In the Spring of the 2024 school year, students reignited the struggle against the genocidal war on Gaza with campus encampments and protests that caused major disruptions at universities, sometimes interrupting major events and ceremonies. We also saw the massive police and administrative repression of these protests, with students getting arrested and expelled for peaceful demonstrations. As students have come back to campus this semester, many students have faced serious backlash for participating in anti-war protests, from clubs getting banned to students getting expelled.
Youth have been at the forefront of many struggles in recent years—student walkouts against right-wing attacks on trans youth, against the overturn of abortion rights, and even climate walkouts. The Black Lives Matter movement was largely led by Black youth across the country, outraged at systemic oppression and police violence.
Student and youth protests can make powerful statements by blocking streets and shutting down campuses, which can have a big impact under the capitalist system, where higher education is a multi-billion-dollar business. Student walkouts historically have been able to win real victories, like in Chicago and Philadelphia during the Civil Rights movement.
In November 1967, amid a climate of broad social revolt, 3,500 high school and college students in Philadelphia walked out and marched on the Board of Education building, protesting against racist policing and discriminatory policies in schools. At the following school board meeting, the board caved to all of their demands. In Chicago in 1968, a more prolonged student protest movement emerged. When administrators refused to negotiate with students’ demands for equitable schools for Black and Latino students, 500 students walked out in September and built to a 35,000 strong student walkout in October; students were able to win demands including more Black and Latino teachers and counselors in schools, as well as the implementation of ethnic studies classes in the curriculum.
And of course, in the summer of 1968, tens of thousands of young people fought Mayor Daley’s police in Chicago as he sought to crush protests against the Vietnam War during the Democratic National Convention. As they faced the cops, they chanted “the whole world is watching!”
In order to build the strongest movement against war, oppression, exploitation, and capitalism, student movements must spread to the wider working class, which has the power to completely shut down society. Historically, student protests are often initially bolder and quicker to escalate than broader movements, and can push working class struggle forward by inspiring workers to fight alongside students. Students elevated the Gaza solidarity movement with the bold encampment tactic, which directly led to UAW student workers at University of California schools striking in solidarity.
The encampments today have drawn comparisons and inspiration from the 1968 student protests against the Vietnam War. At the same time as the student protests in the US against the war abroad and racism at home, student protests in France in May of 1968 helped inspire the entire working class to move into struggle, leading to a massive general strike and potential for a revolution.
Historic Student Rebellion
The global context surrounding May 1968 in France was filled with tumult and uprisings. In addition to the massive student anti-war protests and the civil rights movement in the US, the Prague Spring challenged Stalinism in Czechoslovakia, and student protests in Mexico and Spain fought against dictatorship and for democratic rights.
Seeing the atrocities of war and imperialism internationally, students in France connected this with dissatisfaction with their own government – then-president of France, Charles De Gaulle, played a significant role in the atrocities of the Algerian independence movement and took increasingly authoritarian measures domestically. These international connections were on full display in the student protests, displayed by banners reading things like, “Fascists escaped from Dien Bien Phu [Vietnam] / They cannot escape from Nanterre [France].”
The protests immediately faced severe repression from police. While they could try to shut down the protests, the state could not crush the students’ willingness to fight and their anger that had reached a boiling point. The repression only served to inspire other students, and more protests broke out on campuses across the country, with 20,000 students and teachers marching on May 6, 1968.
Unfortunately, the French Communist Party at the time, dominated by Stalinists but still with deep roots in the working class, denounced the student protesters as “trouble-makers” and “adventurers.” Faculty unions defied the Communist Party, choosing to enter the struggle with the students.
Students Linked Up With Striking Workers
On May 10, the Minister of Education forbade universities from reopening due to the explosive protests, leading to further riots in the Quartier Latin where there were 596 arrests, and hundreds injured by police, as 60,000 people marched in Paris in solidarity with students.
Sparked by the massive student protests, the major unions in France felt pressured to call for a 24 hour general strike on May 13: one million workers marched in Paris, with tens of thousands in other cities as well. The union leaders had hoped the one-day strike would be enough for the workers to let off steam, but they did not realize the extent of the pressure valve they had released. Following the strike, workers started occupying factories, sometimes locking managers in offices; workers called for higher wages and a broader program for the ousting of De Gaulle as president as well as worker-run factories.
The workers were inspired by the radical calls and actions of the students, showing the role that student movements can play under certain conditions in helping spark wider struggles. While the union leadership attempted to restrict strike demands only to economic issues, workers saw their power to fight for broader societal change beyond just their factory. This was in no small part because of the more far-reaching demands and calls of the students’ protests. Strike committees were set up as the union leaders and the Communist Party lost control of the struggle.
Revolutionary Potential Lost
Capitalism in France ground to a halt, with shops closing unless they had stickers showing they were authorized by the unions to operate. Prices were substantially decreased to be affordable for working-class people, and defense committees were set up to head off police repression. The pressures of the escalating protests forced De Gaulle to flee the country and call for a referendum; however, the actions and calls of De Gaulle’s government at the time were essentially powerless. Striking print workers refused to print out ballots for a referendum.
However, the Stalinist-controlled French Communist Party was unwilling to seize on this momentum to see the potential revolution to its conclusion. The Communist Party refused to link the workers’ committees with the students to prepare for a socialist transformation of society and a planned economy based on the needs of the working class and youth. They instead settled for negotiating with the defunct French National Assembly – instead of taking power, the Communist Party called for new elections and deferred back to the capitalist state. The de-escalation caused the general strike to lose momentum and allowed the state to take control back of the situation, leading to increased repression, arrests, and expulsions.
In the early 60s, many on the far left drew the conclusion that the Western working class was “bought off” and unable to fight in its own interests. Instead they looked to other social layers, including students, to lead the social revolution. May 1968 in France proved these ideas wrong and showed the actual and powerful dynamic that can exist between youth movements and the revolutionary movement of the working class.
Lessons For Today
Young people today are living in a world plagued by capitalism, and are often among the first to take drastic action against its many forms of exploitation and oppression. However, in order to change society, youth and student movements must become linked to the wider struggles of the working class and the oppressed. Most students and workers have connected interests. The majority of students—though not all of those at elite universities—will join the ranks of the working class after their graduation, and many of them are workers while they are still in school. In the US, 40% of full-time college students, and over 80% of part-time students, are also workers.
Youth struggle can often be a catalyst to spark broader working class struggle. Workers are often inspired by radical demands of youth and social movements to step up their own struggles to fight for, and win, broader societal changes.
The encampments at Columbia University, that then spread to dozens of other campuses, have been compared to the student protests against the Vietnam War in the US in 1968. Student movements today should look to the lessons of May ‘68 in France and how students today can also help inspire the working class to help build a powerful movement against the US imperialism’s drive to war. While it is the working class that is actually able to make profits and production completely grind to a halt, student protests can accelerate, and sometimes even ignite, this process. Workers’ and youth movements are the strongest when intertwined and interconnected; together our movements are capable of overthrowing this rotten capitalist system!