New Left 21747 225953856 2008-07-16T04:48:39Z 75.179.139.86 Spelling: Jean-Paul Sartre. {{Nofootnotes|date=December 2007}} The '''New Left''' were the [[left-wing]] movements in different countries in the 1960s and 1970s that, unlike the earlier leftist focus on [[labour movement|union]] activism, instead adopted a broader definition of political activism commonly called [[social activism]]. The U.S. "New Left" is associated with the [[Hippie|Hippie movement]], college campus mass protest movements and radical leftist movements. The British "New Left" was an intellectually driven movement which attempted to correct the perceived errors of "[[Old Left]]" parties in the post-WWII period. The movements began to wind down in the 1970s, when activists either committed themselves to party projects, developed [[social justice]] organizations, moved into [[identity politics]] or [[alternative lifestyles]] or became politically inactive. ==Origins== The confused response of the [[Communist Party of the USA]] and the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] to the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956]] created a crisis of confidence in party decision making. Independent [[Marxism|Marxist]] intellectuals began to develop a more [[individualistic]] approach to leftist politics, which was opposed to the perceived bureaucratic and inflexible politics of the pre-war leftist parties. In Western Europe, these new developments occurred both inside and outside social democratic and Communist parties, contributing toward the development of [[eurocommunism]]. The New Left in the U.S. was primarily a continuation of the [[progressivism|progressive]] movement and fueled by grass roots movements on college campuses. The New Left in the United Kingdom emerged through the links between dissenting Communist Party intellectuals and campus groups. ==In Britain == As a result of [[Khrushchev]]'s [[On the Personality Cult and its Consequences|Secret Speech]] denouncing [[Stalin]] and the [[Hungarian Revolution, 1956|Soviet invasion of Hungary]] in 1956, many left the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] (CPGB) for various [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] groupings or the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]]. The British New Left concentrated on the [[Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament]] and [[global justice]]. Some within the British New Left joined the [[International Socialists]], which later became [[Socialist Workers Party (Britain)|Socialist Workers Party]] while others became involved with groups such as the [[International Marxist Group]]. Trotskyist [[Tariq Ali]], who played a role in some of the New Left protests of this era, documents his involvement in his book ''Street Fighting Years.'' The Marxist historian [[E. P. Thompson]] established a dissenting journal within the CPGB called ''Reasoner''. Once expelled from the party, he began publishing the ''[[New Reasoner]]'' from 1957. In 1960, this journal merged with the ''[[Universities and Left Review]]'' to form the ''[[New Left Review]]''. These journals attempted to synthesise a theoretical position of a [[Marxist revisionism|revisionist]], [[humanism|humanist]], [[socialist]] marxism, departing from [[orthodox Marxism|orthodox Marxist]] theory. This publishing effort made the ideas of culturally oriented theorists available to an undergraduate reading audience. Under the long-standing editorial leadership of [[Perry Anderson]], the ''New Left Review'' popularised the [[Frankfurt School]], [[Antonio Gramsci]], [[Louis Althusser]] and other forms of [[Marxism]]. Other periodicals like ''[[Socialist Register]]'', started in 1964, and ''[[Radical Philosophy]]'', started in 1972, have also been associated with New Left theory and published a range of important writings in this field. As the campus orientation of the American New Left became clear in the mid to late 1960s, the student sections of the British New Left began taking action in these areas. The [[London School of Economics]] became a key site of British student militancy (Hoch and Schoenbach, 1969). The influence of the May 1968 events in France were also felt strongly throughout the British New Left. The politics of the British New Left can be contrasted with [[Solidarity, UK]], which continued to focus primarily on industrial issues. ==1960s in the United States== In the United States, the "New Left" was the name loosely associated with liberal, sometimes radical, political movements that took place during the 1960s, primarily among college students. The origin of the movement is largely based on the original [[progressivism|progressive]] movement. The term '''"New