50 Years On — -Reflections on Organizing in the 60s and Today
Lessons for Organizing Today
Steve Leigh
This essay is an attempt to outline some of the differences between the last major period of mass left wing struggle, the 1960s — to early 70s and today. As exemplified by the George Floyd movement, this period is shaping up to be another period of mass radicalization. It will likely be the most important period for the growth of radical struggle and hopefully the revolutionary left in 50 years.
The climate of the 60s was different than it is today in a myriad of respects . From the late 60’s on a rank and file revolt had broken out in the labor movement. Inflation from the Vietnam War began to hit workers’ paychecks, and their confidence was high due to low unemployment. They chafed at the speed up and inhumane conditions at work. Among Black workers and other people of color, the resistance to racism was a large part of this revolt. Since Covid, there has been an uptick of strikes following the Red State Revolt of teachers in 2018. However the level of strikes is far lower than it was in the 60s . The Unionization rate is also half what it was then.
The Civil Rights Movement(CRM) broke the back of McCarthyism. The deep anti-Communism of the period as well as relative prosperity had held back struggle in the 50’s. Strikes continued but were largely confined to economics. The success of the CRM led to the growth of a student anti-war and soon, Women’s Liberation , Chicano Liberation, Black Power and Gay Liberation. The New Left of the 60’s owed its existence to the courageous Black activists in the South. They braved police dogs, fire hoses , mass arrests and sometimes death.
The movements of the 60’s were based on generational conflict. The workers of the 60’s were often from the “Greatest Generation” or the Korean War soldiers. The generation that led the CIO strikes of the 30s was close to retirement. The experience of war along with McCarthyism shaped a still strong anti-communism. The USSR as a nuclear power threatened annihilation of the US. This reinforced anti-communism and patriotism. The Cold War was alive and well. There was overlap between the rank and file workers’ revolt in the unions and the New Left especially among young workers. However the workers’ movement was largely separate from the New Left.
This made the rise of the anti-war movement in the 60’s so extraordinary. It has been described as a largely student, middle class movement. This was an exaggeration. It started primarily on college campuses. However, colleges in the 60’s were no longer just bastions of the elite. Changes in the economy required mass post-high school education. Many students in the 60’s were children of the working class. Those that came from middle class backgrounds unconsciously recognized their likely proletarianization. Professions were more and more losing their independent character. Teachers and nurses especially but also other professionals were becoming more and more like other white collar workers. They worked for large institutions under managerial control. The student movement was in part provoked by resistance to proletarianization. This was reflected in the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley , expressed by Mario Savio as students becoming mere products of the multiversity.
Over the course of the 60’s , more and more working class people came to oppose the War. It soon became clear that opposition to the war was stronger among the poor and working class than among the middle and upper class. The poor and workers were the ones dying and paying for the war. This was especially true of Blacks and other people of color.
The Vietnam Anti-War movement was unique. There had never been the level of mass opposition to a U.S. imperialist adventure before. There was large opposition to WW I but it never became a majority. There was popular support for WWII and the Korean War. The closest analogy was the movement against the Spanish American war in 1898. In spite of persistent anti-communism, a majority of people opposed the war on Vietmam from 1968 on.
Why was this? There are probably several factors. Vietnam was a place most U.S. residents had never heard of . The state could not rationally claim that the Viet Cong threatened ordinary people. This was well expressed by Muhammed Ali who said “ No Viet Cong ever called me a N…” It seemed like a waste of money and especially of lives. TV showed the battles and losses. Large numbers came home in body bags or maimed for life. Every community saw the results of this debacle. After the Tet Offensive it became clear to most people and even eventually the ruling class that there would be no victory. Further , the war was heating up the economy, causing inflation and cutting the Butter from Guns and Butter promised by President Lyndon Johnson. The War on Poverty came under pressure from the War on Vietnam. In spite of the white media image of the movement, anti-war sentiment was strongest among Blacks and other people of color. Their growing militant revolt against racism overlapped with and reinforced their opposition to the Vietnam War.
