THE NEW LEFT IN EUROPE

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March 16, 2022
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December 1, 1967
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Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 1. 1 SEAT/NO FOREIGN DISSE(411 THE ,NEW LEFT IN EUROPE ) � TN' -,vg (IMAM" 13UP0i.AKILIED DA.C.kg,VAL, ....BY.Wat44P,Pk14�� --"4-Mo25r" DOI: December 1967 CLAqIFIEDBY ................................ : .......................................... ...... ROT Crr- � " --" � $U.I. DIM; � , EXED.IPTI011 C EG . . . ............................... AUTOMATICALLY- CA.; ........................................ ........... SEACHED L1 I1DEXEO\ sEqmzEo FILED �JUttL51968' FRA1411.9Jgc FBI E ET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 11.1:4." '� Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � � 410 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM THE NEW LEFT IN EUROPE A sciics of incidents in recent years has brought attention to bear bn the activities of that amorphous, self-contradictory radical movement loosely called the New Left. This memorandum attempts to identify in at least a preliminary listing those organizations which might be called the European New Left. The listing is based both on the statements of members of the movement and on the subjective judgments of itS author. We stress the preliminary and tentative nature of what follows, and hold any of it open to challenge and comment, This is not a supmary, of all available information; it is,an extract ofmaterial readily at hand. lOne of the problems in discussing the ilew Left is the obscurity .and uncertainty of the movement itself. The introduction to this paper is an ateempt to identify the sub-currents of the movement. This too is in no sense a complete picture. It is rather a tentative description in which several central facets of the New Left are briefly examined: its 'atmospherics' and origins; its parent influences; its theoretical arguments; and its position as against other leftist currents. , TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I .The New Left as a Movement PART II The New Left in Europe 1 1 -France 2 -Germany 9' -Netherlands � -Great.Britain 18 4Belgium 26 -Austria 28 -Scandinavia 30 -Italy 34 -Switzerland 36 -International 37 ! SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRETIO FOREIGN DISSEM' 1 PART ONE ' . .THE ,NEW LEFT � AS-A MOVEMENT , SECRET/NO FOREIGN PISSEM Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � - SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM The rising political significance of the left over the past century, based essentially on the Marxist materialist dialectic as both a philosophy and a technique for interpreting and making history, has also been accompanied by a constant process of evolution, split .and polemic, among the groups which thought they had4n this philosophy and political tool a single and. unique solution to the problems of society and an efficient instrument for acquiring and wielding political power. To elaborate the position and enforce orthodoxy, four internationals were created one after another. But .the process of dissent and internal change in the left continues to this day. The most recent of these currents is widely, if imprecisely, described as the 'New Left'. It began to take form in the post-Stalin period, but to this day still remains inchoate. As a label applied to a sector of left-dissidence, the term 'New Left' is largely an analytic convenience. At its present stage, the New Left, varying greatly from one country to the next, admits of no single definition, no general .approach, nor even common origins. It is as fruitless to seek a proper history of the New Left as to try to find in its conflicting statements a coherent declaration of program. But to conclude as a result that the New Left is a lot of emotion looking for a cause is a mistake. The cases, the issues, are present; what the New Left does not have is a theoretical framework of analysis and program capable of competing with those of established political movements.* There is a stirring of theory beneath the seemingly directionless 'transports of passion' so evident in the daily news. And while this new dialectic has not yet achieved a generally accepted synthesis, the weighing of antecedents, the sifting of experiences, and the arguing of theories continue. What is described below is a phenomenon common to virtually every nation in the indUstrialized world. The pattern of response is found in Europe and the United States, in Japan and Australia, and in the �aWN,,e����� *.... as well as some solution to the movement's very ambivalent attitude toward' organizational forms. FOREIGN DISSEM Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO VOREICN.DISSEM Soviet Union' and ha stern Europe; hut it should be , noted that .the seemingly common threads are perhaps only analogous. Eat* center of New Leftist thought arose in response'to conditions and Oatterns which vary from country to country, and more so from continent to continent. The focus of the present discussion is on Europe, with insights from the American movement. Rut passing.mention must be made of the other sectors.. Members of the Western New Left consider the young Soviet writers and artists as cut from the same cloth as themselves; and many of the superficial marks are the same. The ZENGAKUREN, the famous Japanese student organizativn, was a direct influence on the growth of student activism its the United States. Other examples are- available, and it should be noted here that they are part of the larger picture. The long-range goal of the New Left is to produce what is called a new politics: a new critique of the contemporary world and a new model for the future. The catalytic force which set in motion the search for new directions was a feeling of alienation,growing from an emotional reaction to the events or the past decade and a willful rejection, of established pol.itical alternatives as inadequate to the future, erroneous at base and incapable of disentangling themselves from the compromises and corruptions of the status quo. The New Left feels that a.solution to most of the world's problems is technologically and even politically possible, hut that the incipient chance was missed (or possibly deliberately'rejected) by the established governments of the World. There is also the feeling that the forces of history are running uncontrolled, that the citizen is so lost in the complexities of government that he can have no effect on decisions made in his name. They feel that their lives are controlled by mechanical forces (zip codes, cost accounting, Keynesian economics) 'which seem carried by momentum, if not by conscious.direction, toward permanent international instability and warfare, domestic economic and social dislocation and crisis, general intellectual or cultural squalor, and toward nuclear holocaust.. The status quo is repellent. To document his argument, the New Ileftist would point to a series of dates, finding .in recent history a cause and effect which seems to damn established governments, SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM -2- -4 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 110 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM ideologies, and political parties: 1956: Khrushc.hev's secret speech; Hungary; Suez. 1957: Federal troops in Little Rock; the Algerian War begins to heat up. � 1961: Bay of'Pigs; the Berlin Wall; Sciviet attacks on Yevtu$henko and resumption of nuclear testing, including the explosion'of the SO- megaton:bomb. � : .1962: The Cuban missile crisis (variously interpreted as renewed evidence of the threat of nuclear warfare, � as the end of the Cold War, and as another example of the imperialist tendencies � of both sides). 1964: The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the beginning of major military escalation of the Vietnam War. 1965: American Marines land in the Dominican Republic; the U. S. first bombs North Vietnam; Julian Bond is denied a seat in the Georgia legislature. 1966: Riots in Watts; unleashing of the Red Guards; etc. There is of course more that could be added to this chronology; each nation added its own: the force de frappe, the German question in the post-Wall period, the stress.and strains of an 'empire' on the British economy, etc. Arguments from a contrary assessment of history are unacceptable to the New Left/ largely . because they don't believe that the.present situation necessarily followed from the events of the past, nor that those events were 'Good versus Evil' in nature. It is perhaps:gratuitous to point out that the generation which make S up the New Left's hard cbre was born lor the most part during the forties; this generation has no real memory of the immediate post-War era, nor even of Korea. Their political awareness began around 1956, and their understanding of the earlier era is not drawn from participation but from an academic knowledge. It should not be surprising therefore that they could draw differing lessons from that history, and . SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 3 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 11111 � � . SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM New Left academicians have begun the process as each generation is alleged to -- of rewriting and re-evaluating its past, .Particularly the history of the Cold War.* The search for new directions had begun. 11 The New Left was born or two influences which even today have not been able to sanctify their union in a reasonably coherent and encompassing ideology. The movement first began in the intellectual circles of universities and first expressions appeared in the analytical quarterlies of graduate students and junior faculty. Perhaps the first consistent appearance of a new critique (or at least the one that is felt to have had the major impact) was in New Left Review, published in the United Kingdom.** An editor of NLR sets the DOB of this first influence exactly: [It] was created in 1956, by the twin crises of Suez and Hungary ..... The Hungarian Revolt led to a wave of .resignations from the Communist Party, and the Suez Crisis suddenly galvanized many hitherto indifferent or apolitical members of the younger generation, especially in the universities. � The convergence of the two phenomena produced the New Left, which initially defined itself as a simultaneous rejection of Stalinism and Social Democracy. � *The outlines of these "revisionist histories" were described in a recent article by Christopher Lasch in the New York Times Magazine (14 January 1968); Lasch is the arfhor of another piece of 'historical research, The New Radicalism in America; 1889-1963. A longer summary of "revisionrit"-- interpretations was written by David Horowitz (now associated with the Bertrand Russell Centre for Social Research) in Free World Colossus (available in paperback as From Yalta 175-Tretnam). **The influence. of NLR is acknowledgedby the American New Left. -NLR'-i--influence on the continent is open to 'question,-617t at least Scandinavia seems to have read and understood NLR's gropings. UCRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 4 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � IP �SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSE1 The formulations for a new approach were eclectic: socialist at base; utopian and anti-establishment in tone;, humanist in motive; Marxist in international analyses; and pacifist in tactics. The combination -- .which has still not jelled -- was one which could not be categorized under the usual labels of communism, socialism,', or other gradations on the left. A Second influence was student activism, which has in large measure determined the subsequent course of.the New Left. .For a myriad of reasons, and obviously different ones apply in each country, there was a rebirth of student political involvement in the mid-fifties -- a current which was never' completely' absent-in earlier periods but which had been subdued in the immediate post-War era. And the form this renewed involvement took was as. 'much determined by a rebellion against the institutionalized channels of � politics as against the 'Establishment' itself. The student protested against the use of the university in loco parentis (in the United States), and sought to 17)176u1ate theo.ries which related the university_ and the student to society at large (an effort made throughout the West). The activist also frequently sought other mechanisms than the youth wings of established political parties or the national student union: the political parties were dismissed (almost ;! ;riori) for reasons mentioned above; the student ohions, at least most of those in the United States and northern Europe, were constitutionally limited to questions of concern to 'students as such', not those pertinent to students as voters, as potential draftees or.as members of society. Where it became possible fdr the new leftist to 'renovate' the student union (e.g., France), that instrument was used. 