The New Left was a left-wing political movement that emerged in the 1960s, aiming to influence government policy on issues such as war, feminism, and civil rights. It began due to the failure of communist parties to respond to the Hungarian rebellion in 1956 and was influenced by Marxist activists who rejected the authoritarian approach of Soviet-style communism. The movement was most prominent in the US and Great Britain and was led by figures such as Herbert Marcuse and Tom Hayden. The Students for a Democratic Society played a central role in the US, while the London-based New Left Review was influential in Great Britain. The movement used nonviolent tactics to protest and was associated with the hippie culture of the time. However, it became increasingly violent towards the end, and opposition from the New Right led to its decline.
The New Left was an international left-wing political movement that developed in the 1960s as an offshoot of Marxism and other “old left” ideals. Her goal was to influence changes in government policy around the world regarding issues such as war, feminism and civil rights. The majority of the movement’s participants were university students, and as a result they were responsible for many university protests. While it has appeared to varying degrees in countries around the world, it has been most prominent in the United States and Great Britain.
The New Left began due to the failure of the communist parties of the United States and Great Britain to respond coherently to the Hungarian rebellion against Soviet rule in 1956. Marxist activists began to reject the authoritarian approach of communism-style Soviet in favor of a more democratic approach. In Britain this led many communists to join the Labor Party, and as a result the term “New Left” was born. This movement soon joined forces with anti-nuclear groups such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Herbert Marcuse and Tom Hayden are considered the main influences that guided the new branch of the left. Marcuse is widely considered the “father” of the movement, due to the many books he wrote. These include “Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis,” which condemned Soviet-style communism, and “One-Dimensional Man,” which predicted and criticized the rise of mass consumerism. Tom Hayden is responsible for drafting the Port Huron Declaration, a manifesto that not only addressed the issues of war, racism, and political privation, but also outlined the movement’s goals.
The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) were a radical student group that played a central role in the New Left movement in the United States. It was founded in 1960 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Tom Hayden was a member of this group when he wrote the Port Huron Declaration in 1962, which SDS later revealed and published. The Port Huron Declaration is widely regarded as the movement’s defining document. Nonviolent demonstrations, the push for civil rights, solidarity and anti-war activism were all part of the Declaration’s list of goals and tactics.
Another major influence within the new left cause was the London, England-based journal known as the New Left Review. Formed by exiles from the Communist Party of Great Britain, the paper has been published bimonthly continuously since its inception in January 1960. Its aim was to popularize socialism and present a Marxist perspective on modern capitalism, as well as discuss a range of viewpoints commonly held by the left. This newspaper, while not the official publication of the new left movement, is considered by many to be the most important.
Often the new left movement is associated with the “flower power” hippie culture of the 1960s. Both cultures opposed capitalism and used nonviolent tactics to protest nuclear disarmament, civil rights, and environmentalism. Like the hippie movement, most of the New Left’s participants were Caucasian, middle-class college-aged students, although minority groups were also associated with it. There were differences, however, such as that hippies routinely disengaged from society while some new leftists became intellectuals and politicians.
Membership in the New Left, while never officially counted, is thought to have grown steadily since its starting point in 1960. The escalation of the Vietnam War, however, often united the New Left and the hippie movements in ways that they made it more difficult to tell the difference between the two. Furthermore, the membership of new leftist groups such as the SDS has increased. Mainstream liberal politicians and activists viewed the New Left as too radical, and disdain for liberals united the New Left and the hippie movements against them.
In the late 1960s, anti-war and anti-conscription protests became a defining part of the new left movement and eventually led to increasingly violent protests. While the protests were originally non-confrontational in nature, towards the end of the movement, the movement’s factions branched out and became increasingly aggressive. One such group, the Weather Underground Organization, resorted to violent crime, bank robberies, riots, and terrorist bombings.
Eventually the New Left would meet with growing opposition from a counter-revolutionary coalition of anti-communists and Christian conservatives. This movement is popularly known as the New Right. The rise of the New Right was predicted by Herbert Marcuse in his 1972 book Counter-Revolution and Revolt.
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