The spectacle of a bourgeoisie in crisis has its funny side and nothing is more ridiculous than the agony of the world's most puffed-up ruling class the one we face in Britain. Students will be given the chance to witness an example of the bourgeoise 's crisis when the colleges open, since it is customary at this time for college principals and vice chancellors to introduce the new "boys and girls" to the splendours of our establishments of higher learning.
What should these gentlemen try to say? How can they carry it off? One of the present pillars of our academic establishment, Professor Harrod, has written a book in which he describes what Cambridge was like ae the start of eager to give them a platonic embrace and introduce them to the mysteries of academic life. Today, the educational bosses, even in Oxford and Cambridge-the acadenue Rolls Royees can face the new year with nothing more than threadbare double talk and sordid little schemes for repression, If a college principal tries to drag up the old story about college being a place of "independent scholarship" or the training of unfettered, critical minds, even his owt staff could hardly avoid saggering. Such talk is about as convincing as Lord Stokes telling his workers that the company s aim is to improve the qualiry of their lives Some of the college bosses may try the more "modern" line shout the role of higher education as a supplier of first Class personnel For industry. But what if someone got up and pointed out how many thousands of graduates are now unemployed? Another favourite theme of these start-ofterm speeches, one designed to play on the "idealism" of students, was talk about the civilising role of the university in the local "community" its responsibility to act as a stimulating influence on the surrounding society. But in the present situation it is becoming rather difficult to gloss over the fact that the so-called "community" is anything but united, and a number of students have got into serious trouble with their own masters through trying to invoive themselves in the struggles of workersand other sections of the "community" outside. All in all, the college principal can nardly avoid making Tools of themselves in the eves of students with any awareness of the social situation in Britain at the present time.
THE MORE ABSURD, THE MORE REPRESSIVE But this ideological hankruptcy in the field of higher education is no buchine maller for the academnic estab sh crush independent thought and action on the part of the When a student makes a fool of himsell or talks nonsense, ne is augne to tecopause mis mistakes and to try a an bumility to present things as they really are in future. Too often studeats imagine that their managers will accept the same procedures when they are found to be talking rubbish or behaving in an intolerable way, in every case, from LSE to Warwick, from Swansea to Northern Poly, student unions have wasted months of their time trying to convince their bosses that they have made a silly mistake and that all that is required is a change of mind. This proceduce has never worked: the more absurdly the authorities behave, the more viciously they repress attempts at reform. The more cogently Warwick students asked for a social building under their own control, the more frenzied became the spying and repression of the authorities. when swansea students modestly called for an end to regimentation in halls of residence. their leaders were threatened with wholesale expulsions; growing interest of students at Oxford in the affairs of the university brought the authorities to push throught new scipanary weapons, the dean or soldents si Norwich was accidently discovered to he devoting his epergies to systematic spying on "dubious" elements; the handful of staff whe issued a mild protest were all but thrown out on their ears. Phrases like "the quest for truth" have acquired a distinctly ominous ring in British colleges. Their applicability is increasingly restricted to the meticuloes scholarship of the Special Branch, Ie's true that the professionals in this sphere al learning are not yet fully integrated into the "academic Comminity". The scud of sain cothes coppers padding around Fast Anglin university last year were unable to escape notice, and the poor Special Branch man planted in Keele sruck out like a sore thumb.
In the meantime, an a growing number of campuses, Emal bands of amatour coppers are heing recruited by such organisations as the Monday Club. The York University branch of this orpanisstion spent its spare time last year trying to ensure that their Union President is jailed for years ob an incitement charge. Student Monday Clubs have been gathering information for the extrente right-wing Tory M.P.. Biggs-Davidson, who is attempting to push through legislation agsinst student unions, An organisation wai formed lest sponth ay a certain Francis Bennion, based in Sussex, abose sole purpose is to collect files on left-wingers in order to bring private prosecutions against them for participating in demonstrations, The Special Branch iself now has a policy of recruiting at least one student on every campus to supply it with information on socialst militants, THE INTEGRATION OF EDUCATION INTO THE CLASS STRUGGLE The repressive drive in higber education has been proceeding Tot more than two years-the jailings of Pau Hoch and others, which occurred under a Labour government, marked in spite of its long duration and growing force, a large number of Lberal or "radical" stalf and students union officials sull refuse to cogage in a determined fight against it, or even recognise its causes. The fundamental roots of the repression -the main question throwing students into action in the present period political situation in Britain today. The starting point for minderstandine how events will proceed in the education system must be the general crisis of the capitalist class and the way the political leaders of this class are attempting to The general context can be summarised briefly as oloss now that the hoom has come lo an end and the last vestiges of benefit from British imperialism's former dominant role have disappeared, the employers find them selves mortally threatened by foreign compelition and too weak to defeat the working ciass in a struggle on the economic front; this crisis in the economy is combined with a profour crisis of the ideas, values and institutions of Britain's past imperial greatness, at the same time the bourgeoise still goes almost unchallenged in the polinica! sphere-the Labour Party leadership will not launch any strugale in the interests of the working class and workers have as yot no altornative to which they can turn at the The present state offensive against the working class through deliberately created unemployment and the IRR (as well as a mass of lesser measurest provides the frame work within which all other social struggles are fought out. It gives the green light to reactionary elements every where to go onto the attack-hence the surfacing of Monday Clubs, spying networks, victimisation, etc.
