Vietnam and Western Socialism

Abstract

Whatever its outcome may be, the war in Vietnam will have served, better than any other episode in the post-war years, to underline the deep moral and political crisis in which Western socialism is steeped. particularly in countries like Britain, France or Italy, which have large, well organized, even powerful Labour movements. For Vietnam has posed to these movements a challenge as great and compelling as any since the War; while their response to that challenge has been grievously inadequate, or worse. What has occurred, in different degrees, is a generalized default so great as to force attention on issues and problems which, for socialists, go well beyond Vietnam, and which call into question the very character and purpose of these movements. Both the extent of their default, and its underlying causes, have brought into sharp and immediate focus nothing less than the whole present condition of Western labour movements, which obviously also means the present condition and prospects of Western socialism, in all its major denominations. A much more open and thorough discussion of that condition than has hitherto occurred should be of urgent concern to socialists. The present article is intended as a contribution to that discussion.