Representatives from 48 students unions and 30 socialist societies attended the second national conference of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Students Unions, held at Aston on 15th January. The conference decided that the unifying slogan of the LCDSU should be "Unions for the struggle, unions against the State!". It was recognised that the idea of "public accountability which is so dear to the hearts of the NUS Executive and the C.P., means in fact accountability to the State-a State which is merely the instrument of the ruling class. The conference was very clear that to accept such State control was to render the demand for union autonomy completely meaningless. As a corollary to this position, the conference also decided to recommend all students unions to vote money to the miners strike, either directly or as speaker's 'expenses'. It was felt very strongly that we should not only oppose the form of the Government's proposals but also specify clearly their class content; that if we are opposed to the State then we must give full support to all other sections of society, in particular the working class, who are engaged in the same struggle.
The conference also discussed the NUS "emergency conference' on the Government's proposals, to be held in London on 29th January, and agreed to oppose any attempt by the Executive to impose negotiations or a compromise on the conference. It was also decided to present a Liaison Committee slate for the elections at the next NUS full conference in Easter.
There will be a special meeting of all NUS delegates and others who support the LCDSU on the Friday night before the emergency conference in London. For further details phone North London Poly at 01-607 6767. One of the major themes of the convention was the coming presidential elections. Much debate centred around both the sort of support which the YSA could mount for Linda Jenness and Andrew Pulley, standing on an SWP ticket, and on the effect that the presidential campaigns would have on the mass movements which the YA saw as the major planks of its activity in the coming period. On the SWP campaign, the convention decided to set up support committees, Young Socialists for Jenness and Pulley, in all areas where they could and help finance a series of campaign teams which would be touring between now and the presidential elections. To this end, S16,000 was raised in a rally which was held during the convention. The other aspect of this was for the YSA to do everything to prevent a disorientation in the mass movement due to what they saw as the inevitable downturn they would suffer through the effects of the election year. With this qualification the YA re-endorsed their strategy of building mass movements around single issues independent of the capitalist parties.
The convention agreed to give its full support to building a mass anti-war demonstration called by the National Peace Action Coalition (NAC) for April 22nd. It considered that it. was even more necessary than ever to get the American people out on the streets to demand the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from Vietnam. In this it also felt that there would be an echo of recognition in the American working class itself, given the imposition of the wage freeze to combat inflation, a major cause of which was seen to be the Vietnam The other major mass movement it would at. tempt to build was around the question of abortion, in which it was expected that the women's liberation movement would rally around the campaign called by the Women's National Abortion Action Coalition. The convention had representatives from thirteen fraternal and sympathising organizations from around the world. It received fraternal greetings from many more including Hugo Blanco, Latin American revolutionary peasant leader in exile from the Peruvian dictatorship. In connection with this latter it took note of the growing repression of revolutionaries in Latin America, taking this oppor tunity to lauch a defence campaign in support of all political prisoners in Latin America-par-