A second charge against the communists consists in making them responsible for the doings of the Parisian mob in 1871. The error of this has been explained often enough. It is due largely to an accidental resemblance between the words commune and communism. Many who use the word commune glibly have a very imperfect understanding of its significance, and little imagine that it is as harmless and innocent a word as township, and means pretty much the same thing. The commune, with an emphasis on the article, means simply Paris, or, in a secondary sense, the administrative officers collectively governing Paris. France is divided into departments and communes, the same as our states are divided into counties and townships, and Paris by itself forms one of these communes. The insurrection in Paris, of March 18, 1871, was one in favor of extreme local self-government. The idea was to make each commune at least as independent as one of the states of the United States, and to unite all the communes into a confederation with limited powers.[11] The movement in favor of the autonomy of Paris is an old one, and has been supported by many able and respectable Frenchmen. One in favor of the movement is, however, properly called a communalist, and not a communist, and the movement itself is communalism—not communism. A careful study of the decrees of the commune, of the reports and of the various histories which have described its rebellion in 1871, shows that the movement was political, primarily, and only to a very limited extent economic. Even the economic decrees, like the stay-laws, postponing the time for payment of debts due, might be regarded as war measures. However, out of the seventy and more members of the communal government nine or ten were social democrats and members of the International, and it is probable that concessions may have been made to win them and their adherents. They were effectual in this, since the Internationalists were disposed to favor the movement from the start, and that for two reasons. First, believing that their ends can be attained only by revolution, they are inclined to look favorably upon any revolution whatever, as tending to cultivate a revolutionary spirit in the people. Second, they favor the autonomy of large cities, holding that the masses in the cities might more readily be induced to adopt communistic and socialistic reforms, if not held in check by the more conservative rural population.[12]