Civil rights movement
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- See also: Protests of 1968
Historically, the civil rights movement was a concentrated period of time around the world of approximately twenty years (1960-1980) in which there was much worldwide civil unrest and popular rebellion. The process of moving toward equality before the law was long and tenuous in many countries, and most of these movements did not achieve or fully achieve their objectives. In its later years, the civil rights movement took a sharp turn to the radical left in many cases.
[edit] Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland
- Northern Ireland is a country which has witnessed violence over many decades.
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) campaigned for the Civil Rights of the Roman Catholic minority in the late sixties and early seventies. Since the conception of the province, Catholics had suffered widespread discrimination under the Protestant Unionist government. NICRA consciously modelled itself on the civil rights movement in the United States.
NICRA originally had five main demands:
- one man, one vote.
- an end to discrimination in housing
- an end to discrimination in local government.
- an end to the gerrymandering of district boundaries, which limited the effect of Catholic voting
- the disbandment of the B-Specials, an entirely Protestant Police reserve, perceived as sectarian.
Main Idea: The end to discrimination towards the Catholics
Civil rights activists launched a campaign of civil disobedience. There was widespread opposition from Protestant extremeists (or Loyalists), who were aided by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), Northern Ireland's Police Force. At this point, the RUC was over 90% Protestant in its make-up. Violence escalated, resulting in the rise of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) from the Catholic community - this group launched a campaign of violence to end British government presence in the North of Ireland. The British government responded with a policy of internment without trial of suspected IRA members. For more than three hundred people, the internment lasted several years. The huge majority of those interned by the British forces were Catholic. Protestant Loyalist paramilitaries had begun murdering dozens of Catholics, but were largely ignored by the British forces. In 1978, in a case brought by the government of the Republic of Ireland against the government of the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the interrogation techniques approved for use by the British army on internees in 1971 amounted to "inhuman and degrading" treatment.
Bloody Sunday in Derry is seen as a turning point in the Civil Rights movement. On this day,the catholics were trying a peaceful way of resolving the problem. But they were ignored and fights broke out.Fourteen Catholic Civil rights marchers protesting against internment were shot dead by the British army and many were left wounded on the streets.
One of the leaders of NICRA was future Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume, another, Austin Currie, a candidate for President of Ireland in 1990. Hume's co-Nobel Laureate, David Trimble, was leader of the Ulster Unionist Party in the 1990s and 2000s, and had campaigned against sharing power with Catholics in the 1970s.
The peace process has made significant gains in recent years. Through open dialogue from all parties, a lasting ceasefire from all paramilitary groups seems to be lasting. A relatively strong economy and more opportunities for all citizens has improved Northern Ireland's standard of living. Civil rights issues have become far less of a concern for many Catholics in Northern Ireland over the past twenty years as laws and policies protecting their rights and forms of affirmative action have been implemented for all government offices and many private businesses. Tensions still exist in some corners of the province, but the vast majority of citizens are no longer affected by the violence that once paralyzed the province.
[edit] Movements of Independence in Africa
A wave of independence movements in Africa crested in the 1960s. This included the Angolan War of Independence, the Guinea-Bissauan Revolution, the war of liberation in Mozambique and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. This wave of struggles re-energised pan-Africanism, and led to the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963
[edit] Canada's October Crisis
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, himself a French Canadian, came to power in 1968. Quebec also produced a more radical nationalist group, the Front de Libération du Québec, who since 1963 had been using terrorism in an attempt to make Quebec a sovereign nation. In October 1970, in response to the arrest of some of its members earlier in the year, the FLQ kidnapped James Cross and Pierre Laporte, later killing Laporte. Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, declaring martial law in Quebec, and by the end of the year the kidnappers had all been arrested.
[edit] Trudeau and the 1970s
Trudeau was a somewhat unconventional Prime Minister; he was more of a celebrity than previous leaders, and in the 1960s had been the centre of "Trudeaumania". He also did not unquestioningly support the United States, especially over the Vietnam War and relations with the People's Republic of China and Cuba; Richard Nixon particularly disliked him.
