After Storming Heaven
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20210516080030im_/https://novaramedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/DP247699-scaled-e1616146680963-204x219.jpeg 204w, http://web.archive.org./web/20210516080030im_/https://novaramedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/DP247699-scaled-e1616146680963-803x864.jpeg 803w, http://web.archive.org./web/20210516080030im_/https://novaramedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/DP247699-scaled-e1616146680963-768x826.jpeg 768w, http://web.archive.org./web/20210516080030im_/https://novaramedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/DP247699-scaled-e1616146680963-1428x1536.jpeg 1428w, http://web.archive.org./web/20210516080030im_/https://novaramedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/DP247699-scaled-e1616146680963-1904x2048.jpeg 1904w, http://web.archive.org./web/20210516080030im_/https://novaramedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/DP247699-scaled-e1616146680963-139x150.jpeg 139w, http://web.archive.org./web/20210516080030im_/https://novaramedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/DP247699-scaled-e1616146680963-664x714.jpeg 664w, http://web.archive.org./web/20210516080030im_/https://novaramedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/DP247699-scaled-e1616146680963-347x373.jpeg 347w, http://web.archive.org./web/20210516080030im_/https://novaramedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/DP247699-scaled-e1616146680963-682x733.jpeg 682w)
150 years ago this week, workers and the poor of Paris seized control of the city and established a popular, elected municipal government: they took over great buildings, wiped out debts, instituted free education – and inspired countless radicals worldwide. The Commune lasted only 72 days before being drowned in blood. But each of those days was a political earthquake.
James Butler is joined by Laura Forster, a historian of the Commune, to trace its aftershocks: from the lives of exiled radicals in Soho and Fitzrovia, to the British socialists who took up the story of the Commune – both as an inspiration and a warning – through to Lenin dancing in the snow and the red thread linking the Paris Commune with the London County Council.
Delve deeper into the Paris Commune in our archives: James and Aaron discuss the political imaginary of the Commune with Kristin Ross.
- Published 19 March 2021
- Subscribe to Podcast
- Download mp3