1968

Question 1

Describe transnationalism

Answer 1

Transnationalism is a social phenomenon and scholarly research agenda grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states. This is particularly important for this unit, in terms of the impact of news and media, and the fluidity of travel throughout Europe. Further, the fascination surrounding transnationalism in historiography

Question 2

What examples of commercialisation are there from the period?

Answer 2

1. 1960s-70s - age-band movement - new, younger consumers. I.E. 75-80% of rock music sold to 14-25yr olds.
2. China - Cultural revolution - purge of intellects and ‘artefacts of capitalism’
3. MEDCs saw youth culture develop - had money to do so.
4. New youth culture in urban societies was astonishingly international
5. The power of young money may be measured by the sales of records in the USA which rose from $277 millions in 1955 when rock appeared, to $600mil. in 1959 and $2bil. in 1973

Question 3

What was the situation in Germany?

Answer 3

• 1966 – First German recession, saw FDP remove support from Erhard government.
• Following Kiesinger government had weak checks.
• The belief in authoritarianism and the shock of the ephemerality of the Wirtschaftwunder empowered Marxists to critique capitalist system and the distribution of wealth.

Question 4

What were the main objectives of the German student movement? (6)

Answer 4

1. Attain greater democracy
2. Recognise and respond to the legacy of Nazism – belief that the Fascist era had not closed with the number of Nazis still in power (both in politics and education). Also took issue with the fact the German identity was tarnished by the spectre of Nazism
3. Reform of the education system – Government attempted to speed up the rate of degree attainment in order to benefit the economy – not taken well by students.
4. Condemnation of Vietnam – German government supported Germany and provided humanitarian aid to the South
5. Reduction of the influence of the right wing press (esp. Axel Springer)
6. Rejection of the Notstandsgesetze – Would have limited freedom of movement and communication.

Question 5

When did violence escalate in Germany?

Answer 5

• Dissent began in 1966 through demonstrations, sit-ins and other protest under the SDS. (First big sit-in in the Free University of Berlin 1966 saw 4000 participants).
• Violence escalated with the visit of the Iranian Shah, when a bystander (Benno Ohnesorg) was suffered a headshot from an undercover Police Sargent (who actually was a member of the Stasi).

Question 6

Who were Kommune One?

Answer 6

Politically motivated Commune in Germany – “Burn, warehouse, burn!” –responsive to arson attacks in Brussels, 1967 – too radical for most.

Question 7

Who were the German Student League (SDS)?

Answer 7

Popular organisation for students expressing discontent with the state.

Question 8

What was the Extra-Parliamentary Organisation (APO)?

Answer 8

• Its membership consisted mostly of young people disillusioned with the grand coalition (Große Koalition) of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
• Since the coalition controlled 95 percent of the Bundestag, the APO provided a more effective outlet for student dissent. Its most prominent member and unofficial spokesman was Rudi Dutschke.

Question 9

What was the Bonn Republic?

Answer 9

The name of the government which followed the Nazi state. Further, following the Reichstag was the Bundstag, which was dominated by the CDU until 1969 (however the major CDU coalition began to decay in 1966). This government was perforated with ‘browns’ – former Nazis.

Question 10

What was the Radical Decree 1972?

Answer 10

People who were considered to have radical views, especially if they were members of such parties, could be forbidden to work as civil servants (Beamter), which includes a variety of public sector occupations such as teaching. The decree was declared as response to terrorism by the Red Army Faction.

Question 11

What does Notstandsgesetze mean?

Answer 11

Emergency Acts – passed in 1968 – Added clauses to ensure that the federal government could operate in moments of disaster.

Question 12

Who did the Free Democratic Party align with?

Answer 12

Student movement alongside the Notstand der Demokratie

Question 13

What happened during the Spiegel Affair of 1963?

Answer 13

Accusation by Spiegel that Franz Josef Strauss (defence minister) accepted bribery. Magazine was accused of treason and was occupied by police. Stood as test of the freedom of speech in GER, would stir movements and disillusionment with student body.

Question 14

Who was Rudi Deutschke?

Answer 14

Most prominent spokesperson of the German student movement of the 1960s. He advocated a “long march through the institutions of power” to create radical change from within government and society by becoming an integral part of the machinery. Shot in 1968 by an anticommunist.

