The Paris Commune of 1871, the Russian Revolution of 1905, and the Shifting of the Revolutionary Tradition

What was the legacy of the 1871 Paris Commune at the time of the Russian Revolution of 1905? Was it understood as part of an obsolete revolutionary tradition or as something new? The French left responded equivocally even as the 1905 revolution provided a comparison, and as Lenin identified the practical lessons of 1871. Once the Bolsheviks came to power, the Commune would be given new life as a legitimizing agent for the USSR. French Communists would also adopt the Leninist reading. This article examines the "rupture" of 1905 and the transformation of the revolutionary tradition from the perspective of the French left, Parisian workers and Russian émigrés, and in light of the funeral of the former Communard Louise Michel.