On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the extraordinary experience of the Paris Commune, it is fundamental to draw a number of lessons from it. The measures a government takes regarding its Central Bank, the debts of working class people, public debt and private banks are decisive. If a popular government does not implement radical financial measures, it will be responsible for ending in failure, with possibly tragic consequences for the population. The Commune, an extraordinary and dramatic experiment, exemplifies this, and must thus be analyzed from this point of view…

• The role of debt in the emergence of the Paris Commune
• Who was to repay the debt?
• The Commune’s positive measures dealing with rent and other debts
• The Paris Commune made a fatal error in not taking control of the Bank of France
• Sequence of events concerning the Bank of France and an attempted explanation
• A government of the people must adopt a radical solution regarding the central bank, public (…)
• Several lessons to be learned from the Paris Commune
• The resolute action taken by Soviet Russia and the Cuban revolution regarding the central (…)
• The lessons of the Paris Commune have been largely forgotten
• Greece 2015 or the failure of the moderate approach
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1. Some illustrations of measures regarding finance taken by governments in (…)
• Appendix 2. Frederick Engels’s summary of the various measures taken by The (…)
• Appendix 3. Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray on the Commune and the Bank of France
• Appendix 4. Timeline of The Civil War in France and of the Paris Commune

Read more: https://www.cadtm.org/The-Paris-Commune-of-1871-banks-and-debt

Debt: The first five thousand years. By DAVID GRAEBER