Symposium 1968: Ralf Fuecks

Nineteen-sixty-eight has become a political myth that won’t go away. The debate on its interpretation continues and continues. The year marks a historical break, comparable to the beginning of the cold war or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Making this connection may seem to be an exaggeration at first glance, but the cultural and political upheavals that resulted from “1968” have been truly revolutionary.

It is true that the protest movement of that year did not lead to a dramatic overturn of the political order like the French or Russian revolutions. The extent of violence and counter-violence of 1968 is not comparable to the excesses of past wars and civil wars. It was the Prague Spring—an event that is often ignored when we speak of 1968—that came closest to being the revolutionary overthrow of a regime. A peaceful revolution began in Czechoslovakia, and it shook “really-existing socialism” to its foundations. The revolution was destroyed by the tanks of the Warsaw Pact. The tragic gravity of the Prague events went far beyond the symbolic actions and theatrical stage-managing of student protests in the West. The Soviet invasion buried hopes for “socialism with a human face.” In fact, communist hegemony in Eastern Europe was doomed from that moment. It was only a matter of time until a system incapable of reform collapsed. If there is an inherent link between 1968 and 1989 it is that the defeat of the Prague Spring would lead one day to the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

In the West, things were different. The superiority of the capitalist democracies was demonstrated by their ability to absorb the momentum created by “1968,” even against the will of the ruling elites who feared this would lead to the decline of the West. Open systems transform opposition into innovation. In other words, “1968” ended up giving Western societies powerful innovative momentum, extending from the triumph of popular culture and social emancipation of women to the emergence of new forms of political participation. The ideological recourse to Marxism, the admiration for the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and solidarity with the “anti-imperialist liberation movements” in Vietnam and Palestine disguised the fact that “1968” was actually reformist in character. As is often the case, there was great distance between the self-understanding of the historical protagonists and their impact on society. If the revolutionary rhetoric of the movement’s spokespersons is the benchmark, the ’68 generation failed. However, in terms of the cultural and political changes set in motion by the movement, it was highly successful.

What Changed?

Among the fundamental changes was an expansion of the political public. The protest movements were precursors of a new global public. New media and new forms of action expanded the public sphere. Even if extraparliamentary oppositions in France, Italy, Germany, ...