Herbert Marcuse at is, strenuously denies it, the found great deal of left wing campus speech which we reprint in VE SO WON made recently Guardian to the dediencek rac Guardian to an audience Fillmore auditorium.
Let me start by pointing contradictions with which our faced. On the one hand, we all fee in our bones this soci increasingly repressive, increasing of the human and natural capabili to determine one's own life witho others.
And we - and by this, I mea but all those who are repressec slaved by their jobs, by the m required from them, all those whi by the internal and external colo of this country - this large we is change; on the other hand, we that, in large part, this popula really feel, is not politically cor need for change. This presents first great problem for our strateg The second great problem for that we are constantly faced wit 'What is the alternative?" «Wha us that is better than what we h believe that we can simply bi question by saying, "What is r destroy: atterwards we will see We cannot for one very simple r our goals, our values, our own be visible already human beings who we want to h we must already strive to be beings right here and now.
And that is why we cannot sir question aside. We must be able in a very small way, the model one day be a human being.
Now, if this is the alternative, how do we oj a transmit it, because people will look This socialism? We will say wit is perhaps, "Show us, where is this kind of aged socialism?" 20th probably going to be built up in Cuba. It is The perhaps being built up in China. It is certainly fighting in Vietnam [against] the supermonster. the But they will reply "No, this isn't socialism. Socialism, as we see it, socialism is what we have in the Soviet Union. Socialism is the invasion of Czechoslovakia." Socialism, in other words, is a crime.
And how can we meet this contradiction? The two contradictions which I just outlined can be telescoped into one. Radical change without a mass base seems to be unimaginable. LIVE But the obtaining of a mass base - at least in this country - and in the foreseeable future -seems to be equally unimaginable. What are we going to do with this contradiction?
The answer seems to be easy. We have to try to get this support. We have to try to get this mass base. But here we meet the limits of demited ocratic persuasion with which we are confrontHicy ed today. Why the limits? Because a large, perlid of aps a decisive part of the majority, namely the Imit not this is, and not oniy superficially. the The second reason why-we are here faced with the limits of democratic persuasion is the ty is mere fact that the left has no adequate access nds: to the media of mass communication. ffer Today, public opinion is made by the media 1O1 of mass communication. If you cannot buy the this equal and adequate time, if you cannot buy the to equal and adequate space, how are you sup es. posed to change public opinion, a public ruse opinion made in this monopolistic way. ust. The consequence is as follows. We are, in this pseudo-democracy, faced with a majority which seems to be self-perpetuating, which zan seems to reproduce itself as a conservative majority immune against radical change. But this the same circumstances that militate against democratic persuasion also militate against the mass party, according to the traditional model.
change and obtaining change.
One further thingThe contradictions of corporate capitalism are as serious as ever before; but I must immediately add that today the resources of corporate capitalism are not only strong, they are daily strengthened by the cooperation collusion - between the Unites States and the Soviet Union. What we are faced with is a temporary stabilization of the capitalist system. And in any period of temporary stabilization, the around task of the left is a task of enlightenment, a task of education, a task of developing it is political consciousness.
I would like to discuss under three headings the target of the strategy of the New Left, its methods and finally, its organization.
First, the notion of the seizure of power.
Here, the old model wouldn't do any more; the lotion that in a country like the United State:
under the leadership of a centralized and auth oritarian party, large masses concentrate on Washington, occupy the Pentagon and set up a new government, seems to be a slightly unrealistic and revise some kind of define and dispersed utopian disintegration of the system, in which interest, emphasis and activity is shifted to local and regional areas.
The second concept that should re-examined is the role of the working class.
And here I would like to say a few words about one of the most defamed notions today, working class, is to a great extent integrated in- | namely the concept of the new working class. I to the system; and on a rather solid material bas- know what can be said against it, and what has been said against it. It seems to me that the concept of the new working class simply comprehends and anticipates tendencies that are going on before out own eyes in the material process of production in capitalism namely that more and more highly qualified salaried employees, technicians, specialists, and so on, occupy a decisive position in the material process of production. And even in orthodox Marxian terms, just in this wav become members of the industrial working class. What we see, I submit to you, is an extension of the potential mass base over and beyond the traditional industrial working class to the new working classes that extend the range of the exploited.
Now this extension, which indicates a large but very diffuse and dispersed mass base, development of a revolutionary centralized changes the relationship between the politically militant cadres of the left and the mass. What lacking political consciousness and which will be depend more than before on political guidance and direction by militant leading minorities.
A few words on the strategy of the New Left. the degree to which pseudo-democratic process, with the the semi-monopoly of the conservative mass media, creates and contantly reproduces the same society and a largely immune majority, to that degree must political education and preparation Political activity radi pontical erication must beyond the traditional liberalistic forms.
go beyond teaching and listening beyond discussion and writing. The Left mus find the adequate means of breaking conformist and corrupted universe of political language and political behaviour. The Left must to arouse the consciousness and conscience of the others. 1o break out of the language and pattern or tne corrupt political universe, a pattern which is imposed on all political activity, is in almost super-human task and requires almost super-human imagination. It requires finding a language and organising actions which are not part and parcel of the familiar political behaviour.
