2011 versus 1968
Posted on Wednesday 31 August, 2011
Filed Under International, Politics
I WAS not old enough to be politically engaged in 1968. Yet even though I was only eight at the time, I can nevertheless recollect some of the dramatic events of that year, including footage of Vietnam and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
After reading numerous books on the period and talking to lefties born only a little while before I was, I am well aware that for numerous middle-aged activists proudly define themselves as soixante huitards.
Not uncommonly, they insist that the well documented revolts across the planet – accompanied by a classic rock soundtrack, of course – provided enough of a glimpse of what revolution looked like enough to instil lifelong socialist convictions.
We still cannot know the long term impact of 2011, of course. But what we have witnessed so far in many countries is capital H History on a scale at least on a par with the dramatic occurrences of five decades ago.
This can most clearly be seen in North Africa and the Middle East. Authoritarian regimes have been toppled in Tunisia and Egypt, with Libya likely to follow soon. Syria, too, has been shaken by generalised insurrection.
The eurozone crisis has led directly to general strikes and political rioting in Greece and the mass occupation of public spaces in Spain. Analyses of the recent outbreak of rioting in the UK, and the short-lived student protests before that, will differ. But as I have argued before, they too contain an implicit political dimension.
One way and another, countries as diverse as China, Chile, India and Israel are witnessing mass mobilisations of wildly differing proximate cause, yet all indicative of generalised discontent with the existing political system and those that have so conspicuously benefited from it.
And of course, there is a feedback loop at work here. Everybody is able to watch what everybody else is doing, if not on the telly than at least on YouTube. I don’t know about you, but I am finding all of this truly gripping stuff.
The 1968/2011 analogies are not exact, of course. This is most obvious at the level of political awareness. One impact of the extended spell of neoliberalism under which we have lived of late is that the left has been permanently on the back foot, unable in most countries to attain clarity in ideas or to build significant social roots.
In consequence, it has not been the primary beneficiary of this year’s wave of unrest. The numbers turning towards explicitly Marxist, quasi-Marxist or anarchist ideas are limited, with variants of liberalism, nationalism and even racist rightist populism gaining ground instead.
Doubtless some people will be pinning hopes on a mechanical insistence that changing social conditions not just can, but must, turn inarticulate anti-elitism into class consciousness. Those that don’t believe in miracles will ask them to spell out the concrete rather than theoretical grounds for this expectation.
My fear is that a once in a lifetime chance for the left to make a breakthrough is going to waste, and it is the 68ers now in the leadership that must be blamed for this state of affairs. They really should have known better. Never trust a hippy, as we used to say.
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21 Responses to “2011 versus 1968”
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Right up to the last paragraph, I thought we’d learned something today.
Capitalism is at a crossroads. Class Keynesian demand management appears to be dead in the age of globalisation, neo liberalism rules supreme more than ever even though it has almost brought the world system to its knees. It seems that capitalism cannot operate as a global system, even though as a system it is inherently global. God loves irony!
The coming years will be ones of intense social unrest, I predict the far right will make major gains. The Marxist belief in progress will be put sorely to the test. If the Marxists are correct then within the next 20-50 years we will be looking forward to a socialist world. If they are wrong, join a cult now and hope that by sacrificing yourself the mother ship will take you to Utopia.
We wasted a century on Leninism. By 1968 the Stalinist were becoming a minor force with a shit reputation. Now was the chance for us to follow Trotsky. We could make a pop star out of him. We could pick what flavour we wanted, Tony Cliff’s, Gerry Healy’s or Tariq Ali’s. We should have known better. But the century wasn’t a total waste because of the growth of reformist socialist parties. We had the 1945 Labour government after all.
Don’t usually respond to Les who lyingly accussed me of being someone else but couldn’t resist this time.
