Cartography

Cartoon maps portraying impending inter-imperialist apocalypse

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MP Pavlovich [ML Veltman]
People’s Commissariat of
Nationalities (5.31.1921)
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Comrade Pavlovich,1

I have arranged for publication of a school atlas (in Petrograd).2 It would be extremely important to include maps of imperialism. Would you not undertake this?

For example:

  1. Colonial possessions 1876-1914-1921, adding or specially shading off semi-colonial countries (Turkey, Persia, China, and so forth).
  2. Brief statistics of colonies and semi-colonies.
  3. Map of financial dependencies. For example, for each country ± with a figure (millions or milliards of francs) of how much this country owes, and how much it is owed;
    Also comparatively for 1876-1914-1921, if 1876 be taken as the culminating point of pre-monopoly capitalism.
  4. Railways of the world, with a note, in each country, showing to whom most of them belong (British, French, North America, etc.).
    Will this prove too much of a mixture? Convenient forms can be found, with what matters, what predominates noted very briefly.
  5. The main sources of those raw materials over which there is a struggle (oil, ores, etc.) — also with notes (% or millions of francs belong to such-and-such a country).
    We must without fail include maps of this kind in the textbooks, of course with a brief explanatory text.
    A statistical assistant can be given you for the auxiliary work.

Please reply whether you undertake this, how and when.

With communist greetings,

Vladimir Ulianov (Lenin)
Chairman, Council of
People’s Commissars

Notes

1 Pavlovich, M. P. (Veltman, M. L.) (1871-1929) — Social-Democrat, Menshevik. He became a Communist after 1917, and from 1921 was a member of the Collegium of the Commissariat for Affairs of Nationalities.
2 Reference is to the preparations for the publication of the Vsemirny geografichesky atlas (Geographical Atlas of the World), launched on Lenin’s initiative. The project was not realized.

1111 14054507_10208119983574717_4341188426381209528_o 2721592513_c130bfbba9_b world_around_1900 "El Manicomio", mapa satírico de Europa en 1915, Louis Raemaekers (1869-1956) See Translation 0WyLa Continue reading →

Mapping the “bloody week”: The last days of the Paris Commune in a cartographic narrative

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Originally posted by Fosco Lucarelli over at Socks-Studio. A couple of grammatical and formatting edits have been made, and Friedrich Engels’ 1891 reflection on the Paris Commune has been further appended. Check out Socks-Studio’s website for more great posts and information.

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The events that occurred in the last month of La Commune — the socialist government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871 — are mapped out in this extraordinary plan, drawn up by Mr. L. Meunier and P. Rouillier in 1871 in a simple yet informative manner.

“Paris en Mai 1871. Plan indiquant les opérations de l’Armée contre l’Insurrection. Dressée par L. Meunier et P. Rouillier. Échelle de 1 : 32,000”

Cartography is used here as a narrative device to display the military movements of the Versailles army, its general strategy, the countermeasures taken by the insurgents, and the rapidly unfolding events taking place in space and time across the urban territory.

For more information about the events of La Commune and some related texts, we leave you with: “La Commune Project by Raspouteam” (2011), an entire site (only in French) dedicated to the events during the insurrection, Le Funambulist’s “Paris 1871 Commune recounted by Raspouteam” and “Processes of smoothing and striation of space in urban warfare.”

We thank our friend Mike Ma for letting us use his photographic reproductions of the plan.

Legend:
In blue: Versailles army lines
In red: elements of the insurgents or destroyed buildings

Click the following image for a hi-def of the whole plan:

paris-mai-1871-01-large

Click any of the following thumbnails to see the images close-up:

The plan also includes an historical summary of military events:

The plan also includes an hystorical summary of military events from March, 18th to Mai, 29th

1891 introduction to The Civil War in France

Friedrich Engels
On the 20th anniversary
of the Paris Commune

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If today, we look back at the activity and historical significance of the Paris Commune of 1871, we shall find it necessary to make a few additions to the account given in [Marx’s] The Civil War in France.

The members of the Commune were divided into a majority of the Blanquists, who had also been predominant in the Central Committee of the National Guard; and a minority, members of the International Working Men’s Association, chiefly consisting of adherents of the Proudhon school of socialism. The great majority of the Blanquists at that time were socialist only by revolutionary and proletarian instinct; only a few had attained greater clarity on the essential principles, through Vaillant, who was familiar with German scientific socialism. It is therefore comprehensible that in the economic sphere much was left undone which, according to our view today, the Commune ought to have done. Continue reading →