The May '68 Events and Revolution in the West

http://socialistproject.ca/2018/05/the-may-68-events-and-revolution-in-the-west
Date Written:  2018-05-13
Publisher:  Socialist Project
Year Published:  2018
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX22625

The political explosion fifty years ago in May 1968 in France has become a key historical marker for the Left. In an outburst of political revolt, workers seized factories and students occupied universities bringing France to a halt in a series of massive general strikes.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The Impasse of the Revolution in the West

It is becoming more and more accepted that revolution is an urgent need in Western society. In the neo-capitalist world, the faith in the inevitable progress of humanity toward a bright future has survived much less successfully than it did in the world of nineteenth century capitalism. In differing ways, many people who are not Marxists have begun to be conscious that the present system is wrong. Moreover they are beginning to realize that even in its very development its contradictions become sharper and its inhumanity increasingly evident.

Our society is characterized by the wealth of its scientific knowledge and technical resources; but these have not brought about the liberation of mankind; they have not made him master of all things. On the contrary, they have reduced him to an instrument of production. Work, once emancipated from the most elementary forms of struggle against nature, could finally have become a free and creative expression of man’s personality. But it has not: it has become more and more alienated both in its aims and in its forms.