Question 15

What was the Berlin Republican Club?

Answer 15

1. Emergent female-only movement in 1968 - second-wave feminism – with lodestars in Friedan’s Feminine Mystique and Beauvoir’s Second Sex.
2. Departure from liberalism and the labour movement- became focused on structures of power repressing women.
3. Effort to recover women from history.
4. Politicised by the Federal Republic demanding elimination of Paragraph 218 and consciously rejecting and violating regulations regarding abortion. Campaign 218 – movement to removed Paragraph 218 (abortion).

Question 16

Describe what happened in Czechoslovakia in 1968 (and prior)

Answer 16

1- ‘Strahov Events’ of 1967 - Communist suppress calls for ‘More light!’ - fear of spread of Western student agitation

2- Bedrock of the ‘Prague Spring’ = student agitation for free speech - Dubček failed to contain.

3- Soviet response came in the form of invasion, and the reorientation of its European strategy - lack of faith in WarPac

4- Events so severe due to fear of repeat of Hungary, 1956, alongside allegiance of Albania with PRC.

5- Appropriate to see the failed liberalisation project as within the same universe as the student-driven dissatisfaction with the establishment present in the West.

Question 17

who was Alexander Dubček?

Answer 17

Alexander, a liberalising politician in Czechoslovakia who came to be the First Secretary of the Communist Party after defeating hardliners such as Antonin Novotny

Question 18

Describe the situation in Northern Ireland

Answer 18

1. Civil rights movements in 1968, emulating U.S. - Triggers Troubles -
2. Civil rights sought for Catholic minorities, who were persecuted 1920-1969.
3. Educational reforms in the 1940s saw a generation come of age in the late 1960s, leading a minority population to protest in the streets against the injustices of a Protestant supremacist state.
4. Longer term = Connolly Association, 1950s - three-pronged attack on British imperialism. Aimed to use British democracy to bring about Irish freedom.
5. 1967, Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) formed. Pressure group along the lines of Britain’s National Council fo Civil Liberties rather than Coughlan’s vision of a popular movement. - Followed US SNCC. The lack of social housing in Dungannon led to titles such as ‘Racial Discrimination in Alabama Hits Dungannon’ in 1963.

Question 19

Describe the situation in Italy

Answer 19

1. Discontent with the lack of a wirtschaftswunder in Italy - Worker solidarity led to left-wing government election in 1958; failed to extract concessions from businesses (FIAT/ LANCIA).
2. 1962 - 93,000 strike against F/L
3. Italian movement driven by middle class students, who felt more entitled that the proletariat to enact calls for change - “a lecture hall was as good a place to begin as a machine shop”
4. Late sixties cycle of protests and disruptions in Italy began in Turin in 1968 with student objections to plans to move part of the university to the suburbs. Aligned with Pirelli labour disputers to augment effort.

Question 20

What were the United Base-Line Committees?

Answer 20

Unions which colluded together in order to develop a method of autoriduzione; the worker controlled reduction of output.

Question 21

What did Marwick describe the UK situation as (and why?)

Answer 21

• Echoes of the storm in Europe - many of the concessions desired in Europe had already been attained in the UK, and a Labour government was already in power.
• LSE protests (and the shutdown of the LSE), though violent, simmered down with the arrival of summer holidays - Protests against Vietnam predominantly

Question 22

Describe the series of events in France, 1968

Answer 22

• There was a perception among the New Left that there existed a ’system’ run by ’them’, which instigated the generation of ‘extra-Parliamentary’ radicalism against the government.
• Resulted in movements in France during the spring of 1968, driven by Nanterre.
• Seen to echo the revolutions of 1830, 1848, 1870, 1936 swiftly put down, and led to strengthening of the right in politics. France post-war revisionist vanguard.

Question 23

What was wrong with the French political setup?

Answer 23

French system coalesced by the mid-sixties into a stable system of electoral and parliamentary coalitions build around two political families - Communists and Socialists on the Left, centrists and Gaullists on the Right. By tacit agreement, other parties fell into line or disappeared

Question 24

What were the Fouchet Reforms?