After the war ended, the “Vietnam Syndrome” hobbled U.S. imperialist ventures from that point on. Before Vietnam, most people trusted the government on foreign policy. They bought into the Cold War narrative. After Vietnam, most people distrust the government. Early on in the anti-war movement , even activists assumed that government officials must just be mistaken or ignorant. This was the source of the “Teach In “ movement. They were soon disabused of that notion!
Today, anti-war activists often take it for granted that people will distrust the reason for U.S. imperial adventures. This has often been true since the 60’s . It was virtually never true before that. The problem today is that cynicism about the government’s intentions often extends to cynicism about the possibility of forcing changes in government policy. The early naivete about the honorable intentions of the government was both a strength and a weakness of the movement in the 60s. At first, many expected the government to pull out of Vietnam once it knew the truth.
Struggle changes ideas. Though popular opinion comes and goes, the movement of 50 years ago has a continuing impact on consciousness. This is obviously true on the question of race and other issues as well. Open racism, sexism and homophobia were the accepted norm before the 60’s . In spite of recent reversals , they are no longer so easily accepted.
Marxism in the 60s
The international climate was also very different. The union movement in the U.S. had been bureaucratized. Its leadership was often very conservative. In spite of the rank and file revolt, New Left activists often rejected labor and therefore the working class as a force for progressive change. Members of Students for a Democratic Society(SDS) looked to the most oppressed, the poor or often to foreign revolutionaries for hope and inspiration.
The lack of a dominant radical wing of the labor movement, the middle class base of some of the student movement and the sharp focus on opposition to the Vietnam War pushed activists toward identification with foreign revolutionary leaders rather than ordinary people in the U.S. China, Cuba and Vietnam were seen as international allies. Maoism especially grew out of this identification. SDS started out as a wing of Social Democracy, specifically the League for Insustrial Democracy. It was first named Student League for Industrial Democracy. In the later 60s , it radicalized. The main factions of SDS became Maoists. The Black Panther Party as well adopted Maoism.
This meant that the basic Marxist definition of Socialism as the “ self-emancipation of the working class” receded. The Marxism that dominated the radical movement in the late 60’s deviated from authentic Marxism.. It instead substituted “socialism from above”( Hal Draper) for Marx’s goal. In spite of the best efforts of activists , this new radicalism did not find a strong resonance among most of the working class.
Some people on the left today expect that DSA will follow the trajectory of SDS — -from social democracy to revolutionary politics. This is one reason that they advocate entry into DSA. A similar development in DSA seems unlikely. The reason for the dominance of Maoist politics was that the national liberation struggles seemed to be the main opponents of U.S. imperialism. This is not true today. Instead of undemocratic leaders claiming to be Marxist, there are mass democratic popular revolts against repressive regimes the world over. From the Arab Spring in 2011 to the revolts in the last couple years in Bolivia, Chile, Sudan, Lebanon, Belarus, India etc., ordinary people are showing themselves to be the agents of social change. This does not preclude DSA radicalizing toward revolution. However, it has a continuing and increasing orientation to the Democratic Party . It is more likely that individuals and groupings in DSA will move toward revolutionary politics than the whole organization will move toward Marxism.
Maoists and other activists tried to rectify the gap between students and industrial workers by “industrializing”. Student activists made extensive organized attempts to get jobs in basic industry, which most students saw as the “ real” working class. This was motivated by contradictory theory at least on the part of the Maoists. They actually identified with undemocratic regimes but also knew that Marxism was supposed to look to the workers as change agents. On their part, it also reflected a condescending attitude to workers. They did not see the potential revolutionary party as a section of the working class that needed to organize itself. Instead they thought that socialism had to be brought to the workers by enlightened revolutionaries from the outside. They sometimes justified this by using a formulation of Lenin in What is to Be Done, which he later abandoned. In some cases, such as with the Weathermen, the Maoists saw the workers as at most adjuncts to the Third World Revolution, rather than the base of a revolutionary transformation in the U.S.
The conditions that had led to the rise of Maoism ended in the early 70s. The US war against Vietnam wound down. It ended in 1975. Mao made his accommodation with U.S. Imperialism. The Maoist movement in general could not handle this abandonment of supposed revolutionary fervor. Over the 70s , it largely collapsed. Since by the end of the 60’s Maoism had dominated the revolutionary movement, the revolutionary movement as a whole largely collapsed . This shows the importance of having a good theory and analysis and the ill effects of misleading ideology.
