'aqo l4 GERMAN RADICAL UNIVERSITIES BERLIN (CPS)—The paradox of being a “radical Student" is that you have to belong to a university, which almost auto. maticaliy makes you un-radical. ’At the same time, the univei‘u lity is considered the ideal place to “radicaliz " others. This paradox has been es- pecially numbing in Germany, whose public is still going through a thank-God-we’re-not- extremist—any-more stage. Most people are scared to death of radicalism on the right or left, Including most of the faculty In even the most “progressive" universities. Until recently, the students thought the Free University of Berlin would be a good comprm miss. The teachers were young and internationally recruited, the students were shrewd, and there was plenty of money. But it wasn't good enough. Just over two months ago 2,000 Free University students met in the Auditorium Main imum on its Dahlcm campus to begin a “Critical University" Io fill what they called the “pm Iitical vacuum” In German stu- dent life and to get out of the “radical student" paradox. The Critical University (CU) Is a “concrete utopia to give continuing and relevant political Instruction," according to the University of Hamburg student newspaper, Auditorium. The magazine Der Spiegel describes it as “a mixture of Marx, Mao and Marouse.” SCARLET AND BLACK Herbert Marcuse is the Ger- man-born philosopher who says that a society devoted to liber- alism—free and reasoned do hate, “equal time” for opposing sides—can never undergo rad- ical change and has no place for radical solutions. In this way, he argues, the “liberal" society is more suffocating than the “conservative” one. The (CU) is really a politicah l oriented Free University. rolessors are invited into classes as participants rather than lecturers. The students control the curriculum and con- tent. Courses have names like “History of Revolution" and “Advertising and Educational Reform." There are no degrees, and the students contribute what they can to keep it going. The Critical University of Berlin didn't so much grow out of a desire for student power as a desire to make radicals —the paradox once again, it wasn't that the established Gen man universities had too much powerino one interested in pnl- ltics took them too seriously— but that radicals can't grow in a seedbed of liberalism. The issues confronting the German radicals are much the same as those In Americal the overriding concern is the rise of the military-industrial oom- plex. To investigate the bur- geonlng power in the Generals in Germany, the CU in Ham- burg recently invited “Der Spiegel” military editor Carl- Gideon Von Claet‘ to a “class“ and mercilessly pumped him for Information on (he’stnio- tum of Germany‘s Armed Forces and their covert and overt relations with German businessmen. The CU seems to be more an anarchist organization than any kind of hard-line socialist or communist one, Certainly there are communists in it, and everyone says he's a socialistl Friday. January 16. I“ but there is more a commit- ment to "general revolution" than to something like the spa- cifiu overthrow of Germany‘s government. American radicals differ from their European counterparts in this respecti they are much more mncemed with the elim- ination—one way or another— of the Johnson government. (of course, you could say that they are brothers-under-thin suds in a way, since the Euros pean radicals would like to get rid of the Johnson government too.) The Idea of the Critical or Counter-University has been adopted in some form in Berlin, Muenster, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Main: and Heidelberg in Ger. many, as well as in Amsterdam and London, The idea is expects ed to blossom in other Euro< pean cities, and Is therefore certain to guarantee broad- based “student power" all over the continent, —-—————————— ' ' ° ' INTERNATIONAL DISPATGH ’ ' ' ' ' NEWSFEATURES ’ ' ' ' ' INTERNATIONAL DISPATGH‘ ' ' ' -———————___ i By MARK COMMER LIBERATION News Servlcl Talk to a young French left- Ist today and he'll tell you that France is the only country with a truly "matuie left.“ Talk to a journalist, some what older and more skeptical, and he’ll tell you sadly, "La France, helas, c'est la Sulsse” — that is, it has no politics at all. And to a young American leftist, who is in no position to boast of his country’s radical tradition, what the French choose to call mature politics often seems to be more rightly dulled “senile." The left finds Itself in a pe- culiarly ambivalent position under do Gaulle. They may dislike the imperial person- ality of “le grand Charles," but they filld that his nine- teenth . century notions of French empire sometimes make for good politics, at least abroad. He Is, after all, they tell you, the only Western lead- er to give the United States a little of what it deserves, His overt opposition to the Vietnam war, for example, and his condemnation of israei in the lune sixday war winclde very well with the views of many on the French lefti As a result, do Gaulle's enlightened foreign policy creates an Internal po- lltical atmosphere conducive to leftist anti-war activity. De GAULLE DOMINATES At the same time, however, 'de Gaulle’s overwhelming dom- Inance in French politics has made opposition and resistance into a game and a pose more than an effective political life. Be Gaulle's domestic policies lerve to enhance the status of private capitalism, and do less than nothing to Change the rig- id and hierarchical structure ol French society. RecenL changes in the French educational system, for exam< ple, make it even more diffi- cult than before for lower and oven middle-income students to FRANCE A M GAUCIIE gain scholarships to the uni- versities. in a country with limited resources, an aggres- sive policy abroad is gotten at the price of repressive politics at home, The stagnancy and impotence of the left is due in part to the domineering presence of the French Communist Party (PCF), a bureaucracy of nine million members whose aspira< tions are only a little more revolutionary than those of Lyndon Johnson's Democratic Party. As the largest function. ing political party In France, the PCF dominates activity on the left; and because of Its conservatism, It seldom pre‘ sents a significant challenge to the fundamental political and social structure of the country. Its problems are compounded by its rigid ideological stance and its schizophrenic political personality. 