Domestically Trudeau had to deal with the aftermath of the October Crisis. The separatist movement was not aided by the violent Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), yet it still existed in a less radical form under Premier René Lévesque (1976-1985). Lévesque came to power as leader of the Parti Québécois, which wanted to make Quebec at least an autonomous society in Canada and at best an independent nation. A step towards this was taken in 1977 with the adoption of Bill 101, making French the only official language in the province.
[edit] Canada and the Vietnam War
While Canada had participated extensively in the Korean War, it was officially a non-participant in the Vietnam War. Setting itself apart from America's Truman and Eisenhower Doctrines, Canada was involved in diplomatic efforts to discourage escalation of the conflict, and set conditions that required a much greater level of multilateralism than existed for it to join the SEATO military pact and commit troops.
The war was generally unpopular among the public and the counterculture of the day had strong ties with American organizations like Students for a Democratic Society. Canadian anti-war activists encouraged American draftees to head north, offering them extensive counsel and assistance. Draft dodgers were generally accepted as immigrants by Canadian authorities, and as many as 125,000 Americans came to Canada due to their opposition to the War. At least half of them are believed to have stayed permanently. This influx of young people helped Canada recover from the "brain drain" of the 1950s, and while in many ways the draft dodgers assimilated into Canadian society, they are considered to have had significant and lasting effects on the old country.
Meanwhile, several thousand Canadians joined the U.S. military and served in Vietnam. Many of them became naturalized American citizens after the war, while those who returned home have never received official recognition as veterans. Canada did deploy some peacekeeping troops to monitor ceasefire agreements during the conflict, and also sold a great deal of war material to the United States. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, many Vietnamese refugees came to Canada, establishing large communities in Vancouver and Toronto.
[edit] Civil Rights Movement in the United States
- See also: The Sixties, New Left, and New Communist Movement
In a relatively stable political system, after a status had been reached in which every citizen has the same rights by law, practical issues of discrimination remain. Even if every person is treated equally by the state, there may not be equality due to discrimination within society, such as in the workplace, which may hinder civil liberties in everyday life. During the second half of the 20th century, Western societies introduced legislation that tried to remove discrimination on the basis of race, gender or disability. The Civil Rights Movement in the United States refers in part to a set of noted events and reform movements in that country aimed at abolishing public and private acts of racial discrimination and racism against African Americans between 1954 to 1968, particularly in the southern United States. It is sometimes referred to as the Second Reconstruction era.
Later, groups like the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, the Weathermen and the Brown Berets turned to more harsh tactics to make a revolution that would establish, in particular, self-determination for U.S. minorities — bids that ultimately failed due in part to a coordinated effort by the United States Government's COINTELPRO efforts to subvert such groups and their activities.
[edit] Ethnicity Equity Issues
[edit] Integrationism
- See also: Racial integration and Jim Crow laws
In the last decade of the nineteenth century in the United States, racially discriminatory laws and racial violence aimed at African Americans began to mushroom. This period is sometimes referred to as the nadir of American race relations. Elected, appointed, or hired government authorities began to require or permit discrimination, specifically in the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Kansas. There were four required or permitted acts of discrimination against African Americans. They included racial segregation – upheld by the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 - which was legally mandated by southern states and nationwide at the local level of government, voter suppression or disfranchisement in the southern states, denial of economic opportunity or resources nationwide, and private acts of violence and mass racial violence aimed at African Americans unhindered or encouraged by government authorities. Although racial discrimination was present nationwide, the combination of law, public and private acts of discrimination, marginal economic opportunity, and violence directed toward African Americans in the southern states became known as Jim Crow.
Noted strategies employed prior to the Civil Rights Movement of 1955 to 1968 to abolish discrimination against African Americans initially included litigation and lobbying efforts by traditional organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). These efforts were the distinction of the American Civil Rights Movement from 1896 to 1954. However, by 1955, private citizens became frustrated by gradual approaches to implement desegregation by federal and state governments and the "massive resistance" by proponents of racial segregation and voter suppression. In defiance, these citizens adopted a combined strategy of direct action with nonviolent resistance known as civil disobedience. The acts of civil disobedience produced crisis situations between practitioners and government authorities. The authorities of federal, state, and local governments often had to act with an immediate response to end the crisis situations – sometimes in the practitioners favor. Some of the different forms of civil disobedience employed include boycotts as successfully practiced by the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956) in Alabama, "sit-ins" as demonstrated by the influential Greensboro sit-in (1960) in North Carolina, and marches as exhibited by the Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama.
