A Group of Citizenesses
Journal officiel de la Commune de Paris, 11 April 1871
Paris is blockaded, Paris is bombarded…
Citizenesses, where are our children, and our brothers, and our husbands?... Do you hear the cannon roaring and the tocsin sounding the sacred call?
To arms! The fatherland is in danger!...
Is it the foreigner coming back to invade France? Is it the allied legions of the tyrants of Europe who massacre our brothers, hoping to destroy with the great city even the memory of the immortal victories that for a century we have paid for by our blood and that the world calls liberty, equality, fraternity?...
No, these enemies, these assassins of the people and of liberty are French!...
This fratricidal aberration that seizes France, this fight to the death, is the final act of the eternal antagonism of right and force, of labour and exploitation, of the people and their torturers!...
Our enemies are the privileged of the present social order, those who have always lived on our sweat, who have always fattened themselves on our misery…
They saw the people rise up crying: “No duties without rights, no rights without duties!... We want work, but in order to keep the product. No more exploiters, no more masters!... Work and well-being for all, – the people to govern itself – the Commune, live free by working, or die fighting!...”[1]
And the fear of being called to the people’s court has driven our enemies to commit the greatest of crimes, civil war!
Citizenesses of Paris, descendants of the women of the Great Revolution, who, in the name of the people and justice, marched on Versailles, bringing back a captive Louis XVI, we, mothers, wives and sisters of this French people, can we stand it any longer that misery and ignorance make enemies of our children, that father turns on son, that brother turns on brother, they kill each other before our eyes just for the whim of our oppressors, who want the destruction of Paris after having delivered it to the foreigner?
Citizenesses, the decisive moment has arrived. It is necessary to be done with the old world! We want to be free! And it is not only France that is rising, all civilised peoples have their eyes on Paris, waiting for our triumph to free themselves in their turn. This same Germany – whose princely armies devastated our country, vowing death to its democratic and socialist tendencies – is itself shaken and worked by the revolutionary spirit! Also, it has been in a state of siege for six months, and its worker representatives are in prison! Even Russia sees its freedom fighters perish only to greet a new generation, ready to fight and die for the Republic and social transformation!
Ireland and Poland, which die only to be reborn with a new energy – Spain and Italy regaining their lost strength to join the international people’s struggle – England, whose entire mass, proletarian and salaried, becomes revolutionary by social position – Austria, whose government must repress the simultaneous revolts of the country itself and of the Slav powers – does this perpetual clashing between the ruling classes and the people not indicate that the tree of liberty, fertilised by the rivers of blood shed over the centuries, has finally borne fruit?
Citizenesses, the gauntlet has been thrown down, we must conquer or die! May the mothers, the wives who say to themselves “What does the triumph of our cause matter to me if I lose those whom I love!” finally persuade themselves that the only way to save those who are dear to them – the husband who supports her, the child in whom she places her hope – is to take an active part in the struggle, to finally put an end to this fratricidal struggle that can only end in the triumph of the people, least it be renewed in the near future!
Woe to mothers, if once again the people succumb! It will be their descendants who will pay for this defeat, because our brother’s and our husband’s heads will become a plaything and the reaction will have a good game! Neither we nor our enemies desire mercy!...
Citizenesses, all resolute, all united, are ensuring the salvation of our cause! Let us prepare to defend and avenge our brothers! At the gates of Paris, on the barricades, in the faubourgs, no matter! Let us be ready, at the given moment, to join our efforts to theirs; if the villains who shoot prisoners, who assassinate our leaders, mow-down a crowd of unarmed women, so much the better! The cry of horror and outrage of France and the world will complete what we have attempted!... And if all the rifles and bayonets are used by our brothers, we will still have cobblestones to crush the traitors!...
[1] A popular French working class slogan, first used in the October 1831 revolt by the canuts (silk workers) of Lyon when they occupied the city, shouting “Vivre libre en travaillant ou mourir en combattant!” (“Live free working or die fighting!”). King Louis-Philippe sent 20,000 soldiers and 150 cannons to suppress the revolt. (Translator)