Left"''' can be traced to an open letter written in 1960 by [[sociologist]] [[C. Wright Mills]] entitled ''Letter to the New Left''. Mills argued for a new [[left-wing politics|leftist]] ideology, moving away from the traditional ("[[Old Left]]") focus on [[Labor movement|labor]] issues, towards more personalized issues such as opposing [[Social alienation|alienation]], [[anomie]], and [[authoritarianism]]. Put differently, Mills argued for a shift from traditional leftism, toward the values of the [[Counterculture]]. The New Left opposed the prevailing authority structures in society, which it termed "The Establishment," and those who rejected this authority became known as "anti-Establishment." The New Left did not seek to recruit industrial workers, but rather concentrated on a [[social activist]] approach to organization. Many in the New Left were convinced that they could be the source for a better kind of [[social revolution]]. Most New Left thinkers in the U.S., to varying degrees, were influenced by the [[Vietnam war]] and the [[Chinese Cultural Revolution]]. Like the British New Left, they also believed that the [[Secret Speech]] drew attention to problems with the Soviet Union, but unlike the British New Left, they did not turn to [[Trotskyism]] or [[social democracy]] as a result. Some in the U.S. New Left argued that since the Soviet Union could no longer be considered the world center for proletarian revolution, new revolutionary Communist thinkers had to be substituted in its place — [[Mao Zedong]], [[Ho Chi Minh]] and [[Fidel Castro]] were identified as key contributors to this new framework. Other elements of the U.S. New Left were [[anarchist]] and looked to [[libertarian socialism|libertarian socialist]] traditions of American [[Radical Left|radicalism]], and investigated the [[Industrial Workers of the World]] and previous union militancy. This group coalesced around the historical journal ''Radical America'' and in grouplets. American [[Autonomist Marxism]] was also a child of this stream the U.S. New Left, for instance in the thought of [[Harry Cleaver]]. The U.S. New Left both influenced and drew inspiration from [[black radicalism]], particularly the [[Black Power]] movement and the more explicitly left-wing [[Black Panther Party]]. The Panthers in turn influenced other similar militant groups, like the [[Young Lords]], the [[Brown Berets]] and the [[American Indian Movement]]. ===Students for a Democratic Society=== {{main|Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)}} The organization that really came to symbolize the core of the New Left was the [[Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)|Students for a Democratic Society]] (SDS). In 1962, [[Tom Hayden]] wrote its founding document, the [[Port Huron Statement]], which issued a call for "participatory democracy" based on nonviolent civil disobedience. The SDS marshaled anti-war, pro-civil rights and free speech concerns on campuses, and managed to bring together liberals and more revolutionary leftists. The SDS became the leading organization of the antiwar movement on college campuses during the [[Vietnam War]], and during the course of the war became increasingly [[militant]]. As opposition to the war grew stronger, the SDS became a nationally prominent political organization, but opposing the war became an overriding concern that overshadowed many of the original issues that had inspired SDS. In 1968 and 1969, as its radicalism reached a fever pitch, the SDS began to split under the strain of internal dissension and increasing turns toward [[Maoism]]. Along with adherents known as the [[New Communist Movement]], some extremist illegal factions also emerged, such as the [[Weatherman (organization)|Weather Underground Organization]]. ==International movements== The [[Prague Spring]] was legitimised by the Czech government as a reformist movement to revitalise [[Czechoslovak]] socialism. The 1968 events in the Czech Republic were driven forward by [[industry|industrial]] [[workers]], and were explicitly theorized by active Czech unionists as a revolution for workers' control. The driving force of near-revolution in [[France]] in May 1968 were students inspired by the ideas of the [[Situationist International]], which in turn had been inspired by [[Socialisme ou Barbarie]]. Both of these French groups placed an emphasis on cultural production as a form of production. Unlike the New Left, the sphere of culture was not unrelated to productivity. While the [[Autonomia]] in [[Italy]] have been called New Left, it is more appropriate to see them as a unique response to the failure of the Italian PCI and PSI to deal with the new Italian industrial working class in the 1950s. The