailles for my health and my liberty. What scenes! [\u2026] What horrors! Only the thought of speaking of these horrors, of denouncing them to human conscience consoled me with living after [the death of] so many martyrs. I will begin the public accounting here tomorrow. I shall take it to Geneva, to England, to wherever I am able to make myself heard.\u201d[34]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what she did, most famously at the Congress of the League of Peace and Freedom held at Lausanne in September 1871. James Guillaume recalled that she attended as she \u201csought every opportunity to make an indignant protest heard against the atrocities committed by the men of Versailles\u201d but her speech\u2019s \u201cboldness\u201d frightened her audience, and which she was not allowed to finish.\u201d[35]<\/a> This speech was later published as La Guerre Sociale<\/em> (The Social War<\/em>) and in it she defended, critically, the Commune, debunked the slanders made against it by its vanquishers and exposed their barbaric repression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L\u00e9o indicated how the slaughter in Paris was a product of the \u201csocial war\u201d and that if her audience were serious about opposing war they also had to oppose the system which created this struggle between classes. The League had to, therefore, \u201cadd to your name, this other revolutionary dogma, equality, which you wrongly neglect; for freedom cannot exist without it, anymore than it can exist without freedom.\u201d For \u201cthere can be no equality without freedom, nor freedom without equality. One absolutely implies the other. Dig into one of the two terms and you find the other at the bottom.\u201d This meant addressing the economic system for \u201cthe question of capital, [was] the same, in a more precise form, as this question of freedom and equality\u201d.[36]<\/a> Moreover:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThis law of capital is therefore of an aristocratic nature; it tends more and more to concentrate power in a small number of hands; it inevitably creates an oligarchy, mistress of national forces; it is therefore not only anti-egalitarian, but anti-democratic; it serves the interest of a few against the interest of all.\u201d[37]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The repression in Pairs was the result of fear for \u201cSocialist Paris, armed Paris, deliberating in its clubs, in its council and administering itself\u201d. Yet she also noted that in spite of the Commune\u2019s federalist programme, \u201cthe revolution of March 18 was not in the hands of socialism, as is intentionally stated; but remained always in the hands of Jacobinism, of bourgeois Jacobinism, by its majority\u201d on its council.[38]<\/a> Only a consistently socialist<\/em> policy, rejecting the flawed politics of past \u2013 bourgeois \u2013 revolutions would ensure that future revolutions would avoid the mistakes of the Commune and succeed. In this, she drew many of the same conclusions as Bakunin had and Kropotkin would in their analyses of the Commune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marx and Engels, it should be noted, apparently quoting this speech in Fictitious Splits in the International<\/em> has L\u00e9o describe Bigault and Ferr\u00e9 as \u201cthe two sinister figures of the Commune\u201d (\u201cles deux figures sinistres de la Commune\u201d)[39]<\/a> when she actually said that they were \u201ctwo of the most unfortunate personalities of the Commune\u201d (\u201cdeux des plus malheureuses personnalit\u00e9s de la Commune\u201d)[40]<\/a>. While saying that these comments were a \u201cmistake\u201d which he and others had criticised at the time, Guillaume also acidly noted that this was a \u201cnew example of how Karl Marx respects the text of the writers he claims to quote\u201d.[41]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This distortion can be explained by L\u00e9o taking an active part in the conflict within the International between the General Council and its federalist majority, siding with the later. She helped found R\u00e9volution Sociale<\/em>, the newspaper of the Commune refugees in Geneva, and \u201cattacked Marx and the London General Council of the International for conducting a campaign to centralize the International, and thereby to destroy the vigorous liberty resulting from the autonomy of sections and the plurality of ideological positions.\u201d[42]<\/a> In its issue of 2 November 1871, she wrote against the attempts of Marx to restrict the freedom of sections to publicly express their views on the activities of the General Council:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cAnd I, who have until now believed that the International Association was the most democratic, the broadest, the most fraternal association one could dream of; the great mother, with immense breasts, of whom every worker of good will is the son. [\u2026] may the goddess Liberty help us! For we have violated the last papal bull in divulging these things to the Gentiles and in debating the infallibility of the supreme council. Now, we too are threatened with excommunication, and we have no other course than to yield our soul to the demon of Anarchy for what remains for us to say.