1968 and After

The Revolutionary Aspirations of the New Left
Revolutions Study Group

Fifty years ago, the political-military blocs of the Cold War had ossified, social democracy and labor unions in the West were tamed, and struggles for change in Eastern Europe and Latin America seemed to have been controlled by combinations of sticks and carrots. Then, in the year 1968, in France, Italy, the United States, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, etc. there were immense uprisings against the status quo. This fall, we will study this watershed period (1968-1974) considering the achievements and failures of the Left in the 1960s. We will read Chris Harman’s The Fire Last Time (2nd revised ed. 1998), linking the events of 1968 and what carried these events forward.

The Revolutions Study Group (started at the Brecht Forum) has met since 2009. Participants have come and gone, however the group has held together, studying in depth a wide range of history including the French Revolution, the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the Mau-Mau Revolt in Kenya, the Haitian Revolution, the 1848 European Revolutions, the May 68 movement in France and the Hot Autumn of Italy and much more.