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The New Left was a broad political movement that emerged from the counterculture of the 1960s and continued through the 1970s. It consisted of activists in the Western world who, in reaction to the era's liberal establishment, campaigned for freer lifestyles on a broad range of social issues such as feminism, gay rights, drug policy reforms, and gender relations.[1] The New Left differs from the traditional left in that it tended to acknowledge the struggle for various forms of social justice, whereas previous movements prioritized explicitly economic goals. However, many have used the term "New Left" to describe an evolution, continuation, and revitalization of traditional leftist goals.[2][3][4]

Some who self-identified as "New Left"[5] rejected involvement with the labor movement and Marxism's historical theory of class struggle;[6] however, others gravitated to their own takes on established forms of Marxism, such as the New Communist movement (which drew from Maoism) in the United States or the K-Gruppen[a] in the German-speaking world. In the United States, the movement was associated with the anti-war college-campus protest movements, including the Free Speech Movement.

The CIA, through the Congress for Cultural Freedom, funded various intellectuals, cultural organizations and magazines affiliated with the New Left that championed anti-communist ideas and Western values.[7][8][9][10] The movement fell into decline following the end of the Vietnam War, in part as the result of a covert U.S. government campaign to mobilize the CIA's CHAOS and FBI's COINTELPRO to exacerbate existing fissions within the movement's most prominent groups, such as Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Panther Party.[11][12] This campaign culminated in the 1969 Assassination of BPP Chairman Fred Hampton by Chicago Police, in a predawn raid planned in coordination with the FBI and the Cook County State's Attorney.[13][14][15]

Background

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Herbert Marcuse, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory, is celebrated as the "Father of the New Left".[16]

The origins of the New Left have been traced to several factors. Prominently, the confused response of the Communist Party of the USA and the Communist Party of Great Britain to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 led some Marxist intellectuals to develop a more democratic approach to politics, opposed to what they saw as the centralised and authoritarian politics of the pre-World War II leftist parties. The Marxists who became disillusioned with the authoritarian nature of Communist Parties eventually formed the "new left".

Initially, the movement was composed of dissenting Communist Party intellectuals and campus groups in the United Kingdom; later it incorporated student radicals in the United States and in the Western Bloc.[17] The term nouvelle gauche was already current in France in the 1950s. It was associated with France Observateur, and its editor Claude Bourdet, who attempted to form a third position, between the dominant Stalinist and social democratic tendencies of the left, and the two Cold War blocs. It was from this French "new left" that the "First New Left" of Britain borrowed the term.[18]

The German critical theorist Herbert Marcuse is referred to as the "Father of the New Left".[16] He rejected the orthodox Marxist view of the revolutionary proletariat; instead, he labeled the 1960s Black Power and student movements as the new challengers of capitalism. In a speech at UC Berkeley in 1971, Marcuse said: "I still consider the radical student movement and the Black and Brown militants as the only real opposition we have in this country."[19] According to Leszek Kołakowski, noted critic of Marxist thought, Marcuse argued that since "all questions of material existence have been solved, moral commands and prohibitions are no longer relevant". He regarded the realization of man's erotic nature, or Eros, as the true liberation of humanity, which inspired the utopias of Jerry Rubin and others.[20] However, Marcuse also believed the concept of Logos, which involves one's reason, would absorb Eros over time.[21] Prominent New Left thinker Ernst Bloch believed that socialism would prove the means for all human beings to become immortal and eventually create God.[22]

The writings of sociologist C. Wright Mills (1916–1962), who popularized the term 'New Left' in a 1960 open letter,[23] also inspired the movement. According to biographer Daniel Geary, Mills' works such as White Collar (1951), The Power Elite (1956), and The Sociological Imagination (1959) had a "particularly significant impact on New Left social movements of the 1960s".[24]

Origins in the United Kingdom

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As a result of Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech denouncing Joseph Stalin, many abandoned the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and began to rethink orthodox Marxism. Some joined various Trotskyist groupings or the Labour Party.[25]

The Marxist historians E. P. Thompson and John Saville of the Communist Party Historians Group published a dissenting journal within the CPGB called Reasoner. Refusing to discontinue the publication at the behest of the CPGB, the two were suspended from party membership and relaunched the journal in the summer of 1957 as The New Reasoner.

Thompson was especially important in bringing the concept of a "New Left" to the United Kingdom in the summer of 1959 with a New Reasoner lead essay, in which he described

a generation which never looked upon the Soviet Union as a weak but heroic Workers' State; but rather as the nation of the Great Purges and Stalingrad, of Stalin's Byzantine Birthday and of Khrushchev's Secret Speech; as the vast military and industrial power which repressed the Hungarian rising and threw the first sputniks into space....

A generation nourished on 1984 and Animal Farm, which enters politics at the extreme point of disillusion where the middle-aged begin to get out. The young people... are enthusiastic enough. But their enthusiasm is not for the Party, or the Movement, or the established Political Leaders. They do not mean to give their enthusiasm cheaply away to any routine machine. They expect the politicians to do their best to trick or betray them. ... They prefer the amateur organisation and amateurish platforms of the Nuclear Disarmament Campaign to the method and manner of the left wing professional. ... They judge with the critical eyes of the first generation of the Nuclear Age.[26]

Later that year, Saville published a piece in the same journal which identified the emergence of the British New Left as a response to the increasing political irrelevance of socialists inside and outside the Labour Party during the 1950s, which he saw as being the result of a failure by the established left to come to grips with the political changes that had come to pass internationally after World War II, specifically, the economic expansion and the socio-economic legacy of the Attlee ministry:

The most important single reason for the miserable performance of the Left in this past decade is the simple fact of its intellectual collapse in the face of full employment and the welfare state at home, and of a new world situation abroad. The Left in domestic matters has produced nothing of substance to offset the most important book of the decade – Crosland's "The Future of Socialism" – a brilliant restatement of Fabian ideas in contemporary terms. We have made no sustained critique of the economics of capitalism in the 1950s, and our vision of a socialist society has changed hardly at all since the days of Keir Hardie. Certainly a minority has begun to recognise our deficiencies in the most recent years, and there is no doubt that the seeds which have already been sown will bring an increasing harvest as we move along the sixties. But we still have a long way to go, and there are far too many timeless militants for whom the mixture is the same as before.[27]

In 1960, The New Reasoner merged with the Universities and Left Review to form New Left Review. a publication aimed at making the ideas of culturally oriented theorists available to an undergraduate reading audience. These early New Left journals attempted to forge a Marxist revisionist position of "socialist humanism", departing from orthodox Marxist theory. In a 2010 retrospective, Stuart Hall wrote, "I was troubled by the failure of orthodox Marxism to deal adequately with either 'Third World' issues of race and ethnicity, and questions of racism, or with literature and culture, which preoccupied me intellectually as an undergraduate."[18]

During the late 1950s–early '60s period, many New Leftists were involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which formed in 1957. According to Robin Blackburn, "The decline of CND by late 1961, however, deprived the New Left of much of its momentum as a movement, and uncertainties and divisions within the Board of the journal led to the transfer of the Review to a younger and less experienced group in 1962."[28]

Under the long-standing editorial leadership of Perry Anderson, New Left Review popularised the Frankfurt School, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, and other forms of Marxism.[28] Other periodicals like Socialist Register, started in 1964, and Radical Philosophy, started in 1972, have been associated with the New Left, 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. The London School of Economics became a key site of British student militancy.[29] The influence of protests against the Vietnam War and of the May 1968 events in France were also felt strongly throughout the British New Left—some responded by joining the International Socialists, which later became Socialist Workers Party, while others got involved with groups such as the International Marxist Group.[30][31] The politics of the British New Left can be contrasted with Solidarity, which focused on industrial issues from a libertarian perspective.

