Dwarf, Who are you kidding?
Marcuse is not 'the founding father of a great deal of left wing campus ideology -not only he but all active "campus" revolutionaries have 'strenuously denied' this. And for good reason.
Take specific points in Marcuse speech you printed: "Cur goals, our values, OUE morality, must be visible already in our actions equals We have learned to build houses in brick therefore any new houses we build must be built of bricks.
• socialism neither of the Stalinist brand nor of the post-Stalinist brand, but that libertarian socialism which has always been the integral concept of socialism, but which is only too easily repressed or suppressed' equals Sorry, I've lost the thread; but if I waffle well you won't notice it.
*the left has no adequate access to the media of mass communication equals Nobody buys my books.
. the new working class' equals the old middle class grown large.
The left is split!... Only the Right, which has no ideas to fight for, is united!' equals 1 an either blind or schizophrenic *[The New Left's] task is to prepare, for the time when the aggravating conflicts of thought and in action, morally and politically corporate dissolve its repressive cohesion and open a space where the real work for libertarian socialism can begin' equals Let's wait for the Revolution Founding father? - I can only hope that the erstwhile founding mother was on the Pill.
Sincerely, Christopher Sanders 265 Old Brompton Rd., S.W.5 Dear Comrades, Herbert Marcuse's article in Dwarf No. 14 is called "The Left is split' a manifest truth. Yet the only conclusion Marcuse is capable of drawing from this is: the Left is split, long live the Left! The desire the Left revolutionary change is juxtaposed with the lack of such a desire in the mass (American) people The crux of the matter is that Marcuse does not consider a total crisis (i.e. a revolutionary situation) in American society possible, let alone probable. Thus the task of the Left is to maintain isolated cells ...to prepare ...for the time when the aggravating conflicts of corporate. dissolve its repressive cohesion and open a space where the real work for liberation socialism can begin'. Just where is such a (space) supposed to appear? Marcuse's own too great awareness of the strength of the repressive apparatus of the modern state should tell him that in a running battle the state will always win. Marcuse finds himself in much the same position as the Christian - the world is an incurably evil place, but our job is to create little islands of goodness in it. Impossible! The only hope for the Left is to concentrate what force we have for the time when the contradictions in capitalist society momentarily will put us in a position of strength - to seize the bourgeois state, and smash it. Then, and only then, can the seal work for libertarian socialism begin.
But is this possible? Marcuse would argue that the American proletariat is 'integrated' grown fat with its masters on the fruits of imperialism. This is certainly true at the present time. But this does not alter one iota the basic • incompatibility of capital and labour in capitalism, which will come into even sharper relief should a crisis occur. Even now, the traditional unionised proletariat shows signs of disaffection with bourgeois democracy, even if it turns towards Wallaceite fascism. And what is the student movement if it. is not a movement of the proletariat, in a country where 40% of the population (and this proportion can only grow) receives tertiary education? The alienation is more psychological and intellectual than economic, but is this not to be expected in an economy of abundance? Have not labour aristocracies always led the attack on the establishment in periods of stability? Already there are encouraging signs that this movement linking with most economically alternated section of the traditional proletariat, the black population.
And yet all this is very little, and if America could be insulated, the rest of the world would clearly be insufficient. But the inherent drive in capitalism is towards ever greater extension of the domain of exploitation, more and more