RADICAL

AMERIC A
,'vIJ',Y-JUNE# 1968 V,olume II Number 3

'. SO,

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The New Left 1960-65

I

STAUGHTON lYND ON RADICALS' USE OF HISTORY

ANDRE S CHIFFRIN ON THE '50s ST UDENT l EFT

orz: A New Strategy?

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An 5 DS Journal of American Radicalism

 MAY_, JUNE, 1968 Vol.II,No.3

CONTENTS
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Jemes p. O'Brien, THE EARLY DAYS

,QF THE NEW LEFT • · . . . . . .

Andre Sch iff r in, THE STUDENT NOVEMENT

IN TH,E 1950's: A REMINISCENCE . • • .26

Dave Wagner, POETRY & REVOLUTION.(. . 41 '

Stucrt Ewen, A REVOLUTIONARY

STRATEGY? • • • • • • • • .45

Staughton Lynd, THE RADICALS' USE

OF HISTORY, I I • • • · . . . . .58

Dennis \'Iood, AGkIN, THE RADICALS

AND SCHOLARSHIP • • · . . . . . .63

RADICAL ��RICA, a bi_monthly journal of U.S. radical­

ism. General Editor: Paul Buhle. �dison editorial
staff: Henry Haslach, Paul Sigal, \'lilliam Sokol. New
York edrtor: Mark D. Nuison. Assoeiates: Mark B.
, , I

tapping, Don McKetvey, NIck NorrIS, James Prickett.

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,
','/i th this issue, RADICAL AMERICA takes on cer­
tain new dimensions, oarticularly in neo-Marxj�t
theory and the arts. ':Iithout re I i nqu ishi ng our f unc­
tion of studying American radicalism (p�st and pre_
sentlin its irr.mediately oolitical forms, � intend
to pursue these directions further, and encourage es­
pecially radical artists to pl a y a larger role in the
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mag�zjne.
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We look forward to a press run of 3,000 or mbre
for the coming (July_A�gustl Bleck Liberation number.
The contributions, by C.L.R. James, Eissen-Udorn, Gevrge
Rqwick, Junes Hcok.?r, {hark D. Noison and others wi II,
we believe, odd 0 great- deal to the interpretation of
this phenomenon ot a cri tical time for the Iwbvemenf.
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 1

The New Left's Early Years

James P. O'Brien

As originally conceived, this article was to

be strictly a bibliographical essay, in which I
would point out some booKs and articles helpfu� in
explaining whJ.t the Ne,v Left is and how it developed.
It became clear, however, that in order to make it
useful to anyone but scholars (vlith the time and
the library facilities to chase down the sometimes
esoteric materials listed here) I would have to
write it as a narration, 1.-1ith bibliographical notes.
Thus the article is longer, while coverin8 a shorter
time span, than I had envisaged. I hope to write an
article for the next issue dealing with developments
in the New Left since 1965 .
Every generation likes t o feel i t i s doing
something different, and the perspective of this
article--I believe that the New Left is qualita­
tively different from radical movements in the past
--may very vlell be distorted by the experience of
its author. I lived through the entire decade of
the 1950s without once hearing the words "socialism"
or "communism' spoken in any but a pejorative sense;
my first political act was as a college freshman in
the spring of 1960, when I joined a picket of
Woolworth's in support of the southern sit-in move­
ment. Because I have _ • experienced the New left
directly, and have only read about the Old Left, I
may have tended to exaggerate the difference between
them.
There are four books which attempt to give an
overall picture of the new radicalism of the 1960s.
All of them were published in 1966 (and therefore
presumably conceived in 196 5, when the mass public
first became aware of the Ne't! Left); none of them is
really satisfactory. One, Phillip A. Luce's The
 2

New Left ( D. McKay ) , can be d i s mi s se d at the out set .

� cons ist s of b itter rec olle ct ions of the author ' s days
as a le ade r of the sectari an Progre s s ive Labor Part y ,
informat i on o n the DuBois C lub s furn i shed h i m b y a re ­
se arche r for the House Un -Ame r i can Act ivit ies C ommittee ,
and virtually nothing at all on the t'. J O most import ant
New Left groups: St udent s f or a Democrat i c Soc iety
and the Student Nonv i olent C oordinat ing C ommitte e . A
far bette r book i s J ack Newf ie ld ' s A Prophet i c Mi nority
-­
( Hew Ame rican Library ) , vlh i ch is devoted a lmost en-

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t i re ly to the l atter two grou�)s ( New f i e ld ',las once an
act ive member SDS ) . The problem vl ith this b ook i s
Newf ield's tendency t o romant ici z e , t o tele s c ope the
c omplex event s of 1960-65 and to write glow ingly about
the " spirit" of the movement w ithout trying t o tal\.e
seriou s ly it s changing ide as. newf ie ld i s attracte d ,
above all , t o style: that i s why i t has been pos s ible
for him t o write enthus iast i c a l ly ab out � oth the New
Left and Robert Ke nnedy . Mit chell C ohen and Denni s
Hale edited a useful book of re adings) The New Student
Left ( New ,�me rican Library ) Ivhich c on s i s t s mainly of
SDS w orking papers and art i cles from The Act ivi st, a
quarte rly magaz ine of wh i ch b oth C ohen and Hale had
been edit ors . Like the magaz ine , th i s anthology may
e rr on the s i de of dullne s s . The re i s no re al sense
of the dynami c s of the New Left , and thus the b ook was
s ome-r.yhat dated even at the t ime it appeare d . Furthe r ,
the select i on s are far le s s ant i - l ibe ral and more ant i ­
c ommun i st than the movement had b e c ome by 1966. F inally ,
The New Radi c al s , edited by Paul J ac ob s and Saul
Landau, in Vint age paperback , offers a c olle ct i on of
re adings that supplement s those in the C ohen-Hale b ook .
Unl iKe the othe r , The New R ad i c al s has many of i t s
document s in ab ridged form , whi ch i s unfortunate . The
83 -p age i ntroduc t i on , wh ich i s writte n from out s i de
the st ruggle , s omehovi doe s n ot ring t rue .

THE 1950's

The annal s of the Ame r i c an Left in the 1950s are

short . The C ommuni st party and all organ izat i on s
t a inted as " s oc i al i st i c" had been i s ol ated and d i s ­
credited b y the end of the prev i ous de c ade; the Korean
 3

War and McC arthy i sm f in i shed the j ob , making polit i­

c al unorthodoxy of any s ort dange rous . By the middle
of t he de c ade the C ommun i st , Soc i al i st , and
Soc i al i st Worker s part i e s st ood as hollow car i c a­
t ure s of left-w ing part ie s--and they were the Left .
C l ancy S igal ' s pers onal nove l Going Away , written in
1956, vividly port rays an ex-C ommun ist t rave l ing
ac r o s s the c ount ry, encountering h i s past at every
turn and f i nding nothing but fut i l ity . It i s
probab ly the b e st s ingle w ork t o re ad o n rad i c al i sm
in the 1950s .perhaps in conjun ct ion w ith G abriel
Kolko ' s "De c l ine of Ame r i c an R ad i c al i s m , " Stud ie s
on the left Sept . -Oct . 1966 . T oward the end of the
de c ade there were s igns of pol ite d i s sent on the
i s sue of nuclear weapons policy, symbol ized by the
format i on of the Nat i onal C ommittee for a Sane
Nuc lear Pol i cy ( SANE ) in l ate 1957 . Two c ongre s smen
e le cted in the Democrat i c lands l i de of 1958, Will i am
lvjeyer of Vermont and Byron J ohns on of Colorado ,
raised the "pe ace " i s s ue in C ongre s s before be ing
defe ate d for re - e le ct i on in 1960 . A fell pac if i st s
grouped around Liberat ion Magaz ine engaged i n small­
s cale act s of c iv i l d i s obedience wh i ch were end­
le s s ly reported and analyzed in the magazine . In
the are a of c ivil r ight s , s ince the suc c e s sful
Montgomery , Alabama , bus b oycott of 1956 whi ch s aw
the r i se of prominence of Mart in Luther King , J r . \ ,
there had been n o large - scale movement anywhere i n
the nat i on . Tw i c e during the s c hool ye ar o f 1958-
5 9 s outhern black high s chool student s .plus a s s orted
student s f rom the North. t ook part in Wash ingt on ,
D . C . , marche s for integrated s chools organ i z e d by
Bayard Rust i n . They drew 10, 000 and 30 , 000 re spe c­
t ive ly , but c aused l ittle splash and h ave s in ce been
all but forgotten .
The academi c world in the 1950 ' s was in a state
that is diff i c ult for pre sent -day unde rgraduat e s t o
c on c e i ve . The re \Ias a virt ual ab sence o f rad i c al
s o c i al theory, the most important except i ons be ing
the much-pe rsecuted Marx i st e c onomist Paul Baran ,
who was lucky enough t o have te nure at St anf ord , and
the i ndependent rad i c al C . Wright Mill s , who dur ing
the cour s e of the de c ade t urned from s oc i al theory
4

( Wh it e C ollar, 1951 ; The P ower Elite , 1956) to a polem­

i c al att ack on Ameri can fore ign pol icy, The C ause s of
World War Thre e . Mills was certainly the int e lle ctual
w ith the gre ate st influence on the emergence of the
New Left , but during the fift i e s he had few followers .
The state of student un involvement on the nat i on's
c ampuse s i s p i cture d very well in three annual sym­
pos i a publ i shed in The Nat i on : "The C are ful Y oung
Men, " March 9, 1957 --"The C las s of '58 Speaks Up , "
May 18 , 1958 and "Tens i on Beneath Apathy , " May 16 ,
1959. The c ampus mood i s also dep i cted in a book of
frank, anonymous e s says written by a Princeton se nior
and publi shed in The Uns i lent Generat ion, edited by
Otto But z ( Rinehart , 1958) . The book, which c o st
But z h i s j ob as a Princeton fac ulty member, showed s ome
of the writers t o be cyni c al , even de sperate, about
the l ive s that l ay ahead of them--but none of them
'dill ing to put his malaise in polit i c al terms .
S imi l arly , the popularity of J . D . Sal inger's novel of
innocent youth in a crass soc i ety, Cat che r in the Rye
( the novel for young pe ople in the l ate 1950s ) was-­
anothe r indi c at i on of a vague d i s c ontent w ithout any
poli t i cal outlet . The only re al s igns of change on
the c ampuse s were c ultural rather than pol it i c al: the
beg innings of a folk mus i c revival ( spre ad mainly by
st udent s from New York C ity), and the popularity of
"b eat" writers such as Jac k Kerouac and Al len G insberg.

THE BEGINHINGS

The import ance of the s outhe rn s it - in movement

in bringing pol it i c al awarene s s t o the campus e s would
be difficult to overe st imate . In the South, the s it­
ins trans ferre d the init i at ive in the c ivil right s
struggle t o a nevi generat i on which has ret ained it ever
s ince . For thous ands of st udent s , in the North as
well as the South, they were the first hint that there
was a vlorld beyond the campus that demanded s ome ,dnd
of per sonal re sponse .
The s it-ins were t ouched off by four fre shman
stude nt s at an all -black c ollege in Greensboro , North
Carc1 i n a . On Feb ruary 1 , 1960, they sat at a white s ­
unly lunch counter in a local Woolworth's st ore,
 5

pol it e ly re que st ing c offee and refus ing to le ave

unt il the store closed at the end of the day . Stu ­
dent s at othe r North Carolina college s quickly
pi c ke d up the idea, and within two weeks the re had
been s it - ins in f ifteen c i t i e s in f ive southern
st ate s . Within a year the number of part i c ipant s
i n s it - ins and other demonst rat ions t ouched off by
them had grown t o more than 5 0 , 000 in a hundred
c it ie s . " The St udent Nonvi olent Coordinat ing
Committee was set up in April 1961, with help from
the Southern Chr i st i an Le ade rship Conferenc e , as a
loose liai s on of s i t - in le ade rs from across the
South .
The b e st acc ount of the b i rth of the southe rn
student movement is Howard Zinn ' s SNCC: The New
Ab olit ion i st s , which covers SNCC up to the t ime of
its writ ing in early 1964 . Zinn t aught at Spelman
College i n Atlant a dur ing t h i s period, and he had
a f irst -hand acquaint ance w ith the s it - ins and w ith
the SNCC leaders . The re were good c ontemporary
report s on the s it - ins by Mi chae l Walz e r in Dis sent
( " A Cup of Coffee and a Seat , " Spr ing 1960; "The
:fJol it i c s of the New Negro , " Summe r 1960) and by
Helen Ful ler in the New Repub l i c ( " 'We Are All So
Very Ha;Jpy , ' " April 25, 1 9 60 " Southern Student s
Take Oyer , " May 2, 1960) . A spe c ial report by the
South�rn Regional C_un c i l , The Student Prot e st
Movement : A Re c apitulat ion ( Sept . 29 , 1961) , has
some use ful factual informat i on . I have not come
acro s s anything :except s c attered allus ions , all
report ing e s sent ially the same expe rience' ab out
the impact wh i ch the s it-ins had on northern cam­
puse s . Yet it appears that more t han a hundred
northern colleges had some kind of demonstrat ion
in support of the s it - ins . It seems safe t o say
that for most campuse s , these were t he f i rst poli ­
t i c al demon strat i ons in ye ars .
Something else happened in the spring of 1960
that was to have a profound i nflue nce on the st ir­
ring of campus polit i c al int e re s t , although in th i s
case the effe ct vJaS a de layed one. In May of that
ye ar hundreds of Be rke ley stude nt s j oined in a
demon strat ion at the San Fran c i s c o City Hall aginst
the House Un-Amer i c an Act i vit ie s C ommittee , whi ch was
c onduct ing c at ch- all hearings on commun i sm in the San
Fran c i s c o are a . One of the subpoenae d w itne s s e s was a
Berke ley sophomore . San Fran c i s c o police t urned f ire
hose s on seated demonst rat ors, dragged many of them
down the ful l le ngth of the C ity Hall steps , and ar­
re sted s ixty-e ight . ( Charge s were l ater dropped against
all but one , vlho was acquitted . ) With in months , the
C ommittee had impounded e nough TV f i lm t o produce a
lurid, gerrymande re d movie ent itled "Operat i on
Ab o l it i on" i n whi ch J . Edgar Hoover and HUAC members
c la ime d to offe r documentary proof that (a) the
C ommunists had p lanned t he demonstrat ion in order t o
subvert student s and get rid o f the i r enemy the
C ommittee and ( b ) the v iolence had been starte d by the
student den,onstrat ors . The bac kground mus i c vias
reminis cent of World War Two patriot i c movie s .
For the next year and a half "Operat i on
Ab olit i on' was a st aple item on the right-w ing b anquet
and c amp meet ing c ircuit . More import ant ly , howeve r ,
i t served to di s credit the C ommittee and J . Edgar
Hoover among student s on s c ores of campus e s . The Bay
Are a Student Committee for the Ab olit i on of the House
C ommittee on Un-Ame r i c an Act ivit ie s , formed in
September 1950 , sent speakers and l iterature around
the c ountry point ing out di st ort i on s and inac curac i e s .
in the f i lm . The Ame r i c an C iv i l Libert ie s Un i on made
a f ilm of i t s own , s upport ing the student ve r s i on and
c al l ing for the C ommittee ' s ab olit i on . On campuse s
where b oth s i de s of the st ory were he ard , the Berkeley
st udent s eme rged a clear '-linner . David Horow it z '
Student , written whi le t he author was a graduate stu­
dent in Eng l i sh at Berke ley , t e l l s the st ory of the
growth of st udent p rote st there through 1961 , high­
l i ght i ng the cent ral role of the HUAC episode . It i s
a n impas s ioned b ut well -written ac c ount . Also good ,
though much short e r , i s a report by Je s s i c a Mitford in
The Nat ion , May 27 , 1961 , c alle d , "The Indignant
Generat i on .
q

PEAC E I SSUES

For a number of reasons , one of them undoubtedly

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be ing the d i stract i o n of the Kennedy-Nixon pre s i den­

t i al c ampaign in the f al l , there was le s s campus
prote st act ivity in the 1960 - 61 s chool ye ar than the
previous spring . Sit - ins c ont inue d in many are as of
the Sout h , b ut the ide a of s it - in s had lost much of
it s e arly exc itement . The s it-ins had , however ,
he lped t o open the c ampuse s t o new ideas , and during
this period the thin�dng of many student s "ms b e ing
changed by these ideas . "Operat i on Abolit ion " and
it s crit i c s made the i r ,.Jay e ast\vard f rom Berkeley;
chapters of the Fair Play f or C ub a C ommittee "lere
st art e d on a few campuses; the number of "cont ro­
ve rs ial " spe akers on c ampuse s mult iplied; and stu­
dent gove rnment s began cons i de ring re s o lut ions on
nat i onal aff airs . Pre s i dent Kenne dy's propos al of
the Peace C orps may have been one fact or in the in­
j e ct ion of off - c ampu s c oncerns , and h i s attempt to
ove rthrovl the Cuban govermrlent at the Bay of Pigs
may have been anothe r .
It was aft e r the Berl in c r i s i s i n the summer
of 1961 ( when the East Ge rmans e re cted "the wall ) "

that the ground"lOrk was laid for a f a i r - s ized c am­

pus pe ace movement . In the tense atmos phere c re ated
at that t ime , the Soviet Un i on broke i t s morat orium
on nuc lear t e st ing; a fevl days later the U . S .
announced tbst it would re sume unde rground - -but not
yet atmos phe r i c - -te st ing . In addit i on , the admin­
i strat ion de c ided to push for a mas s i ve c ivil defense
program , st re s s ing f al lout she lt e rs even in pri vate
home s .
The two organ i z at i ons "lhich were most act ive
in agit at ing on the peace i s s ue among student s were
the Student C ommittee f or a Sane Nucl e ar Policy
( Student Si'lNE ) and the Student Peace Un i on ( SPU ) .
Student SANE was an appendage of nat i onal SANE , an
aff i l i at i on wh i ch proved f at al to the student group .
Follow ing a threatened expose of allege d c ommun i st s
i n SANE by Senat or Thomas Dodd in 1 960 , the n at i onal
board had adopted a pol i cy of exc luding pers ons w ith
"t ot al itar i an ' sympathie s . The leaders of Student
SANE refus ed to apply thi s pol icy to the i r own or­
gan i z at i on , and aft e r much fut i le sparr ing, voted to
d i s affi�iate and d i sb and in February 1 962 . ( See
8