'Where that was not possible (e.g., in the U. S., Great Britain, and Germany), new outlets were created -- most frequently around single issues. Thesd outlets are now familiar members of the leftist scene. The theories supporting and making legitimate direct - student activism in the larger political sphere were t.ound in the 'New Left' Critique and 'radical' research then surfacing at the same time. ' The marriage of new dissident critique and youthful energies was natural. They tended to rescue each other from their respective congenital failings: impotent iritellectual exercises on the one hand, and undirected rebelljon on the other. But'if the New SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 5 - t� Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 0 ,ECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEMH. 40 left has not yet found the proper balance of critique and direct action, nor a synthesis of experience, theory 'and antecedents, it at least has some impact and a direction. � Much energy could be spent trying to isolate what is particularly 'new' about the New Left, and a number of possible answers have,been suggested. For our purposes here it is enough to note that the New Left thinks of, itself as new and derives therefrom a psychological 4ttitude and energy which cannot be Ignored,* On this assumption, it now seeks to define itself against the background of earlier forms of radicalism. The cosmic glue of any theory of politics must be a view of what the future should be and a statement of the means pf achleiring that goal. In this respect the New Left faces major problems; it has not been able to articulate in any detail its'vision of the future; nor has it settled upon the appropriate means. Its success or failure in answering these. questions will spell its ultimate importance and future. The question of -goals is one which the movement is beginning to recognize as central to their purposes. They feel that the established political groupings offer no real alternative, but they have offered none *There is a sociological pattern worth noting in this regard. It is argued that.a common feature of industrial societies is a discontinuity of generations: that the fluidity of social structure, with a rate of - change that increases as technology, afflpence, and geographic mobility increase, leads to a break between generations. In writing of an earlier group of American radicals, Christopher Lasch comments, "though they talked of the tyranny of the family..., the freedom which they undeniably' enjoyed made it impossible for them to conceive Of enslavement to the uncomplicated categories of the old radi.calism, the radicalism of Mill and Marx." This observation is if anything even more to the point today. , � SE'CRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM _ Approved for Release: 2016/06/27-006548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 410 : SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM themselves beyond a rhetorical espousal of an egalitarian, equitable, and �ocialist society. Utopianism has been dismissed by the New Leftist as a failing of intellectuals, but the problem of defining their goals remains. To some degree however the construction of a new model for the future is dependent upon answers provided by the fields of cosmology and metaphysics, of sociology and psychology, or of science and theology. Theoretical ferment in almost every field of abstract research and thought is cearly:evident, and the New Left might be seen as at least one political expression of that more general seeking of new answers. It is, then, not surprising that the New Left has so far been unable to present a detailed program for the future: most of that program will follow from the asiyet unanswered questions in other fields. . More .�properly within the realm of politics is the question of means, of defining the 'agent of change'. The traditional answer provided by. Lenin over 'a half century ago, that the agent of change was the vanguard of the proletariat, the communist party, has never been comfortable in the post-World War II West. The working class quite clearly has not responded as Lenin,predicted.. And to the New Left, events since 1956 have demonstrated that parties of "labor" or "socialism", whether communist or democratic, were solidly entrenched in the status quo. The conversion of European revolutionary movements into reformist parties has if anything become more evident in the past five years. The Social-Democratic parties of Europe, aspiring to and ultimately achieving the control of governments, dropped their revolutionary trappings and became openly parliamentarian, even non-Marxist. And, in the New,aeft's assessment, this occurred "precisely at the moment when the Communist Parties of Western Europe -- particularly the French -- hesitantly but uncritically entered the very same reformist road misled by their own parliamentdry successes of the last few years". In passing it might be worthwhile to quote . one New Left analysis-of the American Communist Party. Though, as explained later in this paper, the generation gap is felt particularly strongly in the United States -- and though the American radical is, consciously or "tot, defensive of his position vis-a-vis SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 7 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 11! SkRET/NO FORFIGN D1SSEM the American arch-devil, Communism, and thus seeks' to make his diitance more clearly understood -- the American New Left attitude toward the CPUSA is instructive. Change a few terms in the following, and make allowance for a continuation of the present parliamentary trend of European CPs, and the quotation serves equally as a scornful dismissal of European communists. For more than thirty years the political . strategy of the old left has been predicated iipon the curious notion that the hest way to combat the evils of capitalism is to stiengthen the capitalist state. . Whether it was a matter of demanding government 'regulation' of big business or government 'protectipn' of civil rights, the old left has consistently behaved as if the state 'were simply a neutral Instrument which could be directed to either 'reactionary' or 'progressive' ends depending,. upon the,relative strength of the 'monopoly' and 'antimonopoly' forces. Given this assumptioh, which owed as much to the legacy of American populism as it did to the Popular Front policies of the Comintern, the old left had no choice but to align itself' with the liberal camp. .... Having hit upon the system of regulating big business by awarding it military 6ontracts, the liberals then proceeded to purge themselves of their former allies, whereupon the old left decided that it had erred in not, electing enough liberals. In :order to correct this mistake, the old left has now arrived at the point where it abandons even the pretense of political independence for fear of embarrassing those very forces which have already destroyed it. The CPs and Marxist principles having proven to be impotent, old and chair-ridden, the problem was then one of finding a group, a class or an element which could take up the revolutionary banner.* *Most of the literature available here on this aspect of New Left thought is of American origin. Because any comparable European writing is not available -- if it exists. -- the following account may not be reflective .of the'movement as a whole. Allowance must therefore he made for a certain prismatic distortion. SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 8 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM Several suggestions have been made. , The French student union, for example, defined itself as syndical and called the student an "intellectual worker". The British tried a combination of British liberalism (as expressed in the pacifism of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), Labour Party left-wing socialism and view of the affluent society adapted from Galbraith. And with perhaps more success: it was this element that once won (then'quickly lest) official Labour Party approval of a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament. The American answer has been complicated beyond destription by the cross problems of liberal dissent, black nationalism, poverty programs, and the American radical's 'rediscovery" of Marx, but the key phrase on this side of the,Atlantic is participatory democracy -- a slogan which has defied definition and implementation even after a minimum of seven years of currency. For some, the liberation movements of the Third World hold revolutionary promise. This is the position of the Marxist left, at least as expressed in the publications of Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy (principally, the Monthly Review published now, in Italy and Chile as well as in the U. S.). But not everyone can agree what that promise might be and what lessons should be drawn from it for the Industrialized West. Some see capitalist 'exploitation of the working class' as the key to understanding � relations between the industrialized West and the underdeveloped world (even if the processes of domestic economics are no longer as Marx saw them):. they see the victory of the "new exploited", through the medium of the national liberation movements of Africa and Latin America, as having such economic impact on the West that alterations of a basic sort-in Western. economies would have to follow: Others, of more . romantic, revolutionary.or activist bent, sec in the guerrilla bands a more direct model to be applied in urban guerrilla warfare. Herbert Marcuse; argues in broader terms. He sees four forces as having revolutionary potential: (1) the liberation movements, of the underdeveloped wprld; (2) the political "labor movements" (the CPs) in countries like France and Italy which could extend labor's role in the management of key industries and in government SECRET/NO. FOREIGN DISSEM - 9 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM through coalition; (3) in the United States, the underprivileged strata (the ghettos of race and poverty); (4) and the "oppositional intelligentsia". The Ameritan Students fora Democratic Society might argue a similar platform hut -- when they can he pinned down -- they probably give primacy to the univerSity as an instituti.on which, being the . laboratory and storehouse of knowledge, could guide and mold the world. This role for the university is one heard increasingly today in circles quite foreign to the New Left. There is an echo of this when Galbraith writes of the "technostructure", of "organized intelligence" replacing capital and , labor as the most important economic element. With more directrelevance, this idea appears in articles on the. "cybernetic revolution" and the importance of institutions of higher learning to the formulations of national purpose. It is this idea which provides �the support ,to student protests against university defense contracts. Others see the less precise forces of sociology, of urbanization and population growth having revolutionary implications; and still others see scientific discoveries, technological innovations and the concurrent nightmares of human automation., mechanical lives and nuclear warfare as being the platform for galvanizing'broad masses toward a basic reform. Those of more doctrinaire and conspiratorial bent are attracted to the 'purity' of the Chinese version of Maricism-Leninism and to the Cultural . Revolution (the overthroW of a party tending toward bureaucracy and reformism). Other admonitions, as for example those of the hippies to "turn off, drbp out, tune in", are well known. These questions, however distant they may seem from the daily headlines, are not wholly meaningless theoretic's. And if .the New Left is of interest or concern today, .that concern is not solely a function of its theoretical potential: its energies are by no means completely expended, in parlor debates and theoretical discussions. What commends the New Left to more than passing attention is the fact that it is working among the voters for political change or revolution -- however improbable the chances for revolution are in the West. Directly SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 10 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM relevant to the question of the New Left's present effectiveness and importance is that of its relations and alliances with other powers and groups on the left: the communist parties, the Bloc, the 'liberal- . democratic.left' and the left-socialists. IV Attitudes of attraction and revulsion are found. on both sides over the general question of alliances. What confuses the issues here and makes broad generalizations tenuous is the differing relative strength of the two 'wings' of the New Left, giving different accents to the policies. which themselves vary .from country to country and situation to situation. To. the degree that the. theoretician of the New Left .holds sway, the New Left tends to differentiate itself more clearly from other forces on the left and to attack with equal virulence all parts�of the 'Establishment"' (in which the New Left would count most CPs and the Soviet Bloc in general); but to-the degree that the street activist calls the shots, there operates the. principle of "my enemy's enemy is my friend". And,, increasingly it appears that the radical activist -- not the theoretician -- is in the driver's seat with a policy of all-oUt 'confrontation' with the authorities (e.g, the liberal-democratic governments) and implacable opposition to the United States. Relations with the Communist Parties were never great moral questions for the New Left. In the West, one of the formative influences was a revolt against 'anti-communism' as official policy and social dogmai the New Left adopted a position of non-exclusion: it allowed individual communists to join their organizations and allowed, the CPs to associate themselves with New Left actions if they so wished. But the basic attitude was both patronizing and scornful: :though aware of the money and manpower available from the CPs in most countries,'.the New Left views orthodox communist policies as too conservative and barely distinguishable from ,those. of Western governments; there is also the hint.of pity for a movement which after all these years still 'hasn't got it right'. On the other side, the attitude of the CPs toward the New Left is almost equally ambivalent. The passions SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM: the New Left is able