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Commentary By Christopher F. Rufo

How the 1970s Liberation Movement Led to Today’s Identity Battles

Culture Culture & Society

The following is an excerpt from Rufo's forthcoming book, America’s Cultural Revolution. The book launches Tuesday, July 18. Pre-order now on Amazon or wherever books are sold.

The late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed a wave of radical, left-wing “liberation” movements emerge across the globe. Led by counter-culture philosophers and academics, these self-described “freedom fighters” embarked on campaigns of violence and terror to promote their often utopian ideals. Within a decade, most of these groups were either jailed, disbanded or dead — leaving the far left to develop new forms of protest that would be both effective and culturally acceptable. And found their most fertile ground in America’s academic institutions.

During the chaos of the Chinese Civil War, the communist revolutionary Mao Zedong found himself besieged. The Nationalists had encircled his army.

His men were panicked, bloodied, and undersupplied.

In October 1934, the Communists initiated one of the most desperate and audacious maneuvers in military history: a 5,000-mile strategic retreat that would become known as the “Long March of the Red Army.”

Continue reading the entire piece here at the New York Post

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Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow and director of the Initiative on Critical Race Theory at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal. He is the author of the new book, America's Cultural Revolution.

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