“But the century wasn’t a total waste because of the growth of reformist socialist parties”
We will skip the fact that these parties often led the workers into wars that cost millions of lives. As Stalin used to say one death is tragedy, a million is a statistic. Now is the time to finally accept that reformist ‘socialist’ parties have served their useful purpose and something more radical is now required.
Can there be any going back? I don’t think so. Life has changed.
And what revolutions actually happened in 1968?
There was the Czechs but in the end it turned out that they just wanted rid of communism so the Soviets managed to preserve their system for another 20-odd years by crushing them.
And the French people responded to the heroic students call by voting for de Gaulle in a massive landslide.
And the Americans responded to that spot of trouble in Chicago by voting for Nixon.
And that Guevara chap proved in the most graphic way possible that guerillas almost never win their wars unless they have a conventional army to back them up (for which see also Viet Cong and Tet Offensive).
And a whole bunch of Mexican students got gunned down without anyone rising up.
And then moving on a wee bit into 1969 there was Gaddafi’s revolutionary seizure of power in Libya – oh wait….
1968?
The boomer hippie scum are welcome to it.
Well, it seems clear enough that, after the welcome fall of most of the Stalinist regimes, and the massive discrediting of the revamped classical growth model (which looks at the moment to be heading for another fall), the other hollowed-out political force is (most of) the 68-ers themselves. For as soon as a new situation arose that was outside of their existing categories—namely, anti-colonial regimes gone rotten in a phase of globalised communications and interrelations—they dropped their struggle against authoritarianism within in socialism and opted for the Saddam, Assad, Khamenei, Gadaffi, more or less en masse, attacking and attempting to discredit both liberal and working class activists in all those countries like the most pampered reactionaries. If historical analogies are in order, they remind me most of the second international socialists in the Reichstag spouting internationalism for years before voting for war credits. So, I personally wouldn’t like to see a left of that sort get anywhere near the levers of power (luckily, it is precisely their self-serving delusions that make this so unlikely). Or at least, I would hope that, the nearer they got, the more these delusions would ware off, as it’s a shame to miss out completely on such amazing opportunities. The other option is to miss out a generation and start again.
1968 was more of a cultural revolution than a political one. If you are viewing it through political lenses then cynicism and pessimism are sure to follow.
It could be that in 2011 the political legacy is greater and the cultural legacy is less significant.
DTFM, DTFM, DTFM….
One hoped that recent events in Libya might have chastened you somewhat and even led you to cloister yourself away for a much needed period of reflection – but here you are again spouting complete bollocks.
So lets see your list of those wars that reformist socialists led the poor hapless workers into?
And you really can’t count wars like 1914-18 declared by bourgeois governments on each other as in those cases the SPD, SFIO, Labour etc simply followed the patriotic workers rather led them anywhere.
Name me a single historian (as opposed to a propagandist) who seriously believes that even a solidly united left could have done anything to stop the slide to war in 1914 once it got underway and war-fever began to grip the population.
You can’t on the one hand claim that bourgeois democracy is just a hollow shame and the working class are deluded tools of the ruling class (as you have done on multiple occasions) and that somehow historical mechanisms still exist to foil the plans of that ruling class when it is bent on war.
If you lot couldn’t even stop British participation in a war as unpopular as Iraq 8 years ago then how could anyone have stood against the vast crowds that were baying for war in every capital in Europe in July-August 1914?
And here’s the thing – the social chauvinists who voted for war credits were generally the orthodox Marxist leaders of the Second International who had been anointed by Engels himself and whose approval and support Lenin and the Bolsheviks was assiduously seeking right up to August 1914.
And when there was an organisational split between Marxist and non-Marxist socialists (as in France and Britain) the Marxist organisations were the ones who supported the war effort as incidentally did a great many formerly revolutionary syndicalists.
While it was the real revisionists and reformists like Jaures and Bernstein and Hardie and Lansbury and Turati whose bourgeois pacifist illusions put them in the anti-war camp.
You see history is funny like that sometimes.
