lead to unpreparedness and defeat.
NSU and the cold war There are two sorts of reasons for the current attack on student students unions, one long term and the other more immediate. In the long term there is a need to transform dramatically the workings of NUS. What we have in Britain is a situation which is almost unique in the western capitalist world inasmuch as the students unions are financed directly by the State. The reasons for this were obvious throughout the Cold War period when the role of the NUS through its sponsorship of the ISC (a CIA financed organisation) did much to ensure student enthusiasm for the life and politics of the Free World. This satisfactory performance of NUS nationally meshed in well with a federal structure of the Union which ensured the continuance of a bureacratised structure at local level. At the same time there grew up quite legitimate servicing and welfare functions performed by the NUS but it would be quite wrong to identify these as its raison d'etre.
A new role for NUS With the breakdown of Cold War ideology and the concomitant crystallisation of a radicalised layer amongst the student body, this role is no longer possible for the NUS. At the same time, the federal structure of this organisation has given an opening to revolutionary students on campus to propagate their politics and commit their unions to radical actions. That most raising the ire of the Tory back benchers is that of political donations-especially of the ultra vires type. From the point of view of the bourgeoisie, then, it is absolutely essential that NUS is transformed and a new role mapped out for it. This appears to be as a policing body (some call it representative) to dampen down student conflicts. In this, on the offensive stems from the current stage of the class struggle. Having failed to decisively defeat the working class through direct confrontation and having come to the limits, for the present, of the weapons of unemployment and stagnation without significant success, the bourgeoisie are now looking for some sort of deal with the TU leaders. The present state of British capitalism doesn't allow this deal to be won through concessions. On the other hand blatant repression would make it impossible for the union leaders to sell the deal to the membership. In this context repression of peripheral groups will allow such a 'responsible' response from the TU leadership doing their bit to prevent society falling apart at the seams. Thus the intensification of Black repression, the hunt for 104 Russian diplomats under every bed, the backlash against pornography (Festival of Light and Lord Longford), and the revelations of the dangerous corruption of our schoolkids through Little Red School Books and Oz. In this scheme of things, students are an easy and popular target. Political payments is the excuse.
Politics-the answer To attempt to fight the current attack by the sort of ostrich like approach which characterises current NUS policy is the height of folly. I am not in any way saying the battle is lost but pointing to the tendencies inherent in the situation. Certainly NUS (and its leadership) can be forced to fight the immediate attack and contest its proferred role. But this would need a political approach to mobilise the mass of students. In a situation of student apathy, the only practical policies are reformist and capitulationist ones
but has found perhaps its most cogent expression in the