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The Beginning of the End: France, May 1968
In May 1968, France stood on the verge of full-blooded revolution. Here a rhythmic, vivid evocation from eyewitness Angelo Quattrocchi is complemented by Tom Nairn’s cool and elegant appraisal to tell the astonishing story of those heady days. Paris is a seething battlefield of barricades, burning cars and CS gas. De Gaulle’s riot police publicly inform him that their loyalty can no longer be taken for granted. Meanwhile students and millions of young striking workers on the streets raise ideas that had previously been the sole province of radical philosophers: “To forbid is forbidden”; “Be reasonable ... Demand the impossible”; “Freedom is the consciousness of our desires.”
- GenresHistoryNonfictionFrance
160 pages, Paperback
Published May 17, 1998
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March 20, 2018
As noted when we talked about John Merriman’s Massacre: The Life and Death of the Paris Commune, my reading project for this year, where the only nonfiction I read will be about the Paris Commune of 1871 and the French revolts of May 1968, will begin at the end. Massacre, while an excellent history of the entire Commune, dwells specifically on its violent demise at the hands of Adolphe Thiers and his brutal Versaillais troops. My first book of the year on the events of May ’68, The Beginning of the End by Angelo Quattrocchi and Tom Nairn, is also a wider telling, but its focus is on the less violent but still tragic downfall of the student/labor uprising, this time because of the clever machinations of Charles DeGaulle and the inertia of the Parti Communiste Français. The former was an organized and intentional slaughter, while the latter was a failure of imagination and will; but both had devastating effects on the left and its ability to seize crucial political moments.
Although a slight volume, The Beginning of the End has a lot going for it. As Tariq Ali, ever a reliable chronicler of missed opportunities on the left, explains in his excellent introduction, Quattrocchi and Nairn are near-total opposites, but their accounts of the street battles of Paris that fateful summer are almost perfectly complementary. Quattrocchi was young, closer in age to the student rioters he was covering for Avanti!, the Italian socialist newspaper; his half of the book is enraged, poetic, and violently contemporary, befitting his anarchist politics and his background as a poet. Nairn, an older Scotsman closer in style and temperament to the workers whose simultaneous uprising formed the powerful but often uncomfortable alliance of May ’68, was teaching at the Hornsey College of Art in London when the shit went down and participated in its own notorious shutdown at the same time. His half of the book is regretful, academic, and rigorously historical, much better suited to an academic and Marxist framework. But both provide invaluable, crucially first-hand accounts of a miraculous moment in modern history, when a major Western power very nearly had a massive popular revolution without a shot being fired.
It is no secret that I view both the Paris Commune and the May ’68 revolt with something like religious awe. I have always believed that if we are to ever have a good and lasting revolution, it will come the way they came: not out of a void, not unplanned or un-prepared-for, but unexpected, spontaneous, unpredictable, and uncontrollable: the sudden sounding of a voice that had long forgotten itself, speaking on behalf of a whole people, and demanding not just a series of reformist acquiescences, but a total transformation of society from the ground up. I believe, with Rosa Luxemburg, that our victory will come not as a result of academic study or theoretical exercise, but as a result of our presence at a moment of sudden historical upheaval of which we must necessarily be a part — that “in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight we learn how we must fight…that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding, the weapons of their own liberation.” But it is also no secret that I know how precious, how tenuous, and how maddeningly difficult this process can be, and how easily it can fall apart, and how the enemies of equality and liberation are forever waiting patiently for one mistake, any mistake, that they can exploit to tear what we have made to pieces.
It’s for this reason that I’m more invested in Quattrocchi’s manically beautiful half of the book than Nairn’s account, dry and bitter like vermouth. Nairn’s work is obviously the more intellectually accomplished and mature contribution, and he has moments of stunning clarity especially in his historical comparisons; his work on nationalism is not always convincing, but he does a fine job here of laying out exactly why things happened the way they did in France, and why they didn’t happen (and probably couldn’t have happened) anywhere else the same way, and what that all means for the future. The book wouldn’t exist without him, or at least it wouldn’t be nearly as compelling. But he is suffused with a pessimism that borders on cynicism, and his deep dives into the policies and conflicts between the warring left factions of the time can be a bit enervating. If his attitude towards the whole affair seems perpetually on the verge of defeatism, it’s understandable; he had just gotten canned from his teaching job because of his participation in the occupation of Hornsey. But in retrospect, it reads less like the work of a revolutionary and more like a man who was looking for an excuse to minimize the importance of what he’d seen.