Noted achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in this area include the legal victory in the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) case that overturned the legal doctrine of "separate but equal" and made segregation legally impermissible, passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned discrimination in employment practices and public accommodations, passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that restored voting rights, and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.
[edit] Black Power
- See also: Black Panther Party, Black nationalism, and pan-Africanism
By 1965 the emergence of the Black Power movement (1966-1975) began gradually to eclipse the original "integrated power" aims of the Civil Rights Movement that had been espoused by Martin Luther King Jr. Advocates of Black Power argued for black self-determination, and to assert that the assimilation inherent in integration robs Africans of their common heritage and dignity; e.g., the theorist and activist Omali Yeshitela argues that Africans have historically fought to protect their lands, cultures and freedoms from European colonialists, and that any integration into the society which has stolen another people and their wealth is actually an act of treason.
Today, most Black Power advocates have not changed their self-sufficiency argument. Racism still exists worldwide and it is generally accepted that blacks in the United States, on the whole, did not assimilate into U.S. "mainstream" culture either by King's integration measures or by the self-sufficiency measures of Black Power — rather, blacks arguably became evermore oppressed, this time partially by "their own" people in a new black stratum of the middle class and the ruling class. Black Power's advocates generally argue that the reason for this stalemate and further oppression of the vast majority of U.S. blacks is because Black Power's objectives have not had the opportunity to be fully carried through.
[edit] Chicano Movement
- See also: Chicano nationalism and Brown Berets
The Chicano Movement, also known as the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement and El Movimiento, was the part of the American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) that sought political empowerment and social inclusion for Mexican-Americans around a generally nationalist argument. The Chicano movement blossomed in the [1960s] and was active through the late [1970s] in various regions of the U.S. The movement had roots in the civil rights struggles that had preceded it, adding to it the cultural and generational politics of the era.
The early heroes of the movement—Rodolfo Gonzales in Denver, Colorado and Reies Tijerina in New Mexico—adopted a historical account of the preceding hundred and twenty-five years that obscured much of Mexican-American history. Gonzales and Tijerina embraced a form of nationalism that was based on the failure of the United States government to live up to the promises that it had made in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In that account, Mexican-Americans were a conquered people who simply needed to reclaim their birthright and cultural heritage as part of a new nation, which later became known as Aztlán. That version of the past did not, on the other hand, take into account the history of those Mexicans who had immigrated to the United States. It also gave little attention to the rights of undocumented immigrants in the United States in the 1960s—not surprising, since immigration did not have the political significance it was to acquire in the years to come. It was only a decade later when activists, such as Bert Corona in California, embraced the rights of undocumented workers and helped broaden the focus to include their rights. Instead, when the movement dealt with practical problems most activists focused on the most immediate issues confronting Mexican-Americans: unequal educational and employment opportunities, political disenfranchisement, and police brutality. In the heady days of the late 1960s, when the student movement was active around the globe, the Chicano movement brought about more or less spontaneous actions, such as the mass walkouts by high school students in Denver and East Los Angeles in 1968 and the Chicano Moratorium in Los Angeles in 1970.
The movement was particularly strong at the college level, where activists formed MEChA, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, which promoted Chicano Studies programs and a generalized ethno-nationalist agenda.
[edit] American Indian Movement
At a time when peaceful sit-ins were a common protest tactic, American Indian Movement (AIM) takeovers in their early days were noticeably forceful. Some appeared to be spontaneous outcomes of protest gatherings; sometimes they included armed seizure of public facilities.