Barbara Deming, "The Orde al of SANE, " The Nat ion , March
1 1 , 1961, and Donald M. Blue st one, "Un ity in the Peace
Moveme nt)" San ity) Spr ing 1962 . ) The St udent Peace
Un ion had been formed by student s at a number of mid­
western c ollege s, at which t ime campus pe ace act ivity
was at a very low level . In the early spurt of stu­
dent pol it i cal intere st follow ing the s it -ins) SPU
had c ollected 10)000 student s ignature s for a pet i ­
t i on t o the world leade rs gathe red at the 1960 summit
conference . By the summer of 1961 , SPU ' s nat ional
off i ce had COlile unde r the control of members of the
Young People ' s Soc ial i st League ( YPSL ) ) the youth
aff i l i ate of the Soc i al i st Part y . Under this le ade r­
ship) SPU adopted a "third-camp" pos it i on) to the left
of SANE but st ill attempt ing t o as se s s equal b lame for
the cold war to the U . S . and the Soviet Uni on .
During the 1961-62 s chool year) SPU chapters
organized demonst rat ions and educ at i onal c ampaigns
against nuc lear t e st ing and agai nst fallout shelters
( which it s aid made nuc lear war more l i kely by
fo stering the illus i on that casualt ies could be s igni­
f i c ant ly cut ) . In the fall of 1961 student s from
Grinnell) Carlet on) and a few othe r college s fasted
and picketed at the White House against the re sumpt ion
of above -ground nuc le ar testing) and in February 1962
more than 5)000 student s went to Washington to picket
the White House ; and Soviet embas sy: and t o attempt t o
pe rsuade gove rnment off i c i al s to the ir point of view .
They were met by conde s cens ion and s ke pt i c i sm) as when
Chet Hol l i f ie ld) a leader of the libe ral c ongre s s i onal
bloc) c alled the ir pos it i on pape r a "bunch of baloney . "
Atmospher i c t e st i ng was re sumed w ithin a few weeks .
Th i s march) though support ed by SPU) was init iated by
the Harvard-Radcliffe peace group) TCCSIN . It i s
de s c ribed in Steven V . Robert s) "I Something Had to be
Done ) I" The Nat ion , March 3, 1962 .
By the end of the 1961-52 s chool year) SPU ' s
membership had t r ipled to more than 3)000) whi ch me ant
a far large r number of student s involved i n l oc al
chapter act ivit i e s . St i ll) it I-lOuld be e asy to over­
est imate the extent t o Hhi ch the pe ace movement
actually pe rme ated the campuse s . More oft en than not)
the pe ace act iv i s t s Here regarded Hith indifference or
dist ast e by the majority of st udent s . More ove r, Hh ile
 9

the people who engage d in peace act ivit ie s were al s o

the one s most i nterested i n c iv i l right s , the se c on­
ce rns were rarely l i nked t ogether . And , there
were only s c attered inst ances of student s t aking
act ion on i s sue s that dire ctly involved the univer­
s ity . ( Except ions were a s it - in at the Univers ity
of Ch i cago demanding an end to di s criminat ion in
Uni vers ity- owned te nements and a suc ce s sful student
st rike at Queens College protest ing a ban on
communi st spe akers . ) At many c ollege s , the c lose st
th i ng to a synthe s i s of on-c ampus and off - c ampus
conce rns was the format i on of l ibe ral polit i c al
part ies stre s s ing both type s of i s sue s . The se in­
c luded SlAT.s at Be rke ley ( the f i rst ) , POLIT at
Chi cago ( whose slogan vias "A Free Un ive r s ity in a
Free Soc iety" ) , SCOPE at Obe rl in , VOICE at Mi chigan ,
ACT ION at Columb i a , and a s c ore of others . F or the
most part, howeve r , the se part i e s included people
rang ing f rom l ibe ral Repub l i c ans to Trot sky i st s ,
and they hashe d out st ands on individual i s sue s
rather than developing a gene ral crit ique o f soc iety.

ENTER SDS

It was in early 1962 that St udent s for a

Democ rat i c Soc iety began t o emerge as an import ant
source of st rategic thinking for campus act ivist s .
SDS grew out of the Student le ague for Industrial
Democ racy ( SLID ) , the ins ignif i c ant youth aff iliate
of the soc ial democ 'rat i c league for Indust r i al
Democ racy . Although Jame s Farme r and G abriel Kolko
had each he ld the off ice of exe cut ive secret ary of
SLID dur ing the 1950s , it had never made any appre ­
c i able he adway against the prevai ling de adne s s of
c ampus l i fe . ( See Andre Schiffrin ' s art i cle below . )
Despite a change in t itle in 1960, and de sp ite the
growth of student pol it i c al int ere st that spring,
SDS was st i l l more de ad than alive in 1961. What
brought it to life was the work of t iJO leaders of
VOICE at the Un ivers ity of Michigan , Al Haber and
Tom Hayden . They felt that s ingle-i s sue organ i z a ­
t i ons working f o r peace o r c ivil right s were not
enough . They developed cont acts w ith st ude nt
10

activists elsewhere in the c ountry) arguing that maj or

p olitical is sue s were interconne cted ( e . g . Southe rn
Democrats in C ongre s s were supporter s of the C old War
as well as being segregationist s ) and that a movement
had to be c re ated to w ork f or s ocial change on a broad
front . A preliminary meeting in Ann Arbor in
De cemb e r 1961 re sulte d in a c all for a founding c on ­
vention in June, Hayden w a s c ommis sioned t o draft an
SDS manife sto, which has b e c ome known as the "Port Huron
Statement' b e c ause the c onvention was he ld at a United
Auto Worke r s cente r in Port Huron) Michigan .

NOT SO LONG AGO • • •

"Without doubt, the high �cint of'my tour was at

Ann Arbor where I atten�ed the Confetence on Human
Rights in the North sp�nsered by the:Stucents for
Democratic Scciety� .' � On the opening night, the
key-note address'wes given.by Baycrd Rustin • • • •

The SOS, • • ' . ,is the stuc;ent section of the League

for InJustrJal Democrccy • • • its �c0rcGch is not
specificpl,IY(3ociu!ist. It �ght be best described
as a stuJent eJucat!0n.:-.d ,society ccrrposed iby iJ
broad cOGILtion of liber�ls andJemocr�tic.sociel­
ists• • •

JoT. Burnett,Nationcl Sect'y

Y.PoS.Lo, May, 1960

Along with two othe r e arly do cument s) a Hayden

spee ch at Y ale in March ( reprinted in t he =:: o hen-Hale
anthology as "Student Social Action" ) and Al Hab e r's
pamphlet 'Student s and Labor)" the Port Huron manife sto
stands as a remarkab le statement of the s ocial analysis
which SDS brought t o the new student movement . It ran
t o 54 single-spaced mime ographed page s . Its main
thrust vJaS our gene ration ' s dis c overy of the hollow ­
n e s s of the Ame r i c an dre am . It c alled f or mas sive
pub lic pre s sure to make the Ame rican g ove rnment an
e ccnomy re sponsive to popular c ontrol) and dec lared
the b ankruptcy of Ameri c a ' s C old War policie s . It
arg1led that " not even the libe ral and s o cialist
preachings of the past seem ade quate to the forms of
 11

the pre sent , " and p ledged SDS t o work for the crea­
t ion of a "new left . 'I Wh i le spe akin", hopefully of
the growth of the c ivil r i ght s and peace moveme nt s ,
and c aut iously of organi ze d labor, the Port Huron
St atement put spe c ial emphas i s on the potent ial of
the un ive "' s ity as a rad ic al center . " Social relev­
anc e , the ac ce s s ib i l ity of knolwedge , and inte rnal
openne s s - -the se together make the .mive r s it y a
potential b ase and aGency in a movement for soc i al
change . "

SNCC AND THE SOuTH

At the same t ime t hat SDS and the new campus

politlcal partie s were stre s s ing the potenti.al of
the lmive rs ity, SNCC w as movin::.; awayC'rom it s origi­
nal univers ity base and t ow ard::rass root s orGan i­
zing in the worst are as of the South. The pe riod
_07 dire ct act ion wh i2h had started w ith the s it-ins
came t o a c l imax in the l ate spr ing and summe r of
1901 w ith the freedom ride s, integrated bus trips
int o the South durinu whi c h many of the ride rs were
beaten brutally wh i le local pol i ce st ood by. SNCC
people he lped lead and sust ain the c'reedom ride s ,
but i n a series 0:" d i s c ls s ions over the summe r they
'vle i ghed the advant age s 01' mde rt akin-.: vot er regis­
t rati on work as well as d irect act jon , this step
was indirectly encouraged by the Kenne dy admini stra­
t ion . In the fall the de c i s i on was made to take
this step. Robert ]\;oses had gone int o Mi s s i s s ippi
in the SUlEme r and w as alre ady c ond,ct ino?; a vot e r
re cSistrat i on s chool in McComb. He was j o ined by
others , whi le another group of SNCC workers moved
t o Albany, Ge org ia, t o begin a c ity-wide n,as s move­
ment arriong the Negroe s there . In all , s ixteen de ­
c ided to drop out of school and do ful l t ime work
for SNCC, living at a sub s istence level among the
pe ople they were trying t o organ ize. They were
j oined by an increas ing number of others , unt il the
fal l 0: 1963 there were more than 150 ful l t ime
'vlorkers , most of Ilhom had come from c ollege campuse s.
Meet i ng w ith violence and police brut al ity in Mc Comb
and Albany , SNCC only per s i sted and even spre ad out

-� J
12

furthe r into the Mis sis sippi de lta and s outhwestern

Ge orgia .
Although the Kennedy administration had e n c our­
aged SNCC to emphasize vot e r regist ration , it was not
willing to provide prote ction for those who went out
and e ngaged in it . The patt ern which was t o b e c ome so
COllimon in the South- - local authoritie s permitting , or
t aking part in , be atings while FBI men l ooked on and
t ook note s - -b�c ame e st ab lished during this pe riod .
Each of these episode s , and e ach futile telegram sent
t o Att orney General Robert Kennedy , inc re ased the
cynicism of the SNCC w orke rs about the administration's
sincerity . The limite d c ove rage which the beat ings
got in the northern pre s s al s o fed the b itterne s s .
The st ory of this e arly period of SNCC is re­
l ated very well in Howard Zinn ' s book , SNCC: The New
Ab olitionist s , mentione d above . T om Hayden wrote a
p amphlet on the McComb activity in the f all of 1961,
c alled 'Revolution in Mis sissippi . " Zinn ' s spe cial
report fur the Southern Regional C ouncil , Albany : A
Study in National Re sponsibility (1962) is a telling
c ritique of the federal government ' s role . The weekly
Missis sippi Free Pre s s , starte d in the winter of
1901:62, is an excellent s ource , as is SNCC ' s own
monthly publicat ion The Student Voice .
As SNCC's organizing drive s c aught hold in 1962
and e arly '63, it took on a new import ance in the
North as well as the South . The peace movement , which
had seemed so promising on the northern c ampuse s during
t he �961-62 s chool ye ar, lost much of it s steam . SPU
membership c limbed s light ly, and most of it s chapters
e ngaged in some k ind of prote st activity at the time
of the C ub an mis sile c risis in October , but the ex­
citement of the previous year was soon dis sipated .
Many student s had worked hard on behalf of "peace
c andidates; in the November ele ction s ; the re sult s
were almost uniformly dis appointing . Some of the SPU
chapters became emb roiled in factional dis put e s between
members of YPSL and of the Trot skyist Young Socialist
Alliance , c l imaxed at the nat ional c onvention in June
when the leadership w on a pyrrhic victory . The sign ­
in� of a limited t e st ban t re aty by the U . S . and
Rus sia in June only ratifie d the de c line of the peace
 13

movement as an important factor on American c am­

puse s .
At the same time , SDS was making steady but
un spe ctacular progre ss in re c ruiting new members .
By the end of the s chool year there were still fewer
than a thousand members . Particularly afte r the
mis sile crisis and the November e le ction , campus
political activity in the North came to be cente red
almost exc lusive ly in civil rights . There was a
great incre ase in fund-raising in support of SNCC,
undertaken partly by SDS and the fledgling Northe rn
Student Movement and partly by student governments
be longing to the National Student As s ociation .
'SNCC made effective use of the annual NSA congre s ses
to inform northern student leaders of its work and to
lay the groundwork for fund-raising . The Northern
Student Movement unde rtook tutorial programs in
northern ghettoe s and al so aide d in eff orts to force
c ompanie s to hire more Negro employe e s . In the e arly
spring, students on northern campuses c o l le cte d food
and c lothing for poor Ne groe s in Leflore County ,
Mis sissippi , after the c ounty supe rvisors cut off
all welfare payme nts. Civil rights songs, often
populariz ed by the SNCC Free dom singers, be came
popular at many col lege s . These s ongs , typically,
we re adaptation s of songs used in the labor union
drive s of the 1930s (which had in turn been based on
Ne gro spiritual s ) . However, Josh Duns on IS Fre edom
In the Air: Sone; Movements of the Sixtie s (Inter­
nationa� paperback, 19b�shows-the impetus which
the civil rights movement gave to the popularity of
topic al folk songs in the middle of the de cade .
The re are very few sources on student political
activity in the North in this pe riod . SDS had a
mimeographed dis cus sion bulletin by this time , and
SPU continued to publish its ovm monthly bulle tin .
The Northern Student rv;ovement is discussed in an
Article by R . W . Apple in The Reporte r , February 14,
1963 , entitled ' Ivy-LeagueIntegrationists. "
Philip Altbac h, forme r SPU head, dis cussed the status
of the campus peace movement in "The Quiet C ampus ,
New Leader , August 5 , 1963. The title was apt .
14

CRISIS IN C IVIL R IGHTS

In the late spring and summe r of 1963 the c iv i l

r i ght s movement thrust it self upon t h e nat i on's c on ­
s c i ousne s s w ith a new intens ity . The re were hundreds
of demonst rat i on s , t rigge re d by a protest led by
Mart in Luthe r K ing in B i rmingham . C ivil unre st be came
so w ide spread by the early summer that Pre s ident
Kennedy , who had been ext remely caut i ous in taking any
act ion on c ivil r i ght s , was forced t o make a s pe c ial 1
addre s s t o C ongre s s in which he proposed a c omprehen- - 1
s ive b ill including a ban on segregat i on in pub l i c
fac i litie s , unde r the c omme rce clause of the C onst i -
1
t ut i on . Thi s b ill was f i nally pas s e d , aft e r be i ng
st re ngthened on its way through C ongre s s . In the l
c ourse of 1963 more than 2 0 , 000 c ivil -right s demon-
strat ors were arre sted, and the pre s sure of the mas s
j
prot e st s forced s ome degree of integrat i on in s core s
of s outhern c ommun it ie s in advance of passage of the
federal law . C ivil right s became the primary t op i c
for new spaper� mas s magazines, and rad i o show s , and
f oundat i on money was suddenly made availab le to the
lead ing c iv i l - r i ght s groups . SNCC moved int o Alabama
for the f i rst t ime w ith a voter regi strat i on proj e ct
i n Se lma , pushed furthe r into s outhw e st Ge org i a , and
cont inue d it s vwrk in Mi s s i s s i pp i . In the w inte r of
1 952-63 the pioneer SNCC w orker s in that state had
helped to form the C ounc i l of Fede rat e d Organ i zat i ons
( COFO ) , in which SNCC , the NAACP, C ORE , and the
S outhern Chr i st ian Leade rship C onfe rence j o ined t o ­
gether t o s upport the vote r reg i st rat i on effort . The
main force w ith in C OFO was , from the beginn ing , SNCC ,
s ince it vJaS SNCC which p rovide d the shock troop s t o
organ ize in the most host i le areas . ( Th i s was the
gene ral pattern dur ing the early ' 60s: young pe ople
f rom SNCC , and to a le s se r extent C ORE, did the most
dangerous and least - pub l i c ized work . ) In the f al l of
1963 C OFO , aided by Yale and Stanford student s , s pon -
s ore d a 'free dom ballot " in whi ch ove r 80 , 000 black
Mi s s i s s ipp ians "voted" for state NAACP leade r Aaron
Henry for governor . It was out of thi s expe r iment
that the Mi s s i s s ippi Freedcm Democ rat i c Part y was t o
grovi the follow i ng year .
 15

At t hi s st age i n SNCC ' s existence i t tended

to be lumped t ogether in the pub l i c mind with the
older, e st ab l i s hed civil right s group s ; the f amil iar
spectrum , r ight to left , was the Urb an League , the
NAACP, King ' s Southern C hrist i an Le ade rship C on­
ference , C ORE , and SNC C . At t he end of August ,
however, at the gigant i c March on Washington organ­
i z e d by Bayard Rust i n and supported by all the
civil right s groups , c hai rman John Lew i s of SNCC
bri efly disturb ed t he i mage of harmony . In his
speech he denounced t he Kennedy administrat i on for
failing to enforce exi st ing c ivil right s laws , and
in part icular for not protect ing sout he rn Negroe s
against v iolence . As ide from Zinn's b ook , two good
sources on SNCC in 1963 are C harles Jone s , "SNCC :
Nonvi olence and Revolut ion, ' New Uni ver s i ty Thought ,
Sept . -Oct . 1963, and Anne Braden , "The Student s: A
New LOOK, " The Sout hern Patriot , May , 1963 .