0 win g loyalties culturally to France, but doc- trinally to the soviet Union, the PCF defines itself by taking pi» sitions consistently contrary to those of the Gaullist govern- ment. Defenders of the Com- munist Party point out, how- ever, that if the PCF were any more revolutionary, it would lose three-quarters of its mem< bership. There is also a Federation of the Left (Federation de la Gauche), an amalgam of smaller leftist parties and {ac- tions including several varie- ties oi socialism. But the Federation is unfor- tunately so deeply men by in- ternal disputes that its public face is hesitant and tentative at best. i was present In Nantes dur< ing a one-day, nation-wide gen< eral strike against the govern. ment in mid-December. Called by the Confederation Genel'alel ties Travailleurs and other mas jar labor unions (principally Communist), the strike was given advance publicity in all French newspapers with the matter-ef—factness of a notice of work stoppage due to oecnical difficulties. in Nantes, the strike began with a demonstration in a public square at ten o’clock in the morning. Representatives of each union paraded before the microphone, demanding higher salaries and a larger share at the national wealth, while a few hundred workers stood by talk- ing idly among themselves, and a few hundred university stu- dents busled themselves with their revolutionary banners. At 10:30 the microphone went dead (apparently the strike had reached the electric workers as well). As we began to march, stu< dents hoisted their banners and began a chorus of the Commur nist Internationale; the workers grabbed their bicycles and mopeds and folowed alongside. There were no bystanders to be seen; most merchants had tak- en a one~day holiday, an extend- ed weekend. In Neighborhood banks, tellers joked to one an- other that they would run out of candles if the electrical work ers kept striking so often. “WORKERS AND STUDENTS UNITE" Events did not go according to plan. As we approached the Prefecture, where our demands were to be presented to the ap- propriate authorities, titers en- sued a huddled conference at the front of the marching col. umn among the union leaders. The march proceeded past the Prefecture, slowed for an ill- stant hesitantly, then moved on and turned up a narrow side street. The svudents were dis- mayed, outraged; they shouted after the laborers, “Workers with students, pulled together!" The workers‘ contingent disap- peared around a corner, Be< wildered and indignant, Ihe stu- dents returned to the Prelim" lure, chanted slogans for sev- eral minutes in front of two vaguely amused gendarntes (“More scholarshipsl") and disbanded. As we made our way back to the snack bar to eat a late breakfast, one stu- dent lnmented that his banner was beginning to lose its color, after so many rainy - day marches. Such are the maladies of a Left so profoundly institutional- ized that it has lost its sense of urgency, a Left so rigidly ideological and traditional that it has lost all touch with chang- ing political and social condi- tions, The notion of “lnevltabil- ity" in classical Marxism has led many students to believe that the great proletarian NW olution will come of its own am cord; that It is consequently sufficient simply to “go through the motions" of pro testing. it is also very fashionable to be a leftist, even if one's con- victions are more rhetorical that real. “Being left in French universities is a way or testifying to your intelligence," explains one student with gentle sarcasm. LES CHINOIS AND TKOTSKYISTS There are, fortunately, par- ties other than the Patti Conl- muniste Francais in the French Left. “Les cliiiiois,” the Mao~ lsts, have become very numen bus in recent years, and often engage in pitch battles with Commiinist- Party members at public demonstrations. There occasional eccentrics are sat- ii-izcd in a recent film by Jean‘ Luc Goddard, “La Cliiiioise," and he has since been dilly branded a “reactionary.” The rotskyists are also eX< perlencing a great revival of late, and their literature can be distinguished from that of the PCP by both its militant rhe- toric and its urgent calls for I Fourth international. Tha list could go on to include all other imaginable doctrinal schisms, most of which appear minor, even unreal, to tho outsideri Ultimately, such factions seem to cancel one another out he< cause so much of their energy is taken in defending ideologi. cal differences over coffee in a Paris cafe. Those French leftists with whom I spoke were surprising ly charitable towards the Ameri- can left, though condescending. We are very energetic, they say, but still very immature: we lack' both numbers and institutional structures (parties). Without the discipline organization of a pap ty, they argue, we can never hope to confront and replace institutionalized power as it ex- ists. ideologically, we are “un- sophisticated;” we have still not grasped the essential notion that the revolution will come from the workers, and from no- where else. it is for that rea. son that they give far greater credence to the black movement In the United States than to the white, White middle~ciass stu< dents have too great it stake in the power structure to become truly revolutionary. What we have neglected is the latent dis< content of the farmer and lac- tory laborer. While that may be so, it seems unlikely that an American revolution will de- velop along classic Marxist lines, given the political history of the American labor muve< merit. The situation is not all so bleak as it first appears to be. For allot its infighting, the French left is Still more alive and active than that of England (who'd), in addition, the French are not presently living in a political atmosphere poielttially so revolutionary as ours in the United States. Authority presses down upon the French citizen as well, but it IS a more banal oppression, [as visible, and for the moment less harsh.