Tie American Left helped win some extraordinary battles during the 1960's and early 1970's. All it lost was the war.

Its two most important achievements during that period are obvious enough. The Left made a significant contribution, in militancy as well as theory, to a civil rights movement which swept away the juridical system of Jim Crow (even though the economic infrastructure of racism was left pretty much intact). And it provided activists and ideas to the teach-ins, the marches, and the political campaigns of 1968 and 1972 which turned American opinion around on the issue of Vietnam. There were other victories: for example, the destruction of the doctrine of in loco parentis on the American campus; the delegitimatizating of the House Un-American Activities Committee; participation in a woman's movement which is still demonstrating great vitality and potential; the opening up of the Democratic Party to entire new constituencies.