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New Left

The New Left was a broad political movement that emerged from the counterculture of the 1960s and continued through the 1970s. It consisted of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as feminism, gay rights, drug policy reforms and the rejection of traditional family values, social order, and gender roles.[1] The New Left differs from the traditional left in that it tended to acknowledge the struggle for various forms of social justice, whereas previous movements prioritized explicitly economic goals. However, many have used the term "New Left" to describe an evolution, continuation, and revitalization of traditional leftist goals.[2][3][4]

For other uses, see New Left (disambiguation).

Some who self-identified as "New Left"[5] rejected involvement with the labor movement and Marxism's historical theory of class struggle,[6] although others gravitated to their own takes on established forms of Marxism, such as the New Communist movement (which drew from Maoism) in the United States or the K-Gruppen[a] in the German-speaking world. In the United States, the movement was associated with the anti-war college-campus protest movements, including the Free Speech Movement.

Latin America[edit]

The New Left in Latin America can be loosely defined as the collection of political parties, radical grassroots social movements (such as indigenous movements, student movements, mobilizations of landless rural workers, afro-descendent organizations and feminist movements), guerilla organizations (such as the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions) and other organizations (such as trade unions, campesino leagues and human rights organizations) that comprised the left between 1959 (with the beginning of the Cuban Revolution) and 1990 (with the fall of the Berlin Wall).[16]


Influential Latin American thinkers such as Francisco de Oliveira argued that the United States used Latin American countries as "peripheral economies" at the expense of Latin American society and economic development, which many saw as an extension of neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism.[17]


The New Left in Latin America sought to go beyond existing Marxist–Leninist efforts at achieving economic equality and democracy to include social reform and address issues unique to Latin America such as racial and ethnic equality, indigenous rights, the rights of the environment, demands for radical democracy, international solidarity, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism and other aims.[16]

Globally[edit]

Australia[edit]

In Australia, the New Left was engaged in debates concerning the legitimacy of heterodox economics and political economy in tertiary education.[76] This culminated in the establishment of an independent department of political economy at the University of Sydney.[77][78]

Brazil[edit]

The Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT) is considered the main organization to emerge from the New Left in Brazil. According to Manuel Larrabure, "rather than taking the path of the old Latin American left, in the form of the guerrilla movement, or the Stalinist party", PT decided to try something new, while being aided by CUT and other social movements. Its challenge was to "combine the institutions of liberal democracy with popular participation by communities and movements". However, PT has been criticized for its "strategic alliances" with the right wing after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected president of Brazil. The party has distanced itself from social movements and youth organizations and for many it seems the PT's model of a new left is reaching its limits.[79]

China[edit]

The concept of New Left in China originates from the academic debate between "New Left" and "liberal" in the 1990s, both of which are common ideological labels in the Chinese mainland context.[80] In this context, the term "New Left" is often used to describe a faction that focuses on the continued widening of the urban-rural gap in the post-Deng Xiaoping era and calls for a critical re-evaluation of the legacy of the Mao era (including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution) in response to the current situation.[81] The so-called Chinese New Left differs greatly from the Western New Left and is difficult to define clearly.[81] Under the one-party dictatorship, no "faction" in China can make political waves, so some scholars doubt the existence of a genuine New Left in China.[82]

Japan[edit]

The New Left in Japan began by occupying college campuses for several years in the 1960s, culminating in the 1968–69 Japanese university protests. After 1970, they splintered into several freedom fighter groups including the United Red Army and the Japanese Red Army. They also developed the political ideology of Anti-Japaneseism.

Teodori, Massimo, ed., The New Left: A documentary History. London: Jonathan Cape (1970).

Oglesby, Carl (ed.) The New Left Reader Grove Press (1969).  83-456-1536-8. Influential collection of texts by Mills, Marcuse, Fanon, Cohn-Bendit, Castro, Hall, Althusser, Kolakowski, Malcolm X, Gorz & others.

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