New Left

The New Left is a term used in political discourse to refer to radical left-wing movements from the 1960s onwards. They differed from earlier leftist movements that had been more oriented towards labor activism, and instead adopted a broader definition of political activism commonly called social activism. The "New Left" was an intellectually driven movement which attempted to correct the perceived errors of "Old Left" parties in the post-WWII period. The movement began to wind down in the 1970s, when activists either committed themselves to party projects, developed social justice organizations, or became inactive in the movement.

International movements of the New Left

A variety of political commentators have attempted to subsume a number of European revolutionary movements under the heading of the New Left, but these subsumptions typically rely on an inaccurate U.S.-centric view.

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Briefly, the Prague Spring was legitimised by the Czech government as a reformist movement to revitalise Czechoslovak socialism. The 1968 events in the Czech republic were driven forward by industrial workers, and were explicitly theorized by active Czech unionists as a revolution for workers control.

Related Topics:
Prague Spring - Czechoslovak - Industrial - Workers - Workers control

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The events in France in May 1968 were complex. However, the driving force of near-revolution in France were students inspired by the ideas of the Situationalist International, which itself was following a course dictated by Socialisme ou Barbarie. Both of these French groups placed an emphasis on cultural production as a form of production. Unlike the New Left, the sphere of culture was not unrelated to productivity.

Related Topics:
France - Situationalist International - Socialisme ou Barbarie

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While the Autonomia in Italy have been called New Left, it is more appropriate to see them as a unique response to the failure of the Italian PCI and PSI to deal with the new Italian industrial working class in the 1950s. The Autonomia was a result of traditional, industrially oriented, communism retheorising its ideology and methods. Unlike the New Lefts, Autonomia had a strong blue-collar arm, active in regularly occupying factories.

Related Topics:
Autonomia - Italy

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