ERAP

The burgeoning of c ivil right s act ivity in

1963 he lped l ay the groundwork, w ithin SDS , for the
emergence of a new polit i c al st rategy . In a sense ,
SDS prepared to follow SNCC away from the c ampus .
Ame r i c a and the New Era , a 3 0- page posit ion pape r
adopted by the June 1963 SDS c onvent ion , was in
effe ct an att ack on t he New Front ier and a c all for
gras s- root s insurge ncy focus ing p art i cularly on
e c onomic i s sue s . The New Era docume nt charged that
" 70 million Americans are l iving below offi c i ally­
def ined minimum st andards of de cency--w ith income s
of le s s than $100 a week for fami l ie s of four . " Of
organ i z e d liberal i sm the document said: 'A style
of polit i c s whi c h emphas i z e s cockt a i l part i e s and
seminars rather than protest marche s , local reform
moveme nt s , and indepe ndent bases of pOlve r, c annot
achieve leve rage with re spe ct to an e st ab l i s hment ­
oriented admini strat i on and a fundan:ent ally react ion­
ary C ongre s s i onal ol igarchy . "
St i l l , America and the New Era was ec lectic in
it s proposals for act ion . -rrhe mo�important
c at alyt ic agent in s hift ing SDS ' s attent ion to the
; I

j
IS

organlzlng of poor pe ople came lat e r in 1963 as t he

re sult of the expe rience s of it s Swarthmore affiliate .
I n the late spring and summe r membe r s of the group
w orked in the SNC C -initiated civil right s movement in
C ambridge , a t ight ly se gre gated Eastern Shore t own in
Maryland . At the st art of the following s chool ye ar,
a number of them de cided that their C ambridge exper­
ie nce c ould be applied closer t o home . They started
an organizing proj e ct in the e conomically depre s sed
IJegro se ction of nearby Che ste r , Pennsylvania . The
demonstrated ability of the Swarthmore student s to work
c l o se ly with urban poor Negroe s in Che ster exerted a
p owerful influence within SDS . Two pape rs by Carl
Wittman , he ad of the Swarthmore group , illustrate the
opt imism which the Che ster proj e ct enge ndered . ( Both
are reprint ed in the C ohen - Hale anthology: "Student s
and �c onomic Act ion" and 'An Interracial Movement of
the Poor?" w ritten with Tom Hayden . )
The Economic Re search and Action Pro j e ct ( ERA? )
set t,p by SDS large ly 8S a 'c ',c,dy group, b e c ame c on -
verted during the course of tri,, "ear- into a mCljor or­
ganizing program . By the sunllL, o,;:� the foLLovling year
SDS had de c ided t o make .2;Ri',F tLe main fo cus of it s
act!vity and t o init iate pro�e s in six t o te n norThern
citie s . I,lost of these were in .:.Joer 'dhite areas, b'I.1t
the one which Hayden himsel: we�t to work in was in
the &ll-black Clint on Hill sect�c� of rewark. There
are tvlO recent art i c le s de::ll '!;� tI' C::�',e purposes wh ich
the BRA? organizers had in mind, ond 80th articles are
Qu it e geod: Todd Git lin , The �adical Potential of the
Poor, ' Int ernational Sogialist Journal, No . 24 , 1967 ,
and i i chard Rothst ein , 'ER',P : Evolut i on of the Organi­
zers , ' R adical Americ a , Iv:arch-April 1968.

MISSI SSIPP I SUMMER

, Of the Mis sis sippi Summer proj e ct of 1 964 , litt le

needs t o be s aid here . Early that year, SNCC w orke rs
in COFO de cided, aft e r much he sit ation, t o issue a c all
for a thous and northe rn c ollege student s t o spend the
summer in Mis sis sippi- -he lping with voter registra­
t i on , teachi.ng in improvised " freedom s chools , " and
sharing the physical danger that is a part of every
Ulacf. -,;;erson' s life in Mi s sis sippi . Approximat ely
 17

800 student s re sponded to the c all, repre sent ing a

w ide variety of backgrounds and polit i c al att itude s
( t hough most of the m saw t he se att itude s sw ing t o
the left over t he c ourse of t he summe r ) . Two of
t he m were killed, along w ith a b l ack Mi s s is s ipp i an
working on t he same proje ct . Of t he many b ooks
written about t he summer ' s exper ience, t he best may
be Sally Be lfrage ' s Freedom Summer . A "Letter from
Jackson" by Calvin Trillin, Nell Yorke r, August 29,
1964 tells a gre at de al about the t hin,.ing of Bob
Mose s , the origi nal SNCC worke r in M i s s i s s i pp i and
he ad of t he Freedom Summe r pro j e ct . St aughton
Lynd, who was in gene ral c harge of the free dorll
schools, wrote about t hem in 'The Fre edom S chools:
C oncept and Organiz atlon, " Free domways, Spri ng 1965.
Dur ing the summer the COFO w orke rs built up a
movement known as the Jvl i s s i s s ippi Freedom Democrat i c
Party ( IvlFDP ) i n which all Mi s s i s s ipp i ans were e li­
gib le to partic ipate ( t hough of c ourse in actual
pract ice s c arcely any whit e s chose to ) . Delegates
"Jere elected in grass-root s c aucus e s, and a full
de legat ion was chosen to demand seat s at the De mo­
crat i c party convent i on in At l ant i c C ity . Lawyer
for t he �lFDP was Joseph Rauh, Jr . , of Washingt on , a
long-time le ade r of t he Ame r i c ans for Democ rat i c
Act ion . Whe n i t appe ared that a b itter f loor fight
might ensue , w ith nort hern de le gat i ons having t o
vote for o r agai nst the MFDP, liberals w ithin t he
party arranged a compromise by which t he regular
de legat i on would ret ain its seat and the MFDP would
get two of its leaders seated as de legat e s at large .
Rauh advi sed t he MFDP t o accept, making it c lear
t hat northe rn l ib erals in t he convent ion would not
support t he m if t hey refused the offe r . Mart in
Luthe r King and Bayard Rust in al so appeared before
t he dele gat ion and adv i sed ac cept ing t he compromi se;
Mose s and Jame s Forman of SNC C spoke briefly, urging
a st and on princ iple, and t hey were overwhe l mingly
supported . More t han any other s ingle event, thi s
dramat ized t he readine s s of mil it ant s in the c i vil
ri ght s move ment t o break away from the l iberal
coalit ion of the Johnson admi nistrat ion . Pleas t hat
un ity was needed in order t o keep Barry Goldwater
18

from being e le cted pre sident me ant le s s than their j ust

c l aim t o the s e at s . Jack Minn i s , a white SNCC w orke r ,
re c ounted the e p i s ode in liThe Mis s i s s ippi Freedom
Democrat i c P art y : A New De c laration of I ndepende nce , "
Freedomway s , Spring 1965 see als o Murray Kempt on ,
::C onsc ience of the C onve nt i on , Ne,v Republ i c ,
'I

September 5 , 1 964 .

RETURN TO C AMPUS

F or a variety of c aus e s , not the l e ast of which

was t he expe rience of hundreds of northern student s
w ith rac i al oppre s s i on i n the Deep S outh , the 1964 -
6 5 s chool ye ar was one of unpre cedente d fe rment on the
c ampus . The symbol , above all , w as Berkeley . Nothing
else that happened in the 19 60s did so much t o f ocus
publ i c attention on c o llege stucent s than d id the
Free Spe e ch Movement at Be rl-::e ley . T ouched off vlhen
the Be rJ\:e ley admini strat ion c lamped dOvln on c ampus re­
c ruit i ng for off-c ampus c i vil right s act ivit ie s , the
rr:ove!!.ent deve l oped into a maj o r challenge to the
Un i versi ty' s status quo . j/lar i o Sav i o , le ade r of the
FS]vl, h it a re spons ive chord among the demonst rat ors
when he s a i d , j ust prior t o the Sproul Hall s it - in in
which ne arly 800 were arre st ed:

The re ' s a t ime whe n the ope rat ion of the machine
b e c oLe s s o odious , make s you s o sick at he art ,
that you c an ' t t ake part , you c an ' t even t ac itly
t ake part. And you ' ve got t o put your bod i e s
upon the ge ars and upon t h e wheels , upon the
lever s , upon all the apparatus , and you ' ve got
to make it st op. And you ' ve got to ind i c at e to
the pe ople vlho run it , to the people who own it ,
t hat unle s s you ' re free, the machine w i ll be
prevented from vlOrk inij at all .

It is s ign i f i c ant t hat the F ree Spe e ch l/]ovement

grell out of a st ruggle for c ivil right s , the one i s sue
which had proved c apable of arousing the moral fe rvor
of student s in the e arly s ixt ie s . Milit ant demonstra­
tion s against large dis c r iminat ojy h i ring ptactice s by
Bay /-\.re a employe rs had brought arre st s and had al s o
brcu�ht pre s sure on the Un ive r s ity to clamp down on
 19

its students . With i n the FSM it was b e l ieved that

the b an on on- c ampus re c ruiting c ame as a re sult of
p i c keting aga inst e x - Senator W i l li am Knowland's
Oakland T r ibune . In the c ourse of the i r confront a­
tion with the U . C . administrat i on , howeve r , many of
the Berke ley students had to confront for the f irst
time their own place in soc iety . Sav i o , a vete ran
of Mi s s i s s ipp i Summe r , made the conne ction thi s way:

In Mi s s i s s ippi an aut ocratic and p owerful

minor i ty rule s , through organ i z e d violenc e , t o
suppre s s the vast , virtually powerle s s maj ority .
I n C al iforn i a , the privileged minority man i ­
pulat e s the Uni vers ity bure auc racy to sup ­
pre s s the students' politi cal expre s s ion .
That "re spectab le" bure auc racy mask s the
f inan c i al plutocrats ; that impers onal bure au­
cracy i s the eff i c ient enemy in a "Brave New
vlorld . "

The FSM , of course , was not s imply based upon

an intellectual critiQue of the Unive rs ity, or the
"California power structure . " The re was a flair to
the p rote st--and a sense of humor--that showed s ome ­
thing more . The FSM rebels showed a creative and
innovative ab ility that was typ i f i e d both by the i r
s atir i c al songs and the ir e stab l i shme nt o f a "Free
Un ive rs ity of C al if orni a" during the Sproul Hall
s it - in . In the afte rmath of Berke ley, the mas s
media c ast w orr ied looks at the Ameri c an campus;
they dis covered, for the f irst time , that a new sub ­
culture had eme rged, one that was b oth freewheeli ng
i n its l ife style and seri ous in its polit i cal be­
liefs . Berke ley symb o l i z e d a uni on , howeve r frai l ,
between b ohemian i sm and polit i c al act ivism.
P artly be c ause t he FSM had a number of art i ­
culate spokesme n and partly b e c ause the Berke ley
c ampus was full of f aculty pundits , there is a vast
literature on the e p i s ode . An excelle nt ac c ount by
a n on- student p art i c ipant is Hal Drape r's Berkeley:
The New Student Revolt ( Eve rgreen p ape rb ack , 1 965).
The re are two p aperback antholog i e s , one edited by
Michael V . Miller and Susan G il�re ( Revoluti on at
20

Be rke ley, De l l , 1965 ) and the othe r by Seymour M .

Lipset and She ldon S . Wold in (The Berkeley Student
Revolt , Doub leday Anchor, 1965� Both are good, but
the L ipset -Wol i n co lle ct ion i s ffiore comprehens ive .
The Trouble at Berkeley (t ext by St eve n vlarshaw, D i ablo
Pre s s , 1965)-rs a f i ne book of phot ographs w ith some
comment ary . F i nally, there are two magaz i ne art i cles ,
not inc lude d in e ithe r ant hology , which de se rve reading:
Gerald Rosenfe ld's "Generational R e volt and t he Free
Speech Move ment , " Libe rat ion , December 1964 and January
1955, and Mi chae l Ros sman ' s " Barefoot in a Marshmallow
VIorld, " Rampart s , January 1966 . Both are excerpted in
Jacobs and Landau , The New Radi cals .

PART IC IP ATORY DEMCCRACY

The FSM was not duplicated el sewhere during that

s c hool ye ar, though there were w ide ly reported inc id­
e nt s of student prote st on othe r campuses later in the
sc hool ye ar --as at normally placid Yale when stude nts
pi c��eted against the dismis sal of a popul ar phi losophy
profe s sor . Dur ing this pe riod of l ate 1964 and early
1965, howeve r , t here were four othe r developme nt s that
were t o play a highly import ant role in giving shape t o
the New Left whi ch may b e said to have finally e merged
as a dist inct ent ity . The s e deve lopme nt s had t o do
w ith c hanges i n SNCC ; parallel change s in the ERAP
proj e ct s . the sudden growt h of prot e st against the
Vietnam VIar follow ing t he init iat i on of regular bomb ­
ing raids ove r Nort h Vietnam i n February 1965; and the
growt h of a small but act ive tendency cent e red in the
May 2nd Moveme nt which might be c alled the " new ultra­
left . "
SNCC did not ac cept as f i nal it s rebuff at the
At l ant i c C ity c onvent ion . Although it knew that it s
northern l iberal "allies" were eager t o bury the i s sue ,
the �WDP colle cted evide nce of vot ing discriminat ion
in Mi s s iss ipp i, and mounted a challenge to the seat i ng
of that state ' s C ongre s s ional de legat i on when C ongre s s
c onve ned i n January . It took an intensive pub l i c ity
campaign by SNCC even to get t he i s sue before the
House , and the 140-odd northe rners who voted against
seat ing the Mis s i s s ippians did so, for the most p art ,
 21

re luctant ly . Members of Congre s s depend on e ach

other for favors and thanks to the seni ority
southe rne rs t e nd to oc cupy t he most powe rful posi­
tions whe n the Democrat s are i n power . Thus , de ­
spite the fact that this was e asily t he mos t liberal
C ongre s s since t he days of t he New De al , the MFDP
could obt ain not hing more t han a perfunctory refe rral
of the ir protest to a spe cial House committ ee . The
MFDP persisted, eve n after t his rebuff , and did
everything it c ould to :�eep t he issue alive during
t he spring and summer; SNCC att ached far gre at e r
import ance t o this t han to Pre sident Johnson ' s vot ing
right s bill , passed that summe r . In September t he
Mis s i s sippi challenge was de finite ly re j e ct e d by t he
House , as it ac cept ed the spe c i al committee ' s con­
c lus ion that it was powerle s s to b ar t he iVI i s sisippians.
Thi s t ime the MFDP got 149 votes for it s posit i on ,
a miniscule gain over the January vote .
Largely as a re sult of it s b ad expe rienc e s
wit h l iberal Democrat s , as well a s it s succe s s in
organizing the gras s - root s l'vlFDP , t here vJaS an in­
cre asing tendency in SNCC to elaborate a st rategy of
part icipat ory de moc racy , in which pe ople would or­
ganize t o make de c i sions for themse lve s "Jit hout
manipulation . The mode l was t he MFDP, in whi ch
SNCC w orke rs had tried t o avo id impos i ng their mm
i de as of which direction t he movement should go .
Gradually it became clear to \-,hite libe rals and
IT
radicals t hat SNCC was not s i mply t he " most mi l itant
of the civil right s groups , but had a set of distinc ­
t ive ide as about how change would come ab out i n
s ociety . A number of analys e s appeared which are
wort h re ading in order t o get a pict ure of the civil
right s movement in 1965 and SNC C's re l at i onship to
it . The longe st and best was Anne Brade n's "The
Southern Freedom Movement in Perspective , ' Mont hly
Review , July- August 1965 . The Movement had a good
article on the l'vlFDP in it s May is sue. Tom Hayden
and Norman Fruchter wrote sympathetic report s in
Studie s on the Left , Wint e r 1965 , and Jack Newfie ld
a somewhat he s it ant one in The Nation, July 19, 1965.
The most exte nded analys i s by a worried liberal was
IT
Pat Hatters ' "Encounter w ith the Fut ure in New
22

Sout h , May 1965 . Two othe r art i c le s t hat are worth

read ing are ft.r..drew Kopkind , 'The New Rdd i c al s in Dixie , "
New Republ i c , Apr i l 10, 1965 , and Bruce Payne , "SNCC:
An Overview Two Years Later , " ( repr inted i n the C ohen­
Hale anthology . )
The t rend in SNCC away from l i beral compromise
and t oward part i c ipatory democ racy was paralled by a
s imi lar c hange in the ERAP proj e ct s init i ated the
previ ous ye a!' by SDS in the North . In 1963, when ERft.P
was original ly conce ived, its founders had bel ie ved
that the Ame rican e c onomy was in a st ate of deepe n ing
c r i s i s and that the threat of mass unemp loyment -­
e spe c ially among the young--was re al . The ten or i ­
g inal ERAP proj e c t s in 1964 had Eotten muc h of t he ir
impet us f rom this analys i s : the name of t he Chicago
project, J . O . LN . ( Jobs or Inc ome Now ) was symbol ic .
The early expe rience of organ i z ing around t h i s i s sue
proved, however, to be d i s c ourag ing . In 1 964- 6 5 the
e mphas i s shifted toward bui lding "c ommunity un ions , "
in "hi c h pe ople in the poor neighborhoods would be
mobil ized on i s sue s l i ke garbage removal , better
s chool s , t raffic l ight s , etc . , and t hrough t he se st rug­
gle s would gain an understanding of t he ways in which
power i s w ielded in soc iety . The se commun ity uni on s ,
run democrat i c ally �and w it hout par l iamentary proce­
dure were also viewed as forming the bas i s for an
alternat i ve center of power: pe ople w ould look to
t he m rather than t o t he c ity author i t i e s for programs
t o meet the i r irr@ediat e and long- range needs .
Andre" Kopkind ' s 'Of , By, and For t he Poor : The
rTew Generat i on of Student Organizer s , " New Republ i c ,
June 19, 1 965, de s c ribe s t he EFAF proj e ct s. Studies
on the Left , whic h concluded after t he John s on-Gold­
wat e r elect ion that the future of t he Left l ay w ith
t he moveme nt s , 'J had a numbe r of exce l lent report orial
p ie c e s dur i ng 1965, inc luding coverage of the Newark,
Chicag o , and C leve land ERAP proj ect s . Tow ard t he end
of 1965, t he New Republ i c pe rf orme d a valuable service
by i nvit in3 a group of New teft act ivists ( C harlie
:;obb, Stoke ly C arm i c hae l , Jean Smit h, and C asey Hayden
0; SNCC and Todd Git l i n , Tom Hayden, and R ichard
F1Ci.c ks of SDS ) to write out t he i r thought s on c on­
tem�orary soc iety . The se e s says , subse quent ly pub­
lisLed as ,!: hought s of t he r.9un� Radi cals ( New Republic
 23

paperback , 1966) , are perhaps the b e st expre s sion of

the New Left philos ophy as it had deve l oped at that
p oint . As C armichae l summarized, " I place my own
hope for the United St at e s in the growth of b elief
among the unqualified that they are in f act quali­
fie d : they c an articulate and be re sponsible and
hold p owe r . " This b o ok a l s o cont ains a serie s of
c ritical c omment arie s on the New Left , but I rving
Howe ' s arrogant " New Style s in ' Leftism, , , , Dis sent ,
Summe r 1 965 , i s a more import ant c ritique . The same
is sue of Dis sent c ont ains a short art icle by
St aught on Lynd , " The New R adicals and ' Part i c ip at ory
Democracy, " , probably the b e st exposition of this
key New Left concept .

VIETNAM

It is hard t o s ay why there vias so little pub ­

lic prote st ove r U . S . policy in Vietnam bef ore
February 1965 . It is t rue that few American troops
were in Vietnam ( 16 , 000 in mid - s umme r 1964 ) and
that they "Jere euphemistic ally known as " advisers , "
but the b road out line s of the c onf lict Here not at
all un��nown : an unpopular conservat ive government in
S outh Vietnam, an indigenous gue rilla movement get ­
t ing mo st of it s arms by c apturing Ame rican weapon s
f rom g overnment troop s , and systematic terror c am­
paign s against the guerillas . I n the fall of 1963 ,
before Pre sident Diem was assas sinated and replaced
by the next in a serie s of Ame ric an-based regime s ,
the Student Pe ace Union he ld small demonstrations
at place s where Diem ' s siste r - in - l aw , Madame Nhu ,
was spe aking ; and the following spring the May 2nd
C ommittee ( later the May 2nd Movement ) was formed
as the re sult of a student c onference at Yale .
M - 2 -M viewed the Vietnam war as a natural outgrowth
of an imperialistic foreign policy ( a view shared by
the Y oung Socialist Alliance but not - - at that time - ­
by othe r young radical groups ) . At it s meeting in
De cember 1964 , the National C ouncil of SDS de c �ded
t o c all f or an anti -war demonstrat ion in Washingt on ;
D . C . , in April , but there was no expe ct ation that
this protest vlould attract more than a few thous and

/
/
24

student s . It w a s in e arly February 1965 , when the U . S .

began daily b omb ing raids i n North V i etnam - -and made it
c le ar that Ame r i c an t roops w ould be sent i n whatever
number ne c e s s ary to win the w ar - -t hat protest s b e c ame
w ide spre ad . The SDS march i n Washingt on drew over
1 5 , 000 , most of them stude nt s , the response be ing far
gre ater than any of the SDS leade r s had thougbt pos ­
s ib�e . ( See Jack Smith , "The Demand i s ' Pe a ce , ' "
Nat i onal Guardi an , Apri l 24, 1965 , and "Report f rom
the Edit ors : The SDS March on Washington , " Studies
on the Left , Spring 1965 . ) Start ing at the Unive rs ity
of Michigan , teach- ins "lere he l d at a number of c ol ­
lege s and uni ve r s i t i e s i n whi ch speakers , most of them
f ac ulty rr.embers , de alt w ith vari ous aspe ct s of the
Viet nam w ar . At the i r best , the t e ach - ins went b e ­
yond the immed i at e i s sue o f the war and c onfront e d
que st i ons about the nature o f Ame r i c an soc iety . At
the teach - ins there was a rapport and an e agerne s s for
learning that i s rare on un i vers ity c ampus e s . The
l arge st , Vietnam Day at Berkeley, dre"l up to 1 5 , 000
student s at a t ime during the 36 hours it lasted . The
teach - ins are d i scussed in ; 'Teach- in : New F orum for
Reason , The lJat i on , liiay 3 1 , 1965 ; Mit chel l Levitas ,
: V i et nam C ome s t o Oregon Uni ver s i ty, " New York T ime s
LVia gaz ine , May 9 , 1965 ; and in two exce llent art i c le s
by J ame s G i lbert and J oan Wallach S c ott i n Stud i e s on
--

the Left , Summer 1965 .

The most mil it ant w ing of the Vietnam prot e st was
repre sented by the May 2nd Movement . Although M - 2 -M
was st i :_ 1 small , and was under st rong influence f rom
the Progre s s i ve Labor Party , it 'Has quite act i ve on
e astern c ampuse s and was ahead of it s t ime i n st re s ­
s ing two theme s that were l at e r t o b e c ome ext reme ly
impcrt ant t o the New Left . I t s ant i - imper i a l i st
cri� i que of Ame r i c an f ore i gn policy denied that Viet ­
naIr was an " aberrat i on " and ins i st e d that Vietnam had
t O Je underst ood in the l i ght of Ame r i can e c on om i c
expan s i on . ivi- 2 -M ident i f i e d w ith the Vietname se ( and
C ub E n ) revolut i onar ie s , and viewed them as f ighters
for nat i onal l iberat ion from fore i gn c ap i t al i st con­
trol . And , M - 2 -M c i rculated a statement indi c at ing
-chat �.t s meL,bers would refuse military serv i ce i n
'Jiet nall b e c aus e of the i r opp o s it i on t o the war .
 25

This was a pre c ursor to the pre sent draft re s i st ance

moveme nt , although M- 2 -M was so small that i t s
st atement re ce ived l ittle attent ion at the t ime .

SillIlMARY

Roughly s ince 1960 there has been a s o c i al

moveme nt , c omposed mainly of student s , which has
thre atened the e quilib r ium of Ame r i c an s o c iety .
Thi s threat was not , at f irs t , unamb iguously rad i c al :
it was l ibe ral i n the nature of it s surface demands
( such as rac i al integrat ion, an end to nuclear t e s t ­
ing , and free spee ch ) b ut rad i c al in it s di strust of
c ompromise and in i t s procl ivity for dire ct act i on .
Ove r a pe riod of years form and c ontent merge d , and
the result was s omething that c ould legit imately b e
c al led a New Left . The c oncept of part i c ipat ory
democ racy , as evolved by SDS and SNC C , offe re d b oth
a mode of operat ion and a crit i que of we lfare - st ate
l iberal ism . Moreove r , it furni she d the b as i s for a
revolt against the un ive r s ity environment i n wh i ch
most New Left i st s f ound themselve s . The ide a that
the " normal channel s " are instrume nt s of man ipulat ion,
and that pe ople must be mot ivate d t o make de c i s ions
for themse lve s , was clearly app l i c able to the
un ive r s ity as well as t o other are as of soc ietY j thi s
i s what made stude nt radi cals re al i ze that they no
l onge r had s imply t o fight othe r people ' s b attle s .
Since 196 5 , the New Left had unde rgone a num­
ber of change s , b oth in its c onc ept i on of s o c iety and
in it s strategic think ing . Draft re s i st ance , unde r ­
ground newspapers , gue r i lla theatre , and ab ove all
black power , are t e rms that would have evoked few
s i gns of re c ogn it ion three short years ago . But none
of them should be surpri s ing in the l i ght of what
the New Left had b e c ome by 1965 . For they are all
vari at i on s on a theme : the recognit i on that Ame r i c an
l iberal i sm was not enough , that the good soc iety was
one in wh i ch pe ople shaped the ir own i nst itut i ons
t o meet the i r own needs .

j.
26

The Student Movement in the 1950 's : A Remin iscence

Andre Schiffr i n

I 've been asked t o write about t he organi z at ion

t hat immediately pre ceded SDS ; the Stude nt Le ague for
Indust r ial Democracy, and to attempt to de s c r ibe some
aspe ct s of student pol it i c s in t he ' f ift ie s . I d i s ­
ccver that t o do so re ally ent ails writ ing hi story ,
c = rt a inly a diff icult t ask . It i s one thing t o remi ­
n � s c e oral ly or to l ook t hrough the old f i le s of organ­
i Z '3.t i onal c orre spondence and publ i c at ions ' it is quite
an �ther matter to gue s s at t he re asons pe ople act ed as
th�y d i d and dis cove r w hat may be le arne d from the i r
,
eX)er lenc e s . �1
SLID i n my t ime was ali-l ays fasc inated b y it s mm
his'�ory ( re aching b ac k , ult imat ely, t o t he Intercol­
le;:::' ate Soc i alist Soc iety in 1905 ) , and some de cent
re3earch ,v as done . But a great de al was happen ing

1 . �he more I ' ve cons idered this art icle , t he more per­
s�aded I ' ve be come of t he value of serious histori­
C Al re search in this field . T he existence of a
j O'lrnal such as Radi cal Ame r i c a j s already an en­
cotraging indi c at i on . I t hink it might make sense,
how�ver, for student groups to cons ider t he t hought
cf �0ing beyond individual research and con s ide r ing
the ll o s s ib i lity of attempt ing some serious oral
history proj e ct s in this f ield . It might prove i n ­
tere s ; � n6 and fruit ful t o try interview pro j e c t s on
given c ampuse s in whi c h people are asked about
the i r J c l it i cal act ivit i e s i n the ' thirt ie s ,
'iorti� s and ' f ift i e s, to d i s cove r who w a s act ive
and pa,sive , what mot ivate d and threatened people,
1ilhy 'c he ideal i sm of t he 1930 ' s van i s hed so sua­
denly 2 'ter the war, et c .
 27

about us which we were never ab le to inve st igat e - ­

and, of c ourse , we lacked the h i st or i c al perspe c ­
t i ve whi ch might ma}:e a gre at de al more under­
st and ing p o s s ib le now . Without any such re search,
and in fact l acking much good work of any k i nd on
the McC arthy Ye ar s , much that I s ay w ill be s imple
gue s swork b ased on the miniscule s ample that was
repre sented by the student left in my t ime .
In f act , I doubt that it would be an exag­
gerat i on to s ay that in the e ar ly ' f ift i e s all of
the act ivists in eve ry student group t o the left of
center numbered under one hundred . When I f irst
j oined SLID , in 1954 , its t ot al act ive membership
was i n the doz e n s . Of c ourse , f i gure s were inflated
by l e aving pe ople on membership l i st s , allow ing
olde r , partt irr:e student s to stay on " at large ' , et c . ,
but the Y ale chapte r that we st arted that ye ar was
the f irst real SLID c ampus group at the t ime . Thi s
undoubtedly repre sent s a l ow point and a few years
later , one c ould po int to seve ral hundred members
and an aggregate student left of perhaps a thous and
or more . The only n at i onal group of any s i z e other
than SLID i,JaS Student s for Democrat i c Act ion , but
much of it s t ime dur ing those years was spent in the
throe s of c ombat ing Shactmanite 2 ( a brand of
Trot sky i sm ) inf i ltrat i on , which f inally suc ceeded
in k i ll ing off SDA and having it replaced by college
ADA chapters under much t i ghte r organ i z at ional con ­
trol . The Shactman ite s t o o were min i s c ule and were
eff e ct ive only be c ause they spent s o much of the i r
energy i n search and dest roy operat i ons ( though they
had s ome very ab le leaders , a few of whom have b e ­
c ome maj or f i gure s i n t oday ' s " Estab l i shment " Left ) .
The re st of the left c ons isted in a b are ly
existent YPSL, a large ly pape r Labor youth League ,
that had a chapter in W i s c ons in and vari ous groups

2 . The Independent Soc i al i st League ( and it s youth

aff i l i ate , the Soc i al i st Y outh League ) , forme rly
the Worke r s ' Party, emanat ed from a split w ith
the S o c i a l i st Workers ' Party in 1940 ove r the
que st ion of support for the S oviet Uni on in
World War I I . The group ' s ident ified le ade r was
Max Shachtman . ( editor ' s note )
28

t hat one heard of as exi st i ng i n C al iforn i a b ut whose

exi stence was never t angibly mani fe sted . Finally,
there were s c attered Marxi st discus s i on groups on in­
dividual c ampus e s and the o c c as ional gathe r ing of
student s around a popular rad i c al te acher, such as
Mulford Q. Sib ley or Hans Gert h .
Unde r t he se c i rcumst ance s , i t t ook several basic
characteri stic s to have exi sted at all, one of which
"Jas a sense of humor and of proport i on . No one would
have dreamt of us ing an expre s s ion l ike " t he movement '
and phrase s connot i ng mas s act i on were usually vo iced
in a heavy Y i dd i sh accent , sugge st ing Union Square
revolut i onary rhetoric of the thirt i e s .
The s i ze of t he student left i s a maj or factor
in what I am going t o de scribe . People fe lt very dif ­
ferent ly f rom t he way stude nt s ( and others ) do now
t he ir world was far more l i mit ed and much, much less
"JaS done, attempted or even contemplated . My inten­
t i on i s n e it her to ap ologi z e for this nor t o sugge st
that in our way, we did all that could have been done .
But I think t hat it i s import ant to examine t he very
different context and to see what if anything this may
sugge st for t oday or for t he future .
Why were there so few of us ? The f i rst an swer i s
s imply that , a s i s st ill the c ase, we were a microcosm
of the soc iety as a whole . The re was no left t o speak
of anywhere in the ' f ift ie s . No groups, no magaz ine s,
pract i c ally no individuals spoke up for value s t hat
would have been cons idered on t he "left" at that t i me,
much less now . ( Only a few of us in SLID t hought of
ourse lve s as soc ialists of any kind . Most of our me m­
bers were l iberals, t hough, int erest ingly e nough, they
were w illing t o be long to a group that was meant to be
a coalit ion of t he left and were w i lling to cons ider
and di s cus s t he soc ial i st ideas and s olut i ons that we
put fonJard . I su spe ct that most of us, l iberals or
soc ial i st s, have move d cons ide rab ly to the left in our
t hinking s i nce the f i ft ie s , as have most pe ople . ) At
the t ime, however, SLID came c lose t o repre sent ing t he
far left in the un i ve r s it ie s part ly because of what we
st ood for and part ly be c ause there s imply weren ' t any
groups to the left of us, s i zeable as t hat ide ologi c al
are a may now seem t o have been .
 29

I suspe ct that we c an a c c urat e ly think of an

immediate p o stwar w ave of reform i n which every
c ountry s e r i ously cons idered the p os s ib i l ity of a
more e quit able s o c i al re c onstruc t i on . I n the i r
diffe rent way s , the 194 5 -47 government s of both
halve s of Europe man i f e s t ed th i s , and the Truman
admini strat i on had the germs of a genuine program
of th i s k ind . SLID and other groups in the late
' fort i e s se emed to repre sent thi s and they we re
part of a nat ional reformi st mood . It may seem dif ­
f i c ult to b e l ieve at thi s dat e , b ut one of the
nat ional debate top i c s i n my high s chool years w as
whether the rai lroads should be nat i onal i ze d .
Truman , after all , had propo s e d a genuine , nat i onal
he alth plan , c i vil r i ght s , hous ing , et c . , wh i c h
w e r e st i l l sub j e ct s o f debat e : and t h i s i s what the
Left had concent rated on .
By the t ime the Korean War and Senator
McC arthy had had the i r influe n c e , not only ide ology
but almost any othe r i s s ue had died . The ext e nt of
30

t he nat i onal fear ( and c onsequent s i lence ) w as extra­

ordinary and , a s in any period of c ri s i s , one c ould
see how profoundly homogene ous our s o c iety re ally i s .
There was pract i c ally no one left , by the e ar ly
' f ift ie s , t o c ontradict the n at ional mood . True , a few
left -w ing papers managed t o s urvive but were rather
p athet i c . Not only were t hey f inanc i ally poor and
abandoned , but they had re l at ively l ittle to s ay ( and
it must be obvious that one i s l inked to the othe r ) .
I c an st ill remember the May Day i s sues of the
Soc i al i st Party ' s Soc i al i st C a l l , by that t ime reduced
t o a monthly magaz ine , w it h it s me agre i nche s of
" greet ings from a few unions ( the O i l and Che mi c al
'I

Worke rs , and several I . L . G . W . U . and Amalgamated

C l othing Worke r s ' local s ) , and the Berks County
( Penn sylvan i a ) party b ranch . The back page s of all the
leftw ing pape rs b oasted the i r s ke letal c onst itue nce
i n all , a poverty of supporters that should have
moved even the FBI and the few othe r s who bothered t o
keep up w ith the rad i c al pre s s .

THE STUDENT GROUPS

How did thi s affe ct the student s ? In the pre ­

d i c t ab le ways . Kids often j o in polit i c al groups
ac c ording to the ir f am i ly loyalt ies ( thus a good per­
cent age of SLID members had soc i al i st b ackgrounds ) ,
and those vJho need t o rebel must have a place t o turn .
A pape r , a magaz i ne , or e ven a pamphlet i s a s ign of
l ife , an indi c at i on t hat one i s not utterly alone ,
that the c razy ideas whi ch you have nurtured in your
adole s cent he ad and e lab orated over long d i s cus s i ons
in the s choolroom c afeter i a actually e x i st in re ality,
are demonstrable , appeal to othe r s , c an move k ingdoms
and powers . I suspe ct that there are many who share
the appet ite for printed mat e r i al t hat has always
been w ith me ; j udging from the crowded l iterature
t ab le s that st i l l ab ound , th i s i s s t i l l the c ase . To
drmv from my personal expe r ience for a moment , I st ill
vividly re call the d iff i culty w ith whi ch , in h igh
s chool , I found any rad i c al or s o c i al i st mat e rial at
all . C ommun i st b ookstore s st i l l exi sted , but other
type s were rare inde e d . I l ived l arge ly off imported
 31

goods , F ab i an pamphlet s o n the prob lems o f n at ional ­

i se d indust r ie s , and Brit i sh Lab or Party man ife stos .
I rememb e r the exc iteme nt in SLID w ith which we
re ce ive d the utterly staid mimeographed bul let ins of
the ( soc i al democrat i c ) s o c i al i st i ntern at i onal .
When the Kore an war started, I spent seve ral days at
the UN l ibrary trying to re ad t he report s from all
s i de s t o d i s c over what had happene d . New Y ork, in
that re spe ct , was st i l l a haven and I suspe ct it
was part ly b e c ause of this that var ious rad i c al
group s could s t i ll maint ain t iny " New York Reg i onal
groups ' T . T ogether , all the re s ourc e s of the left ,
dome st i c and int ern at ional , c ould enc ourage a hand­
ful of youngsters who then j oined the fract i on of
the i r cho ice and he aded off throughout the country
to create at Yale or Vl i s c ons i n , Ant i och or Reed , the
" Nat i onal ' organ i z at i on that would g i ve hope t o
those vlho st ayed behind .
I ment ion all thi s p artly b e c ause the fore ign
aspects of SLID i n those days were an import ant
factor . For a I"hile , all our nat i onal off i cers ,
myself inc luded , ,'I ere " fore ign born" ( t o use that
thirt ies expre s s i on ) . Not that we were children of
soc i al i st pol it i cans in exile . We were all pretty
average Ame r i c ans by the t ime we re ache d colle ge age .
But for whateve r re ason , whether our own al ienat i on ,
our refus al t o accept Ame r i c a a s it vJas , or a feel ing
that it was our moral duty to he lp our new country
b ack to s an ity, we opted out . C cming from New York ,
as much of the left then did, I suspect we were
c loser t o Europe in our s e arch for solut i on s and i n
our out look if not our ideology . SLID ' s fore ign
pol icy, for instance , for many ye ars centered on
the Gait skill plan , whi ch called for the neutral i z a ­
t i on o f a united Germany and Easte rn Europe a s a
st art of gre at powe r detente ( a plan which I suspect
st i ll make s exce llent sense b ut never seems s omehow
to have entered the mainstream of Ame r i c an pol it i c s ) .
SLID also gre atly valued its a s s oc i ate membership in
the I nte rnat ional Uni on of Soc i al i st Youth- ­
" as soc i ate " b e c ause as part of the t ax exempt LID we
part i c ipated only in educ at i onal act ivity, a t ax
exempt i on which in turn got the LID the meagre trade
32

un ion funds which kept the whole house o f c ards from

c ollaps ing then and there .
Memb ership in IUSY was valuable for all s orts of
re ason s , the major one be ing the maint enance of morale .
I came t o think of an Internat i onal as a group con­
s i st ing of people able t o s ay , "Ah , but e l s ewhere we
repre sent a mass movement' � An awful lot of our fe llow
I USY members , we were to d i s c over , were not much
better off than we but the cont act s were valid and we
found a w ide choice of comrade s , many of whcm were
our genuine counterpart s , j ust as sorr.e of them prove d
t o be harrassed party bure auc rat s trying, as in
England, t o keep the Trot sky i st s from tak ing ove r
the ir youth lYlOVe ment for the nth t ilT:e .
Our ne are st comrade s were the C anad i ans and
though i n the early ' f ift ie s the Cooperat ive C ommon­
we alth Federat ion was no great force it did repre sent
a re al soc i al i st achievement , one of wh i ch I st i l l
feel v i c ar i ously proud . ( See the re cent ly re i s sued
pape rback Agrar ian Sociali sm, written by Seymour
Lipset before he changed h i s mind about l i fe . ) The
C anadians sugge sted that pol i t i c s as we then thought
of it could st ill succeed in North Ameri c a , that
people c ould st i l l redirect as the CCF had done i n the
Province of Saskat chewan the e c onomy t o se rve the ir
needs , that American exploitat i on , as in oil, c ould
be kept out , that soc i al serv i c e s c ould be i mproved
and even ( we were , aft er all , the student le ague for
indust r i al de moc racy ) , that fact or ies could be turne d
ove r to the \vorkers who manned them . 3
The e c onomi c i s sue s that I have j ust ment ioned
are rarely d i s cussed nowadays . Nat i onal i z at i on and
pub l i c ownership seem to have t otally disappeared from
the s ce ne and though I think I unde rst and the re asons
why this has happene d , I am sorry ab out it . One of
SLID ' s maj or pre o c c upat ions , ab stract as it must now
seem, was the deb at e of th i s que st i on and it i s a
debate that should, I think , st ill be with us . The
3 . The terribly dat e d sound of " indust r i al democracy "
may conceal the fact that it i s the same th ing as
part i c ip at ory de moc racy and that one of the re asons
>ve kept the name ( unt i l vie de c i ded that it would be
better pre s s to cho ose the j az z ier name of sds ) was
that we bel ieve d in th i s and fe lt it st i l l to be a
central i s sue .
 33

ownership of Ame rica i s st ili ce ntral t o all else

that follmv s as , in a curi ous way , i s beginning t o
b e recognized i n di scus s i ons o f ghetto e conomics .
Of course , we are not l ike ly at thi s point t o
nat i onal i z e anything and in the k ind o f corporate
st ate that we have deve loped, a nat i onal ized in­
dustry i s l i ke ly to be l ike any other . Yet I st ill
fe e l that it i s only by developing ent ities that
w ork for othe r than profit , whether local poor
people ' s corporat i ons , parallel inst itut i ons in the
pub lic or quas ipub l i c sect or or even nat i onal b odie s
that we can use our re s ource s as they should be .
Th i s i s really not the place t o elaborate on th i s
kind of di scus s ion . my ins i stence o n it probably
suffices t o give a feel of the old fashione d
economic i s sue s that concerned us and that we fe lt
were central t o altering the power st ruct ure of our
count ry .

PARALLELS

For it should als o be adde d that in many ways ,

our analy s i s of the s ociety in which we l ived re ­
semble s that wh ich has been deve loped s ince and
though one can po int to a great many difference s ,
there are als o many cont inuit ies . The quest i on of
part icipat ory or indust r i al democracy i s one . The
role of the profe s s i ons and of profe s s i onals is
anothe r- -thi s was among the l ast project s that we
init i ated and it i s obviously a problem still very
much w ith us . Concern w ith the un iversity and it s
social role was another : the op�Josit i on t o colon i al ­
i s m yet another . Though the pas sage of t ime i s ob ­
vi ous when one re ali zes that we were st i l l talking
about free ing col onies and though so�ewhat e mbar ­
rassed by it s dated slogans , we nonethe less j o i ned
w ith the moveme nt for col oni al fre edom in having
meet ings on Dependent Peoples Freedom ( s ic ) Day - -
a fest ival which I ' ve always i magined h ad been bap ­
t i zed b y a n Indi an o r Burme se comrade .
He l l , then, \<lhat did we do? If we had all
the se int erest ing ideas , how e ffe ct i ve were we ?
To answer thi s , we have to return t o the
 1
nat ional mood wh i ch I de s c r ibed at the beg inn ing of
this art i c le and t o another re lated factor : pe ople
were s c are d . I think that thi s , more than anything
else mattered and it must not be undere sti mated .
McC arthy ' s maj or achievement had been t o s c are every­
one , dmm the l i ne . People "\-J ere afraid to jo i n any­
thing, to s i gn anyt hing, to lend the ir name s t o any­
thing . You had to as sume that the Univers ity would
t urn over me mbership l i sts to the FBI and that , at some J
point , your turn might come before some committee or
other . Of c our se , c ompared to much that has been done ,
since , th i s was small p i ck ings . We were never in
danger the way SNCC workers are eve ryday , we always
st ayed met i culously on the s ide of the l aw , and c ivil
d i s obedience was not even d i s c ussed . T ime s were dif­
fe rent and that i s all that one c an s ay . Yet , ours
was pract ically the only form of dis sent avai l able on
c ampus and no matter how re spe ctable it all was , it
drew few t akers . Pe ople would come to meetings . at
Yale lIe i'Jere , for inst ance , the first sign of pub l i c
debate that had been around for a very long t ime . A
spee ch by Norman Thomas or a deb ate on the need for
nat i onal he alth insurance ( our first two meet ings )
were hardly revolut ionary act i ons , yet they drew
counterp i c kets from the fol lowers of William Buckley,
c ount le s s expre s s i ons of consternat i on and d i sbelief
and finally e nough sympathizers so that a viab le group
c ould survive from ye ar t o ye ar .
Pub l i c me et ings were ab out all we did do , along
with d i s cus sion groups , deb at e s , leaflet s , new spape r s ,
rese arch and the usual pape rparaphernalia that sur ­
rounds any organ i z at i on . In these day s , one of our
maj or diffi cult ies was to prove that there was a
poverty problem, thut not all Ame r i c ans were r i ch ,
one of cur first pamphlets ( by Gabriel Kolka ) was on
the subj e ct . Of c ourse , we tried to work w ith local
sroups , such as they "\-J ere , and we did a de cent j ob of
ini'orming and educ at ing our uembership . We did a
cer:� ain amount w ith othe r campus groups and eagerly
j oined that nat ional co-ordinat ins committee of youth
organi z :.:.t ions that only much later 1rJe di s c overed had
been set up w ith C I A he l p to " repre s ent " American
youtll abroad .
 35

Looking b ac k on my expe rience s w ith the Y ale

group , rathe r than as off i ce r of the n at i onal group
( which was a mere epheme ral bus ine s s in many ways ) ,
what strike s me i s the degree t o which our effe c t i ve ­
ne s s was c ondit i oned by the l imit s of the l arger
soc iety . We were able to rai se que st ion s and pro­
voke debate on a number of i s sue s but in the end I
suppose our real import was in re assert i ng the exi s ­
tence of d i s sent , i n s imply break ing the s i lence
and sugge st i ng to others t hat , at some p o int , on
some i s sue , t hey might follow suit . In our value s ,
w e were opposed b y the l arge maj ority I can st ill
remember the re al host i l ity and vehemence 'vIe met
when we proposed that Jame s F arme r , then our f ield
s e c retary and later head of C ORE , deb ate the then
attorney gene ral of Ge org i a who ' d been invited t o
Yale . The c ollege news pape r tw i sted our act ion into
sugge st ing, rather ludi c rously , that we were trying
to keep the Southerner from speak i ng on campus . The
support given this charge served to remind us how
opposed people st i l l were to what we were trying t o
do ; how much they had d i s l iked our rocking the i r
boat eve r s o l it t le .
On the othe r hand, the only t ime that we c an
c laim t o have helped lead a mas s a ct ion was when we
found ourselve s i n agreement w it h a maj ority sent i ­
ment , i n t he c ase of the Hungari an refugees . I n
t h i s instance , our ant i - c ommun i sm w a s not that d if ­
fe rent from anyone e l se ' s , and people were w ill ing
t
to j o in w ith us in a c ommon c ause , though t hey
prob ably would have refused to go along ''l ith the
much le s s effe ct i ve ant i - c olon i al i st ge stur e s that
we proposed .

ANTI -COMl/iUMI SM

I have no doubt that our i ntense ant i - c om ­

rr" m i sm he lped SLID survive in those ye ar s ; but
several amendme nt s must be made t o th i s sugge st i on .
F i rst , ant i - c ommuni sm undoubtedly ref le cted the
personal c onvi ct i on s of the SLID members - -the few
student s act i ve ly sympathet i c t o t he C ommuni st Party
usually j o ined the Lab or YO.uth League , not SLID, and
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T H E BALANCE SH E ET
of American Trotskyism : 1 941 - 1 947

(a critique)

by C. L . R . James, F . Forest and Martin G l qberman

32 pages $ 1.00
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potent i al Trotskyists had seve ral groups t o choose from .
The que st ion at the t ime was primari ly one of c iv i l
l ibe rt ie s and though the problem w a s hotly deb ate d
w ithin SLID , the off i c ial pos it ion w a s s imi lar t o that
held by all those taking the " libe ral " l ine on c ivil
l ibert ie s : opp o s it ion t o all a spe cts of McC arthy i sm
and the persecut i on of communi st s all ied w ith a re ­
fusal t o actually collaborate w ith c ommuni st organ i z a­
t ions . This quest ion , needle s s t o s ay , was l arge ly
theoret i c al . There were no commun i st groups w ith
which t o collaborat e ( though had the re been, we w ould
have undoubtedly refused) . Indivi dual c ommun i st stu­
dent s may have j o ine d SLID ; the re were cert ainly a
number of Marx i st s or Trot sky i st s who did j oin b ut , in
all cases that I can remember , they kept to the s ame
agreement that was felt by those t o the r i ght in SLID ,
namely that i s sue s were deb at e d w ithin a gene rally
ac cepted framewo rk . The only are a whe re w orking w ith
c ommun i st s vIas seri ously deb at e d was i n the inter­
nat i onal f ie ld . There as I ' ve ment i oned before , SLID
tenaed to agree w ith the p o s it i on t aken at var i ous
t ime s by Aneurin Bevin and Hugh 3ait ske l l , i . e . ,
detente and d i sengagement and the restorat i on of
neut ral n at i onal e nt it i e s rathe r than the advocacy of
internat i onal un �ted front s .
I think it import ant t o real i z e f i rst how much
Rus s ia has changed s ince that t ime and how much we
i dent i f i e d w ith those on the left who had been per­
se cuted by the C ommun i s t s . We felt vie w ould be be­
t r aying those who had opposed Stalin ' s d i ct at orship
f rom the left if \ve collab orat e d he re , or abroad , w ith
tho se who defende d it . Obvi ous ly , the ove rwhe lming
propaganda of the t ime twist e d all of t h i s t o c ompletely
underplay the degree to whi ch the We st was als o at
f ault and the ,-l ays in whi ch our own att it ude s w ould be
 39
4
used by t he CIA or others .
Where would SLID members of the 1950 ' s st and
were t hey student s t oday? It ' s a quest ion that it
would be fasc inat ing to answer but I doubt an ans ­
wer i s pos s ib l e . Many have c hanged ,v ith the years,
becoming more rad i c al rather than les s , w ith age
and experi ence . But that has b een t rue of people
who belonged to no student groups as well . Volun ­
t eering as a lawyer, go ing Sout h or i n a ghetto;
act ing as an int ern i n a big c ity ho spital; los ing
t enure for one ' s oppos it i on to t he war - -t hi s kind
of experi ence has rad i c al i z ed many a member of my
generat ion who had never heard of SLID or any other
of t hat s mall rainbow of the left . Yet t hose who
b el onged were, I think, a representat i ve cros s
sect i on of a potent i al const it uency, as SLID growth
from the early t o l ate ' f ift ies show s . On the whole,
were we ever ab l e to have the kind of face to face
dis cus s ion that happens s o rarely ac ros s genera­
t i onal l i nes , I t hink we would see a gradual shift
from the f ift ies i nto the s ixt ies, c arryi ng s imilar
b el i efs and c ommitment s from the postwar Korean
years int o the present .

4. The one factor which ab ove all was mi s s ing from

t hi s was our i gnorance of t he role of t he C I A
from t h i s arena . I t hink it's fair t o s ay t hat
nearly all of us bel i eved in the maj or SLID
plans on int ernat i onal affairs whi ch opposed
c olon i al i s m as wel l as soviet dominat i on of it s
s at el lites . It w ould be int erest ing to see
( and perhap s someone w i ll follow this up in some
oral hist ory int ervi ew s ) how everyone reacted t o
t he C I A d i s c losures . The NSA people, the re­
l igious youth group s and all t he others were , I
have no reason to doubt, equally s incere in the
foreign pol i cy pos it ions t hat they t ook . Th�
gradual d i s c overy of CIA manipulat ion t aught us
all a great deal more about Amer i c a . Perhaps the
s addest i rony of all was t he very genuine pride
we all used to feel--from what ever group--when,
in d i s cus s ing Ameri can youth groups w ith for­
eigners, ,Ie point ed to the genuine independence
whi ch we enj oyed as opposed to the off i c i al t i es
and over sub s idies wh i c h s o many o r our European
count erpart s recelvea .
40

THE ( OTHER ) GENERAT IONAL GAP

Afte r many years of work with SLID , we t oo be ­

c ame persuaded that a generat ional gap did exist and
that it was an insuperable one . Much as we hoped and
t r ied, it seemed imp o s s ible to make corrmon cause w ith
the left that had been act i ve in the ' thirt ie s and had
fallen int o the rat ional i z at i ons and evas ions of the
fourt i e s and f ift ie s . That gap s t i l l exists and it
c arri e s us from J ay Love st one all the way over ( I ' m
gue s s ing now ) t o Irving Howe . The d ifferences that have
alienated this generat i on of forme r left i s t s from the
current gene rat ion do seem to be b as i c and perhap s
immut able . I d o not , o f c ours e , know e nough about
the way student s think today t o be ab le to s ay how
much there i s st i l l in c ommon w ith my own generat ion ;
I suspect there i s much .
Student s i n the 'f i ft i e s used t o be known as the
s i le nt generat i on . It w ould be fool i sh t o sugge st
that SLID eve r gave vo i c e to this generat i on ; at best ,
it sugge sted that one could speak up and that oppo s i ­
t ion st i l l had t o b e voi ced . In many '.v ays , we showed
the s igns of having followed what one might call the
s i lenced generat i on j it was diffi cult the n , it s t i l l
i s diffi cult n ow f o r me to th ink o f anyone aged , let
us s ay , 40 to 5 5 , who repre sent s something on the
Ame r i c an Left one would re spe ct . The s ame lack seemed
to exi st among those repre sent ing our gene rat ion,
those 30 t o 40 . What i s fasc inat ing t o w at ch at thi s
point i s the emergence o f an i ntellect ual group on the
left that had never forme d in the f i ft ie s b ut that now
repre sent s a coherent generat i onal out look . The l i st
i s l ong and re spe ctworthy , whateve r your preference ,
from Chomsky t o C of f i n , Lynd t o Kopkind , MCDermott to
Lemi sch, Kampf to Ferbe r ' there are people speak ing
out who are re levant and e ven r ight .
Pe rhaps it i s this that matters the most . The
betrayal of tIle int e l le ctuals or o=� the left , that we
;J itne s sed around the cold 1;mr years seemed to mark a
ne"i st age i n our h i story . Ame r i c an s o c i ety showed the
degre e t o whi ch it could be cowed and persuaded i nt o
ac cept ing a new i de ol ogy and into abandon i ng dissent .
We would neve r has gue s sed that the gene rat i on in "\-Ihi ch
 41

we found ourselve s had s uch hidden re serves and

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42

Poetry & Revolution

Dave Wagner

Z : An Anthology of Revolut ionary Poetry , e d . by Dan

Ge orgakas . Smrn a-Pre s s , Box 418, NYC 10009 . jl . 25 .

If I s aw a l arge Z on the cove r of almost any

other book of pol it i c al poetry, I ' d think it stood for
the rapt snore - j ob that most poetry of th i s s ort pro ­
duce s . But this Z me ans ' the s crawl of ZOE ! ' ( life ) ,
and it epitomi z e s pretty well what Dan i} e orgakas thin:�s
revolut ionary poet ry should be , as well as be about .
Now the re are few poe t s or editors vlho are in a better
p o s it i on t o put together an anthology of thi s kind,
s ince Georgakas i s one of the best writers in the
' mimeo revolut ion " ' that ' s reviving up r i ght now , and
s i nce he ' s also a Gre e k of the most violently demo ­
c rat ic persuas i ons . I n the b ook ' s ded i c at i on t o Yann i s
R it s os ( a G reek poet imprisoned s ince Apr i l ' 67 b y the
j unt a ) , 3e orgakas w r ite s , "Fas c i sm and poetry cannot
c o -exist , " and the b ook returns to t h i s contradict ory
c ondit i on of Gree ce several t ime s , t o the spe c if i c s of
repre s s i on and the spirit of the st ruggle against it .
And it ' s all poetry . There are none of the
j elloid and general i ze d emot ions which a l ot of self ­
cons c iously "polit i c al " poet s demand except out of she er
moral and ide ological pre s sure ; the usual crackl i ng of
ab stract i on s - - l ike bubb l e - gum & eggshe lls - - i s not to
be he ard in the Greek vo i ce s of th i s anthology . "The i r
hands have become p art of the r if le . The r i f le extends
the i r hands . The ir hands extend the i r s ouls . "
It ' s ALL poetry . Ge orgakas ' work in the mime o
revolut i on ho.s put h i m i n cont act vl ith t he b e st o f the
new , ser i ous poets who crank out the i r sounds on
anc ie nt Ge stetne r s in bedrooms and k it chens and who are
f i ght ing to democ rat i z e the art of t ak i ng poetry int o
the street and the street int o the p oem . T . L . Krys s ,
W i l l I nman , Wm . Want l i ng , Doug Blazek of OLE ! magaz ine ,
K i rby C ongdon , Marcus J . Grape s all have s omething in
here , alongside the w ork of other exce llent poets
l ike Harold Norse , Ge orge Dowden, LeRoi Jones .
Morgan Gibson of Milwaukee is i n here ; even Charles
Bukowski !
Some people might w onde r , though, what this is
doing i n a politi c al c ontext :

Last t i me I saw Louise

she took a b ook .
Told me I ' d have
t o c ome get it
if I wante d to
have it again .
Don ' t know w hy
she ' d say that .
Use a cook
l ike that .
( Phil We idman , " Louise " )

or this haiku by Etheridge Knight :

Late sun se arc hes c e lls .