Another significant figure in the British New Left was Stuart Hall, a black cultural theorist in Britain. He was the founding editor of New Left Review in 1960. In an obituary following his death in February 2014, Robin Blackburn wrote in New Left Review: "His exemplary investigations came close to inventing a new field of study, 'cultural studies'; in his vision, the new discipline was profoundly political in inspiration and radically interdisciplinary in character."[32]

Numerous Black British scholars attributed their interest in cultural studies to Hall, including Paul Gilroy, Angela McRobbie, Isaac Julien, and John Akomfrah. In the words of Indian literary theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Academics worldwide could not think 'Black Britain' before Stuart Hall. And in Britain the impact of Cultural Studies went beyond the confines of the academy."[33]

Development in United States

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A 1966 Students for a Democratic Society pamphlet
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In the United States, "New Left" was the name loosely associated with radical, Marxist political movements that arose during the 1960s, primarily among college students. At the core of these movements was the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).[34] Noting the perversion of "the older Left" by "Stalinism", in their 1962 Port Huron Statement the SDS eschewed "formulas" and "closed theories". Instead they called for a "new left ... committed to deliberativeness, honesty [and] reflection".[35] The New Left that developed in the following years was "a loosely organized, mostly white student movement that advocated for democracy, civil rights, and various types of university reforms, and protested against the Vietnam war".[36]

The term "New Left" was popularised in the United States in an open letter, entitled Letter to the New Left, written in 1960 by sociologist C. Wright Mills.[23] He argued for a revamped leftist ideology, moving away from the ("Old Left") focus on issues solely pertinent to labor (whose entrenched union leadership in the U.S. supported the Cold War and pragmatic establishment politics) into a broader set of issues such as opposing alienation, anomie, and authoritarianism. Mills argued for a shift from traditional leftism toward the values of the counterculture, and he emphasized the movement's international perspective.[37] According to David Burner, Mills claimed that the proletariat (collectively, the working class as defined by Marxism) were no longer the revolutionary force; the new agents of revolutionary change were young intellectuals around the world.[38]

A student protest called the Free Speech Movement took place during the 1964–1965 academic year on the campus of UC Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Jack Weinberg, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and others. In protests unprecedented in scope at the time, students insisted that the university administration lift the ban on campus political activities and acknowledge the students' right to free speech and academic freedom. On 2 December 1964 on the steps of Sproul Hall, Mario Savio delivered a speech with these famous passages:

[T]he faculty are a bunch of employees, and we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw material[s] that don't mean to have any process upon us, don't mean to be made into any product, don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings! ... There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.[39][40]

The New Left opposed what it saw as the prevailing authority structures in society, which it termed "The Establishment", and those who rejected this authority became known as the "anti-Establishment". The New Left focused on social activists and their approach to organization, convinced that they could be the source for a better kind of social revolution.

The New Left in the United States also included anarchist, countercultural, and hippie-related radical groups such as the Yippies (who were led by Abbie Hoffman), the Diggers,[41] Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers, and the White Panther Party. By late 1966, the Diggers opened free stores which simply gave away their stock, provided free food, distributed free drugs, gave away money, organized free music concerts, and performed works of political art.[42] The Diggers took their name from the original English Diggers led by Gerrard Winstanley[43] and sought to create a mini-society free of money and capitalism.[44] On the other hand, the Yippies (the name allegedly coming from Youth International Party) employed theatrical gestures, such as advancing a pig ("Pigasus the Immortal") as a candidate for president in 1968, to mock the social status quo.[45] They have been described as a highly theatrical, anti-authoritarian, and anarchist[46] youth movement of "symbolic politics".[47] According to ABC News, "The group was known for street theater pranks and was once referred to as the 'Groucho Marxists'."[48] Many of the "old school" political left either ignored or denounced them.

Many New Left thinkers in the United States were influenced by the Vietnam War and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. 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, such as Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro.[49] Todd Gitlin in The Whole World Is Watching in describing the movement's influences stated, "The New Left, again, refused the self-discipline of explicit programmatic statement until too late—until, that is, the Marxist–Leninist sects filled the vacuum with dogmas, with clarity on the cheap."[50]

Isserman (2001) reports that the New Left "came to use the word 'liberal' as a political epithet".[51] Historian Richard Ellis (1998) says that the SDS's search for their own identity "increasingly meant rejecting, even demonizing, liberalism".[52] As Wolfe (2010) notes, "no one hated liberals more than leftists".[53]

Other elements of the U.S. New Left were anarchist and looked to libertarian socialist traditions of American radicalism, the Industrial Workers of the World and union militancy. This group coalesced around the historical journal Radical America. American Autonomist Marxism derived from this stream, for instance, in the thought of Harry Cleaver. Murray Bookchin was also part of the anarchist strain in the New Left, as were the Yippies.[54]

The U.S. New Left drew inspiration first from the civil disobedience of the civil rights movement, particularly the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and then from black radicalism, particularly the Black Power movement and the more explicitly Maoist and militant 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 immersed themselves into poor communities building up support with the locals.[55] The New Left sought to be a broad-based, grass-roots movement.[56]

The Vietnam War conducted by liberal President Lyndon B. Johnson was a special target across the worldwide New Left. Johnson and his top officials became unwelcome on American campuses. The anti-war movement escalated the rhetorical heat, as violence broke out on both sides. The climax came at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

The New Left also helped set in motion the rebirth of feminism.[57] With sexism being rampant in certain sections of the New Left,[58][59] women reacted to the lack of progressive gender politics with their own social intellectual movement.[60] In addition, the New Left was an incubator for the modern environmentalist movement, which clashed with the Old Left's disregard for environmental matters in favor of preserving jobs of union workers. Environmentalism also gave rise to various other social justice movements such as the environmental justice movement, which aims to prevent the toxification of the environment of minority and disadvantaged communities.[2]

By 1968, however, the New Left coalition began to split. The anti-war Democratic presidential nomination campaign of Kennedy and McCarthy brought the central issue of the New Left into the mainstream liberal establishment. The 1972 nomination of George McGovern further highlighted the new influence of Liberal protest movements within the Democratic establishment. Increasingly, feminist and gay rights groups became important parts of the Democratic coalition, thus satisfying many of the same constituencies that were previously unserved by the mainstream parties.[1] This institutionalization took away all but the most radical members of the New Left. The remaining radical core of the SDS, dissatisfied with the pace of change, incorporated violent tendencies towards social transformation. After 1969, the Weathermen, a surviving faction of SDS, attempted to launch a guerrilla war in an incident known as the "Days of Rage". Finally, in 1970 three members of the Weathermen blew themselves up in a Greenwich Village brownstone trying to make a bomb out of a stick of dynamite and an alarm clock.[61] Port Huron Statement participant Jack Newfield wrote in 1971 that "in its Weathermen, Panther and Yippee incarnations, [the New Left] seems anti-democratic, terroristic, dogmatic, stoned on rhetoric and badly disconnected from everyday reality".[62] In contrast, the more moderate groups associated with the New Left increasingly became central players in the Democratic Party and thus in mainstream American politics.

Hippies and Yippies

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Main articles: Hippies and Yippies
Abbie Hoffman, leader of the countercultural protest group the Yippies

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The Beats adopted the term hip, and early hippies inherited the language and countercultural values of the Beat Generation and mimicked some of the current values of the British Mod scene. Hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and some used drugs such as cannabis, LSD, and psilocybin mushrooms to explore altered states of consciousness.

The Yippies, who were seen as an offshoot of the hippie movements parodying as a political party, came to national attention during their celebration of the 1968 spring equinox, when some 3,000 of them took over Grand Central Terminal in New York, resulting in 61 arrests. The Yippies, especially their leaders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, became notorious for their theatrics, such as trying to levitate the Pentagon at the October 1967 war protest, and such slogans as "Rise up and abandon the creeping meatball!" Their stated intention to protest the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, including nominating their own candidate, "Lyndon Pigasus Pig" (an actual pig), was also widely publicized in the media at this time.[63] In Cambridge, hippies congregated each Sunday for a large "be-in" at Cambridge Park with swarms of drummers and those beginning the Women's Movement. In the United States the hippie movement started to be seen as part of the "New Left" which was associated with anti-war college campus protest movements.[1]

Students for a Democratic Society

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Main article: Students for a Democratic Society

The organization that came to symbolize the New Left in the U.S. was the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). By 1962, the SDS had emerged as the most important of the new campus radical groups; soon it would be regarded as virtually synonymous with the "New Left".[64] In 1962, Tom Hayden wrote its founding document, the Port Huron Statement,[35] which issued a call for "participatory democracy" based on non-violent civil disobedience. This was the idea that individual citizens could help make "those social decisions determining the quality and direction" of their lives.[65] The SDS marshaled antiwar, pro-civil rights and free speech concerns on campuses, and brought together liberals and more revolutionary leftists.

A demonstrator offers a flower to military police at an anti-Vietnam War protest in Arlington, Virginia, 21 October 1967.

The SDS became the leading anti-war organization on college campuses during the Vietnam War. As the war escalated, SDS membership increased greatly, with more students willing to scrutinise the nation's political decisions in moral terms, and to protest the war with heightened militancy.[66] As opposition to the Vietnam War grew stronger, the SDS became a nationally prominent political organization. Ending the war was its overriding concern, overshadowing many of the original issues that inspired the formation of the SDS. By 1967, the Port Huron Statement was superseded by a new call for militant action,[67] which would inevitably lead to the destruction of the SDS.

In 1968 and 1969, as its radicalism reached a fever pitch, the SDS began to split under the strain of internal dissension and an increasing turn towards Maoism.[68] Along with adherents known as the New Communist Movement, some extremist illegal factions also emerged, such as the Weather Underground organization.

