Anti-Imperialism, the New Left and 1968

In the aftermath of WWII, independence claims and decolonization conflicts were not a novelty by any means. What was new, however, was the chain of interconnected events that gave rise to an unstoppable “process of decolonization”. In this chapter I will argue that While in the late 19th century and even more so in the early 20th century, anti-imperialism was a key concept of an international revolutionary strategy led mainly by communist political parties, in the second half of the 20th century it became an apt label for creating unity among a plurality of forces pursuing a variety of goals in diverse areas of the world. In this context, anti-imperialism rather than communist internationalism was the driving idea behind a process of mobilization enacted far beyond the territories and peoples directly subjected to imperial dominance.