Autonomia was a result of traditional, industrially oriented, communism retheorising its ideology and methods. Unlike most of the New Left, Autonomia had a strong blue-collar arm, active in regularly occupying factories. The [[Provos]] were a Dutch [[counter-culture|counter-cultural]] movement of mostly young people with anarchist influences. ==Criticism of the legacy== As many of those who supported the New Left in the 1960s are now in charge of the kinds of institutions they once opposed, conservative opponents argue that their assumptions - which are sometimes described as [[politically correct]] [[multiculturalism]] - are now the establishment orthodoxy. In what has been described as the [[culture wars]], conservative critics of this orthodoxy such as [[Allan Bloom]] and [[Roger Scruton]] assert that New Left [[Radicalization|radical]] [[egalitarianism]] is motivated by [[anti-Western]] [[nihilism]]. ==Inspirations and influences== *[[Otto Bauer]] *[[Albert Camus]] *[[Guy Debord]] *[[Frantz Fanon]] *[[Allen Ginsberg]] *[[Antonio Gramsci]] *[[Mao Zedong]] *[[Che Guevara]] *[[Ho Chi Minh]] *[[R.D. Laing]] *[[Henri Lefebvre]] *[[Rosa Luxemburg]] *[[Herbert Marcuse]] in particular and the [[Critical theory (Frankfurt School)|Frankfurt School]] in general *[[Non-conformists of the 1930s]] *[[C. Wright Mills]] *[[George Orwell]] *[[Jean-Paul Sartre]] *[[Malcolm X]] ==Key figures == *[[Tariq Ali]] *[[Perry Anderson]] *[[Rudolf Bahro]] *[[Noam Chomsky]] *[[Daniel Cohn-Bendit]] *[[Angela Davis]] *[[Mike Davis (scholar)]] *[[Regis Debray]] *[[Rudi Dutschke]] *[[Andre Gorz]] *[[Tom Hayden]] *[[Abbie Hoffman]] *[[David Horowitz]] *[[Tom Nairn]] *[[Carl Oglesby]] *[[Jerry Rubin]] *[[Mark Rudd]] *[[E.P. Thompson]] *[[Raymond Williams]] *[[Mario Savio]] *[[Deniz Gezmiş]] ==Other associated people== *[[Salvador Allende]] *[[Louis Althusser]] *[[Murray Bookchin]] *[[César Chávez]] *[[David Dellinger]] *[[Michel Foucault]] *[[Alain Geismar]] *[[Karl Hess]] *[[John Lennon]] *[[Ben Morea]] *[[Jacques Sauvageot]] *[[Charles Taylor (philosopher)|Charles Taylor]] *[[William Mandel]] ==See also== *[[Chinese New Left]] *''[[Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought]]'' *[[New Communist Movement]] *[[Civil rights movement]] *[[New social movements]] *[[New Left Review]] *[[Free Speech Movement]] *[[The Sixties]] *[[Yippies]] *[[Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers]] * Lithuanian New Left [http://www.nk95.org] *[[Austromarxism]] * Young Lords origins [http://www.nationalyounglords.com] ==External links== ===British New Left periodicals=== * {{cite web | title = The New Reasoner | work = indexed articles online | publisher = | date = 1957-1959 | url = http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/nr/index_frame.htm | format = HTML and PDF | doi = | accessdate = 2006-10-16 }} * {{cite web | title = Marxism Today | work = indexed articles online | publisher = [[Communist Party of Great Britain]] and Marxism Today | date = 1980-1991 & 1998 special issue | url = http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/mt/index_frame.htm | format = HTML and PDF | doi = | accessdate = 2006-10-16 }} * {{cite web | title = New Left Review | work = indexed articles online | publisher = | date = | url = http://newleftreview.org/ | format = HTML and PDF | doi = | accessdate = 2007-03-24 }} * {{cite web | title = Socialist Register | work = indexed articles online | publisher = | date = 1964-1999 | url = http://socialistregister.com/epublish/8 | format = HTML and PDF | doi = | accessdate = 2006-10-16 }} * {{cite web | title = Universities & Left Review | work = indexed articles online | publisher = | date = 1957-1959 | url = http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/ulr/index_frame.htm | format = HTML and PDF | doi = | accessdate = 2006-10-16 }} ===British New Left articles=== *{{cite journal | last = Mills | first = C. Wright | authorlink = C. Wright Mills | title = Letter to the New Left | journal = New Left Review | volume = | issue = No. 5 | pages = | publisher = | date = September-October 1960 | url = http://www.marxists.org/subject/humanism/mills-c-wright/letter-new-left.htm | doi = | id = | accessdate = 2006-10-16 }} *{{cite journal | last = Novack | first = George | authorlink = George Novack | coauthors = writing as "William F. Warde" | title = Who Will Change The World? The New left and the Views of C. Wright Mills | journal = International Socialist Review | volume = 22 | issue = No. 3 | pages = pp. 67–79 | publisher = [[USFI]] | date = 1961 | url = http://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/works/1961/x01.htm | doi = | id = | accessdate = 2006-10-16 }} * {{cite web | title = Placating Mr. Jenkins | work = Article