In 1871, during the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon III, Emperor of France, was captured by German forces, and the Imperial French government collapsed. In leftist Paris, socialist revolutionaries declared the establishment of the Paris Commune, decreed a separation of church and state, deployed a national guard and attempted to, in later parlance, establish a proletarian regime. The Commune was swiftly, brutally crushed by conservative French forces and their royal Prussian supporters. One of the Communards, Adrien Lejeune, managed to survive execution, was imprisoned, eventually pardoned and then left for the U.S.S.R. in the 1930s. During World War II, he fled further east to Siberia, where he died, last survivor of the Communards, in 1942, aged 95.
In The Last Communard, Gavin Bowd (Fascist Scotland) combines the scant biography of Lejeune with the development of Communism in France and Russia, as well as efforts by various parties to interpret the meaning and significance of the Commune and to valorize Lejeune. "The records of Lejeune's revolutionary acts are as mixed as the rest of his life, combining idealism, myth-making and all-too-human frailty."
Bowd assumes that readers possess a certain knowledge of Communist intellectual history, political actors, organizations and, more generally, 19th-century European history. He capably details the near-constant ideological and political schisms within the various Communist movements during both of the world wars. As a result, The Last Communard effectively dissects what is known and what is believed about Lejeune. --Evan M. Anderson, collection development librarian, Kirkendall Public Library, Ankeny, Iowa.