Neal Ascherson on how the spark of 1968 first ignited in Warsaw

Journalist and writer Neal Ascherson points out that "the first student uprising in 1968, year of millennial hopes and young insurrections, took place in Warsaw. But the west's media commemorations of 1968 - selective, supercilious about such idealism, and yet faintly nervous in case a new generation feels tempted into imitation - overlook Poland entirely. ... At first sight, the causes of the March events in Poland seem quite unlike the backgrounds to the Paris May, the anti-war movements in the United States, the campus occupations in West Germany, Britain or Italy. The same question hangs over the 'Prague spring' the same year, whose energy came largely from student movements ... . Was there any connection, or was there simply 'something in the air'? ... There were convergences between east and west. ... The Utopia of all their futures was a revolution in which external authority was torn down and people took direct control of their own working lives."

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