to stir in those under thirty both worry and attract the CPs. They want to take advantage of those energies and channel them on behalf of the Party, hut they are as much worried by the risk of infection. The problems the French Cl' for one has had with its cells in Parisian universities lierp. not lost on other parties. For their part too the CPs tend to he' patronizing and scornful: patronizing with the hope that education will make the New Left see the light of reason and Marx; scornful to the degree that New Left radicalism begins to embarrass the party. Relations with and attitudes toward the USSR, for, the New Left, began in an attempt to bridge the gaps between East and West, to end the Cold War. If all members cif the 'Establishment' are tb be condemned for the shape of the world today, they are equally guilty; the inverse of this proposition is that the USSR is only partially responsible for post-war history and that it perhaps was,. to a certain degree, victimized by the 'crusades of the anti-communist West. More to the point for the activist is the feeling that even if the USSR is staid, conservative, and even at times reactionary it at.least has managed to get on the Tight side on Vietnam, among other issues. But for the most part, the New Left does not consider the Soviets a factor; revisionism is as deadly a sin as liberalism, and the. New Left sees little difference between revisionist communism and liberal democracy. The ,Soviets on the, other hand seem to have . definite 91ans'for the New Left, even if they have not apparently fo0d the proper approach. Their goals are virtually the same as those of the CPs: to use the New Left as an adjunct to orthodox communist policies at home and abroad. The Soviet Union does not however have to worry as much about the risks of infection. Though the young Soviet 'underground of - artists and writers is a part of the broader New Left movement, geographic distance alone reduces the danger � of direct foreign influences on Soviet domestic matters. (It should be noted, however, that the European satellites are considerably less sanguine on this point. The East Germans in particular, looking across the Wall Into West Berlin, one of the New Left's centers of strength, have definite reservations on the benefits of dealing with the New Left.) The ultimate goal of ' SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 12 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 !,* 101 410.. SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM V. the Soviet Union must be the American New Left, including both its Vietnam protest and civil rights movement wings. To avoid giving the 'kiss of death' to this movement, ,the Soviets are surely apt to restrict the .publicity given moves to channel and influence the Western New Left. For the present, the Soviets seem content to deal with student radicals through their international front, the International Union of Students'. They are ready to send delegations abroad to New Left meetings (at least to those meetings which look 'safe' and are not so rabid as to embarrass them), and to solicit and accept visiting delegations in Moscow. The quieter hands of intelligence services must also be active, but little can be said at this point. Toward Cuba and China there is less reserve in New Left attitudes. From its peculiar viewpoint, there is much that is attractive in the spectacle of a comMunist party (Chinese or Cuban) being overthrown or put on trial by the 'popular masses'. But they recognize.that the Chinese Cultural Revolution may .tiso be interpreted as a new form of party purge, smacking of the worst Stalinist tyranny and totalitarianism. There is concern for China's future between the lines of New Left praise. For Cuba there is more unqualified support. Cuba is 'where the action is' Latin America. There is much in the New Left's outlook and jargon that is borrowed from the Cubans and the Chinese: the rhetoric of revolution, the uncompromising Militancy, the charge that the Soviet Union and its attendant CPs are revisionist, the call for, total NLF victory in Vietnam, etc. In the New Left :book of heroes, Cho, Fidel, and Mao rank at the top.' In its organized expression, however, only Cuba seems to be in position to capitalize on this new- found support. The pro-Chinese parties are dismissed by the New Left as vestigial organs of a dead communism; China itself is preoccupied with it internal politics, and dealing with Chinese these days takes a hit more servility toward the Great Leader than the New Left has been willing to grant anyone. Cuba on the other hand has no official parties in the industrial world to 'interpret' Cuban realities to the New Left; discipline' is not demanded. Further, Cuba and its constellation or revolutionary movements are open and approachable: witnesS: Regis%Debray; witness: Stokely .Carmichael. SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 13 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM What the New Left itself is doing to aid and abet liberation movements in Latin America is not clear, though numerous organizations and individuals have taken Latin American liberation as a holy vow. What Cuba has done for the New Left is also unknown, though allegations of training camps and financial assistance have been heard. � � For the liberal democrats (of the U. S.) and the social-democrats (of Europe), the'New Left has undiluted scorn. These parties control the governments of the Western world, and the New Left is most afraid of the abilities of the liberal center to, take legal 'or police action against them and to coopt the het of.their ideas and platforms as they did those of.the'dissenters of the twenties and thirties. This attitude is expressed in the refusal of the .recent Chicago Convention for New Politics 'to enter a separate slate in the 1968 elections, a refusal to have anything to do with. the political mechanics controlled by the ruling parties. It is'likewise expressed in Europe in policies of total confrontation with the 'Establishment', as for exam/ile in the.recent actions of the students of Berlin. With respect to a final category of leftists, the dissident Marxists (e.g. the Trotskyists) and the left-wing socialists, there is a problem of � delineating the old left from the New. And unfortunately there is no satisfactory filter that will separate the younger members of the old from the older members of the New: unhappily for those seeking clear-Cut distinctions, the difference is at base one of motive.. In the United States, these motives are more easily seen; they appear in the form of a sort of generation gap. By the time the present generation stood on its political feet, the Communist Party, USA had become .a burlesque figure. The transmission belt of ideas had virtually ceased to function, and the American leftist was able to "rediscover" Marx on his own without the made-in-Moscow blinders that would normally have been there. Being able to compare Marx's forecasts with history and Marxism with the communist present, the American SECRET/PO FOREIGN DISSEM - 14 -� ' Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 006548833 .. s Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 4 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM radical most frequently came out at a point not consonant with that of the CPUSA. The New Lirf dismisses the CPUSA (and many of the other doctrinaire leftist parties*) as being little more than the .".Marxist wing of the Democratic Party", as committed to electioneering and to the established political processes as other members of the 'Establishment'. Generational politics, the scorn heaped by the New Left on what they dismiss as the old left, is a unique factor on the American side. The European dissenters -- at least in most countries -- are parts of societies with lunctioning CP's and a greater public tolerance for the left in general. It is natural therefore that they should blend in better with established political parties, and that they should seek alliances with others as actively as the American New Leftist spurns them. It is also unsurprising to find that the European New Left has a larger number of adult supporters. An analytical probrem -- for which we have no easy solution does indeed arise in sorting out the old dissidence from the New in Europe. �The line between left reformists and the New Left is particularly hard to draw since much of the writing which inspires the New Left comes from the critics and dissidents within the established political order. In Europe they include not'only the communist dissidents of the Trotskyist and Naoist variety but, as well, the writings of those associated with the French PSU, the Italian PSIUP, and the Scandinavian SFs." Another complicating factor is the presence in many or the New Left's organizations of individuals, some of whom are quite influential, who are *This applies certainly to the. democratic- socialists of the League for Industrial Democracy (Norman Thomas) and the Trotskyists of the Socialist Workers Party. The pro-Chinese parties, the Progressive.Labor Party, and CPUSA/Marxist-Leninist, are openly revolutionary but demand of their members the same sort of blind allegiance.and discipline that the New Left has rejected in others. **The Fren*ah Unified Socialist Party (PSU); The Italian Socialist Party for Proletarian Unity (PSIUP); the Scandinavian Socialist Peoples Parties (SFs). SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 15 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM simultaneously'identified with one or another of the reformist left parties or factions. A fundamental problem here is determining whether these influential people are in fact basically with the New Left or whether they are essentially out-riders of the reformist left who are trying to gain control of the political Force which the New Left represents. At his juncture, fine distinctions of this order cannot he 'precisely made. Tv is first necessary to establish as best we can what groups, with what strength and political potential, merit classification in the .New Left and who the individuals are in each of these groups who, either through force of personality, intellectual accomplishtent or drive, dominate the group. Given the character of these New Left - organizations,.. and the fact that they rise, fall, split, and merge with.considerabfe ease and frequency, it may well ,prove:in the long run that the individual is more impqrtant,than either the doctrine or the group. Recapitulating, what is known of these forces can at least give a frame of reference within which the evolving political significance and character of the New Left can gradually be assessed'. SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - ip - � Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 I. SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 'PART TWO LE THE NEW FT TN EUROPE . � The organizations listed in the following sections are towariing degreei elements of the European New Left. Omitted are Greece, Finland, Portugal, and Spain; each in its own way is a special situation, and a New Left comparable to that found elsewhere does not publicly exist. Inchoate or semi-clandestine elements can be found (as for example, the radical youth of the Greek Ceinter Union party or the Democratic 'Student Syndicate �(SDEE) of Spain)lhut they operate in wholly different sorts of environments and respond to unique circumstances and pressures. Overlapping the New Left is a larger community of protest.on the Vietnam issue. Organizations and individuals actively opposed to American policies in Southeast Asia. are of course found almost everywhere on the political spectrum from extreme left to moderate right. Many are well-known as arms or fronts of what the New Left .regards as the 'Establishment' (especially including, the peace fronts of the communist parties), but among the others some have close ties with the New Left and at times become indistinguishable as separate elements. Where there exist important or noteworthy protest groups of this type, a separate section is added to the national listings to identify them. � .8ECRET/NO'FOREIGN DISSEM Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 1 FRANCE PART I 1. Union Nationale des Etudiants de France (UNEF) 15 rue Soufflot, Paris Ve UNEF occupies a central place in the development of a New Left in Europe if only for its historical influence. Of the major European student organizations (a list which would not include those controlled by the CPs), UNEF was the fifit to adopt a 'plague on bOth your houses' approach to the Cold War; it was among the first to seek .a healing of East-West divisions at the student level and to quest after the impossible goal . of world student unity. Under the impact of the Algerian war, UNEF was the first of the European national student unions to go into systematic and consistent opposition to its government on a radical (but non- communist) platform. These developments took place in the late fifties, and by 1958 had been codified in a "minoritii" government of UNEF (that is, officers, of the radical minority were elected, replacing those of the more apolitical majority). UNEF'e basis was a redefinition of the place of the student in society, placing stress on the uecessity of an alliance with the working class... There were of course.antecedents. The 1946 Charte de Grenoble which reestablished UNEF after the war definer-the student as a "young intellectual worker", with rights and duties analogous to those of any other worker. But it was not until the leftist minority took power fully twelve years later that the full implications (or, at least those implications following from Marxism) were drawn: thus, the syndicalist and pseudo-trade union terminology; thus, the demands for a student "pr6- salaire", the