The Alcatraz Island occupation of 1969, although commonly associated with AIM, pre-dates the organization but was a catalyst for its formation. In 1970 AIM occupied abandoned property at the Naval Air Station near Minneapolis, Minnesota. In July, 1971 AIM assisted a takeover of the Winter Dam, Lac Courte Oreilles, Wisconsin. The Bureau of Indian Affairs Headquarters in Washington D.C. got seized in November, 1972; the building was sacked, and 24 were arrested. The Custer County Courthouse was occupied in 1973, though the occupation was routed after a riot took place. The Wounded Knee Incident also took place then, lasted 71 days, and left at least two dead.
[edit] Gender Equity Issues
If the period associated with First-wave feminism focused upon absolute rights such as suffrage (which led to women attaining the right to vote in the early part of the 20th century), the period of the second-wave feminism was concerned with the issue of economic equality (including the ability to have careers in addition to motherhood, or the right to choose not to have children) between the genders and addressed the rights of female minorities. One phenomenon included the recognition of lesbian women within the movement, due to the simultaneous rise of the gay rights movement, and the deliberate activism of lesbian feminist groups, such as the Lavender Menace.
The developments led to explicit lesbian feminist campaigns and groups, and some feminists went further to argue that heterosexual sexual relationships automatically subordinated women, and that the only true independence could come in lesbian relationships ("lesbian separatism"). The second wave is sometimes linked with radical feminist theory. One interesting and underdocumented aspect of the second-wave was the rise of women's cooperative living communities. An example of one such intentional community was the Chatanika River Women's Colony.
[edit] LGBT rights and Gay Liberation
Since the mid 19th century in Germany, social reformers have used the language of civil rights to argue against the oppression of same-sex sexuality, same-sex emotional intimacy, and gender variance. Largely, but not exclusively, these LGBT movements have charactered gender variant and homosexually-oriented people as a minority group or groups; this was the approach taken by the homophile movement of the 1940s, 50s and early 60s. With the rise of secularism in the West, an increasing sexual openness, Women's Liberation, the 1960s counterculture, and a range of new social movements, the homophile movement underwent a rapid growth and transformation, with a focus on building community and unapologetic activism. This new phase came to be known as Gay Liberation.
The words "Gay Liberation" echoed "Women's Liberation"; the Gay Liberation Front consciously took its name from the National Liberation Fronts of Vietnam and Algeria; and the slogan "Gay Power", as a defiant answer to the rights-oriented homophile movement, was inspired by Black Power and Chicano Power. The GLF's statement of purpose explained:
"We are a revolutionary group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished. We reject society's attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature."
– GLF statement of purpose
GLF activist Martha Shelley wrote,
"We are women and men who, from the time of our earliest memories, have been in revolt against the sex-role structure and nuclear family structure."
– "Gay is Good", Martha Shelley, 1970
Gay Liberationists aimed as transforming fundamental intuitions of society such as gender and the family. In order to achieve such liberation, consciousness raising and direct action were employed. Specifically, the word 'gay' was preferred to previous designations such as homosexual or homophile; some saw 'gay' as a rejection of the false dichotomy heterosexual/homosexual. Lesbians and gays were urged to "come out", publicly revealing their sexuality to family, friends and colleagues as a form of activism, and to counter shame with gay pride. "Gay Lib" groups were formed around the world, in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, the UK, US, Italy and elsewhere. The lesbian group Lavender Menace was also formed in the U.S in response to both the male domination of other Gay Lib groups and the anti-lesbian sentiment in the Women's Movement. Lesbianism was advocated as a feminist choice for women, and the first currents of lesbian separatism began to emerge.
By the late 1970s, the radicalism of Gay Liberation was eclipsed by a return to a more formal movement that became known as the Gay and Lesbian Rights Movement.
[edit] German Student Movement
- See also: Red Army Faction and German Autumn
The Civil Rights Movement in Germany was a left-wing backlash against the post-Nazi Party era of the country, which still contained many of the conservative policies of both that era and of the pre-World War I Kaiser monarchy. The movement took place mostly among disillusioned students and was largely a protest movement analogous to others around the globe during the late 1960s . It was largely a reaction against the perceived authoritarianism and hypocrisy of the German government and other Western governments, and the poor living conditions of students. A wave of protests - some violent - swept Germany, further fueled by over-reaction by the police and encouraged by other near-simultaneous protest movements across the world. Following more than a century of conservatism among German students, the German student movement also marked a significant major shift to the left-wing and radicalisation of student politics.
[edit] France 1968
A general strike broke out across France in May 1968. It quickly began to reach near-revolutionary proportions before being discouraged by the French Communist Party, and finally suppressed by the government, which accused the communists of plotting against the Republic. Some philosophers and historians have argued that the rebellion was the single most important revolutionary event of the 20th century because it wasn't participated in by a lone demographic, such as workers or racial monorities, but was rather a purely popular uprising, superseding ethnic, cultural, age and class boundaries.
It began as a series of student strikes that broke out at a number of universities and high schools in Paris, following confrontations with university administrators and the police. The de Gaulle administration's attempts to quash those strikes by further police action only inflamed the situation further, leading to street battles with the police in the Latin Quarter, followed by a general strike by students and strikes throughout France by ten million French workers, roughly two-thirds of the French workforce. The protests reached the point that de Gaulle created a military operations headquarters to deal with the unrest, dissolved the National Assembly and called for new parliamentary elections for 23 June 1968.
The government was close to collapse at that point (De Gaulle had even taken temporary refuge at an airforce base in Germany), but the revolutionary situation evaporated almost as quickly as it arose. Workers went back to their jobs, urged on by the Confédération Générale du Travail, the leftist union federation, and the Parti Communiste Français (PCF), the French Communist Party. When the elections were finally held in June, the Gaullist party emerged even stronger than before.
Most of the protesters espoused left-wing causes, communism or anarchism. Many saw the events as an opportunity to shake up the "old society" in many social aspects, including methods of education, sexual freedom and free love. A small minority of protesters, such as the Occident group, espoused far-right causes.
On 29 May several hundred thousand protesters led by the CGT marched through Paris, chanting, "Adieu, de Gaulle!"
While the government appeared to be close to collapse, de Gaulle chose not to say adieu. Instead, after ensuring that he had sufficient loyal military units mobilized to back him if push came to shove, he went on the radio the following day (the national television service was on strike) to announce the dissolution of the National Assembly, with elections to follow on 23 June. He ordered workers to return to work, threatening to institute a state of emergency if they did not.
From that point the revolutionary feeling of the students and workers faded away. Workers gradually returned to work or were ousted from their plants by the police. The national student union called off street demonstrations. The government banned a number of left organizations. The police retook the Sorbonne on 16 June. De Gaulle triumphed in the elections held in June and the crisis had ended.
[edit] Chinese Cultural Revolution
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China passed "the 16 Points" during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
The decision thus took the already existing student movement and elevated to the level of a nationwide mass campaign, calling on not only students but also "the masses of the workers, peasants, soldiers, revolutionary intellectuals, and revolutionary cadres" to carry out the task of "transforming the superstructure." The freedoms granted in the 16 Points were later written into the PRC constitution as "the four great rights (四大自由)" of "great democracy (大民主)": the right to speak out freely, to air one's views fully, to write big-character posters, and to hold great debates. The first two of these are basically Chinese synonyms; in other contexts the second was sometimes replaced by 大串联 - the right to "link up," meaning for students to cut class and travel across the country to meet other young activists and propagate Mao Zedong Thought. All four of these freedoms were supplemented by the right to strike, although this supplemental right was severely attenuated by the People's Liberation Army's entrance onto the stage of civilian mass politics in February 1967. Ultimately all such rights were deleted from the constitution after the Dengist government suppressed the Democracy Wall movement in 1979.
On August 16, 1966, millions of Red Guards from all over the country gathered in Beijing for a peek at the Chairman. On top of the Tiananmen Square gate, Mao and Lin Biao made frequent appearances to approximately 11 million Red Guards, receiving cheers each time. Mao praised their actions in the recent campaigns to develop socialism and democracy.
