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Hi, I'm John Green. And this is crash course European history.
So up until the early 1970s Europe experienced what some called the "thirty glorious years" when on average life improved
dramatically. People in Europe benefited from scientific and technological change.
Plus they weren't far removed from the hard times of World War Two and earlier of the Great Depression,
so it was easy to feel the comparative improvement in quality of life. To many people things seemed pretty good,
but at the same time students, workers and an array of activists were highly critical of the changes that had brought about a post-industrial
Society so Europe's thirty glorious years also saw lots of protests as people pointed out correctly
That injustice and structural inequality remained central features of human societies
Among the earliest activists were those who had high hopes for the post-war world
but then became appalled by the Cold War's military buildup and nuclear tests beginning in the
1950 ban the bomb movement spread amid concerns over the dangers of
radioactive fallout from nuclear testing and the risk of nuclear war and in the Soviet bloc protesters were roused by the
surprising publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn
a day in the life of Ivan Denisovich in
1962 which described wife in Soviet prison camps with chilling
Accuracy also throughout Europe students had more opportunities to attend newly crowded technical institutes and scientific facilities and new
Universities they were often joined by young immigrants who were fleeing
Decolonization and those newcomers made European youth aware of the civil wars and poverty in the rest of the world
Much of it caused by European colonialism and technology also helped
Internationalize the world and its news horrific news from the wars of
Decolonization like in Vietnam was broadcast on radio and television
while leaders of liberation movements in North Africa and Cuba to name just a few
Work to publicize their cause and gain support
So to our eyes today some European student movements seem naive at best and complicit in atrocities at worst
For example many students in Europe celebrated Mao Zedong's mobilisation of the young in the Cultural Revolution
but that Cultural Revolution in fact
Resulted in the torture and killing of many professors and other highly educated people on the other hand
It was also students who drove the boycott movement in Britain
Which protested South African apartheid young people found many different ways to voice their objections to the injustices
that they perceived in the early 1960s Prague theatre produced plays by young playwrights such as vaclav havel
mocking the absurdities of communist bureaucracy Havel by the way would later go on to become president of the post communist Czech Republic and in
1966 young people in Prague celebrated the traditional communist May Day holiday with chants of the only good
Communist is a dead one
meanwhile on the other side of the Iron Curtain in Rome students protested the 200 to 1 student to faculty ratio of the
overcrowded and understaffed
Universities and in Germany student movements advocated for more democracy less influence for right-wing
Newspapers and an end to the Vietnam War and then in 1968 young people took to the streets
I mean in the case of this particular picture they took to a lecture hall
But they also took to the streets by spring thousands demonstrated in major university cities in France
student protests emphasized not just reform but
Revolution in people's values and their ways of living they wanted a rejection of consumerism
Which some called bourgeois materialism and an end to both colonial wars and the traditional European
Curriculum that emphasised the classics and philosophy and purely scientific research
They wanted modern subjects such as psychology and sociology
Added to the curriculum and many influenced by Marxism also felt that the issue of class should have greater coverage in
Universities the cast of activists was diverse in France workers joined student protesters for them several things were wrong
first generally countries in the European Common Market were enjoying
Rebounding growth and profits but workers were not seeing much improvement in wages second
The modernization of industry was cutting jobs through automation and also depriving workers of much say in factory life
Stop me
If any of this feels familiar, by the way
Some nine million workers in France also went on strike for la participation in everyday decision making and for higher wages
Women workers took over the leap Factory in France and the Ford factory in England out of anger over
Unequal wages and speed ups caused by new technology amid all this violence and street activism the French government quashed the worst of these
protests though ones in Paris in June of
1968 powerful president charles de gaulle gave workers a raise while
Businesses enhanced workers role in factory governance the middle class. Meanwhile had grown weary of
uncollected garbage in the streets and the violence in public life
the press joined de Gaulle in muting public support for student demands and all that meant that when de Gaulle unleashed tanks on the city the
Protests collapsed but they left a legacy of questioning and activism. All right
Let's go to the thought-bubble in Eastern Europe Czechoslovakian citizens
also protested their protests were against the communist government in the autumn of
1967 at a party Congress Alexander Dubcek the chief official of the Slovak branch of the Communist Party
Demanded social and political liberalisation and openness. He was ridiculed in response
We've had more than enough of democracy the head of the party responded then hurled slurs against Slovaks
But officials technocrats and intellectuals echoed of Czechs call for reform
They drove out the old party head and made dubcek the communist leader
