In May, 1968, France was saved from revolution not primarily by de Gaulle and his generals but by the French Communist Party. Nine million striking workers occupied the factories. Militants among the students and young unemployed workers had proven themselves more than ready to play the role of vanguard at the barricades. The peasantry had begun to move from passive grumbling to direct action, fearful that the end of agricultural tariffs in July would further depress their hard lot. Even the middleclass professionals, disenchanted with the hierarchical rigidities and the olympian paternalism of Gaullist society had risen to assert their rights to free expression and meaningful participation. All means of communication and transport and all financial agencies were either directly or indirectly under the control of the workers. At will they could have deprived Paris and other cities of food, water, fuel, electricity and gas.

InCanada, more perhaps than in any other country, the 1960's have seen such a quantitative change in higher education that it must be judged a qualitative change as well. A significant number of new universities, including my own York University, Toronto, have come into being, and most recently a system of community colleges has been created to cope with the large number of students who wish to proceed beyond high school but who are unable to obtain university places. In my province of Ontario the number of students attending university has doubled in the past four years. Five years from now it will have doubled again.

The ascension to power of Chile's Christian Democratic Party (PDC) in 1964 generated a great deal of optimism on the future of Latin American politics. Eduardo Frei Montalva, the party's successful presidential candidate, was a thoughtful, politically astute intellectual who preferred careful analysis to florid demagoguery. To a continent enamored of ideologies, his movement proposed a social-Christian value system rooted in individual dignity, in the uniqueness of the human being, in economic pluralism, and in social and political democracy. Roman Catholicism with which the Christian Democrats were associated, but not officially connected, was one of the “few crosscutting and unifying forces” in Latin America and served to legitimize the movement with both traditional and modernizing elites. Frei's party evinced a mass membership with a branch structure3 linked to auxiliary agencies (which provide medical, dental, legal services, and the like). It relied on an efficient, paid bureaucracy rather than a coterie of notables to operate the organizational apparatus; public opinion polls rather than uninformed guesses to chart political strategy; dues and voluntary contributions rather than ”mordidas” and graft for financial sustenance; and specialized organs rather than personalism to aggregate such increasingly important sectors as women, peasants, urban poor, and students under the Christian Democratic standard.

ForSome reason, understandable by Providence only, it was decided that the most ancient member of Phi Beta Kappa roundabout should talk for a while to the second group of students elected to nearly the youngest chapter of the Society. I consider it an imposition on you but insofar as I am concerned it is an honor. To be sure, there really is no generation gap here insofar as Notre Dame is concerned. It could have had a chapter long ago had it not been for temporary obscurantism in high places. I like to think that the spirits of the distinguished men of learning and inquiry who lived on this campus during times long past, Zahm, Nieuwland and Scheier among them, may be watching in Our Town fashion what we are doing this day. Perhaps Emerson, in spite of his absentmindedness, has come along to join them. For it was he who fixed the imprint of approval on the whole enterprise.

InOurDay, the concept of progress has fallen into disfavor in philosophical and scientific circles, although most people ordinarily seem to take it for granted, in an unanalyzed fashion. There is some reason for its rejection by the more thoughtful; in most of its expressions it was accepted in what now seems rather simplistic terms with regard to its nature and certainty. Without some idea of progress, however, an age dominated by radical change may lack any standard by which to evaluate its condition and tendencies. Furthermore, the idea of progress, and of a meaningful history, was not always presented in oversimplified terms. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a singular figure in the French revolutionary tradition, developed in the middle of the last century a complex and flexible thought about progress in history, and attention to his now little-known ideas may help us save the concept for political analysis and practice.

Gandhi (1869–1948) is known primarily as the leader who led the national movement for the freedom of India from British rule; he also has an important place in social theory. “The only nonofficial figure,” says Louis Fischer, “comparable to Gandhi in his effect on man's mind is Karl Marx.” His Collected Works, including his speeches, writings, and letters, have appeared in thirty volumes with some forty more scheduled for publication. The more important of his writings from the point of view of social theory are found in two weekly journals which he edited, Young India (1919–32) and Harijan (1933–48); his social and political ideas can also be gleaned from Hind Swaraj (1908) or Indian Home Rule, The Story of My Experiments With Truth (2 vols. 1927, 1929), Delhi Diary (1948), and Satyagraha in South Africa (1950).