discussing online archiving of four British New Left publications Universities & Left Review, Marxism Today, The New Reasoner and Socialist Register | date = Monday, October 16, 2006 | url = http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2006/10/placating-mr-jenkins.html | format = HTML | accessdate = 2006-10-16 }} ==Further reading== ===General=== * [http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=03/03/05/2045259 Interview with André Gorz, about The New Left] * Teodori, Massimo, ed., ''The New Left: A documentary History''. London: Jonathan Cape (1970). * Oglesby, Carl (ed.) ''The New Left Reader'' Grove Press (1969). ISBN 83-456-1536-8. Influential collection of texts by Mills, Marcuse, Fanon, Cohn-Bendit, Castro, Hall, Althusser, Kolakowski, Malcolm X, Gorz & others. * [http://www.spw.de/9706/otto_bauer.html Michael R. Krätke,Otto Bauer and the early "Third Way" to Socialism] *Detlev Albers u.a. (Hg.), Otto Bauer und der "dritte" Weg. Die Wiederentdeckung des Austromarxismus durch Linkssozialisten und Eurokommunisten, Frankfurt/M 1979 ===UK === * [[Tariq Ali|Ali, Tariq]]. ''Street fighting years: a<!--an/[sic]?--> autobiography of the sixties'' London: Collins, 1987. ISBN 0-00-217779-X * Hock, Paul and Vic Schoenbach. ''LSE: the natives are restless, a report on student power in action'' London: Sheed and Ward, 1969. ISBN 0-7220-0596-2 * [[Roger Scruton|Scruton, Roger]] ''Thinkers of the New Left'' (Claridge Press, 1985). * [http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=251&issue=112 ''The New Left's renewal of Marxism''] an account by Paul Blackledge from [[International Socialism journal]] ===U.S. === *Archives ** ''New Left Movement: 1964-1973''. Archive # 88-020. Title: New Left Movement fonds. 1964-1973. 51 cm of textual records. Trent University Archives. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. [http://www.trentu.ca/library/archives/88-020.htm Online guide retrieved April 12, 2005]. ** ''Russ Gilbert "New Left" Pamphlet Collection: An inventory of the collection at the University of Illinois at Chicago.'' [http://www.uic.edu/depts/lib/specialcoll/services/rjd/findingaids/RGilbertb.html Online guide retrieved October 8, 2005] *Reference* ** Breines, Wini. ''Community Organization in the New Left, 1962-1968: The Great Refusal'', reissue edition (Rutgers University Press, 1989). ISBN 0-8135-1403-7. **Cohen, Mitchell, and Hale, Dennis, eds. ''The New Student Left'' (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966). ** Evans, Sara. ''Personal Politics: The Roots of Women's Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement & the New Left'' (Vintage, 1980). ISBN 0-394-74228-1. ** Frost, Jennifer. ''"An Interracial Movement of the Poor": Community Organizing & the New Left in the 1960s'' (New York University Press, 2001). ISBN 0-8147-2697-6. ** Gosse, Van. ''The Movements of the New Left, 1950-1975: A Brief History with Documents'' (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004). ISBN 0-312-13397-9. ** Isserman, Maurice. ''If I had a Hammer: the Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left'', reprint edition (University of Illinois Press, 1993). ISBN 0-252-06338-4. **Long, Priscilla, ed. ''The New Left: A Collection of Essays'' (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1969). **Mattson, Kevin, ''[http://www.psupress.psu.edu/books/titles/0-271-02148-9.html Intellectuals in Action: The Origins of the New Left and Radical Liberalism, 1945-1970]'' (Penn State Press, 2002). ISBN 0-271-02206-X ** McMillian, John and Buhle, Paul (eds.). ''The New Left Revisited'' (Temple University Press, 2003). ISBN 1-56639-976-9. **Rossinow, Doug. ''The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America'' (Columbia University Press, 1998). ISBN 0-231-11057-x **Rubenstein, Richard E. ''Left Turn: Origins of the Next American Revolution'' (Boston: Little Brown, (1973). *Publications ** Munk, Michael. ''The New Left: What It Is ... Where It's Going ... What Makes it Move''. 22pp A National Guardian Pamphlet. New York. n.d. [1965]. Stapled softcover. Photos. ===Canada=== For a discussion on the rise and fall of the 60s movement in Canada, USA and Germany see: Levitt. C (1984) ''Children of Privilege''. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Ontario. [[Category:Political movements]] [[Category:Politics of the United Kingdom]] [[Category:Politics of the United States]] [[Category:Left-wing politics]] [[Category:Che Guevara]] [[zh-min-nan:Sin Chó-phài]] [[ca:Nueva Izquierda]] [[de:Neue Linke]] [[et:Uusvasakpoolsus]] [[es:Nueva Izquierda (Estados Unidos)]] [[ko:신좌파]] [[it:New Left]] [[ja:新左翼]] [[pl:Nowa lewica]] [[pt:Nova Esquerda]] [[ru:Новые левые]] [[sv:Nya vänstern]] [[zh:新左派]]