Doug Henwood wrote:
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> On Aug 25, 2010, at 5:42 PM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote:
>
> > Also, wasn't the military desegregated by Truman?
>
> Yes, and that was almost certainly Cold War-related. Ditto some of the deseg moves of the 1950s. Those concessions by the ruling class put the masses in a more demanding mood, perhaps?
>
The head of the Pullman Porters union (I forget both his name and the name of the union) threatened a mass strike if Truman did not desegregate the military. Truman said, "I wish you hadn't said that." He replied, "Mr President, I wish I hadn't had to say that." So while it is certainly important to allow for Cold War pressures, as far as I know that pressure never brought about a single change that wasn't the immediate result of considerable internal pressure, almost always resisted at first. As I said in an earlier post, the Kennedys tried really hard to block the March on Washington -- and without that March the '60s would have been quite different.
There are always multiple pressures on any "ruling class," but I think the record of the last couple centuries is quite clear. The _main_ source of change, the _only_ originating source of change, is popular pressure. And by 1965 or 66, Coldf War or not, it probably would have taken an actual shift to a police state of some sort to bottle up the gathering revolt.
What is being discussed here is the single most important event of the last century for current leftists to understand -- and quick (or hip-shot) analyses are woefully inadequate to the task.
Carrol