Quattrocchi’s section, on the other hand, is pure juice, nothing but adrenaline and acceleration, all gas, no brakes. He alone seems radically aware that what is happening is both a political revolution and a social one (it failed as the former and succeeded as the latter). He was on the ground for the whole show, and while less than 300 miles separates Paris and London, his proximity makes all the difference. His telling of the story is immediate, exhausted, and full of spite: for the cops who so casually brutalize their own people, for the political figures who cadge around for petty advantages when total transformation is within reach, for DeGaulle, “the eternal shit, the canaille“. And, with urgency and clarity, from the middle of a beehive of activity, of people fighting desperately to protect what they have built overnight while engaging in the creation of an entirely new reality at the same time, he sees the cracks in the structure that will eventually break open and let DeGaulle and his cops and the political opportunists come pouring in.
Both men saw the rise and the fall of a stunning experiment in reshaping the world, from only a slight distance in geography and perspective. Both narrate its heartbreaking demise in an incredibly compelling way, full of important lessons to us; we are only fifty years removed, but we are also a long and eventful century away. The Beginning of the End may prove to be just what its title promises, but if we read its cautions and keep our eyes forever open for those rare and magnificent historical moments, it may be exactly the opposite.
Although a slight volume, The Beginning of the End has a lot going for it. As Tariq Ali, ever a reliable chronicler of missed opportunities on the left, explains in his excellent introduction, Quattrocchi and Nairn are near-total opposites, but their accounts of the street battles of Paris that fateful summer are almost perfectly complementary. Quattrocchi was young, closer in age to the student rioters he was covering for Avanti!, the Italian socialist newspaper; his half of the book is enraged, poetic, and violently contemporary, befitting his anarchist politics and his background as a poet. Nairn, an older Scotsman closer in style and temperament to the workers whose simultaneous uprising formed the powerful but often uncomfortable alliance of May ’68, was teaching at the Hornsey College of Art in London when the shit went down and participated in its own notorious shutdown at the same time. His half of the book is regretful, academic, and rigorously historical, much better suited to an academic and Marxist framework. But both provide invaluable, crucially first-hand accounts of a miraculous moment in modern history, when a major Western power very nearly had a massive popular revolution without a shot being fired.
It is no secret that I view both the Paris Commune and the May ’68 revolt with something like religious awe. I have always believed that if we are to ever have a good and lasting revolution, it will come the way they came: not out of a void, not unplanned or un-prepared-for, but unexpected, spontaneous, unpredictable, and uncontrollable: the sudden sounding of a voice that had long forgotten itself, speaking on behalf of a whole people, and demanding not just a series of reformist acquiescences, but a total transformation of society from the ground up. I believe, with Rosa Luxemburg, that our victory will come not as a result of academic study or theoretical exercise, but as a result of our presence at a moment of sudden historical upheaval of which we must necessarily be a part — that “in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight we learn how we must fight…that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding, the weapons of their own liberation.” But it is also no secret that I know how precious, how tenuous, and how maddeningly difficult this process can be, and how easily it can fall apart, and how the enemies of equality and liberation are forever waiting patiently for one mistake, any mistake, that they can exploit to tear what we have made to pieces.
It’s for this reason that I’m more invested in Quattrocchi’s manically beautiful half of the book than Nairn’s account, dry and bitter like vermouth. Nairn’s work is obviously the more intellectually accomplished and mature contribution, and he has moments of stunning clarity especially in his historical comparisons; his work on nationalism is not always convincing, but he does a fine job here of laying out exactly why things happened the way they did in France, and why they didn’t happen (and probably couldn’t have happened) anywhere else the same way, and what that all means for the future. The book wouldn’t exist without him, or at least it wouldn’t be nearly as compelling. But he is suffused with a pessimism that borders on cynicism, and his deep dives into the policies and conflicts between the warring left factions of the time can be a bit enervating. If his attitude towards the whole affair seems perpetually on the verge of defeatism, it’s understandable; he had just gotten canned from his teaching job because of his participation in the occupation of Hornsey. But in retrospect, it reads less like the work of a revolutionary and more like a man who was looking for an excuse to minimize the importance of what he’d seen.
Quattrocchi’s section, on the other hand, is pure juice, nothing but adrenaline and acceleration, all gas, no brakes. He alone seems radically aware that what is happening is both a political revolution and a social one (it failed as the former and succeeded as the latter). He was on the ground for the whole show, and while less than 300 miles separates Paris and London, his proximity makes all the difference. His telling of the story is immediate, exhausted, and full of spite: for the cops who so casually brutalize their own people, for the political figures who cadge around for petty advantages when total transformation is within reach, for DeGaulle, “the eternal shit, the canaille“. And, with urgency and clarity, from the middle of a beehive of activity, of people fighting desperately to protect what they have built overnight while engaging in the creation of an entirely new reality at the same time, he sees the cracks in the structure that will eventually break open and let DeGaulle and his cops and the political opportunists come pouring in.