student being as entitled to wages for his. labors as any worker. In application, UNEF's analyses of the contemporary world and its policies in national and international affairs become almost : unintelligible without g special dictionary. As long as the Algerian problem continued, what often bordered on a surtealistic collage was held together. In the post-Algerian period, however, it has not been as easy for UNEF militants to convert emotional energies into a broader attack. UNEF congresses since 1962 � SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 2 - L Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 410 SECRET/NO PORETnN T7SEm � have'been almost desperate searches for new issues, new approaches, and even new formulas; it has not yet succeeded. To this thumbnail sketch of UNEF, however, must be added the note that UNEF has not been completely an amalgam of sophomoric philosophical debate and street demonstrations. What cannot be omitted is a reference to its practical work toward the democratization of the French educational system, and its attempts to find solutions to the immense problems of the French universities. The real base . of UNEF's strength is found in its tutorial programs, its study units .for those unable to find seats in the classrooms and its reproduction and distribution of Class notes and scarce text materials. UNEF publishes a national student magazine; it holds afi annual cultural festival of some repute; it has several auxiliary units active in social welfare programs for students. As UNEF's domestic position has eroded, its international influence has increased. UNEF was the mentor of a large number of national student unions in the French-speaking Third World, many of these unions' leaders having gone to school in France. Its influence in the contiguous French- speaking areas of Belgium, Luxembourg,- and Switzerland had a direct product in similar syndical student unions for those regions. After attempting to further East-West cooperation in annual European Student Meetings (which began as a regular bilateral meeting between UNEF and ZSP, the Polish student union), and having these forums blocked by East-West tensions, UNEF. joined the communist-front International Union of Students in 1964 and accepted a seat on its Executive Committee. Its tactic in so doing is to work for a "democratization of the IUS" from within (that is, the conversion of the IUS from an old-line Soviet front into a more democratic assembly of, at least, leftist student.unions).-- though it must be admitted that UNEF has not pushed this campaign so far as to antagon4e the Soviets. UNEF's latest tacti9 is the Conference des Etudiants Syndicalistes Europeens '(CESE). -Returning to UNEF domestic politics, it should be noted that its internal political divisions are not separate from the adult party structure. The PCPs student group, the Union des Etudiants Communistes / (UEC), wa among the leading supporters of the minorite � : SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 3 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 . SECRET/NO FOREIGN DIssrift government; the �RCP obviously hoped to add um: to ..: its cluster of fronts. But there is a'real question of who penetrated or subverted whem. It would appear from the long-standing difficulties the PCP had in ' keeping the ItEC in line that UNEF's line was not without influence in the ranks of the presumed ideologically pure. And more recently, the PCF had to take the unhappy step of.expelling several sections, principally that section at the Sorbonne. (it also appears that a good deal of the PCP's headache in the UEC was due to itrotskyoid' and pro-Chinese influences which are not absent from UNEF either.) At last report, the Parti Socialiste.Unifie/(PSU) was credited with 'control' of UNEF -- which we would tend to doubt if 'control' is meant in any sense that would.t.ie UNEF to TSU policies and programs. . . One of PNEF's assets has always been the number of articulate and talented leaders it could recruit. Their names are far too numerous to list, but note should be taken of the following: Jan-to.uis PENINOU Pierre YANDENBURIE Alain WMBEQUE . Roland .bEMARCY UNEF International Commission � General Secretary International Commission Representative to the ItT Jeunesse Communiste R�volutiOnnaire (JCR) After the PCF''s purge of the UEC a number of new organizations appeared, two of which deserve mention. . The JCR collected the Trotskyist wing of UEC dissidents. It was formally created in April 1966 on the basis of 250 members (claimed), having a national committee of 37 and a national bureau of 11. Its major figure is Alain KRIVINE, once an officer of the UEC. The JCR publishes Avant Garde Jeunesse. It is a member of the "Brussels Conn-Fe-rice" of avant-garde youth organizations, and claims continuing contact with others: the Getman SDS (see in particular P. 12) Swedish Clartd, Belgian Etudiants Socialistes, the PSIUP youth of'italy, the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, the (Trotskyist) Young Socialist Alliance in the USA, and the American Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam. ,SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 4 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSE4I0 3. Union de la Jcuncsse Communistc (Marxiste- Leniniste), One group of pro-Chinese tendencies joined the more or .less 'official' Marxist/Leninist Party of France (the pro-Chinese party headed by Jacques Jurquet). ,,But a second which refused to bow to the discipline or a militant party began to collect around the Centre d'Etudes Marxistes-Leninistes in .Nancy. After a change of names as it expanded into Paris and other French university towns, the Thion . exists now as a small, radical association cooperating with the Jurquet party under conditions of a truce. Its, numbers and power should not be overestimated; it amounts to an extremely small minority of political activists. But, it is nonetheless able to collect a fairly' impressive number of signatures to n rather radical appeal on Vietnam, including those of Jean Baby, K.S. Karol, Prof. Charles Bettelheim, and two UNEF militants: .Bernard Schreiner (past .President) and Jean-Louis Pepinou (mentioned above). PART II : VIETNAM'PROTEST COMMUNITY 4. Comite Vietnam National (CVN) 6 rue Lalande, Paris (headquarters of the Union of Jewish Students of France) .11 rue Jean de Beauvais, Paris (Paris region office:' headquarters of the Federation of Christian Student Associations) The germinal idea that eventually became the CVN was a project to establish a Center of Coordination Against the War in Vietnam, an idea which was blockdd by orthodox Communist refusal to submit to non-party coordinating instruments. These energies were then translated into a more formal entity which, its activists hoped, would be able to coordinate pnd expand the'anti-war effort. Thus, the Comitd Vietnam National was established in October 1966. Its leaders are by and large the ultra-activists for whom the caution and comparative conservatism of the PCF's Vietnam actions border on 'betrayal' of the Vietnamese 'patriots'. (Thi's same quarter of activists was a : SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 011CRET/N0 FORIN(IN DISSEM IIP little over five years ago at loggerheads with the PCF over its self.,serving caution on the Algerian wnr.issuo.) These adtivists have variously been described as Trotskyists, pro-Chinese, and Pidclistn (and a 'few of them are in fact members of naFfie-s--15T�these orientations)rbut the CVN cannot be listed as front. for any single tendency.* At last rending, CVN' claimed the affiliation of 250 local committees (all with separate names and various orientations) and the formal collaboration of a humber of national orgamizations. Among the latter, the � leading 'supporters of the CVN appear to be UNEP, the PSU, the MOuvement Conte l'Armement Atomique (MCAA), the Paris 'secretariat' of the International War Crimes Tribunal, and the Mouvement du Milliard nour le, Vietnam. A notable absence in this list is the, Mouvement pour'la Paix,.the official PCP peace front. The PCP has by and large attempted to ignore the CVN, hoping it will go away and, when forced to mention it, dismissing it as insignificant. The PCP feels that the CVN is adventurist, irresponsible and little more than a nest of opponents.whoSe unstated goal is to embarrass and iSolate the party, and the PCF is not too far from wrong.. But for tactical reasons alone, the PCP has not burnt its bridges with the CVN, and after an incredibly complicated minuet, decided to sit down with the CVN in the Etats-Generaux pour la Paix au Vietnam, a general conference of French peace organizations held in May 1967. This attempt to keep its left-skirts reasonably clean did little to unify, the anti-war movement:u,nder the Party's influence. CVN's first national cdnference was held in April 1967 in Paris, 350 deleptes yarticipating., The program approved by the conference included: -pairing of French and bombed,North Vietnamese towns 'and universities; -collecting blood; -forming an International Vietnam Committee on .�� the basis of the Tricontinental tonference decisions; ' -aiding American draft dodgers and military deserters -boycotting American products. *It is worth nosing that members of the semi-official Maoist party came to the CVN's founding conference, found- no support for its Peking-approved line, and left'. ���� :SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 6 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 lir SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM The CVN has reportedly created two sub-units; one headed by Denis Berger is a 'Committee for the Defense of the Arab Countries'; another is an 'Organization for Support of the Latin American Revolution'. The conference elected a National Board and a larger National Committee. The names of some of the more well-known activists are: latirent SCHWARTZ Jean-Marie VINCENT Paul CIAUDEL'. Denis BERGER Serge DEPAQUIT Claude BOURDET Jacques GRIMBLAT Jean-Pierre VIGIER Roger PIC ' Henri BARtOLI Jean-Paul SARTRE Professor; CVN President . PSU member; CVN Vice President student; Vice President .Trotskyoid/PSU; Secretary ex-UNEF officer; Treasurer .PSU; from MCAA; member of .National Board , Trotskyist; National Board PCF; National Board* ' 'War Crimes Tribunal; National .Board :National Board ,National Board S. Mouvement dti Milliard The name of this enterprise comes from its objective, to collect 1,000,000000 (old) Frs ($2,000,000) for Vietnam. This goal was announced in.a closely-typed four-page appeal signed by fully 1,000 professionals of all stripes: PCR, PSU, UNR-WDT, SFIO, pro-Chinese, and Trotskyist. The original idea was a campaign, but its organizers fell prey to the natural bureaucratic tendencies of man and sought to establish an organization. This change of emphasis was, to the PCF and several others, a violation of earlier agreements and a period of acrimony and tension set in. The PCF eventually withdrew from the Coordinating Committee of 41. *While Vigier is still technically a PCF member, he is completely in the dissident camp and is probably tolerated by the party only because it believes public expulsion would risk too great a scandal; they would rather try to contain whatever damage Vigier is doing. as a PCF member. . SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 7 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 0. � SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 6. Paris Secretariat: International War Crimes Tribunal 22 rue Etienne-Marcel Originally known as the Association of French Friends of the Russell Peace Foundation, this group was founded in November 1966. After the first session of the International War Crimes Tribunal, it became responsible for the Tribunal's work and future sessions. The National Board.of the Paris secretariat consisted of: Jean-Pierre VIGIER President Jean-Louis VINCENT Secretary Claude CADART Treasurer Many other individuals mentioned above were tied in with the Paris office: Denis BERGER, Roger PIC, Joan-Michel KRIVINE; Giselle HALM, Abraham BEHAR, etc. Beyond these groups are of course others active on the Vietnam issues. They include such as the Inter-Union Action Group (established by UNEF and sections of the teachers' unions), the Vietnam . Information Center (created by the pro-Chinese Marxist-Leninist Party of France), the Franco- . Vietnam Medical Association (in which figure the names of Jean-Michel KRIVINE, Francis KAHN, and ' Abraham BEHAR), and the Mouvement Contre l'Armement Atomique (headed by Claude BOURDET). � SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 8 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET* FOREIGN DISSEM GERMANY 6 PART I 1. Spzialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS) :Wilhelm Hauff Strasse 5; 6 Frankfurt/Main I SDS was established in 1945 as the student arm of the German social-democratic party (SPD), but was expelled from the spD in 1959 for having taken positions too far to the left of party policy. SDS has since existed as an independent, leftist student association. In 1965 it achieved control of the student government committee (AStA) at the Free University of Berlin, giving it for the first time since 1959 an established political base of operations. SDS' goal is the "transformation of the present society in West Germany into a socialist society", that reality being variously defined. SDS is not an organization unified in ideology: within it are democratic socialists' to the left of .the SPD, semi-clandestine members of the (illegal) West German CP; undisciplined Maoists, Marxists, and trotskyoids. Among its present programs are: 1/ a policy of confrontation with 'the establishment:, to "demonstrate the repressive nature of the German state"; 2/ opposition to. American presence in Germany, and especially,, to American policies in . Vietnam; 3/ aid and assistance to U. 