The SDS suffered the difficulty of wanting to change the world while "freeing life in the here and now". This caused confusion between short-term and long-term goals. The sudden growth due to the successful rallies against the Vietnam War meant there were more people wanting action to end the Vietnam War, whereas the original New Left had wanted to focus on critical reflection.[69] In the end, it was the anti-war sentiment that dominated the SDS.[70]

The New Storefront Left

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Stung by the criticism that they were "high on analysis, low on action", and in "the year of the 'discovery of poverty'" (Michael Harrington's 1962 book The Other America[71] "was the rage"), the SDS launched the Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP).[72] Conceived by Tom Hayden as forestalling "white backlash", community-organizing initiatives would unite Black, Brown, and White workers around a common program for economic change. However, the ERAP leadership commitment was sustained barely two years. With no early indications in neighborhoods of an interracial movement that would "collectivize economic decision making and democratize and decentralize every economic, political, and social institution in America", many SDS organizers were induced by the escalating U.S. commitment in Vietnam to abandon their storefront offices, and heed the anti-war call to return to campus.[73]

In certain ERAP projects, such as JOIN ("Jobs or Income Now") in uptown Chicago, SDSers were replaced by white working-class activists (some bitterly conscious that their poor backgrounds had limited their acceptance within "the Movement"). In community unions such as "Rising Up Angry", "Young Patriots", and JOIN in Chicago; "White Lightening" in the Bronx; and the "4 October Organization" in Philadelphia, white radicals—acknowledging the debt they believed they owed to SNCC and the Black Panthers—continued to organize rent strikes, health and legal clinics, housing occupations, and street protests against police brutality.[74]

While city-hall and police harassment was a factor, internal tensions ensured that these radical community-organizing efforts did not long survive the '60s.[73] Kirkpatrick Sale recalls that the most dispiriting feature of the ERAP experience was that, however much they might talk at night about "transforming the system", "building alternative institutions", and "revolutionary potential", the organizers knew their credibility on the doorstep rested on an ability to secure concessions from, and thus to develop relations with, the local power structures. Far from erecting parallel structures, the ERAP projects were built "around all the shoddy instruments of the state". ERAP members were caught in "a politics of adjustment".[75]

Development in Europe

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Main article: Protests of 1968
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The European New Left appeared first in West Germany and West Berlin, which became a prototype for European student radicals.[76] West Berlin, an Allied-occupied island within socialist East Germany to which young men from both German states had moved to avoid conscription, in particular became a center of critical dissent from the rival social-democratic and communist party traditions. At the beginning of 1960, an early grouping was Subversive Action (Subversiven Aktion), conceived as the German branch of the Situationist International.[77] Associated with the charismatic East German emigre, and student of the Frankfurt School, Rudi Dutschke, it became a leading faction within the German Socialist Students' Union (Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund, SDS).[78]

Dutschke and his faction had an important ally in Michael Vester, SDS vice-president and international secretary. Vester, who had studied in the US in 1961–62, and worked extensively with the American SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), introduced the theories of the American New Left and supported the call for "direct action" and civil disobedience.[79] The theory as expounded by Dutschke in relation to protests against the Vietnam War, which soon dominated the agenda, was that "systematic, limited and controlled confrontations with the power structure" would "force the representative 'democracy' to show openly its class character, its authoritarianism, ... to expose itself as a 'dictatorship of force'". The awareness produced by such provocations would free people to rethink democratic theory and practice.[80][81] Dutschke was also influenced by Provo, a Dutch counterculture movement in the mid-1960s that focused on provoking violent responses from authorities using non-violent bait.

In France the Situationist International reached the apex of its creative output and influence in 1967 and 1968, with the former marking the publication of the two most significant texts of the situationist movement, The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord and The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem. The expressed writing and political theory of these texts, along with other situationist publications, proved greatly influential in shaping the ideas behind the May 1968 student and worker strikes and demonstrations in France; quotes, phrases, and slogans from situationist texts and publications were ubiquitous on posters and graffiti throughout France during the unrest.[82]

May 1968 slogan in Paris which reads: "It is forbidden to forbid!"

Another West Berlin manifestation of a new left was Kommune 1 or K1, the first politically motivated commune in Germany. It was created on 12 January 1967, in West Berlin and finally dissolved in November 1969. During its entire existence, Kommune 1 was infamous for its bizarre staged events that fluctuated between satire and provocation. These events served as inspiration for the "Sponti" movement and other leftist groups. In the late summer of 1968, the commune moved into a deserted factory on Stephanstraße in order to reorient. This second phase of Kommune 1 was characterized by sex, music, and drugs. All of a sudden, the commune was receiving visitors from all over the world, among them Jimi Hendrix, who turned up one morning in the bedroom of Kommune 1.[83]

The student activism of the New Left came to a head around the world in 1968. The May 1968 protests in France temporarily shut down the city of Paris, while the German student movement did the same in Bonn. Universities were simultaneously occupied in May in Paris, in the Columbia University protests of 1968, and in Japanese student strikes. Shortly thereafter, Swedish students occupied a building at Stockholm University. However, all of these protests were shut down by police authorities without achieving their goals, which caused the influence of the student movement to lapse in the 1970s.

Global overview

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Australia

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In Australia, the New Left was engaged in debates concerning the legitimacy of heterodox economics and political economy in tertiary education.[84] This culminated in the establishment of an independent department of political economy at the University of Sydney.[85][86]

Brazil

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The Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT) is considered the main organization to emerge from the New Left in Brazil. According to Manuel Larrabure, "rather than taking the path of the old Latin American left, in the form of the guerrilla movement, or the Stalinist party", PT decided to try something new, while being aided by CUT and other social movements. Its challenge was to "combine the institutions of liberal democracy with popular participation by communities and movements". However, PT has been criticized for its "strategic alliances" with the right wing after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected president of Brazil. The party has distanced itself from social movements and youth organizations and for many it seems the PT's model of a new left is reaching its limits.[87]

China

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This paragraph is an excerpt from Chinese New Left.[edit]
The Chinese New Left is a term used in the People's Republic of China to describe a diverse range of left-wing political philosophies that emerged in the 1990s that are critical of the economic reforms instituted under Deng Xiaoping, which emphasized policies of market liberalization and privatization to promote economic growth and modernization.[88]

Japan

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Gate of the Tokyo University of Education (present-day Tsukuba University) during the student strikes of 1968-69. The sign reads, "Indefinite Strike."
This paragraph is an excerpt from New Left in Japan.[edit]
The New Left (新左翼, shin-sayoku) in Japan refers to a diverse array of 1960s Japanese leftist movements that, like their counterparts in the Western New Left, adopted a more radical political stance compared to the established "Old Left," which in the case of Japan was emblematized by the Japanese Communist Party and Japan Socialist Party. After emerging in the lead-up to the 1960 Anpo protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, the movement grew and diversified before climaxing with the Zenkyōtō movement which barricaded dozens of Japanese universities in 1968–1969. Much like its counterparts in the West, in the 1970s, the Japanese New Left became known for violent internal splits and terrorism, which caused the movement's influence to wane.

Latin America

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The New Left in Latin America can be loosely defined as the collection of political parties, radical grassroots social movements (such as indigenous movements, student movements, mobilizations of landless rural workers, afro-descendent organizations and feminist movements), guerilla organizations (such as the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions) and other organizations (such as trade unions, campesino leagues and human rights organizations) that constituted the left between 1959 (with the beginning of the Cuban Revolution) and 1990 (with the fall of the Berlin Wall).[89]

Influential Latin American thinkers such as Francisco de Oliveira argued that the United States used Latin American countries as "peripheral economies" at the expense of Latin American society and economic development, which many saw as an extension of neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism.[90]

The New Left in Latin America sought to go beyond existing Marxist–Leninist efforts at achieving economic equality and democracy to include social reform and address issues unique to Latin America such as racial and ethnic equality, indigenous rights, the rights of the environment, demands for radical democracy, international solidarity, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism and other aims.[89]

Organizations

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France

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Germany

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Italy

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Japan

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Soviet Union

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United Kingdom

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United States

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See also

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Explanatory notes

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References

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Further reading

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

New Left

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The New Left comprised a loose array of radical youth movements and intellectual tendencies that gained prominence in the United States and Western Europe during the late 1950s and 1960s, diverging from the "Old Left" by de-emphasizing traditional proletarian class struggle and bureaucratic socialism in favor of cultural transformation, anti-authoritarian direct action, and advocacy for participatory democracy. Disillusioned with revelations of Soviet atrocities and the perceived stagnation of established labor parties, its adherents rejected hierarchical organization and economic materialism, instead prioritizing personal liberation, opposition to imperialism, and critiques of consumerist society. Key organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the U.S. exemplified this shift, with their 1962 Port Huron Statement calling for a renewed left committed to combating apathy, alienation, and corporate power through grassroots engagement. The movement mobilized large-scale protests against the Vietnam War, racial injustice, and gender inequalities, contributing to policy shifts like expanded civil rights legislation and heightened environmental awareness, yet it also faced internal fragmentation, escalation to militant tactics by splinter groups, and public backlash that limited its electoral success. Its enduring legacy lies in reshaping leftist priorities toward identity-based grievances and institutional critique, profoundly influencing academia and cultural norms despite critiques of fostering intolerance and detachment from working-class concerns.