The irony was that by the end of the 60’s a million students called themselves revolutionaries. A large minority of the young Black population identified with the Black Panther Party. Yet this revolutionary ferment fell off with the end of the Vietnam War , the severe repression of the Black Liberation movement , the cooptation of the leaders of radical struggles , and ruling class repression. The Maoist politics of the revolutionary movement did not equip it to continue when Mao allied with Nixon. The revolutionary movement in countries not dominated by Maoism did better.
The economy of the 60’s was booming. Most college graduates could get jobs, many even in their own fields or others that required college. The movements of the 60s among white college students were not directly economic but over national and international political issues. Among young Black activists, the issues were more economic due to high Black poverty rates. However, the Black movement also centered on broader political issues. Until 1973 , working class living standards continued to rise. The separation of economics and politics was a key feature of this period of radicalization. The situation today is the opposite. Economic and political issues are combined from the start.
After the 60s
The end of the 60s movement did not end struggle. The ruling class coopted and also repressed the movement. Black leaders achieved positions within government institutions especially at the local level. The Black middle class expanded as more professions opened to Blacks due to the successs of the CRM. Poverty however remained high for the majority of Black people. The Women’s and Gay movement more and more accommodated to liberal politics. Yet between the 60s and today there continued to be upticks in radical movement activity. From the 70s on , there was a downturn in work place struggle, with strikes falling off. The union leadership re-established firm control of the unions and continued to collaborate with the bosses, often isolating radical workers. In spite of this union caucuses emerged , the UAW National Caucus, Miners for Democracy and Teamsters for a Democratic Union in the mid to late 70’s. The overall control of the union movement by the pro-Democratic Party bureaucracy yielded strategies of class collaboration. Class collaboration and repression led to a decline in the size and strength of the union movement. This was reinforced by an employers’ offensive yielding only defensive union tactics.
A large movement in solidarity with Central America developed in the 80’s along with a movement that demanded an end to Apartheid in South Africa. Women won abortion rights in 1973 and LGBTQ people fought off attacks and made gains over time. Even in the 80’s , the Nuclear Freeze movement pressured the Reagan administration to make nuclear treaties with the USSR. The environmental movement launched in 1970 took off though was often dominated by large liberal groups.
Even during the conservative period of the 80s , most people opposed Reagan’s stress on militarism and supported tax increases on the rich. The lack of strong movements often made leftists and even liberals feel isolated.
A massive world wide movement broke out in 1999 against the WTO , a key agent of Neoliberalism. “Another world is possible” became a mass slogan. The potential of this movement was cut short by 9/11.
Responses from the Revolutionary Left
The early 70s saw the collapse of the ex-student revolutionary left. The Maoist organizations which between them had thousands of members, largely disappeared. Ex-Maoists often accommodated to the rightward shift of official politics by joining the Democratic Party. They were especially active in Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition and his presidential runs.
Many people who had been active in the revolutionary left of the 60s and 70s continued in progressive politics around particular issues. They usually confined their horizons to reforms. If they still believed in revolution, they didn’t see the need to organize around it
The revolutionary left did not totally disappear. Small revolutionary groups persisted in Marxist education and involvement in whatever struggles broke out. Many of these groups came from the Trotskyist tradition. From the 90s on , the largest of these was the International Socialist Organization which saw the Eastern Bloc, Cuba, China etc. as Bureaucratic State Capitalist. Its slogan was “ Neither Washington Nor Moscow, but workers’ power and international socialism.”
A very important turning point for the revolutionary left was the collapse of Stalinism from 1989–91. “Really Existing Socialism” was no longer a viable alternative. Those elements of the left that had most closely identified with the Eastern Bloc were hit hardest. Many on the Trotskyist left thought that the collapse of Stalinism would open the floodgates to a return to authentic Marxism. This did not generally happen. Instead , even the Trotskyists who believed that the Eastern Bloc countries were still degenerated or deformed workers’ states were demoralized. The collapse of Stalinism did not set back the ISO or its co-thinkers. The ISO however collapsed in 2019 when sections of it were pulled back toward the Democratic Party through the Sanders campaign.
