Revolution is a romantic word and a bloody practice. There has not been a significant one among the major nations of the West since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. That seismic event had an analogous effect on revolution to the atomic bomb’s on warfare after World War 2. The bomb unleashed a force so great that a clash of the great nations became unthinkable because so much destruction was mutually assured. The same thing with the Bolshevik Revolution. No matter how corrupt a government and society becomes, people fear that, as in the Bolshevik seizure of power, the destruction accompanying a revolution would assure the society never recovers.
I was living in Australia and attended University between 1968 and 1971. The experience was not as intense. We marched against the War, watched the news on TV and saw what was happening, endured a draft which focussed on the people who couldn't find a way out of it. We didn't change things at all, but had some fun trying. It never became as serious in Australia. However, we did follow what was happening in the USA and this wonderful piece reminded me of the times.
Thank you Michael. It sparked a whole number of memories and questions. I'm just old enough for your piece to strike a loud chord. I arrived on the East Coast as a graduate student in 1975, from London. The following year's intake of students, arriving in ties and suits, looked like another breed altogether. They are now running America's museums. One of the best things about living in Cambridge MA at the time was the food co-operative movement which I belonged to courtesy of the flat share I'd moved into. It was an idealistic hippy creation of the 60s, it worked right across the States, mainly attached to university towns, and was incredibly efficient, healthy/whole food and cheap. Every so often you would help with food delivery or sorting in the warehouse. I wonder if these forms of collective enterprise have survived into the 21st century. Another sort of revolution.
Having been raised in Berkeley a generation later, it’s always fascinating to read histories of what it was like a couple decades earlier. Also, don’t forget — Dustin Hoffman (or his double) was driving the wrong way “to Berkeley” across the Bay Bridge. The upper, exposed deck runs west, toward San Francisco.
Another interesting read. In the fall of 1971 I was reading Carlos Castaneda and enjoying that new Led Zeppelin song. ;)
I remember Sgt. Rock, USMC. It was also the last comic I read. One of my college roommates read something called Spiderman. I didn't get it. Looking forward a few years I was amazed at how seamlessly people moved from an antiwar posture to yuppy-dom. My high school yearbook my senior year (1970) was filled with the word Revolution and quotes from Rev. Martin Luther King and John Lennon. But, on the cover was a stylized photo of someone cleaning the street. Halloween 1969 the stores ran out of the whitewash that was traditionally used to "decorate" the buildings in the town square and so students used paint. So with Revolution in the text, many of the images are of students trying to clean up after a wrongheaded version of a high school prank.
Informative, enjoyable and absolutely spot on on the cataclysmic effect of Russian revolution.
I was living in Australia and attended University between 1968 and 1971. The experience was not as intense. We marched against the War, watched the news on TV and saw what was happening, endured a draft which focussed on the people who couldn't find a way out of it. We didn't change things at all, but had some fun trying. It never became as serious in Australia. However, we did follow what was happening in the USA and this wonderful piece reminded me of the times.
Wonderful, memorable read, thanks.
Thank you Michael. It sparked a whole number of memories and questions. I'm just old enough for your piece to strike a loud chord. I arrived on the East Coast as a graduate student in 1975, from London. The following year's intake of students, arriving in ties and suits, looked like another breed altogether. They are now running America's museums. One of the best things about living in Cambridge MA at the time was the food co-operative movement which I belonged to courtesy of the flat share I'd moved into. It was an idealistic hippy creation of the 60s, it worked right across the States, mainly attached to university towns, and was incredibly efficient, healthy/whole food and cheap. Every so often you would help with food delivery or sorting in the warehouse. I wonder if these forms of collective enterprise have survived into the 21st century. Another sort of revolution.
Having been raised in Berkeley a generation later, it’s always fascinating to read histories of what it was like a couple decades earlier. Also, don’t forget — Dustin Hoffman (or his double) was driving the wrong way “to Berkeley” across the Bay Bridge. The upper, exposed deck runs west, toward San Francisco.
Another interesting read. In the fall of 1971 I was reading Carlos Castaneda and enjoying that new Led Zeppelin song. ;)
I remember Sgt. Rock, USMC. It was also the last comic I read. One of my college roommates read something called Spiderman. I didn't get it. Looking forward a few years I was amazed at how seamlessly people moved from an antiwar posture to yuppy-dom. My high school yearbook my senior year (1970) was filled with the word Revolution and quotes from Rev. Martin Luther King and John Lennon. But, on the cover was a stylized photo of someone cleaning the street. Halloween 1969 the stores ran out of the whitewash that was traditionally used to "decorate" the buildings in the town square and so students used paint. So with Revolution in the text, many of the images are of students trying to clean up after a wrongheaded version of a high school prank.