En el día de ayer, 18 de marzo, se celebró el aniversario de la famosa Comuna de París, un breve pero no por eso menos recordado, momento de 'insurrección' en París en el que las y los ciudadanos se hicieron con el poder en la ciudad. La resistencia de la comuna de París duró del 18 de marzo al 28 de mayo y en ese periodo autogestionaron un gobierno, promulgaron decretos, abolieron las deudas, promulgaron la laicidad del Estado, retomaron fábricas, establecieron guarderías para niños y niñas, en fin, funcionaron como un autogobierno de democracia radical. Decenas de miles de personas de la comuna fueron ejecutadas y aplastadas dando fin a este momentum.
De los temas más importantes de la Comuna de París fueron los principios esbozados para el autogobierno y las premisas de equidad y libertad enarboladas. Distinto y en abierta contraposición a la lógica política partidista, la comuna promulgaba una toma de decisiones horizontal y plural, forma de gobernanza que Hannah Arendt destaca por sus premisas democráticas.
De hecho, la Comuna de París es el contrapunto de Arendt al discutir, en su libro On Revolution, lo pernicioso de la lógica partidista. Los partidos, dice Arendt, contrario a los consejos que se establecieron en momentos revolucionarios pero con el propósito de mantenerse, escinden la libertad y la pluralidad. La membresía a un partido -y su lógica- aplasta el proceso de participación ciudadana amplia, apaga y derrota la capacidad de acción de los y las ciudadanas y la formación de opiniones robustas y rigurosas necesarias para el proceso democrático. Los consejos, sin embargo, -como los de la Comuna de París-se rebelarían contra esa lógica precisamente porque era su no pertenencia a la cofradía "partidista" lo que les preparaba para ser más libres de reflejar sus capacidades y actuar en el mundo de vida común.
Buen contrapunto para estos tiempos en los que lamentablemente todavía presenciamos la lógica avasalladora partidista, que lejos de liberarnos, mantiene a "los niños del sistema partidista" en el control de las formas de gobernar.
Dejo el fragmento que me parece más importante de Arendt sobre este tema en On Revolution (los énfasis son míos):
“For the remarkable thing
about the councils was of course not only that they cross all party lines, that
members of the various parties sat in them together, but that such party membership play no role whatsoever. They were in
fact the only political organs for people who belong to no party. Hence,
they invariably came into conflict with all assemblies, with the old
parliaments as well as with the new ‘constituent assemblies’, for the simple
reason that the latter, event in their most extreme wings, were still children
of the party system. At this stage of events, that is, in the midst of
revolution, it was the party programs more than anything else that separated
the councils from the parties; for these programs, no matter how revolutionary,
were all ‘ready-made formulas’ which demanded no action but execution –‘to be
carried out energetically n practice’, as Rosa Luxemburg pointed out with such
amazing clearsightedness about the issues as stake.
Today we know how quickly the theoretical formula disappeared in practical execution, but if the formula had survive its execution, and even if it had proved to be the panacea for all evils, social and political, the councils were bound to rebel against any such policy since the very cleavage between the party experts who ‘knew’ and the mass of people who sere suppose to apply this knowledge left out of account the average citizen’s capacity to act and to form his own opinion. The councils in other words, were bound to become superfluous if the spirit of the revolutionary party prevailed. Wherever knowing and doing have parted company, the space of freedom is lost.
Today we know how quickly the theoretical formula disappeared in practical execution, but if the formula had survive its execution, and even if it had proved to be the panacea for all evils, social and political, the councils were bound to rebel against any such policy since the very cleavage between the party experts who ‘knew’ and the mass of people who sere suppose to apply this knowledge left out of account the average citizen’s capacity to act and to form his own opinion. The councils in other words, were bound to become superfluous if the spirit of the revolutionary party prevailed. Wherever knowing and doing have parted company, the space of freedom is lost.
The councils, obviously,
were spaces of freedom. As such, they invariable refused to regard themselves
as temporary organs of revolution and, on the contrary, made all attempts at
establishing themselves as permanent organs of government….And what had been true in Paris in 1871 remained true for Russia in
1905, when the ‘not merely destructive but constructive’ intentions of the
first soviets were so manifest that contemporary witnesses ‘could sense the
emergence and the formation of a force which one day might be able to effect
the transformation of the State’.
It was nothing more or less
than this hope of a transformation of the state, for a new form of government
that would permit every member of the modern egalitarian society to become a ‘participator’
in public affairs, that was buried in the disasters of twentieth-century
revolutions.”
Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, pp 263-265.