In two important points, therefore, the communal rising at Paris had a very close affinity with socialism. In the first place, it was a revolutionary assertion of the Commune or local unit of self-government as the cardinal and dominating principle of society over against the State or central government. That is to say, the Commune was a vindication of the political form which is necessary for the development of socialism, the self-governing group of workers. And in the second place, the Commune was a rising chiefly of the proletariat, the class of which socialism claims to be the special champion, which in Paris only partially saw the way of deliverance, but was weary of oppression, and full of indignation against the middle-class adventurers that had on the fall of the Empire seized the central government of France. It would, however, be a mistake to assume for the Commune a clearness and comprehensiveness of aim which it did not really possess. We should not be justified in saying that the Commune had any definite consciousness of such an historical mission as has been claimed for it. The fearful shock caused by the overwhelming events of the Franco-German war had naturally led to wide-spread confusion and uncertainty in the French mind; and those who undertook to direct it, whether in Paris or elsewhere, had painfully to grope their way towards the renovation of the country. At a time when it could hardly be said that France had a regular government, the Commune seized the opportunity to make a new political departure. The true history of its doings will, we hope, be written after passion and prejudice have sufficiently subsided to admit of it. The story of its rise and fall was only one phase of a sad series of troubles and disasters, which happily do not often overtake nations in so terrible a form. From this point the decline and fall of the Association must be dated. The English trades unions, intent on more practical concerns at home, never took a deep interest in its proceedings; the German socialists were disunited among themselves, lacking in funds, and hampered by the police. It found its worst enemies perhaps in its own household. In 1869, Bakunin, with a following of anarchists, had joined the International, and from the first found themselves at variance with the majority led by Marx. It can hardly be maintained that Marx favoured a very strongly centralising authority, yet, as his views and methods were naturally entirely repugnant to the anarchists, a breach was inevitable.