Marx had a specific theory about the nature of non-European societies, and this theory determined his views on the conditions and possibilities of industrialization and modernization in non-Western countries. Yet this theory is hardly known, though it is extremely interesting and sometimes contradicts the more sweeping and general claims made on behalf of Marxism as a universal philosophy of history. Marx elaborated his views on the nature of the non-European world in numerous articles and letters, discussed it in Capital and the Critique of Political Economy, and based his conclusions on a mass of economic, historical, and sociological data. This theory is worthwhile studying both for those who are interested in Marx and for those studying modernization: it has its own difficulties, but it sheds an intriguing light on some of Marx's best insights into historical development and may help to correct some of the current models of modernization.

The surge toward Asian regional cooperation is important for the Asian policy of all nations because it is indigenous and it is effective. In a very real sense this cooperation is effective because it involves bricks and mortar as well as ideas and spirit. Additional strength is injected by Japan's substantial support of regional cooperation in Southeast Asia as a new force in Asia.

It is not surprising that the United States produced a Socialist Party; it would be astonishing if one had not developed. American history is filled with radical and protest parties, ranging through every shade of the political spectrum and sharing the conviction that the major parties did not or would not represent their particular interests.

HerbertMarcuse has been called the philosopher of the New Left. If this title is warranted—and I believe it is—then we have in the New Left not only a rejection of American society, but a rejection of the traditions of Western civilization. What is remarkable, however, is that the New Left can disrupt colleges and universities, the guardians of civilization, and frequently be assured of apologists within those very colleges and universities. Herbert Marcuse is not one of their apologists so much as one of their teachers. What lures many of these innocents and not-so-innocents to his teaching is its utopianism. This utopianism appears to provide an attractive alternative to American society. It is seemingly based on a solid and comprehensive critique of contemporaryliberalism and the conservative vestiges of nineteenth-century liberalism. It condemns not only economic but intellectual and moral laissez-faire. And yet, as we shall see, this new utopianism is itself rooted in the underlying principle of modern liberalism, a principle which Marcuse develops to its ultimate logical conclusion and, in so doing, poses a threat to the very existence of civilized society.

GeorgeVonLengerkeMeyer learned, not at all happily, that he was to be American Ambassador to St. Petersburg. This was a disappointment to himself and his family, for President Theodore Roosevelt had earlier suggested that Meyer be sent to Paris. And St. Petersburg seemed a long way off — in distance, time, culture, and atmosphere — from Paris. Nevertheless Meyer recognized that the appointment was a presidential compliment. For almost a year the President had been working to end the bloody war that had begun with the Japanese attack on the Russian naval base at Port Arthur on February 8, 1904, and had surprisingly resulted in one Japanese victory after another. Roosevelt had urged peace throughout the conflict. He quickly saw the necessity of a first-class ambassador in St. Petersburg to replace Robert S. McCormick, the Chicago businessman who was a political asset but a diplomatic failure.

SoonAfter John F. Kennedy became President, difficult foreign policy decisions had to be made. Even before he assumed the burdens of office, he knew an early judgment would be required concerning United States policies vis-à-vis Laos. Throughout 1960, Communist forces in Laos and their allies won numerous military victories and the Laotian Royal Army was unable to check their advances. The United States and other SEATO members were understandably disturbed. They now had to contemplate a total Communist victory with all its potentially painful and embarrassing consequences. These consequences worried President-elect Kennedy and prior to his inauguration, he and his advisors began systematically examining all their policy alternatives; they found that none were really attractive.

Nato has been a phenomenon in international relations. It is unlike most multinational organizations of the past in that it has survived for a generation, and it has thereby fulfilled, at least, the minimal expectations of its founding fathers. Even more phenomenal for Americans has been the identification of the United States with an idea, a particular group of nations, and an organization which were all repugnant to a tradition that specifically isolated America from Europe. The origins of the North Atlantic Treaty are inextricably linked with the rediscovery of Europe by the United States.

ItIs customary to describe the development of political science since the Second World War as a step toward the creation of an empirical science of politics. Not its empiricism, however, but rather its concern for theory is understood to be the defining characteristic of the new way. The prescientific period was also empirically oriented, but it was naive, unthinking empiricism which treated the acquisition of political knowledge as a matter of collecting political facts as one might collect butterflies. Empiricism became scientific, it is said, only when it became theoretical, when its practitioners realized that before they could collect butterflies they had first to fashion a proper net and devise a scheme for ordering the specimens to be caught. At the heart, then, of what we mean today by the science of politics stands political theory, understood as the self-conscious construction of conceptual systems for ordering reality and of hypotheses to explain the interconnections of the parts of these systems. Beside the scientist as survey researcher and statistician stands the scientist as theorist, as author of approaches, frameworks, and models.

Any inquiry into the values of a thinker, and particularly a thinker like Marx, such a large proportion of whose thought was political, must include a discussion of the kind of society that he considers desirable. With an individualist thinker this might only involve a discussion of his idea of what was basic to individual human nature, as in Hobbes or Locke, but for Marx human nature was inconceivable outside society and, when considering possible future developments, it was always man-in-society that Marx had in mind.

“WeDoubt very much if there is any question in the minds of the majority of the people of this country that the conflict now raging in Korea can be anything but war,” wrote Federal District Judge Harry C. Westover in the spring of 1953. “Certainly those who have been called upon to suffer injury and maiming, or to sacrifice their lives,” he continued, “would be unanimous in their opinion that this is war — war in all of its horrible aspects.” What common sense dictated, the judge didnot deny. Yet, although federal and state courts in this and several other instances touched tangentially on the question of whether the Korean conflict was a war in a legal and technical sense, on balance they produced no definitive answer. The United States Supreme Court, moreover, refused to hear any of the cases in question. But the lower courts ofthe nation were not alone in their diversity of opinion regarding the status of the war. The political branches of the Federal Government similarly displayed little agreement on the parallel issue of what the legal basis was for American participation in the Korean venture.

In October, 1936, the King of the Belgians, Leopold III, announced that the small Western European state planned to withdraw from her policy of alignment and adopt a policy which was “exclusively and completely Belgian.” Within six months, by the spring of 1937, Belgium signed an agreement with the French and British that replaced the defunct Locarno Pact and released her from the consultations and commitments involved in the Franco-Belgian Military Accords of 1920. The foreign policy of Belgium was altered to one of “independence” or neutrality and the two major powers of the West formally guaranteed her territorial integrity.

Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, the foremost Austrian historian in the interwar period, made important contributions to knowledge of the materials and the facts of nineteenthcentury Germany history as well as to the interpretation of that period. No historian of Germany can properly ignore his interpretation of that period. Yet no serious attempt has been made to evaluate his historical thinking and to appraise his extensive contributions to German historical literature. The one exception to this neglect followed his death in 1951 which occasioned the customary obituary notices of his career and work.

In October, 1963, Professor Vincent De Santis published a provocative revisionist essay on the realities of national politics in the United States during the Gilded Age. His perceptive comments and illustrations showed that the lion's share of the blame for the continuing misunderstanding of the politics of the period should be laid at the doors of Lord Bryce and Henry Adams. He demonstrated clearly that the distinguished, aristocratic Englishman and the Bostonian child of the eighteenth century were guilty of judging the passing parade of American political life by the standards of their own provincial and noncontemporary value systems. He went on to delineate the social, cultural and economic environment in which Gilded Age politicos functioned. These included the equating of democracy and capitalism, blind adherence to laissez-faire, cultural lag as to the theory of states' rights, the blight of two serious depressions, and a remarkably even balance of party and sectional power, especially after 1875.