But as well as this more or less automatic spin-off fron the government's political fight against the labour movoment, various branches of the state apparatus have their own specific objectives in higher education in the present period: first of all the government must try to prevent students mservening in the goneral social and political struggles, particularly those of the industrial working class. The ceason for this lies in the students" capacity for rapid mobilisation, for establishing political networks, lor engaging in almost fulltime political work, for adopting very militant forms of struggle, for disseminating revolntionary ideas, ere. In such a period, the ruling class cannot afford to take these phenomena lightly: policies must be worked out to stop them In addition, the educational bureaucracy itself, though it has no special interest in these wider pulitical considerations, knows very well that the only force copable of leading the mass of students fand also the junior teaching staff) in their struggles for better conditions is the revolutionary lett. Heoce their willingness to It is important that the revolutionaries avoid imagining that this attack will be concentrated purely, or even mainly, al the level of direct repression, Victimisation, attempts to destroy student unions, ete. Though all this can be useful from the state's polit of view, it does not ger to the root of the problem and can therefore produce the opposite of what is intended. More fandamentally, the state must dea! with the two main condicions which favour the political involvement of students: first, the looseness of administrative control over students and staff-the actual work siluation of students still gives them relatively greater freedoat to eloose their own priorities than any other section of the population; secoedly, the economic independence of students from their direct boss, which is greater than that of all other wage carters. If the working class was as froe as students to decide when and how much they would work, and if they received a relatively secure grant once every three months, the factories would tower above the campuses as hotbeds of revolutionary agitation and action! To these main conditions a third might be adiled: the very much greater democratic contral by stadents over their local unions than exists in the tabout novement. The very fact that studeats are in transit through colleges makes it impossible at the local level for the kind of bureaucratic consolilation which can occur in It is not clear to what extent the government and central bureaucracy bas hammiered put a systematic plan of attack in the colleges. Such things can take time when the stale battalions of political racticians, planners, lawyers, accomrlants, executives and strong arm hays are so urgently culled for on so many otber fronts. and when Thatcher has heen busy committing crimes in iber sectors of education. Nor should we expect the offensive to be pursued with a great Tanisre from one end or heer education to ane orner. Lue favoured method in the past has heen to feel the way or water torouge tale load experiments, a actor nece, a new procedent there and only on the hasis of such piecemeal gains is the new point introduced across the hoard. Nevertheless, when the state's plans do emerge, they will probably contain the following main elements: 1. The mailed fist against the left whenever it makes a mistake, comhined with tacit support for the extreme rights antistudent's unton activity, 2. Victimisation of relationary members of statt: the relationship of forces within the teaching staff in most colleges cow lavours such a policy. 3. Tiehter integration of the mass of students through new assessment procedures and legal contracts; similar new contracts for staff. 4. Destroying the cconomic independence of students through a new payments system of some kind-the loan idea is just one among many that are beine knocked around a prescon firmly into the college huresucracy through new charters.
6. A stopping up of routine police surveillance-pottical files, blacklists, Special Branch liaison, ete -developing Towards the kinds af inks netapen internal regime and police which now aperate with such quiet efficiency in the schools.
COUNTER-STRATEGY FOR THE REVOLUTIONARIES The first and main mustake that revolutionary socialists can make bo to take as tae searcee pout for heir tactes toe immediate situation facing them inside the education system. The only realistic counter-tactics ate those which start from the oversil noeds of the struggle for warking class power. It is quite illusory to imagine that the trend of events in lugher education can be reversed if the state manages to inflict a major defeat on the working class. Revolutionaries crust at all times sires that any victories won in the education system will be the by product of the general revolulionary struggle in Britain, and the biggest conceptioti of the problers as something which has nothing to do with politics.
