04/05/2023
MAY 68, THE REVOLT SEEN BY THOSE WHO LIVED IT
This month marks the 55th anniversary of May 1968, which went down in world history as the month in which students demonstrated their intention to transform the world.
Influenced by new ideals, students started protests against the educational system and against capitalist society.
These protests were the result of a world that was in an uproar, as remarkable events contributed to popular unrest in different parts of the world, reinforced by the desire for changes that this student movement provoked.
The United States was swept by protests against the Vietnam War and underwent significant transformations in the fight against racism, Czechoslovakia was agitated by a reformism that sought to democratize the Soviet influence in the country (known as the Prague Spring), in Germany there were student protests in Berlin and in Brazil and the rest of Latin America, right-wing military dictatorships were being fought.
May 1968 mobilized millions of students and workers who stopped France and marked generations of people in defense of changes in society.
These events reinforced left-wing-inspired rhetoric among students. The influential current was the Maoist one, since 1966, China was going through the Cultural Revolution, in which Mao Tsé-Tung mobilized students to defend it under the motto of combating “old ideas”.
The Cultural Revolution became a fashion and inspired students because the excesses committed by Mao Tsé-Tung during the 10 years of that revolution were not yet known.
Although student mobilizations were influenced by global events, there were also problems related to French society itself that served as catalysts. There were dissatisfactions with unemployment, which was on the rise in the 1960s, with the French educational system and with Charles De Gaulle's government.
French universities still operated under very conservative norms and most professors were considered very reactionary and teaching would not be able to meet the demands of the new generations.
In France, the increase in the number of foreign students enabled the strengthening of the student movement and protests against the educational system.
In March 1968, the students decided to occupy the rectory of the University of Paris in Nanterre. At that moment, the Mouvement du 22 Mars was born, under the leadership of Daniel Cohn-Bendit.
The student protest in Nanterre only ended after the arrival of the police. New protests followed during the months of March and April, and police action was based on cruelty, which angered the students.
The demonstrations began on May 2, 1968, when students started a protest against the decision to carry out the separation of dormitories for girls and boys in Nanterre (currently one of the thirteen units of the University of Paris). Students involved in the protests were threatened with expulsion by the university administration and, the next day, new protests took place.
That same day, the administration of the university in Nanterre decided to close the campus and threatened to expel students participating in the protests.
The following day, this movement was joined by the students of the University of Sorbonne and the protests became increasingly violent in the streets of Paris. Dozens of barricades were built and the number of prisoners and wounded increased.
New demands were added to the student demands and the strength of the movement grew because they now had the support of the workers.
The unions decided to call a general strike and joined the strike. That May, in France, 10 million workers were on strike, occupying factories and taking control of production.
The workers' adherence to the student protests forced the De Gaulle government to negotiate.
The government, union representatives and businessmen sat down at the table to discuss conditions for workers to return to work. Negotiations lasted throughout the month of May and ended with the signing of the Grenelle Agreement, with workers obtaining various benefits, such as salary increases and a reduction in working hours.
The government negotiated with the workers, but the students remained firm in their mobilization. In the streets of Paris students expressed their intentions and dissatisfactions. Messages against capitalism and the government were common. One of the most popular expressions of that period was “it is forbidden to forbid”.
The problem with May 68 was that it was basically a Maoist movement while the working class was almost exclusively adherent to the non-Maoist left, which led to limited support for students.
In the context of the student movement of the 1960s, Maoism was harmful as they often adopted a sectarian and dogmatic approach, rejecting other forms of activism and labelling other groups as "revisionist". This led to divisions and conflicts within the student movement itself, weakening it as a whole.
The Maoists advocated violent tactics and alienated other groups that might be allied to the cause. This limited the student movement's ability to achieve its goals and become a true agent of social change, leading to the movement's marginalization from society at large.
In Portugal, students from the non-Maoist left coordinated the student movement with a more discreet, effective and consistent strategy, led by the R.I.A. (Inter-Association Meetings) which was an organization that operated underground as a federation of student associations, as we still lived in a non-democratic state.
But with the boom of Maoism, which emerged in the 60s, they also suffered attacks from supporters of Mao's ideology, which ended up slowly being exhausted in the aftermath of April 25th.
Armando Goulartt
(former RIA Secretary for Propaganda and Exchange)
