long march through the institutions en · NOUN
Etymology
Calque of German der lange Marsch durch die Institutionen, coined by German activist Rudi Dutschke in 1967.
Meanings
-
The strategy of reforming society by becoming part of the institutions that control it.
But my concern—not a deeply held conviction, but a fear I can’t stop returning to—is that the left’s long march through the institutions has run into a dead end.
Fall 2021, Michael Kazin and Timothy Shenk, “Was the Long March a Dead End? An Exchange on Radicals and the University”, in Dissent: