'aqo l4

GERMAN RADICAL
UNIVERSITIES

BERLIN (CPS)—The paradox
of being a “radical Student" is
that you have to belong to a
university, which almost auto.
maticaliy makes you un-radical.
’At the same time, the univei‘u
lity is considered the ideal
place to “radicaliz " others.

This paradox has been es-
pecially numbing in Germany,
whose public is still going
through a thank-God-we’re-not-
extremist—any-more stage. Most
people are scared to death of
radicalism on the right or left,
Including most of the faculty
In even the most “progressive"
universities.

Until recently, the students
thought the Free University of
Berlin would be a good comprm
miss. The teachers were young

and internationally recruited,

the students were shrewd, and

there was plenty of money.
But it wasn't good enough.

Just over two months ago
2,000 Free University students
met in the Auditorium Main
imum on its Dahlcm campus
to begin a “Critical University"
Io fill what they called the “pm
Iitical vacuum” In German stu-
dent life and to get out of the
“radical student" paradox.

The Critical University (CU)
Is a “concrete utopia to give
continuing and relevant political
Instruction," according to the
University of Hamburg student
newspaper, Auditorium. The
magazine Der Spiegel describes
it as “a mixture of Marx, Mao
and Marouse.”

SCARLET AND BLACK

Herbert Marcuse is the Ger-
man-born philosopher who says
that a society devoted to liber-
alism—free and reasoned do
hate, “equal time” for opposing
sides—can never undergo rad-
ical change and has no place
for radical solutions. In this
way, he argues, the “liberal"
society is more suffocating than
the “conservative” one.

The (CU) is really a politicah
l oriented Free University.

rolessors are invited into
classes as participants rather
than lecturers. The students
control the curriculum and con-
tent. Courses have names like
“History of Revolution" and
“Advertising and Educational
Reform."

There are no degrees, and the
students contribute what they
can to keep it going.

The Critical University of
Berlin didn't so much grow out
of a desire for student power
as a desire to make radicals
—the paradox once again, it

wasn't that the established Gen
man universities had too much
powerino one interested in pnl-
ltics took them too seriously—
but that radicals can't grow in a
seedbed of liberalism.

The issues confronting the
German radicals are much the
same as those In Americal the
overriding concern is the rise
of the military-industrial oom-
plex. To investigate the bur-
geonlng power in the Generals
in Germany, the CU in Ham-
burg recently invited “Der
Spiegel” military editor Carl-
Gideon Von Claet‘ to a “class“
and mercilessly pumped him
for Information on (he’stnio-
tum of Germany‘s Armed
Forces and their covert and
overt relations with German
businessmen.

The CU seems to be more an
anarchist organization than any
kind of hard-line socialist or
communist one, Certainly there
are communists in it, and
everyone says he's a socialistl

Friday. January 16. I“

but there is more a commit-
ment to "general revolution"
than to something like the spa-
cifiu overthrow of Germany‘s
government.

American radicals differ from
their European counterparts in
this respecti they are much
more mncemed with the elim-
ination—one way or another—
of the Johnson government.

(of course, you could say that
they are brothers-under-thin
suds in a way, since the Euros
pean radicals would like to get
rid of the Johnson government
too.)

The Idea of the Critical or
Counter-University has been
adopted in some form in Berlin,
Muenster, Frankfurt, Hamburg,
Main: and Heidelberg in Ger.
many, as well as in Amsterdam
and London, The idea is expects
ed to blossom in other Euro<
pean cities, and Is therefore
certain to guarantee broad-
based “student power" all over
the continent,

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' ' ° ' INTERNATIONAL DISPATGH ’ ' ' ' ' NEWSFEATURES ’ ' ' ' ' INTERNATIONAL DISPATGH‘ ' ' '

-———————___

i By MARK COMMER
LIBERATION News Servlcl

Talk to a young French left-
Ist today and he'll tell you that
France is the only country with
a truly "matuie left.“

Talk to a journalist, some
what older and more skeptical,
and he’ll tell you sadly, "La
France, helas, c'est la Sulsse”
— that is, it has no politics at
all.

And to a young American
leftist, who is in no position to
boast of his country’s radical
tradition, what the French
choose to call mature politics
often seems to be more rightly
dulled “senile."

The left finds Itself in a pe-
culiarly ambivalent position
under do Gaulle. They may
dislike the imperial person-
ality of “le grand Charles,"
but they filld that his nine-
teenth . century notions of
French empire sometimes
make for good politics, at least
abroad. He Is, after all, they
tell you, the only Western lead-
er to give the United States a
little of what it deserves, His
overt opposition to the Vietnam
war, for example, and his
condemnation of israei in the
lune sixday war winclde very
well with the views of many on
the French lefti As a result,
do Gaulle's enlightened foreign
policy creates an Internal po-
lltical atmosphere conducive to
leftist anti-war activity.

De GAULLE DOMINATES

At the same time, however,
'de Gaulle’s overwhelming dom-
Inance in French politics has
made opposition and resistance
into a game and a pose more
than an effective political life.
Be Gaulle's domestic policies
lerve to enhance the status of
private capitalism, and do less
than nothing to Change the rig-
id and hierarchical structure
ol French society.