'S. military personnel wishing to desert their posts; 4/ creation of a "critical university", a Free University on the American model; and 5/ opposition to the Springer publishing empire (a program which has received substantial financial assistance from Rudolf Augstein, publisher of Der S ie el). SDS publishes Neue Kritik and SDS-Korre-i-TWn enz. Among SDS' leaders are the following: Karl-Dietrich WOLFF Reimut RICHE Peter GANG Erich EISNER Wolfgang LEFEVRE Lothar WOLF4TATTER SDS Federal Chairman, 1967-68 SDS Federal Chairman, 1966-67; student in Frankfurt Deputy Chairman; from Berlin Councilor; from Munich; member of KPD (Communist Party) Councilor; from Berlin Councilor; from Mannheim Other than Wolff, the names of the '67-'68 officers are ' SECRET* FOREIGN DISSEM - 9 - Approved for Release: 2016/06127 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � � SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM not available; they were elected at a meeting in September 1067 in Frankfurt. Of SDS' .27 campus units, Frankfurt and Berlin are probably the most active and influential: the former because it is the site of the national office of SDS; the latter because of Berlin itself, of the character of Berlin SDS leaders and because SDS/Berlin is able to take advantage of the city's unique status to hold sway over SDS' international policies: Among the Berlin leaders are: . Erik NOHARA Rudi DUTSCHKE Juergen HORLEMANN former activist, ideological mentor and eminence LI:at leader of the Maoist wing Marxist and'major activist SDS/Berlin has spawned a number of allied communities such as the Kommunen (Dieter KUNZELMANN0 Ulrich ENZENSBERGER, Rainer LANGHANS, and Fritz TEUFEL), a secondary school student association (UGS - Unabhaengige Schuelergemeinschaft - of which Peter BRANDT, son Of Willi BRANDT, is a member; Peter apparently has adopted Trotskyist views), and an "old boys" iclub, the Republikanischer Klub (Erik NOHARA and leftist lawyer Horst MAHLER). SDS, through its control of AStA, is an important faction within the Verband Deutscher Studentenschaften (VDS,�the German National Union of Students) which it seeks to draw into more radical positions. SDS also works closely with a number of other derman youth and student organizations, some of which are listed below. SDS' attitude toward the TOD is generally one of scorn, though it does allow KPD members to join SDS; but it also supports a lifting of the ban on the XPD. Relations between the SDSYBerlin and the (legal) SED/Wbst Berlin are in a similar vein, thOugh the SED is worried that SDS will draw strength from SED youth cadre and thus it tends to keep. SDS at more of an arm's length than the KPD does. In general there is no evidence to indicate that orthodox communist .strength amounts to much in SDS, nor does it seem likely that the Chinese have been able to control or guide SDS' Maoist wing. SDS leaders have had for several years contact with Soviet authorities in East Germany and with Soviet youth/, student organitations, such as the Committee of Youth Organizations CYO) sand the Komsomol. Erik ROWNI in particular is usually cited as having the best contacts with theiEast. The attitude on the Bloc's part is one of SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 10 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 006548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM attraction-revulsion: they hope to make use of the new student radicals.(particulatly to create problems for Allied military authorities in West Berlin) but at the same time are aware of the ideological gulf between SDS and the communists. The East German SED is especially worried that West Berlin "Maoism" and free-thinking will infect their yOuth organization, the Free German Youth (FDJ). Contacts thus between FDJ and SDS are controlled and semi-clandestine (the East Germans also do not want to give the. kiss of death to SDS by' too close or public an association). The Soviet Union, at greater geographia distance and thus not worried about infection, is more eager to establish bilateral relations with SDS, but they still .found it necessary to walk out of the last SDS congress in protest against what they felt to be . slandering of the October Revolution. SDS relations with China appear to be confined to periodic visits by Berlin Maoists to the Chinese Embassy in the East. Some financial assistance and, more surely, propaganda has been made.tvailable to Kunzelmann and Dutschke. Within Europe, SDS it a member of two regional youth organizations: the Brussels Conference of avant-garde youth, and the European Student Syndicalist Conference. The full extent of SDS' bilateral contacts is not known (over and above, of course, those also members of theltwo regional groups), but the following appears in the files: Austr4: Socialist Youth (VSS) Holland: Provos' Belgium: Ernest Mandel (well-known Trotskyist) Sweden: Swedish VietnaT Committee; probably Clarte France: an unidentified "Marxist/Leninist" group (pro-Chinese); Etudiants Socialistes (PSU) USA: Students for a Democratic Society One recently ann9unced SDS initiative may be of more than passing importance, an institute for documentation and researdh on 'radical' subjects. Among the planned assets of this institute will be personality dossiers on 'scientisti., politicians, and persons in the public information field, With special attention to their SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 11 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � t t SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM cooperation with...secret services and with firms which profit from the Vietnam war'. A monthly bulletin is planned to "expose persons, campaigns, and programs". The center will be directed by a council made up of an unidentified Frenchman, an unidentified Ethiopian, Bahman Nirumand (Iran), Ulrike-Marie Meinhof (German columnist) and three SDSers, Juergen Horlemann, Christian Semler, and Peter Gam. In its first specific task, the Institute is to help organize a summer camp in Cuba to be named after Che Guevara for 5,000 Europeans and unknown numbers of Latin Americans and Vietnamese. USBER Berlin notes that this camp was originally to have been organized jointly by SDS and the French JeunesseCommuniste Revoltitionaire. 2. .Soziaidemokratischer Hochschulbund (SHB) To replace SDS as the party's student organization, the SPD created the present SHE. That this move did not solve the problem of .student activism on the left is indicated by a statement made to an SDS congress in 1966 by SHB's Federal Chairman: he declared that "both the SDS and SHB have a common task: Ito' make bourgeois society. susceptible to new developments'." Though SHB remains within the .SPD, and SDS outside, the presumed differences between the two have disappeared or have been shelved for all practical purposes in pursuit of joint programs and demonstrations. (Relations between SHE and SDS do however seem to vary from area to area.) The names of current SHB leaders are not available. 3. Liberaler Studentenbund Deutschlands (LSD) Though affiliated with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and theoretically beholden to the adult party leadership, LSD tends to follow in SDS' wake. Relations between LSD and SDS, according to at least one assessment, seem to be better than those between SHE and SDS. � The names of current LSD leaders are not available. 4. �Humanistisghe Union (No solid,information on this organization, though it too is part of SDS' entourage.) SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 12 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM S. Die Falken Another SPD youth organizations Die Falken has its pun history. of leftist tendencies (including some accents of 'Trotskyism') and contact with Eastern : youth/student associations. Relations between Die*, Falken and,SDS are reportedly encellent. Prominent among Die Fall= are Wolfgang HOMANN, Peter BISCHOF. and Heinz BEINERT. SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 13 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 . SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM NETHERLANDS PART I 1. .(The Provos) The Provas*., young pseudo-anarchists who come closest to being the epitome of the New Left's Anti-establishment currents, became active in Amsterdam in June 1965. Their 'ideology' where it can be defined is not the � phil000phical.anarchism ,of an earlier period. It is one of.active'opposition to authority: parental, military, police, and governmental authority. Its hallmark is the 'h'appening', which the Provos transformed from an avant-garde art form into a method of political action. Though no small number of youth were attracted to the provo pattorn, their numbers never were an accurate measurement of their destructive potential. The Provos have now disbanded (July 1967). The only sin recognized. by the movement was Organization.. When leaders of a 'provotariat' began to emerge; when affiliation with other groups became a question; when their activities (such as dssisting American deserters) demanded they open an office .,- when their Eve began to eye the apple of bureaucracy, they elected to take the novel step of casting out their Eden. The international activities of the Provos were very' much loose sorts of endeavors. Provo leaders were sent to England (for a IDestruction in Art Seminar'), to Berlin to. 'train' the Maoist communes (from which they reportedly came home in disgust, feeling that the Berliners weren't really serious),'and even to Eastern Europe. A First (and presumably the last) International Provo Congress was held in November 1966, attended by delegates from Belgium, the United States, England, and among others, one delegate from Prague. . *Capital 'P' provos is commonly meant as reference to the provo movement as a political and social fact of life; lower-cabb 'p' prove refers to the life style. SECRET4NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 14 - .. Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 II/ 410 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM Among the names associated with the Provos are: Irene Donner VAN DER visited Czechoslovakia WEETERING (usually goes in July 66 by her maiden name, DONNER) Peter BRONKHORST, and visited Prague to Enrico RIJKS "lecture on the Provo movement" Roel van DUYN ' the ideologue of the movement �Rob STOLK an active member of PSJW (see below) Luud SCHIMMELPENNINK inventor of the major � Provo campaigns Bernard de VRIES elected to the Amsterdam City Council Hans METZ 'secretary and fundman' for the Provos The comparative youth of these individuals insures that, though the 'capital P' Provos may be officially dead, the i1ower7case p' provos will remain around awhile. BronXhorst was born in 1946; de Vries in 1941; Metz in 1945; van Duyn in 1943; Stalk in 1946. 2. Studentenvakbeweging Student Syndical Movement (SVB) About SVB we have little information at hand. It was founded in:1963, the first outside:of French-speaking Europe to adopt the syndicalist ideas formulated by UNEF. ,SVBis an influential minority in the Dutch national student union (NEX), whose moderate leadership it hoped to overthrow. It has lent its numbers to' many of the radical, non-communist Vietnam protest groups mentioned below, and many of its members are also members of other groups which range on the political spectrum from the Provos to the 'orthodox'. Communist Party of the Netherlands (which, one hastens to add,, is not typical of European CPs*). SVB is a member of CESE, the European regional group of syndicalist unions, and it is the current host-union *The CPN at the moment has no hold on the SVB Executive, nor oa the SVB/Amsterdam Executive; SVB-CPN relations have deteriorated markedly. . SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 15- Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 006548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM of the CESE' secretariat. Franciscus Van HAAFTEN was its representative to the founding CESE meeting in Brussels. Maartin ABELIN is currently the head of CESE's secretariat in Amsterdam. The names of current � SVB officers are not available; Ton REGTIEN is a principal leader and one whose name should be entered here. On other ;members of the Dutch New Left community there is even less ready information. The more important are mentioned below in context of their participation in Vietnam, protest organizations. . PART 'II VIETNAM PROTEST COMMUNITY 3. Jonkerencomite Vietnam Youth Committee Vietnam In June 1963 an Amsterdam leftist with close contacts in Trotskyist and Pacifist-Socialist Party circles, Han Meyer, called a meeting of many organizations on the left active on the Vietnam issue. The meeting agreed to form an initiative :group which, in September, became the Youth Committee,Vietnam. Its membership originally' included: General Dutch Youth Movement (ANJV) - youth league of the UP. Organization of Progressive Student Youth (OPSJ) - student league of the CPN Federation of Youth Groups/Amsterdam Section (PJG) - youth wing of the Labor Party (PvdA) � Pacifist-Socialist Youth Working Group (PSJW) - a youth wing of the Pacifist Socialist Party (PSP) Kerke en yrede.