The collapse of Stalinism coincided with an intensification of Neoliberalism . Social Democracy, the other main trend on the Broad Left shifted further to the right. The German Social Democratic Party even formally dropped its goal of socialism. Other such parties, did the same in practice if not in theory. Some adopted the “Third Way” , trying to split the difference between free market capitalism and the old Social Democracy. The new Social Democrats promoted privatization, de-regulation and austerity. This was followed by the Communist Parties which became nearly identical with Social Democracy
In the U.S. , the Democratic Party followed the same trajectory. Under the influence of the “ Democratic Leadership Council” the leaders of the Party shifted to an open alliance with capital. The DP had always been a capitalist party. However, now it openly expressed the needs of the ruling class. It not longer felt the need maintain the New Deal Coalition of Labor, Women and the racially oppressed. Capital needed Neoliberalism and the Democrats were quite willing to oblige.
These factors dealt a body blow to radical politics in general and the revolutionary left in particular. Most oppositional organizing had been affiliated with Social Democracy, Stalinism or in the U.S. , the Democratic Party. The collapse and rightward movement of these forces dragged down left organizing with it. Many people began to accept Margaret Thatcher’s aphorism, “There is No Alternative.” The collapse of moderate left forces and the shift of the ruling class to neoliberalism had another disastrous consequence: Many people who saw their living standards decline and no strong alternative on the left began to turn to the right. The growth of various right-wing trends was the result of the failure of Social Democracy and Liberalism.
Opposition Continues and Resurfaces
Marxism looks beneath the surface. Our dialectical understanding of society and economy prompts us to look for contradictions. Consciousness is always mixed. “ The ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of the ruling class” said Marx. However, he did not say that the bourgeois ideas are the only ideas. The social being of workers under capitalism forces them to accept the ruling ideas to some extent. They must obey their boss and submit to exploitation to survive. Nothing says they have to like it. And they don’t ! Specially oppressed groups have to submit to oppression to a degree. However , submission causes resentment and opposition. These attitudes of opposition at some point break out in struggle. Struggle, especially victorious struggle reinforces oppositional ideas.
This is also true of social and political conditions in general . Neoliberal policies were pleasing to the top 1%. They loved the concentration of wealth and the decline of union power. They relished their tax cuts. They heartily approved “socialism for the rich and private enterprise for the poor”. They pushed the doctrine of “ pull yourselves up by your bootstraps”. They did not realize this phrase started as left wing irony. They took it literally.
Ordinary people were not so enthused. They saw their social conditions deteriorate. They saw their wages stagnate. They saw wealth concentrate at the top. They saw education decline for their children. They found health care less and less affordable and accessible. They saw their taxes rise while those of the rich declined.
The growing opposition to neo-liberalism could take opposite forms. It manifested in the movement against the WTO and the 1997 Teamster Strike against UPS. The slogan of that strike was “ part time America does not work” . It could also show up as tax revolts. With unions weaker , workers sometimes saw cutting taxes as the only way to increase their living standards. When struggle is low, solidarity can shrink and scapegoating can increase. The ruling class offensive against the gains of the 60s and 70s were sometimes echoed in right wing movements . Reaganism was reinforced by the Moral Majority in the 80s . In the 90s , the militia movement grew.
Yet the opposition to Neoliberalism also often went in a progressive direction. The movement against the WTO had a resonance all over the world. There was mass opposition to the war on Iraq in 1990–91 and again in 2003 . On February 15 2003, the largest and most widespread international demonstrations in world history took place. Millions opposed imperialism.
Even in the darkest night, we know the dawn is coming. Social Science is not natural science. We cannot predict exactly when struggle will break out or what form it will take, but we know it will come. Capitalism creates its own gravediggers and not just in the long run.