RecenL changes in the French
educational system, for exam<
ple, make it even more diffi-
cult than before for lower and
oven middle-income students to

FRANCE A M GAUCIIE

gain scholarships to the uni-
versities. in a country with
limited resources, an aggres-
sive policy abroad is gotten at
the price of repressive politics
at home,

The stagnancy and impotence
of the left is due in part to the
domineering presence of the
French Communist Party
(PCF), a bureaucracy of nine
million members whose aspira<
tions are only a little more
revolutionary than those of
Lyndon Johnson's Democratic
Party. As the largest function.
ing political party In France,
the PCF dominates activity on
the left; and because of Its
conservatism, It seldom pre‘
sents a significant challenge to
the fundamental political and
social structure of the country.
Its problems are compounded
by its rigid ideological stance
and its schizophrenic political
personality. 0 win g loyalties
culturally to France, but doc-
trinally to the soviet Union, the
PCF defines itself by taking pi»
sitions consistently contrary to
those of the Gaullist govern-
ment. Defenders of the Com-
munist Party point out, how-
ever, that if the PCF were any
more revolutionary, it would
lose three-quarters of its mem<
bership.

There is also a Federation of
the Left (Federation de la
Gauche), an amalgam of
smaller leftist parties and {ac-
tions including several varie-
ties oi socialism.

But the Federation is unfor-
tunately so deeply men by in-
ternal disputes that its public
face is hesitant and tentative
at best.

i was present In Nantes dur<
ing a one-day, nation-wide gen<
eral strike against the govern.
ment in mid-December. Called
by the Confederation Genel'alel
ties Travailleurs and other mas
jar labor unions (principally
Communist), the strike was
given advance publicity in all

French newspapers with the
matter-ef—factness of a notice of
work stoppage due to oecnical
difﬁculties.

in Nantes, the strike began
with a demonstration in a public
square at ten o’clock in the
morning. Representatives of
each union paraded before the
microphone, demanding higher
salaries and a larger share at
the national wealth, while a few
hundred workers stood by talk-
ing idly among themselves, and
a few hundred university stu-
dents busled themselves with
their revolutionary banners. At
10:30 the microphone went dead
(apparently the strike had
reached the electric workers as
well).

As we began to march, stu<
dents hoisted their banners and
began a chorus of the Commur
nist Internationale; the workers
grabbed their bicycles and
mopeds and folowed alongside.
There were no bystanders to be
seen; most merchants had tak-
en a one~day holiday, an extend-
ed weekend. In Neighborhood
banks, tellers joked to one an-
other that they would run out
of candles if the electrical work
ers kept striking so often.

“WORKERS AND
STUDENTS UNITE"

Events did not go according
to plan. As we approached the
Prefecture, where our demands
were to be presented to the ap-
propriate authorities, titers en-
sued a huddled conference at
the front of the marching col.
umn among the union leaders.
The march proceeded past the
Prefecture, slowed for an ill-
stant hesitantly, then moved on
and turned up a narrow side
street. The svudents were dis-
mayed, outraged; they shouted
after the laborers, “Workers
with students, pulled together!"
The workers‘ contingent disap-
peared around a corner, Be<
wildered and indignant, Ihe stu-
dents returned to the Prelim"
lure, chanted slogans for sev-

eral minutes in front of two
vaguely amused gendarntes
(“More scholarshipsl") and

disbanded. As we made our
way back to the snack bar to
eat a late breakfast, one stu-
dent lnmented that his banner
was beginning to lose its color,
after so many rainy - day
marches.

Such are the maladies of a
Left so profoundly institutional-
ized that it has lost its sense
of urgency, a Left so rigidly
ideological and traditional that
it has lost all touch with chang-
ing political and social condi-
tions, The notion of “lnevltabil-
ity" in classical Marxism has
led many students to believe
that the great proletarian NW
olution will come of its own am
cord; that It is consequently
sufficient simply to “go
through the motions" of pro
testing.

it is also very fashionable to
be a leftist, even if one's con-
victions are more rhetorical
that real. “Being left in
French universities is a way or
testifying to your intelligence,"
explains one student with
gentle sarcasm.

LES CHINOIS
AND TKOTSKYISTS

There are, fortunately, par-
ties other than the Patti Conl-
muniste Francais in the French
Left. “Les cliiiiois,” the Mao~
lsts, have become very numen
bus in recent years, and often
engage in pitch battles with
Commiinist- Party members at
public demonstrations. There
occasional eccentrics are sat-
ii-izcd in a recent film by Jean‘
Luc Goddard, “La Cliiiioise,"
and he has since been dilly
branded a “reactionary.”

The rotskyists are also eX<
perlencing a great revival of
late, and their literature can be
distinguished from that of the
PCP by both its militant rhe-
toric and its urgent calls for

I Fourth international. Tha list
could go on to include all other
imaginable doctrinal schisms,
most of which appear minor,
even unreal, to tho outsideri
Ultimately, such factions seem

to cancel one another out he<
cause so much of their energy
is taken in defending ideologi.
cal differences over coffee in
a Paris cafe.

Those French leftists with
whom I spoke were surprising
ly charitable towards the Ameri-
can left, though condescending.
We are very energetic, they say,
but still very immature: we lack'
both numbers and institutional
structures (parties). Without the
discipline organization of a pap
ty, they argue, we can never
hope to confront and replace
institutionalized power as it ex-
ists. ideologically, we are “un-
sophisticated;” we have still
not grasped the essential notion
that the revolution will come
from the workers, and from no-
where else. it is for that rea.
son that they give far greater
credence to the black movement
In the United States than to the
white, White middle~ciass stu<
dents have too great it stake in
the power structure to become
truly revolutionary. What we
have neglected is the latent dis<
content of the farmer and lac-
tory laborer. While that may be
so, it seems unlikely that an
American revolution will de-
velop along classic Marxist
lines, given the political history
of the American labor muve<
merit.

The situation is not all so
bleak as it first appears to be.
For allot its infighting, the
French left is Still more alive
and active than that of England
(who'd), in addition, the French
are not presently living in a
political atmosphere poielttially
so revolutionary as ours in the
United States. Authority presses
down upon the French citizen
as well, but it IS a more banal
oppression, [as visible, and for
the moment less harsh.

 