Both men saw the rise and the fall of a stunning experiment in reshaping the world, from only a slight distance in geography and perspective. Both narrate its heartbreaking demise in an incredibly compelling way, full of important lessons to us; we are only fifty years removed, but we are also a long and eventful century away. The Beginning of the End may prove to be just what its title promises, but if we read its cautions and keep our eyes forever open for those rare and magnificent historical moments, it may be exactly the opposite.
October 27, 2025
Note: There is a TL;DR at the bottom but I insist you read the whole thing because this book deserves it.
This is a love letter to The Beginning of the End by Angelo Quattrocchi and Tom Nairn with a preface by Tariq Ali. I want to share it because not many people are likely to pick this book up and for those who do not usually read poetry it might feel inaccessible. This is my attempt to tell you from my perspective what the book is really about.
When I first opened it I did not know much about the 1968 student uprisings in France. Very quickly I realized how significant they were not just in Europe but across the world. Similar movements sprang up in places like Pakistan and the spirit of resistance still resonates today. At first the uprising seemed impulsive and chaotic, like people had just reached a boiling point. That is the stereotype that social movements explode out of frustration. But as I read on I saw something deeper. What looked like chaos was actually a collective emotional reaction to a system designed to demand obedience. The apparent lack of strategy was not a failure. It was the natural outcome of decades of hierarchy and conditioning.
Quattrocchi’s writing especially in its poetic form captures that feeling perfectly. This book is not a dry history lesson. It is alive, emotional, and immediate. Poetry gives it rhythm letting you feel the energy of the streets and the uncertainty of the students. The tone shifts as the story unfolds. Early chapters are hopeful and defiant, but when the workers’ unions enter the tone becomes heavier and more resigned. Even movements for freedom can be absorbed by the structures they resist. The book reflects on how bureaucracy drains passion and optimism.
The generational contrast struck me too. The older generation shaped by the trauma of world war equated stability with peace. Obedience was safety. But that mindset traps society in cycles of compliance. Quattrocchi shows that wars like these do not appear out of nowhere. They are produced by systems people refuse to question.
One of the most powerful images in the book is the idea of society as a plastic flower. It looks real, it functions, but it can be discarded at any moment. People are shaped to be obedient rather than curious. Schools rarely teach freedom or critical thinking. They teach compliance. I remember an art professor once told our class that coloring inside the lines was a test of obedience. True art he said questions why the lines exist at all. That stayed with me. Degrees, jobs, and systems all operate the same way. They keep raising the bar to keep people chasing, compliant, and too busy to question.
That connects directly to modern workplaces and bureaucracies. Even well-paid workers feed structures that extract from them. Comfort and security quiet dissent. The illusion of choice replaces real freedom. Reading Quattrocchi I reflected on privilege. I can read and reflect, but many cannot. The working class is often too exhausted to think beyond survival. The system depends on that.
A key insight in the book is that change cannot rely on desperation alone. Desperation has no time to organize. Real transformation requires strategy, knowledge, and connection. Education the kind that sparks imagination is the foundation. Those of us with the privilege to learn should share it, translate ideas into action, and embed movements in daily life. Otherwise movements remain abstract and die.
Later chapters feel like a cry for connection. The poetic energy of the early writing gives way to frustration almost a shout into a void. Many of us know injustice but feel powerless to act. Despair comes when awareness grows faster than organization. Quattrocchi captures that beautifully.
One passage that stayed with me reflects on labor. History books remember kings, rulers, and generals, but not the workers who built and sustain the world. In 1968, when millions of workers went on strike, the country stopped. Trains, planes, factories stopped. But electricity and water still flowed because workers allowed it. It is a stark reminder that power depends on the people who make everything function day by day. That resonates today, even for office workers with benefits. Loyalty brings comfort, not freedom. Quattrocchi’s reflections are timeless. They are about the tension between creators and controllers, not just a single uprising.
Toward the end I could not help but see parallels to movements like Black Lives Matter. Different causes, same pattern. Emotion sparks action, but systems co-opt energy, soften it, and dilute it. Awakening can become a slogan if it is not rooted in strategy and sustained action.Reading The Beginning of the End in 2025 is like holding a mirror to today. Frustrations, illusions of progress, and hollow promises persist, but the spark remains. Awareness is just the beginning. Freedom begins when we stop mistaking obedience for peace.
