Week 14

Chapter 29: Protest and Stagnation: the Western World, 1965 – 1985

Between 1945 AND 1965, Europe not only overcame the devastating effects of World War II but actually experienced an economic recovery that seemed nothing less than miraculous to many people. Economic growth and virtually full employment continued so long that the first post–World War II recession in 1973 came as a shock to Western Europe. In 1968, Europe had experienced a different kind of shock. May 1968 is now remembered as a historic month because of events in Paris. A student revolt erupted at the University of Nanterre outside Paris but soon spread to the Sorbonne, the main campus of the University of Paris, where about five hundred students gathered for demonstrations and demanded a greater voice in the administration of the university. The authorities decided to react with force and arrested a number of demonstrators, although as one police officer said, ‘‘To tell the truth, we were not enthusiastic about it if we could avoid it, knowing too well, from experience, that our interventions created more problems than they solved.’’ Indeed, the students fought back, prying up paving stones from the streets to use as weapons. On May 3, eighty policemen and about three hundred students were hurt; almost six hundred students were arrested. Demonstrations then spread to other universities, which served to embolden the students in Paris. On the night of May 10, barricades, formed by overturned cars, went up in the streets of Paris. When police moved in to tear down the barricades, violence ensued. One eyewitness recounted: ‘‘A young girl came rushing out into the street practically naked and was manhandled from one cop to another; then beaten like the other wounded students.’’ Students expanded the scale of their protests by inviting workers to support them. Half of the French workforce went on strike in May 1968. After de Gaulle’s government instituted a hefty wage hike, the workers returned to work, and the police repressed the remaining student protesters. The year 1968 saw widespread student protests around the world, and for a brief moment, students and radicals everywhere believed the time had come for a complete renovation of society and government. But the moment passed, and the Western world was left with the new order created in the twenty years after World War II. In Eastern Europe, the crushing of Czechoslovakia in 1968 by Soviet troops left Eastern Europeans with little choice but to remain as Soviet satellites. In Western Europe, democracies continued to evolve. But everywhere, resignation and stagnation seemed to prevail as the new order established in the Western world during the twenty years after World War II appeared to have become permanent: a prosperous, capitalistic West and an impoverished Communist East.