The Communards were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War and France's defeat.
Following the war's conclusion, according to historian Benedict Anderson, thousands fled abroad, roughly 20,000 Communards were executed during the Semaine Sanglante ("Bloody Week"), and 7,500 were jailed or deported under arrangements which continued until a general amnesty during the 1880s; this action by Adolphe Thiers forestalled the proto-communist movement in the French Third Republic (1871–1940).
Read more about Communards: The Franco-Prussian War and The Paris Commune, Deportation, Sentences, Life in New Caledonia, Escape, Relationships With The Kanak, Famous Communards, Amnesty, Aftermath