Definition and Ideology

Core Principles and Distinction from Old Left

The New Left emerged in the late and as a movement that critiqued the bureaucratic and authoritarian tendencies of traditional socialist organizations, prioritizing instead a holistic encompassing cultural, psychological, and personal liberation alongside economic change. Central to its principles was the rejection of orthodox Marxist , which the emphasized through class struggle led by industrial workers and parties; the New Left argued that advanced capitalist societies had integrated the via consumer affluence and , rendering traditional labor movements ineffective. Influenced by thinkers like , who posited in works such as (1964) that modern society imposed "repressive tolerance" by co-opting dissent, New Left adherents advocated for the ""—a total opposition to systemic alienation through , consciousness-raising, and the mobilization of marginalized groups including students, intellectuals, and racial minorities. In contrast to the 's focus on seizing state power to redistribute resources via centralized planning, the New Left championed anti-hierarchical, participatory structures, viewing authority itself—whether capitalist or socialist—as a form of domination requiring dismantling. This distinction manifested in practices like sit-ins, teach-ins, and commune experiments, which eschewed formal party discipline for spontaneous, decentralized protest, as seen in the (SDS) emphasis on where means mirrored desired ends. The movement's cultural orientation, drawing from , targeted the family, education, and sexuality as sites of repression, promoting sexual liberation and identity-based struggles over purely economic ones; for instance, while the largely upheld traditional social norms in pursuit of , New Left figures critiqued these as reinforcing . This shift reflected disillusionment with Soviet-style communism following revelations like Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 "Secret Speech" denouncing Stalin's crimes and the subsequent suppression of the Hungarian Revolution, events that discredited the 's alignment with . New Left principles thus incorporated and anti-militarism, particularly against the , but framed them within a broader assault on technocratic rationality and consumerist rather than narrow anti-capitalist economics. Empirical data from movement histories indicate that New Left groups achieved influence through cultural permeation—altering norms in universities and media—rather than electoral or union gains typical of the , though this often led to internal fragmentation due to rejection of disciplined organization.

Intellectual Foundations and Influences

The intellectual foundations of the New Left were rooted in developed by the , which sought to extend Marxist critique beyond to encompass cultural and psychological dimensions of advanced . Founded in as the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, the School's key figures, including and Theodor Adorno, integrated elements of Freudian psychoanalysis with Hegelian dialectics and to analyze the "culture industry" as a mechanism of mass deception and . This approach critiqued both fascist and liberal democratic societies for fostering conformity and alienating individuals from authentic needs, influencing New Left activists to prioritize over traditional proletarian class struggle. Herbert Marcuse, a prominent affiliate, emerged as a pivotal influence on the New Left through works like (1955), which reinterpreted Freud to argue for libidinal liberation as a path to overcoming repressive societal structures, and (1964), which posited that technological rationality in affluent societies manufactured and neutralized revolutionary potential. Marcuse's concepts, such as "repressive tolerance," advocated selective intolerance toward right-wing ideas to enable radical change, resonating with student movements that viewed established institutions as inherently oppressive. His emphasis on marginalized groups—students, minorities, and the Third World—as new revolutionary subjects shifted focus from industrial workers, a departure from . In the United States, contributed significantly by challenging the post-World War II consensus on the and highlighting the concentration of power in a military-industrial elite. His 1956 book exposed interlocking corporate, military, and political leadership as undermining democracy, while his 1960 "Letter to the New Left," published in Studies on the Left, urged intellectuals and youth to lead transformative politics beyond labor unions. This resonated with early New Left formations like , fostering an anti-establishment ethos that critiqued bureaucratic and Soviet-style alike. Existentialist philosophy, particularly from Jean-Paul Sartre, further shaped New Left thought by emphasizing individual authenticity, freedom, and rejection of deterministic historical narratives, encouraging personal commitment to social action over passive acceptance of structures. Sartre's engagement with Marxism in works like Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960) influenced anti-colonial struggles and participatory democracy ideals, though his support for authoritarian regimes drew criticism from New Left humanists. These diverse strands—critical theory's cultural pessimism, Marcuse's utopian eroticism, Mills' sociological realism, and existentialism's voluntarism—collectively underpinned the New Left's departure from Old Left economism toward a holistic assault on hierarchy, authority, and alienation.

Emphasis on Culture, Identity, and Anti-Hierarchy

The New Left distinguished itself through a pronounced focus on cultural critique and transformation, viewing culture as a primary arena for challenging capitalist domination rather than solely economic structures. Influenced by theorists, particularly , New Left thinkers argued that advanced industrial societies exerted control via cultural apparatuses and consumerist ideology, fostering conformity and suppressing revolutionary potential. In his 1964 work , Marcuse contended that technological rationality had integrated the into the system, necessitating a cultural revolt to disrupt this "one-dimensional" existence and enable multidimensional liberation. This perspective inspired student movements to target cultural institutions, such as universities, as sites of ideological reproduction, promoting countercultural practices to erode established norms. Central to the New Left's ideology was an anti-hierarchical ethos, manifested in advocacy for as an alternative to representative systems perceived as alienating and elitist. The (SDS) outlined this in the of June 1962, which demanded direct participation in decision-making to eliminate bureaucratic hierarchies and empower individuals against passive citizenship. This approach emphasized consensus-oriented, decentralized organization, rejecting top-down in favor of processes to foster authentic . Such principles influenced anti-war protests and occupations, where activists dismantled formal authority structures to model egalitarian alternatives, though this often led to internal factionalism due to the challenges of scaling non-hierarchical coordination. The New Left also pioneered an emphasis on identity as a locus of and resistance, laying groundwork for subsequent identity-based by framing personal and group identities—racial, , and sexual—as intertwined with systemic power dynamics. Emerging from , this shift prioritized cultural recognition and affirmation of marginalized identities over universal class , influencing movements like , , and . For instance, New Left groups increasingly viewed intersections of identity with , advocating dismantling patriarchal, racial, and heteronormative structures through cultural rather than state-centric reforms. This focus, while mobilizing diverse constituencies, diverged from traditional Marxist priorities, contributing to a fragmented left by the 1970s as identity claims competed with economic analyses.

Historical Context

Post-World War II Disillusionment

Following the Allied victory in in 1945, a growing number of left-wing thinkers and militants in and became disillusioned with the Soviet Union's brand of , as evidence mounted of its totalitarian practices, including mass repression and the suppression of genuine . The rapid Stalinization of —marked by rigged elections in Poland in 1947, the communist coup in in February 1948, and the show trials across the region—revealed the Kremlin's prioritization of geopolitical control over socialist ideals, alienating those who had hoped for diverse paths to free from Moscow's dictation. This disillusionment extended to Western , which, despite implementing ambitious welfare programs amid reconstruction, appeared increasingly co-opted by capitalist stability and bureaucratic inertia. In Britain, Clement Attlee's Labour government (1945–1951) nationalized key industries like and steel, established the in 1948, and expanded , yet by the early 1950s, rising affluence and fostered a consumer-oriented society that dulled class antagonisms without eradicating exploitation or inspiring further radical transformation. Critics on the left argued that such reforms represented "socialism from above," mirroring Stalinism's top-down authoritarianism by substituting state management for , thus failing to address alienation in advanced industrial societies. Intellectual currents amplified this critique, with figures like Theodor Adorno and , in their 1947 work , diagnosing how instrumental reason under both liberal capitalism and Soviet bureaucracy led to new forms of domination, including the culture industry's pacification of the masses. In the United States, the Old Left's labor unions and communist organizations faced marginalization amid the Cold War's anti-communist purges, such as the prosecutions starting in 1949, which exposed the vulnerabilities of hierarchical party structures and without cultural or anti-imperialist dimensions. This dual rejection of Stalinist rigidity and social democratic complacency created intellectual space for rethinking leftist strategy, emphasizing participation over .

