On Jan. 30, 1968, more than 100,000 National Liberation
Front troops stormed Saigon, proving for the first time to the American public
the resistance had the support of the vast majority of Vietnamese civilians and
the United States was engaged in an unwinnable war. The Tet Offensive sparked
the largest anti-war movement in the 20th century, with anti-war groups in
almost every town, school and most significantly on military bases in the
United States and around the world. Mass protests in Washington and at the
Democratic National Convention in Chicago showed how deep the radicalization
against the war ran among students and workers.
The media mostly ignores the amount of resistance inside the
U.S. military itself, as documented by anti-war author Joe Allen, who will
speak on campus Wednesday. At the height of the underground press, there were
more than 300 anti-war newspapers being circulated on military bases. Taking
inspiration from the sit-ins and mass protests against Jim Crow laws at home,
soldiers began to identify more with the Vietnamese people they were fighting
than with the officers who were sending them on suicide missions. A quarter of
all officers killed in Vietnam were shot or fragged by their own troops.
Not only did the anti-war movement begin to gain strength in
1968, but also the civil rights movement began to translate their victories in
achieving civil equality into a fight for economic equality. Martin Luther King
Jr. said of the progress of the movement, “What does it profit a man to be
able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t earn enough money to
buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?” Mr. King helped organize a
successful strike of garbage workers in Memphis, a town where most city workers
were able to bargain collectively except the all-black sanitation workers.
Mr. King’s assassination sparked a wave of urban rebellions
in more than 100 cities; the U.S. government deployed 73,000 troops to quell
the uprisings. Although these riots were entirely unorganized, they represented
the amount of misery blacks experienced in the North and marked a turn toward
more radical and revolutionary organizations like the Black Panther Party for
Self Defense. Millions of blacks soon identified with the aims of the Black
Panthers and saw the possibility for real liberation.
Around the world, from Latin America to Europe to Southeast
Asia, millions fought for the right to determine their own destiny free from
domination of the world’s imperialist powers and the rulers inside their own
country. In May 1968, 10 million workers and students went on a general strike
in France for more than a month, nine million of whom occupied France’s
factories. What started as student protest snowballed into a mass strike in
just a few days because of anger at police brutality melded with the anger
workers felt for being squeezed by their bosses, even though the world was in
an economic boom. The French strike showed that workers aren’t just passive
members of society but under the right conditions can be the agents of change
for founding a new society based on cooperation. In towns and cities all over
France, workers began transitioning from occupying factories to running them
under workers’ control and organized communal kitchens and childcare.
1968 represents hope that one day we will succeed in
achieving a world without rulers. Although the 1960s ultimately did not bring
about real liberation for workers in America, it showed when masses of people
in society decide to fight for something collectively, they have a good chance
of winning it — like an end to segregation or an end to an occupation — and
we are all inspired when regular people around the world break free from the
chains of imperial domination.
To hear more about the struggles of 1968, come to a panel
hosted by the International Socialist Organization on Wednesday, featuring Joe
Allen, author of “Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S. Lost,” in 1111
Humanities.
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Alex Stone ([email protected]) graduated from
UW in 2007 with a degree in computer sciences and is a member of the
International Socialist Organization.