Answer 24

• The reforms addressed student life at the universities. The reforms included required courses and mandatory class attendance.
• Students given limited time to study + were forced to choose a specialty on joining.
• They expanded the criteria for dismissing students, another means of accommodating the increased university populations.
• The university was no longer to be an academic community where students could enjoy and engage in learning; it became a means for sustaining France’s economic growth and reinforcing newly established stratifications in social class.

Question 25

Describe De Gaulle

Answer 25

President of France, resigned after the May crisis – not as a direct response, but after a proposed constitutional amendment was not passed. Remember, De Gaulle was tired – in power between 1959 and 1968 – died soon after. Nevertheless, experience of 1968 was debilitating for De Gaulle.

Question 26

Describe Pompidou

Answer 26

French Prime Minister under de Gaulle, in power during the May 1968 crisis – survived, and became President, but destroyed relationship with De Gaulle.

Question 27

Who was Daniel Cohn-Bendit?

Answer 27

Student leader during 1968 French riots, then moved across Europe to incite more violence.

Question 28

What did Goldthorpe contribute at this time?

Answer 28

The affluent worker, 1968 – demonstrably quantifying the change in society in terms of the belief in embourgeoisement and the belief in ‘affluence’ as a transformative effect of modernity

Question 29

What did Hoggart contribute at this time?

Answer 29

Hoggart 1957 − The Uses of Literacy – contemporary account of the changing nature of class and society – particularly as a result of mass-media.

Question 30

What did the likes of Touraine, Mallet and Gorz contribute to the intellectual field at the time?

Answer 30

• Underlying the assessment of all three social scientists is the recognition of a profound sense of alienation deeply affecting this rapidly growing stratum of the dependent workforce precisely in the most dynamic sectors of the world capitalist economy.

Question 31

Who was Herbert Marcuse?

Answer 31

• OSS agent, who became a leading German philosopher.
• Revolutionary spirit no longer in the prol, but the new working class of edu technicians.
• Marcuse as seeing the movement as one against tradition and hierarchy.

Question 32

what was significant about the works of Young Marx?

Answer 32

• The work of younger Marx became the lexicon which was adopted by the students in the 1960s.
• This tended towards a more romantic, Hegelian and ambitious perspective on global change.
• In particular, this work appealed to theorists such as Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch, and Antonio Gramsci.
• The humanist Marx was a deviation from the more traditional deterministic writings of old Marx; and became popular through recent discoveries of notes and writings – in particular, the Paris Manuscripts were influential.

Question 33

What did Guevara contribute to the debate?

Answer 33

Ché proselytized ‘it is not always conditions for revolution to exist - the insurrectionary focal point can at times create them’.

Question 34

Name some terrorist groups from the period?

Answer 34

• Italy: Red Brigades (Instrumental in the ensuing Years of Lead)
• Germany: Red Army Front
• Spain: ETA ( Euskadi Ta Askatasuna)- terrorist organization – Basque separatists

Question 35

What characterised the 1970s?

Answer 35

1970s - moral crisis - religious crisis

Question 36

Historian: Wilfried Mausbach, Historicising 1968 (2)

Answer 36

1. Change in Germany as underway for a long time - not just sparked by 1968
2. Connection to terrorism of the 1970s

Question 37

Tony Judt, Postwar – A History of Europe

Answer 37

• Product of baby boom
• Europe was full of ‘young people’ - in FR - 8 million strong (18-24)
• Educational participation had increased substantially - education also beginning to become something beyond the preserve of the rich
• Holocaust as political tool in Germany
• Radical groups coalesced into terrorist groups
• GERMANY: Intellectuals of the period were frustrated with the impact this had had on culture - the parent generation were tainted by their moral inheritance - there was a failure to discuss pre-1933 Germany, nor the realities of Nazism - new West Germans wanted to do away with the baggage and guilt of their forebears.
• Frivolous side of 1960s - fashion, pop culture, sex - not merely froth and show. New generational method of distinguishing from the generation before- and particularly, the current political elite - De Gaulle, Macmillan, Adenauer etc.