1956 Crises as Catalyst

The , erupting on October 23 amid protests in demanding political liberalization and an end to Soviet domination, exposed the repressive realities of Stalinist communism to Western observers. Sparked by Nikita Khrushchev's February 1956 denunciation of at the 20th Soviet Congress, the uprising involved workers' councils and calls for multi-party , but was crushed by Soviet tanks on November 4, resulting in an estimated 2,500 Hungarian deaths and over 200,000 refugees. This invasion triggered widespread disillusionment among European and American leftists, prompting mass resignations from communist parties—such as the from Britain's , where membership halved from 35,000 to under 20,000 by 1957—and a rejection of uncritical fidelity to . The underscored the incompatibility of Soviet-style with democratic aspirations, eroding the Old Left's monolithic allegiance to the USSR and fostering demands for a socialism independent of state capitalist . Parallel to this, the Suez Crisis crystallized anti-imperialist critiques by revealing the anachronistic aggressions of declining European powers. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal Company on July 26, 1956, prompted a covert Anglo-French-Israeli invasion starting October 29, aimed at regaining control and toppling Nasser, but U.S. economic pressure and UN resolutions forced a humiliating withdrawal by December 22. The debacle, amid Britain's post-war economic strains and Eisenhower administration opposition, symbolized the erosion of formal empire and the rise of nationalist leaders in the Global South, galvanizing leftists to pivot from Eurocentric labor politics toward solidarity with decolonization struggles. Nasser's defiance, backed by Soviet rhetoric, highlighted Western hypocrisy in condemning Soviet intervention in Hungary while pursuing colonial aims, thus bridging anti-Stalinist sentiments with opposition to capitalist imperialism. These intertwined crises of —Soviet brutality in the East and imperial overreach in the "West"—catalyzed the New Left's formation by dismantling paradigms, including faith in the USSR as socialism's vanguard and tolerance for social-democratic complicity in empire. In Britain, they spurred the "first New Left," with dissidents launching The Reasoner (merging into by 1960) to advocate open, non-sectarian focused on and extra-parliamentary action. Across the Atlantic, figures like drew on the year's upheavals in Listen, (1960) to link anti-communist revelations with critiques of U.S. corporate , inspiring student radicals toward global . The events thus marked a generational rupture, privileging empirical of power structures over ideological orthodoxy and laying groundwork for movements emphasizing identity, , and .

Regional Developments

United Kingdom

The British New Left emerged in response to the political crises of 1956, including Nikita Khrushchev's February speech denouncing Joseph Stalin's crimes, the subsequent Hungarian Revolution crushed by Soviet tanks in October-November, and the exposing Western imperialism. These events prompted a wave of disillusionment among British communists and socialists, leading to the exodus of around 5,000 members from the (CPGB) by early 1957, including prominent historians and intellectuals who rejected Stalinist while seeking alternatives to both Soviet-style and reformist . This "First New Left" coalesced around independent journals that critiqued orthodox Marxism's and emphasized moral, cultural, and anti-hierarchical dimensions of . and others launched The New Reasoner in 1957 to advocate humanistic and , drawing from the Hungarian workers' councils as models of . Simultaneously, younger academics produced Universities and Left Review to engage students with existentialist and anti-colonial ideas. These merged in 1960 to form (NLR), initially edited by Stuart Hall, which became a central organ for analyzing Britain's "absent" bourgeois revolution and under capitalism. Key figures included , who explored working-class culture in works like (1958), and , whose critiques of parliamentary highlighted of Labour institutions. The movement intertwined with the (CND), founded in 1957 amid Britain's hydrogen bomb tests, channeling anti-militarism into mass mobilization. New Left activists, including Thompson, participated in annual , which grew from 10,000 participants in 1958 to over 50,000 by 1961, fostering a fusion of with tactics like sit-ins and teach-ins that bypassed traditional party structures. CND's unilateralist stance against NATO's nuclear posture reflected the New Left's rejection of bipolarity, prioritizing independent moral agency over geopolitical realism. By the mid-1960s, a "Second New Left" emerged, influenced by global events like the and upheavals in , shifting toward student-led radicalism and cultural critique. UK protests peaked in 1968 with occupations at the London School of Economics (LSE) in January-March, triggered by student suspensions and police violence, and the Hornsey College of Art uprising in May, where over 700 students and staff seized the campus for seven weeks demanding democratic governance and curriculum reform. These actions, documented in agitprop publications like The Black Dwarf edited by , critiqued university complicity in state power and advanced anti-imperialist solidarity, though they often fractured over tactics between Trotskyist and autonomist factions. NLR under from 1962 increasingly incorporated Eurocommunist and structuralist theory, influencing at the University of Birmingham's , founded by and Hall in 1964. Despite galvanizing youth radicalism, the British New Left waned by the early 1970s amid internal debates over versus and external pressures like Labour's 1970 electoral defeat and economic . Its legacy persisted in academic fields like history from below—exemplified by Thompson's *The Making of the English (1963)—and in challenging the CPGB's dominance, though critics noted its limited penetration into industrial strongholds, attributing this to an overemphasis on intellectual rather than mass organization.

United States

The New Left in the developed primarily through in the early , distinguishing itself from the by rejecting hierarchical structures, Stalinist legacies, and labor-focused organizing in favor of cultural critique, personal liberation, and . It drew initial momentum from disillusionment with conformity and the perceived inadequacies of mainstream liberalism, intersecting with the via alliances with groups like the (SNCC). The (SDS), established in 1960 at the , emerged as the movement's central organization, growing from a few dozen members to over 100,000 by 1968 through campus chapters advocating against racial injustice and university complicity in the military-industrial complex. The 1962 Port Huron Statement, drafted primarily by during SDS's founding convention in , served as the movement's seminal manifesto, diagnosing societal "alienation" and calling for to replace bureaucratic apathy and corporate dominance. This document, ratified by 60 delegates, critiqued both liberal capitalism and Soviet communism, emphasizing values formation through community action and influencing subsequent activism by framing issues like poverty and war as symptoms of deeper participatory deficits. By mid-decade, opposition to U.S. escalation in galvanized the New Left, with SDS organizing the first major at the on March 24-25, 1965, drawing 3,000 participants and sparking nationwide campus events that evolved into mass protests. Key figures included Hayden, who transitioned from SDS leadership to broader political roles, and radicals like of the (Yippies), who blended theatrical protest with countercultural elements to challenge authority through events like the 1967 "Exorcism of ." The movement's tactics encompassed sit-ins, draft resistance—over 200,000 young men evaded or resisted the draft by 1970—and occupations, such as the 1968 takeover protesting university ties to war research, which involved 1,000 students seizing buildings for a week. Influences from European thinkers like , whose 1964 book critiqued consumer society, resonated in U.S. campuses, promoting ideas of repressive tolerance and student-led revolution. Despite peak mobilization, including the October 1967 March on the Pentagon with 100,000 attendees, the New Left fragmented by the late 1960s due to ideological splits between nonviolent reformers and militant factions like the Weather Underground, formed in 1969 after SDS's collapse at its June convention amid factional violence. Events like the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention protests, marked by clashes with police resulting in over 600 arrests, highlighted tactical extremism that alienated potential allies and public opinion, with polls showing majority support for the war until 1968 but declining tolerance for disruptive tactics. The movement waned by the early 1970s following the 1970 , end of the draft in 1973, U.S. withdrawal from in 1973, and internal burnout, though its emphasis on identity and anti-institutionalism persisted in later cultural shifts.

Continental Europe

In continental Europe, the New Left emerged as a response to the revelations of Stalinist atrocities and the Soviet suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, fostering disillusionment with orthodox Marxism-Leninism among intellectuals and students. This shift emphasized anti-authoritarian critiques of both and , drawing on thinkers like and the to prioritize over traditional class struggle. Movements rejected hierarchical party structures, advocating instead for , , and opposition to , often manifesting in university occupations and protests against perceived authoritarian tendencies in post-war societies. In , the New Left crystallized during the events, beginning with student unrest at the University of in March over cohabitation rules and opposition to the , which spread to the Sorbonne on May 3 after police intervention. By May 13, general strikes engulfed the country, with approximately 10 million workers occupying factories and demanding wage increases alongside broader social reforms, marking the largest strike wave in French history. Figures like of the Nanterre movement and influences from the highlighted demands for self-management and cultural liberation, though the protests subsided after President dissolved the and called elections on May 30, resulting in a Gaullist landslide on June 23. The [French Communist Party](/page/French_Communist Party) (PCF) and major unions, aligned with the , ultimately withdrew support, prioritizing electoral gains over revolutionary momentum. West Germany's New Left centered on the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS), which, after its 1961 expulsion from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) for opposing rearmament, expanded to critique the 1966 Grand Coalition of SPD and CDU as a betrayal of socialist principles. Under Rudi Dutschke, the SDS promoted "long march through the institutions" to transform society from within, organizing protests against the Vietnam War, the Springer media monopoly, and proposed emergency laws seen as enabling authoritarianism. Membership surged from around 600 in the early 1960s to several thousand by 1968, with mass demonstrations following Dutschke's attempted assassination on April 11, 1968, by Josef Bachmann, which escalated confrontations with police and fueled the anti-authoritarian APO (Außerparlamentarische Opposition). The movement's emphasis on civil disobedience and grassroots organizing distinguished it from parliamentary socialism, though internal debates over Maoism and Trotskyism contributed to fragmentation by the early 1970s. In , the New Left developed through operaismo (workerism), critiquing the (PCI) for its parliamentary compromises and advocating autonomous workers' councils amid rapid industrialization and labor unrest. Groups like and emerged in the late 1960s, organizing factory occupations and "" strikes in 1969 that involved over 5 million workers protesting wage controls and poor conditions. The extra-parliamentary left, active from 1969 to 1976, rejected both PCI reformism and traditional union hierarchies, promoting self-reduction of prices and rent strikes as forms of ; however, ideological splits and infiltration by militants led some factions toward armed struggle, exemplified by the ' formation in 1970. These movements highlighted the New Left's focus on cultural and workplace autonomy but also exposed tensions between mass mobilization and vanguardist tendencies.

