[PEN-L:3910] The Vietnam War Era and the Sixties

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Peter Bohmer:
>"The War Within" by Tom Wells

I want to endorse this book beyond use in the classroom. I have never read
anything that comes close to describing the ins and outs of the antiwar
movement. Wells follows a very interesting method. He interviews many of
the participants and ruling class politicians to see how they view things
in retrospect. He manages to politically and psychologically disarm people
like the Rostows, Rusk, etc., in a way that is nothing short of
astonishing. Many of the antiwar activists are ex-SWP'ers, who along with
the CP and the pacifists, formed the shaky, organizational tripod that was
responsible for the mass demonstrations. They have a much clearer
perspective on things nowadays.

In general much of the turmoil in the antiwar movement had to do with the
SWP's "single issue" approach versus the CP/pacifist emphasis on
"multi-issue", which was always interpreted as a ruse to support Democratic
Party doves. Split after split took place around these questions. I think
if the SWP had been less ideologically brittle, such splits might have been
avoided. But, on the other hand, it was its zealotry which provided the
initial impetus to get people marching in the first place. The SDS'ers
nearly buckled when pressure from liberals and Social Democrats was
mounting to call off the first demo in Washington in 1965, but SWP'ers
applied pressure from the other side.


Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)