He and it's censorship mandated the secret ballot for party elections and permitted political opposition to take shape
Czechoslovakia was transformed in her book under a cruel star a life in Prague
Heda Margolius Kovaly recalled a little girl noticing the changing public mood and exclaiming look everyone's smiling today this became the
celebrated socialism with a human face that
Characterized the Prague Spring one Czech journalist described the new conditions as an orgy of free expression
people snapped up uncensored newspapers and magazines
They applauded uncensored films and lectures and drama
They gabbed away in public places like cafes about the latest news and especially about politics
"Nobody talks about football anymore" one taxi driver grumbled about the earnest new conversations
He heard. Thanks thought-bubble. But of course, all was not well beneath the surface despite the springtime
Enthusiasms on the night of august 20th and 21st of 1968 Soviet tanks entered Prague reasserting communist control
Citizens covered tanks with bold graffiti and baffled invading troops by removing all the street signs
Illegal radio stations provided warnings by reading the names of those about to be arrested while grocers would sell nothing to the Soviet invaders
But the Soviet military triumphed nonetheless and reform-minded
Representatives were gradually eliminated the most stunning act of resistance came in January
1969 when yan pollack a 21 year old
Philosophy student poured gasoline over his body and set himself ablaze in a main square of Prague
before that he had removed his coat and put it aside and
in that coat a note promised more suicidal immolations if the soviet-backed government didn't lift censorship
He signed himself torch number one as other Czechoslovakian youth followed in making themselves
Torches for freedom amidst all this peace activism and student and reform-minded
Protest women in Europe and in other parts of the world took up their own cause Stan can we zoom in on that picture real quick?
Can we take a close look at the facial expression of the blonde woman with bangs who's being mansplain to? Gold
Many women in Europe were recoiling both from sexism in the political and social and economic structures of their communities
But also from the heavy dose of masculine
superiority among student activists leaders in german student meetings women began throwing
Tomatoes at male speakers and they were all male who refused to let women speak
so this generation of feminists attacked both the sexism of the
universities and the masculine privilege demanded by student activists who hogged leadership roles while spouting the virtues of
Equality women were expected to be activists leaders cleaners and cooks and personal assistants and adoring sexual partners men were the undisputed
Rockstars, it was a guy's game one woman activists reported
female activists demanded opportunity and equality and
Realized they needed to split off from men to achieve it. The many feminist activist groups that arose across Europe Rhee
Articulated issues from the beginning of the 20th century
Housework child-rearing unequal pay segmentation of the labor force and the second shift that is their sole responsibility
for household chores and childcare after a full day's work
feminists also deployed Simone de Beauvoir's argument that men were treated as the norm while women
Constituted an inferior other to men's Universal and privileged status did the center of the world just open their dish towel in there
This is a dish towel. Sometimes when you wash dishes you have to dry them and this is what you used to dry them
so the inequality between working men and women in unpaid labor has gone down somewhat since the
1960's but there remains a gap in
Every single country in Europe and indeed the world on average women spend almost one
Hundred minutes more on unpaid work than men do cooking cleaning laundry
Changing diapers drying dishes, etc
That's 100 minutes every day
meanwhile Soviet feminists face different challenges and risks and communist dogma the Revolution of
1917 had brought liberation and equality to Soviet women in
1969 the censored novella a week like any other by Natalia Baron skaia described the harried life of a woman scientist
Forced to attend political meetings at work while keeping her research in science
Active and then tending to her family and home and the needs of her husband who offered no help
she questioned the status of the Soviet woman and whether true equality had been achieved no wonder the book got censored.
and then in the 1970s a collection of testimonials from Russian women in all walks of life described horrific jobs and
Inequalities and the difficulties in most women's lives including crowding alcoholic neighbours and regular beatings
The editor of that collection was exiled from the USSR, but women continued to argue for real equality not just in name
But in reality, so in addition to the protests
I've already mentioned women took to the streets in large group to support reform in divorce and marriage and abortion and birth control legislation
In Western Europe, and some of those efforts were successful
Indeed many of these protest movements were able to usher in real change from increasing the number of women in
Universities to the passage of an Equal Pay Act in Britain in 1970. Now did these protest movements and
end structural injustice?
No, and it's also important to remember how much these movements varied to both in aims and in strategy to cite one American
Example the folk singer Woody Guthrie's guitar famously read this Machine Kills Fascists
The folk singer Pete Seeger's banjo on the other hand red this machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender
Which strategy works better?
depends on what you're fighting and where you're fighting from as with so much else the answer shifts as your
perspective does
Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time
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