Global Spread

Asia and Oceania

In Japan, the New Left arose in the late as dissident factions splintered from the , rejecting its parliamentary focus in favor of revolutionary activism against perceived and state . Key groups included the Revolutionary Communist League (Kakumaru-ha) and the Bund (Communist League), which mobilized through the student federation to oppose the 1960 revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, sparking the that drew up to 5.8 million participants nationwide and forced Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi's resignation on June 16, 1960. These events marked a shift toward extraparliamentary tactics, emphasizing mass struggle over electoralism. The movement intensified during the 1968–1969 university crisis, with students occupying campuses like Tokyo University on May 18, 1969, protesting administrative control, standardized testing, and U.S. military presence; clashes culminated in the June 11–13 siege of Yasuda Auditorium, where riot police used tear gas and resulted in over 1,000 injuries and the death of student leader Michiko Kamba from a police baton strike. Factional violence among New Left sects, including assassinations and bombings by groups like the Sekigun (Red Army Faction), eroded public support, contributing to the movement's decline by 1970 amid arrests exceeding 10,000 and the rise of isolated terrorist cells such as the Japanese Red Army, which hijacked a Japan Airlines flight in 1970. Internal divisions over strategy—between "anti-imperialist" mass action and "anti-party" ultra-leftism—prevented unified action, as documented in post-mortem analyses of the era's 200-plus splinter organizations. Across other Asian contexts, New Left influences appeared sporadically but were often subsumed by local Marxist-Leninist or Maoist currents. In , radical intellectuals drew on anti-colonial critiques akin to New Left during the 1967 peasant uprising, where Charu Majumdar's advocacy for protracted echoed calls for dismantling hierarchical structures, though the movement prioritized armed rural insurgency over urban , leading to state suppression by 1972 with thousands killed. In , student demonstrations against the 1960 and Park Chung-hee's 1961 coup incorporated New Left-style anti-authoritarianism, but evolved into broader democratization efforts rather than sustained cultural critique. In Oceania, Australian New Left activism centered on opposition to the Vietnam War and conscription, with the Save Our Sons (SOS) group forming in 1965 and culminating in the 1970 Moratorium protests that mobilized 200,000 in Melbourne on May 8, surpassing U.S. equivalents in per capita turnout. Influenced by imported ideas from Marcuse and Cohn-Bendit, groups like the Monash University Labor Club and the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist), founded in 1964, blended anti-imperialism with demands for sexual liberation and indigenous rights, though factionalism between Trotskyists and Maoists limited longevity. New Zealand mirrored this with 1968–1970 protests against U.S. nuclear visits and Vietnam involvement, led by student unions at Auckland University, but scaled smaller, peaking at 10,000 in the 1969 HART (Halt All Racist Tours) anti-apartheid actions that intertwined New Left anti-racism with direct confrontation. By the mid-1970s, both nations' movements waned as economic shifts and electoral reforms co-opted demands, leaving a legacy in environmental and feminist activism but critiqued for overlooking working-class priorities in favor of middle-class radicalism.

Latin America and Africa

In , the New Left gained traction during the 1960s, diverging from orthodox Marxism-Leninism by critiquing bureaucratic socialism and emphasizing cultural transformation, , and grassroots mobilization influenced by the 1959 . Thinkers developed , arguing that peripheral economies like those in perpetuated underdevelopment through with core capitalist nations, as articulated by economists such as of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) and later neo-Marxists like André Gunder Frank. This framework rejected modernization theory's linear progress narrative, positing instead structural obstacles rooted in global capitalism. Student-led protests erupted across the region in , marking a high point of New Left : in , demonstrations against government repression culminated in the on October 2, where security forces killed an estimated 300-400 protesters; in , under military rule since , university occupations and strikes challenged authoritarianism; and in , unrest fueled the rise of urban guerrilla groups like the , who conducted bank expropriations and kidnappings from 1963 onward. These movements often blended anti-authoritarian cultural critique with calls for revolutionary violence, drawing inspiration from global counterparts while adapting to local contexts of U.S. interventionism and domestic dictatorships. By the , however, many splintered into armed factions, contributing to cycles of state repression and electoral left-wing resurgence later, though empirical outcomes showed limited socioeconomic gains amid persistent inequality. Parallel developments included , formalized in Gustavo Gutiérrez's 1971 work A Theology of Liberation, which integrated Marxist class analysis with Catholic doctrine to prioritize the "preferential ," influencing activist priests and base communities in countries like and . While sharing New Left emphases on oppression and praxis, it diverged through religious framing, facing Vatican condemnation in 1984 for Marxist reductions of to , as critiqued by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. In , New Left influences were more diffuse, primarily manifesting through post-independence student movements that echoed global unrest by demanding democratic reforms against one-party and neocolonial structures. In , student strikes in May-June , sparked by university fee hikes, escalated into a nationwide involving workers, forcing President Léopold Sédar Senghor's concessions and highlighting youth radicalism against elite pacts. Similar protests occurred in nations like ( student opposition to Haile Selassie's monarchy), (university-led anti-corruption campaigns), and (pre-independence youth mobilization), often blending anti-imperialist rhetoric with cultural critiques of traditional authority. In , white student groups within the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) adopted New Left-style anti-hierarchical tactics in the late 1960s, organizing against apartheid through teach-ins and solidarity with black consciousness movements, though black-led resistance remained dominant via organizations like the . Overall, African variants prioritized national liberation over Western New Left's cultural focus, with limited empirical success in averting military coups or fostering sustained egalitarianism, as post-colonial states frequently consolidated power through co-optation or suppression.

Movements, Organizations, and Tactics

Student Activism and Protests

Student activism constituted a primary vehicle for New Left mobilization in the 1960s, with universities serving as incubators for dissent against the Vietnam War, university governance, and broader societal hierarchies. Emerging from disillusionment with both establishment politics and orthodox communism, these protests emphasized participatory democracy, cultural liberation, and anti-imperialism, often employing tactics like sit-ins, teach-ins, and occupations. In the United States, (SDS) spearheaded campus activism after its founding in 1960 at the . The group's 1962 articulated a vision of "" critiquing corporate liberalism and advocating grassroots organizing. SDS membership expanded rapidly amid escalating U.S. involvement in , reaching 25,000 protesters at events by 1965 and 50,000 members nationwide by 1968, coordinating over 900 antiwar marches and teach-ins. Key actions included the April 1968 protests, where SDS members occupied buildings for seven days to oppose military research affiliations and gym construction in , drawing 1,000 participants and resulting in 700 arrests. European student movements paralleled U.S. efforts, fusing anti-authoritarian demands with New Left critiques of and legacy . In , unrest ignited in when students at University protested dormitory visitation rules and exam structures, leading to Sorbonne occupations on May 3 that police violently suppressed, injuring hundreds. These escalated into a involving 10 million workers by mid-May, paralyzing the economy and nearly toppling President Charles de Gaulle's government, though demands centered more on cultural freedoms than traditional leftist economic reforms. In , protests from 1966 to 1969 targeted media monopolies like Axel Springer's empire and perceived continuities with Nazi-era . The June 1967 visit by Iran's Shah provoked clashes in , with police killing student Benno Ohnesorg on June 2, galvanizing the extraparliamentary opposition (APO). The April 1968 assassination attempt on SDS leader triggered riots in major cities, including arson attacks on department stores, underscoring tensions between peaceful advocacy and emerging militancy. These protests achieved limited immediate policy victories—such as minor reforms—but amplified New Left ideas through media coverage, fostering long-term cultural shifts while exposing internal divisions over and that fragmented the movements by 1969.