Drunks stagger l ike dew inged flies
on j a i lhouse floor

b ut they are well w it hin Ge orgakas '

vision of what a revolut i onary poem is . As I unde r­

stand it ( from the variety of work inc luded unde r
this title ) , he assumes t hat pol it i c al sub j ec ts are
those of relati onships between people , whethe r they
are power re lat ionships ( the haiku j ust quote d ) , or
the i ntimate free dom of a man and woman running up
a hill . And then to be revolut i onary , a poem must
lay open a part of this range of human re lat i onships ;
the e motion and experience bec ome histori cally
ac cessib le through the poe m, and the revoluti on ary
i mpulse is kept al ive .

on se e ing pharoah sanders b low ing

( set 2)
spl it .
 ,.

44

you hon'.;.ie s .
move
your slow asse s .
get out now
no s e c onds
on l iving .
split
now .
man . I ' m c oming
for u
now w ith my
b lood f illed
s ax . calling
all b loods .

beep .
be ep .
mary
had
a
l ittle
lamb .
unt i l
she
got
her throat
c ut.
see what I me an ?
( Soni a San che z )

i s one example . Anothe r :

the air i s dehumidif ied

the stewards mop the vomit
the rat e of exchange on the ship is a gyp
the gue s t s need lot s of love
( J ul ian Beck )

The most import ant point is that this i s out st anding

poetry) H ith very few except i on s . That ' s rare enough
by it s elf .
 A Revo l utiona ry S t ra tegy ?

Stuart Ewen

Andre Gorz , A Strategy f or Lab or . Boston : Beacon

Pre s s , 196 7 .-$ 1 . 45 in pbk .
--

Andre Gorz ' s Strategy for Lab or deal s w ith

the cruc i al que st ion of rad i c al organi z ing t act i c s
f o r a highly indust rial i zed working class i n we stern
Europe and the United St ate s . His t act i cal sug ­
ge stions are de ri ved from an ins ightful crit i que
of mode rn indust rial soc iety, a crit i que which
f inds root s and h i st o r i c al expre s s ion in the the o ­
ret i c al writ ings 0f Marx . A s such , i t may be
advisable t o d i s c us s the Marxi an concept ion of the
hist ory of s o c i al product ion , in order to give
Gorz ' s analy s i s a broader h i stori cal b as e , as well
as t o appraise the strategic conc lus ions drawn from
h i s analys i s .

I. A MARXIAN BACKGROUND

In the 1840 ' s , Karl Marx along with Frederick

Enge ls began t o de line at e a hist or i c al the ory of
revolut ion . The perspect ive grew out of a polemi ­
cal treatment of the "Young " or "Left " Hege l i ans
who were inj e ct ing the Ge rman pub l i c w ith "horror
and awe " of the ir self -proclaimed revolutionary
" c at aclysmic dange rousne s s and cr iminal ruthle s s ­
ne s s . " l The se " revolut i onary " Hegel i ans , c oncerned
with change and a progre s s ion t oward Freedom and
Reason , c once ived of thi s change on the level of a
separate and self-exi st ant "Spi rit " or " Mind . " To

1 . Karl Marx and Frederick Enge ls , The }erman

I deology , p . 1 .
46

them, the proce s s of h i st ory lay i n the framework of

an evolving "Mind" whi ch , through the proce s s of self­
consc ious refle ct i on , e levated ge ne r i c man , and ( we
might pre sume ) h i s mater ial environment , from pre ­
h i st ory t o h i st ory , the t ime when man would l ive ,
think and bre athe i n tune ,·, ith h i s full p otent i al it ie s .
T o the se i de a l i st i c thinkers , the mind l i ve d a separate
e x i stence from what we c ommonly c all the " re al " w orld ,
and yet as both di ale ct i c al e ne rgy and the playing
f ield of h i st ory , b e c ame the " real , . w orld .
Marx , c oncerned w ith the fragmented world v iew of
this i jeal i sm , began to f ormulate a revolut ionary
�ethodology which synthe s i zed many of the pro c e s s e s
and percept ions o f i deal i st i c phi losophy w ith the
phenomena of t he concrete , material world . I n
"Feuerb ach : Opp o s it ion o f the Mat e r i a l i st i c and
I de a l i st i c Out look , " Marx pre sented a c oncept i on of
h i st ory , of alienat i on and ult imately of Free dom,
root e d in the human c ondit ion of p roduct ion and those
s o c ial re l at i onships that grm·J out of product ion . It
is thi s suppo s it i on , when viewe d ahi s t or i c all� wh ich
has tende d t o lead much of We stern Marx i sm into its
steri le me chan i st i c material i sm , an e c onomic dete r ­
minism vJhich ' : explaine d " men ' s mot ive s ( good and evil )
through the narrow pursuit of the i r immed i ate materi al
s e lf - i ntere st . And yet , it i s thi s s ame s uppos it ion
wh i ch , when unde rstood i n c i s ively, brings Marx i sm t o
it s full fruH i on . When Marx spoke of " product i on "
or of " e c onomi c s , the terms were not dive sted of
I I

h i st o r i c al c onte nt ; rathe r , they gained me aning only

i n t e rms of the i r re spe ct i ve h i st orie s . Viewed i n
the i r c ontext , the c o ntemp orary def init ions of
" e c onomi c s " " produc t i on " become a part of the i de ology
of the moment . The e c on omi c s and product ion of whi ch
Marx spoke , on the othe r hand , gain mean ing through
the t ot al ity of hist ory . 2 And as Marx ' s h i st ory
t ot al i ze s vert i c ally , h i s e c on omi c s b roadens hori -
7. ont ally .

2 . Thi s not i on f inds root s in Hegel ' s inve ct ive

against se chmat i z ing formal i sm in h i s
Phe nome nology o f the Mind .
 " In the social product ion wh i ch me n c arry on
they enter into definite relat ions that are
indi spensable and independent of the i r w i ll ;
the se relat ions of product ion c orre spond to
a de f inite st age of deve lopment of the ir
material powe rs of product ion . The sum
t ot al of the se re lat i ons or prodUCtion-con­
stitUtes the economic struct ure of soc ietY .
. . (my emphas i s , S . E . ) on whi ch-rise legal
and pol iti cal superst ructure s and to which
corre spond de finite forms of soc ial c on­
s c i ousne s s · " 3

The w ay that men expre s s the ir live s , produce

the ir me ans of sub s i stence , c onceive of themse lve s
and raise their chi ldre n , " s o they are . ,, 4 As the
product ion of a cert ain piece of machi nery may be
h i storically s ign ificant by he ight ening man ' s
dexte rity in the manipulat ion of re s ourc e s , 5 so too
are gove rnment s and legal structure s , language and
concepts of sexuality products of a cert ain soc ial
leve l of product i on . In the revolut i onary c oncep­
t ion of history, ne arly all human re lat i ons hips are
thus e c onomi c , the ir intercourses product ive . As
Marx has st ated,

"Our concept i on of hi story depends on our

ab i l ity to expound the real process of pro­
duct i on . . . and t o c omprehend the form of
intercourse conne cted w ith this and created
by thi s ( i . e . , c ivil soc iety in it s various
stage s ) , as the b a s i s of all hi story. , 6

As Marx ism c once ive s of it self not me re ly as a

revolut i onary movement in the sense commonly

3 . Marx , Preface to Cont r ib ut i on t o the C rit i que

of Polit i c al E c onomy .
4 . The German Ideology , p . 7 .
5 . And the man ipulat i on of man b y h i s re source s
unde r c apital i s m .
6 . The Ge rman Ideology , p . 28 .
48

unde rstood, b ut as a profoundly h i st o r i c al moveme nt ,

this pe rcept ion t ake s on s igni f i c ance i n the de l i ne a ­
t i on o f revolut ionary act i vity , 7 and regarding the
p itfalls of reform i st ideology . I n being c oncerned
w ith man and h i s free dom , Marx w as ult imately concerned
w ith man ' s soc ial product ion or c oncept i on of himself .
He sml the ne ce s s ity of ext r i c at ing th i s " concept i on
of h imself " from the contemp orary def in it ions of
"human nature J " and plac ing i t w ithin the proce s s of
h i st ory . Marx ' s c oncept of change was a qual it at ive
one . He w a s not concerned with making alienated man ' s
lot a " happ i e r " one t hrough the s at i sf act ion of
alienated de s i re s . His inc i s ion i s more fundame ntal,
into the qual ity of that "happine s s 8 and of those
de s i re s .

II . GORZ ' S VISION OF CONTEMPORARY SCC I ETY

Gorz ' s Strategy f or labor i s a s igni f i c ant book

for Marx i s t s of the non - C ommun i st ,vorld; and yet it
doe s not , as the t it le may imply, offer a c onvinc ing
strategy by vlhi ch we as Ame r i c an rad i c al s may plug
ourselve s and the mas ses of work ing people int o the
pro c e s s of revolut ion . Import ant ly, the prob lems in
Gorz ' s book do not ari se s olely out of t act i c a l ­
pol it i c al differences w ith othe r rad i c al s b ut al s o out
of the analys i s of contemporary s oc iety t hat serve s as
a c oncept ual groundwork vi i thin the book i t se lf . More
expl i c itly , St rat e gy f or Labor betrays a t e n s i on be ­
tween the crit i c al historical method of Marx de s c r ibed
above , and a serious allegi ance to old left suppos i ­
t i ons concern in3 the where and how of revo lut i o n ,
whi ch tend t o d i s re gard and obfus c ate that h i st o r i c al
method . C on s e quent ly Gorz ' s w ork emerge s as s omewhat
fragment e d , and strategi cally unenlightened . His
" import ant cont r ib ut i on t o the analy s i s of contemporary
s o c iety ' 9 seems t o have l ittle impre s s i on upon h i s min

7 . . . . . and , of course , analys i s .

8 . He rbert Marcuse has clar i f i e d th i s . "You t e l l rr:e
that you are happy . I tell you that you are un ­
happy . " C onne c t i ons , 1 . ile:. , p . 5 .
9 . He rbert Marcuse , back c over of Strategy for Labor .
pre s c r ipt i ve formula as be begins t o c oncret i z e h i s
not ion of a p roper l abor strategy . Thi s tens i on
amb iguous ly offer s b oth a challenge and a c once s ­
s i on t o the ide ologic al children of le ninist thought .
Without doubt the challenge i s most imp ortant , f or
it make s the book w orthwhi le as rad i c al l it erature ,
for b oth it s radical c r it i que of c ont emporary
soc iety and of Len i n i st and reform i st think ing t o
dat e .

THE ROCTS OF MARXISM

Gorz ' s vi s ion is f irmly rooted in the phi l o ­

s ophy o f Marx a s pre sented in the Economic and
Ph i l osoph i cal Manus c r ipts of 1844 , and The German
Ide ology ( 1846 ) . It i s a perspe ct ive vlhi ch springs
f rom the Marxi an c oncept i on of h i story and more
recent soc i al and cultural c r it i que s which ut i l i z e
Marx ' s methodology in dealing w it h highly technologized
soc iet ies . 10 Gorz c once i ve s of an unal ienated, free
man as one whose exi stence is s e lf -determined .
' Th i s i s not t o s ay that he argue s for the de cep ­
t ive not i on of "human nature , " which i s used t o
j ust ify the exigenc i e s o f h i st or i c al rather than
fundament al needs . i Rathe r , he has a concept ion of
man as a h i st o r i c al be ing whose def init i on of him­
self and relat i onsh ips w ith othe r s are a p art of
the h i story of s oc i al product i o n , and corre lat ive
to the nature and " ideo logy " of that p roduct ion at
any p oint in h i st ory . When soc i al product ion
( through human agent s ) obj e ct if i e s man , c cmmodi ­
t i z e s him, then s o man i s . When it sub j e ct if i e s
h i m , and produce s t o serve h i s individual human
needs , h i s f reedom in the Marx i an sense i s re al i zed .
Gorz perce ive s in h i s analys i s of technologi ­
c al soc iety the bre adth and p rofundity of aliena­
t ion far beyond the def i n it i ons set forth by
orthodox Len i n i st the ory . Like Marx in t he
Manus cript s , Gorz de s c r ibe s man ' s m o st deep al j ena ­
t i on as that al ienat ion from himself in the soc i al

10 . Among the se are Ivlarcuse ( t o whom Gorz refers ) ,

T . W . Adorno and Max Horkhe ime r .
50

proce s s of product i on . As man i s def ined w ithin the

terminology of a consumer or "money " philos ophy, he
begins to j udge h i s s uc c e s s e s and fai lure s , the
qual ity of h i s l ife i n terms of the value s of that
phi l o s ophy . 1 1 Gorz ' s c on cept ion of revolut ionary
soc i al ism, then , i s fundament al . He must re j e ct
t radit i onal reform i st demands , i . e . h i gher wage s , as
n ot in themselve s t rans c e nding the " g i vens " of modern
indust r i al soc iety . The demand for wage s pe r se be ­
c ome s the demand of the working class for the right to
b e c ome better consume rs - -t o bec ome more viable com­
modit i e s on the soc i al marketplace . As }orz note s ,
" Such demands expre s s le s s and l e s s the intere st of
the working class as such, and more and more the
intere st of a group of unde rpr ivileged c onsumers . , 1 2
And yet it i s thi s conSUIT.er economy , the h i st o r i c al
needs produced by modern soc iety, whi ch i s the : oun ­
dat i on of the w orkers ' alienat ion . Al ienat i on i s not
merely a quant i t at ive c ondit i on , not a product of
s c arc ity ; rathe r , it i s a condition of human b e ing s ,
all human be ings , ( even the bourge o i s ie ) who part i ­
c ipate in ant i - human relat i ons of soc i al product ion .
If it i s a cap it al i st system which make s man ( labor )
an obj e ct of it s proce s s , then it i s cap it al i sm which
alienat e s and n ot one man ' s inab i l ity t o succeed in
the impl i c it terms of that c ap it al i sm .
In a soc iety where the s at i sfact i on of funda­
mental needs ( food , air, sexual ity , etc . ) is or c an
be achieve d , man i s and must be radi c al i zed in terms
of hml these needs are s at i s .L' i e d . The "how" of s at i s ­
f act i on i s the proce s s of h i st ory i n modern industri al
s o c iety . Gorz point s out , ins i �htlully , that as
we stern soc iety begins t o feed, "lat e r , breathe and
e j acul ate it s inhab it ant s , the old Marxi an d i st inc ­
t ion between fundamental needs and h i stori cal needs 1 3

1 1 . See Ge orge S imme l f o r an i ntere st ing account :

" The Met ropo l i s and Me nt al Life , " in J o sephson,
Man Alone . Also see Philos ophy of Money .
12 . GOYZ , p . 25 .
1 3 . Those needs cre at ed by the histori c al leve l of
soc ial product i on . See c it at ion t o footnote 14 .
 51

be c ome s c louded :

"After the de struct ion of the n atural en­

vironment , and i t s replacement by a s o c ial
environment , fundamental needs can only be
sat i sf ied i n a s o c i al manner . . . for
example , . . . the need f or air . . . i s
immed i ately apprehended a s the need for
vacat ions ( an h i storical i ndust ry) . .
the need t o e at ( means ) . • •the need for
cafeterias , re st aurant s , c anned f oods . 14

Likew i s e , as an alienated l abor force demands

h i ghe r wage s ( vlhi ch the corporat ions are , w ithin
limit s , w ill ing and able t o grant) the i r b argaining
suc c e s s e s are " rap idly
. • . made int o a paying
propos it i on by those who granted them . . . a source
of addit i onal prof it s for the c onsume r good s i n ­
dustry . " 1 5 Iron i c ally , the iwrkers ' attempt t o
e s c ape alienat i on ( w ithout a t rans cendent and
qualitat ive understanding of that al ienat io n ) only
furthe r i nvolve s them w ithin the very proce s s f rom
whi ch they seek re lease . Thus the cont radi ct i ons
to whi ch }orz addre s s e s himself are f ound b oth in
contemporary s o c i ety and in the t radit i on al reform
movement s whi ch in the end aid and abet that
s o c iety . By aid, we do not ne c e s s ar ily mean con­
s c i ous i de ologi c al c omfort ( although such may be t he
case ) . nathe r , as w ith the Ame r i c an C ommuni st
P arty ' s a c c ommodat i on t o Franklin D . Rooseve lt in
the l ate 1930 ' s , we de s i gnate moveme nt s whi ch , by
ac cepting t he l ayman ' s unde rst anding 0 ; monopoly
c ap it al i st e c onomi c s , hardly c re ated last ing class
f i s sure s in the soc iety and usually held up goals
wh i ch ,-Jere ab s orbed prof itab ly ( both e c onom i c ally and
pol i t i c ally ) by the rul ing clas s . And while the
bene f i t s of a reformed lab or movement are thus
t ransvaluated i nt o the gained prof it s of the
b ourge o i s ie and l�urthe red al ienat i on of the vlOrke r ,
incre a s i ngly the l atter ' s def init i on s o f self, l ife ,

14 . Gorz , p . 89 .
1 5 . lb i d . , p . 5 7 .
52

h appine s s and suc c e s s are c reated i n te rms of com ­

mod it ie s , t h e very sub j e ct s o f his alienat i on .
It i s at this point , the n , that Marx ' s c oncep­
t i on of soc i al product ion become s a meaningful
approach to the tot al it:v of l i fe . 'Al ienat i on " as a
s o c i ologi cal con cept i s no longer l imited to an on­
the - j ob analys i s ; l e i s ure t ime can no longer be viewed
me re ly as a re spite which revolut ionaries f i ght t o
increase . Alie nat i on i s , to Gorz , a tot al non - l ife i n
the garb of l ife . Thus cap it al i st soc ial product ion,
ult imat ely the way man produce s his non - self , is
ine s c apable 1v ithin the f ac i l it ie s ( work and p lay ,
public and private ) of c ap ital i sm .
Gorz ' s vi s i on i s a s ignif i c ant one whose im­
p l i c at i ons should inf orm the me an ing of rad i c al
st rat e gy . Pr imar i ly, to organize around the bas i s or
ali enat ion, an art icul ated goal of most left -w ing or ­
gan i z at ions , should me an t o organ i ze men around and
ab out the ir l i ve s as a whole , and the contrad i ct ions
and unhappine s s created by the whole of the ir live s .
Further - - and here we f ind l inks t o the Marx ian con­
cept ion of polit i c al part ie s and educ at i on - -b oth
rad i c al theory and pract ice ( for the two are in­
separable ) must be trans cendent . A radical consc ious ­
ness may be the ab i l ity t o obj e ct ify a soc iety whi ch
i s " trying " t o ob j e ct ify you . One must comprehend
the ab i l ity of a soc iety to coopt seeming crit i c i sms and
and reform act i ons int o a highe r soc ial-psycholog i cal
repre s s i on and not me re ly null ify the mean ing of the se
reforms but also turn them against the reforme rs . A
s ign if i c ant radical act ion , Gorz argue s , i s one whi ch
c annot be ab s orbed and neutral i zed, one wh ich carrie s
c ap i l,al i sm i rre versably ne are r to it s de st ruct ion ,
and man t o h imse lf and h i s f reedom .