- Dutch. affiliate of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFoR) Socialist Youth (SJ) - youth organization of left-socialist orientation Socialist', Meeting Groups (SOK) - Trotskyist � Committee, 29 November 1.962 - communist student group 'Politeia' - left socialist student group 101ofspocirt' - a student group .the Surinamese.,Student Association of Amsterdam . . . SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM -16- 0 11: i� Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 1 411 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISS, "the liddnesian student group in Holland Almost immediately the different tendencies in the Youth Committee began to tear at the fabric of unity'. The communist ANJV took exception to the appointment of Huib RIETHOF of'SVB as President of the National Board, despite the fact that their candidate from ANJV, Paul GEERLIGS, was named Secretary. The Labor Party (PvdA) organizations went through a period of on-and-off, affiliation, first withdrawing and setting up new,committees with the communists, then reaffiliating. The Provos were admitted to membership in the Youth Committee, to which the coMmunists again took exception. The net result was a somewhat tenuous communist hold on the Youth Committee. Though a large nUmber of the original organitations.are 'still on the books as members, a few of the more radical founded a collateral committee. 4. Actie Grpep Vietnam Action Group Vietnam (AGV) From all evidence it is the Action Group Vietnam which. has been in the forefront of most of the more violent demonstrations and more illegal actions of the Dutch Vietnam protest community: The Action Group was ' established in. April 1966, representing the undiluted radicalism;of the Provos, the radical-socialist SJ, the pacifist-socialist PSJW and of the Pacifist Socialist Party itself. The communists are not members. The Action Group -- or at a minimum, its Pacifist-Socialist member --'has its more sensational reputation from its assistance to American military deserters, a program which began in the amorphous Provo quarter and which .has been taken up by the PSP. O.M. BOETES, a PSP Senator, has p'ublicly announced his activity and unqualified support for this program (which is targeted against the Dutch military as well); Herman HOENEVELD, an SJ offiCial, has also been identified in the press as being attively involved in this effort. SECRET/NO FOREIGNDSSEM - 17 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/.NO FOREIGN DISSER � 41" GREAT BRITAIN PART I 1.. New Left Review 7-Urlisle Street, London WI If the intellectual wing of the new radicalism had a birthplace, it was probably in the pages of two journals which -first appeared in 1957: Universities and Left Review, and The New Reasoner. These TUBITEFfions two yearT-rater merged into New Left Review, but separately they neatly symboliii two of :the more important resources of the New Left: Universities and Left Review was the voice of the college intelii-Efarr The New Reasoner drew its strength from the Comm'airsti-Mtellectuals who left the CP as a result of the 20th CPSU Congress, Poland and Hungary. These were soon joined by some of the less sectarian Trotskyists.. NLR was a half-way house between left-socialists and dirsadent communists, and it still reflects the ambivalence of its origins. About NLR's .history we have little ready information, but it-influence on the development of new radicalism outside of England has been noted by several commentators. NLR's Editor, Perry Anderson, provided-some background YO-the course of the movement in Great Britain in an article in NLR (#29, January-February '65): The New Left had begun a handful of intellectuals; it Wned a certain --,minority -- middle-class audience; it never touched any 'section of the yorkimg class: .... The hope of becoming a major political movement haunted at, and ended by dissipating its initial'assets. The existence, in the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disr6mment), .of a genuine mass movement with a base, but without any articulated ideology, seemed to offer a vacuum designed for the New Left:to fill. It tried to do so, in 1960- 61, pnd paid the price. The price was that the New Left "had lost the virtues of intel1ectu4Lenergy without gaining those of political efficacy;" it had got down into the arena of political maneuvering, had had a certain success but, when'thw,tide in favor of policies of unilateral ECRET4NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 18 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 0. � SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM disarmament ebbed, the New Left was stranded. The ad hoc alliance of the Left dissolved, and the three � components of its 1960-61 period of strength separated. "The Labour [Party] Left had ceased to provide any serious opposition to party policy. CND was visibly disintegrating. The New Left was volatilized. The inheritor of the crises had another name: Wilson." (Notes on the Labour Party Left and on CND follow.) As for the New Left or at least NLR -- it was "volatilized" toward. Trotskyism and7UF 'Fidelismo'. Perry. Anderson is a member of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and of the Nottingham Group of Trotskyists; Robin Blackburn,' a member of NLR's Editorial Committee, and Quittin HO.re, majing editor, are also members of both. Alexander Cockburn of the Editorial Board attended the. '68 Havana Cultural Congress (as did Blackburn); and Anderson is a member' of an 'investigating - committee' to support Regis Debray, On the current masthead of NLR are the following: Perry ANDERSON (Editor)r Quiiifiri HOARE (Managing Editor); (Editorial Committee), Anthony BARNETT, Robin BLACKBURN, Ben BREWSTER, Alexander COCKBURN, Ronald FRASER, Jon HALLIDAY, Nicolas KRASSO, Branka MAGAS, Julien MITCHELL, Roger MURRAY, Tom NAIRN, Lucien RE'!, Bob ROWTHORN, Gareth'STEDMAN JONES, and Tom WENGRAF. 2. National Association of Labour Student Organizations (NALSO) The extremist wing of the Labour party's following among yoUnger members of the left appears to be concentrated in NALSO, about which we have little information. The direction of NALSO's drift may be indicated by the matriculation of a NALSO officer, Nigel Harris, into the ranks of the Trotskyists; he is pow the editor of International Socialism, a �Trotkyist journal. A clue to the current relations between NALSO and the Labour Party was found in a , report dated January, '67 that NALSO was to be officially,:read.out of the Party. 3: Radical Student Alliance (RSA) What the intellectual New Left sought in the CND (and SECRET/N6 FOREIGN DISSEM - 19 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO 'FOREIGN DISSEM did not find) was at activist core; RSA has seemingly -- and perhaps quite accidental to NLR's efforts -- provided that core. RSA' s origins iFF somewhat murky. Though .formally established only in January 1967, it was earlier planned and represented in a group of student activists, some of whom were members of or closely connected with the CPGB. There was. some suspicion that RSA was originally coficeived as a CPGB front, and that the communist International. Union of Students was aware of its planned appearance before the British student was. But whatever its origins, it is. not so easily dismissed as a tool of the CPGB. Its line contains elements of American goals of participatory democracy and of French formulae of student-workers and a student syndicalist movement. It seeks a unilty of intellectual and 'practical' work_ (theorizing and political organizing), and defines: itself as "the, potential vehicle for a student movement, on a-national level". � An immediate question for RSA is its policy toward NUS, the British national, student union (officially titled, National Union of Students of England, Wales, and North Ireland; Scotland, for a variety of reasons, has a separate national student union). Whether it will remain as a radical caucus seeking to take command from within NUS, Or withdraw to become a radical alternative, has not been:finally.decided. For the present, RSA remains within,, but its most recent effort to unseat the moderate leadership failed. Among the,nam9s associated Fer0s NXHOLSON ' Dav'id WIDGERY David ADELSTEIN Matshall.:BLOOM. � ' with RSA are the following: National Student Organizer of the CPGB journalist; possibly fronts for the CPGB leader of a Berkeley-styled student 'revolt' at the London School of Economics American student at LSE (now in Washington) who had a major role in the student 'revolt' 'SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM. Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 a. SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEA 4. Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation (BRPF) 3.74 Shavers; Place,, London SW1 The Russell Foundation was founded in September 1963 along with a 'companion 'outfit, the Atlantic Peace Foundation, to provide a "permanent structure for the peace movement" and to be devoted to the investigation of "the causes of war and to pursue such measures as may eliminate or diminish the risk of war". Beneath this meritorious language, of course, is a more obvious commitment to an ill-defined ideological.position bearing many of the marks of the New Left -- simultaneously also bearing the marks .of.dissident communist (e.g., Trotskyist) orientation. The: Foundation's major effort to date was the highly touted International War Crimes Tribunal, the history and intricacies of which we do not propose to delve into here. The Foundation is not however limited to Vietnam and the Far East alone. It has an evident and active interest in the national liberation movements of Latin America, in the Arab-Israeli problems'of the Near East, and in developments in the United States. An allied unit is the Bertrand Russell Centre for Social Research which plans a series entitled "Studies in Imperialism and the Cold War". The .first volume published under the Centre's auspices is a collection of essays, Containment and Revolution; (Beacon Press, 1967) edited by lavi'd Horowitz. It contains analyses written by such diverse individuals as Isaac Deutscher, William Appleman Williams (University of Wisconsin), Todd Gitlin (American 8DS) and John Gittings (formerly of the Royal Institute of International Affairs and now with the Institute of International Studies, University of Chile).. An early list of Directors of the Foundation named the following. (Those marked with an.asterisk are members of the .Nottingham Group of Trotskyists.) Bertrand Russell Hamza ALAVI *Perry ANDERSON *Robin BLACKBURN *Kenneth COATES Emile,de ANTONIO *Christopher FARLEY *Ouintin HOARE *David HOROW4TZ (Pakistani) Editor of NLR NLR Editorilr Committee Trader of the Nottingham Group) (American) Managing Editor, NLR American; more recently resigned from this post SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 21 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 0. ' SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM Mark LANE Dennis PHOMBEAH Lucien REY *Ralph SCHOENMAN a American; author of Rush to Judgment Tanzanian (French?) American; Lord Russell's ,private secretary More recently the staff has been pared down and is more clearly of Trotskyist' orientation. PART, II . VIETNAM PROTEST COMMUNITY 5. 'Campaign.for Nuclear Disarmament/Committee ,of 100/Peace News The 'great mothl issue' of the late fifties and early sixties (at least until Vietnam displaced it, though it had begun a decline earlier) was the nuclear arms race and disarmament. Its organized expression was the CND, which sprang into prominence after the famous Aldermaston peace march of 1958. CND was at its height a combination of Christian pacifism, anarchism, and British liberalism (a movement of direct lineage from earlier campaigns against the slave trade, the Boer War, etc.). Its failure was that it proved to be limited to a single issue; it,was.a movement of protest, not a coherent and comprehensive ideology of protest: the energies of the CND were not carried over into attacks on and alternatives for other issues. It was this failure that the New Left recognized and sought toi:cure,. The momentary adoption of a platform of unilateral disarmament by the Labour Party was4perhaps the high-water mark of the CND community; When that policy was rejected, CND began to disintegrate. A more radical wing of Christian pacifists and 'Christian Marxists' separated out and was responsible for the Committee of 100. But this too has failed to jell into an opposition of influence and breadth on the left -- despite the many well-knoun names associated with the entili disarmament campaign structure -- and the Committee of 100 ha, recently begun to % SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 22 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 411. SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSIO disband and fall apart as a national organization. Perhaps the sole surviving expression of the once powerful CND approach is Peace News, about which Perry Anderson comments: "TeTriTiffts an interesting attempt to transcend,the traditional limitations of pacifist and anarchist thought in the direction of ' greater concreteness. The result still lacks coherence." (N. Anderson's branding of Peace News as being in part anarchistic must be taken.niFtly. It is apparently used in a defamatory sense. Anderson's group of Trotskyists is at war with another group which has access to the pages of Peace News -- though in the above quote the word 'TrBITRViit-T�should not be thought a replacement for..'anarchistiO 6. British Council for Peace in Vietnam 374 Gray's Inn Road, London W.C.I Among the many 'peace in Vietnam' committees (that is, other, than the CPGB's British Peace Council), two collections merit a brief mention. Foremost is the Lord Fenner-Brockway-group with which is associated .a large number of impressive names and titles, We will not attempt to list these names, nor to divine the shades of difference in approach between this organization and a myriad of others. The British Council's basic orientation can be. surmised from a.list of its affiliated organizations:. Parliament Universities: Churches: MP's Ad Hoc Committee for Peace in Vietnam Universities Ad Hoc Committee for Peace in Vietnam Cambridge' University Committee for Peace in Vietnam Student Christian Movement (observer-member) � � Union of Liberal Students - 'Colleges and, Universities CND National Association of Labour 'Student Organisations Anglican Pacifist Fellowship. Baptist Pacifist Fellowship- Christian Action Christian Socialist Movement Fellowship of Reconciliation � Friends Peace Committee (observer-member) SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 23 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 4. I... - stcAnT/No FOREIGN DISSEM Churches: Liberals! Labor � Movement: Youth:!. Peace: Medical: Women: Other.:, � .Pax 'llnitarian and Free Christian Peace Fellowship National League of Young. ' Liberals A.S.S.E.T. .Association of Scientific : Workers Amalgamated Union of Foundry - Workers (no. 6 Fire Brigade Union Coeperative Party (obserV'er- : member) .b.A.T.A. (observer-member) ,Independent Labour Party LCS Educational Committee LSC Political Committee � London Typographical Society Tobacco Workers Union T & GWU (Taxi Section) (observer-member) Youth CND Youth for Peace in Vietnam CND � Consultative Committee for Peace Organisations Labour CND Labour Peace Fellowship � National Peace;;Council (observer- member) � Peace Pledge Union Russell Peace Foundation Teachers' CND i Medical Aid:for Vietnam Socialist Medical Association , Liaison Committee for Women's Peace Groups, Women's International League for Peace.and Freedom .. British Vi4tnat Committee Committee qf 100 Movement for Coldnial Freedom 7. War Resisters/Fellowship of Reconciliation/ . Peace Pledge Union The sub-world of Christian 'pacifism is a definite force in the British Vietnam protest community, and in the British New Left. Mott of the international organizations SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 24 - , Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 . SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM to which British pacifist groups belong are mentioned in the Internationals section; they are cited here because of:their influence, both within the domestic community and as the single most important voice in the internationals. SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 2S - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � - SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM BELGIUM I. Mouvement des Universitaires Beige de i l'Expression Francaise (MUBEF)/Vereniging der Vlaamse Studenten (VVS)/Studenten I Werkbeweging (SVB) . 1 :1 The national student union of Belgium is split into French- and Flemish-speaking units, MUBEF and VVS , respectively. Both have tended to follow the lead 1 1 : of the French UNEF and both call themselves � ; syndicalist. VVS is a member of the Secretariat of I the International Union of Students (IUS), holding the position of secretary. Its representative in ! Prague is Josef WELLENS. . Within the VVS there is an influential conservative element, and Flemish leftists have created a counterpart in 1967 to the Dutch SVB (q.v.) to unify and increase their. influence. The European syndical minority-now apparently views the B�elgian SVB as the legitimate:syndicalist unit in Belgium and has established relations with it, thus causing a bit of acrimony between ,VVS and other European student unions. 'Some of the individuals associated with the SVB , Paul GOSSENS Willy. LEMMENS Ludo MARTENS Frans,LEMAIRE Guy MI.CHEL Wallei DE BOCK Herwig LEROUGE Louis VAN D1JCK Johaft.PHILIPPEN Marko.FRANCO 2. Revos. 1 . � . � The Revos It'e the Belgian equivalent of the Dutch .Provos. They do not appear to'be nearly as important as the PrOVos, nor are they particularly active. Federation des Jeunes Gardes Socialistes (FJGS) The FJGS i one of the socialist youth wings which SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEK - 26 - I Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 r � SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 1 have severed their ties with the orthodox socialist parties. The FJGS was expelled -- or withdrew -- from the Parti Socia,liste Beige in 1965. It is a member of the 'Brussels Conference' of avant-garde youth organizations and served as the host for the first meeting of this regional collection. From all evidence its leadership includes a substantial Trotskyist element which his at least been able to move it further toward the left. SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 27- Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 II/ , 410 SECRET/NO FOREIGN 1)ISSEM All RIA 1. Verband Sozjaliti'scher Studenten (VSS) � .VSS is th6 student atm of the socialisf party (SP0e). It has tended for some time toward the left, and in 1966 VSS members elected a "radical" slate into office. � Its junior. version for secondary-school students, Verhand Sozialistischer Mittelschueler (VSM), has' had a separate and longer history of leftist control. VSS publishes Die Alternative; VSM, Die Rote Tafel. - Though its 'relations with the SPOe are, understandably enough, strained, VSS' ha had some encouragement .and support.from the SP0e/left. In general, though', it goes alone. Communist Party (KP0e) strength in VSS seems to be minimal. One source Commented, "It is most unlikely that the Communists are actively giving regular guidance to the VSS and VSM leaders, who incidentally disagree with each other frequently and show little evidence of central direction. The KPOe has had little Success among young people and is not believed to have many reliable .cadres Which it could infiltrate into the socialist youth organizations. .A number of the intellectual elite of the far left, among socialist youth, moreover, are strongly opposed to Communism." The radical slate voted into office by VSS in 1966 consisted of: ; GunterIRENAK Walter,PAPUSEK GunterIBLECHA Erich.SCHMIDT Hans WASCHEK Chairman Deputy Chairman Deputy Chairman ..Secretary Treasurer : In VSS' Vienna Center, a particular source of leftist strength, figures the name of Peter KREISKY, the Son of the former,Foreign Minister and current leader of the Socialist Party. The only continuing foreign Contacts shown in current material on VSS are with SDS Germany. .This isolation is unlikelito remain true for long, VSS and VSM sent delegates to th6 Frankfurt meeting of.European Student Committee on Vi'etnam (see below). 2. Young Revolutionary Marxists A small group Oich slit off from the Pro-Chinese SECRET/ NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 28 - .4 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO FOREIGN .DISSEM Marxist/Leninist Party of Austria (MLP0e) around January 1967, this organization is listed as a question:mark. Not enough is 'known.. It apparently decided that Franz Strobl's MLPOe was too staid and tended toward revisionism, and broke away. It publishes Punka. This group's apparent leader is Helmut HRONEK (b. 28 May 1941). SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 29 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 ' 41/. SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM. SCANDINAVIA The information available on Scandinavian New Left organizations is too sparse to permit solid judgments of its strength and extent in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.* The usu.1 rock under which one finds evidence of a New Left, the national student union, is unrewarding. The national unions of Scandinavia are more or less solidly in the hands of moderates. It is in he quOrant occupied by the Socialist People's parties that a search for a New Left must take place. These parties are within the broad span of the dissident left to Which the name New Left has applied,'.hUt they raise again the unsolved problem of distinguishing between the committed party militant and non-party radical.** � � DENMARK The Socialiist*eople's Party of Denmark:, and presumably; its counterpart in Norway, has had some difficultyjn keeping its youth arm. (SUF, the Socialist *Finland, ps always a special situation, will not he considered here. In the opinion,of,a senior Finnish securit,1;, official, the New Left has if anything o4y rpcently appeared there. And while it is distinct from the 'Teddy-boy' element, youthful anti-establishment dissidence has for the most part been contained within the established party structures. **A recent paper on the left in Europe included these parties in the general�classification of New Left, or "outsiders". As suggested elsewhere, this identification is not completely iatitfactory -- hut then no other alternative is any more satisfactory'. The paper also suggested that in the Socialist People's parties the New Left was the "strongest'.and most united" in Europe. .Whether there is this identiti, will not be debated he're; but it could be al-gued:that 'New Left' string0 in Scandinavia is not found inrits numbers and influence but in accidents or elections and parliamentaiy coalitions. 't SECRET/NO FOREIGN.D1SSM - 30 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � SECRET/NO FOREIGN. DISSEM Youth Forum) in line. Its original intent was to forge a unity, of the radical left (SUF, the left- wing communist youth and left-socialist youth). While it 'allowed' itself to be affiliated to Aksel Larsen's adult party, there was apparently some opposition to this move. And its list of officers in 1964 included a few wearing the Trotskyist sweatshirt. Since 1964 it appears in fact to have moved away from anything resembling complete allegiance to the adult party. The same may be true of the student wing (SF). Another Danish group, the Voltinteers for Vietnam, is more easily branded as trotskyoid. The volunteer corps as an international collection is mentioned elsewhere,in this paper. With respect to a third, . the Clarte movement, we have no information readily at hand and can only raise the question. NORWAY However questionable the origins of the Norwegian Socialist People's Party may have:been (being originally a splinter from the orthodox socialist party as compared to the Danish SF's having been a splinter from the pro-Soviet communist party), the support that party has gathered from those of anti-establishment bias is real. 'Norwegians, it must be borne in mind, are perhaps the most conservative in Europe. The Norwegian student union is rightist as compared to others on the continent, and the .Norwegian SF's.. youth wing� is small ;and, by comparison, undernourished. Perhaps closer; to.the normal New Left patern is the semi- clandestine Radical Socialist Union (RSU)', a faction working within SP which proclaims itself based on Marxist ideas with nationalist attitudes to the left of the SF And to the right of 'the NKP (Communist Party). RSU plans to remain secret until 1971, perhaps more to aid public exposure of its thin ranks than as a policy of tactical efforts from within. SECRET/NO FOREIGI4 DISSEM - 31 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 606548833 f Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 ,SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM SWEDEN 1 1 The Swedish Clarfe, on the other hand, is usually included by other New Leftists as 'a member of the confrerie. But the charge is also made that Clart'; "has not been able tb live up to its traditions and to develop a coherent socialist consciousness. Furthermore, it is now deeply and bitterly split between a Maoist tendency, now in control, and others (Social Democrats and Sermanssonites [after the head of the ultra - revisionist Swedish communist party])". This bill of particulars seems to he correct, .though the Maoists may have more recently lost control of Clart6. , ConfirMed in thie New Left congregation is another Swedish entity, Zenit. its publisher, Goran Therborn, writes of-Zenit With the usual egotism. of the New Left: "Zenit was started in 1957 as a journal of the syndicalist youth, but has in later years been the main forum of the Swedish 'New Left': Its circulation is smaller than that of the more famous Clartg,�but It' has been of crucial importance in depriNTWEraliling the Swedish Left,:presenting � International Socialist discussion, and in contributing to -- in certain respects one might say introducing -- analytical and ptrategic thinking." Zenit has recently allied itself with the International Socialist Journal, published in. Rome by th-e�TITSIUPinzif�(of the PS1UP). � 1: The remarks of.the former chairman of the Swedish CP youth organization, Kjell Johansson, are amusing. In a recent article, Johansson wrote, "The (Swedish] new left is a S,ocialist trend. .... Its political platform and profile is clearly Marxist. Its inspiration Is taken from Marxist c,lasics -- Gramsci, Andre Gorz, Perry Andersibn,!.fErnestj Mandel, and others": Among the Swedish New Left., . Johansson singles out Goran THERBORN, 6unnar OLOFSSON, C.H. HERMANSSON [head of the Communist Party!] and � Christophti HOGSTEDT: among 'its publications, Zenit and Tidsignal. ,Johansson's appraisal may be taken with a grain of salt. ' Though certainly not a-member, of the strictly-defined New ,Left, one particular Swedish peace organization must be Mentioned: the Swedish Vietnam Committee, the latest in a series of names appropriated for the 1 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM -'32- Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM efforts of Berth l Svahnstrom (though it must be acknowledged that Svahnstrom is not without support; the Committee is not a facade). It is this . Committee which now has charge of over twenty American deserters tn Sweden., For this, its stature in the Vietnam protest community is excelled only by BEHEIREN, the Japanese peace group which found and exfiltrated the 'Intrepid Four'. Svahnstrom from all evidence is not a communist (at least in the sense of party membership). But before a large international World Conference on Vietnam in the summer of '.67 (for which he was largely responsible), Svahnstrom demonstrated his eagerness to cooperate' with and front for the apparatchiki of the old-line comildnist-'front