TL;DR: The Beginning of the End is not just about the 1968 French uprisings. It is a meditation on obedience, education, labor, and the tension between creating and controlling systems. Quattrocchi’s poetry makes history feel alive, showing how awareness can spark change but only when paired with connection, strategy, and action. It is timeless, urgent, and deeply human.
This is a love letter to The Beginning of the End by Angelo Quattrocchi and Tom Nairn with a preface by Tariq Ali. I want to share it because not many people are likely to pick this book up and for those who do not usually read poetry it might feel inaccessible. This is my attempt to tell you from my perspective what the book is really about.
When I first opened it I did not know much about the 1968 student uprisings in France. Very quickly I realized how significant they were not just in Europe but across the world. Similar movements sprang up in places like Pakistan and the spirit of resistance still resonates today. At first the uprising seemed impulsive and chaotic, like people had just reached a boiling point. That is the stereotype that social movements explode out of frustration. But as I read on I saw something deeper. What looked like chaos was actually a collective emotional reaction to a system designed to demand obedience. The apparent lack of strategy was not a failure. It was the natural outcome of decades of hierarchy and conditioning.
Quattrocchi’s writing especially in its poetic form captures that feeling perfectly. This book is not a dry history lesson. It is alive, emotional, and immediate. Poetry gives it rhythm letting you feel the energy of the streets and the uncertainty of the students. The tone shifts as the story unfolds. Early chapters are hopeful and defiant, but when the workers’ unions enter the tone becomes heavier and more resigned. Even movements for freedom can be absorbed by the structures they resist. The book reflects on how bureaucracy drains passion and optimism.
The generational contrast struck me too. The older generation shaped by the trauma of world war equated stability with peace. Obedience was safety. But that mindset traps society in cycles of compliance. Quattrocchi shows that wars like these do not appear out of nowhere. They are produced by systems people refuse to question.
One of the most powerful images in the book is the idea of society as a plastic flower. It looks real, it functions, but it can be discarded at any moment. People are shaped to be obedient rather than curious. Schools rarely teach freedom or critical thinking. They teach compliance. I remember an art professor once told our class that coloring inside the lines was a test of obedience. True art he said questions why the lines exist at all. That stayed with me. Degrees, jobs, and systems all operate the same way. They keep raising the bar to keep people chasing, compliant, and too busy to question.
That connects directly to modern workplaces and bureaucracies. Even well-paid workers feed structures that extract from them. Comfort and security quiet dissent. The illusion of choice replaces real freedom. Reading Quattrocchi I reflected on privilege. I can read and reflect, but many cannot. The working class is often too exhausted to think beyond survival. The system depends on that.
A key insight in the book is that change cannot rely on desperation alone. Desperation has no time to organize. Real transformation requires strategy, knowledge, and connection. Education the kind that sparks imagination is the foundation. Those of us with the privilege to learn should share it, translate ideas into action, and embed movements in daily life. Otherwise movements remain abstract and die.
Later chapters feel like a cry for connection. The poetic energy of the early writing gives way to frustration almost a shout into a void. Many of us know injustice but feel powerless to act. Despair comes when awareness grows faster than organization. Quattrocchi captures that beautifully.
One passage that stayed with me reflects on labor. History books remember kings, rulers, and generals, but not the workers who built and sustain the world. In 1968, when millions of workers went on strike, the country stopped. Trains, planes, factories stopped. But electricity and water still flowed because workers allowed it. It is a stark reminder that power depends on the people who make everything function day by day. That resonates today, even for office workers with benefits. Loyalty brings comfort, not freedom. Quattrocchi’s reflections are timeless. They are about the tension between creators and controllers, not just a single uprising.
Toward the end I could not help but see parallels to movements like Black Lives Matter. Different causes, same pattern. Emotion sparks action, but systems co-opt energy, soften it, and dilute it. Awakening can become a slogan if it is not rooted in strategy and sustained action.Reading The Beginning of the End in 2025 is like holding a mirror to today. Frustrations, illusions of progress, and hollow promises persist, but the spark remains. Awareness is just the beginning. Freedom begins when we stop mistaking obedience for peace.
TL;DR: The Beginning of the End is not just about the 1968 French uprisings. It is a meditation on obedience, education, labor, and the tension between creating and controlling systems. Quattrocchi’s poetry makes history feel alive, showing how awareness can spark change but only when paired with connection, strategy, and action. It is timeless, urgent, and deeply human.
