The British New Left emerged in 1956 amid the disintegration of Marxism

Evidence

I entered Cultural Studies from the New Left, and the New Left always regarded Marxism as a problem, as trouble, as danger, not as a solution. Why? It had nothing to do with theoretical questions as such or in isolation. It had to do with the fact that my own (and its own) political formation occurred in a moment historically very much like the one we are in now—which I am astonished that so few people have addressed—the moment of the disintegration of a certain kind of Marxism. In fact, the first British New Left emerged in 1956 at the moment of the disintegration of an entire historical/political project. In that sense I came into Marxism backward: against the Soviet tanks in Budapest, as it were. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 240

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• QUESTION: Hall flagging that the present conjuncture mirrors 1956 — worth investigating whether he elsewhere develops this parallel between Marxist disintegration then and now.
• SEED: An essay angle: ‘Entering a tradition backwards’ — how intellectuals formed against a tradition’s collapse revise rather than inherit it, applied to Hall and to contemporary movements.

Related

• Hall’s Marxism formed against Soviet authoritarianism, not from socialist orthodoxy (similarity 0.91)
• The 1956 Suez and Hungary crises catalyzed Britain’s New Left movement (similarity 0.86)
• The 1956 Suez and Hungary crises triggered the New Left’s coalescence (similarity 0.85)
• Political crises of 1956 drew anticolonialist Hall back toward Marxism (similarity 0.85)
• 1956’s twin crises drove postcolonials to deconstruct Marxism’s Eurocentrism. (similarity 0.83)
• Opposing both Stalinism and imperialism gave the New Left its moral authority (similarity 0.81)
• Anticolonialism drew Hall into Marxism only after 1956’s Suez and Budapest crises. (similarity 0.80)
• The 1956 New Left emerged from a third-position third-world student milieu (similarity 0.80)
• The New Left crystallized in 1967-68 after divergent national origins (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The 1956 Suez and Hungary crises triggered the New Left’s coalescence #expands (0.70)
• The New Left treated Marxism as a problem rather than a solution #expands (0.60)
• Anticolonialism drew Hall into Marxism only after 1956’s Suez and Budapest crises. #expands (0.50)