Question 38

Victoria De Grazia, Irresistible Empire (2)

Answer 38

1. Role of the US as a Market Empire, roll of American consumer and marketing techniques in US.
2. The new Europe of the 1960s: a “Europe of 221,750,000 consumers”

Question 39

Stanley Hoffman, Europe’s Identity Crisis Revisited (1)

Answer 39

• The bizarre “events” of 1968 had many aspects: one was a protest against the vacuum of beliefs, or, with regard to communism, against the ossification and sterilization of the creed. But the attempt to spread new values failed: it was a revolt, not a revolution.

Question 40

Simon Prince, The Global Revolt of 1968 and Northern Ireland (4)

Answer 40

• Global revolt against imperialism, capitalism and bureaucracy
• Northern Ireland civil war - engagement in protest as emulation of US
• Northern Ireland had a civil rights generation, not a ’68 generation
• The absence of a distinct youth cultue in Ulster society has contributed to the idea that there was not participation in the international festival of liberation – even if protest organiser Eamonn McCann has maintained that this was the case.

Question 41

Richard Ivan Jobs, Youth Movements: Travel Protest and Europe in 1968 (3)

Answer 41

1. Germany as hotbed of radicalism
2. “Travel as a significant enabling factor behind the rise of the new movement - demonstration in the case of Cohn-Bendit - movement across Europe seen as significant - as was his nationality - blurring of these distinctions in the period - no framework/ mechanism to handle.
3. Protests of period became justification for supranational action in Europe - tightening connection

Question 42

Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes (2)

Answer 42

1. “In some ways this inevitably takes us well beyond social stratification, for the new student body was, by definition, also an age-group of youth, i.e. a temporary halting place on the human passage through life, and it also contained a rapidly growing, and disproportionately large, component of women, suspended between the impermanence of their age and the permanence of their sex.”
2. “The reason why 1968 (with its prolongation into 1969 and 1970) was not the revolution, and never looked as though it would or could be, was that students alone, however numerous and mobilizable, could not make one alone.”

Question 43

Jarausch, 1968: The World Transformed

Answer 43

• Rebellions of 1968 ironically helped to stabilise the FRG – resulted in the wider democratisation of the university system in Germany
• Internal democratisation followed riots – these helped to undermine Communist accusations of neo-Nazism and made the Federal Republic more attractive to the East Germans.
• 1968 has been mythologised in the media

Question 44

Brinkley, 1968: The World Transformed (1)

Answer 44

• Focuses on US – sees the assassination of MLK and the fall of the Liberal Consensus – however swung to the right in face of student activism in i.e. Columbia university – the silent majority

Question 45

Leggewie, 1968: The World Transformed (2)

Answer 45

• The New Left, in its own avant-garde fashion, had too little confidence in society’s capacity to (re) create itself and in the developmental possibilities of postliberal forms; this influenced their latent tendency toward authoritarian, and even didactically dictatorial, solutions that, owing only to their political weakness, never had a chance for practical realization.
• 1968 defined “individualism” as a hegemonic concept in ways different from current practice, particularly in the midst of forced social atomization and accelerating fragmentation of the public sphere.

Question 46

Fink, 1968: The World Transformed (3)

Answer 46

1. Campaign against nuclear and Vietnam was psychologically important to preparing students for the upheavals of 1968
2. ‘With the double shocks of Tet and the United States’s mounting financial problems, the Johnson administration was compelled to face the realities of imperial overstretch and the huge costs of its global foreign policy.’’’
3. Function of the media was significant during the period for nationalising and globalising news about riots

Question 47

Kunz, 1968: The World Transformed (1)

Answer 47

1. Underlying economic trouble in the US state came to a head with Johnson and the Tet offensive.

Question 48

Horn, 1968: The World Transformed (3)

Answer 48

1. French May as the “first great strike of the cybernetic age” that “was not directed solely against the exploitation of labour but also against its alienation.”
2. Italy strikes more threatening than France because it went beyond narrow economic concerns to critique the style of management
3. The ambivalent consciousness of the new working class, exposed by its erratic behaviour during its activist phase, was also revealed in its diverse political, social, and cultural commitments.