A New Period
In spite of opposition, Neoliberalism dominated from the mid 70s on. The collapse of Stalinism and Social Democracy as well as the rightward shift of the Democrats, left oppositional organizations weak. Even under Reagan, popular attitudes were often well to the left of government policy. This persisted from the 70s onward. For example, the majority of people wanted single payer health care. Hillary Clinton designed a plan to leave insurance companies in charge. When told the popular preference, she replied “Tell me something interesting”.
This is of course the problem of bourgeois democracy. It is very bourgeois but not much democracy. As a recent Princeton study showed , the U.S. is more an oligarchy than a democracy. What the rich want, they get. We can win concessions but we have to pry them from the hands of the ruling class through mass struggle.
For many years the concentration of wealth at the top and stagnation and decline at the bottom created mass opposition to Neoliberalism. When the Great Recession hit in 2008–9 , this opposition went through the roof. People saw that even the Democratic government of Barak Obama bailed out the rich while letting home owners get foreclosed. From this period on , near majorities of younger people in the U.S. favored socialism over capitalism. Polls of all age groups showed rising support for socialism. Especially with the election of Donald Trump, the desire for socialism was reflected in the growth of DSA . The weakness of the revolutionary left meant that more new socialists were attracted to DSA than to revolutionary Marxist organization. The attraction of reformist socialism, often called “Democratic Socialism” funneled radical activists back into support for a ruling class party, the Democrats.
Due to the low level union and other organization , this new consciousness was not at first manifested in struggle. However, in 2011, the Occupy movement demonstrated this new consciousness. The same year, workers went on strike and occupied the Wisconsin state capitol with international support. The Arab Spring that same year. brought international solidarity.
The opposition to the capitalist order was not confined to economics . The LGBTQ movement won new rights even earlier Obama got rid of “ Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” . Immigrants held mass strikes in 2006 and defeated the Sennsenbrenner bill. Under Obama the movement won DACA. The Black Lives Matter movement started in 2013 under Obama and reached a new crescendo in the Summer of 2020 over the murder of George Floyd.
Obama continued with Neo-liberalism with a human face but still provoked continual opposition. When Trump took office , the sporadic floodgates of protest opened: the occupation of airports against the Muslim ban, the mass women’s marches etc.
Differences with the 60s
As the old saying goes “ History never repeats itself, but it does rhyme”. The fundamental contradictions of capitalism remain the same from period to period. Exploitation, oppression and repression provoke resistance. However, the precise manifestation of those contradictions varies greatly. Nostalgia is not useful. We could not go back to the 60s even if we wanted to . To organize most effectively today , we need to understand the period we are in. We can increase that understanding by comparing the current situation to the 60s:
1) Anti-Communism is no longer the major obstacle. The end of the Cold War , the relegation of McCarthyism to history, and the obvious failure of capitalism has nearly destroyed this as an issue. Of course the Right Wing tries to make socialism a bogeyman. However , they overplay their hand by calling all Democrats socialists etc. In spite of right wing propaganda, socialism however defined is very popular
2) The decline of living standards has hollowed out support for capitalism. Since 1973 real wages for most workers have stagnated or declined. The concentration of wealth at the top has gotten even more obscene. In 1980 CEOs made 40 times as much as the average worker. Today the ratio is 300+ to one. Wealth concentration follows this. Since the start of the pandemic alone, billionaires in the U.S. have increased their wealth by 1.3 TRILLION dollars!! At the same time ,millions in the U.S. are facing eviction, lack of food , unemployment etc.
3) Youth are always the strongest element of any revolutionary movement. Young people in the 60s grew up in a period of rising living standards and good job prospects. Even college educated young Black people felt this to a degree. Politics were often based on morality more than economics. Today, everyone who grew up after 1973 has faced stagnating and declining living standards. This encompasses all Millenials, all generation Z and even the vast majority of Generation X. This is reflected in a distorted way in voting patterns. Obviously all generations are divided by class. However, the vast majority of younger people have been shaped by the social and economic crisis of capitalism. In the 60s , the younger generation was shaped by capitalist boom.
4) The younger generations today were also shaped by movements against oppression. They grew up when racism , sexism and homophobia were no longer widely acceptable due to the success of the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Liberation Movement and the LGBTQ movement. Younger generations are more racially diverse than the generation of the 60s . They are also more diverse in open sexual orientation and gender expression. This has resulted in a higher base level of tolerance and opposition to oppressive ideologies. The background base for solidarity is higher. Though racist attacks, and LGBTQ bashing is still a major problem , they are a backlash against gains in the struggle against oppression.
