Perhaps of related interest. There was not a single hegmonic party in the '60s, and many then and today of course would deny that the wildly disparate activies of the '60s constituted a single "movement" in any sense. Historians of the future will dubtless wrangle over it. My current hypothesis was that that period _dic_ constitute in some rough and ready but adequate way a single coherent movement and, moreover, I don't believe that that coherence _could_ have been achieved had a single party exercised hegemony.
I make those points not to argue them but as contrext for the following.
No one as far as I know has even tried to estimate the number of "hardcore activists" (from all 'soucre,' including not only the identifiable formal organizations but local activists). But I suspect it would not have been more than a few thousand. Yet that was arguably one of the most successful social movements in U.S. history. I presume the 20,000 mentioned below refers to all nations, not just one. And extrapolating from the '60s, I would say that it was more apt to be an overestimate than an underestimate.
Carrol
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> I recall reading somewhere in Hobsbawm that at the peak of its
> influence the Communist movement had something like just 20,000
> hardcore activists. Anyone know the details on this?
>
> Doug
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