For two years, until July 1968 and in some places much longer, student activists such as the Red Guards expanded their areas of authority, and accelerated their efforts at socialist reconstruction. They began by passing out leaflets explaining their actions to develop and strengthen socialism, and posting the names of suspected "counter-revolutionaries" on bulletin boards. They assembled in large groups, held "great debates," and wrote educational plays. They held public meetings to criticize and solicit self-criticism from suspected "counter-revolutionaries." Although the 16 Points and other pronouncements of the chief Maoist leaders forbade "physical struggle" (武斗) in favor of "verbal struggle" (文斗), these "struggle sessions" often led to physical violence. Initially verbal struggles among activist groups became even more violent when the Red Guard activists began to seize weapons from the Army in 1967. The Maoist leadership limited their intervention in this violence to verbal criticism, sometimes even appearing to encourage it. Only after the Red Guard weapons seizures began did the leadership begin to suppress the mass movement it had previously praised.
Liu Shaoqi was sent to a detention camp, where he later died in 1969. Deng Xiaoping, who was himself sent for a period of re-education three times, was sent to work in an engine factory, until he was brought back years later by Zhou Enlai. But most of those accused were not so lucky, and many of them never returned.
The work of the Red Guards was praised by Mao Zedong. On August 22, 1966, Mao issued a public notice, which stopped "all police intervention in Red Guard tactics and actions." Those in the police force who dared to defy this notice were labeled "counter-revolutionaries."
[edit] Tlatelolco Massacre, Mexico
The Tlatelolco Massacre, also known as Tlatelolco's Night (from a book title), took place on the afternoon and night of October 2, 1968, in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City. The death toll remains uncertain: some estimates place the number of deaths in the thousands, but most sources report 200-300 deaths. Many more were wounded, and several thousand arrests occurred.
The massacre was preceded by months of political unrest in the Mexican capital, echoing student demonstrations and riots all over the world during 1968. The Mexican students wanted to exploit the attention focused on Mexico City for the 1968 Summer Olympics. President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, however, was determined to stop the demonstrations and, in September, he ordered the army to occupy the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the largest university in Latin America. Students were beaten and arrested indiscriminately. Rector Javier Barros Sierra resigned in protest on September 23.
Student demonstrators were not deterred, however. The demonstrations grew in size, until on October 2, after student strikes lasting nine weeks, 15,000 students from various universities marched through the streets of Mexico City, carrying red carnations to protest the army's occupation of the university campus. By nightfall, 5,000 students and workers, many of them with spouses and children, had congregated outside an apartment complex in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco for what was supposed to be a peaceful rally. Among their chants were México – Libertad – México – Libertad ("Mexico – Liberty – Mexico –Liberty"). Rally organizers attempted to call off the protest when they noticed an increased military presence in the area.
The massacre began at sunset when army and police forces—equipped with armored cars and tanks—surrounded the square and began firing live rounds into the crowd, hitting not only the protestors, but also other people who were present for reasons unrelated to the demonstration. Demonstrators and passersby alike, including children, were caught in the fire; soon, mounds of bodies lay on the ground. The killing continued through the night, with soldiers carrying out mopping-up operations on a house-to-house basis in the apartment buildings adjacent to the square. Witnesses to the event claim that the bodies were later removed in garbage trucks.
The official government explanation of the incident was that armed provocateurs among the demonstrators, stationed in buildings overlooking the crowd, had begun the firefight. Suddenly finding themselves sniper targets, the security forces had simply returned fire in self-defense.
[edit] Prague Spring
The Prague Spring (Czech: Pražské jaro, Slovak: Pražská jar, Russian: пражская весна) was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia starting January 5, 1968 and running until August 20 of that year when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies (except for Romania) invaded the country.
During World War II Czechoslovakia fell into the Soviet sphere of influence, the Eastern Bloc. Since 1948 there were no parties other than the Communist Party in the country and it was indirectly managed by the Soviet Union. Unlike other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the communist take-over in Czechoslovakia in 1948 was, although as brutal as elsewhere, a genuine popular movement. Reform in the country did not lead to the convulsions seen in Hungary.
Towards the end of World War II Joseph Stalin wanted Czechoslovakia, and signed an agreement with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, that Prague would be liberated by the Red Army despite the fact that the United States Army under General George S. Patton could have liberated the city earlier. This was important for the spread of pro-Russian (and pro-communist) propaganda that came right after the war. People still remembered what they felt as Czechoslovakia's betrayal by the West at the Munich Agreement. For these reasons the people voted for communists in the 1948 elections - the last democratic poll for a long time.
