March through the institutions
The march through the institutions is a method articulated by Rudi Dutschke in 1967 , which called for a long-term political-strategic perspective of the protest movement, which at the time was still mainly student-dominated, in a left - socialist sense, which later followed the ideologically increasingly heterogeneous concepts of the so-called New Left . This strategy is also a catchphrase for the climax of the student movement in the 1960s, which went hand in hand with the beginning of the process of fragmentation and dissolution of the movement and its leading organization, the Socialist German Student Union (SDS).
The wording was reminiscent of Mao Zedong's Long March . In terms of content, it marks the transition from a pure student movement to the extra-parliamentary opposition between 1966 and 1969.
“Today, permanent revolutionaries, not talkers (the revolutionary discussion has meanwhile been unmasked by us as a substitute for practical work), who systematically upset the shop in the factories, in the large farms, in the armed forces, in the state bureaucracy, would be messed up by all wage earners to be completely accepted ... The 'messing up the shop' just means supporting the wage earners and others more, learning from them to break out new revolutionary factions. The permanent revolutionaries can be thrown out again and again, always penetrate new institutions: That is the long march through the institutions. "
The march through the institutions is more about destroying the institutions from within (anti-institutionalism) than about a seizure of power by a “left”.
Since the 1990s, the term march through the institutions has denoted the assumption that this form of seizure of power outlined by Dutschke actually took place. Jürgen Busche (2003) argues that the “long march through the institutions” of the 1968 movement (a mixture of student movement, extra-parliamentary opposition and the various political and social movements of the 1970s, cf. New Social Movements ) ended at the center of power and 68ers today occupy the control points of the state, the economy and the universities and thereby achieve a total social discourse sovereignty.
The historical background for this assumption is formed by developments since the 1970s, on the one hand, within the intellectual elite and, on the other hand, in the values of the population:
- The generation of 68 took up the ideology-critical ideas represented by their neo-Marxist professors of the Frankfurt School . A small part of the students involved at the time made a career in politics, in the public service and in the media , despite the professional bans and radical decrees , and tried to enforce this idea of social change.
- Parallel to the aforementioned movements, there was a broad social and political change in attitudes that had affected large parts of the population and, as a result, had actually led to changed social discourses. This general change in values partially came to a standstill at the end of the 1970s ("roll back"), while other values that were newly created or were largely newly spread through the so-called new social movements of the 1970s, such as environmental awareness or equality, still play a role in almost all political parties today play.
literature
- Helmut Schelsky : The strategy of “overcoming the system”. The long march through the institutions. [Berlin, West]: Notgemeinschaft für eine Free University, [around 1971], 8 pages (from: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of December 10, 1971 - The Notgemeinschaft für eine Free University recommends reading)
- Hans Josef Horchem : Extremists in a self-confident democracy: [Red Army Group; Right-wing extremism; The long march through the institutions]. Freiburg (im Breisgau), Basel, Vienna: Herder, 1975, 126 pages, ISBN 3-451-07515-6 ( Herder library; Vol. 515: The yellow series)
- Eric Waldman : Germany's Way to Socialism. Mainz: v. Hase and Koehler, 1976, 257 pp., ISBN 3-7758-0922-8 ("Left-wing extremists have started the" march through the institutions ", have infiltrated trade unions and the SPD and changed political life.")
- Horst-Udo Niedenhoff: On the march through the institutions. Communist agitation in the workplace and in the unions. [Ed. from the Institute of German Economy]. Cologne: Deutscher Instituts-Verlag, 1979, 207 pages, ISBN 3-88054-325-9
- Ossip K. Flechtheim / Wolfgang Rudzio / Fritz Vilmar / Manfred Wilke : The DKP's march through the institutions. Soviet Marxist strategies of influence and ideologies. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1980, 272 pages, ISBN 3-596-24223-1 (Fischer-Taschenbücher; 4223: Informations zur Zeit).
- Fritz Vilmar: What does communist infiltration mean here? A necessary analysis and how the left reacts to it. In collaboration with Wolfgang Rudzio and Manfred Wilke . Frankfurt / Main; Berlin; Vienna: Ullstein, 1981, 206 p., ISBN 3-548-34525-5 (Ullstein book; No. 34525: The current Ullstein book)
- Reginald Rudorf : The fourth estate. The left media cartel. Frankfurt / M .; Berlin: Ullstein, 1994, 231 pages, ISBN 3-548-36635-X (Ullstein book; No. 36635: Ullstein report) 2., ext. and updated edition, 1994, 255 pages (After the rebellion of 1968 the German left set out on the long march through the institutions. Nowhere has it been more successful than in the press, radio and television)