Transformations and Crises

The Left and the Nation in Denmark and Sweden, 1956-1980
1. Auflage 2008
ISBN: 978-1-84545-366-4
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 2, 236 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 525 g

Reihe: Protest, Culture & Society

The Left in the 1960s and 1970s has a powerful, almost mythical, place in the history of the 20th century. It was during these decades that the radical Left managed to renew the language of socialism as an alternative to communism and liberalism alike, but also when radicalism often led to extremism and social movements turned into political sects. Focusing on the Left in Denmark and Sweden during those turbulent decades, this study pays close attention to the political language in the two countries and shows the constant challenge to the concepts of the Left in the face of rapid social, cultural and political changes. The precarious relationship between the Left and the nation serves as a starting point for the exploration of the development of the New Left after the break with communism, the subsequent student revolts and radicalization of the late 1960s until the movement’s apparent collapse at the end of the 1970s. This book illustrates the challenges the Left was facing in its attempt to articulate a credible political language at a time of social, cultural and political transformation.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jørgensen, Thomas Ekman

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Marxismus, Kommunismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

Comparison, Time and Narration – Methodological Remarks

What is the Left?

Going beyond Ideology

The Concept of Nation

Literature and Sources

Chapter 1. Communist Concepts in Crisis

The Communist Party – Leader of the People, Protector of the Country

The DKP – For the National Independence of the Danish People

The SKP – Completing Swedish Democracy

1956 and Beyond – Towards an Unclear Future

The Twentieth Congress of the CPSU

The Invasion of Hungary

More than One Communism – the International Perspective

Chapter 2. Adaptation and Innovation

Renewal of Communism

SF and the Danish New Left

The Open Marriage of Swedish Communism

Reinventing Internationalism

Third World Solidarity and Virtual Internationalism

Europe and Norden – the Regional Identity

Welfare, Culture and Class – the Domestic Aspect

The Pros and Cons of Welfare

Culture, Modernity, Alienation

Class and People

Chapter 3. Contesting Pragmatism

The Late 1960s and the Radical Youth

The Global Contestation.

Vietnam, America and the World Revolution

Vietnam in Denmark: from Moral Indignation to Revolutionary Consciousness

Vietnam in Sweden: the Leninist Renaissance

America and Anti-Americanism

Party Splits

Return of Europe

New European Threats, Fascism and Imperialism

1968!

Capitalism at Home – the End of Exceptionalism

Welfare or Capitalism

The Fascist Threat

Nordic Colonialism

Chapter 4. Turning Inwards

The Transformation of Capitalism and the Establishment of Estrangement

Splits on Common Ground, the ‘Groupuscules’ Phenomenon

Popular Movements Revisited

Return of the Working Class

Popular Culture

Revival of Nationalism

Revivalism and Conservatism

The End is Near!

Countries in Crisis

Chapter 5: The End of the Road

The End of Leftist Hegemony

The End of Progression

The Radical Trap

The Left on the Defensive

Chapter 6: Summary, Conclusions and Outlook

Summary: Transformations and Crises

Concepts and Crises

Outlook – the left in the 1980s

Militancy and Pragmatism – the Danish left

Alternative Roads, Beyond Left and Right in Sweden

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Jørgensen, Thomas Ekman
Thomas Ekman Jørgensen received his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, in 2004. He has published a number of articles on the left in the 1960s and 1970s, on comparative European history and on youth movements around the Great War. In 2008, he published 1968 – og det der fulgte (1968 – and that which came after) together with Steven L. B. Jensen. He presently lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Thomas Ekman Jørgensen received his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, in 2004. He has published a number of articles on the left in the 1960s and 1970s, on comparative European history and on youth movements around the Great War. In 2008, he published 1968 – og det der fulgte (1968 – and that which came after) together with Steven L. B. Jensen. He presently lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.