To:
Cc: suri@wisc.edu
Subject: Response to comments on Suri's _Power and Protest_

I would like to thank Greg Eghigian, Michael Kazin, Brad Simpson, Jeremy Varon,
and others for their thoughtful comments on the issues raised in _Power and
Protest_. I am delighted to find so many people interested in
internationalizing our understanding of the 1960s.  I have learned a
lot from the interchange about both the methodology and the substance of
international history.

Eghigian points out that an international approach to this period does
not negate the importance of local "micro-histories." Instead,
it offers a larger context for understanding the transfer of ideas,
policies, and institutions. Michael Kazin aptly reminds us that the
social movements of the 1960s did not only occur on the "Left."
In nearly every society, especially the United States and Western Europe,
there were important "Rightist" movements that emerged during
this period to challenge status quo politics and "New Left"
radicalism. As many recent contributors to the H-1960s list have noted,
the "New Right" was another kind of radicalism that gained
traction during the 1960s. Brad Simpson's comments remind us that both
"Left" and "Right" were part of a global economy ("world system") that faced
challenges from decolonizing states and declining economic growth in the late
1960s. Jeremy Varon acknowledges this point, but also affirms the continued
importance of the Cold War context, and the particular challenges that the
largest Cold War states and societies confronted.

I would like to focus my comments on two particular questions that run through
many of the postings:. First, how should we situate the history of the 1960s?
Second, what were the legacies of the 1960s? Both of these
questions strike at the heart of how we assess the period, where we place
historical agency, and how we remember (and forget) the period in our
contemporary politics.

Starting with the first question, I agree with Eghigian and Kazin that many of
the trends and developments in the 1960s were not unique to this period.
Eghigian, in particular, points to the role of social activists and the
subjectification of politics as long-term 20th century phenomenon. Kazin
reminds us that since the 18th century the "Left" has generally thought of
itself as an international movement. This is all true, but I do not think one
can escape the confluence of these forces with two factors that made the 1960s
so uniquely explosive. The stark
contradiction between heightened Cold War promises and stalemated Cold
War politics simultaneously raised and frustrated popular expectations.
The extraordinary expansion in higher education across all major
societies (the startling statistics are in my book) provided a fertile
youth cohort for organization and protest on behalf of unfulfilled
political promises. This, I think, explains the simultaneous emergence of
powerful "New Left" and "New Right" movements in various states. Young people
were uniquely empowered to pursue new avenues to social and political change
that challenged a delegitimized Cold War status quo. This was a revolt against
the Cold War -- a point emphasized by "Leftist" and "Rightist" groups in the
US, Europe, and parts of Asia. Brad Simpson is surely correct to remind us of
the importance of decolonization, economics, and local developments far from
the center of Cold War conflict. These are important elements of the period
that demand more investigation, but they run parallel (not against) the
fundamental transformation of society and politics that I see occurring within
the largest Cold War states in the 1960s.

With regard to legacies, there is, of course, a lot of ground for
disagreement. Eghigian persuasively argues that the revolutions of 1989
in Eastern Europe were, to some extent, an extension of social activism
in the 1960s. Vaclav Havel, Adam Michnik, and even Mikhail Gorbachev have
made strong references to the 1960s in their reflections. Brad Simpson
also points to a "second great age of international social politics" that began
after the 1960s with the New Social Movements -- including Green politics,
landless worker movements, international human rights activism, etc. These
observations highlight the continued resonance of activist urges from the
1960s, but I do not think that they run against my contention about post-1960s
political disengagement. Across societies, young people (even those who
consider themselves
activists) are less engaged with national politics. They do not vote in
high numbers, they do not follow politics closely, and, most important,
they do not believe in politics. Cynicism has produced a political
passivity that channels activist urges into other spheres, mostly
cultural. This does not diminish the work of contemporary activists, but
it does point to a qualitative difference in political engagement today
versus the 1960s.

In _Power and Protest_ I make the case that this international political
disengagement was furthered and deepened by detente. Leaders like Richard
Nixon, Mao Zedong, Leonid Brezhnev, and Willy Brandt used a new set of
international agreements to stabilize their relations and isolate their
policies from public criticism. Within the context of detente, an attack
on political leaders was defined as an attack on peace and progress in
international relations. Detente served important moral and political
purposes, but it also emphasized social stability against
"dangerous" internal protest urges. Jeremy Varon aptly
challenges me for underestimating the progressive urges of detente
(German unification, nuclear arms control, etc.) and under-analyzing how
detente actually created quiescence among protesters. Varon persuasively
calls for a "mezzo level through which detente functioned as a kind
of political buffer." I do not disagree with Varon, and I would like
to see more research on the mediation between "high" and
"low" politics (Eghigian makes a similar call). That said, what
I have tried to demonstrate is not that protesters were persuaded by the
rhetoric of detente, but instead that they were isolated and undermined
by this rhetoric. It was harder to mobilize against Richard Nixon than
Lyndon Johnson because Nixon promised to get out of Vietnam, he pursued
peaceful relations with traditional Cold War enemies, and he promised
stability to a large number of citizens who longed for an end to the
contention around them. Similar things could be said for Leonid Brezhnev,
Willy Brandt, and Mao Zedong in the 1970s. This does not mean that
citizens actively supported their leaders (they didn't), but they came to
believe that they should pursue change in other ways. Detente made it
more difficult to mobilize, articulate, and pursue social change. This
was not a conspiracy. It was, I argue, part of a larger project for
international political stability authored by leaders who felt similarly
threatened by what Nixon called the "war at home."

Our collective reflections on these issues highlight the excitement of
examining the history of the 1960s from an international angle. Work from
this perspective does not neglect the many superb books written with a
more local and national focus. An international history of the 1960s can
raise new questions about broader trends and transformations. It can also
reinvigorate debates about the origins, nature, and consequences of
social activism and political policy-making during this crucial period. I
thank all the readers and contributors to H-1960s for providing a forum
where we can discuss these issues in an educated, thoughtful, and
mutually supportive spirit.

Jeremi Suri
Assistant Professor
Department of History
University of Wisconsin
3211 Humanities Building
455 North Park Street
Madison, WI 53706
(608) 263-1852
suri@wisc.edu
Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Detente
(Harvard University Press, 2003).
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SURPOW.html

2003-2004 National Fellow
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6010
(650) 725-3432

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