Counterculture and Direct Action

![A demonstrator offers a flower to military police during an anti-Vietnam War protest at the Pentagon]float-right The New Left drew on countercultural impulses to challenge established authority, integrating cultural rebellion with political activism against capitalism and militarism. Influenced by Herbert Marcuse's critique in One-Dimensional Man (1964), which argued that advanced industrial societies repressed human potential through consumerism and conformity, activists viewed personal liberation—via sexual openness, communal living, and psychedelic experimentation—as a front for broader societal transformation. Marcuse endorsed countercultural practices, such as those of hippies, as a "Great Refusal" embodying utopian resistance to one-dimensional existence. This synergy manifested in antiwar festivals and lifestyle protests, though purist New Left elements sometimes dismissed hippie escapism as insufficiently revolutionary. Direct action tactics prioritized immediate confrontation, including sit-ins, building occupations, and street theater, over institutional reform. In the United States, (SDS) orchestrated the April 23–30, 1968, , where around 1,000 students seized five buildings to oppose university affiliations with research via the Institute for Defense Analyses and a controversial gymnasium project encroaching on . Police clearance on April 30 resulted in over 700 arrests and numerous injuries, galvanizing campus radicalism. In , direct actions escalated from student occupations at and Sorbonne universities—sparked by demands for university democratization and against involvement—into a paralyzing the economy, with approximately 10 million workers participating in factory occupations and seeking autogestion (self-management). The unrest, blending New Left ideology with syndicalist tactics, nearly toppled President Charles de Gaulle's government before elections restored order. The (Yippies), fusing counterculture with New Left agitation, exemplified disruptive symbolism; at the August 1968 in , leaders and nominated a pig, Pigasus, for president and staged a "Festival of Life" protest, provoking police riots that injured hundreds and exposed state repression to a national audience. These actions underscored the New Left's emphasis on spectacle and to provoke systemic exposure, though they often alienated moderates and invited backlash.

Key Organizations and Figures

In the United States, (SDS) served as the central organization of the New Left, established in 1960 through a merger of student groups at the and growing to over 100 chapters by 1968, emphasizing , anti-war activism, and civil rights. The group's 1962 , drafted primarily by , critiqued bureaucratic alienation and called for a rejection of Cold War-era complacency, influencing thousands of student activists. SDS splintered in 1969 amid ideological conflicts, giving rise to factions like the Weather Underground, which pursued militant tactics. The Youth International Party (Yippies), co-founded in 1967 by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, integrated countercultural spectacle with New Left politics, staging theatrical protests such as nominating a pig for president at the 1968 Democratic National Convention to highlight anti-war sentiments and cultural rebellion. Hoffman, a former organizer with the Liberty House community action program, authored "Revolution for the Hell of It" in 1968, advocating disruptive humor as a strategy against establishment power. Intellectually, , a German-American philosopher and affiliate, shaped New Left ideology through critiques of capitalism's repressive tolerance in works like "" (1964), which argued that advanced industrial societies neutralized dissent via consumer affluence, inspiring student radicals to view liberation as requiring cultural upheaval. In , the (SDS) functioned as the primary New Left student group, peaking at around 15,000 members by 1968 and organizing protests against the and perceived in post-war society. , a key SDS leader, promoted the concept of a "long march through the institutions" in 1967, envisioning gradual infiltration of cultural and educational bodies to foster socialist transformation, though he was assassinated in an attempt on April 11, 1968, sparking widespread unrest. During 's May 1968 events, emerged as a prominent student leader at University, galvanizing protests that escalated into nationwide strikes involving 10 million workers, challenging Gaullist authority through demands for university reform and worker self-management. , expelled from on May 23, 1968, symbolized the fusion of and anti-authoritarian revolt central to European New Left dynamics.

Controversies and Criticisms

Internal Divisions and Fragmentation

The (SDS), a flagship organization of the American New Left, fragmented decisively at its national convention from June 18 to 22, 1969, in , where the (RYM) caucus expelled members of the Progressive Labor Party (PL) and its Worker-Student Alliance (WSA). The core disputes centered on PL's rejection of , women's liberation, and RYM's emphasis on anti-imperialist armed struggle in support of national liberation movements, contrasting with PL's worker-centric, anti-nationalist Maoist orientation. This bureaucratic maneuver, bypassing democratic norms, produced two rival SDS entities—RYM-aligned SDS with 700-800 delegates and WSA/PL with 400-500—exacerbating campus-level factionalism and eroding the group's peak membership of around 100,000 from 1968. Ideological rifts extended beyond organizational tactics to foundational tensions between cultural transformation and class-based revolution, with RYM factions like the Weathermen prioritizing identity-driven militancy and personal liberation over traditional proletarian organizing, alienating potential working-class allies. These conflicts, fueled by extremism in defense of abstract ideals rather than pragmatic strategy, mirrored broader New Left debates where cultural revolutionaries dismissed Old Left class analysis as outdated, yet failed to forge a coherent alternative, leading to further splintering into violent underground groups and ineffective sects. In Europe, similar divisions plagued groups like West Germany's Außerparlamentarische Opposition (APO), where student-led protests against authoritarianism fragmented into competing Maoist, Trotskyist, and autonomist K-Groups by the early 1970s, undermining unified opposition to the establishment. The resulting disunity, compounded by intolerance for dissent and overreliance on ideological purity, contributed to the New Left's rapid decline; SDS effectively dissolved post-split, with offshoots turning to that repelled mainstream support, while European counterparts devolved into marginal cadre organizations by the mid-1970s. Empirical assessments highlight how such fragmentation prevented scalable , as evidenced by the movement's inability to sustain mass protests beyond 1968-1969 peaks or influence electoral politics durably. This internal entropy, rather than external repression alone, underscores the causal role of unresolved strategic contradictions in the New Left's failure to transition from protest to power.

Association with Violence and Extremism

While the New Left initially emphasized non-violent protest and cultural critique against , , and traditional authority, radical fringes radicalized toward armed struggle, viewing violence as a catalyst for revolution inspired by anti-colonial models like those in and . These groups, emerging from student movements and organizations such as (SDS) in the United States, justified urban guerrilla tactics as "bringing the war home" to challenge state power. By the early 1970s, this shift manifested in terrorist acts including bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations, which, though limited in scale compared to state responses, resulted in dozens of deaths and widespread , ultimately discrediting broader New Left aims through public revulsion and security crackdowns. In the United States, the Organization (WUO), a splinter from SDS formed in 1969, conducted over two dozen bombings between 1970 and 1975 targeting symbols of perceived oppression, such as on May 19, 1972, and the U.S. Capitol on March 1, 1971, to protest the and . The group detonated a at the State Department headquarters on January 29, 1975, causing structural damage but no fatalities after an accidental explosion in a townhouse on March 6, 1970, killed three members and prompted a strategic pivot away from lethal intent. Though the WUO claimed responsibility for property-focused attacks to minimize casualties, their actions, documented in FBI records, exemplified how New Left anti-war fervor evolved into , with manifestos advocating "" and armed resistance. In , the (RAF), originating from the 1968 student protests—a core New Left milieu—escalated to a campaign of assassinations and bombings from 1970 until its dissolution in 1998, killing 34 people including politicians, judges, and industrialists, such as the 1977 murder of Attorney General . Rooted in critiques of American imperialism and West German "fascism," the RAF, also known as Baader-Meinhof Gang, conducted high-profile operations like the 1977 hijacking of during the "," which ended with a commando raid killing three RAF militants. Their violence, analyzed in comparative studies with U.S. counterparts, reflected a shared New Left of anti-capitalist but alienated sympathizers by prioritizing symbolic terror over mass mobilization. Italy's (Brigate Rosse), formed in 1970 amid extraparliamentary left-wing agitation tied to New Left factory occupations and student unrest, perpetrated approximately 14,000 acts of violence in their first decade, including kidnappings and executions to dismantle the "bourgeois state." The group's 1978 abduction and murder of Prime Minister after 55 days in captivity marked a peak of escalation, with Moro's body left in a street on May 9, symbolizing their Maoist-inspired "." Emerging from the same 1960s-1970s ferment as broader New Left currents, the Brigades' tactics, per declassified analyses, blended ideological purity with pragmatic terror, contributing to Italy's "Years of Lead" era of over 400 murders by left-wing extremists, though their failure to ignite underscored the strategic limits of such extremism.