October 7, 2015
Angelo Quattrocchi's half was a solid five stars, but Tom Nairn's essay dragged on a bit - three stars, maybe. Thus: four.
December 29, 2023
An interesting literary experiment around the student protests/general strike in France of 68, the first half being a poetic recounting of events from someone on the ground, the second a more academic theoretical take on the events.
The first is definitely the highlight of the book, Quattrochi’s prose poem carrying the fervor and passion of revolution as if he wrote it as the events were occurring. The rise of the movement is intoxicating, students protesting over gendered dormitories and better learning conditions in mass confrontation with the power of the state, the rest of the country watching in horror before joining in, the demands and aims of the movement spiraling into a countrywide transformation of life, all rising up to bring an economy, a president, the existing power structure (literally turning off the power!) to its knees, perhaps the greatest show of force by a working class movement ever in the Western world, before being brutally beaten back by the state. The potential is felt, both in ideas, of a movement finding itself as it grows, finding that the old revolutionary concepts are not fit for their moment and working to find new ones, a total transformation of life, and in action, as what starts small grows and grows until it can bring a country to its knees and bring the possibility of real power to the table. If there’s a critique of this section, it’s that the fall is abbreviated, the exact events abstracted, while there’s a real clarity to how the rise occurs. Would imagine any history of 2020 would probably have a similar arc and lack of clarity, so perhaps it’s not truly the fault of the author here.
The second I’m a little more mixed on it, and I find more interesting as an account of grappling with the events than really analysis. Nairn identifies the students as the new force with the revolutionary potential, disregarding the old traditional working class and political parties and unions with them. For a moment, around the world, USA, France, and elsewhere, he was right- students reliably being the force that resisted and tried to build new structures. However, in hindsight, it’s clear that that was a blip, the last outcry of the youth against the turning of the university from a place of learning and human growth to job training, a servant to the needs and demands of the economy rather than a refuge from it. When was the last time a student movement made any sort of wave? The students have internalized the logic of the market, scared to compromise academic standing and job prospects. Still, this analysis is interesting, as Nairn is trying to find a new center of political potential since the traditional working class structures of union and party have not delivered substantial change and the basic needs of (most) everyone are being met, leading to a complacency and lack of fervor that might have been once necessary and core to the movements.
Has some of my favorite quotes around working class revolt I’ve ever read, particularly:
“The astronomers at Meudon are on strike, not for money, for more stars.”
The first is definitely the highlight of the book, Quattrochi’s prose poem carrying the fervor and passion of revolution as if he wrote it as the events were occurring. The rise of the movement is intoxicating, students protesting over gendered dormitories and better learning conditions in mass confrontation with the power of the state, the rest of the country watching in horror before joining in, the demands and aims of the movement spiraling into a countrywide transformation of life, all rising up to bring an economy, a president, the existing power structure (literally turning off the power!) to its knees, perhaps the greatest show of force by a working class movement ever in the Western world, before being brutally beaten back by the state. The potential is felt, both in ideas, of a movement finding itself as it grows, finding that the old revolutionary concepts are not fit for their moment and working to find new ones, a total transformation of life, and in action, as what starts small grows and grows until it can bring a country to its knees and bring the possibility of real power to the table. If there’s a critique of this section, it’s that the fall is abbreviated, the exact events abstracted, while there’s a real clarity to how the rise occurs. Would imagine any history of 2020 would probably have a similar arc and lack of clarity, so perhaps it’s not truly the fault of the author here.
The second I’m a little more mixed on it, and I find more interesting as an account of grappling with the events than really analysis. Nairn identifies the students as the new force with the revolutionary potential, disregarding the old traditional working class and political parties and unions with them. For a moment, around the world, USA, France, and elsewhere, he was right- students reliably being the force that resisted and tried to build new structures. However, in hindsight, it’s clear that that was a blip, the last outcry of the youth against the turning of the university from a place of learning and human growth to job training, a servant to the needs and demands of the economy rather than a refuge from it. When was the last time a student movement made any sort of wave? The students have internalized the logic of the market, scared to compromise academic standing and job prospects. Still, this analysis is interesting, as Nairn is trying to find a new center of political potential since the traditional working class structures of union and party have not delivered substantial change and the basic needs of (most) everyone are being met, leading to a complacency and lack of fervor that might have been once necessary and core to the movements.
Has some of my favorite quotes around working class revolt I’ve ever read, particularly:
“The astronomers at Meudon are on strike, not for money, for more stars.”