III . GORZ ' S STRATEGY : A REFORM BY ANY OTHE R NAME . . .

Yet Gorz ' s book i s not , as may have been implied,

s ol e ly a " t rans cendent " critique of cont emporary
indust r i al soc iety . The crit i que i s impre s s ive ly
 53

THE IDEAL COMMODITY -

THE ONE WHICH HELPS

SELL ALL THE OTHERS !

NO WONDER YOU WAN T

situationist internaticnale

there , 16 but it merely serve s Gorz ' s purpose as a

point of embarkat ion for more strategic c ons idera­
t i ons . What the re ader tends to fe e l , as he trie s
to corre l ate the se strat e g i c sugge st ions w ith Gorz ' s
c r i t i que of contemporary s oci ety , i s the crit i c al
di sparity between the two .
In a c ontemporary soc iety, where the s at iat ion
of fundament al ne eds i s pos s ible and gre at "poverty
( c ontinue s ) w ithout misery" , 1 7 the rad i c als ' de ­
pendence upon an inevitable " grow ing discontent of
the mas se s '; may be fut i le . l s Historical needs no
longe r have a revolut ionary impe rat ive . To argue ,
to pet it i on , to demand , eve n t o f ight for "more "
w ithin the def ined "more ' s ' of c ontemporary hi story
i s not an e s c ape from the poverty of l ife .
16 . Alth ough not as impre s s ive as i n One Dimensional
Man , wh i ch doe s not pre sent a strategy .
1 7 . I n Strategy for Labor, Gorz i s de aling w ith the
maj ority of the working c lass in the highly
i ndustrialized ( impe r i al i st ) nat ions . His analys i s
does not imply that some segment s of the populat ion
i n the develope d count r i e s and the mass e s of pe ople
in the "underde ve lope d , " imperial i st - ridden nat ions
do not expe rience "misery . "
lS. Gorz , pp . 22 - 2 3 .
 Gorz c arries thi s analys i s to the point of re ­
j e ct ing quant it at ive reform pol it i c s , and at the same
t ime re al i z e s the re lat ive we akne s s of the c ontem-
porary worki ng class to wre st pOlver from where it now
l ie s . H i s strategy , then, emerges as an argument for
st ructural ref orms , or as he tries to convi n c ingly put it ,
it , 'non - reformi st reforms . " Gorz fee ls that the only
me aningful strategies are those vlhi ch he lp bring
c apitalism to c r i s i s , and strengthen the working
class . 19 Traditional reforms , i . e . , quant itat ive
demands f or wage s , longer vac at ions , shorter hours ,
et c . , are e as i ly ab sorbe d , and tend t o further con­
sumerize rather than radi c al i z e an already alienated
working clas s . As to Marx e c onomi c s was a w orld
h i stori c al phenome non , t o Gorz a working c l a s s seeking
an " e c onomi c " ( quali t at i ve ) alte rat ion in it s cond i ­
t i ons must , t oo, view itself i n world hist o r i c terms .
When " e c onomi c " demands repre sent a qual itat i ve
accept ance of the h i storic needs of cap itali sm, they
become me aningle s s .
In de al ing w ith non- reform i st reforms as an
effe ct ive me ans of ' shift ing the st ruggle aw ay from
the purely economic ( in ahi§tor i c al sense ) tow ards
the leve l of class st ruggle , ' cO Gorz point s to three
leve l s of cons c i ousne s s wh ich lead to a non - c oopt able
st ruggle . The leve l s are analyse s of ( 1 ) "the w ork
s it uat i on, " ( 2 ) "the purpose of work, " and ( 3 ) "the
re product ion of l abor powe r : i . e . , the l ife style and
milieu of the worker . " The se are clearly qualit at i ve
aspe ct s of l ife unde r c apit al ism wh i ch must be de alt
w ith in the proce s s of bui lding a work ing class
movement . And yet the imp l i c at ions wh i ch one might
draw from a call for such analys e s go far beyond the
tradit ional w ork s ituat i on to whi ch Gorz adhere s .
Gorz sees the uni ons as the me dium for a
st ructural ref orm st rategy . Yet the eff i c acy of this
medi um, in terms of the cons c i ousne s s of modern

19 · Ib id . , p . 20 . He re 'stre ngth ' me ans aut onomy

as a c on s c i ous working c l as s .
20 . Ib id . , p . 32 .
---

55
un ions , i s not analyzed . If , a s Gorz seems t o
as sume , the problem w ith mode rn i ndust r i al un i on s
i s strat e gi c , then his proposed alterat ion of
st rate gy c ould be argue d w ithin the se union s . But
often, as in the c ase of the American AFL-CIO, the
difference between Gorz and the un ion movement i s
r ar more t han strategic . ( �orz himself must re cog­
nize thi s , for in his attempt t o pre sent a grounds
for such strategic approache s , he ( a Frenchman ) i s
f orced t o offer example s f rom the workinG class
organ i z at ions of Northe rn It aly . ) Surely �orz ' s
as sert ion that struct ural re J'orms are s ign i f i c ant
only if e ach step i s t aken in const ant c ognit i on
of ult imate goals ( Soc ialism ) w ould be zeal ously
re s i sted by the Amer i c an un ion le adership and much
of the membership . But even amonG cert ain se gment s
of the Commun i st left of Europe , the qualit at ive
aspe ct of Gorz ' s analys i s and its re voluti onary
imp l i c at i ons would not be pract ic ally ac cept able .
The Marxi an concept ion of self - determinat i on me ans
far more than it i s commonly t aken for ; it me ans
aut onomy w ithin a c ontext whi ch accept s human in­
dividual value s as the priority and purpose of
s o c i al product ion .
�orz fails t o deal with the "h OVI " of wor;�er ' s
power i n t erms o f divert ing the un ions from the ir
current strategie s , and as in the case of the
Un ited St ate s , from the i r current , and s el f - de ­
clared ideology . � orz has all the in�redient s f or
a st rategy of true counter- st ruct ure ; by the
cre at i on of " structure s " whi ch not only ve rbal ly
oppose , but formally and ph i losophi c ally ( act ive ly )
oppo se the �� i vens of c ontemporary soc iety; struc ­
ture s vlhi c h bring men at irre ve rsable odds "l ith
the ir alienat ion . Yet perhaps in conce s s i on to old
left tendenc ie s , he choose s to re dire ct what may
not be re d ire ct able . When � orz s ays , " Never lose
s ight of ult imate goal s , " he i s not spe aking of
revolut i on in romant i c , coll oquial terms , and yet
his adherance to certain ' f ields of play ' i s ( or
appe ars to be ) a romant i c and colloquial att achment
to the St alinist ( and othe r reformi st ) age n c i e s of
He stern Europe and the United St ate s .
�orz views s o c i al product ion as a life
t ot al it y , yet h i s organ i z at i on or st rat egy i s an
atte mpt to con c ret i z e it in t radit i onal areas of organ ­
i z at i o n . If one i s ne ve r t o l o se s i ght of the re volu­
t i onary goal s , then one must ne ve r lose s i ght of
revolut i onary dime n s i on s ; Vlhen one doe s , then the re is
no s ay i ng how t h e st ructural re f orms " on the j ob "
m i ght b e con:pe n s at e d for , o r c o opt e d " off the j ob " .
As �orz impl i e s , one is -
on the j ob Vlhether he is " on "
or off " .
Ult imat e ly , Gorz t r i e s to make it e as y for
t rad it i onal left i st s to ac c e pt the i d i om of Marx i sm
( or what is commonly known as " Ne o -Marx i s m " ) . Yet one
f e e l s he i s making it too e asy . F o r in the tran s l a ­
t i on o f Marx ' s concept i on o f s o c i a l product ion into
t e rms a c cept able to Gorz ' s p o l i t i c a l a s s o c i ate s , the
f onne r seems s ub s umed by the l r:tt e r . The me s s age of
his c r it i que of c ontemporary s i e t y is a c al l �' o r a
t ot al re e v aluat i on of the l im i � Cc.t ions , strat e � i e s
and i d e o l ogy o f re formi sm and ::c ' un i o n i s m i t s e l f ; yet
h i s oVin ree valuat i on i s f ar :c' ru!! t ot al as he de l i ne at e s
his st rat e gy f o r lab o r . Part i c ll arly not able by it s
ab s e n c e is an attempt to ext e c ' or revlOrk the de=' in i ­
t i on o f the " working c l as s " w L :,: in te chnolog i c al
s oc i ety . Sure ly , as h i st or i c a� n e e d s turn man ' s
value s t oward commodi t i z at i o n ) a pove rty w ithout
m i se ry , and furthe r away from him s e lf , the se n e e d s
do n o t le ave a n i ne t e e nt h - c e ntury c l a s s analy s i s whol ly
int act .
This c r it i c i sm of Jorz is a fri endly one , a
re c o gn i t i on of a t e n s i on w ithin h i s t h i nk i ng . There
are c e rt ai n a s p e c t s of the t e n s i on wh ich are i nde e d
impre s s i ve and c ruc ial t o t h e unde r s t anding of rad i ­
c al s i n Ame r i c a and e l s ewhere . But a s a veh i c le of
t h at t e n s i o n , the b ook as a vlhole l e ave s much t o be
de s i re d . St rat e gy for Lab or betrays l i t t l e unde r ­
s t an d i ng o f the c on s c i ousne s s o r even the imme diat e
d e s i re s o f the mode rn c orporat e un i ons o r the ir
memb e r s hip , at a t ime vlhe n a b re ak fr om the p r i or it i e s
o f t rad it i onal left - w i ng organ i z at i ons and a furt her
explorat ion of the b road impl i c at i on s of Gorz ' s
s o c i e t al c r it i que i s in orde r .
G orz ' s strat e gy , the n , is not c omprehens i ve .
In unde r st and ing the s imult ane ity of " on t he j ob "
and " oi' f t he j ob " the rad i c al the o r i s t must de ve l op
 57

a t ot al strategy - - a strate gy of where pe ople ' s l ive s

are n ot merely w ithin t he proce s s e s of the i r t radi ­
t ional " e conomi c " exi stence but within the proce s s
o f the i r whole l ive s . Gorz , l imited by h i s t radi ­
t i onal medium, st ill views organ l z lng w ithin a
factory c ontext ; yet the far - re ach ing me aning of
h i s crit i que imp l i e s that to organ i z e i n a t ruly
revolut ionary s ense means to devel op a program on
an aut onomous leve l , w ith a t otal vis ion and unde r ­
st anding o f al i enated exi stenc e .

T H E COMRADE
 The Rad ica l s ' Use of H istory, I I

Stoug hton lynd

Aft e r s e arch ing c r it i c i s m of J ame s We i n s t e i n ,

Paul Buh le and myse l f , * John St rawn come s t o h i s own
c o n c lus i on s in so crypt i c and c on de n s e d a manner as t o
c on c lude very l ittle at all . He s ay s : "The cent r al
t a sk for r ad i c al h i st ory is to de t e rmine t he re l at i on ­
s h i p between c on s c i ous act i vity and act ual e ve nt ,
b e t w e e n the c o n j un ct ure s of s o c i al f orc e s and the
c on s c i ousne s s of the men they affe ct . " To wh i c h I
f i nd mys e lf re sponding : Ye s , of cours e j that w a s
w h at we were all t alking ab out j b ut are y o u under the
impl"e s s i on that b y us ing tho s e w ords anyt h i n g has b e e n
c l arified: Again , Mr . St r awn s t at e s in his c on c l us i on :
"The h i s t ory we now !<;:now i s largely f al se , not b e c ause
it h a s no pe rmane n c e , b ut b e c ause it s e rve s a s a wedge
be tvl e e n us a s act i ve men and our own humanity . " Yet
he w r i t e s a few s e ntence s e arl i e r t h at the h i s t o r i an
" doe s not t e st de c i s i o n s , nor i s he a c t i n g v i a the
ab stract i on s o f his c raft when he make s them h i m s e lf . "
The meaning of the se words w ould appe ar t o b e t h at
when a h i s t o r i an make s p e r s on a l and p o l it i c al de c i ­
s i ons , he le ave s h i s hi st ory beh ind . That c on c e pt i on
seems t o me a ve ry s ub s t ant i a l "wedge between us as
act i ve rr:en and our own human i ty . " My intent , how e ve r ,
i s not t o n a i l J ohn St rawn t o the se f inal senten c e s
wh ich I b e l ie ve t o repre se nt an eff ort at premat ure ,
and e s sent i al l y rhet or i c al , If
int e � l e ctual c l o s ure
.
I can r e c a l l h im t o an exp e r ime nt al mood , and e st ab ­
l i sh a c onve r s at i onal t o ne between u s , I shall be w e l l
s at i s f i e d .

* "The Radi c a l s ' Use of H i st ory . Radi c al Ame r i c a ,

jviarch - Ap r i l , 1958.
-

59

Now as t o the part i cul ar s ub st ant i ve mat t e rs

t o whi ch h i s e s s ay c a l l s attent i on . I h ave two
b a s i c d i s agreement s w ith what I unde rstand to be
Mr . St rawn ' s argume nt . F i rst , I t hink he i s w r ong
in b e l i e ving that a h i st ory whi ch emphas i z e d
de c i s i on - mak ing would ne c e s s ar i ly b e e l it i st h i st ory .
S e c ond, I c annot ag ree t h at the h i st ory of one ' s
own t ime (" chron i c l ing in depth " a s I put it in
my o r i g inal e s s ay ) i s no h i st ory at a l l . But I
re c o gn i z e t hat my e s s ay , t oo , t ouched on the se
mat t e r s somewhat crypt i c al ly . I c an unde rst and
that John St rawn unde rst o od me t o s ay th ing s wh i ch
I d i d not i ntend . And in any c ase , it i s a year
s in c e I wrote the e s s ay he c r it i c i z e s and I should
l i ke to add a few thing s .
F i rst , the n , about de c i s i on- making . Mr .
St r awn almost appears to b e l i e ve that only e l it e s
make de c i s i on s , a very e l it i st c on cept ion inde e d .
I am at f ault in having i l lust rat e d my argument
by reference only to e l i t e de c i s i on- make r s : pol i cy­
make r s in the Ame r i c an gove rnment , Marx i s t revolu­
t ionarie s . But s ure ly John St rawn and I can c o ncur
t h at the que s t i on of e l it i sm and the que st i on of the
role in h i st o ry of free w i l l ( or c on s c iousne s s , the
" sub j e ct ive f actor , " etc . ) are not synonymous . He
quote s me as w r it ing : " . . . any revolut i o n . . .
re quire s a de c i s i on by i n d i v i dual human be ing s t o
b e g i n t o determine t he i r own de st i n i e s at what e ve r
c o st . " I s n ' t th i s , as a mat t e r of fa ct , true ? Is
there anyth ing in the sent ence Hh i c h st at e s or
imp l i e s that revol-t.lt i on s are made by -
a ---
few
i nd i vidual human be ing s ?
The problem I me ant to p o s e concern ing the
role of c on s c i ousne s s in h i st ory c an be put t h i s
w ay : I f men ( not j ust a f e w me n , b ut mas s e s o f
me n , all me n ) have a very cons ide rable free dom t o
det e rmine how they act , how c an the h i st or i an w r i t e
ab out the i r act i on aft e r t h e e ve nt as if i t were
ine v itable or prede t e rmine d? My po int i s "le l l
i l l ustrat e d b y anothe r art i c le in the s ame i s sue
of Radi c al Ame r i c a wh i ch c ont ai ns Mr . St rawn I s
e s s ay . Charle s Le inenweb e r e nds h i s d i s cu s s ion

1
of S o c i a l i st opp o s i t i on to World lrlar I b y i nvoking
60

lit he dimens i on of human agency" rathe r than a series of

c au s al factors trad it i onally emphas i zed . Mr .
Le ine ml<::: ber assert s :

Vlhateve r the s i z e of the Soc ial i st p arty ,

vlhate '!er it s polit ic a l st rongholds and t i e s t o
the t rade un i on s , whatever the c onfl i ct s between
various pol it i c al tendenc ie s , the following con ­
c l�s i on should be kept uppermost in our minds :
The pol it i c al p o s i t i on of Ame r i c an Soc i a l i s t s
d uring the w a r , the i r forthright opp o s it i on t o
it , w a s a product most o f all of a t ruly he ro i c
effort o f the w i l l , of s e lf -enl ighte nment
ag ainst ove rwhelming odds . It s erve s as a pro ­
found example of the elevat ion of c on s c i ousne s s
through human effort .