\u201d[43]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Another article for the R\u00e9volution Sociale<\/em> saw L\u00e9o argue as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cFrom the beginning of the International Association to this day, when we heard the good bourgeois refer to it as a secret society, constructed after their manner, i.e. hierarchically, with a watchword, a secret council, the old pyramid, finally, with God the Father, an Old Man of the Mountain or a Council of Ten at its summit, we shrugged our shoulders and told them, not without pride: \u2013 all of this is a bunch of old tales! You know nothing of the new spirit; your worn molds cannot contain it. We who want to destroy your hierarchies are not about to establish another. Each section is sovereign, as are the individuals who compose it, and what binds them all is the profound belief in equality, the desire to establish it, and the practice of our Rules: the emancipation of the workers by the workers themselves; no rights without duties, no duties without rights. Everything is done in the broad daylight of freedom, which alone is honest and fruitful; we have no leaders, for we do not recognise any, only an administrative council. But now, alas! \u2013 now we bow our heads before the accusations of Mr Prudhomme, or rather, we deserve his admiration; we suffer this supreme insult, because the resolutions published here construct the old pyramid in the International as elsewhere: \u2018It is forbidden,\u2019 \u2018it will not be allowed,\u2019 \u2018the General Council has the right to admit or to refuse the affiliation of any new section or group\u2019, \u2018the General Council has the right of suspending, till the meeting of next Congress, any section of the International\u2019. I beg your pardon; are we mistaken, here, as to the code? This is an article of the law on the general councils of France, made by the Assembly of Versailles: \u2018The executive power shall be entitled to suspend the council that \u2026\u2019 \u2013 No, that\u2019s right, but the article is the same in both laws, \u2013 \u2018henceforth the General Council will be bound to publicly denounce and disavow all newspapers \u2026\u2019 \u2013 By our holy father the Pope, where are we? Bismarck has turned the heads of everyone from the Rhine to the Oder, and at the same time that Wilhelm I made himself emperor, Karl Marx consecrated himself Pontiff of the International Association.\u201d[44]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

These words shocked James Guillaume yet her conclusions reflected the views of the Federalist-wing of the International:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe have just begun to understand that true unity does not consist in the absorption of all into one, that strange equation, that fatal delusion which has mystified humanity for so many centuries! And if asked how else to establish unity, most of us would hesitate to answer, because it is not only a matter of finding new means but of changing the ideal itself. \u2013 The new unity is not uniformity, but its opposite, which consists in expanding all initiatives, all freedoms, all conceptions, bound only by the fact of a common nature that gives them a common interest, upon which \u2013 on their own, and by different routes, however winding they may be \u2013 free forces converge. This is natural and universal harmony in place of the narrowness, the vicious unfairness of the personal plan. It is this autonomy of the citizen, achieved through the autonomy of the primary social group, the commune, that France has just tentatively sketched out with a hand wounded by the sword of despotic unity. This is the second act of the great Revolution that is beginning, the realisation after the revelation, the performance after the promise. And the International Association, a natural agent for this task, would, following these mad and narrow minds, repeat the experiments that were made, and made so badly, between 1802 and 1871! This cannot be. Let all the old world\u2019s politics go that way; socialism has nothing to do with it, for it must take the opposite path, that of the freedom of all in equality.\u201d [45]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

By 1876, L\u00e9o had parted ways with what remained of the Federalist International and she returned to France in 1880 after the government declared a general amnesty for all exiled and imprisoned Communards. She continued to write novels, publishing these in serial form in republican papers like Le Si\u00e8cle<\/em> and La R\u00e9publique fran\u00e7aise<\/em>, dying on May 20th<\/sup>, 1900.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o played an important role in two of the defining organisations of the second half of the nineteenth century for all schools of socialism, the International and the Paris Commune. Her forthright defence of liberty and equality still resonate while her critique of the patriarchal views within the left of her time (\u201cthe democracy\u201d) is still important, for while the blatant sexism of her times has mostly disappeared, it is all too often has been replaced by lip-service to feminism which hides sexist practices and attitudes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like any thinker, her ideas did not develop in isolation and reflected those expressed in the wider socialist movement in France. As such, we can address the lack of appreciation of her that remains the case since it was noted in 1963:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cAnd one might wonder through what injustice of History a woman . . . who played an important role in the Commune, had nowhere found her rightful place . . . [that] the historians of the Commune scarcely notice her. No doubt there are several reasons for this . . . Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o was a woman, and women need much more talent than do men in order to be recognized\u2026 however devoted Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o may have been to the Commune \u2013 a devotion that she retained all her life \u2013 she did not figure among its extremists, and did not hesitate to criticize the mistakes and violence of the Commune\u2019s supporters. Tending toward Bakunin rather than Marx, she thus cannot be ranked among the prophets and saints of the First International. In the eyes of orthodox Marxists, Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o is an \u2018individual,\u2019 someone smacking of anarchism, and vaguely disturbing. In the eyes of anarchistic revolutionaries, she is much too reasonable. In the eyes of the bourgeoisie, she is a revolutionary. In short, there is no category for her.