MikeDunnAuthor<p>Today in Labor History March 23, 1871: Far left workers proclaimed communes in Lyon and Marseilles. The Paris Commune began March 18. Workers, including Cluseret and Mikhail Bakunin, had tried to create a commune in Lyon in 1870, as well. Prior to this, Cluseret fought the bourgeois moderates during the 1848 Paris uprising. And in 1860, he joined Garabaldi in his fight for Italian independence. In 1860, when William Sewell made a plea for European generals, he joined Union army with letters of support from Garibaldi, serving as a colonel, commanding troops in Shenandoah Valley. He eventually rose to the rank of general, but eventually quit when he was accused of insubordination for complaining about the abuse of civilians by Union troops. After that, he joined the Irish Republican cause, managing to escape a death sentence by the British. During the Paris Commune, Cluseret served as Minister of War. However, when he refused to arrest Monsignior Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, he was arrested for collusion with the enemy.</p><p>Cluseret once said, “the U.S. presents that strange anomaly of enslaved labor in a free nation. Politically free, the worker is socially the capitalists’ serf.”</p><p>Marx called him an opportunist and an overambitious babbler.</p><p><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/workingclass" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>workingclass</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LaborHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>LaborHistory</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/civilwar" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>civilwar</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/paris" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>paris</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/lyon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>lyon</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Marseille" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Marseille</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/commune" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>commune</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/bakunin" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>bakunin</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/anarchism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>anarchism</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/cluseret" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>cluseret</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/workers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>workers</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/marx" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>marx</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/civilwar" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>civilwar</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/slavery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>slavery</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/Abolition" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Abolition</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/independence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>independence</span></a></p>