THE FALL OF NEW LEFT MOVEMENT

THE FALL OF NEW LEFT MOVEMENT

            New Left movement was an activist group of 1960’s that comprised of activists, educators, and agitators with a common goal of initiating reforms on the basis of the ancient Marxist movement with an eye the labor unionization and social structure issues. The movement was significantly organized by the Students of Democratic Society (SDS). The movement did not undergo many problems because it only protested non-violently against the civil disobedience. The organization comprised of mainly the college students who were protesting against Vietnam War and the freedom on Cal State Berkeley. Their protests were generally successful making the movement prominent although they led to its demise ultimately (Hall, 235).
It was an indeed a promising movement but the rain started beating the it after its failure to come up with a unified outset of the American society and braded itself as only an injustice oppose. As a result, the movement followed the way of mindless and single issueism activism. Its failure to have strategies and some clear class analysis of its activities started to eat into it slowly by slowly and ended up introducing some elements of opportunism when activists began looking around attractive and fake issues which would gather large crowds of people without considering the long-term or the intrinsic outcomes of such actions (Blackburn, 34).

The movement’s belief that it was not easy to win the American people towards the radical side made the movement to focus more on the radicalism state of the groups which operated outside the American society mainstream. Particularly, the left began to be treated as a movement of blacks and the other oppressed minorities who were apparently sensitive to the social injustices and that started to create some disunity in the movement. Considering that the achievements of this movement were all successful because of the unity factor which was paramount during its initial stages, the disunity rendered the movement hopeless.

In its mid ‘60’s, it was a fact beyond any reasonable doubt that the movement had lost its sense of direction. Some of the events which were taking place like the Johnson’s demagogic Poverty War and establishment of organizations such as Peace Corps and the Vista raised the alarm that the group was approaching its end times and the desires of many young people who were initially united to fight the common enemy of social injustices had taken a different direction, the direction of racism (Evans &Sara, 87). Thereafter, the Vietnam War broke this radical student movement from the liberal bourgeoisie. As Bob Wolfe, the New Left writer put it, “Bayard Rustin’s idea of a coalition stretching from SNCC to the White House was buried, along with much else, in the swamps of Vietnam.

Following the disunity, the Socialist Party later dissolved the youth group after failing to support Johnson against Goldwater. The trend continued and shortly after, SDS’ stepped aside from its maternal group, the Industrial Democracy following the issues of non-exclusion of the whites, not supporting the Democratic Party and the Vietnam War opposition (Katsiaficas &George, 154). After the liberal movement supported the imperialist escapade in Vietnam, it gaggled the radical student movement aside after which it created a path way to the revolutionary politics. And that marked the end of New Left movement, all because of the disunity.

Work cited

Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd. “The long civil rights movement and the political uses of the past.” The     Best American History Essays 2017. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2017. 235-271.

Blackburn, Robin, ed. After the Fall: the Failure of Communism and the Future of Socialism.        Verso Books, 2011.34-76

Evans, Sara Margaret. Personal politics: The roots of women’s liberation in the civil rights movement and the new left. Vol. 228. Vintage, 2016.87-124

Katsiaficas, George N. The Imagination of the New Left: A global analysis of 1968. South End      Press, 2012. 145-327