In terms of the establishment and in terms of the rationality of the establishment, such behaviour would and must appear as foolish childish and irrational; but that may very well be the token that here is the attempt, and the at least temporarily successful attempt, to go be beyond, to break out of the repressive universe of the established political behaviour.
Now, last, to the organization of the New Left. I already mentioned the obsolescence of a parliamentary party. There is no party I can envisage today which would not within a ver short time fall victim to the generai an totalitarian political characterizes the political universe. No political party, but also no revolutionary centralism and no underground - because both are all too easy victims to the intensified and streamlined apparatus of repression.
As against these forms, what seems to be shaping up is an entirely overt organization diffused, concentrated in small groups and around local activities, small groups which are highly flexible and autonomous.
I want to add one thing here that may almost appear as heretic unification of strategy. The Left is split! The Left has always been split! Only the right, which has no ideas to fight for, is united!
Now the strength of the New Left may well reside in precisely these small contesting and The black Dwarf 28th March 1969 LIBRARY the basic organization of libertarian socialism •namely councils of small manual and intellectual workers, soviets, if one can still use the term. I would like to call it organized the SPOILalICILY.
Let me say a few words of the alliance which I think should be discussed in the New Left. No alliance with liberals, who have taken over the the un-American Committee denouncing Committee has not yet done, and I think l doing have to mention names, you know perfectly well. But instad, alliance with all those, whether bourgeois or not, who know that the enemy is on the right, and who have demonstrated this knowledge.
Let come the summary lof* the perspectives for the New Left. I believe, and this is not a confession of faith, I think this is at least to a great extent based on what you may call an analysis of the facts. I believe that the New Left today is the only hope we have. Its ask is to prepare, in thought and in action morally and politically, for the time when the aggravating conflicts of corporate capitalism dissolve its repressive cohesion and open a space where the real work for libertarian socialism can begin. The prospects for the next year, the prospects for the New Left are good if the Nev eft can only sustain its present activity. There are always periods of regression. No movement can progress at the same pace; sustaining our activity would already be a success.
And, a word on a friend or enemy on the left. Those who denounce the young of the New Left, those who denounce them as traditional forms of organization, for example, infantile radicals, snobbish intellectuals, and who, in denouncing them, invoke Lenin's famous pamphlet; I suggest to you that this is a historical forgerv. Lenin struck out against radicals who confronted a strong revolutionary mass party. Such a revolutionary mass party does not exist today. The Communist Party has become and is becoming a party of order, as it itself called itself. In other words the shoe is today on the other foot. In the absence of a revolutionary party, these alleged infantile radicals are, I believe, the weak and confused but true historical heirs of the great socialist tradition.
You all know that their ranks are permeated with agents, with fools, with irresponsibles. But they also contain the human beings, men and women, black and white, who are sufficiently free from the aggressive and repressive inhuman needs and aspirations of the emploitative society sufficiently free from them in order to
The Black Dwarf 28th March 1969 Page 8 WE REQUEST YOU TO INFORM US MORE FREQUENTLY AND MORE CONCRETELY OF WHAT MEASURES YOU HAVE TAKEN TO COMBAT THE BOURGEOIS COUNCILS AND DOMESTIC SERVANTS' COUNCILS IN THE DISTRICTS, WHETHER YOU HAVE DISARMED THE BOURGEOISIE AND ARMED THE WORKERS, WHETHER EXPROPRIATED THE FACTORIES AND PROPERTY OF THE CAPITALIST AGRARIAN ENTERPRISES IN THE SURROUNDING AREA, WHETHER YOU HAVE CANCELLED THE MORTGAGE AND TENANCY DEBTS OF THE SMALL FARMERS, WHETHER YOU HAVE DOUBLED AND TREBLED THE WAGES OF THE FARM WORKERS AND THE UNSKILLED WORKERS, WHETHER YOU HAVE CONFISCATED ALL PAPER AND PRINTING MACHINERY SO AS TO DISTRIBUTE POPULAR LEAFLETS AND NEWSPAPERS TO THE MASSES, WHETHER YOU HAVE INTRODUCED THE SIX-HOUR-DAY WITH A TWO -OR THREE-HOUR PERIOD OF WORK IN THE STATE ADMINISTRATION, WHETHER YOU HAVE FORCED THE BOURGEOISIE TO TAKE UP LESS LIVING PLACE SO AS TO BRING WORKERS INTO THE HOUSES OF THE RICH IMMEDIATELY, WHETHER YOU HAVE CONTROL OF ALL THE BANKS. HANGMEN, WHETHER YOU HAVE SET UP WORKERS URBAN YOU HAVE SPECIFICALLY DWARF