By the time I became politically involved in the late 1960s, the old left did not exist except in the form of various Trotskyist groups and a few others like Rustin and Michael Harrington. For my generation, there was only the New Left and there was one defining issue that separated us from the liberal left and that was Vietnam. Harrington didn't come out against the war until 1968 and he spent more time criticizing the antiwar movement than he did the war itself. Ruskin, however, never came out against the war. The tragedies of the 60's left, and there were many, stemmed, in part, from the demise of a broad based, non-communist, socialist left after WW2 and the failure of Ruskin and others to recognize the one issue that would tear the nation asunder. I make no apologies for my ideological shortcomings in the 1970s. We were all young, floundering, and looking for answers. We didn't find Rustin, but Rustin didn't find us either.
And whenever he was asked about the Vietnam war, he consistently opposed it: "As a pacifist, I consider all wars evil." He personally maintained a consistent opposition to the war, and up until the point when he was being roasted in ad hominem critiques by leading pacifist figures, he was also very active in the anti-war movement.
By the time I became politically involved in the late 1960s, the old left did not exist except in the form of various Trotskyist groups and a few others like Rustin and Michael Harrington. For my generation, there was only the New Left and there was one defining issue that separated us from the liberal left and that was Vietnam. Harrington didn't come out against the war until 1968 and he spent more time criticizing the antiwar movement than he did the war itself. Ruskin, however, never came out against the war. The tragedies of the 60's left, and there were many, stemmed, in part, from the demise of a broad based, non-communist, socialist left after WW2 and the failure of Ruskin and others to recognize the one issue that would tear the nation asunder. I make no apologies for my ideological shortcomings in the 1970s. We were all young, floundering, and looking for answers. We didn't find Rustin, but Rustin didn't find us either.
In the same month of the same year that Staughton Lynd published an article in Liberation attacking Rustin for supposedly advocating a "coalition with the marines," Rustin spoke at a major anti-war rally at Madison Square Garden, and then led the crowd in attendance in a march to the UN, where he spoke again denouncing US policy in Vietnam. https://www.nytimes.com/1965/06/09/archives/us-assailed-on-vietnam-policy-before-l7000-at-a-garden-rally.html?searchResultPosition=68
And whenever he was asked about the Vietnam war, he consistently opposed it: "As a pacifist, I consider all wars evil." He personally maintained a consistent opposition to the war, and up until the point when he was being roasted in ad hominem critiques by leading pacifist figures, he was also very active in the anti-war movement.