October 31, 2025
This book is a must read if you want to understand revolutionary movements and why establishment leftist parties keep betraying working-class uprisings. It's about the May 1968 uprising in France when the country was on the edge of revolution, and it's written from two perspectives that really complement each other.
The first part is by Quattrocchi, an Italian anarchist, and it's super visual and poetic. It reads like a novel and puts you right there in the moment on the barricades. The second part is by Nairn, a Scottish Gramscian Marxist, and it's more academic and analytical. He breaks down why the revolution failed and what it means for future movements. Having both perspectives really helps you understand what happened.
What really stands out is the betrayal by the French Communist Party and the unions. They actively worked against the student-led uprising, calling them Trotskyists and anarchists like it was an insult. They became a party of order instead of revolution because they were too invested in the system. The CP couldn't accept that students and professors are workers too. They were stuck thinking only factory workers mattered, so they negotiated for scraps while young workers wanted to actually strike and fight. This dogmatic thinking killed the movement.
The lessons here are incredibly relevant today. Police and media used the same tactics back then as they do now, vilifying protestors and refusing to give an inch. The book makes a strong case against vanguardism and top-down party leadership. We have to liberate ourselves through direct action, not wait for some party to lead us. Nairn argues that we're stuck in outdated thinking about who the working class even is. Technology has changed everything, and the revolution won't look like 1917 Russia. We need bottom-up organizing that fits our actual material conditions, not blind devotion to old texts.
One thing I really appreciated was how the book shows that people will put up with terrible conditions if they think that's just normal life. But if you give them an ideology showing another way is possible, they'll revolt. The anarchists during May '68 understood this and created spaces for discussion, asking why wait for perfect conditions when we can create them now.
The book ends on a hopeful note. Just because this revolution didn't succeed doesn't mean future ones won't. It's not about waiting for one person to lead us. It's us as a collective that has to seize the moment. Every revolt and act of solidarity brings us closer to that future. This book honestly radicalized me in ways I didn't expect. Highly recommend for anyone interested in labor organizing, protest movements, or understanding why institutional leftism keeps failing us.
The first part is by Quattrocchi, an Italian anarchist, and it's super visual and poetic. It reads like a novel and puts you right there in the moment on the barricades. The second part is by Nairn, a Scottish Gramscian Marxist, and it's more academic and analytical. He breaks down why the revolution failed and what it means for future movements. Having both perspectives really helps you understand what happened.
What really stands out is the betrayal by the French Communist Party and the unions. They actively worked against the student-led uprising, calling them Trotskyists and anarchists like it was an insult. They became a party of order instead of revolution because they were too invested in the system. The CP couldn't accept that students and professors are workers too. They were stuck thinking only factory workers mattered, so they negotiated for scraps while young workers wanted to actually strike and fight. This dogmatic thinking killed the movement.
The lessons here are incredibly relevant today. Police and media used the same tactics back then as they do now, vilifying protestors and refusing to give an inch. The book makes a strong case against vanguardism and top-down party leadership. We have to liberate ourselves through direct action, not wait for some party to lead us. Nairn argues that we're stuck in outdated thinking about who the working class even is. Technology has changed everything, and the revolution won't look like 1917 Russia. We need bottom-up organizing that fits our actual material conditions, not blind devotion to old texts.
One thing I really appreciated was how the book shows that people will put up with terrible conditions if they think that's just normal life. But if you give them an ideology showing another way is possible, they'll revolt. The anarchists during May '68 understood this and created spaces for discussion, asking why wait for perfect conditions when we can create them now.
The book ends on a hopeful note. Just because this revolution didn't succeed doesn't mean future ones won't. It's not about waiting for one person to lead us. It's us as a collective that has to seize the moment. Every revolt and act of solidarity brings us closer to that future. This book honestly radicalized me in ways I didn't expect. Highly recommend for anyone interested in labor organizing, protest movements, or understanding why institutional leftism keeps failing us.