‘hollow sham’ – not ‘shame’ (although it is of course that as well…)
I thought it was the right that blamed 1960s hippies for the state of society today. The late 60s was a heady time to be young but most of us were just having a good time. Pissing off the establishment was an added bonus. The dreams may have turned sour but the legacy isn’t all bad. I am certainly not ashamed to have been part of the counterculture of that era.
I was wondering today how we in Europe would co-exist with an Islamacist flank on the other side of the Med. I fear that that will be the most likely outcome. No doubt, Libya will undermine Algeria, Tunisia is already going that way, and Egypt is practically there. I don’t think the cause of world revolution will be advanced (except indirectly). i sincerely hope I am completely wrong and feel free to slag me off to the best of your abilities.
DFTM Don’t usually respond to Les who lyingly accussed me of being someone else…
Sorry to see you are still upset over this DFTM. How about your tag team partner? Is he still upset;-)
I see you don’t want to talk about the failures of Leninism, or the Trotskyism of Cliff, Healy and Ali. Any particular reason, or do you have some success stories to point to?
Before we get too morbid about 1968 it should be remembered that out of that period came a new breed of militant trade unionists. They may have all gone now, but they do leave markers behind for future generations.
“and it is the 68ers now in the leadership that must be blamed for this state of affairs”
Who are these 68ers and which organisations do they lead? Alex Callinicos was 17 in May 68 but I never heard anything about anything he’s been involved in in Zimbabwe. I think he joined the IS in 1972. None of the other SWP cc are remotely describable as 68ers afaik. I’m less familiar with other organisations but I know that Matgamna, Taaffe and Thornett were all politically active before 1968.
@ Dave O.
If you ever get a chance to see Stoppard’s play “Rock ‘n’ Roll”, beg, borrow, steal or kill for ticket! It takes you to the heart of the Czech troubles of ’68, and also to the heart of the dilemma which Marxists have failed to solve even now.
Mind you, I would recommend Stoppard’s laundry list as a brilliant read!
Roger,
Libya has proved beyond doubt the folly of sensible logic. Do you ever take time for reflection? Or do you just advise others to do it? You seem the sort who dishes out advice to me.
Roger, we are talking about reformist ‘socialist’ parties here. EG the Labour party. We are not talking about revolutionary parties. The only possible reason workers would risk their own holocaust so enthusiastically is if those who led them (lions led by donkeys is the phrase isn’t it) were not exactly truthful with the facts. There must be some level of false consciousness going on to allow this to happen.
I doubt so many people in advanced nations today would be so willing to sacrifice themselves for business interests. That is no thanks to the reformist ‘socialist’ parties but to the realisation of the horror the last time they were led into such action. I guess technology plays an important role here, governments are finding it harder by the year to control information. Wikileaks was an early battle in the 21st century information war. Having said that the majority of people still tend to toe the government line, nationalism is still alive and well and ready to be pandered to by sensibles.
Your little laughable ‘history’ of the ‘Marxists’ attitude to war bears all the hallmarks of sensiblism. Your very selective use of history to support your position (whatever that might be) shows your total dishonesty.
You see the subject of history is funny like that sometimes.
For you information is power and power is to be used for dogmatic fundamentalist reasons. In the land of the blind………Roger you belong in the land of the blind.
I thought this was a bit more optimistic:
We Glasgow students were inspired by the spirit of Red Clydeside.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/31/glasgow-students-red-clydeside
divvi from the moon sed the werd sensible in his first sentence.
again.
wot a fuckking moRaN.
‘I thought this was a bit more optimistic:
We Glasgow students were inspired by the spirit of Red Clydeside.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/31/glasgow-students-red-clydeside‘
great stuff…
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/latestnews/Red-Clydesider-accused-of-racism.5701794.jp
Red Clydesider was a myth. Read this.
It was touch and go that I sign up for Vietnam thank god my parents changed my mind.