Ideological and Strategic Flaws

The New Left's ideological framework, influenced by thinkers associated with the such as , emphasized and the critique of "repressive tolerance" in liberal democracies, often subordinating to psychological and symbolic liberation. This approach critiqued capitalism not primarily through class exploitation but via its alleged perpetuation of authoritarian personalities and consumerist , yet it frequently devolved into by equating Western with Soviet or Maoist . Such equivalence undermined principled anti-communism, as evidenced by the New Left's romanticization of revolutions despite empirical evidence of their repressive outcomes, including the Cultural Revolution's death toll estimated at 1-2 million between 1966 and 1976. A core ideological flaw lay in the movement's elitist orientation, dominated by university students and intellectuals who increasingly dismissed the industrial working class as complicit in systemic oppression. This perspective, articulated in manifestos like the 1962 by (SDS), prioritized and anti-hierarchical ideals but alienated blue-collar workers perceived as culturally conservative, contributing to the latter's support for figures like , who garnered 13.5% of the national vote in the 1968 presidential election. , in his 1969 analysis The Agony of the American Left, attributed this detachment to the left's absorption of Freudian therapeutic models, which fostered individualistic "do-your-own-thing" ethos over disciplined mass organizing, eroding the populist foundations of earlier socialist movements. Strategically, the New Left's rejection of vanguard organization and parliamentary paths in favor of spontaneous and "" precluded the construction of durable institutions capable of wielding power. Organizations like SDS exemplified this, fracturing at its 1969 National Convention in over debates between revolutionary praxis and electoral , leading to splinter groups like the Weatherman faction and the group's effective dissolution by year's end. This anti-institutional bias, critiqued by as a failure to learn from prior leftist defeats like the Socialist Party's marginalization post-World War I, resulted in tactical overreach—such as the disruptive protests at the 1968 , which polls showed alienated 56% of Americans who viewed demonstrators unfavorably. The movement's emphasis on cultural provocation over coalition-building exacerbated these shortcomings, as symbolic gestures like campus occupations failed to translate into broad electoral gains or policy leverage. Empirical assessments indicate that while anti-Vietnam protests correlated with declining public support for the war (from 61% approval in 1965 to 28% by 1971), strategic missteps, including violence-prone tactics, galvanized conservative backlashes, evidenced by Richard Nixon's 1972 landslide victory with 60.7% of the popular vote amid "" appeals to working-class voters. Ultimately, the absence of a pragmatic for power consolidation left the New Left vulnerable to co-optation or irrelevance, with core groups collapsing by the mid-1970s without establishing lasting alternatives to the .

Legacy and Reassessment

Institutional Infiltration and Cultural Shifts

A core strategy of the New Left in the late 1960s involved pursuing gradual subversion through established power structures, encapsulated in German activist Rudi Dutschke's 1967 slogan of a "." This approach, drawing from Antonio Gramsci's theory of —which emphasized winning ideological dominance via organs like education and media over direct —aimed to erode capitalist norms from within. New Left adherents, many emerging from student movements, increasingly entered academia, particularly in and social sciences departments, facilitating a shift toward and postmodernist frameworks influenced by thinkers like and Theodor Adorno. Surveys indicate a marked decline in conservative faculty representation in U.S. universities: the proportion identifying as conservative fell from 27% in 1969 to 12% by 1999, coinciding with the tenure of former radicals who prioritized cultural critique over empirical traditionalism. This infiltration correlated with curriculum changes emphasizing identity-based oppression narratives, deconstructing works as inherently power-laden, and promoting concepts like "repressive tolerance," where tolerance of dissenting views was reframed as enabling systemic injustice. Cultural shifts extended beyond campuses, influencing media and entertainment through New Left alumni who advanced narratives prioritizing cultural over economic materialism. In Britain, the New Left's integration of Gramscian ideas into cultural studies programs at institutions like the University of Birmingham fostered a "cultural Marxism" that naturalized Marxist analysis in historiography and media criticism, prioritizing hegemony over class struggle. Empirical data on contemporary faculty affiliations reveal stark imbalances, with liberals vastly outnumbering conservatives—often by ratios exceeding 10:1 in elite institutions—suggesting sustained ideological capture rather than merit-based diversity. Critics, including surveys from Heterodox Academy, attribute phenomena like speech codes and cancellation practices emerging in the 1980s to this entrenchment, where institutional norms increasingly penalized heterodox views under guises of equity. While proponents view these changes as progressive enlightenment, reveals trade-offs: heightened polarization, with student ideological rising alongside administrative bloat dedicated to diversity enforcement, and empirical underperformance in fields prioritizing over . In media, similar patterns appeared, as countercultural figures shaped Hollywood's post-blacklist output toward themes, though direct New Left metrics remain sparser than academic ones. This long-term embedding yielded measurable in elite discourse but faced pushback amid declining in infiltrated bodies, evidenced by Gallup polls showing confidence in higher education dropping from 57% in 2015 to 36% by 2023.

Influence on Modern Political Movements

The New Left's pivot from orthodox Marxist class struggle to cultural critique and identity-based mobilization established foundational elements of modern , emphasizing group-specific oppressions tied to race, gender, and sexuality as primary axes of conflict. This shift, evident in the New Left's support for splinter movements like and women's liberation during the late , manifested in contemporary activism by framing systemic issues through intersectional lenses that prioritize representational equity over economic redistribution. For instance, the movement, formalized in 2013 after the killing, echoes New Left tactics in its decentralized structure and focus on racial injustice as a cultural hegemony to dismantle, drawing ideological continuity from the era's rejection of colorblind in favor of affirmative group advocacy. Modern protest movements such as (launched September 17, 2011, in New York City's Zuccotti Park) inherited the New Left's models and anti-corporate rhetoric, employing consensus-based decision-making reminiscent of Students for a Democratic Society's 1962 to critique financial elites and inequality. Similarly, environmental activism traces direct lineage to New Left-inspired events like the first on April 22, 1970, which mobilized 20 million participants and evolved into global efforts by 2000 encompassing 350 million, influencing parties like the U.S. founded in 1984. Antifa networks, while rooted in interwar European , revived New Left-style in the U.S. during the 2010s, using confrontational tactics against perceived far-right threats in events like the 2017 Charlottesville rally, thereby perpetuating an anti-authoritarian ethos that prioritizes street-level disruption over electoral engagement. The New Left's "long march through the institutions," a strategy articulated by Rudi Dutschke in 1967 to subvert established power structures from within, has exerted lasting influence by embedding its worldview in academia and media, where faculty political affiliations skew heavily leftward—over 60% identifying as liberal in recent surveys, with ratios exceeding 78:1 Democrats to Republicans at institutions like Yale as of 2024. This institutional entrenchment sustains modern movements through ideologically aligned education, fostering campus protests such as the 2024 pro-Palestinian encampments that disrupted operations at over 50 U.S. universities, mirroring 1960s student upheavals but amplified by New Left-derived narratives of institutional complicity in oppression. Critics, including analyses of protest legacies, argue this influence has amplified cultural liberalization—evident in shifts like declining opposition to premarital sex from 68% in 1979 Gallup polls—but at the cost of deepened societal fragmentation and selective application of tolerance principles.

Empirical Evaluation of Achievements and Failures

The New Left's primary objectives included ending the , dismantling capitalist structures, and fostering , yet empirical assessments reveal limited causal success in these domains. While protests amplified public opposition to the war—Gallup polls indicate approval for U.S. involvement fell from 61% in 1965 to 28% by 1971—their direct role in prompting withdrawal remains contested, as military setbacks like the and over 58,000 U.S. fatalities exerted greater pressure on policymakers. Scholarly analyses argue that anti-war demonstrations had no decisive impact on termination, with President Nixon's electoral victory occurring amid peak protests, and full U.S. combat withdrawal in 1973 stemming more from strategic than domestic unrest. Similarly, efforts to achieve economic redistribution faltered, as U.S. income inequality, measured by the , rose from 0.39 in to 0.41 by 1980, contradicting goals of egalitarian reform. In policy spheres, modest gains emerged in environmental regulation, where New Left-inspired activism contributed to the first on , 1970, mobilizing 20 million participants and facilitating the EPA's establishment that December, alongside the Clean Air Act of 1970, which reduced U.S. air pollutants by 78% in major cities from 1970 to 2019. However, causal attribution is diluted, as bipartisan congressional action and pre-existing industrial concerns also drove these outcomes. Feminist initiatives yielded legal advancements, such as laws adopted in in 1969 and spreading nationwide by 1985, enabling easier marital dissolution, but this correlated with divorce rates doubling from 2.2 per 1,000 population in 1960 to 5.2 by 1980, exacerbating rates that climbed from 16% in 1960 to 22% by 1980 among single-parent households. Failures predominate in organizational durability and societal metrics. The movement's aversion to hierarchical structures led to fragmentation, with groups like splintering by 1969 into factions including the violent , which conducted over 25 bombings but failed to sustain mass membership beyond 100,000 at peak. Long-term cultural shifts tied to countercultural ethos—promoting sexual liberation and familial experimentation—coincided with surging 124% from 1960 to 1970, murder rates rising over 50% in the decade, and social trust plummeting from 77% interpersonal trust in 1960 to 25% by 2000, per data. These trends, while not solely attributable, reflect causal realism in how rejection of traditional norms undermined social cohesion without replacing it with viable alternatives, yielding no net reduction in inequality or as envisioned.

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