What Is the Paris Comune?

On March 20, 18 71, a big ceremony was held at the hotel de ville to inaugurate the first session of the council of the paris commune. During the siege, invoking the commune had been a slogan to rally the people but everyone filled in the blanks on what they thought the commune meant. This question of what is the commune was caught up in a further specific divide between the anarchists and prudonis who wanted it to be a revolutionary dictatorship. It led directly to a further debate over whether their aim was to control paris or to control france.