This truth, elementary for a communist, is denied by the work of the present NUS leadership, and in particular by Digby Jacks, the Conununist Party member who is its current president. Jacks told the press after his election that he would put the interests of NES hefore those of comminIsm. This is simply an encouragument for chose who don't want to lonk further than their toes while the bourgedis state is allowed to choose its time for cracking down on students and dividing them from the struggles of tho workers. Perhaps Jacks will argue that he did not realls acon what he said, but that it was iccessaryto say it given the witch-hunting atmosphere in Britain today, Such an argument only exposes bis reformism more clearly: it assuries that the best way to fight the ruling class is to make a publie capitulation to liberalism while Fursuing the struggle Behind the scenes; in other words, Jacks adopts a classical bourgeois approach to polities: confuse the masses while you struggle for control of the appuratus, then try to restrict politics to the manipalation of the bureaucratic apparatus with the minimum of popular mobilisation roquired to give the show some semblance of credibility.
Genaine communists must take as their first task continuous explanation of the whole political and social context in which the educational crisis is taking place, naking use of every opportunity to demonstrate to students the actuat meaning of such things as the struggle in Ireland, the acute unemployment, the ECS crisis, the Common Market negotintions, eto. Equally important, revolutionaries must seize every opportunity to involve the most aware students in all the political struggles and campaigns of the left. For example, the demonstrations in solidarity with the Trish people's struggle agzinst British imperialism being held in Glasgow on October 16th sod London on October 31st must be blade tae locus or a laJoE mootsing cHa paulo all colleges up and down the country. The Anti-Immigration Involve hundreds of students in the Midlands, Students should he drawn into local and national activity in the fight against unemployment and in solidarity with the ClydeSiders. And all this work bust be seen as the precondition for an effective struggle within the educationn system, for the sucoess of the latter struggle deperds above all on the strengti and awareness of the hard core of socialist militants in the colleges, and It is through thea all-round political involvement thar they will incrense their strength Once the political streggle is mur first, the way in which. revolutionaries should relate to the student struggle within the colleges becomes clear: in the first place, in order to win wide support for socialist ideas and action foom the mass of students, revolutionaries must not staod aloof from the concerns or socha, on cher tina toes nas appear. Doi must they ignore the organisations which atudents look to for kadership mainly the scudents unions however bureaucratic these may be, Secondly, precisely in order to be able to invulve large numhers of students in the wider strugele for socialisin, it is necessary for revolutionaries to fight tooth and nail against any attempts to further regiment the mass of studeats through course assessment, legal and disciplinary restrictions etc, against attempts to destroy wbat financial independence they retain, or against efforts to shackle the students unions. The past bistory of scruggles in the education system is Ettered with examples of the Socialists breeding distrast among the students as a whole shmply through their haughty contempt for the "trivialities" of college life and their generally cliquish and aloof attitude Such postures are to a large extent due to the inabilly of socials to discipline themselves to the point where they are capable of showing the connecrions between the events in the colluge or locality and the struggle for socialism and of explaining their point of view in a clear and direct way. Denunciations of the "apathetic and reactionary mass" are Lsd as a convenient cacape route from hard work. THE TASK OF SOCIALIST STUDENTS The basic tasks of socialist students throughout the coming year should therefore consist of devekiring che two follow. ing lines of work: first and foremost trying to mobilise all possible forces in the collages for the most important poutical struggles of the day. blaring in mind the decisive role which the strugale of the state against the labour movement is going to play in shaping the future course of events Secondly to be in the front line of the strugel extend to the call the freedom of action and organisation of the mass of students: the awareness and organisation of the students must be built up to the point where every attempt at repression of victicusation is given a united and crushing reply. For these twin tasks to be pursued effectively requires a tireless effort on the part of student socialists 1 deepen their understanding of the crisis in Britain and of the working class movement. Such in understanding can. be achieved simply by theoretical study, though that is necessary. It requires above all from studeris a cocunitment to the actual struggles being fought out between the classes in Britain today. Only through such a culitant stand can students acquire the necessary energy and discipline to help find the right path out of the crisis of bourgeois society.
Aliver MarOonald