November 13, 2020
1968年发生在法国的五月风暴是无数革命中的一个异类，不同以往的地方在于，它并非遵从着某条先行理论的指引，而是远远地把当时所有的理论都抛在了身后。就这样，一场巨大的风暴在毫无预兆的情况下席卷了整个法国。在理论诞生之前，行动已经发生。从来都是现实奋力向理想靠拢，而这一次，理想却在努力描述着现实。
五月风暴之所以发生在法国而不是其他地方，自然有它的必然性。当时的法国正处于一个殖民帝国向现代宪政国家转型的过程中，它“既集权又涣散、既自由又权威”。为了能够更精准、更高效的管理，政府和科技官僚们只手遮天，任意渗透每一处领域，把社会的自主运作拒之门外，堵塞了民众将意见和诉求向上传递的渠道。当积累到足够的能量时，不满爆发了。起初，当不满仅限于一群叛逆而激越的法国大学生时，政府尚握有“疏”和“堵”两种选择。而经验告诉我们，一个过于强势的政府惯常倾向于把妥协看作软弱、把强硬误认为权威。所以当学生以年轻人独有的热情和头破血流的境遇点燃了法国人骨子里深埋的革命激情后，法国各个阶层的民众纷纷为了各自的理由而涌上街头，风暴就此形成。于是，我也看到了全书最感人的两个场景：一个老妇人从楼上的窗口朝街头饥饿的人群丢下巧克力棒；一个男人从公寓走下来，把自己的车子推到路中央去充当街垒。事实证明，警察的粉墨登场恰恰见证了权威的崩塌；正是“堵”而不是“疏”将一场年轻人的反叛转换成一场全民的革命。哪怕在局势烽火蔓延之际，被“自由、平等、博爱”的传统法国价值所约束的政府，在采取高压措施时也始终不曾逾越最后的底线。于是乎，五月风暴一发不可收拾。
此外更重要的是，五月风暴所暴露出的是在现代资本主义社会或曰消费社会的表面繁荣之下，所隐藏着的深刻的精神危机和奇怪悖论。当资本主义在20世纪取得了空前的成功后，似乎富足正从工厂流水线上源源不断地被生产出来，而琳琅满目的幸福也正摆在超级市场里的里廉价贩卖时，人依旧支离破碎。当代人和《摩登时代》里的卓别林所扮演的角色相比仍然没有本质上的区别，只是当年的陈旧机械如今已变成一张更先进因而也更严密的大网。在这张网内，人人都被要求“生产但不要提问题，消费但不要找答案。”大学沦为职业培训所，教育则毫无保留地投入了“投资哲学”的怀抱。人们发现，如果丰衣足食不再意味着一切，那么它马上就什么也不是了。在五月风暴形成之前，南岱和大学就已贴出这样一条由无名氏书写标语：“在一个奶与蜜的世界里，1968的年轻欧洲人想要当——一个完整的人。”为了获得富足，我们因而付出了匮乏的代价。
奇怪的悖论在于，高度发达的资本主义社会需要培养出更多的受教育者来为其服务，以催生和应对日趋复杂、精密的崭新行业。而与此同时，当生产力迅速膨胀，人的心智渐渐从繁重的物质生产中抽身而出，从而获得更多闲暇以转向精神上的求索之后，受教育者将愈来愈不再满足于这般支离破碎的富足，然后从它的内部愤起质疑这种高歌猛进中的“官僚化、科技化、效率化的生活”，狠狠追问“所谓的疯狂难道不正是潜藏在我们一直深信不疑的理性之中？”五月风暴平息之后，世界似乎再也回不到先前的模样，因为它将从此满含疑惑。
最后，我愿意从这本书的前言和后记中各摘取一句话来作为全文的结束：“吊诡的是，资本主义真正不可避免的命运只有在它为本世纪赢得了物质胜利之后才悄然出现……有史以来头一遭，人们革命不单为面包，还为蔷薇。”
五月风暴之所以发生在法国而不是其他地方，自然有它的必然性。当时的法国正处于一个殖民帝国向现代宪政国家转型的过程中，它“既集权又涣散、既自由又权威”。为了能够更精准、更高效的管理，政府和科技官僚们只手遮天，任意渗透每一处领域，把社会的自主运作拒之门外，堵塞了民众将意见和诉求向上传递的渠道。当积累到足够的能量时，不满爆发了。起初，当不满仅限于一群叛逆而激越的法国大学生时，政府尚握有“疏”和“堵”两种选择。而经验告诉我们，一个过于强势的政府惯常倾向于把妥协看作软弱、把强硬误认为权威。所以当学生以年轻人独有的热情和头破血流的境遇点燃了法国人骨子里深埋的革命激情后，法国各个阶层的民众纷纷为了各自的理由而涌上街头，风暴就此形成。于是，我也看到了全书最感人的两个场景：一个老妇人从楼上的窗口朝街头饥饿的人群丢下巧克力棒；一个男人从公寓走下来，把自己的车子推到路中央去充当街垒。事实证明，警察的粉墨登场恰恰见证了权威的崩塌；正是“堵”而不是“疏”将一场年轻人的反叛转换成一场全民的革命。哪怕在局势烽火蔓延之际，被“自由、平等、博爱”的传统法国价值所约束的政府，在采取高压措施时也始终不曾逾越最后的底线。于是乎，五月风暴一发不可收拾。
此外更重要的是，五月风暴所暴露出的是在现代资本主义社会或曰消费社会的表面繁荣之下，所隐藏着的深刻的精神危机和奇怪悖论。当资本主义在20世纪取得了空前的成功后，似乎富足正从工厂流水线上源源不断地被生产出来，而琳琅满目的幸福也正摆在超级市场里的里廉价贩卖时，人依旧支离破碎。当代人和《摩登时代》里的卓别林所扮演的角色相比仍然没有本质上的区别，只是当年的陈旧机械如今已变成一张更先进因而也更严密的大网。在这张网内，人人都被要求“生产但不要提问题，消费但不要找答案。”大学沦为职业培训所，教育则毫无保留地投入了“投资哲学”的怀抱。人们发现，如果丰衣足食不再意味着一切，那么它马上就什么也不是了。在五月风暴形成之前，南岱和大学就已贴出这样一条由无名氏书写标语：“在一个奶与蜜的世界里，1968的年轻欧洲人想要当——一个完整的人。”为了获得富足，我们因而付出了匮乏的代价。
奇怪的悖论在于，高度发达的资本主义社会需要培养出更多的受教育者来为其服务，以催生和应对日趋复杂、精密的崭新行业。而与此同时，当生产力迅速膨胀，人的心智渐渐从繁重的物质生产中抽身而出，从而获得更多闲暇以转向精神上的求索之后，受教育者将愈来愈不再满足于这般支离破碎的富足，然后从它的内部愤起质疑这种高歌猛进中的“官僚化、科技化、效率化的生活”，狠狠追问“所谓的疯狂难道不正是潜藏在我们一直深信不疑的理性之中？”五月风暴平息之后，世界似乎再也回不到先前的模样，因为它将从此满含疑惑。
最后，我愿意从这本书的前言和后记中各摘取一句话来作为全文的结束：“吊诡的是，资本主义真正不可避免的命运只有在它为本世纪赢得了物质胜利之后才悄然出现……有史以来头一遭，人们革命不单为面包，还为蔷薇。”
November 8, 2018
