ABSTRACT
The emergence of massive and militant factions of blacks and youth to some extent gave the lie to the proposition of an 'end of ideology'. On the other hand these movements were at the outset acutely circumspect about ideology. An alternative to replacing the old ideologies, the belief in pure activism, offered to fill the theoretical vacuum. But inevitably this was also accompanied by a strong scepticism about ideology, even about theory, that some in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) deplored. SDS in particular seemed to represent the continuation of an indigenous tradition of radical populism that combined activism and democratic ideals. Given the openness and eclecticisms of the new left, the especial appeal of the Anarchists, less encumbered by a grand theoretical apparatus, was that they were ideologically more flexible than the Marxists in appraising changes in advanced industrial society.
