11 - The dialectics of liberation: the old left, the new left and the counter-culture

Summary

Our play's chief aim has been to take to bits

great propositions and their opposites

see how they work then let them fight it out …

Peter Weiss, Marat/Sade (1965)

In applying this pronouncement from Marat/Sade to the historical context of its first English-language production in London in the mid-1960s, the first ‘great proposition’ to consider is that of the old left. This is understood here as referring to a range of views, shaped by the Bolshevik revolution and the inter-war economic crisis, broadly in favour of organised labour pressing for a centrally planned economy and state-administered social provision. There may have been disagreements about how quickly this could be achieved, the role of vanguards and mass parties in bringing it about, and the degree of egalitarianism in the outcome. However, all those who subscribed to this proposition stressed the same notions of the main agent and the main direction of change, rooted in nineteenth-century materialism of either the Marxist or the Revisionist variety.

The parliamentary old left was widely seen as confronting a serious crisis of social change and political realignment as a result of the affluence associated with the long period of economic growth after 1945. Full employment, a shift from manual to non-manual occupations, new residential patterns and increasing access to consumer goods were thought to be undermining older habits and loyalties, contributing to the Labour Party's defeat in three successive general elections during the 1950s.