From the middle of the 1960s Czechs and Slovaks showed increasing signs of rejection of the existing regime. This change was reflected by reformist elements within the communist party by installing Alexander Dubček as party leader. Dubček's reforms of the political process inside Czechoslovakia, which he referred to as Socialism with a human face, did not represent a complete overthrow of the old regime, as was the case in Hungary in 1956. Dubček's changes had broad support from the society, including the working class. However, it was still seen by the Soviet leadership as a threat to their hegemony over other states of the Eastern Bloc and to the very safety of the Soviet Union. Czechoslovakia was in the middle of the defensive line of the Warsaw Pact and its possible defection to the enemy was unacceptable during the Cold War.
However a sizeable minority in the ruling party, especially at higher leadership levels, was opposed to any lessening of the party's grip on society and they actively plotted with the leadership of the Soviet Union to overthrow the reformers. This group watched in horror as calls for multi-party elections and other reforms began echoing throughout the country.
Between the nights of August 20 and August 21, 1968, Eastern Bloc armies from five Warsaw Pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia. During the invasion, Soviet tanks ranging in numbers from 5,000 to 7,000 occupied the streets. They were followed by a large number of Warsaw Pact troops ranging from 200,000 to 600,000.
The Soviets insisted that they had been invited to invade the country, stating that loyal Czechoslovak Communists had told them that they were in need of "fraternal assistance against the counter-revolution". A letter which was found in 1989 proved an invitation to invade did indeed exist. During the attack of the Warsaw Pact armies, 72 Czechs and Slovaks were killed (19 of those in Slovakia) and hundreds were wounded (up to September 3, 1968). Alexander Dubček called upon his people not to resist. He was arrested and taken to Moscow, along with several of his colleagues.
[edit] Japan 1960
Japan's biggest postwar political crisis took place in 1960 over the revision of the Japan-United States Mutual Security Assistance Pact. As the new Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security was concluded, which renewed the United States role as military protector of Japan, massive street protests and political upheaval occurred, and the cabinet resigned a month after the Diet's ratification of the treaty. Thereafter, political turmoil subsided. Japanese views of the United States, after years of mass protests over nuclear armaments and the mutual defense pact, improved by 1972, with the reversion of United States-occupied Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty and the winding down of the Vietnam War.
[edit] Further reading
- Manfred Berg and Martin H. Geyer; Two Cultures of Rights: The Quest for Inclusion and Participation in Modern America and Germany Cambridge University Press, 2002
- Jack Donnelly and Rhoda E. Howard; International Handbook of Human Rights Greenwood Press, 1987
- David P. Forsythe; Human Rights in the New Europe: Problems and Progress University of Nebraska Press, 1994
- Joe Foweraker and Todd Landman; Citizenship Rights and Social Movements: A Comparative and Statistical Analysis Oxford University Press, 1997
- Mervyn Frost; Constituting Human Rights: Global Civil Society and the Society of Democratic States Routledge, 2002
- Marc Galanter; Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India University of California Press, 1984
- Raymond D. Gastil and Leonard R. Sussman, eds.; Freedom in the World: Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 1986-1987 Greenwood Press, 1987
- David Harris and Sarah Joseph; The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and United Kingdom Law Clarendon Press, 1995
- Steven Kasher; The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History (1954-1968) Abbeville Publishing Group (Abbeville Press, Inc.), 2000
- Francesca Klug, Keir Starmer, Stuart Weir; The Three Pillars of Liberty: Political Rights and Freedoms in the United Kingdom Routledge, 1996
- Fernando Santos-Granero and Frederica Barclay; Tamed Frontiers: Economy, Society, and Civil Rights in Upper Amazonia Westview Press, 2000
- Paul N. Smith; Feminism and the Third Republic: Women's Political and Civil Rights in France, 1918-1940 Clarendon Press, 1996
- Jorge M. Valadez; Deliberative Democracy: Political Legitimacy and Self-Determination in Multicultural Societies Westview Press, 2000