\u201d[46]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Once we recognise that the First International was not Marx\u2019s creation nor toy, then her position becomes clear \u2013 she was a Mutualist, a Feminist, an Internationalist and a Communard, in short, a libertarian socialist<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Proudhon, L\u00e9o combined a clear understanding of the class nature of her society and the social and individual problems it created, a recognition that there was a class war and a willingness to take sides in it when needed but also a desire to seek alliances between elements of these classes were possible (like Proudhon, her calls went unanswered). A reformist, when faced by a revolution (like Proudhon in 1848), she embraced and championed it, defining its real meaning and suggesting practical actions which would ensure its success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She sought to make Proudhon\u2019s libertarian socialist ideas consistent by exposing its contradictions when it came to women and the family. This explains how \u201ca number of feminist Communarde women allied themselves with the moderate faction [in the Commune], clearly appropriating aspects of [Proudhon\u2019s] socialism while rejecting his misogyny.\u201d[47]<\/a> Bakunin likewise widened the idea of association between equals which Proudhon championed in the workplace and the community to include the family, as did almost all subsequent libertarians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While close to revolutionary anarchists, L\u00e9o was not one. Her ideas are best described as left-mutualist \u2013 reflecting Proudhon\u2019s reformist federalist market socialism but making it consistent by rejecting his abhorrent sexism. Like Bakunin, L\u00e9o took up Proudhon\u2019s ideas but added to them and in so doing made a path of her own. Her legacy, like Proudhon\u2019s, is important if flawed and it should be remembered and celebrated \u2013 for her critiques of sexism and Jacobinism within the socialist movement remain valid and her vision of free association between equals is just as appealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

End Notes<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Eugene Schulkind, \u201cSocialist Women during the 1871 Paris Commune\u201d, Past & Present<\/em>, No. 106 (February, 1985), 130.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Carolyn J. Eichner, Surmounting the Barricades: Women in the Paris Commune<\/em> (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004); \u00c9dith Thomas, The Women Incendiaries<\/em> (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2007).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Quoted by James Guillaume, L\u2019internationale, documents et souvenirs<\/em> (Paris: Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 nouvelle de librairie et d\u2019\u00e9dition, 1905) I: 150.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Federico Ferretti, \u201cAnarchist geographers and feminism in late 19th century France: the contributions of Elis\u00e9e and Elie Reclus\u201d, Historical Geography<\/em> 44:1 (2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Schulkind, 157.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Cecilia Beach, \u201c\u2019Savoir c\u2019est pouvoir\u2019: Integral Education in the Novels of Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o\u201d, Nineteenth-Century French Studies<\/em>, Vol. 36, No. 3\/4 (Spring\/Summer 2008).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> Quoted by Eichner, 37.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> Quoted by K. Steven Vincent, Between Marxism and Anarchism: Beno\u00eet Malon and French Reformist Socialism<\/em> (Oxford: University of California Press, Ltd., 1992), 42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> Perhaps needless to say, Marxist writers on women active in the Commune tend to mention Proudhon\u2019s patriarchal views while failing to mention that most of the women they are discussing were libertarians. They also fail to note that Marx never publicly attacked Proudhon\u2019s sexist views, presumably because he knew that they were shared by many French workers and did not want to alienate potential supporters in a country where his influence was small. As such, it should be obvious that those French Internationalists who were sexist were not so because they read Proudhon\u2019s inane writings on the subject of women and marriage, rather they and Proudhon did not rise above the sexism prevalent in France at the time. This does not excuse either, as many did (most obviously Eug\u00e8ne Varlin and Beno\u00eet Malon),<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a> Vincent, 43.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/a> Schulkind, 142.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]<\/a> Schulkind, 142.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[13]<\/a> Quoted by Eichner, 40.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[14]<\/a> Vincent, 42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[15]<\/a> Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o, Communisme et propri\u00e9t\u00e9<\/em> (Paris: D. Jouaust, 1868). A translation (Communism and Property<\/em>) is included in A Libertarian Reader<\/em> (Active Distribution, 2023), volume 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[16]<\/a> For example, Eichner states that \u201cProudhon vehemently opposed associations, strikes, and political action, considering them violations of individual liberty. Paradoxically, he pronounced that \u2018property is theft,\u2019 while supporting private ownership.