An excellent short overview of the events of May 1968. Divided in 2 parts: a long prose poem which narrates the events and observations of Quattrocchi, and the contemporary analysis and reflections by Nairn. The poem is the star of the book — beautiful and dynamic. Nairn's section is especially concerned with the paradox of theory–practice in Marxism and how 1968 should be interpreted. This essay is valuable, and the reader should be reminded of the context in which it was written upon meeting its flaws.
June 19, 2018
Not unbiased but very interesting and informative. Loved the contrast of journalist on the front lines versus scholar's essay.
July 8, 2021
Angelo Quattrocchi segment - poetic brilliance
Tom Nairn segment - unreadable web of random words
Tom Nairn segment - unreadable web of random words
January 26, 2022
This is an excellent book and I would say a very important read for these times of revolt.
March 22, 2013
THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING. I cared less about Tom Nairn's essay than I would have liked to, but Angelo Quattrocchi's FLOORED me. I know I'm going to be returning to it again and again. His half of the book is incendiary frontline reporting, a prose poem from the student barricades of May 1968, that I actually cannot in any way handle on any level because it’s so good. I was shaking while I read it. It's a report about systematized power, and about the way the system tries to keep power to itself during a revolt, and about how a student protest becomes a full scale war:
‘Don’t panic comrades - they can only take our lives - get away before you faint - don’t get in the way of those throwing pavés…’
One barricade. Behind, another. Between them: bodies.
‘Don’t leave your friends behind, comrades.’
The next barricade.
Dry lungs and tears and blood.
Behind closed doors Paris waits for murder to be done, so its cars can circulate again.
January 16, 2008
Ah there is nothing like the personal touch .... to a social revolution. May 68 is symbolic 60's activity that makes us (of that generation) to cry. A first hand account of Paris during that time that is somewhat super romanctic. And that's not bad, romance is what gets us out of (or stay in ) bed.
February 3, 2011
This is the tale of the revolution which occurred in Paris in the month of May, 1968. Revolutions are the ecstasy of history: the moment when social reality and social dream fuse (the act of love).
Fab!
Fab!
July 4, 2007
This book includes a beautifully poetic/free-form account of the events of May '68 in Paris, followed by an in-depth and truly insightful piece covering what "actually" happened.
January 15, 2008
This is an incredibly vivid telling of the events in France during May 1968. I never understood until I read this poet's account.
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