I s th i s e l it i st h i stori ography?
The prob lem of de c i s ion-mak ing leads dire ct ly
t o the problem of writing the h i story of one I s mIn
t irre a s over against 1,l r it i ng the hi story of the
d i s t ant pa st . The c onne ct ion between the t w o que s ­
t i ons i s a s follow s : S o l ong a s rad i c al s a s s ume that
h i story i s dete rmine d , that the role of c on s c i ous
vJ i l l is ( i n the sen se that Earx and Enge ls used t he
term ) " ac c ident al , " then study of the p a st i s j ust i ­
f ie d be c ause i t more and more c le arly reve als the
l are:e pattern of det e rmined event s on the b a s i s of
which future h i st ory c an be predi cted .
But S UP1JOse that h i st ory i s determine d only i n
t h e macrosense that one c an s peak , l o r examp le , of a
l ong -run tende ncy tmmrd cent ral i ze d pub l i c e c onom i c
p l anning . Suppose that the p attern of determined
events has s o large a me sh that , g iven all pos s ib le
dat a c onc erning Ame r i c a n h i story , it 1V Quld st i l l be
imp o s s ible to predict whether the United St a t e s w i ll
be c ome f a s c i st or s o c i a l i st , or ne ithe r dur ing our
l L'et ime s . Hh at t:ten vlould be the relevance of
h i st ory ?
One pos s ible re sponse i s that p re d i c t i on i s not
the cnly purpose of hi story . H i st ory can a l s o
r':ini ster t o t he sub j e ct ive r:: �m : i t c cm provide le s s ons ,
 61

he roe s , a c o l le ct ive p ast . But what happens if

T om Wat s on ' s mot i vat ion i n p r ot e ct ing R e ve rend
Doyle t urns out t o have b e e n opportun i st i c ? If
it be come s e v i de nt that s l ave s i n the Un ited
St at e s d i d not , on t he whole , reb e l ? If , in
ge n e r al , the rad i c al i sm o f white w o rk i ngmen re ­
ve al s i t s e l f t o have been t r an s ient and shallow ­
root e d in every pe r i od of Ame r i c an h i st ory? The
d i f f i culty i s not only in int e rpret ing e vidence
b ut a l s o in l i nd ing it . Wr itten s o ur c e s for the
h i st ory of the inart i culat e are , by de f i n it i on ,
sparse . The temp t at i on i s strong for the rad i c al
hi s t o r i an who has inve s t e d much t ime and emot i o n
in the fortune s o f s ome part i cu l ar group of in­
dentured se rvant s , tenant f arme r s , mil l g i rl s , or
Popul i st s , to pre s ume a v i rt ue where the evidence
i s me re ly s ilent , or t o ext r ap o l ate int o a c on ­
s i s t e nt ly rad i c al pat t e rn what are , in f act , only
fragmentary indi c at i on s .
The se are among the c on s iderat i on s whi c h
int e re st me in c ont e mp o r ary h i s t ory . A g ood
example i s another art i c l e in the Marc h -Apr i l
Rad i c al Ame r i c a , R i ch i e R oths t e i n ' s " ERAP :
Evolut ion Of the Organ i z e r s . " J ohn St r awn argue s
in his c o n c lus i on that rad i c al h i st ory is " c e rt ainly
not . . . a chron i cle of t he me chan i s m of de c i s i on . "
But R ot h st e in ' s art i cle i s pre c i s e ly a chron i c l e of
the c olle ct i ve de c i s i on - m aking of ERAP organ i z e r s .
Mr . StravlD s t at e s that the h i st o r i an " doe s not t e st
de c i s i on s . " But R bthst e in s ays that the purp o s e of
ERAP was 't o t e st part i cul ar hypothe s e s ab out
Ame r i c an s o c iet y , " and h i s valuable e s s ay repre ­
s e nt s an e valuat i on of that t e s t ing by one of
tho se who de c ided to unde rt ake it .
Mr . St rawn a l s o i n s i st s that radi c al h i s t ory
' II
must not be "the rapy . A s indi c at e d ab ove , I a m
inc l i ned to agree w ith h i m when that the r apy i s
s ought in a n e lus ive d i s t ant past . But c ont e m ­
porary h i s t o ry w r it t e n by rad i c al s is l ikely t o
ve rge o n therapy i n that i t doe s draw l e s s ons , it
doe s s e e k t o def i ne mode l s for future use , it
unb lushi ngly hope s t o le arn from our own expe r i e n c e .
Thus Roths t e i n ends w ith a c al l for new organ i ­
z at i onal forms re spons ive t o the problems wh i ch
62

ERAP f a i l e d to s olve ; in a f ootnot e , he spe c if i c ally

advoc at e s the the r ap e ut i c goal of ' an appropr i ate
t e chn i que of c r it i c i sm and s e lf - c r it i c i s m " in hope of
re s olving the problem 'bf dealing w it h pe r s onal ity
differen c e s on organ i z ing s t af f s in a humane , f i rm,
and p o l it i c al manne r . " Doe s t h i s conc lus i on make h i m
le s s a h i st o r i an in Mr . Strawn ' s eye s ? I s t h i s me rely
play ing r ad i c al He rman Kah n ? H a s R othst e i n s ac r i ­
f i ced "even the hope for radi c al h i s t ory on the
choppi ng b l o c k of re levanc e ? "

C�MPAIGNER
Ma rc h - Ap r i I f e a t u r e s G a ry N i c k e rs � n v s
re p o r t f r Jm i n s i d e P E AC E & F RE E DOM.
To ny C h a i t k i n rep o r t s f ro m t he dep t h s
of We i I S t re e t . L. Ma rc u s on t he APE
T I CK E T .

COMI NG • • • Mcy i ssue • • • on t he

s l i de of re3 1 wa g e s

25 ¢ p e r i s s u e ; $ 3 f o r 1 2 i s sues

% L a Ro u c h e , 65 Me r t o n S t . , N Y C 1 00 1 4
 Ag ain, the Radicals' Methodology

DEN N I S WOOD

I unde rst and the e s sence of a b ottom- up

approach t o the study of society t o me an that we
study s o c i ety in such a w ay that we show how the
b ottom- l aye r s of soc iety have effected change s in
that soc iety, and such that our study e nabl e s us
t o implement change in that soc iety our selve s as
rad i c al inte lle ctuals who t ake the ir radi cal i sm
as seriously as the i r inte lle ctuali sm . That the
study of soc iety affe c t s the c ondit ions under whi ch
what i s s aid of it i s true , i s for many les s a
methodologi c al problem t o be n oted and ant i c ipated
w ith the appropri ate methodo logi c al equipment , than
it is a moral prob lem c alling the i nve st i gat or t o
p onde r h i s s c ient i f i c and moral ident ity and the
eth i c al w arrant and value of h i s work . Cert ainly I
w ould s ay that a b ott om-up analys i s re quire s hone sty
on the part of its author , but it s j ust ificat ion
must be b ased on it s methodologi c al supe riority .
As Lemisch state s , * writ ing history from the b ottom
up i s a rat ionally j ust i f i ab le method , and I w ould
add that for cert ain type s of problems it i s the
only j us t i f i ab le method . The e s se nce of the method
i s that the h i storian must meet pe ople on the i r own
t e rms . T o explain a part icular human act ion is t o
place i t in relat i on t o the c ircumst anc e s out of
whi ch it arose and the goal which t he agent s ought .
The ins ight that human act ivity i s i nte lligible and
exp l i c able only i n a soc i al and only in an h i st ori cal
c onte xt re quire s at the very least s ome c on c ept i on
of how people perce ive the world and what they do

o� IIHi story from the B ottom Up , " Radical Amer i c a

Sept . - Oct . , 1 967 .
64

or do not want t o do ab out the p rob lems they s e e or do

not see .
The very c on c e pt of " prob lems " refle ct s p ol i ­
t i c al j udgme n t s a s t o how man , s o c i e ty and h i s t o ry
work , and i s b i ased to the ext e nt that it is not an
o c c a s i on f or us t o c r it i c i ze spe c i f i c e mp ir i cal
stud i e s and t o point out how the i r c on c l us i ons or
:c� indings m i ght have b e e n d i ffe rent h a d d i ffe rent c at e ­
gori e s and c o n c e pt s b e e n us e d . Only b y such an
approach c an we s ave our s e l ve s from unde r c ut i ng the
whole s o c i ol og i c al -h i st or i c al e nt e rpr i s e and from
rende r ing it e ither t o o crue l or t o o i rre le vant t o
pur s ue .
D i s ob e d ie n c e , in the eye s of anyone who has
re ad h i s t ory , is man ' s o r i g i nal vi rtue . The same is
t rue for the i nt e l l e c tual . But whe re are our
i nt e l le ct ual N at Turn e r s .? That T al c ott Parsons f rom
the p ol i t i c al r i ght and C. vlri ght M i l l s from the
p o l it i c al Left should b oth be subme rge d by the det e r ­
m i n i st image of man i s amp le te st imony t o i t s c o n ­
t i nui ng s t re ngt h ; for M i l l s offers us no p i c t ure of
the re s i s t an c e s men have t ake n and c an t ake , no c on ­
c ept i o n of c ontrad i c t ions and opp o s it i on s , no c o n ­
c e pt i o n o f the He g e l i an "ne g at i ve I I w ith a l l o f wh at
He gel c a l l e d it s " pat ie n c e , l ab our , and suf f e r ing . , .
The c on c e pt s o f i n t e nt i o n , de l ib e r at ion , de s i re ,
indign at i o n , hone sty - t h o s e c on cept s are e s s e nt i al
t o unde rst and i ng me n as agent s and n ot mere p a s s i ve
re f l e x e s of non- human f act or s .
P s ycholog i st s , s o c i ol og i s t s and the re st off e r
two p o s s ib i l it ie s s o far as large - s c ale human change
is c on c e rne d . E ithe r men c an d i s c e rn the l aw s w h i c h
gove rn s oc i al deve lopment o r they c annot . If they
c an , then they must s ay that the i r mID behav i o r i s
s ub j e ct to those l aw s and they must admit that they
have d i s co ve red themse lve s to b e not age nt s or s our c e s ,
b ut v i ct ims , p art o f a s oc i al proce s s wh i c h o c c ur s
i nde p e ndently of human mind and w i l l and f e e l i ng . If
they c annot d i s c e rn s uch l aw s , t h e n they are
n e c e s s ar i l y he l p l e s s , f or they have no i n s t rument s of
change in t he i r h ands . So t hat in any c ase the
'human age n cy " i s b ound t o be ine ffe ct i ve . Of c our s e ,
so f ar as smal l - s c ale adapt ive change s are c on c e rne d ,
 it i s othe rw i se . I n the se c a s e s t ole ran c e of
r at i onal d i s s e nt b e c ome s an i n s i d i ous f orm of re ­
pre s s i o n as mode rn c orporate - b ure auc r at i c language
and c o n c e p t s pre vent good men f rom the very ab i l it y
t o conce ive a n e w s o c i ety . This i s why N orman
Mai le r ' s s p e e c h at Be rke ley ' s V ie t n am Day in 1965
remai n s much the b e st e vo c at i o n of prote st thus
f ar . M a i l e r fought h i s w ay out of the m o i l i n g ,
suf f o c at i ng are n a of t h o s e who s t r a i n t o rat i on ­
al i z e the irrat i onal ity of s i c k game s - t he
expe rt s and analyst s , t he propagand i st s , the
,. pol it i c al s c i ent i st s and h i s t o r i an s - sunk so de ep
i n the i r st at e - p ape rs and doc ument s and off i c ial
c orre sponde n c e that they c annot s e e over the e dge .

A TOTAL ANALY S I S

O u r c on c e rn for "b ott om - up " analys i s i s much

more t h an a react i on against the ye arly Gro s s
Soc i o l og i c al Product and it s t oken ref orme r s . What
has h appe ne d i s that Ame r i c an s o c i ol ogy and
ac adem i a in general i s in the p r o c e s s of c aptur ing
key p o s i t i on s w it h i n the p o s t - indust r i al s o c i ety .
Is it n ot p re c i s e ly t h i s deve l opment whi ch helps
explain the f act that the modern me r it o c r at i c
s t at e s h ov} s a n apparently b e n i gn c apac ity f or
ref ashi on ing s o c i et y through a p lanne d " re v o l ut i on
from ab ove ? " Such unde m o c r at i c revo lut i on s f rom
ab o ve are , in p art , mere l og i c al e xt e n s ions of the
t radit i o n al " t op - dovm " analy s i s of Ame r i c an
ac ademi c s . The R ad i c a l Educ at i on Pro j e ct ' s c ount e r ­
t ext series is i n the p r o c e s s o f show ing how the
c ol d -war a s sumpt i on s of Ame r i c an ac adem i c s such as
Hart z , B o o r s t i n and L i p s e t unde r l i e and s upport
the act i on s of Ame r i c an f ore ign p o l i cy . My f o rth ­
c oming t ext on The odore Drap e r s hows how the
as s umpt i on that one man , F i del C astro , had duped
the C ub an m i ddle c l as s unde r l i e d t he whole Bay of
P i g s f i as c o . I f the T h i r d World move s , i f b l ack
ghett o s e rupt , i f w orke r s w i ld c at , i f s t udent s
reb e l , the problems are s e e n in t e rms of a c om ­
mun i cat i ons b re akdown . Sub s t ant ive demands are
ignored and d i s rupt i on of the hypost at i z e d
"demo c r at i c pro c e s s " i s de nounce d a s i l legit imat e .

l
66

The whole c on cern of the polit i c i an s is p re c i s e ly

that 01� the academi c intellect ual s - w ith the he alth
of a re tried " system , " not the individual s l iving
w ithin i t .
The problem we f ac e i s not one of f i nding
c ompromise s i n the e s t ab l is he d soc iety, but of creat ing
the soc iety i n whi ch man is no l onge r e n s l aved by
inst itut i ons vlh i ch vit i ate self -determinat ion from
the beginning . It w ould be a grave e rror for anyone
to thinl<;: that only the inade quate exe c ut i on of an
ade quate de s i gn has been to b lame f or the arid de sert
c alled s o c i ology ; more than hone sty i s re qui red , for
the de s ign and methods themse lve s have lacke d the
sub st ance of l ife and the milk of human k indne s s .
When the study of man i n nature give s way t o the
study of " de l i n quent s in a C h i c ago suburt we have a
I'

de s ign whi ch i s f aulty .

The Liberat ion of the Wret ched of the E arth pre ­
supposes the suppre s s i on not only of the ir old but
al s o of the i r potent ial new masters - and thi s i n ­
c lude s the J ohn Kenneth Galbraiths as well as the Walt
\J . Rostow s . It i s the t ask of the revolut i onary
inte llectual to w age Grams c i ' s ' � ar for p o s it ion on
the cultural front , " to stimulate c r it i c al c onfl i ct s
i n eve ry are a o f l ife . I f we are t o b e the
exe c ut ione rs of a ne\v orde r and not the v i ct ims of the
cld order we vl i l l \'l rite our h i story democrat i cally .
We w i l l le arn t o think i n the oppos ite direct ion s o
',Ie don ' t place the "fact s we learn i n t o the pre ­
!I

dominant framevlOrk of value s .

A TOTAL REBELLION

The framework of value s , the inert i a , the c on­

sensus , the cultural and s o c i al c ont inuity which the
academic intelle ctual t ake s for grante d and jEake s h i s
l iving from val idat e s Niet z s che ' s apprai sal o f inte l ­
lect ual s as �en who l ive off the blood othe r people
have she d , who b e come e l it i st apol og i s t s f or the
'J i ct ors and the j ust i f iers of the deve lopment of
oppre s s ion . That c ont i nuity has been re creat e d anew
in e ach senerat i on , oft e n w ith great pain and s uf ­
f'e ri ng . As Barrington Moore s ays , "to maint a i n and
 t ransmit a valuE system, human b e ings are pun c h e d ,
bul l i e d , s e nt t o j ai l , thrown i nt o concent r at i on
c amp s , c aj o l e d , b r ib e d , made i nt o heroe s , en­
c ouraged to re ad new spape r s , st ood u p against a
w a l l and shot , and s omet ime s even t aught
s o c i o l ogy . " It i s the st ory of the se me n we must
t e l l and exp l a i n , and it i s the i r f at e we must
share - of R alph E l l i s on ' s invi s ib l e me n , those
" b i rds of p as s age w h o w e re t o o ob s cure for
l e arned c l as s i f i c at ion , too s i l e nt f o r the most
sen s it i ve re c orde r s of s ound; of n at ure s t o o
r
amb i guous for the most amb iguous w ords , and t o o
d i s t ant f r om t h e c e nt e r s of h i st or i c al de c i s ion
t o s i gn or e ve n t o applaud the s i gne r s of
h i s t o ri c al do cument s . "

'1I:Jj:ml[.J�1
I n recent issues Barbara Deming and
Regis Debray wrote on revolutionary
nonviolence and g uerrilla warfare,
Frontz Fanon a nd Che Guevara; Dove
Dell inger, Todd Gitl i n and J a mes Hig­
gins reported first- hand from Cuba; a
double issue was devoted to testi mony
from the War Crimes Tribunal; editors
Del l i nger, Demi ng, Paul Goodman,
Sidney Lens and Stoughton Lynd an­
alyzed the problems and prospects of
resista nce. This is the breadth of re­
porting you ca n expect from LI BERA­
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monthly is mode of. Subscribe now
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In addition to Revolution in the Revolution ?

Regis Debray wrote two long and important articles

Both of these were published by Neul Left Review

The Long March of Latin America

NLR 3 3-SeptemherJOctober 1965

Marxist strategy in Latin America

NLR 4 5-SeptemberJOctober 1967

We have had 10 reprint NLR 45 owing 10 the demmldfor the article, so both isslles are
slill available-bill there are onfy afew copies 1,11. Back nllmbers $ 1 . 5 0 postfreefrom
New Left Review, 7 Carlisle SJreel, London TV'I, England

Recent numbers of NLR have also contained

NLR 41 Jean-Paul Sartre on Imperialist Morality

and
Louis Althusser on Contradiction

NLR 42 Roger Murray's critical analysis of 'Ghana : End of an Illusion'

and
Robin Blackburn on Inequality and Exploitation

NLR 43 Isaac Deutscher on The Unfinished Revolution 1917-1967

and
Che Guevara's Vietnam Must Not Stand Alone
. artd
the dossier of the first important student revolt in Britain, at LSE

NLlt 44 Nicolas Krasso's explosiyc critique of Trotsky's Marxism

and
Jon Halliday on Japan-Asian Capitalism
and
Isaac Deutscher on The Israeli-Arab \\I"ar

NLR 4S Herbert Marcuse on The Question of Revolution

and
Eric Rouleau on Syria
and
Anouar Abde1-Malek on Egypt

NLR 46 E. H. Carr on Soviet Collectivization

and
Theodo! Adorno on Sociology and Psychology

NLIl 47 Olivier Todd on why The Americans Are Not Invincible

and
Ernest Mandel's reply to Krass6's critique of Trotsky
and
Peter Weiss's Ten Workpoints

NewLefl Review is bi-monthly, has 96 or I I Z pageiprr iJSI!t, anda sllbJcripfim GOIII

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Some Objedions to Socialism.

"SoclalilDl i s such ' bad form. " "We must change human nature
before Socialism i8 poaaible."

"Socialism is so unaesthetic, "Will Socialism aboli.h Pari.

doncher kaow." gowas ?"
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year_end goal 9f a c r i cula t i o n of 5,000, we shal! need more
help than we are now rece i v i n�. Conti nued and expanded i 1 _
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CONTRIBUTORS

STUART EI'IEN , a former SNCC f i e l d-worker, i s now a teach­

i n g , essistant at the Uni vers i ty of W i scon s i n. STAUGHTON
LYNO, who needs n� i ntroduc t i on to readers of radic a l
period i ca l s , now teaches i n Chicago. JNAES O t BRIEN i s
news e d i tor of CONNECTIONS and a graduate student at
\'Jiscons i n. ANDRE SCHIFFRIN h e l d various o f f i ces i n SLlD
i nc l udi ng i ts presi gency in 1 956_57, and i s now Edi tor_
i al D i rector of Pantheon Boolc:s in New York. DAVE WAGNER
i s poetry e d i tor of CONNECTfONS. DENNIS WOOD's comments
eme oteo from a seminar d i rected by Franz Schurmann i n
� ·keley. \
 1

A Garland for May Day.

By WALTER CRANE.