\u201d (223) In reality, he vehemently supported<\/em> workers\u2019 associations as a means to end the wage-labour which caused the exploitation and oppression of labour while repeatedly advocating socialised<\/em> property in the means of production (but not in the products of labour). Ironically, she references a work \u2014 K. Steven Vincent\u2019s Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism<\/em> (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984) \u2013 which shows this was the case. Likewise, Proudhon\u2019s views on strikes and political action were far more complex than suggested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[17]<\/a> Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o, \u201cLe Droit des Femmes\u201d, Almanach de la Cooperation pour 1869<\/em> (Paris, 1869), 132, 137, 139.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[18]<\/a> Quotes by Eichner, 120.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[19]<\/a> Quoted in L\u2019internationale, documents et souvenirs<\/em> I: 150-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[20]<\/a> \u201cTribune des prol\u00e9taires\u201d, La Sociale<\/em>, 14 April 1871.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[21]<\/a> Thomas, 119.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[22]<\/a> Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o, \u201cTo the worker of the countryside\u201d, Black Flag Anarchist Review<\/em> Vol. 1 No. 1 (Spring 2021), 41.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[23]<\/a> Vincent, 32-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[24]<\/a> Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o, \u201cAventures de neuf ambulanci\u00e8res \u00e0 la recherche d\u2019un poste de d\u00e9vouement,\u201d La Sociale<\/em>, 6 May 1871.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[25]<\/a> Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o, \u201cRevolution without Women\u201d, Black Flag Anarchist Review<\/em> Vol. 1 No. 1 (Spring 2021), 42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[26]<\/a> Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o, \u201cToutes Avec Tous\u201d, La Sociale, 12 April 1871.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[27]<\/a> Eichner, 103.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[28]<\/a> Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o, \u201cLe programme de la Commune\u201d, La Sociale<\/em>, 22 April 1871.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[29]<\/a> La Sociale<\/em>, 24 April 1871.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[30]<\/a> Quoted by Thomas, 126.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[31]<\/a> Vincent, 26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[32]<\/a> Quoted by Eichner, 34.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[33]<\/a> Eichner, 35.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[34]<\/a> Quoted by James Guillaume, L\u2019Internationale, documents et souvenirs<\/em> (Paris: Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 nouvelle de librairie et d\u2019\u00e9dition, 1907) II: 170-71.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[35]<\/a> L\u2019internationale, documents et souvenirs<\/em> II: 218.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[36]<\/a> Andr\u00e9 L\u00e9o, La Guerre Sociale: Discours Prononc\u00e9 au Congr\u00e8s de la Paix<\/em>, A Lausanne (1871) (Neuchatel: G. Guillaume Fils, 1871), 24, 25-6, 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[37]<\/a> L\u00e9o, 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[38]<\/a> L\u00e9o, 10, 33. The Parisian Municipal Council was electing using male universal suffrage. The largest grouping, of twenty-five, were various revolutionaries inspired by the Jacobins, Blanquists numbered nine, while twenty-five were members of the International, and the rest were from a variety of radical groups. Overall, revolutionaries in the Jacobin-Blanquist tradition were in the majority, with the Internationalist minority being predominantly libertarian, whether Mutualists or Collectivists. The differences between the two groupings came to a head when, in the last days of the Commune, the majority voted to create a Committee of Public Safety <\/em>modelled on the one created by the Jacobins during the Great French Revolution, with a minority of council members (essentially those active in the International) opposing it as a violation of socialist and communal principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[39]<\/a> Les pr\u00e9tendues scissions dans l\u2019Internationale <\/em>(Geneva: Association internationale des travailleurs, 1872), 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[40]<\/a> L\u00e9o, La guerre sociale<\/em>, 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[41]<\/a> James Guillaume, L\u2019internationale, documents et souvenirs<\/em> II: 218.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[42]<\/a> Vincent, 44.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[43]<\/a> Quoted by Wolfgang Eckhardt, The First Socialist Schism<\/em> (Oakland: PM Press, 2016), 104.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[44]<\/a> Quoted by Eckhardt, 105.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[45]<\/a> Quoted by Eckhardt, 105-6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[46]<\/a> Thomas, 119-120.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[47]<\/a> Eichner, 223.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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