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Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine.

In the spring of 1871, the citizens of Europe's second largest city rose up and proclaimed the Paris Commune.

For eight extraordinary weeks, the French capital defied the national government

that had been forced to decamp to Versailles and adopted a series of progressive policies

ranging from the abolition of nightwork in bakeries to the toppling of contested monuments.

But what exactly was the commune? How did this revolutionary

government function? And why was it crushed with such figure? Historian David A. Schaefer

speaks to Danny Bird to answer listener questions on this extraordinary moment in French history.

Before we get into the events of the spring of 1871, can you take us back a bit?

What were the deeper forces and tensions building in France, especially in Paris, that laid

the groundwork for the commune?

So, dating back, I mean, it depends on how far back we want to go.

There had been a revolutionary

tradition which, in some respects, laid the groundwork for the commute. The whole idea that the French

revolution had been an incomplete project, that it was the filial duty of 19th century Republicans

and revolutionaries to finish that job. So that was part of it. In addition to that, there was,

of course, the industrialization of France, which was changing work and causing all sorts of tensions in terms of deskilling of labor and whatnot.

...