The Spirit of '68: Rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956-1976

by Gerd-Rainer Horn

In virtually all corners of the Western world, 1968 witnessed a highly unusual sequence of popular rebellions. In Italy, France, Spain, Vietnam, the United States, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, Mexico, and elsewhere, millions of individuals took matters into their own hands to counter imperialism, capitalism, autocracy, bureaucracy, and all forms of hierarchical thinking. Recent reinterpretations have sought to play down any real challenge to the socio-political status quo in these events, but Gerd-Rainer Horn's book offers a spirited counterblast. 1968, he argues, opened up the possibility that economic and political elites on both sides of the Iron Curtain could be toppled from their position of unnatural superiority to make way for a new society where everyday people could, for the first time, become masters of their own destiny. Furthermore, Horn contends, the moment of crisis and opportunity culminating in 1968 must be seen as part of a larger period of experimentation and
revolt. The ten years between 1956 and 1966, characterised above all by the flourishing of iconoclastic cultural rebellions, can be regarded as a preparatory period which set the stage for the non-conformist cum political revolts of the subsequent "red" decade (1966-1976).

Horn's geographic centres of attention are Western Europe, including the first full examination of Mediterranean revolts, and North America. He placed particular emphasis on cultural nonconformity, the student movement, working class rebellions, the changing contours of the Left, and the meaning of participatory democracy. His book will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in this turbulent period and the fundamental changes that were wrought upon societies either side of the Atlantic.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

264 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2007

Reviews

[Rob Leverett · Rating 3 out of 5]

1968 remains a pivotal year in student and popular protest during the tumultuous 1960s. Gerd-Rainer Horn examines this year of demonstration in his book, The Spirit of '68: Rebellion in Western and North America, 1956-1976. Horn admits that the protests of 1968 failed to “usher in fundamental socio-economic and political changes,” Still his goal is to refute arguments that identify the protests and idealism of “1968 as the beginning of evil in the modern world today.” (1-2) Horn maintains that student movements and worker revolts were a
ceaseless effort to construct a different and more egalitarian social order, a world where company and egalitarian paternalism were to make way for workers’ control, student power, and generalized self-management in all walks of life. (2)

Despite the long-term failure of the movements, Horn’s primary thesis is that the actions of students and workers led to greater experiments in participatory democracy and allowed for the questioning of the status quo. (231) The author explores his thesis in episodic installments rather than a chronological account. His narration transports the reader between the 1950s to the middle 1970s to explain the sudden protests of 1968 and the impact on Western Europe and North America.
Horn contends that the roots of the 1968 protests extend to post-war Europe and the civil rights movement in America. Chapter one explores the European and American ideas and actions that influenced and led to the protests. Horn sees the European intellectual antecedents in the Situationists and their forerunner, the Lettristes. While the author gives ample examples of these groups' revolutionary actions, especially in the artistic and creative field, he fails to lay out the basic ideas of the Lettristes and the Situationists. In addition to European influences, Horn sees the Neat poets, especially Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, as the emotional and intellectual expression of rebellion. As the Beats underwent a development of self-discovery, “they gave voice to a growing sentiment of cultural malaise and existential revolt.” (17)
Chapter two examines social movements and student actions in the USA and Europe. Horn begins with an exploration of the political forerunners for the protests with a survey of the civil rights movement, primarily the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The Freedom Summer organized by SNCC exposed numerous northern college students to the social action undertaken by SNCC to achieve voting rights and equality for African Americans. Horn is dependent upon Doug McAdams and his book Freedom Summer in the description of white northerners in Mississippi. While Horn ably describes the experience and lessons learned by the white students, he fails to mention the friction between whites and blacks caused by the assertiveness and self-confidence of the students. But the lessons learned in Mississippi found application during the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, which Horn believes impacted student movements impacted similar student movements in Belgium and Italy. A 1966 Belgian protest march named the James Meredith March demonstrates the awareness of the Leuven students of civil rights in the USA and the impression made upon European students. (72) Horn places greater stress upon Belgian and Italian protests as these preceded the more well-known French demonstrations, despite previous French protests over taxes and Algeria, which Horn neglects to mention. (4)
Chapter three adds the role of labor protests to the social activism of 1968, beginning with the worker organization and strikes in Francoist Spain. French labor activism also intensified the atmosphere of dissent as a general strike descended upon the country in addition to student protests. Central to Horn’s thesis was the collective action of French and Italian workers to seize factories and institute autogestion, with the workers controlling industrial production. Perhaps his most significant example was the LIP watch company, when the workforce seized the plant and, anchored by a solidarity demonstration, disallowed production until new ownership took control with workers' approval. (110-111) Self-managed production failed in the long run, but the example of LIP still inspired others and serves as an example for Horn of a rise in participatory democracy.
Chapter four observes the contrast and changes between the old left of communism and socialism and the new left of social activism. Horn describes the Suez Crisis and the Hungarian Revolution as the breaking point between the old and new left and the “most profound rearrangements of the European left since the heady days of 1917-20.” (131) New Left activists demonstrated a “high degree of personal commitment and personal engagement.” (154) 1968 served as a demarcation between the new left and the far left. While the far left lacked popular support, the movement strengthened the impact of social movements. (163) Horn continually points out that the importance of these movements lay in their involvement and organization, which spread beyond national boundaries and encouraged participatory democracy.
Horn uses chapter five to summarize his thesis of participatory democracy by analyzing the efforts to build a new society through innovative interpersonal communication and education. Labor movements brought financial and material improvements to European workers. According to Horn, SNCC served as an example of a community organization with indigenous leadership and participatory decision making. SNCC Freedom schools in Mississippi served as a model that influenced free universities and schools in the USA and Europe. Horn tends to sanitize the work of student and labor activists with a failure to include authoritarian and moral issues. But the quote from Michael Rossmann of the Berkley Free Speech reveals other activities than educational and politics when Rossmann mentions weed smoking and making love during the seizure of Sproul Hall.
For Horn, the value of 1968 remains in grassroots activism, the decentralization of policymaking, and the “politicization of everyday life.” (152) In Northern Europe, activism tended to be student-based, while the South included students and participants from different levels of society. (229) While societal transformation never arrived, 1968 changed Western society by emphasizing participatory democracy.

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful supplement to Arthur Marwick's The Sixties and the local studies by Slobidian and Ross. Learned a lot about Italy, Belgium and, to my surprise, the labor movement in Spain. Fair amount of summary of well known moments from the US and France.