Programme put forward for discussion by LCDSU The LCDSU is a rank and file grouping of socialists within the NUS which sees its task as fighting to transform the NUS into an organisation which can challenge the technocratic re-orientation in higher education and effectively intervene in the Class Stukocnative for the NUS is to be integrated into the State. 2 Political Autonomy The very possibility of the independent political actions of students is under attack from the State. This is forced on the bourgeoisie because of their need to remove any organised opposition in the colleges before they can go ahead forthrightly with their plans for higher education. This is not therefore to be understood simply as the actions of a backward looking Tory goverment but springing from the most fundamental needs of capitalism and is consequenty a tas for tne state as a whole. Con sequently the question of the political autonomy of students is the most acute problem facing students now and for the foreseeable future. This question is also one which has the most general reference to students and transcends to a large extent the binary transformation. The LCDSU therefore:
(1) Opposes all forms of political victimisation of staff and students in the colleges:
(it) Rejects totally any attempts by the courts to intertere with the political independence of students:
Gi Will fight for the removal of all restrictions on the political autonomy of student unions or any further attempts to impose such restrictions.
No State accountability: no control of constitutions, finances or buildings by college authorities:
no collaboration with college authorities. or LEA's. None of these positions are negotiable. 3. Technocratic Reforms The needs of British capitalism have dictated and will continue to dictate an expansion and rationalsation of higher education and a more close adaptation to the needs of British industry. The transformations in higher education therefore at once bolster the power of capital and weaken the position of students. Because of this:
G) The LCDSU is opposed to all attempts to get education on the cheap. It is opposed to any detenoration in staff student ratios, to any increase in the number of terms per year, to any restriction of choice of college to be attended, to any enforcement of particular courses of study.
(ii) The LCDSU demands provision of adequate accommodation and maintenance grants tied to the cost of living and opposes absolutely any attempt to introduce loans.
(il) The LCDSU is opposed to the financing of any part of higher education by capitalist enterprises, all finance to be provided by the State, It is opposed to the direct tying of college courses and departments to any public or private enterprises within the capitalist system. No to the business college.
(iv) It is opposed to the binary system or any other scheme which creates a hierarchy of qualifications within the higher educational system. For this reason it is opposed to the James proposals which create yet another division in the introduction of a 2-year diploma.
4. Democracy and Participation (i The idea that higher education can be progressively democratised rests on the premise that colleges are above the needs of social classes and that the content of education is neutral and universal.
Education under capitalism is not provided for the free all round development of the potentialities of the working class. On the contrary, it exists at in the LCDSU. This stems from the following position.
Any demand is only meaningful in the framework of a particular analysis or programme.
once to ensure the reproduction of the exploitative relatons or capitalism and to provide skilled manpower in all its forms for capitalist industry.
(ii) Participation is therefore not a way of ensuring a say in these transformations and will not in any way alter the fundamental course of the State. Reof the state to ensure collaboration of students with the aims of the bourgeoisie, and we are therefore opposed to this.
(il) At the sa me time we reject the strategy of the free university or anti-institution. Students are not the carriers of an alternative mode of production and cannot effect the transformation to socialism. In particular, there cannot be socialism in one college.
(iv) The LCDSU will, however, struggle for the power of veto over any attempt to transform higher education. This is not to be understood primarily, if at all, in institutional forms. it is the description of the sort of struggle needed to effect even temporarily the transformations which colleges undergo. It is an indication of the line of mass struggle directly counterposed to, on the one hand, representation, negotiation and pressure, and on the other, the utopian "free" institution.
5. Student-Worker Solidarity (i) The LCDSU recognises the need to mobilise all its forces to defeat the aims of the bourgeoisie in mener caucaton. •is Dalue will not be decided simply inside the colleges themselves; what is possible in the colleges will depend on the overall balance of forces in the class struggle. The LCDSU therefore sees its task as leading mass student actions in solidarity with the workers in struggle. In this way it will give its weight to the alteration of the balance of (il) Moreover not being the carriers of an alternative mode or producton, staents are dependent on the action of the working class to smash those relations
Attempts by the Chinese leaders to achieve peaceful co-existence with the US have been dealt a devastating blow by the magnificent military offensive launched by the Vietnamese. It is important, however, to relate the latterday Chinese foreign policy to the internal deformations which were brought