1968: Results and Prospects— Introduction to Critique Issue on 1968

摘要

1968 occurred at a nodal point in the political economy of postwar capitalism. The old forces controlling and disciplining the workforce and the economy were less and less effective. The younger generation rejected the authority of Stalinism and social democracy, being less scarred by fascism, the depression and the Second World War. They openly turned against both capitalism and Stalinism. Their aims—to achieve a genuine socialist society—were clear but their means of getting there were not. The revolutionaries of 1968 were not able to achieve common ground between those from Stalinist countries and those from the West, in large part because neither had a sufficient understanding of Stalinism itself, let alone capitalism. Because of the strength of Stalinism, there was never any hope of overthrowing capitalism in France or Stalinism in Czechoslovakia, but 1968 changed the course of history nonetheless. The change of the strategy of capital towards finance capital is an indirect tribute to 1968 and its sequel in the 1970s.