Question 49

Kramer, 1968: The World Transformed (2)

Answer 49

1. Key discussant of the Czechoslovak crisis, the rise of the Prague Spring, and the connection to Hungary, Albania and the rest - connects to Sino-Soviet split.
2. The deposition of Novotny, the importance of free press and the role of Dubeck

Question 50

Wittner, 1968: The World Transformed (4)

Answer 50

• Nuclear campaigning earlier
• Had strong support in 1962-4, then declined
• key figures i.e. Rudi Dutschke involved
• Detente and Cuba had led many to believe that nuclear weapons would not be used.
• Belief in systemic nature of problem was deterrent to continued protest.

Question 51

Marcuse, 1968: The World Transformed

Answer 51

1. Wielding of the holocaust as a political weapon - 1950s, GER crimes were muted
2. Trial of Eichmann = electrifying
3. US participation in Vietnam was important to the continued radicalisation of the German student population. Volksmord = genocide - became term used by the SDS - Vietnam is the Autschwitz of America
4. “The Americans have learned that they have become the equals of the French in Indochina, Madagascar, and Algeria, and of the Germans at Oradour.”

Question 52

Hilwig, 1968: The World Transformed (3)

Answer 52

• SDS aggressively targeted Springer during period – Die Zeit and Spiegel gain wider traction + become strong proponents of Willy Brandt.
• POLITICAL REPERCUSSIONS on freedom of speech vis a vis the Springer thing
• Germany failed to mobilise workers due to securing higher wages and shorter working hours

Question 53

Dirlik, 1968: The World Transformed (1)

Answer 53

• 1970s as more formative in the Third World comparatively to the First - still education and politics related - however some variance - in India for i.e. the role of the countryside dissident was perhaps more so formative.

Question 54

Lewy, 1968: The World Transformed

Answer 54

Stimulus in GER: Vietnam, Emergency Laws, Wealth disparity in First and Third Worlds

Question 55

What is Marwick’s main theory?

Answer 55

• Marwick and the great Marxiant Fallacy - the belief that the society we inhabit is that the bad bourgeois society, but that, fortunately, this society is in the state of crisis, and concerted effort will bring about its demise. This approach ignores some of the real signs of change economically in society.

Question 56

What the 15 (sorry) points which define the 1960s according to Marwick

Answer 56

1. The formation of new subcultures
2. An outburst of entrepreneurialism
3. The growth in the power of young people
4. the advancement of technological feats In communication, contraception and travel
5. the expansion of TV life and leisure
6. the internationalisation of the cultural exchange
7. Improvement of material life
8. upheaval of race class and family
9. permissiveness and expression increased
10. new modes of self presentation
11. Uninhibited pop culture
12. The development of structuralism and poststructuralism
13. the expansion of the liberal progressive state
14. increase in violence and retaliation by police
15. Concern for civil rights

Question 57

What did the 1970s become according to Marwick?

Answer 57

The years of lead

Question 58

Name two important themes to consider for this period

Answer 58

• Affluence
• Permissiveness

Question 59

The Times on borders, 1967

Answer 59

“National frontiers mean less than generational frontiers nowadays.” - The Times, 1967

Question 60

Famous Cohn-Bendit statement?

Answer 60

“Vietnam is the Auschwitz of America”

Question 61

Another famous Cohn-Bendit statement?

Answer 61

“We are all German Jews! - Daniel Cohn-Bendit

Question 62

What happened to the US economy as a result of the Vietnam War?

Answer 62

− “US Economy retarded by the Vietnam War - every sortie cost $30000

Question 63

What state was Bretton Woods in by the end of the 1960s?

Answer 63

− Bretton woods v weak in 1968, would be pushed over the edge by Nixon “

Question 64

What was the Irish protestor Eamonn McMann’s statement 1968?

Answer 64

“One World, One Struggle”

Question 65

What does Mausbach suggest about the nature of historiography on the subject of 1968?

Answer 65

• TSE the narrative has been clouded by historians who contribute their own perspectives on the matters:
  
  • Lutz Schulenburg - ‘academic star-gazers’ disseminating ‘distorted pictures’ of the movement
  • Gerd Koenen mocks the ‘guileless historical painting’ of the Gilcher-Holtey’s endeavour

Question 66

EVA MALECK-LEWY AND BERNHARD MALECK

Answer 66

German Women’s movement in West Germany