5) The gap between generations is less than it was in the 60s. The baby boom generation was beginning to break away from the Cold War consensus but was often opposed by older people steeped in McCarthyism and the Cold War. Its parents and grandparents were heavily influenced by conservative anti-communism. Today, everyone under 60 has been shaped by the social and economic decay of capitalism. The memory of the Cold War only impacts those over 40. The baby boom generation, now in or approaching retirement is divided. It was shaped by the movement of the 60s and now faces the economic problems of old age. This generation is more affluent than the younger generations but many still retain social attitudes from the 60s. In the 60s the generational dividing line was much younger. “Never trust anyone over 30” was a joke but expressed a partial reality. The more radical generation was the minority. Today all the younger generations are influenced by capitalist crisis.
6) Opposition to U.S. militarism is taken for granted more than it was in the 60s. The ruling class has tried to exorcise the “Vietnam Syndrome” for 50 years but has been unable to. As a result, U.S. imperialism’s options are somewhat constrained. The military invasion of a country on the scale of Vietnam would be difficult to pull off today. There is more immediate opposition to U.S. adventures than there was in the 50s.
7) The revolutionary left today is weaker than it was at the end of the 60s. On the other hand the collapse of Stalinism does leave us in a better position ideologically. The road to authentic Marxism is much more open than it was in the 60s. The decline of organization on the Broad Left is also a major problem. This is especially true of the union movement. Union density is about half what it was in the 60s and even lower in the private sector. This is a severe and important deficit to overcome.
8) Technology: In the 60s we relied on telephone, snail mail, press type and mimeograph machines. Today we have the internet, social media, quick printing , zoom calls etc. This is a double edged sword. It makes organizing potentially easier. However, it leads some to rely on social media rather than on the ground organizing. Since spreading ideas is easier, it leaves some to think that spreading ideas alone is enough. Clicktivism cannot effectively replace activism.
9) The revolutionary movement of the 60s and early 70’s was based on a minority of society, primarily the younger generation. Today , the revolutionary movement has the potential to reach the majority. It can become “ the movement of the immense majority in the interests of the immense majority.” The opposition to oppression and other broad political issues is tightly integrated into economic issues. The ruling class is attacking on all fronts making it harder to separate issues from each other. The social struggle is now backed up by the need to respond to economic attacks. Resistance to exploitation can now serve as a motor force in the fight against all the other social evils of capitalism. This integration of issues is a reversal of the separation of economics and politics in the 60s.
10) The existential issue of Climate Change and other environmental issues has lent increased urgency to the struggle against capitalism. In the 60s poterntial nuclear war was also an existential issue. However, the fear it provoked mainly reinforced conservative Cold War attitudes. Today, the climate crisis is widely seen as an international issue that flows from how the economy is organized. Potential nuclear war is still an existential issue but has receded in popular consciousness.
Conclusion
We face many obstacles today. Capitalists are as ruthless as ever. They will use any means necessary to crush real opposition to their rule. The failure of Democratic Neoliberalism has opened the way for left wing movements. However, it has also polarized the population and created the grounds for a Far Right. If the Left does not effectively organize, the Right will jump into the void and win even people who are actually victimized by capitalism. The overall objective conditions are better for an advance for the revolutionary left today than they were in the 60s. However, we cannot make use of those conditions without upping our level of organization — — on the Broad Left and especially on the revolutionary left ! One extremely important task is the rebuilding of the union movement. Without strong work place organization , it will be hard for workers to use their power to disrupt profits and directly confront capital. This must be an important goal of the revolutionary left today. In the U.S. today, there are thousands of Marxists, those very open to Marxism etc. who are not yet in revolutionary organizations. A key task of organized Marxists today is to win them to revolutionary organization. This is needed in order to begin to lay the basis for a future revolutionary socialist vanguard party AND to make the struggles of today as effective as possible.
The crisis of the revolutionary movement today is a crisis of organization!