World Council of Peace. ��; � SECRET/NO FOREIGN.DISSEM Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 r :SFCRET/NO FOREIGN D1SSEM ! ITALY The type of New Left found elsewhere in Europe does not seem to be present in Italy. Perhaps the primary reason for this absence is the PSIUP which has 'coopted' the left-socialist/Marxist area of the spectrum. Additionally, Italian political parties seem to be more permitssive.of internal dissension than counterparts in other countries -- and the, stultifying discipline of a bureaucratic party, which is a major reason for the non- or anti-party rebellion of the, New Left, is therefore less of a factor. But white 'a 'proper New Left' does not seem to exist (unless of 'course the PSIUP is given that label), a number of Italian organizations are included by other Europeans 'in the New Left confrerie. These are: 1. Union Goliardica d'Italia (UGI)/National Union of University Students of Italy (UNURI) UNORI, recognized as the national student union, contains four political factions, two of which in coalition have controlled the union ,since the early sixties: UGI (an amalgam of students belonging to the PCli the PSIUP, and the PSI), and INTESSA (Christian-Democratic). In its international politics UNURI follows in UNEF's wake, .tempered a bit by the moderating pressures of the Christian- Democratic INTESSA. But UNURI's internal politics have proven to be so volatile and its governing coalition sp fragile that since 1964 it has more or less given yp any participation in international events: it.is a member of neither the communist- front International Union of Students nor of the non-communist International Student Conference. UGI, the. soCialist/communist group,'Ilas maintained some contact with other European student groups, as for example with French student 'parties'. But it cannot hp said to be a major force among European regional New Left organizations. , SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 34 - Ii I i Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM 7. (Provos) Italy has a small counterpart to the more famous Dutch Provos, hut compared to the Dutch it hardly merits attention. Its most recent effort was 'an attempt, t6 'dump LSD into the water System of g hotel used by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands during a state visit. 3. PSIUP Youth Federation (FG/PSIUP) . The Fd/PSIUP is an observer-member.Of the Conference of avant-garde youth.' It maintains an observer in the Budapest headquarters of 'the communist World Federation of Democratic Youth.. ' SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 35 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 'SECRET/NO. FOREIGN DISSEM - SlItTZERLAND The only Swiss group which the European radicals seem to recognize as a member of the New Left is the Action Syndicale Universitaire (ASU), an association of French-speaking Swiss students (largely from Geneva, but with growing membership in Lausanne, Neuchatel, and elsewhere). ASU,is small; it follows UNEF's lead, SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 36 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C0-6548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � , SECRET/k0 FOREIGN DISSEM INTERNATIONAL .; PART I 1. 'Brussels Conference' of avant-garde youth drganizations The 'Brussels Conference' grew out of an effort to coordinate the anti-Vietnam war activities of a number of radical leftist youth organizations. Its first meeting, held following a demonstration in LAge, was in Brussels in March 1967. Its. membership consists of the following: Members: BELGIUM F4deration des Jeunes Gardes Socialistes Union des Etudiants Socialistes/ � � Bruxelles NETHERLANDS 'Politeia' - left-socialist student group Pacifistisch Socialistische Jongerenwerkgroep (PSJW) - Pacifist-Socialist Youth Working Group Socialistische Jeugd - left- sociali'st youth group GREAT BRITAIN Young Socialists of Labour/, ' 'Rebel' Group Young Socialists of Labour/ ; Mitcham Section GERMANY Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS) Die Falken ITALY' Falce Martello - described as the left-wing of the FGICI, the PCI's youth wing VANCE Jeunesse,Communiste R4vo1utionnaire ; .0bserYers: fFRANCE Etudiants Socialistes Unifies ' (PSU) I , i , 1 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM N : - 37 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 , SECRET/NO 'FOREIGN DISSEM ITALY . Federazione Giovanile/PSIUP CANADA - Young Socialist Forum UNITED STATES . Young Socialist Alliance (Trotskyist) At the Conference a program of demonstrations, posters, pamphlets, and bulletins was agreed to; a coordinating committee .composed of one delegate from each member was established.; a,secretariat was, at least nomina ly, set up in Brussels in the care of the FJGS. A second meeting, described as a meeting of the coordinating committee was held duting the SDS Congress in Frankfurt, �September 1967. This meeting adopted the Latin,Amertcan Solidarity Organization (LASO)as its own, and noting that since "those of Soviet and Chinese orientation were silent on the themes developed by that conference", it pledged itself to spread the Fidelista,line throughout Europe. Another of its decisions'was.to hold in Berlin an,international youth meeting onrVietnam, a plan ,which was received with some concern by the,Berlin-government and Allied military authorities (the meeting Was successfully held in February). 0:Among thoge.attending the Frankfurt meeting were representatives of SDS Germany, ESU/PSU France, JCR France, FG/PSIUP Italy,,Faice Martello Italy, FJGS Belgium; tIES Belgium, aid (a new addition) the Vietnam Solidarity Campaigh/Youth Section of Great Britain. A list of individuals who attended the Brussels Conference is available, unfortunately not giving the:national organizations wl4ch they represented., 2. European Student Committee for Peace in Vietnam On the reported initiative of the Austrian socialist youth (VSS1, the German socialist Student organization (SDS) held,a meeting in Frankfurt in February 1966 to establish the European Student Committee .for Peace in Vietnam. Attefiding at that meeting,wer,e representatives of: ITALY; FRANCE 1; ,1 Unione Goliardica d'Italia (UGI) Federation:Geherale des Etudiants des Lettres (FGEL) SECRET/No FOREIGN DISSEM - 38. Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - the student union of the Faculty of Letters of Paris, one of the most radical and active of French student unions GERMANY SDS AUSTRIA NETHERLANDS' . � ' SWEDEN DENMARK Observers: VSM-Socialist secondary school students group VSS-socialist university students group 'Politeia' - left-socialist student .group Clarte Socialisti*Studenterforbund - left-sodialist student forum NETHERLANDS ASVA - General Students Association of Amsterdam GERMANY LSD - ',Liberal Party students union SHB - Social-Democratic students union The headquarters staffing of this Committee was delegated to SDS. In fact little has happened under the name of this Committee and its.pfogram has been superseded by those of the avant-garde youth organization and the European Syndicalist Student Conference. Conf4rence des Etudiants Syndicalistes Europeens (CESE) 1 Prins Hendrikkade 13, Amsterdam, Netherlands The idea for a European regional meeting of !syndicalist' student groups apparently grew from the bilateral contacts and seminars held by SDS/Berlin and FGEL/Paris (student association of the faculty of Letters) in the period between late '65 and early '66. The first CESE SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM - 39 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � , SECRET/NO'FOREIGN DISSEM exploratory meeting was held in Geneva in June 1966, and a secOnd in December. The CESE was formally established at a meeting' in Brussels in March 1967. Attending this meeting were: BELGIUM ,h NETHiRLANDS . GERMANY FRANCZ SWITZERLAND Vereniging der Vlaamse"Studenten (VVS) Mouvement des Universitafres Belge de l'Expression Francaise (MUBEF) Union des Etudiants Socialistes CUES) Studentenverkbeweging (SVB) AStA/Berlin - student government . of the Tree University � controlled by SDS . Union Nationale des Etudiants de France (UNEF) Action Syndicale Universitaire (ASU) GREAT BRITAIN Radical Student Alliance (RSA) SPAIN .Sindicato Democratic� de Estudiantes de Espana (SDEE) PORTUGAL Secretariado dos Encontros de Estudiantes Portugueses ' no Estringeiro (SEEPE) IRELAND 'Union of Students of Ireland : (US1) ; � I t The purpose of � this organization is.to coordinate'and assist student participation in the democratization of education, "with all its political, social, and economic implications". Its intention is to create an intermediate bloc between East and West. Its all- consuming priority of the moment is Vietnam. A second meetirig of the CESE was held around September in Berlin, sponsored by AStA (read SDS). .Among the. decisions of that meeting was one to establish a provisional secretariat in AmsterdaM, facilities Provided SECRET/I19 FOREIGN DISSgM - 40'- Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � SECRET/i10 FOREIGN DISSEM by SVB Netherlands. 'Each member is permitted to send A representative to Amsterdam to staff the secretariat. Its head is Maartin ABELIN of SVB. PART II � VIETNAM PROTEST COMMUNITY There are not unexpectedly a number of formal international organizations and ad hoc gatherings on the Vietnam issue, ranging fromTWE Christian- pacifist International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IPOR) to the single-shot meeting in Brussels of "International Conference of Solialrity with the Vietnamese People" which collected an interesting group, of orthodox, pro-Soviet Communists, pro- Chinese communists, Trotskyists, left-socialists, New Leftists, and virtually every other shade of 'peieeniki,and 'vietnik'. 'A few of these are listed here for identification purposes. 4. Corps des Volontaires Civiles pour le Vietnam This appears to be.a Trotskyist initiative, though undoubtedly with the emotional �backing of a few of the mere radical sectors of the New Left. Sections of this planned international brigade are said to exist in France (Jacques GRIMBLAT)t, Switzerland (Marc-Henri TROLLIET), Denmark) Holland, and nascent units.plse0ere. The idea of international brigade, either fighting alongside the Viet Cong or working!,on civil reconstruction projects in the North,,has.,cropped up in the plans of organizations other than �those with Trotskyist influence. And these iorojects have been discussed at various points with D'AV and NLF Vietnamese. the official Vietnamese position hs been a polite 'no thanks', and it appears highly doubtful that any organized international brigade will be allowed to send members into Vietnam. Nonetheless as a political tactic, the Corps is an excellent idea which has proven a useful tool to radical leftists who seek to.establish their' militancy on the 'Vietnam quRstion, 4 � � t SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM . � S. 1 - 41 - 11: 8 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 606548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 SECRET/NO F'OREIGN DISSEM S. War Resisters' International (WRI) 88 Park Avenue, Enfield, Middlesex, Great Rritain WRI is an old.-line pacifist organization which was founded in 1921. Its program has consistently been one of opposition to all war and military service, and it has not hesitated to adopt extra-legal programs to further its objectives. One of its current programs has had a certain notoriety: inducement and assistance to U. S. military deserters. WRI has affiliates in most of the European ,countries and the . United States... (Its American affiliate, War Resisters' League, is'active here in the draft resistance program.).:.. Though the WRI does not refuse the Support of . communists, nor; of communist internationals (e.g., the World Council of Peace), it does not appear to contain, a significant communist faction. (An exception may be its German affiliate which local authorities have viewed with concern for some time.), Among its , international officers are such names as Danilo Dolci (Italy), Johan Galtung (Norway), Devi Prasad (India), and Bayard,Rustin (USA). 6. International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace (ICDP) Hendon Ave., London N. 3. � � The ICDP was cneated'to be a non-partislan international organization open to all organizationsfinterested in peace and.willing to "oppose the policies of any government, including its'. own, if they.depart from these objectives". Language of this type would seem to exclude.the.range of Communist fpni, instrumentalities in the peace field, and many of thelICAP's initial members consideted it to be the legitiMate replacement for the World Council of 'Peace, the ,international communist,fronti Several within the ICDP have nonetheles argued for cooperation 10.th the WCP, and the matter of relations with the WCP was decided not by formal approval of the' membership but by the . willingneSs of many of its top officers tb enter into cooperation and, by the natural mutuality of interest in opposition tO.American policy on-Vietnam.' The ICDP is probably the most influential- of the non- communist.peace,organizations, not so much as an organization in;its own right but ai the umbrella SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM ' ' � 42 - Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 Approved for Release: 2016/06/27 C06548833 � 11 SECRET/NO FOREIGN pissEm covering a score of important and effective national and international groups. Among the ICDP's affiliates are the WRI, the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, the various national Quaker pacifist units, various sections of the CND, the American SANE, etc. )1 SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEM -43- , Approved for Release: '2016/06/27 C06548833